A CHILD POISONED BY ITS FATHER, BRADNINCH, 1845.

 Under this heading The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, of 1st March 1845, reported:

"During the past week the quiet village of Bradninch, about nine miles from this city, has been the scene of considerable excitement, in consequence of the following circumstances.  

"A short time ago, a husbandman residing there lost his wife in childbed.  The infant was taken into the country by a female relative, who took charge of it.

"On the day of the wife's funeral this person came to Bradninch to attend it, and during the performance of the ceremony left the child in the care of its father, who had been indisposed and was receiving sick-pay from his club, being confined to his bed.

"He had previously provided himself with a bottlle of spirits of hartshorn, unknown to his nurse, by sending a casual visitor for it during her absence.

"He took the child into bed with him, whilst the funeral of his wife was going on and administered the spirits of hartshorn to it, hiding the bottle in a crevice of the floor.

"The female relative, who had interested herself in the case of the child, on returning from the funeral found it foaming at the mouth and very ill.  She was much alarmed and took it to the minister of the parish to be baptised. That gentleman caused the infant to receive medical attention but it died shortly afterwards.

"An inquest was held on the body on Saturday, which was adjourned to yesterday, when we learn that the father was committed for trial on a charge of Wilful Murder."

As so often, one is alarmed to see how quickly and to what degree the newspaper has prejudged a case.  

This seems to be a tale of ultra Victorian Gothic horror.   The degree of misery implied is shocking. We are not given enough detail but perhaps we shall see learn more at the next Assize Court. 

Spirit of hartshorn  was literally obtained from the antlers of the red-deer and some other horny sources.  They were an ammonia solution not particularly known to be poisonous but the child could only have been some days old.

It was clearly thought more important to have the child seen by the minister than the doctor.   I am  distrustful of female relatives;  innate misogyny I suppose!

In childbed  here meaning giving birth is noteworthy.

 

                                                                   

JOHN GOSS, EXETER, 1845.

The Rxeter and Plymouth Gazette of 22nd February 1845 reports how one John Goss....

".... was charged with an assault upon his wife, and attempting to throw her into the water. 

"It appeared that the parties had for several days had disputes, and that about half-past 11 last night, the woman left her house , when the husband followed her, and upon arriving at the Old Bridge, near the Shilhay, caught her up in his arms and endeavoured to throw her over the bridge. 

"Her screams fortunately called the Police to her assistance in time to save her.

"The Court fined him 40s. and the expenses for the assault, and in default of payment ordered him to be imprisoned one month." 

The Old Bridge near the Shilhay in Exeter must mean the mediaeval bridge, some of which still exists,  which was largely demolished before 1845 but this story indicates that some of it still stretched out over waters of the Exe.   

The Shilhay is the southernmost part of Exe Island and itself a virtual island.  It was the industrial hub of Exeter and had been the centre of the woollen trade but by1845 its mills and warehouses were home to  brick-makers, timber-merchants, stone-and-slate merchants, &c,.

These days, surely, magistrates could hardly overlook what would seem to be attempted murder and a month in prison seems a somewhat inappropriate punishment for trying to throw your wife over the parapit of a bridge.

Those busy policemen seem to have been there whenever they were needed.  Of course it can't have been quite like that.

 

RUINED BY THE BLACK DOG, EXETER, 1845

At the Exeter Police Court,  so reports The Western Tiimes for 15th February 1845:  

"EDWARD TANNER was summoned for keeping open  the Black Dog to an unreasonable hour.  The case was proved by Policeman Perriam - an officer invaluable for his acute hearing.  In passing over the Iron Bridge  once an hour from nine in the evening till four in the morning, he could distinguish every time well known voices in the tap-room of the Black Dog;  he could hear them, during the whole of the night, 'tossing for three glasses of gin and water, which made eighteen pence;' and at twenty minutes to four two neighbours living just above came out in a pretty fresh state.

"The Mayor said he had received frequent complaints from the injured wives of the neighborhood, whose domestic happiness had been ruined by the Black Dog;  men who would have been the best of husbands, returned late and intoxicated to their anxious families, and all owing to the Black Dog.

The defendant was fined 40s. and expenses"  

A night-policeman's stag of duty would seem to have lasted eight hours, eight hours of pounding the beat with nothing happening!  Policing Exeter at night would be more exciting these days, - if there were any policemen pounding.

The Black Dog Tavern, now the City Gate Hotel, was at No 5 North Street next to the North Gate of the city and at one end of  Exeter's famous Iron Bridge.  

The Mayor of Exeter, Henry Hooper Esq., just like his predecessor, William Page Kingdon Esq, pretends intimate knowledge of the affairs of the humbler classes.  One wonders how genuine were these pretensions

A pretty fresh state for as drunk as a coot is pleasing.   

COLLECTING SIXPENCES, EXETER, 1845.

The Western Times of 8th February 1845 published a letter from a correspondent living in the village of Bow, eight miles west of Crediton of which this is an extract:

"A small farmer of Morchard Bishop has a son who for two years has been subject to fits, and having consulted many medical men in Exeter, without receiving any benefit, was advised a short time ago to go to the "white witch"  the cognomen of a person who lives in Exeter.

This swindling vagabond told the poor man to procure fifteen sixpences from females living in three adjoining parishes, and to bring them to him in Exeter on a certain day, when he would let him have a silver ring for his son to wear on his finger, which he pretended would completely cure him.

"One day last week I met the silly dupe in this parish, collecting the sixpences which he intended to carry to Exeter the next day, and which no doubt ere this the Doctor has pocketed.  On my questioning the man, he told me that the "white witch" or high priest of his order, has a very extensive practice among men of his class, that in fact it is his only business, and that he lives in a very good house in Exeter.

"I should like to see this impudent imposter punished, a very fit subject for lynch's law.  If he were ducked in your river once or twice, I have no doubt 'twould cure him."

This newspaper correspondence is regettably all hearsay and  does not identify the full-time white-witch nor does it inform us where in Exeter he lived.  But it is surely remarkable, if true, that an impudent imposter could find enough gullible Devonians on whom to practice white-witchcraft and thereby to maintain a very good house.

The method of the imposture rings true;  only sixpences would serve,; there had to be fifteen of them, no more, no fewer,  and they had to come from females and they had to come from three different parishes and be delivered by a certain date.  You can imagine a poor bumpkin struggling with all the crazy conditions anxious that if he made a mistake the charm would miscarry.

This story made me remember a great man called  Edzard Ernst, a professor who lost his job, and of his team whose critical evaluation of alternative medicine at Exeter University was aborted in 1993 largely because of our present king's faith in an impudent imposture called homeopathy - still, you can't duck a king in the River Exe, not even once!

Lynch's law is fun for lynch-law.  Everyone seems to agree that it was in Virginia, USA and in 1780 that lynching was launched.  A Charles Lynch competes with a William Lynch for the honour.  My 1895 Lloyd's Encyclopaedic Dictionary has:  lynch, v.t.  said to be derived from the name of a Virginia farmer, who took the law into his own hands by tying a thief to a tree and then flogging him.  I'm for the unidentified farmer and for it being an earlier usage.   

                                                                     

GETTING GLORIOUSLY DRUNK, EXETER, 1845.

 "Incredible as the followig circumstance may appear, it is nevertheless strictly true. - On Sunday, a person living in Sherman's Court in this city,  having occasiion to draw off some soft water from the cock, was surprised to see it of a reddish brown colour, and still more, on tasting it, to find it very good beer, though it had evidently been very lately brewed.

"He could not conceal his good luck, the news of which soon spread, and other cocks were tried with the same result, and on Sunday and part of Monday the denizens of "the Quarter" made the most of the chance by getting gloriously drunk.

"How to account for it is, at present, not easy, but some brewer in the neighbourhood must have suffered, and the beer must have been drawn off by the pipes which were only designed to bring water in.  At present no brewer can be found who will confess to having lost his beer.  Perhaps the same pipes that emptied his vats of their contents, have by this time filled them again with the aqua pura of the resevoir."

"The Quarter" signifies Exeter's West Quarter,  the busiest part of the city within which, at one time, it is said there were forty public houses, many, possibly all, of which brewed their own beer. 

Sherman's Court was a small court or tenement off West Street. 

No doubt The Gazette was making the best of the story but, nonetheless, free beer on a Sunday from the 'cocks' must have seemed a small miracle to the person living in Sherman's Court and his neighbours.

Cock for a faucet or a tap has all but disappeared.  We still have stop-cocks of course.   For Shakespeare it was simply a spout and therefore to hand for bawdy puns. 

Source:  The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 1st February, 1845.

REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY, EXETER, 2025.

 A lot of people  went to a lot of effort to make Remembrance Sunday 2025 a relative success.    The service was well conducted and  more dignified than in former years.   Nevertheless, I am re-blogging my comments of Remembrance Sunday 2024 because, within 48 hours the gates of the city's Gardens were again been locked against the citizens. This annual disrespect to the veterans of many wars is a scandal and I am not the only veteran in Exeter who thinks so.  This is the time of year when citizens throughout the nation remember.  The wreaths so sincerely inscribed and so solemnly laid will not  properly be seen again until Christmas by which time, if they survive, they will hardly be in any condition to remind the nation of it's debt to dead servicemen. 

The irony is that the motive behind this civic disrespect is shortage of funds.  Ironic because if the Exeter City Council only gave sensitive thought how to make these unique, historic Gardens more attractive to visitors, i.e. to promote them as 'gardens' rather than as a field wherein to mount 'events', they would do far more for the reputation and the prosperity of the city than they now do with the vulgar abuse to which the Gardens are exposed.   

From the archive:

On Remembrance Sunday, 2024, in Exeter there was no ceremony to remember the dead of Devon at the County war-memorial in the Cathedral Yard.   This was just as well for the Sons (and Daughters) of Mammon had built their houses (The Christmas Market!) so close to the Devon war-memorial that they had not left room for the Lord-lieutenant to lay his wreath.

Respect for those Devonians who gave their lives for the causes of this nation was therefore registered, subsumed, in the moving ceremony that took place in the Northernhay Gardens, Exeter's sacred corner, its Valhalla and the jewel in the city's crown, where stands the very fine Exeter war-memorial executed by the Devon sculptor, John Angel, and where also is a rather sad war-memorial raised to those who have lost their lives in more recent conflicts.  A larger crowd than usual, therefore, turned up to see the Mayor of Exeter and other dignitaries, civil and military, lay wreaths to the memory of the fallen.

The following day, yesterday as I write, was Armisitice Day and the gates of Northernhay Gardens are once again locked against city folk and county folk and all.  None will have access to the Gardens until 22nd November.  The wreaths lie at the war-memorials in what has officially become a 'construction site' with only the 'constructors' to see them.  They will inspire no remembrance. Exeter's will be the war-memorial least visited in the kingdom. The Lord Mayor, who so sincerely bade us remember the sacrifice of so many, and his Council, have rented out the Gardens to be once again a 'Winter Wonderland' which is to say a rather tatty and harmful, to the Gardens, funfair.

The Gardens, for Health and Safety reasons, are now denied to the public.  When they are opened again the city's war-memorial wil be surrounded by all the fun of the fair and by plastic 'rudolfs', 'santas' and such.  Not much thought will be given to the glorious dead. 

There will be a further week of Health and Safety closure while the 'Wonderland' is packed away.  Shortly before Christmas the people of Devon and Exeter will have their war-memorial back, the wreathes, so 'respectfully' laid will have wasted, degraded by the rains and winds of winter and much of Northernhay Gardens, no doubt, will exhibit swathes of the mud that one associates with Flanders Field.

A SMART, ACTIVE, INTELLIGENT SOLDIER, EXETER, 1845.

 According to The Western Times of 18th January 1845, the young Puseyite clergymen of Exeter were in the business of  slandering those citizens who disapproved of them.  One such victim of their foul weapons  was George Augustus Moore, a worthy and respectable member of society and an Exeter auctioneer who lived opposite St. Sidwell's church:  The newspaper was quick to nail the libel:

"He is charged with havng been flogged, and drummed out of the army.  This atrocious falsehood, originating in pure and incomprehensible malice, and circuated for the gratification of the most diabolical feelings, puzzles almost as much as it disgusts one.

"We are at a loss to contrive how it can possibly serve the cause of the surplice, Divine right and Apostolical succession, to invent so black a falsehood against a harmless and unoffending, and comparatively humble man.

"What is stranger still, is that Mr. Moore has not taken any active part in the meetings.  He has neither spoken nor acted at them in any way to excite observation.  He happened, however, to leave the church, on Sunday morning last on the Rev. Perpetual Courtenay going into the pulpit in his surplice.

"In the afternoon Mr. Moore stood at his own door, opposite the church, and observing the crowd proceed to follow the clergyman, actually interfered for his protection.  For this service he is rewarded with this atrocious slander.

"And now for the slander itself.  Mr Moore, at the age of between fifteen and sixteen, left his apprenticeship, (his father having paid £100 premium) and enliisted in the 6th Light Dragoons (subsequently the 16th Lancers).

"Mr Moore having entered the army for love of military adventure, became a smart, active and intelligent soldier.  He was generally employed as an orderly, a duty always bestowed on picked men, and rapidly rose to ne Serjeant. He was orderly to the Duke of York, at Bushy Park, to the Marquis of Anglesea on the field of Waterloo, saw him wounded, and assisted him to the litter.   He was then tranferre to General Sir John Vandeleur, who took the command after the Marquis was disabled, in which service Mr. Moore lost his horse from under him.  Having been rehorsed, he subsequently saved the life of his Captain (Wayland) at the expence of a sabre and lance wound in his right arm, which service Captain Wayland handsomely acknowledged by a gratuity.  Mr Moore was offered to be made Regimental Clerk and Serjeant on the field, in consequence of the death of the Regimental Clerk, but he preferred active service in the ranks, and respectfully declined.  The day after the battle,  Mr Moore was dispatched with secret orders to Capt. King, of the 16th, who was at the rendezvous of the allied Generals, at Amiens.  This service through the retreating forces of the Frrench required courage, tact and fidelity, and would not have been entrusted to any man who had not acquired the  esteem and confidence of his superiors.

"On his return to England, Mr Moore, having been made Serjeant, - served as orderly in Ireland, to Earl Wentworth, the Lord Lieutenant, and afterwards to Earl Talbot, the Lord Lieutenant, and finally,his friends purchsed his discharge from the regiment in which he had served six years.

We have his discharge and his Waterloo medal now lying before us.  The former bears testimony to his good conduct,  the latter speaks for itself."

I felt it was right and fitting that I found myself reading this account of George Augustus Moore's honourable military service on Remembrance Sunday 2025. 

Wearing the surplice was one of the symbols of the retreat to the old Roman Catholic forms of worship much feared and hated by Anglicans in Exeter.

George was 49 in 1845.  He died 20 years later at Devonshire House, Heavitree, later known as. Heavitrree House  This had been the picturesque house, the home of the famous traveller and writer, Sir Richard Ford, who had died in 1858.   The house had a celebrated Spanish Garden.  I like to think of George enjoying it.

George was married and had issue.  His wife, Maria, died, back in Verney Place, St. Sidwell's, in 1881. 

George Augustus Moore witnessed the Marquis of Anglesey, who was still very much alive in 1845, losing his leg, which, so goes the anecdote, occasioned the memorable exchange beteen the Marquis, then Lord Uxbridge, and the Iron Duke: :

Uxbridge:   "By God , sir, I believe I have lost my, leg!"

Wellington:  "By God, sir,  so you have!"