ANDREW BRICE AND TOPSHAM PILOTS

Andrew Brice was an eighteenth century newspaperman at Exeter. There is a very good article about him among the Exeter Memories.   This snippet,  I suppose from his major work,  the Grand Gazeteer or Topographical Dictionary (1759)  and quoted by Powhele, tells us that  Exmouth is situated  at the mouth of the Exe,  "about ten miles from Exeter.  Here,  over the bar, hath the Exe its influx into the sea and here dwell the pilots who take charge of bringing ships over the bar,  as far up as Topsham.

No doubt this is obvious but only when I read this did I consider that when we  read of  eighteenth and nineteenth century 'Topsham pilots' we are probably reading about boats and men based at Exmouth.

And, as we have already noted, a 'Topsham pilot'  could also be a cormorant.

ANOTHER BAD POEM

This blog brings you below another truly excruciating Victorian poem from the pen of another bad and anonymous Victorian poet.   These verses appeared in Trewman's Exeter Flying Post.  21st October 1868.


A PLEA FOR THE SEA BIRDS

Stay now thine hand!
Proclaim not man's dominion
Over God's works by strewing rocks and sand
with sea-birds' blood-stained plumes and broken pinion.

Oh stay thy hand!
Spend not thy days of leisure
In scattering death along the peaceful strand
for very wantonness,  or pride,  or pleasure.

For bird's sake spare!
Leave it in happy motion
to wheel its easy circles in the air
or rest and rock upon the shining ocean.

For man's sake spare!
Leave him this 'thing of beauty'
To glance and glide before him everywhere
And throw a gleam on after days of duty.

For God's sake spare!
He notes each sea-bird falling
And in Creation's groans marks its sad share
Its dying cry - for retribution calling.

Oh stay thy hand!
Cease from this useless slaughter;
For though kind Nature from the rocks and sand
Washes the stains each day with briny water

Yet on thine hand
Raised against God's fair creature
Beware lest there be found a crimson brand
Indelible by any force of Nature.

'Thy hand'  or 'thine hand'?    I suppose it depends on whether you say ' 'and' or 'hand'.

There must,  in 1868,  have been a great number of happy shooters wandering along the beaches taking pot shots at 'sea-birds' for this fervent plea to have been written.  Fortunately we live in gentler times and the sea-birds know it.  A herring gull flew off with my MarksandSpencers' prime Angus beef sandwich the other day,  snatched it out of my hand, all on the Cathedral Green in Exeter.   Still , I wouldn't have wanted to shoot him.  No briny water there to wash away the blood!   Moreover he was a giant, snow white, gleaming 'thing of beauty'  and a joy for ever.  

A DAWLISH TUNNY, 1868

In September 1868 a monster of a fish was caught and brought into Dawlish.   It was a tunny or tuna (thymnus vulgaris)    Whoever caught it,  I know no further details of the catch,  must have got the shock of his life.   It must have been 'Old Man and the Sea' stuff!     The fish was eight foot, seven inches long.   Its greatest circumference was five foot, two inches and it needed six strong men to carry it.    We know these facts because the fish was bought and caused to be taken to London by the celebrated Victorian naturalist,  Frank Buckland,, who made a  model of the fish for display in his Museum of Economic Fish Culture at the Horticultural Gardens in Kensington.

I hope the Dawlish fisherman or men had a good price for it.   It arrived in London 'anything but sweet smelling' and, after Frank Buckland had made his plaster cast, Mr Jerrard of the British Museum 'made a skeleton' of it.   No doubt its bones are still to be found there.

My source:   Trewman's EFP 23rd September 1868.

DRIVING ON THE FORESHORE, 1836

Towards the end of August 1836 a Mr A Brown was driving his gig back to Exmouth along the Estuary foreshore near where the riverside lodge of Courtlands House stood and still stands.   It was common, before the coming of the railway, for carts and carriages to use the foreshore as a carriageway.   It must have been a bumpy journey and an additional challenge to the driver would be a correct judgement of the state of the tide.  There was at least one case of a carter coming from Exmouth and drowning on the beach under the cliffs while trying to avoid Lympstone Hill but I have, temporarily I hope,  lost my reference to this sad event.   Mr Brown and the unnamed lady who was with him in the gig did not drown but they nevertheless made the columns of the Exeter Flying Post of September 11th 1836 because  "in endeavouring to avoid the tide which was coming in,  he drove onto a bank and upset.    They were both thrown out, but,"  says the Flying Post, "we are happy to add that neither was materially injured though Mr Brown received some bruises on his face.   The horse being a spirited animal,  after much plunging,  freed himself from the vehicle by breaking the shafts,  with which he ran rapidly for upwards of a mile into and through the town of Exmouth,  to its stable."

Courtlands at this time was the home of Sir Walter Roberts the banker who founded the short lived Fowey Bank and who was sometime Sheriff of Devonshire and one who espoused the cause of the cruelly treated climbing boys.  The fact that there was a Lodge to the Estuary argues that there was some considerable coming and going by boat as well as by coach and carriage when the tide was at a safe distance.

BIOLUMINESCENCE

There are summer nights when the Estuary waters glitter.

The boat leaves a wake of sparkling light.

Water burns where the oars dip

And fingers trailed are fireworks.

(One knows one is witnessing a chemical reaction.

Bioluminescence would seem to be the word.

Something to do with living organisms,

Something to do with the Science we were never that good at!)

But look!  I have put all that in parenthesis.

What is outside the brackets is a dazzling miracle.

What is left is light in the water.

Dip your fingers and gasp at the show!

A TOPSHAM PILOT, 1789.

On October 8th 1797 a Topsham pilot-boat was out at sea plying for trade when she was signalled by a Prussian ship,  some accounts say Russian, some five miles off Bolt Head  but the Prussian ship did not want a pilot, she wanted to offload fourteen British seamen,  two of them grievously wounded,  who had been taken off the frigate 'Quebec'.  On 6th October,  the 'Quebec' had been in a desperate sea battle off Ushant  with the French frigate 'Surveillante'  and the Prussian ship had found 'Quebec' burning and had brought these few survivors back to British waters.  The Topsham pilot must have been dangerously overloaded but she brought the fourteen sailors safely into Salcombe  and into the hands of the principal customs house officer there,  Richard Valentine,  who found doctors and all necessary comforts for the 'poor souls' who had survived.

Just another day's work for a Topsham pilot!!!

FOG ON THE ESTUARY, 1930

On Tuesday 26th August 1930 there was a sea mist on the South Devon coast.  This didn't deter the Exmouth holidaymakers who crowded aboard those two famous old paddle steamers, 'the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire'.  Both ships had been built in the nineteenth century and,  although nobody on board knew it, they had only a few more years to serve the struggling Devon Dock, Pier and Steamship Company.    The ships arrived safely in Torquay and the visitors had their trip ashore but in the evening  the mist became thick fog.   The ships steamed off and tried to bring their passengers home to Exmouth.  The 'Duchess' left Torquay first and she reached Teignmouth but by then the fog had become so dense the captain decided to sail no farther.   The 'Duke' left Torquay and came round Hope's Nose only to find conditions worsening.  There was a heavy tide running so the captain decided to take his ship back to Torquay to keep out of harm's way.

This left the Dock Company with the challenge of how to return the passengers to their beds in Exmouth.  The decision was made to send them by train to Starcross and then across the foggy Estuary by the Starcross steam ferry.  The little steam launch ferry butted to and fro through the fog,  not once but several times,  and brought nearly all the passengers safely home across the Exe.   The tide prevented the steam launch making her last  journey and the unlucky passengers who were still in Starcross then came home by train via Exeter. It was said to have been the thickest fog on the river for eight years.

I like to think that the trippers, especially the children, enjoyed the adventure.   No doubt there was something of a Dunkirk  (still ten years away!) spirit as they escaped from the beaches of Starcross.