A MASTER'S BIRTHDAY, EXETER, 1840.

 "The Pupils of King's Lodge Academy, in this city, on Saturday last, testified their respect for their talented preceptor, on the occasion of the anniversary of his birth, by presenting him with a handsome piece of plate, on which the following sentiments were beautifully engraved: - 'Presented 9th May, 1840, to Mr Quicke, Master of King's Lodge Academy, by his Pupils as a token of their grateful sense of his efforts, in promoting their general education, and as a memento of the sincerity of their affectionate esteem, for his parental attention.'

"Master Wood, eldest son of the Rev. B. Wood, Rector of Inwardleigh, near Oakhampton, was selected to present this tribute of regard, who expressed his feelings and those of his school-fellows in a very appropriate and happy address;  the master, in his reply, excited the liveliest emotions of joy  in the hearts of his youthful friends, and the spirit of harmony and hilarity was continued to the close of the happy day.

"Such a manifestation of juvenile attachment must be highly gratifying to to a tutor and any instance of this nature warmly recommends both the instructor and the instructed."

The boys subscribed, says The Western Times of 16th May, 1840, voluntarily and spontaneously for Mr, Quicke's engraved piece of plate.  Did they have a sincere affection for him? - all of them?   Were they all grateful for his efforts?  Maybe not!   We, however, hear too much about the barbarity of Victorian education and, although there is no doubt that the Dotheboys Halls existed,  it seems to me Mr. Quicke must have been doing something right to earn the boys' respect and the King's Lodge Academy, here, right in the middle of the city, must have been a well-ordered and harmonious school.  

When now, by example, I see the liberated Exeter College 'students' swarm beyond the walls of their place of education  like a plague of locusts let loose on the city,  I allow myself to wish that their 'lecturers' took a rather more holistic view of education and kept them within bounds and acted with a little more authority and in the spirit of in loco parentis.  like, I imagine, did Mr. Quicke and his son. 

Then perhaps their youthful friends would voluntarily and spontaneously present them with handsome pieces of plate on their birthdays.

 

 

MRS. BARTRUM AND THE MERLIN, EXETER, 1840.

 "Nature red in tooth and claw."

"One day last week a merlin flew in through the window of a cottage on the Topsham Road, and made an attempt to grasp a canary which was in a cage near the window,  The owner of the canary, Mrs. Bartrum, happened to be present, and struck the merlin to the ground with a parasol;  it however soon recovered and again made an attack on the canary, but was ultimately killed by throwing books at it.

"The merlin is not a native of this country, but generally visits it in October.  It is one of the smallest of the hawks, not being much larger than the thrush, but it is very courageous.  It is easily tamed, and is used for hawking quails, larks, and other birds."

Rejoice , perhaps, for the redoubtable, parasol-wielding, book-throwing Mrs. Bartrum and her fat pet-canary but spend a night of sighs regretting that beautiful merlin!

We have killed too many birds, early and late, one way or another.  Gone are the days when merlins frequented the Topsham Road;  gone too the skylarks that they fed to their chicks. 

I wonder which was the flung book that finally dispatched the merlin.  My money is on Mrs. B's brass tipped and clipped  Book of Common Prayer.

Source: The Western Times, 2nd May, 1840.  (Also: Alfred Lord Tennyson.)

A POISONED PEN, EXETER, 1840.

 I blog this as a brief example of the fun and games that, for many years, The (Whig) Western Times had when reporting Church news:  

"ORDINATION. - Bishop Phillpotts held an ordination last Sunday, at the Cathedral.  The ceremony did not excite any particular interest, and the following gentlemen had the hands of that distingushed prelate  laid on them, by which they were ordained and set apart for the work of the gospel - some being moved thereto by the prospect of family livings, but all professing to have been moved by the Holy Ghost:"

Whence follows a list of some twenty or so, new Deacons and Priests. 

What wonderful innuendo!  Our reporter clearly had little respect for Exeter's bishop nor for the beneficed clergy ordained under his hands. 

Phillpotts was, in fact, so much hated by the working people of Exeter that they burned him in effigy on Guy Fawkes Night 1841 while he was hiding in his palace protected from his own people by a troop of yeomanry cavalry. But it was the Cornish socialist historian, A.L.Rowse, who oiled Phillpotts with the most vitriol when he wrote that he was: “a nauseating character..., a nasty political pamphleteer who recommended himself thus for ecclesiastical promotion to the Tory reactionaries of before the Reform Bill, who recommended himself still more by marrying Lord Eldon’s niece, a grabber of every scrap of church preferment he could lay hands on to serve his family - he had seven sons in Orders and almost as many sons-in-law; who kept clear of his cathedral city the whole time of the cholera, an oppressor of the poor, who built himself a fine marine villa at Torquay (now the Palace Hotel), from which he administered his diocese and went up to speak in the House of Lords on behalf of every bad cause:"

It is said that, when in the House, Phillpotts fulminated against every reform of the age in a manner that shocked even his fellow diehards while in his diocese, in the name of his personal perfunctory interpretations of Christian doctrine, he put fear rather than love into the hearts of his clergy.

Nevertheless, I myself, with these my ears, have heard a Bishop of Exeter lecture on that distinguished prelate, Henry Phillpotts, for an hour without saying one negative word about him.  No doubt the Holy Ghost or perhaps the Apostolic Succession had something to do with that.

Source:  The Western Times, May 2nd, 1840.

PRATTLING WARBLERS, BROADCLYST, 1840.

 In March, 1840, William Barker, the vicar of Broadclyst, was at war with his rustic parishioners over the question of Sunday drinking.   He had summoned before the magistrates the keeper of a beer-shop for serving ale during divine service which naturally caused this vicar to be unpopular with his beer-swilling parishioners. 

The Western Times of 6th March 1840 clearly had sight of these remarkable lines written, and somehow published first by one of William Barker's flock and then, with, I imagine, some difficulty for the typographer, by the newspaper in its original form,  thus: 

"This of a little Cot not built on a rock, 

But it stands on the heath quite secure 

A black bird of Note tried to Set him a floate

And to wash A way from him Strong beer

 Choraus

So Now my boys you Must take Care

And Mind the hours of Prayer

Or Els the black bird will Sind rown

And take A way your Share

Theair is Two Prattling warblers that Prade rown the town

the A Sist the black bird when out of note

the Strach every vain for to Sit him in tune

But the Cot is not quite yeat A floate

Strong beer is its Pride And the house will Abide

In Spite of the black bird or warblers

The will Open their doors, And be Strick to theair hours

And feair Neaither One Nor the Oathers

Choraus

Now you black bird of note mind this is no joke

you  warblers that Prade round the town

Some bird of great fame will Strike Out your name 

And level you flat with the ground."

I have seen 'the' for 'they' before.  It is a phonetic rendering of the leisurely speech of Devon countryfolk.. 

The black bird is the Parson and the two prattling warblers are the Parish Constables.  There seems to me to be real anger expressed here.  Threatening to level parsons and policemen to the ground is in all probability no joke.

I can imagine this 'song' being sung round a table at the  Broadclyst beer-shop in the manner of Tony Lumpkin and his base companions at the Three Pigeons.

BLEWING A YACK, EXETER, 1850.

 C. Cross, Junior was walking up Fore Street Exeter on his way home at two o'clock of a Sunday morning (3rd February,1850) when Harriet Salter and Elizabeth Wilkie came out from King Street and caught hold of him and asked him to give them a cup of coffee.  He told them he could not because he had only a halfpenny in his pocket.  Harriet held him by the waist and pulled at his waistcoat and found his halfpenny and his watch and passed them to Elizabeth.  He discovered his loss and held onto Harriet and called a policeman and Policeman Bray was there like a shot.  (Try that nowadays!)  Bray charged Harriet with the theft, took her to the station, came back with his colleague Policeman Guppy (whose name was so often in the Exeter papers that I wonder if Dickens  (Bleak House 1852/53) found it there.) and apprehended Elizabeth coming up the Stepcott steps.

Later, the two girls were together in the cells and the redoubtable  Guppy was eavesdropping at the door of their cell.   This is what he said he heard: 

"Wilkie said, - 'All I fear is, that the yack will be blewed before we get turned up on Monday morning.  I had only just blewed it when I saw them coming.'

"Salter replied, -  'Oh never mind , not now, we shall sure to be together to-morrow, over at Gully's (the Keeper of the City Gaol).  Is it all right?'

"Wilkie - 'What did the splodger say? Did he find the yack blewed before you were gone?'

"Salter replied - 'Yes.'

"Wilkie again said - 'What did he say, then?'

"Salter - 'The B---- said 'you have robbed me' ; I said 'robbed you!' and he said 'yes, you have stolen my watch from my right hand waistcoat pocket.'  He then gave me in charge of a Peeler,'

"Wilkie - ' I was a b.....  fool to get pinched tonight.'

"They were both committed for trial."

To blew a yack from a splodger is, of course, to relieve a sucker of his watch.  To blew is also to get rid of, to sell, a Romany word (?).  This is a rare, genuine (but only if Policeman Guppy was reliable in his evidence) report of a conversation between these two feral girls who roamed the wintery streets of Exeter at night looking for splodgers. 

At a distance of 173 years, I find myself feeling sorry for Harriet and Elizabeth.  They never had a chance!

 Where would one expect to fnd a coffee that time of night?

Source The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 9th February 1850.

FIRE AND CANDLE, EXETER, 1850.

 

William Somerville was a discharged soldier who lived, together with his mother-in-law and others, in rooms belonging to Mr. Porter.   Young Abraham Gosling pointed him out in the Exeter market to Inspector Fulford and said, wrongly, that he had witnessed William stealing oil-cloth from Mr Cleave's store in the High Street on the night of Tuesday 15th January.  

Without further enquiry Inspector Fulford  took William Somerville into custody and the next Monday, having spent some time in the cells, William was brought up in front of the Magistrates at the Exeter Guildhall.   But William  had not done the wicked deed and he had an alibi.  His mother-in-law told the Court:

".... they all went to bed by six o' clock every night,  for her husband had had no work for the last three months, and so they could not afford to burn fire and candle.  She could swear that the prisoner was in bed by six o' clock on Tuesday,....

"Their landlord, Mr Potter, spoke as to the general good conduct of the prisoner, and said he always went to bed between five and six.  He had no particular recollection of the Tuesday night in questiion, but he believed he went to bed as early as usual;  he thought his wife could tell better about it, as she always stopped up till half-past eight o' clock, when she locked the front door.   

"She was not in court but was sent for;  when she came she swore positively that Somerville was in bed on the Tuesday night by six o' clock.

"The Bench dismissed Somerville, telling him that he left the Court with no imputation on his character." 

Well, I should think that was the very least they could do!   But what crushing poverty!  I wonder how many other paupers in Exeter went to bed every night at sundown because they had not fire and candle.                     

Source:  The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette,  26th Januaty, 1850.

SO RASH AN ACT, COWLEY BRIDGE, 1850.

"On Thursday last week an inquest was held at the Three Horse Shoes Inn, near this city, before F. Leigh Esq., coroner foe the County, on the body of John Wills, about 21 years of age, a corporal in the 9th regiment of Foot who was found drowned on Wednesday morning, in the river under Cowley-house.

"The deceased left his father's house, situate near Cowley bridge, the previous morning, in good health and spirits, and dined with a relative named Shorland, after which he spent some time there playing at cards.

"He subsequently attended a dance at Pitt's public-house, Upton Pyne,  where he appeared to enjoy himself very much,  not leaving until a late hour, when he proceeded in company with several persons towards his father's home.

"After passing over Pynes bridge he left his companions, wishing them good bye, saying they would never see him again, at the same time giving one of them a letter for his father, and returning as if to go back to Upton Pynes, the others proceeding on, nothing being thought of this strange coduct of his.  He was afterwards seen walking to and fro the bridge by some persons passing, and a little afterward sitting by the railings close by.   On the following morning his body was found as described above.

"The letter to his father assigned no reason for his committal of so rash an act, but after stating where they might find his body, concluded by requesting to be buried by the side of his mother in Upton Pynes churchyard.

"The jury, under these circumstances, returned a verdict of felo-de-se, and he was accordingly interred where he requested, at midnight without funeral rights."

Poor Corporal Wills!  A good dinner with an old friend, a game of cards, a jolly dance at the pub and then suicide!  My guess is he suffered more than most the sudden chill ito the pit of the stomach, the grand melancholy that young soldiers often know at the end of a week's home leave.  The thought of rejoining the regiment was perhaps just too much to bear. 

It was not until 2010 that the Church of England allowed full funeral rites to people who had taken their own lives.   There is something particularly callous about these midnight burial denied ceremony.. 

'Three Horseshoes' is a common enough pub name, so called because losing a shoe made the rider seek an inn where there was a smithy.  The name persists here in Exeter for the district but not for the inn:  now it is called, appropriately enough, 'The Stables'.

Source:  The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 19th January 1850.

A SAD AFFAIR, BUCKLAND, 1850.

 "A sad affair has occured at Buckland, which has created a great sensation in the neighbourhood.  About four months ago, a farmer named Bird, being in want of a servant, applied to the Union, and took therefrom the daughter of a man named Parsons, who was transported some years since from this place; she was well recommended by the Governor.  On Saturday the girl died, and an inquest was held on her body, the result of which proves that her death was the result of ill-treatment.

"A verdict of Wilful Murder was returned against the farmer and his wife, and they have been commited to the county Gaol to await their trial at the Assizes.

"The treatment of the deceased as deposed to by the various witnesses was brutal in the extreme, and the description of her body as given by the surgeon, Mr. Gunner, and others horrified the assembly in the Court.

"Suffice it to say that her body was a mass of wounds, bruises, abscessess, and cuts from whips, sticks, &c.; and the deceased was reduced to this frightful condition by the prisoners.

"Their conduct excited the deepest indignation, and it was with difficulty that the perpetrators of this horrid crime were kept by the Police officers from the hands of the infuriated mob on their  being conveyed from the Court to prison.  So much excitement has not been witnessed in this place since the unfortunate omnibus accident three years ago.

"On the morning of their departure for Exeter, the bridge, which they had to cross, was thronged  by hundreds of people, - but the authorities judiciously ordered a car at the gaol door, in which the prisoners were conveyed two miles out of town, to await the arrival of the Exeter mail.  No doubt, if this step had not been taken, the prisoners would have been torn to pieces."

No comment, -  Too sad!

Source:  The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 12th January, 1850.