COMELY, ENGAGING AND GAY, EXETER, 1844.

 J. SOLOMON and Co.,  City Tailoring and Oufitting Establishment at at 193, High Street Exeter, were responsible for these truly pathetic verses published in The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette of 14th December 1844:

At a season like this when the juvenile folks

Are beginning to count on their holiday jokes,

When numberless glad preparations appear,

To welcome the season of Christmas with cheer;

J. SOLOMON feels inclined to impress

The importance of buying their "Juvenile Dress."

If parents and guardians wish to be suited

With garments whose value was never disputed,

If they wish for their youths to be clad in a way

Which makes them look comely, engaging and gay

Let them purchase at once of J. SOLOMON

Those suits which such marks of approval have won.

The "Juvenile Dresses" of SOLOMON are made

In the newest of Fashion, with beautiful braid;

The dresses are formed just to suit tender age

And therefore your children are sure to engage:

You'll not find them made in an old fashion'd style,

Which often makes persons with ridicule smile;

Their taste and their elegant neatness have won

Ten thousand approvals for J. SOLOMON,

These garments are made in a manner so firm,

That really we're quite at a loss for a term.

Your children may join in the juvenile sport,

But they'll hurt not their garments so firmly they're wrought.

Then hasten this season , as thousands have done,

For the juvenile clothing of J. SOLOMON."

It is not easy to compose verses for commercial purposes. - I write assuredly as one who was once recruited to supply "poems" to an advertising campaign selling Life Insurance! - and J. Solomon & Co. have done their best.

I like the image of the little Victorian boys and girls being fitted out at Solomon's by proud parents and guardians, anxious that their children should be fashionable and beyond ridicule.  The bespoke posh kids and the aspiring ready mades.  

The composer, however, of these verses was not forgetting that this was a business matter and adds a couplet under the title: "OBSERVE."

"In figures plain we mark the prices paid,

And no abatement can of course be made."

I have not read or heard comely for a while.  The OED says the word  "as used of persons, implies a homelier style of beauty, which pleases without exciting admiration"

It is still the case that people in Exeter go to great pains to make their little children comely, engaging and gay but it is also apparent that, these days, parental influence very soon wanes. 

A GUNNER IN THE NAVY, TOPSHAM, 1844.

 Below is a death notice from The Exeter Flying Post, of 7th November, 1844, that caught my eye:

"Oct, 28, at Topsham, Mr. Thomas Dodd, gunner in the Navy, aged 95.

"He was nearly 40 years in active service, and received upwards of 30 wounds.  He was one of those who escaped at the blowing up of the "Amphion" at Plymouth, in 1796; one of Captain Macbride's crew at the taking of the Count d'Artois and one of Sir R.Pearson's crew in his engagement with the noted Paul Jones.

"He was a man of the most industrious habits and abstemiousness."

*

I don't know that Thomas Dodd is forgotten but it seems to me he is worthy of remembrance.  Only twelve people of the three hundred and twelve aboard the Amphion survived the explosion.  Thomas, was forty-seven at the time.  The explosion was blamed on a drunken gunner, one of his messmates.

At the taking of the Count d'Artois  in August 1780, Thomas was aboard the Bienfaisant,  The prize money would have been significant.

In 1779, Thomas was aboard the Serapis when she met a French and American Squadron under Paul Jones.  Captain Richard Pearson held off the enemy long enough for the convoy which he was escorting to sail to safety, then he surrendered his ship, for which he was hailed as a hero and knighted.

I have lately met a couple of young English people who had never heard of Horatio Nelson  - not their fault, poor young things! -  but their ignorance, which I don't imagine is exceptional, seems to contrast sharply with the awareness of British naval history illustrated by this 1844, deaths-column notice.   

 

 

A GLARING SOURCE OF CORRUPTION, EXETER, 1844

"John Wotton the landlord of the Mermaid Inn, Exeter, was summoned for allowing Card playing on his premises.  

A lad named Davey aged 14 stated that on Tuesday 5th  Nov. inst, he and several boys spent several hours  at the defendant's house playing at bagatelle and cards.  Witness was also there on the next night playing at cards in the tap room with several other lads.  The landlord himself played with them. - Witness brought the cards with him in his pocket, they played for beer.

His Worship the Mayor, after consulting with his brother magistrates, addressed the defendant in very strong terms upon the immorality (as well as illegality) of his conduct in encouraging youths to gamble.  The Bench were determined to stop the card playing in public houses which had now become a great and glaring source of corruption to the boys of the city of Exeter, the robberies so frequently committed upon masters and employers were solely the result of public house gambling.  The defendant was fined 50s. for each offence and 12s. expenses.  ordered to pay within a week, or distrained upon for the amount."

Card-playing was  seen as a prevalent offence.  Five pounds, twelve shillings was a hefty fine in 1844.  It would buy four donkeys!  I hope John Wotton found the cash.

The Mermaid was a famous, ancient, Exeter hostelry between Combe Street and Preston Street.

Bagatelle canot have been illegal per se because the tables were installed in many public-houses but it seems card-playing was - and you needed to bring your own cards in your pocket.  The gambling for beer though was certainly deemed not only illegal but a great and glaring source of corruption. Of course the age lacked social scientists to test such assertions.

The lad named Davey was fourteen, some of the other boys were perhaps younger. I imagine them with little old men's faces sitting round the pub-table knocking back the beer, smoking and gambling, - a hand of cards with the landlord, -  laughing and joking and thinking themselves very grown up. 

Nowadays, as perhaps an equivalent,  one can see, behind the plate-glass, alarmingly young-looking cocktail-sippers sitting around tables in the  Queen Street gin-palaces, each one intent on his or her own mobile-phone,  -  privately playing online poker perhaps! 

Source: The Exeter Flying Post, 21st November, 1844.

THE IDENTITY OF THE CABBAGES, EXETER, 1844.

At the Castle of Exeter on Friday 15th November 1844, a man named Dinham, who five months before had been taken up by the constable of the parish of St Thomas, Ratcliffe for stealing cabbage plants at Alphington, came to court accusing the constable of malpractice.  

Dinham swore that the day after he was arrested....

"....Ratcliffe came to him in the lock-up house and offered to cut off the ends of the stumps so as to destroy the identity of the cabbages, if Dinham would give him 5s.  This he could not do; but he said his wife should bring him a pawn-ticket for a watch, which was done the following morning before he went to the Magistrates at the Castle.

"The tale was to be corroborated by the evidence of Dinham's wife, but she was contradicted.  Ratcliffe did not deny he had the ticket,  but he proved that he took it honestly for his expenses after this case was dismissed, as it was from not one of the stumps fitting.  Who cut the stumps, however, remans a mystery.  The bench dismissed this complaint," 

This altogether bizarre case defeats me.  Here was Dinham, virtually admitting to the Great Cabbage Robbery by saying he had bribed the constable with a pawn-ticket to cut the stumps off the 'evidence.'  This, presumably, because the prosecutor in the cabbage-case depended on evidence collected in the cabbage-field by trying to match the cut cabbage stumps to the stumps still in the ground. (an interesting image!)   

The constable, Ratcliffe, still held the pawn-ticket and Dinham's watch was still in the pawn -shop.  Dinham's alleged cabbage-stealing had been dismissed for lack of stump-evidence.  Ratcliffe somehow convinced the Magistrates that the pawn-ticket came his way legitimately.   It is hard to imagine how.  

The Gazette avers that the stumps had been cut but that who had cut them remained a mystery.  The bench dismissed the complaint.  

Curiouser and curiouser!  

Source:  The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette,  16th November, 1844.

A SHIP-BOY, EXETER, 1844.

"On Tuesday, Frederick Bodley, the master of a trading vessel lying in the basin was summoned to the Guildhall by the mother of a boy whom he had taken from Exeter as a ship-boy on his last voyage  (but who had been left at Dover), for payment of a sum of money, as wages for one month and twenty-eight days, the period the lad was on board the ship, in order to get him home.

"It appeared that the defendant took the lad on board, having agreed to give him what he was worth at the conclusion of the voyage;  but the youth was ill from sea-sickness all the while, it being his first trip out to sea.  His shoes being worn out, he applied to the defendant to buy him a new pair; but he replied he had no money.  It was not clear whether the boy absented himself from the ship at Dover, or was unable to continue on board.

"The Bench suggested that Bodley should give ten shillings to the mother; but this he refused, saying it was much more than the boy was worth, and the summons was enlarged until the boy came back, which the mother said should be next week, if she "distressed herself of the last thing to do it.""

As so often, I find myself wishing for more information than is given by the report  (The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 2nd November, 1844).  How old was this boy?  What was his name?  &c.  Nevertheless I blog him as an example of  ship's boys of the mid-Victorian age and  of the notorious mistreatment of them by "cruel" skippers.  There must have been responsible, even generous, masters of trading vessels but Frederick  Bodley was clearly not one of them.   By the sound of it he took this 'boy' to sea for two months and then stranded him in Dover with no money and no shoes to his feet and was not prepared to give the 'distressed' mother any help to recover her child.  The Exeter magistrates seem not to have remonstrated with him!

LIKE THE SKINNED EELS, EXETER, 1844.

 "Yesterday morning, as the Half Moon Railway Omnibus was standing in front of the Star Inn, the horses started off, and galloped at a furious rate down Fore-street Hill, across Exe Bridge and into the shop of Mr Bond, cooper, at the corner of  Okehampton-street, St. Thomas.

"As the accident occured so early as four o'clock, it may naturally be supposed that the happy inmates must have been rocked, not only out of their slumbers but absolutely out of their beds,

"Let it not surprise our readers that such was not the case;  in fact the worthy cooper, like the skinned eels, has become so used to such occurences, that although he thought them cruel in the first place, he is now quite quiescent under the infliction -with the proviso, of course, that the damaged glass be replaced.

"The horses, as well as the shop windows, received but little injury; and what renders the incident more interesting, is the fact that a lady and a gentleman were inside the "buss," and they also came off unharmed." 

This report of little import, from The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette  of 26th October, 1844, is another example of how the 'new' omnibuses were perceived to be monsters causing havoc in Exeter.

The Half Moon Hotel was a prestigious coaching-inn on Exeter High Street.  The Star Inn was on Fore Street, opposite the Tuckers Hall.  

The reference to skinned eels is from a popular book, Thoughts upon Hunting, written by Sir Peter Beckford, and published in 1781.   Beckford meets a girl skinning live eels.  He asks her if she does not think this cruel.  She replies:  "O, not at all, sir, they be used to it."  Clearly his skinned eels had become idiomatic by 1844.   Later, Winston Churchill uses the phrase idiomatically at least twice.  Lost now?  Bring it back!

It is interesting to see the diminuative "buss" already in use.  Soon to become bus. perhaps to distinguish it from buss meaning kiss.  (My father could not resist writing 'bus with the apostrophe.)

I can imagine the lady and gentleman hurtling down Fore Street Hill in an empty bus.  I dare say they were clinging to each other -  but not bussing I think!

, 

THAT WOSH LIKELY!, EXETER, 1844.

"On Tuesday, at the Guildhall, two girls in the employ of Lewis Barnett, a Jew slop-seller residing in Goldsmith-street, were charged by their master with appropriating money realised by selling goods in his shop.

"He stated that on Friday he was out of town and whilst his wife was at market the girls sold a "Jim Crow" cap for 7d, and a boy's cloth cap for 1s. 4d. to a person who had come from the country.  They informed Mrs. Barnett when she returned that they had sold a "Jim-crow" for sixpence for which she blamed them, as it was not the proper price.

"On Tuesday, however, the purchaser of the articles brought back the cloth cap to be exchanged for a smaller one, and the transaction was discovered.  The cap cost Barnett two shillings, and his anger and astonishment at the wrong which had been done him may be readily conceived; nor was his desire expressed during his immediate interview with the magistrates "to sharve them out" any more than natural.

"The mistress of the girls stated, that when she went to market on Friday, she said to them "Now girls, don't refuse any money."  The girls in their defence, said that she added,- "and keep it for yourselves;"  to which Barnett replied with a sneer, "That wosh likely!"  It did transpire, however that the complainant owed them ten shilling for wages......

....The complainant was advised to discharge his girls without a character; and in case they sued him in the Courts of Requests for the wages, to set up the transaction of the caps in answer to the action:  to which the Jew, with a keeness that could only be imitated not felt in the enactment of Shylock, promised faithfully - "Yes, your vorship, I vill,- I vill, immediately." 

This report, from The Exeter and Plymouth Gazetter  of 12th October, 1844, gives us a glimpse of how, I imagine, most citizens of Exeter saw their Jewish neighbours at the time.  Not surprisingly Shylock is the model, wanting his pound of flesh.  Jews are essentially money-grubbing and mean but also they are 'funny'.  They are comic characters with their strange speech and foreign ways.

Slops are ready-made clothes.  Respectable people visit tailors and hatters but the humbler classes use slopshops.  Victorian sweatshops, where cross-legged tailors sewed their lives away, produced the goods.  Many of Exeter's Jewish community were slopsellers.

To (sharve) serve somebody out,  meaning, says Dr. Brewer, to punish, to get revenge, to get one's own back, is hardly to be found these days.   

The girls were probably younger than 16, otherwise they would have been young women.  The fair sex had to grow up quickly in an age where 12 was the age of consent.

Jim Crow had the popular meaning, a black man.   Clearly, everybody knew what a Jim Crow cap looked like.  I don't. 

The Court ruling might seem severe but at least the girls escaped prison.  

There is one sentence omitted which I considered to be of little interest.  

SPLASH TUMBLER PIGEONS, EXETER, 1844.

"At the Guildhall yesterday, George Brannen, 17 years of age, and presenting an appearance of great emaciation, was committed for trial at the Exeter Michaelmas Sessions, for stealing two splash tumbler-pigeons from the dwelling of Charles Wills in Quay Lane.

"The prisoner had been shown the pigeons in an excess of innocent vanity, and must have watched him afterwards, as ingress had been obtained to the pigeons by unlocking the house-door with a key. which had been secreted by the prosecutor about the window when he went out.

"The prisoner sold the pigeons to Mr. Ford  (Jennings and Ford) of this city for 2s.6d. The prisoner said he had been induced to steal the pigeons from hunger, having had nothing to eat for four days, and that his father, who resided in Magdalen-street, had turned him out of door necessitous, and he was not allowed to return.  He had been formerly apprenticed to a tailor, form whose service he had run away."

Here is more evidence, if it were needed, of poverty in mid-Victorian Exeter.  A poor teenager, the emaciated, necessitous runaway-apprentice, George Brannen, had been in Quay Lane.  He had not eaten for days.  He was probably thinking only of food.  His father had kicked him out from the family home.  Charles Wills invited him in to admire his splash tumbler-pigeons. Young George stole them and sold them to Mr. Ford for half-a-crown.  He must have known that Mr. Ford was something of a pigeon fancier.  Now he was facing, at the least, a prison sentence.    

Jennings and Ford  was an estabished firm of carriers in South-street, Exeter.

Splash is still in use to describe a form of colouring in tumbler pigeons.  As far as I can make out they can be either splash or grizzle but not necessarily exclusively. 

For once a Gazette reporter, here in the second paragraph, is having trouble with his style.  These days,  O tempora O mores!, newspaper journalists abuse the English language as a matter of course.

Source:  The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette,  5th October, 1844.

 

THEM POACHIN CHAPS, AXMINSTER, 1844.

 "I wish ked stap them poachin chaps, they've bin out gen ta night:

With theck ther nit that they've a got, an they've catch'd sich a zight.

Why dont 'em tek a rod and line an try ta git a dish,

But not ta g'out wi nits an traps an distroy all tha vish.

"We've tried ta stap et times enough, bit all that ther's na good:

If constabels did g'oot by night, wy than ya noo they cood.

Bit ther' I don't think voks da kear if they da git a dish,

How they w's cotch'd er wot becoms ov al the tother vish.

 

"Th' ginlmin wot coms bout here, ta vish in our river,

Da mek complaints all bout th' town, that they can't ketch noan niver.

No moore I don't spose that they can, wheniver they mid g'out;

The reysn's clare ver they ther' chaps da burk maust all the trout

"An all th' vish them chaps da git they zulls 'em by the poun,

An what they cant they drows away, zoonder than they'd be vound.

But now I think tis maust a time ta zee ta that ther's work,

Er els' wi all the vish bout here, they'l  play the vurry turk"

'Clericus'  was, one might guess, an Anglican clergyman ministering in Axminster.  According to The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette he was the author of a work entitled Rural Sketches in the Dialect of.East Devon   Of him and his book(?) I can not yet find any further trace.  The newspaper published the above sample of his dialect verses under the title Lines to Mr. Piscator in its poetry-corner on  28th September, 1844.

It's pretty crude writing (not very consistent) and how reliable an idea it gives as to how East Devonian countryfolk spoke in the middle of the nineteenth century is hard to say but 'Clericus' was clearly making an effort.

It would have been the salmon that the poachers were principally after but it's easier to find a rhyme for trout.

It's interesting that the word burk turns up, here perhaps meaning quietly to put out of existence .  It had only entered the language fifteen years before when William Burke was executed in Edinburgh.  He had made a business of suffocating people and then selling their bodies for dissection by surgeons.

I remember there was still much mutual ill-feeling with the licenced net fishermen and the line fishermen of the Exe in the nineteen-seventies.  

The Axe fishing would appear to have been an attraction to piscatorial ginlmin.  I don't believe they ketched noan niver.

A LOT OF FINE FAT SHEEP, EXETER, 1844.

The Exeter Flying Post  of Thursday 19th September, 1844 reported to its readers the following life-affirming story:

"On Friday last, as Messrs. Darke, butchers of this city, were driving to their slaughter-house a lot of fine, fat sheep which had been purchased in the market that day, when near the Island Bridge, from the passing of some Omnibusses, &c., the animals were frightened, and one of them sprung on the parapet wall, jumping at once off into the Exe Island below.

"Singularly though, the animal escaped the least injury, which from the height might have been expected.  Several of the others jumped on the parapet also, but turned back again."

*

I blog this not so much for the sake of the daredevil leaping sheep as for the sake of the omnibuses. The quaint plural form and the capitalization reflect the extent to which  'Omnibusses' were still a novelty in 1844.  The very first omnibuses apparently were to be found in the city of Nantes as late as 1826.  Hence the concept and the Latin part of the name, voiture omnibus, are importations from the French. 

The meeting of sheep and horse-drawn omnibuses on the Island Bridge is a neat instance of the old world meeting the new in Exeter.  It would seem that there were still  troops of domestic animals being driven about the streets. Darke's slaughter-house, I think, was in Smythen Street.  Generally the omnibuses, as newcomers, were taking the blame for congestion and dangerous driving but they were to prevail.

Sprung as the past tense of spring, like rung as the past tense of ring, was deemed correct by The Flying News.  It sounds very Jane Austen!

I'm very pleased the bold sheep was not damaged by her momentous leap from the bridge, - just a pity she was on her way to Messrs. Darke's slaughter-house! 

THE FURY OF BACK, WOODBURY, 1844.

 "On Wednesday, Perram, a sheriff's officer residing on St. David's Hill in this city, went with his father to the house of Richard Back, labourer, at Woodbury, to distrain.

"Having taken possession in the absence of Back, they proceeded to take an inventory of the goods, when Buck hastily entered, and uttering a vindictive expression of recognition, snatched the poker from the hearth and belaboured Perram so unexpectedly as to render both his arms powerless, and then struck him on the head with such violence as to produce an effusion of blood from the ear, and render him insensible.

"The fury of Back then vented itself on Perram's father, whom he knocked down by a blow on the nose, which cut it open.

"The sister-in-law of Back, who lived in a contiguous house, tendered some assistance to Perram, who lay, apparently dying, in the doorway, for which her brutal relative kicked her so severely as to fracture a portion of her ribs."

For these outrages Back has been summoned to appear at the Castle of Exeter on Friday, when the case will be investigated."

The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette  (14th September, 1844.) clearly does not let the fact that there is a case yet to come to court restrict its telling of this story.   The vindictiveness of Richard Back's expression, his violence,  fury and  brutality, are literally prejudicial assessments although they are probably true enough.  I don't, however, believe Perram was dying, not even apparently.  

The life of a sheriff's officer was never easy and leaving the civilized world of St. David's, Exeter, in order to visit wild Woodbury clearly held dangers for one and for one's 73 year old parent.  Indeed, old Mr. Perriam   (The name is Perriam not Perram.) died only a fornight later. He died of natural causes said the coroner although violence such as the deceased was said to have been subjected to might have accelerated it. The Gazette, 29th September.)

Sisters-in-law are always spoiling one's fun. 

  

A JOHNNY RAW, EXETER, 1844.

"Elizabeth New, a lady of the pave, was brought up in charge by Perriam, of the night police, having been taken into custody about a quarter before 1 o'clock that morning in West-street, under the following circumstances as detailed by a young man named George Farrant of Budleigh Salterton, carpenter and joiner, - a sort of johnny raw, - now residing in Preston-street, in this city.

"He had been spending the evening at his brother-in-laws's on Quay Hill, where there had been a bit of a jollification and good supper, and of course the party got a little swipy.  At the hour mentioned however, he was on his return to his lodgings, when he encountered in West-street Elizabeth New with several other damsels.

"New ran to him, caught him round the waist, using much endearment, and saying "this is the man for me."  Poor Farrant, in his innocence, was astonished, he had never been so tenderly treated before, but still he was perfectly horrified that any woman should thus act, and piteously entreated that she should let him go.  Thus gently and piously urged she yielded to his earnest request, but, he was no sooner liberated from her powerful grasp, than he discovered his watch was gone.  he then at  the top of his voice sung out "watch" and, as before stated, Perriam came to his assistance.

"The watch was gone sure enough, the silk guard, round his neck to which it had been suspended having been dexterouly severed with a knife; an implement such as was found on the prisoner after she was brought to the Hall.  New, however, protested her innocence - (having meanwhile urged her companions to "cut.")   - nor was any watch found in her possession.

"Farrant, on the question being put from the Bench, said he could not say the prisoner had taken his watch.  And this not being deemed sufficient ground for her further detention, New was cautioned and directed to be liberated, and the case was dismissed.

The Flying Post's court-reporter, as so often, invents as much as he reports.  The naivety of  George Farrant,  the strength of Elizabeth New's arms, the (not proven) dexterous severing of the silk guard,  the crying of "watch" (a horrible pun!?) &c. cannot be more than assumption; still, it makes the story more entertaining.

There must be more slang terms to describe an excess of alcohol than anything else.  I had not met swipy/swipey before but I learn that Dickens uses it and it derives from swipes, another slang term,  once used  to mean thin, tasteless, washy beer and, according to my wonderful Lloyd's Encyclopaedic Dictionary, 1895, cognate to a Danish word: svip.  (there's many a svip twixt cup and lip!!)

There was a constable to hand!!!

I'm irrationally pleased that Elizabeth New was not sent to prison or worse.  Even if, as seems likely, she did steal George's watch, she sounds a jolly sort of young woman,  the kind one finds with her damsel mates roaming Exeter these days at a quarter to one any morning of the week. 

Source: The Exeter Flying Post, 29th August 1844.

THE SECRETARY ON HORSEBACK, EXETER, 1844.

 "TEMPERANCE PROCESSION. 

"The Members of the Temperance Society and the Independent order of Rechabites, a friendly society entirely composed of teetotallers, walked from Exeter the field near the Station, which is alluded to in another place, in procession. In addition to the Members residing at Exeter, there were several visitors from Teignmouth, Taunton, Bridgwater and Tiverton, came to Exeter for the double purpose of taking a holiday for the Railway Festival, and making a temperance demonstration. We may just remark here that Mr. Knott chemist, of Exeter, who is firm advocate of temperance, sent as a present to the members at their place of rendezvous, several dozen bottles of soda water and lemonade." 

"PROCESSION :  Was marshalled on Northernhay at half-past nine, and proceeded through St. Sidwells to the Black-boy turnpike, back again, and through High-street, Fore-street, Bridge-street, Bartholomew-street and Yard, North-street, and St. David's Hill to the Station. An idea may formed of extent of the procession, when we say that it reached from Pratt's London Inn to the top of Summerland-street St. Sidwell's. It was marshalled as follows. 

"The Secretary on horseback. 

"THE MAGNET COACH, Drawn by four horses, decorated with evergreens, and ornamented with Banners having the inscriptions, Temperance promotes education," "Touch not —taste not —handle not," Come with us and we will do you good." 

"BAND OF MUStC. Members of Temperance Society two and two, wearing their sashes and medals. 

"A FLAG, Bearing the inscription God save the Queen." 

"Members two and two. 

"The Banner of the Exeter Total Abstinence Society, having the arms of the Society richly emblazoned. 

"Members two and two. 

"The Banner of the Exmouth Total Abstinence Society. 

"Members two and two. Two white and pink flags. Members two and two. 

"The Taunton Total Abstinence Society's Banner of crimson silk, having the arms of the Society beautifully painted upon it by Mr. Havill, of Taunton. 

"Members two and two. 

"A banner, emblazoned with a large regal crown, and a dove descending towards it. 

"Members two and two. 

"Banner, with motto, "Faithful unto Death." 

"Members two and two. 

"Banner, motto, Religion our support."

"Members two and two. 

"A large white Banner, bearing the motto, "Temperance in youth prevents poverty in old age." 

"Members two and two. 

"Banner, motto, " No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of Heaven." 

"Members two and two. 

"Banner, Total Abstinence is beneficial to all; hurtful to none." 

"Members two and two. 

"Banner of the members of tbe Juvenile Temperance Society. 

"Members two and two. Banner, motto, " Buds of Promise." THE EXMOUTH BRASS BAND. 

"The members of the Independent order of Rechabites of the Tents of Exeter, Tiverton, Taunton and Teignmouth. 

"The Union Jack. 

"The Banner of the Exeter Rechabite Tent.

"Members two and two. 

"The Banner of the Taunton Rechabite Tent. 

"Members two and two. 

"The Chief Ruler Wearing the sash and insignia of his degree, supported by officers bearing emblematical Banners The moon and stars." 

"The Deputy Ruler, Wearing the sash and decorations of his degree, and supported by officers bearing banners —the Sword and the Cornucopia. 

"The Tent Keeper, In full costume, bearing his banner—the Crimson Tent. The Stewards, In full costume, with their Banners, Coiled Serpents and Doves Motto, Be ye wise as serpents, but harmless as Doves.

"The Outside Guardian, In full costume, with his Banner, the Lamb and Eye. 

"The Inside Guardian, In full costume, with his Banner, the Beehive. 

"The Levite, With his Banner, the Golden Sheaf.

"Officers of the Tent, With the scrolls of the Rechabite Laws. The Elders, In full costume, each one bearing his Shield, with emblems of Temperance, Fortitude, Justice, Faith, Hope, Charity, Peace, and Plenty. Members two and two. The procession excited much attention, and was followed by a great concourse of persons through the city, and to the Station."

Every age has its causes.  I watched the Pridies' parade pass through Northernay a few weeks ago with its larding of men dressed in women's clothes and young people 'asserting themselves' with their bodies, their bling, their piercings and their tattoos and with every kind of 'let it all hang out', kitschy costume.  There were many banners but none, I contend, flying as well-intentioned nor with the dignity and sincerity of those of the teetotalers and Rechabites of 1844. 

Source:  The Western Times, 4th May, 1844. 

  

FURIOUS DRIVING, EXETER, 1844.

"Thos. Loder was charged with furiously driving an omnibus in the High-street, on the 30th of July.-  Mr Willesford attended for the defendant,  Loder, on the day in question was driving an omnibus from the Half Moon Inn to the Railway Station,  taking his route down High-street and Fore-street into St.Thomas; and the furious driving was witnessed by the Mayor and others; also by Wm. England, of the night police, B. Twiggs, &c.

"On the other hand, Mr Willesford called John Hancock, a guard on the railway, who was on the front of the omnibus, and Thomas Hawkins, the conductor of it, who differed materially from the other witnesses as to the rate at which the carriage passed the Hall, and ascribed this - (such as they admitted it to be,) - to be one of the horses having attempted to turn into Queen-street, the way it had been used to go, as also it did, after passing the Hall, towards the Globe Hotel by Broad-street; and gave it as their opinion that the skill of Loder alone prevented accident - Mr. Blackall delivered the judgement , saying, the Magistrates have no doubt that at the time spoken of, the man was furiously  driving this omnibus, he is therfore convicted, and fined the sum of 20s. and expenses , making 7s 0d. more.

"Mr. Blackall continued.  Having delivered the judgement of the Court in this case,  I have no hesitation in saying that it was most clearly proved, and I would advise the drivers of these omnibuses to be more careful in this respect in future than they have been in times past, as the lives of the inhabitants of this city must not be allowed to be endangered, because they may happen to be a little too late.

"The Mayor said, the case was now closed, and therefore he had no hesitation in saying in the face of his fellow citizens , that he had never before seen in the streets of Exeter an instance of such furious driving as this was; and further, he was continually receiving letters and personal communications on the subject of the fierce driving of those omnibuses through the streets.  With Mr. Blackall then, he would recommend these drivers to be careful in future." 

The Half Moon Inn, at 22 High Street, was a coaching inn and busdriver Thomas Loder was, no doubt, trying to ensure that his passengers caught their train from the railway station.  It was unwise of him to pass the Guildhall, where the Mayor and the Magistrates saw him whizz past, and he should, perhaps,  have followed the wise horse that wanted to take him down Queen-street. ( I assume already an alternative route. (?))

He was driving furiously. The word, together with its adjectival form, occurs four times in this report. It was, I feel sure, the much quoted  passage in the King James' Bible:  and the driving is like the driving of Jehu the son of Nimshi for he driveth furiously, that caused this to be the word used by Victorian writers. A modern rendering has he drives like a maniac.  These days, though, we mostly drive dangerously.    

Source The Exeter Flying Post,  15th August, 1844.

MRS. ELWORTHY'S LITTLE JOKE, EXETER, 1844.

In August 1844, Mrs. Ann Elworthy who kept The Country House Inn in Catherine Street was summoned before the Mayor and Magistrates at the Exeter Guildhall on a charge of having people in her house after hours:    

"The case now proceeded, Richard Hamlin, an Inspector of the Watch being called, who said, I was on duty on Tuesday morning last about 20 minutes past 1, in Martin's Lane, when I heard a noise, and proceeding in the direction of the sound, found it came from the Country House Inn, kept by Mrs.Elsworthy.

"I heard there were several people in the house, and came and reported the circumstance to the captain of the night at the station house.  I was directed by him to return again to the Country House and observe what passed.  I heard beer called for, and gin and water.  I heard money rattle and money paid.  

"About  2 o'clock the door was opened and six or seven persons came out.  One of them pulled off his coat to wrestle, but Mrs Elworthy prevented him.  She stopped a few minutes, when all but two went away.  These men then went back with Mrs. Elsworthy into the house, and presently afterwards she let these two me out again.  They challenged one another to toss for Champaign:- Mrs Elsworthy said that she had no Sham Pain in the house, but had plenty of Real Pain'"

"Then the men went away."

So, it was in Catherine Street, about two in the morning on Tuesday 4th August, 1844, when Ann Elsworthy made her little joke about pain, sham and real.  Now it has echoed down one hundred  and eighty-one years!

She sounds a formidable lady, preventing her clients from wrestling, keeping an inn, serving beer and gin until two in the morning and making corny jokes.

She did not come to court but sent her solicitor, Mr. Willesford.  He was rebuked by the Mayor for her absence and the court then had its pound of flesh fining Mrs. Elsworthy 40s together with 7s. expenses.  I like to think she was able to laugh it off.

The night constable seems not much brighter than Dogberry and his pals in Much Ado.  Victorian policepeople invariably proceeded where other humans walked.  I think perhaps they still do.

Champaign for champagne is a delightful anglicisation which we seem to have lost.

Source: The Exeter Flying Post, 8th August, 1844.  

"A VERY PROPER PROSECUTION", EXETER, 1844.

In March, 1844, a navigator named James Warren was sentenced to fifteen years transportation for highway robbery.   He and another, allegedly, had, in the early hours of 13th August 1843, and where the New North Road meets the Cowley Bridge Road, knocked a shoemaker over the head and rifled his pockets.  A young woman, Eliza Coleman,  she was twenty-two, gave evidence on his behalf at his trial in an attempt to save him.  Her evidence was clearly mendacious. Five months after her court appearance she was brought before the City Assize Court at Exeter Castle charged with perjury as reported below in Trewman's Exeter Flying Post  of 1st. August 1844.

 "Mr. Cornish appeared for the prosecution; called Mr. Henry W. Hooper, who states in substance that he was present at the Assizes for the city of Exeter on 25th of March last.  when a man of the name of James Warren was tried before Mr. Justice Cresswell, and convicted of highway robbery on the Cowley Bridge road.  

"The prisoner Eliza Coleman was a witness on that occasion, and swore that she remembered Saturday the 12th August preceding. That she and the prisoner James Warren cohabited together and occupied a room in Sherman's Court, West-street.  That they retired to bed between 10 and 11 o'clock that night; that she did not awake until the morning about 5 o' clock.  That Warren, the prisoner, was then in bed with her, and she had not missed him during the night.  That she did not hear any one call the prisoner that night; and that he did not go out after breakfast on Sunday morning. And being asked what time that was , and cautioned by Mr. Justice Cresswell, she replied, about prayer time.  She knew a man called Thomas Mare, sometimes called Curly or Culy Tom, and remembered seeing him early on the Saturday evening, but did not see him afterwards that night.   She swore most positively, and after repeated caution, that he did not come to Sherman's Court, nor did any one call the prisoner Warren during the night.

Now in contradiction to all this, on the preliminary examination before the Magistrates at Guildhall, at the time James Warren was committed for trial, she swore that Warren was called up between 3 and 4 o'clock on the Sunday morning by anither navigator named Thomas Mare otherwise Curly, to go, as she was informed, to Bramford Speke; and that Warren returned and went to bed again about half-past 5 o'clock......

.....The Judge summed up, and the Jury immediately found her  guilty.

The learned Judge now proceeded to address the prisoner. She had, he said, been guilty of a most serious offense, and this too under circumstances of great deliberation.  She had been cautioned, warned, had time for retraction, yet still she persisted in what was now most clearly shown was the grossest falsehood.  This crime was among the worst and most mischievous that could be committed.  It struck at the very root of all proceedings in Courts of Justice, and he had alsways felt that if a clear case were made out, the provisions of the statute should be carried into effect.  This then had been a very proper prosecution, for, for her there was no palliation, no excuse whatsoever, since having first told the truth, she left that path in order to entangle herself in all the labyrinth of deliberate falsehood; the consequence of which she would now have to bear.  In the hope then that the example thus made in her case would operate so as to deter others from the commission of this very serious offence, though probably on herself all tht was to be desired might not be wrought by it;  and also as a sentence far better for her than she might at that time be inclined to suppose,  since a separation from those who had been her companions in sin and iniquity must be the consequence, he sentenced her to be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for the space of two calendar months , and at the expiration of that time to be transported for seven years.

This sentence handed out by Mr. Justice Patteson seems, to me, to be out of all proportion to the offence.  Is it not a pitiful business, this over-sentencing to 'make an example'?  Not only is it cruel but I doubt that it ever achieves its purpose.  We are seeing a spate of it under Keir Starmer.  I suspect Eliza Coleman was in love with James Warren and that is what accounts for the irrationality of her evidence.  It is clear from her words and actions that she was a  simple soul. 

Eliza said that James left her at prayer time.  The court would appear to have understood what she meant!

The omission above is a list of witnesses to Eliza's appearance at the Magistrates' Court. 

   

 

A LODE-STAR, TOPSHAM, 1844

"TOPSHAM.  - On Tuesday, this hive of industry was the scene of unusual gaiety and activity, the whole population, including numerous visitors, having assembled on the quays and points of vantage to witness the launch of the Jeannette, the magnificent schooner yacht of the Earl of Egremont, from the yard of Mr. Bowden, where she had been undergoing substantial repair, and been lengthened about twelve feet.

"Adjoining the dock was an awning, erected by the noble owner of the lode-star, in which were Earl and Countess of Egremont,  lady of the Ven. Archdeacon Stevens and the Misses Stevens,  Captain and Mrs. Roberts, Mr. and Mrs. Williams and the Misses Williams,  Captain Heringham R.N., the Revds J. Thompson and G.H.O. Pedlar, Mr. Walker, and several members of the Royal Yacht Squadron.

"The Town Band was stationed in a barge off the wharf, and played the inspiriting airs of "Rule Britannia,"  "See the Conquering Hero comes," &c.  Upon the bosom of the waters were numerous craft,  from the huge steamer gaily decorated with the flags of all nations,  to the little cock-boat; the weather being delightfully fine the whole was a brilliant affair.

"The time appointed was seven o'clock, and about half an hour previously, the arrival of carriages with distinguished visitors, which was announced by the rettle of artillery, set expectation on the tiptoe.

"Precisely at seven o' clock the word was given, the numerous supports were simultaneously removed, and he gallant vessel, which is really a noble craft, majestically glided into the yielding bosom of the deep.

"Some little delay occured from the fact that the tide did not rise so high as usual, but this was of little moment.  it was some time before the immense crowd that were assembled dispersed to their respective homes, highly delighted with the scene they had witnessed."

Lode-star here means an attraction.  (This is how Shakespeare used the word in A Midsummer Night's Dream).   Here it is the schooner Jeannette that is meant although the lords and ladies there assembled would also have been an attraction, not to mention the over-the-top gunfire and the floating Town Band.

George Wyndham, 4th Earl of Egremont had been a naval officer before, in 1837, he became an earl, hence the strong naval presence under the awning.  He was 56 when his refitted yacht was launched at Topsham and he had less than two years to live.  He was the builder of Silverton Park, a great house some 8 miles from Exeter, long since demolished.

The Exe at Topsham had attracted numerous craft,  that a huge steamer was lying off Topsham sounds a bit hyperbolic. I find cock-boat a charming word for a small boat.

Too many bosoms?

The immense crowd that were assembled....!  Tut tut!

Source The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 20th July, 1844.

A SONNET IN PRAISE OF EXETER, 1844.

 "TO A LADY.- In Praise of Exeter. 

By the Rev. W.  Pulling, M.A.

Lady! with thine my spirit dwells delighted

On grand Exonia; she with charms is glowing:

Nature and Art therein, with powers united,

A picture form,  fresh beauties ever showing!

Painters and bards might there become excited

By her stream clear, fair-bridged, and softly flowing;

Peter's bold towers,  streets rising, myrtles blighted

By Winter scarcely, trees luxurient growing!

High on her Rougemont she a terrace raises;

A thick grove stands below, whereon th'eye gazes

With rapture!  Once beheld, her features never

Can be forgot, and Memory hymns her praises!"

Well, it's a long time since I blogged a bad poem and the Reverend William Pulling, of Sidney Sussex College,  M.A.  A.L.S, surely qualifies!  Welcome, William Pulling, to the Bad Poets' Society! (Of which I too can claim to be a proud member!) 

The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette of 6th July 1844 printed this poem in their Poets' Corner while , on the same sheet, noting that William had just published a neat little volume which contained 123 sonnets written strictly in the Italian style.  

Pulling was a native of Chudleigh and was, for some time, a master at the Grammar School there.  He was born in 1782.  Hence he was sixty-two or so when his sonnets were published. His promotion in the Church was slow but sure. He was nearly fifty when he was appointed Chaplain to the Cambridge Town Gaol and it was a good while later that he became Rector of Dymchurch in Kent.  He was 'instituted' by the Archbishop of Canterbury into the rectory at Old Romney in 1853, which I take to mean that the old man was given somewhere to live, and he died in his own house in Cambridge aged 78.  He seems never to have married.

The Gazette wrote of his work:  "we have great pleasure in recommending this little volume, as it is rarely that modern poetry is presented to us, not only so faultless, but containing so much to awaken the best feelings of the reader."

I have given this brief  'life' of William besause the internet seems not so far to have taken any notice of him and anyone who can write, probably, many more than 123, sonnets, strictly in the Italian style, surely deserves recognition.  He published some poems in the local (Kent) newspapers and his neat, little volume must still exist.

The A.L.S .the letters that he liked to put after his name, are a mystery to me.

The 'Grove' at Northernhay clearly caught his, and so many other people's, imagination.  Nowadays that part of the Gardens is a boring flat stretch of turf.  Bring back the Grove!

A DISTINGUISHED PARTY, EXMOUTH, 1844.

"EXMOUTH. - On Monday, the King of Saxony attended by the Duc de Staacpoole, aide-de-camp, the Baron de Gersendorff, Saxon Minister, and Dr Canes, the celebrated botanist, his Majesty's physician, arrived at this agreeable watering-place in two carriages and four, and dined and slept at Bastin's Marine Hotel.  His Majesty expressed himself much pleased with the Hotel,  and was engaged from an early hour in taking sketches from the drawing-room window.

"After breakfasting at half-past eight o' clock, the distinguished party were rowed to the Saltworks on the Warren and proceeded to Dawlish and Teignmouth, en route to Plymouth."

This routine notice of a middle-aged, all-male, royal party touring Britain is of more interest than it appears.  The King of Saxony whose party arrived in style at Bastin's Hotel was Friedrich August ll.  He had just come from Lyme Regis where he had purchased an ichyosaurus from Mary Anning.   He was remembered as an intelligent and benevolent monarch.

Richard, Duc de Stackpoole, was a French aristocrat but more British than French and must therefore have made an excellent ADC for the tour. He is remembered because his ghost, so men say, still haunts his old mansion of Glasshayes in the New Forest. 

Carl Gustav Carus (not Canes!), acting as the King's physician, was the most interesting of the party.  He made a name for himself not only as a botanist but as a physiologist and as a painter who studied under Caspar David Friedrich.   

I like the idea of the King of the Saxons making sketches of (?) Exmouth Bay and I like to imagine this distiguished party being rowed across the Exe to the Warren. 

I read here of the Saltworks on the Warren for the first time but I'm sure the Exmothian local historians know all about them.   The Works must have offered a superior landing place, one fit for a king.

Dr Carus wrote a book The King of Saxony's Journey through England and Scotland, 1844.  which I have not yet seen.

Source:The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 6th July 1844.

OUT ON "A LARK", EXETER, 1844

From The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette of 3rd August, 1844:

" ....in consequence of the anticipated Regatta at Budleigh Salterton, between ninety and a hundred persons, inhabitants of the faithful city, embarked at Exeter quay in the Owner's Good-will, W. Barratt, Commander, for that place, - the consideration for the trip being only two shillings and sixpence;  the excellent arrangements on board the vessel, we understand, including the agreeable provision of a band of music.

"When the vessel arrived at Turf, the Commander's "weather-eye" having detected certain signs of very bad weather not to be mistaken, he expressed his intention of not going over the Bar: but the company, who considered themselves out on "a lark" which would serve for anything, insisted upon it, and a steam-tug towed the vessel over.

"Many of them, however, were by this time getting sick of their amusement.  The ship hove-to a mile from Budleigh; when, to the company's great disappointment, they found that the Regatta was over, -  and  the only attraction to the good people of the town being themselves and their bark tossing on the bosom of the agitated ocean.

"A number of them, admirers of the principle of self-preservation, then disembarked in the first shore boat that could accommodate them, and departed for Exeter in two chaises and pair;  but the remainder, more courageous and less apprehensive, determined, with praiseworthy confidence, to continue to submit themselves to the experience and care of Capt. Barratt whose exertions throughout the day, under the most trying circumstances, are beyond eulogium.

"They got under weigh, and left Salterton about 4 p.m., everything presaging a gale, which came on with increasing fury.  The jib was split to shivers, - and to add to the distress, they lost the ship's boat.  The sail was split; and all but "the tars"" were compelled to go below, the hatches being battened down, and a tremendous sea making a complete breach over the vessel: her qualities as a sea boat, however, were here conspicuous, as were also the courage and skill of her commander and the crew.

"Below, the greatest confusion prevailed; the females being in a state which precluded that interchange of amenities which renders their society on pleasurable trips so charming; whilst the elegant adornments of their persons suffered considerably by the discharge, - and the males, terriified by their cries, and their reiterated and hurried enquiries of "where are we?" must have been enabled to conceive a vivid idea of a wreck at sea.

"At 7 p.m., the vessel was off Exmouth, signals of distress having  for some time been displayed.  Here a steamer bore down to their assistance, and towed her to Turf, when the state of things began to revive, and about 11 o'clock p.m. they arrived safe amid the sleeping shades of cathedral-capped Exon."

I kave heard locals speak of pleasure-boats as "sixpenny-sicks" but The Owner's Good-will was a "two-and-sixpenny sick".   You had more for your money - battened hatches,  shivered bow-sprits, torn sails, lost lifeboats.

Reported in the same newspaper is the Budleigh Regatta which went very well and without undesirable incident.  

Captain W. Barratt seems rather to have deserved censure than an eulogium, after all he subordinated the warnings of  his own prescient weather-eye to the will of his landlubber passengers. 

Cathedral-capped Exon is an echo from a time when from every direction there was a glorious view of 'St.Peter's Church'. 

  A good story?,  -  as I have written before -  it's  the way they tell them!

A NEGATIVE EXERCISE, EXETER, 2025.

The Dean of Exeter is a very smooth individual who, I have heard it said, was a spoiled child used always to getting his own way.  He wanted to clear out of the Chapter House at Exeter the 'joyless' sculpture of local artist Kenneth Carter, a great man and the producer of the most impressive sculpture of which Exeter could boast.  He has 'got his own way' indeed.  The fifteen collosal pieces of sculpture were last seen being put into a removal van.  Where are they now?

For fifty years Exeter Cathedral held this treasure.   It is now lost to citizens and visitors alike. The busy Dean has jumped over all the ecclesiastical hurdles, circumvented all who might have objected  by what might be called a conspiracy of silence,  found an artist, of whom nobody I know has ever heard, to write mean things about a true artist's work and, in the face of protest, has struck pre-emptively and lo!, the niches in the Coffee/Chapter House are bare. 

Well, it is a good story and it will not go away.  This Dean will be remembered as the man who robbed Exeter Cathedral of the Testament Sculptures.  The City will be the poorer for it.  It will be remembered as an altogether negative exercise and will not be forgotten or forgiven.

THE SHABBINESS OF THE DEAN AND CHAPTER, EXETER, 1844.

 "....a certain man of great gifts, a painter by profession, and Northcote by name - finding his end approaching, and pleasant visions of his native county floating before him in his calm slumbers before his hour of dissolution, did determine to leave a work of art which should be worthy the acceptance of his native county.  He commissoned his friend, Sir. Francis Chantrey, a most cunning carver in stone, to execute a statue to be placed in the cathedral.

"At great cost of money the statue was made, at heavy charges it was conveyed to this county.  But their Shabbiness the Chapter caused it to be placed in a corner of the cathedral where the public shalll not see it without encoutering the pitiful exactations of their Shabbinesses' protogees, the vergers  (with whom they do not go snacks it is to be hoped).

"Oh it is pitifully shabby, clerically mean! to disregard the patriotic injunctions and the liberal spirit of the honourable dead!" 

I dedicate this blog to those noble souls who are currently trying to stop the Dean and Chapter of Exeter from ripping Kenneth Carter's Testament Sculpture out of the Chapter House.  Shabbiness and meaness seem to cling to the clerics of Exeter.  Perhaps they are being passed down, somewhat like the Apostolic Succession from the meanest Anglican Bishop of all time, Henry Phillpotts!  There is certainly something shabby and mean, not to say slippery and deceitful, in the current Dean's proceedings and they are most certainly  an insult to the honourable dead.

To go snacks is delightful.  I think I have heard it but it is not in my Oxford Dictionary of Slang (Ayto) nor, as far as I can see, recorded on the internet.

I apologise for losing an accent grave.  I can't remember how to find it!

https://matthewcarter.co.nz/ken-carter-and-his-sculpture/

Source: The Western Times 27th July, 1844,  

THE TESTAMENT SCULPTURE, EXETER, 2025.

 Ken Carter, who was, I believe, Head of Sculpture at Exeter's College of Art and Design was commissioned some 50 years ago to fill the niches of the Chapter House of Exeter Cathedral with a series of colossal sculptures inspired by the story of the Testament from the Creation to the Nativity.  The work took some four years to complete and was this consummate Exeter sculptor's masterpiece.  The Testament Sculpture was well received and was one of the treasures of the Cathedral for half a century and still is.  It is a total work of art.  The sculpture complements the mediaeval building and the building complements the sculpture.  The intention is to rip this Gesamptkuenstwerk apart. It can still be appreciated, but not for much longer, in the Chapter House where it belongs which now serves coffee in the very excellent new Cloisters complex.  It is worth drinking coffee there just to see it.

The Cathedral where the sculpture belongs has conspired to get rid of half the baby by making a gift of it to Exeter College, a secular educational establishment where it does not belong.   I use the word conspired advisably for it seems clear that all the decisions have been made by a small cabal of individuals and that there has been a deliberate suppression of public information about these shameful plans.  The whole matter needs urgent public re-examination!  

The matter will do nothing for the reputation of the Cathedral, the College, the Artist, nor for the City of Exeter.  At the moment there is 'push back'  ( https://matthewcarter.co.nz/ken-carter-and-his-sculpture/.) and there is a petition to the Cathedral not to be so silly.   :https://secure.avaaz.org/community_petitions/en/the_very_reverend_jonathan_greener_dean_of_exeter__save_the_testament_sculptures_at_exeter_cathedral/?t

A TREE IN NORTHERNHAY GARDENS, EXETER, 2025

Last week the Lord Mayor of Exeter processed in fancy dress into Northernhay Gardens together with the Sword of State and the Cap of Maintenance and about fifty followers, who were looking somewhat underdone and harrassed, to dedicate a tree to the victims of  the Covid Pandemic.  

There is necessarily a memorial tablet of marble set in stone and this is what is written upon it:

THIS TREE WAS PLANTED IN MEMORY OF EVERYONE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC,  MARCH 23rd 2021.

One wonders if any other public memorial in England has been inscribed in 'Pidgin' or 'Woke' or whatever this new language is to be called.  Maybe it is a first for the City of Exeter.  This would be a  sad distinction and particularly so because it is so unnecessary:  ALL WHO DIED would have been best and the city could have saved itself the expense of fifteen letters. 

In Exeter those who died were mostly of my generation and spoke the Queen's English.

Let us hope the next time His Worshipful turns up it will be to unblock the passage beween Northernhay and Rougemont.    

A BUY OR A CHIELD? EXETER, 1844

 "The Midsummer Assize for this blessed year of grace, 1844, was ushered in at a singular conjuncture.  The bells rung for the entrance of my lords the queen's judges, on Tuesday afternoon, but people were in a strange state of perplexity as they anticipated some such joyous announcement to signalize the advent of a blessed scion of the royal family of England expected by steam and electric telegraph, to gladden the hearts of once merry England.

"Notices had been very industriously published stating how it was that the Queen was hourly expected to tender an additional proof of her generous determination to extend the line of the House of Brunswick;  that Mrs. Lilly the nurse and Dr. Locock, the chief accoucher, with a host of attendants were all quartered at Windsor, whilst the electriic telegraph was waiting for a start to call the cabinet ministers to the scene of the royal birth-bed; the grooms sleeping in their saddles, ready to fly hither and thither with the intelligence as soon as the first premonitory symptoms announced the incipient stages of the royal progress.

"Well we were all thinking that if the young scion missed this world, it would not be for want of guides and directing posts, when the bells struck out and the people rushed forth into the streets, expecting to find the news running abroad that her Majesty was still expounding that important text of Genesis - which holds barreness to be an opprobrium, and sterility contrary to the holy end of matrimony.

''What ever is it? - a buy or a chield.' was the univeral exclamation, as the anxious housewives rushed forth.  Alas! there is no satisfactory resonse - 'it idden come yet'  is the reply; 'they'm only the jidges.'

The baby in question was Victoria's fourth child, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh who was born on 6th August 1844.  So it was a buy!.

A chield in Scotland is a boy and so, etymologically, is child and childe but the Devonians managed  to gender-bend the word. 

Source: The Western Times, July 27th 1844.

A SHRIEK FROM THE BOX, EXETER, 1844.

"Two little boys, named P|AYNE and BOUNDY, were charged with stealing apples frm the orchard of S. Kingdon., at Duryard. 

"It appeared that Mr. W. Kingdon was going home late one night, when passing the orchard, which lies near the road, he saw a number of boys, some picking, some eating, and some stowing away the green fruit, a quantity of which was scattered about.  He got over the hedge, seized on Boundy, and took him to Duryard, where he learned the names of the other offenders, and let him go.  He said he only wished them to have a summary punishment, and he would not offer evidence if they were to be sent to prison.  He then called a boy named Henry Crang, who proved the charge against the two prisoners.  Mr R.C. Blunt , who was in court, interceded on behalf of Boundy, stating that his family was respectable, and that he had been properly brought up.

"The father (Payne's father) (a flyman we believe) protested at his son being whipped.  He said there were others in the case, who ought to be punished, if they were not more in favour,

"THE MAYOR -  It strikes me you are a very foolish man.

"Payne - I know that, sir;  I works harder than you do;  but the others ought to be served as bad as my son.

"The MAYOR  -  You permit him to be prowling about the roads at night, robbing orchards, and now you see the trouble he has got himself into.  You are committed (to the boy) for one week, and when you come out , repent of your evil ways, and bide at home with your father and mother.  Boundy is to go to prison and there to be whipped and discharged.  (The mother of Boundy who was present, consented to this arrangement.)

"Payne was again about to say something to the Mayor, when he was interupted by Mr S. Kingdon. who said,

"You are worse than the boy, a great deal.  You are a perfect ruffian - the less you say the better.  Take yourself off!'

"The man was reluctantly turning away, when a shriek was heard from the box beneath the Petty jury gallery; and his wife, who had hitherto been silent, sunk to the ground ina violent fit of hysterics.  Several of the policemen immediately ran to her, but they were rather out of their element in endevouring to restore a fainting woman;  and the paroxysms seemed rather to increase at their approach.  Mr Kingdon called for a woman to come to her;  but there was no woman in the Hall who would assist her;  and she was carried out by the officers."

Source The Western Times 20th July 1844.

The Western Times had an opinion of Mr. Sam Kingdon.  'Mr. Kingdon's want of temper, his overbearing, we will not say insolent, manner especially to the poor.....'   Here he lives up to that reputation.  His mode of attack was often to claim to know someone who was a stranger to him:  'I know you, sir, you are a rogue and a ruffian.'  Here he practices it on poor Mr. Payne, who drives a cab, with the consequence that Mrs. Payne has hysterics and has to be carried out of the Court.

Mr. Payne, who works harder than Mr. Kingdon, has a point.  There were several boys scrumping apples and Kingdon knew who they were.  Only two come to court;  one goes to prison for a week, the other who is from a 'respectable' family is whipped and sent home.   There's justice for you!

Sam Kingdon lived in grand style at Duryard Lodge, which these days is Reed Hall, well known to the alumni of the University of Exeter.  These days you can get married there.  You might think he could have spared a few apples.