I try not to stray too much from the poor people of Victorian Exeter but today I have gone as far as Torquay to remember once again the obscenely grasping Henry Phillpotts, the bishop who milked the Anglican Church for the every penny it was worth and who died disgracefully wealthy. The Western News of February 25th, 1843 notes with sarcasm how he commutes from London to his new palace in Torquay without thinking to stop in Exeter where he was much hated and it continues, in a report, ostensibly about the seizure of spirits, to lambast him.
"If our dear prelate did but know how heartily we rejoice over his flights from those sad scenes - how proud we feel when we see his carriage driving past our humble threshold, whirling him along to the soft scenes of this beloved region - we think it would gladden his heart.
"Our right reverend and respected prelate not only loves these charming scenes, but he loves the finny tribe that float in the briny waves beneath. He has established a fishery at Anstey's Cove. Cod, turbot, soles, maids and dories, all grace his table, and come to the aid of his generous spirit - to be scattered as presents from the episcopal fishery.
"Along shore in the sunken recesses, at the foot of the rocks, lie lobster pots and crab pots, save when the Brixham fellows come sneaking along to sneak them up. Parson Lyte, the Brixham parson, it was that taught our dear diocesan how to shoot a net and lower a lobster pot - why the Brixham people disturb the episcopal fisheries we cannot for the life of us imagine. But it so happens that he is too often disturbed, as we have before said.
"But a new source of annoyance is now pursued. The 'free traders' finding that the Bishop's sanctity had thrown the Coast Guard off their guard, have actually been sinking their kegs near the sacred lobster pots.
"Last week, soon after the Bishop returned from London, where he had had such a bad run of spirits himself, 153 tubs of contraband spirits were seized in Babbicombe Bay ! ! by the officers on that station, and are now safely deposited in Dartmouth Custom House."
The Bishop's Walk leads down from the Palace Hotel ( Bishopstowe) to Anstey's Cove. The BBC (being very bbc!) made me laugh out loud: "Here the bishop would go on his regular constitutional and have moments of contemplation. Some 150 years later the coast path is still there for us all to enjoy - thanks to to the bishop's hard work." I suspect the thing Henry of Exeter mostly contemplated at Bishopstowe was how to keep the hoi polloi from sight of his house and land and the most hard work he did was his proverbially self-serving.
It was a great joke of the time that the fisherfolk of Brixham were emptying the bishops' lobster pots.
I don't think Henry Francis Lyte, Brixham's poetical parson, had much to do with Phillpott's interest in his fishery project but he, Lyle, had a deserved reputation as a fishermen's friend. I don't think either of them ever hauled up a lobster pot.
Incidentally, at this time Lyle must have been just about to publish his chart-topping Abide with me and then to go off, on full stipend, to spend four years touring the continent while half his congreation deserted the Church for the Plymouth Brethren. Yes, he was ill at times, but privileged. He died and was buried at Nice.
The smuggling recorded here shows how busy the 'free traders' still were in 1843.
What kind of fish is a 'maid'? I guess a maid must be a mullet but I can't find evidence.
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