DOWN THE DUNINKEN, EXETER, 1843.

In August 1843, the good citizens of Exeter were shocked by the extraordinarily violent attack on Mr. Barnes, a popular doctor of medicine, who was left lying half dead in an unmade road which led over open fields. The prosecuting counsel's detailed description of the place give an idea of the state of that part of Exeter in 1843:

"Gentlemen, Mr. Barnes lives in a place called the Barnfield, in this city.  On the night of the 15th of August, abour ten o' clock, he was sent for to attend a lady, a patient, in Eton-place, which some of you probably know is just below Summerland-place.  There lies between the Barnfield, where Mr. Barnes lives, and Eton-place, some open fields; which are still used as pasture ground; cross roads run through them, one going up to Heavitree, and the other intersecting it going from Eton-place to the Magdalen-road. They are intended for public roads but not yet made so.  This road has never been lighted, and therefore it is a dark place at night." 

Two men, Thomas Westlake and Samuel Houghton, and a woman, Mary Evans, were convicted of this felonious assault and robbery and sentenced to be transported. The case at the Assize Court was covered in full detail by The Western Times, 8th April 1843.  Below is a snippet of the turnkey's evidence that I found of interest:

"Thomas Tickell, turnkey at the city prison.  On the 2 th, (sic), Samuel Houghton was given into my custody.  I had a conversation with him, but held out no threat or promise.  He said he expected to be transported for 10 or 14 years, as they had done it between them.

"[Houghton - I never said a word to you about it, how can you stand there and tell such lies, look in my face and say so.]  

"He said they spent their last shilling in beer, and then went out to get money from somebody, and robbed Mr. Barnes, but never thought the woman would split on them. I overheard a conversation that Houghton had with another prisoner.  At one time Houghton said that 'his watch' was jewelled in three holes.  I asked what watch he meant, and he replied, the watch he had from Mr. Barnes.  I overheard Houghton on the 11th of October, say to James Heartzoake another prisoner, that the things he committed the robbery in were those found at his lodgings, not those he was found in,  He said he had swallowed two sovereigns , and that they were down the duninken.

"[prisoner during the latter part of the examination said witness was a villain, and had hatched up the story, for it was not likely he would have told him so, he would ask any one present if it was likely.  He also expressed his 'astonishment that God A'mighty did not strike him dead' as a warning to all turnkeys that nosed on their charges."

'Thomas Tickell the turnkey,'  is worthy of a Victorian novelist! 

The judge, summing up,  said he did not approve of turnkeys, or prison officers, getting prisoners into conversations, to be afterwards used against them.  Their business was to keep the prisoners in safe custody. 

I wrote about the unfortunate James Heartzoake/ Heartsoke. THE GROCER AND THE EXCISEMAN.

So, Houghton swallowed the evidence which now was down the duninken.   As dunnekin  the word is, I find, both English dialect and in use in the former colonies. It means, of course, the lavatory pan.

THE CORDWAINER AND THE RECTOR, EXETER, 1843.

 The Western Times, as here of 11th February, 1843, in its sceptical coverage of all religion, took a mischievous delight in reporting the advance of Puseyism and the local reaction to it: 

 "PUSEYISM is going a head in Exeter.  At St. Olave's church, the rector preaches in a white surplice, to the great horror of the old inhabitants:  a couple of parsons go to the communion table - 'the altar' they will have it, one turns his back to the people in reading certain portions - and the clerk Colman has been deposed from the duty of giving out the venerable Sternhold, by the ruthless hand of the rector.

"Clerk Coleman is a cordwainer by trade, and the sensible people in the parish do say, that all the rector hath done by this new move of deposing the clerk from the discharge of of one of his most important functions - is to break the heart of a most worthy shoemaker, and prove him but an indifferent 'psalm-smiter.'

"The rector may see the last of the shoemaker, but we doubt whether the public will see the last of his folly just yet if he go on as he hath begun."

It seems amazing these days that good church-going citizens in 1843 were bothered by a white surplice and by 'you say communion table but I say the altar' but there you are now!

I read the ambiguous second paragraph as meaning that the Puseyite rector of St. Olave's has  dispensed with 'Sternhold' altogether.  Sternhold being the Anglican Church's metrical psalmbook dating from the time of wicked Henry Vlll. 

Need I say it?   The rector may see the last of the shoemaker is an outrageous pun and the hath and the cordwainer are consciously archaic.

In our local parish registers for the eighteenth and early nineteenth century cordwainer is the word mostly used, shoemaker hardly at all.  The etymology, a worker in cordovan leather, is fun! 

Going a head  meaning, as here, to prosper is another Americanism that may well have travelled from Devonshire.  It is subtly different from going ahead and I would bet my boots this is not just a typographical error.

AN INCRIMINATING TIPPET, DAWLISH, 1843.

 "Stealing from a parcel. - The wife of a porter at one of the inns, in this place, has been charged with the above offence which, we are sorry to say is one of frequent occurence here.  It appears that a lady of the neighbourhood had occasion, a few weeks since, to send to London for a dress, and in the course of its transit here, it had to pass through the porter's hands, and while in his custody his wife opened it and cut off one yard;  adjusted the parcel again, and carried it home.

"The lady, finding one yard gone,  wrote to the house in London for an explanation; a correspondence took place between the parties, the result of which was, that the shopman who served the order was immediately dismissed, and in fact charged with  embezzling the property.

"Nothing more was known of it for several weeks, but at last, whilst coming from church one Sunday, the lady espied a piece of the same fabric on a child's back in the shape of a scarf or tippet.  Upon enquiries she soon found that it had been presented to the child's parents by the porter's wife, who, upon being charged with the theft, at first denied it, but ultimately confessed it and begged forgiveness, which was granted on account of her family."

It seems a remarkable theft, to open up a parcel, find a dress and cut off a yard of material and tie up the parcel again and send it happily on its way. It couldn't happen  today in the Dawlish we know -  drug pushers, yes, but dress slashers, never !

And then the remarkable way in which the lady, after church on Sunday, sees a scrap of her lost dress  material around a child's neck. 

The porter's wife begs for forgiveness, and receives it.  There is, however, a shopman in London who has lost his job.  I hope he is re-instated.

Tippet is a pleasing word.  There is something, I learn, called 'turning tippet', which is a more elegant way to saying: making a 'U-turn'.   Bring it back?

Source:  The Western News, 7th January, 1843.

"NOSING", TORQUAY, 1842.

"Great dissatisfaction is felt in the neighbourhood of Hope's Nose in consequence of the Preventive men coming across a store of tubs which had been landed there early in October.

"It is said that one of the parties split, and that his daughter took her station on a rock in front of the cave, and the Preventive men walked right in and took the tubs.

"The honest man had his conscience smitten, and was obliged to split to ease it,  he having been engaged in runs for fourteen years and upwards, and now doing the illicit in the matrimonial line at Torquay, the expenses of which caused him to "nose".  The men of the "moonshine" are very indignant at being done out of the results of a successful run."

A nose, like a snitch or a snout is, as every schoolboy knows, common as a noun and means a police-informant, or in this case an H.M.Customs informant. 

NOSING was The Western Times' (12th November 1842) title to this piece,  here used as a verb. To split, meaning more or less the same, is not felt to merit quotation marks.  Of course it is the location, Hope's Nose, that inspired the choice of words.

Hope's Nose is said to be a form of Hoop's Nose, so called because of the shape of  this headland although it seems more of a hook than a hoop. 

The Preventive Men came by sea. (I assume) The informer's daughter stood on a rock to betray the cache of tubs.  Her father was doing the illicit in the matrimonial line,  (horrible euphemism!)  How did the Times' correspondent know all these details?  It is pretty clear where his sympathies lay.

Men of the moonshine, I find admirable.  It would make a good title for a novel about smugglers.

"Moonshine signifies smuggled spirits, which were placed in holes or pits and removed at night" - Notes and Queries, May 1884.