THE EXE FROZEN

It is no secret that the world is warming but the degree (le mot juste!?) to which winters in Exeter have changed is surprising,

 Mr James Commins, the corresponding tobacconist,  whose Reminiscences of Exeter Fifty Years Ago were first published in 1877, addresses his younger readers:   "The young reader must understand,"  he writes, "the winters were much more severe than now;  skating almost a certainty, and snow falling at various times for two or three days and remaining on the ground for several weeks."  

Have not old people been saying something like this to young  people for ever?  And were not the summers always sunnier?  Mr Commins is remembering the early years of the century, perhaps the same hard winters that inspired Dickens' white Christ masses (no other plural seems to me satisfactory) in Pickwick,  Christmas Carol  &c.    In Dickens' day not so old Exonians could tell tall tales, by way of example, of the excessive fall of snow of 1751 when the snow in Devon was three foot deep  and there were many melancholy accidents, waggons overturned, coaches axle-deep on the roads, sheep lost on the farms, extensive damage to property and death through accident..   

The  Januaries, however, of Mr Commins' own times seem severe enough to us today.  There was a heavy fall of snow on New Year's Day 1880 and the Exe froze in 1881.  Typical is the report of Trewman's Exeter Flying Post of January  4th  1871:  The Exe had again frozen over and "New Year's Day and Christmas Day were very much alike, and neither of them differed in any material point from the six days which intervened;  Sunday was, in fact, the twelfth day of hard frost." 

In February 1855,   the Gloucester Journal  had reported: "The whole of the country has alike been influenced by the long-continued frost.  The poor have suffered severely by being thrown out of  employment, and the prosperous and well-to-do have enjoyed themselves by various amusements on the ice,  The tiver Exe was frozen over at Exeter, and a dinner for a convivial party was cooked on the ice by means of a gas-stove; games of skittles and other amusements have taken place, and skaters have abounded on various parts of the river."

I  think it likely that even some of 'the poor' found time for fun and games on the ice but two centuries ago newspapermen, as today, liked to demonstrate a social conscience and to signal their own virtue,  not that I doubt there were enough citizens who suffered from the cold.   Skittles on the ice sounds fun and one would certainly have liked to have had an invitation to that convivial dinner-party.

There have been notably hard winters since then  but the trend is  clear.   Today as I write, the sun is shining and the temperature is at seven degrees centigrade - positively balmy!   
   

THE EXETER WAR MEMORIAL

England can boast many fine war memorials but the bronze group which Devon-born-and-bred sculptor John Angel created for the City of Exeter's War Memorial is as good as any.  Angel was a consummate artist.  His later career was in the United States where there are many examples of his  excellent work. The famous bronze doors of St Patrick's Cathedral in New York are his.   

On the first of August  1923,  shortly after the memorial was unveiled,  The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette published some rather bad couplets under the heading  Exeter War Memorial.  They were  composed by one C.E.B.  

THE SAILOR

Guard of the Seas I sit with eyes that gaze afar;

Foes around me, beneath, affright not the British Tar.

THE SOLDIER.

Ward of the Trenches I sit (I have marched full many a mile)

I have fought, I have suffered,  - I win - and that's why I wearily smile.

THE PRISONER OF WAR.

Prisoner of War I sit behind the fast closed gates.

Unconquered, unbroken, I wait in trust for my rescuing mates.

THE WOMAN.

Woman of Pity ,  I sit and prepare the healing hands

For the shattered and wounded limbs of my Brothers from many lands.

VICTORY.

High above all I stand, bay wreath uplifted to Heaven, 

The Dragon beneath my feet, I honour the men of Devon.

I publish these verses again here because, crude though they are, they remind us of the spirit of the times and of the real sacrifice which these figures represent.   The heroic and colossal four are still sitting in Northernhay Gardens and they are well worth a second look. Victory soars high above their heads like Marianne at the barricades.  Many who pass by do not see her.  Some seem not able to raise their eyes from their mobile phones.  She is truly magnificent.  She rises triumphant, one foot clear of the ground and her lovely arm raised on high.   She is a wonder to gaze on from any angle,  perhaps most glorious  against  summer skies, which  at the moment we do not have, and from Northernhay Gate.    

 

SEMPER FIDELIS

Fidelis is a lovely word and was a favourite name for faithful dogs in the Victorian years. (Willie Maddison's father's old dog was called Fidelis) and, in its shortened form of Fido, (Abraham Lincoln's favourite dog was called Fido ) there are still enough faithful hounds to be found.

Exeter, as every Exonian knows, has the motto Semper Fidelis which translates as Ever Faithful. This is something of a distinction. Most cities have to manage without a motto and none has one so simple, straightforward and honourable as is ours. It is ancient too. It was suggested in the year of the Armada, 1588, in a letter written by Queen Elizabeth l to the citizens of Exeter thanking them for a gift of money towards the expense of seeing off the Spanish. We who today are citizens of Exeter should not forget that mighty monarchs have written thank-you letters to us.

In the preface to his 1878 Reminiscences, Mr James Cossins, the corresponding tobacconist of Paris Street, likes to use Ever Faithful and Semper Fidelis as synonyms for Exeter.  For example he writes in his preface that his book will be perused with some feeling of interest by those who like myself, have always felt a warm attachment to the "Ever Faithful" and elsewhere he writes. :"Persons who have been absent from "Semper Fideis" for many years, on re-visiting the old city, declare that it is improved and so much altered they cannot recpgnise some of the localities." This seems to me a worthy usage to which we, in our modern age, might well return. One might then perhaps expect to hear on the Cathedral Green snatches of conversation such as: "The homeless seem to be attracted to Semper Fidelis like fleas to a faithful old dog."

UNWELCOME LONDON VISITOR, EXETER, 1862.

I have been looking at Mr James Cossins' book Reminiscences of Exeter Fifty Years Since, the Second Edition 1878 and I am grateful to Mr Cossins, who died in 1883 and was a tobacconist in Paris Street, for introducing me to the Norfolk Howards. Norfolk Howards, I was delighted to learn, are bugs. No more, no less! Their story starts in 1862 with this hilarious advertisement in the Times of London:

  " I Norfolk Howard, heretofore called and known by the name of Joshua Bug. late of Epsom. in the county of Surrey, now of Wakefield, in the county of York, and landlord of the Swan Tavern in the same county, do hereby give notice. that on the 20th day of this present month of June, for and on behalf of myself and heirs, lawfully begotten. I did abandon the use of the surname of Bug, and assumed, took and used, and am determined at all times hereafter; in all writings, actions, dealings, matters and things, and upon all other occasions whatsoever, to be distinguished, to subscribe, to be called and known by the name of Norfolk Howard only. I further refer all whom it may concern to the deed poll under my hand and seal. declaring that I choose to renounce the use of the surname of Bug and that I assume in lieu thereof the above surnames of Norfolk Howard, and also declaring my determination, upon all occasions whatsoever, to be called and distinguished exclusively by the said surnames of Norfolk Howard, duly enrolled by me in the High Court of Chancery. - Dated this 23rd day of June,1862. Norfolk Howard, late Joshua Bug." 

The originator of this little masterpiece, this prime example of English humour, is apparently unknown but my bet is that it was marinated in wine and/or spirits and penned at either a London club or an Oxbridge college. None of which has anything to do with the city of Exeter except that I first met the Norfolk Howards in Mr Cossins' book where, a decade or more after The Times advertisement, he writes:

"Visitors arriving from London - the great dread was the uninvited ones, 'Norfolk Howards' of which at this time every house in London was suppose(sic) to have more than agreeable, and to avoid any importation of the above-named, trunks, boxes, &c., were taken to the rear of the premises, opened and examined previous to anything being taken to bedrooms, and, if necessary, underwent the process of fumigating with brimstone."

I am alarmed at the idea of these Georgian hotel or boarding-house servants in Exeter rummaging through the trunks and cases of the London visitors and fumigating the contents with poisonous sulphur-dioxide. Yet is there not in these days of plague, someting thought-provoking, perhaps even heuristic, about Exeter's pragmatic attitude to new arrivals?

THE BLOOD OF CHRIST

I am fascinated by, and have already blogged, the fifteenth century Five Wounds Window in Sidmouth church.   For one thing, what is represented is not so much five wounds as five glass phials filled with blood.

The window depicts five glass phials with 'heavenly crown' lids containing blood taken from the wounds of Christ.  Each of the phials is labelled,  thus:

blood from the right hand:   phial of wisdom.
blood from the left hand:     phial of mercy.
blood from Christ's side:     phial of everlasting life.
blood from the right foot:    phial of grace.
blood from the left foot:      phial of ghostly comfort.

All of which seems very strange and unique.   Such a window was probably intended to stimulate prayer.  There was a special mass dedicated to the five wounds and prayers to the wounds were deemed to be very powerful and could earn very large dispensations and indulgences saving the devout Christian many centuries of pain in Purgatory.   Praying to the wounds of Christ was linked to the rosary and could be prayed to at designated intervals as the contrite sinner worked his or her way around the beads.

 I don't know whether the different wounds were generally linked, in the medieval mind, with the virtues and rewards indicated by the phials of Sidmouth church  but clearly one could not pray better than for wisdom, mercy and so on.  Ghostly comfort presumably was what the sinner hoped to gain from confession to a holy (ghostly) father of the church.        

THE SALCOMBE AND SID LENDING LIBRARY

The little school at Salcombe Regis in 1850 housed a lending library.  We know this, if not from elsewhere, from a remarkable polemic by Thomas William Christie entitled " Extracts from Books Taught at Salcombe Regis National School with Remarks on their Popish Character."  published in Sidmouth by J Harvey, Fore Street and in London, 1850 and now to be found in the British Library.   The title and rules of the lending library seem first to have been promulgated in 1847.  The title was The Salcombe and Sid Lending Library, interesting perhaps in that at so late a date the Regis was not found in an official title but Christie uses it three years later.

It was not much of a library!  There were only 152 books and all of them seem to have been religious works.  The charge made for borrowing a large book was one penny.   A halfpenny would let you take away a small book and for a farthing you could borrow a tract.  Anyone connected with the school, including the children, could read the books without paying.

This Thomas William Christie, was a prolific writer and ferreter-out of papists and according to the Alumni Cantab.  was "a faithful preacher of the faith of God's elect."  He seems to have been something of a Irish peripatetic trouble-maker.   In 1850 he was living or lodging at Salcombe Mount.   

I intend to blog more on the nineteenth century Puseyites of Salcombe Regis as and when.

THE FIVE WOUNDS

This is fun!

Theodore H Mogridge, a local doctor,  in his descriptive sketch of Sidmouth, 1836, describes the great east window of Sidmouth church in some detail.  He notes a piece of glass which he recognises to be mediaeval and thinks he is looking up at an ancient coat of arms.  Not only does he note it, he blazons it for posterity. "argent, five piles on saltire gules." and he wonders whose arms they can be.

But it is not a coat of arms at all!

It is, as that remarkable Sidmothian, Peter Orlando Hutchinson, (1810 - 1897) recognised "The five wounds of Christ crowned and bearing mottoes."   In his Sidmouth Guide  he lets us know:  "The piece of glass in the vestry window was another of my protégés.  It was taken out of the great east window and lost sight of for some time, but after an outcry on my part it was produced, when I had it placed where it is and a wire guard outside."

It  is there to be seen in Sidmouth Church today,  It would seem to be a very rare depiction, in England at any rate, and all credit to Orlando for finding it and preserving it.