STRANGE AND DISGRACEFUL HOAX, EXETER, 1840.

Under this heading The Western Times of 5th September 1840 reported how all the old sympathizers of the slave were fooled into attending a meeting at the Exeter Subscription Rooms that never took place.  It was advertised that Dr. Scoresby would be there as chairman.

Dr. William Scoresby was a whaler, a scientist, an explorer and a clergyman.  He was a great man, too great to require more to be written about him here.      He had been well-known and well-loved in Exeter, where he had been, for seven years, 1832 to 1839, Chaplain of the Bedford Chapel. but he left Exeter, according to The Times, 'under a cloud'.

The bills advertising the meeting had, allegedly, been sent up from London and they read:

"Abolition of Slavery, Royal Subscription Rooms, Exeter.  A Public Meeting will be holden (D.V.) at the above rooms , on Monday August 31st, 1840.  The Rev Dr. Scoresby in the Chair, to take into consideration the propriety of adopting means of procuring the general abolition of negro slavery, throughout the United States of America....The Chair will be taken at one o' clock precisely."

Accordingly at one o'clock:

"A full muster of the Bedford Chapel congregation took place, and the ladies schools in which he (Dr. Scoresby) found so many admirers poured forth their pattern pupils to see the worthy doctor as President.  The general question drew forth all the old sympathizers of the slave, and many a drab bonnett with mild and gentle features beneath graced the foremost seats,  the broad brim and the peculiar cut broad-cloth betokening the presence of the genuine devoted undomitable. haters of slavery and oppression. We observed also most of the leaders of the evangelical sections of the Christian Country and the sturdy Unitarian also was present - and taken in." 

It was no more than an elaborate hoax.  Neither Dr Scoresby nor any of the promised speakers turned up.  Some disgraceful, 'cakes-and-ale' joker had had his fun with the then Exeter progressives.  After waiting over an hour the sympathizers and the admirers all went home. 

Bring back 'holden'!!  

Undomitable is different.

I like the subtlety of 'D.V.'-  He clearly wasn't willing! - and in 1840 everybody knew what D.V. meant  - and  I like the ambiguity of 'taken in'! 

There is a crater on the moon named after William Scoresby.

A DEN OF VICE AND MISERY, EXETER, 1840.

I have not yet found Rockfield Place.  Was it where  Rockfield House is, off Longbrook Terrace?   Anyway, in 1840, it clearly had an alarming reputation.  There you could find vice, misery and wretchedly unfortunate creatures.  

The Reverend Mr. Harrington who had warred against the wicked women of Rockfield Place seems to have exercised his right not to bury one of them, she not having been baptised. Her burial had been arranged but  for some hours no clergyman turned up to perform the service.  This report is a typical Western Times (19th August 1840) attack on what the liberal papers saw as a vicious Anglican priesthood.  Declining to officiate was fairly common practise and caused problems for the relatives of the unbaptised dead in so far as a funeral service was necessary to the burial.

Fortunately that worthy Reverend Worthy turned up, albeit late, to enable this unfortunate creature to be laid to rest

"One of the wretchedly unfortunate creatures who inhabit that den of vice and misery, Rockfield Place, died, and was taken to be buried last week in the cemetry. Owing to some circumstances which we have not heard explained, neither of the parish clergymen (the Rev, Messrs Harington and Worthy) could be found for some hours; at last, after waiting from six o' clock till past ten at night Mr Worthy was found, and in the beautiful, solemn, but we regret to say, ill-applied language of the liturgy, the body of "our sister" with all her frailties was committed to its kindred earth.

"Knowing how the Rev, Mr Harrington has warred against this nest, we can easily understand the loathing with which he would turn away from the task which the ritual of the church had imposed on him - had the "sister" been a baptized member of the church."

THE POWER OF THE PRESS, EXETER, 1840.

 This was a common imposture in Victorian Devon:  you forged a 'brief' or certificate from a magistrate to the effect that you were a sailor who had survived a shipwreck and were now in need of charity.and you carried this from door to door in country places, waved the piece of paper at the credulous and collected, sometimes, large sums of money.

The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette (18th July, 1840) cautioned that four such 'sailors' were operating in Broadclyst. The newspaper had corresponded with the Ilfracombe magistrate, who was in London at the time, whose name appeared on the brief.  The next week their Ottery correspondent was able, triumphantly, to report:

"The paragraph which appeared in your paper of Saturday last, relative to 'four men calling themselves Sailors and stating that a Vessel bound from St Cuba to this country, and to which they belonged, was struck by lightning on her passage, wrecked and nearly all the crew perished, &c.' has been the means of bringing one of the four delinquents this day (Wednesday) to justice.

"A man calling himself George Jones introduced himself to Mr.Jos. Cock, of this place, gamekeeper to Sir J. Kennaway, Bart.. (who had just noticed the paragraph alluded to,) and solicited alms of him, afterwards producing him a brief or certificate purporting to be drawn up and signed by 'N.V. Lee' of Ilfracombe, one of the Magistrates of this county.  

"Mr. Cock immediately charged the man with being an imposter, and, after a scuffle, took him into custody. Mr, Cock who was desirous to compare the particulars of the certificate with the Newspaper report, was about to do so, when the man exclaimed, with an oath, 'You shall not overhaul my papers' and immediately snatched the certificate from Mr. Cock's hands, and tore it into pieces, the whole of which was immediately collected, and has since been pasted together on a sheet of paper.  The man endeavoured to eat some of the pieces, but Mr. Cock prevented him.

"After a great deal of difficulty he was taken before the Rev. George Smith, the Vicar of Ottery St. Mary, who, after hearing the complaint, on oath, convicted the imposter as a rogue and vagabond, and commited him for 3 months to hard labour.

"The certificate bears the signature of many respectable subscribers who have given to the amount of nearlt £10....

"Great credit is due to Mr. Cock for his spirited exertions in preventing this imposter, who is a very powerful fellow, from collecting alms under such fraudulent pretences."

  

IDLE BOYS, EXETER, 1840.

The Western Times of 2nd June, 1840,  thought  it a good idea to include this in it local news column;  the sidewalk stone-kicking must have been noticable:

"A correspondent writes to ask us, are there no proper authorities to prevent the footways of this city from being  in some streets rendered nearly impassible, in consquence of a game which has been much patronised by idle boys of late, namely kicking about a stone with as much energy as their young muscles will admit of, to the imminent risk of the shins of all sedate passengers.  

"He states that a woman had her leg laid open a few days since in St. Sidwells, by a flint stone sent spinning vigorously along the pavement by a determined kick.

"He states that in other towns which he had visited, having far less pretensions to civilization than the emporium of the west, such practices would not be tolerated."

I suspect that the correspondent is overestimating the dangers of vigorous flint-kicking to sedate passengers;  (isn't it curious that nowadays you are only a passenger when someone is transporting you?) perhaps the woman in St. Sidwells with the leg laid open was his auntie.

The emporium of the west still lives up to its reputation for tolerating the intolerable, although these days the local council seems not to bother with greater pretensions to civilization - too elitist for them I suppose.

At least these idle boys had boots to their feet.

A WRESTLING MATCH, EXETER, 1840.

"The lovers of this manly exercise had a rich treat on Wesnesday last, in a Match beween the worthy hosts of the Victory and Acorn Inns in this city,  The match was for a crown aside, and came off in a field behind the Cavalry Barracks.   

"At setting too (sic) Boniface of the Acorn had the best of it, not being encumbered with so much flesh as his antagonist of the Victory, who exhibited strong signs of piping in the first and second bouts, suffering from the heavy falls he received,  but being decidedly the most scientific man, he gave the man of oak such a crossbussler that he came to the ground flat as a pancake, which the referees decided won the wager."

In the merry  month of May, two well-set Exeter innkeepers wrestled each other to win or lose a crown (five shillings).  They met in a field behind the Cavalry Barracks and no doubt, among others, their regulars turned up to cheer for them and someone would no doubt have made a book. 

Mine host of the Victory , the heavier man, won the wager.

The other was the man of oak, i.e. of the Acorn - very witty!  Was his name really Boniface?   (Saint Boniface, who went to the schools in Exeter, has been revered locally for some thirteen hundred years and is, but only since 2019, officially the patron of Devon in the courts of heaven)  Perhaps it was just that this host had a bony face. 

Piping here means gasping for breath.  It is used thus, I gather, only for boxers and wrestlers.

A crossbussler is a cross-buttock, a throw across the hip.

Encumbered with flesh might prove a useful euphemism for sensitivity readers.

Flat as a pancake has been around since, at least, the sixteenth century. 

Innkeepers nowadays aren't as sporting as once they were.

Source: The Western Times, 23rd May, 1840.

THE WISE WOMAN OF MILL STREET, EXETER, 1850.

 

“Last Tuesday sennight a company of the lower kind of people, working men, their womenfolk and paupers of this city gathered in Fore Street to give ear to a crazy harangue from the so-called wise woman of Mill Street, Jenny Vinnicombe. She addressed a mob of perhaps two or three hundred people. A few respectable citizens were also drawn to listen to her prognostications. What she had to say was as dismal and as unworthy of belief as we have come to expect from this visionary.

“' I see this city,” she squawked, waving her bony fingers towards heaven, 'far distant from now. I see the House of God surrounded by mud.  I see a drunken man shouting out filthy words in Peter's churchyard. He holds a bottle in each hand. He is not alone. There are many of them there,,- ,foul-mouthed women too.  Alas! these monstrous beings now rule the city streets.   I see three of them carousing  beneath the very porch of the Guildhall.'” (at this, a gasp of horror from the crowd) “'others squat in the dust opposite the city market supplicating alms from passers by. It is a city without watchmen or constables. ( A cheer from the less reputable auditors).

"The market is a market no longer. I see only gluttons feeding like there were no morrow. The streets are full of noise and vulgarity. Norney, our treasured pleasure ground  has lost its groves and its charm.  The  green turf  is browned and, the walks are everywhere blocked or locked.  Childish scribblers have daubed the castle walls and the seats, and whatever can be desecrated.  Wherever the eye lights is shabbiness and neglect. (a groan from the fragrant multitude)  I see the gates of the people's Castle Yard made fast against them, the castle of  Rougemont lost to them for ever.  (yet another groan.)   I see ....'

“But we have reported quite enough of the wanderings of this crazed old beldame. She kept up her silly rant until Policemen Guppy and Bray tired of her  nonsense and marched her away to spend time in the back grate where she still awaits the opportunity to harangue His Worshipful the Mayor and the Magistrates."

Well,  this wise woman was clearly no progressive!  

There are still plenty of people today claiming they can see what horrors the distant  future holds.  Let us hope they are all as pathetically wrong in their dark visions as was Jenny Vinniccombe.

Norney of course, is the Northernhay Gardens.

Peter's churchyard is the Cathedral Green.

Source: The Exeter Flying Post, 32^nd March, 1850.

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.