Workshop of the World

Workshop of the World

Raphael Samuel

Edited by John Merrick

Verso 2024

An extract to stimulate similar writing

about Stroud and the Five Valleys

through a cooperative collective endeavour

with people proffering a couple of sentences or more

about trades and jobs and sights to be seen

through the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.

 

‘The orthodox account of the industrial revolution concentrates on the rise of steam power and machinery, and the spread of the factory system … But if one looks at the economy as a whole rather than at its most novel and striking features, a less orderly canvas might be drawn – one bearing more resemblance to a Breugel or even a Hieronymus Bosch than to the geometrical regularities of a modern abstract. The industrial landscape would be seen to be full of diggings and pits, as well as tall factory chimneys. Smithies would sprout in the shadows of the furnaces, sweatshops in those of the looms. Agricultural labourers might take up the foreground, armed with sickle or scythe, while behind them troops of women and children would be bent double over the ripening crops in the field, pulling charlock, hoeing nettles, or cleaning the furrows of stones. In the middle distance there might be navvies digging sewers and paviours laying flags. On the building sites there would be a bustle of man-powered activity, with housepainters on ladders, and slaters nailing roofs. Carters would be loading and unloading horses, market women carrying baskets of produce on their heads; dockers balancing weights. The factories would be hot and steamy, with men stripped to the singlet, and juvenile runners in bare feet. At the lead works women would be carrying pots of poisonous metal on their heads, in the bleachers’ shed they would be stitching yards of chlorine cloth, at a shoddy mill sorting rags. Instead of calling his picture ‘machinery’ the artist might prefer to name it ‘toil’.’

Rights of Common

Commoners:

Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700-1820

J.M. Neeson

Some gleaning made from this uncommon text,

So as to share knowledge in common:

Timothy Nourse in Campania Felix, or a Discourse of the Benefits and Improvements in Husbandrywrote thus of commoners in 1700:

‘very rough and savage in their Dispositions’ with ‘leveling Principles’ which make them ‘refractory to Government’, ‘insolent and tumultuous’.

Worse than animals, he averred,

commoners had to be chastised

and controlled rather than cultivated.

In 1781, an anonymous observer of squatters and those living on common land in forest, heathland or on ‘waste’ viewed them as ‘more perverse, and more wretched’, living in ‘habitations of squalor, famine and disease’ amounting to ‘most fruitful seminaries of Vice’ where lies ‘sloth the parent of vice and poverty begotten and born of this said right of Common. I saw its progress into the productive fields of lying, swearing, thieving – I saw the seeds of honesty almost eradicated.’

He commented on those living in Hampshire forests on common land; ‘idle, useless and disorderly’, attracted to ‘pilfering and stealing.’ He was similarly minded when in Herefordshire’s Black Mountains:commoners were subject to ‘IDLENESS, the fell ROOT of which VICE always finds it easy to graft her most favourite plants.’

Ah! Protestant self-help thrifty busy virtues,

Where are you when we need you?

You lazy good for nothing commoners.

Go and read Robinson Crusoe,

(Tawney and Weber too for us)

If only you could read.

But don’t follow W.H. Davies:

‘What is this life if full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.’

Stop wasting time.

Gathering fuel on the commons indeed.

Gleaning.

Tending to and milking a cow.

Looking out for rabbits.

Gathering fruits, berries and nuts.

Being satisfied with that you have.

Or exchanging surplus so as to just get by.

Lending or borrowing tools.

Enough is not as good as a feast, I say.

I call that a fast.

We need more of everything – apart from commons,

And shared open fields, of course.

And commoners and squatters, of course.

But:

More enclosure. More arable. More pasture.

Greater efficiency. Higher yields. Higher rents.

Higher profits.

And more labourers working for a wage.

And those labourers will have more children.

And a greater population is needed for the King,

The army, the Empire, and our endless wars against the French.

Neeson wrote that the ‘argument about the legitimacy of ending common right in the eighteenth century was more than a conflict between the moral economy and the self-interested individualism of agrarian capitalism. Increasingly it was also a debate over how best to serve the national interest. Or, more exactly, and crucially, a debate about what sort of society best served that interest …’

And, ‘best served by the industry, independence and patriotism of a flourishing peasantry’ or ‘served best by a multitudinous, fecund, ever-growing proletariat, no matter how poor …’

‘But behind both views was a fundamental concern

with Britain’s economy and political hegemony.’

A List of Wars from the 18th Century to the end of the Napoleonic Wars

1. War of the Spanish Succession 1701-14

2. Great Northern War 1717-20

3. War of Austrian Succession 1740

4. Carnatic Wars 1744-63

5. Seven Years War 1756-63

6. Anglo-Mysore Wars 1766-99

7. First Anglo-Maratha War 1775-82

8. American Revolutionary War 1775-83

9. French Revolutionary Wars 1792-1802

10. Napoleonic Wars 1802-15

11. Second Anglo-Maratha War 1802-05

12. War against the USA 1812

13. Anglo-Nepalese War 1813-16

Enclosers, of course, weren’t thinking of all these endless wars

as they took over the common fields …

Neeson again: ‘But this does not mean that “good” agriculture triumphed over “bad”, like some conquering hero in a gothic romance. It means that one mode of agricultural production gave way to another. (“Backward” agriculture is itself an astonishingly narrow concept. It assumes that productivity alone defines the many relationships, social as well as economic, that agriculture represents.) In the end, enclosers enclosed for a number of reasons: chief among them the prospect of higher rents, a belief in the efficiency of larger, consolidated holdings, and an emotional and intellectual commitment to a more individualized production, to private enterprise. The conquering hero is more accurately described as an investing landlord or an enterprising freeholder. But neither the higher rents nor the (arguably) more efficient units of enclosed villages, nor the change in the zeitgeist of the agricultural establishment should be taken to mean that before enclosure agriculture was necessarily badly run, or backward. Communal regulation did not mean inadequate regulation. The system may have been less productive if we define productivity in terms of agricultural production, though we should note that the jury on this is still out.’

It wasn’t just the fuel – wood, turf, furze, bracken,

Or the food or the grazing that gave sustenance,

It was also the community of reciprocity;

The sharing, the mutuality

That fashioned a community,

And the arranged or happenstance meeting

In field, lane, pathway, Holloway, baulk or common,

And the ensuing conversation

And sharing of the time of day

(‘Good morrow, Gossip Joan,

Where have you been a-walking? …’);

And ‘wasting time’ didn’t mean laziness,

It might have been incomprehensible to the elite,

But the lower orders could have an eye for the picturesque too,

You didn’t have to be educated to have an eye for the sublime:

John Clare textualized what many saw and felt:

‘How fond the rustics ear at leisure dwells

On the soft soundings of his village bells

As on a Sunday morning at his ease

He takes his rambles just as fancys please

Down narrow baulks that intersect the fields

Hid in profusion that its produce yields

Long twining peas in faintly misted greens

And wing leafed multitudes of crowding beans

And flighty oatlands of a lighter hue.’

But it’s true to say that the Protestant virtues

Of frugality, economy and thrift

Were also fashioning this way of life.

But the critics of commons could only see

A lazy, indolent absence of ambition –

But if needs were few, then there was time

For recreation and ‘Saint Monday’ traditions;

There was no tyranny of the clock,

No outlook that ‘time was money’ …

But energy was there in abundance,

And to use an anachronism,

‘Time-Management’ too, as in this case study

Of enclosure and the Beautiful Game:

The Northampton Mercury contained an ‘advertisement for a football match’ at the end of July 1765 to take place over two days, August 1stand 2nd: ‘This is to give notice to all Gentlemen, Gamesters and Well-Wishers to the cause now in Hand. That there will be a FOOT-BALL play in the Fields of Haddon … for a Prize of considerable value … All Gentlemen Players are desired to appear in any of the Public Houses in Haddon aforesaid each day between the hours of ten and twelve in the Forenoon, where they will be joyfully received and entertained.’

On Monday 4th August 1765, the Northampton Mercury reported thus:

‘We hear from West Haddon in this County, that on Thursday and Friday last a great Number of People being assembled there in order to play a Foot-Ball Match, soon after meeting formed themselves into a Tumultuous Mob, and pulled up and burnt the Fences designed for the Inclosure of that Field, and did other considerable Damage; many of whom are since taken up by a Party of General Mordaunt’s Dragoons sent from this Town.’

Football matches are just one example

Of a whole repertoire of opposition

To the supporters of enclosure:

Grumbling, counter-petitioning,

Refusal to cooperate with surveyors,

Tearing down hedges and fences,

Writing formal letters of opposition,

Leaving threatening letters of opposition,

Refusal to sign enclosure bills,

Refusal to sign sundry legal documents,

Stealing boundary markers,

Removing indicators of field boundaries,

Writing local landscape poems,

Expressing anger in public,

Expressing feelings of violation,

Ensuring those feelings were shared communally

And transmitted through the generations:

Here is an example – a full generation

After enclosure had hit this particular village:

‘To the Gentlemen of Ashill, Norfolk,

This is to inform you that you have by this time brought us under the heaviest burden and into the hardest Yoke we ever knowed; it is too hard for us to bear … You do as you like, you rob the poor of their Commons right, plough the grass up that God send to grow, that a poor man may feed a Cow, Pig, Horse, nor Ass; lay muck and stones in the road to prevent the grass growing. If a poor man is out of work and wants a day or two’s work you will give him 6d. per week … There is 5 or 6 of you have gotten the whole of the land in this parish in your own hands and you would wish to be rich and starve all the other part of the parish …

Gentlemen, these few lines are to inform you that God Almighty have brought our blood to a proper circulation, that have been in a very bad state a long time, and now without alteration of the foresaid, we mean to circulate your blood with the leave of God.’

And here’s John Clare:

‘Inclosure came and trampled on the grave

Of labours rights and left the poor a slave

And memorys pride ere want to wealth did bow

is both the shadow and the substance now …’

And John Clare again:

‘That good old fame the farmers earnd of yore

That made as equals not as slaves the poor

That good old fame did in two sparks expire

A shooting coxcomb and. hunting Squire

And their old mansions that was dignified

With things far better than the pomp of pride …

Where master son and serving man and clown

Without distinction daily sat them down …

These have all vanished like a dream of good …’

And the folklore passed through the generations:

‘The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

But leaves the greater villain loose

Who steals the common off the goose.’

And when we look at the opposition to enclosure,

And the repertoire of dissent,

We must remember that not only

Are the textual records incomplete

(You have to keep secrets, don’t you?),

But that the repertoire of dissent’s

Oral opposition within an oral culture

Is, of course, impossible to recapture:

The hatred, bitterness, sense of violation,

Feelings of robbery, jobbery, misery and theft,

The loss of gleaning rights and rights of estover,

The loss of pasture and right to roam:

All, of course, the intangible history

Of all those villagers and commoners

’Condemned to the enormous condescension of posterity’.

In conclusion, john Clare again:

The Lament of Swordy Well:

In Swordy Well a piece of land

That fell upon the town

Who worked me till I couldn’t stand

&crush me now Im down

There was a time my bit of ground

Made freeman of the slave

The ass no pindard dare to pound

When I his supper gave

The gypseys camp was not afraid

I made his dwelling free

Till vile enclosure came & made

A parish slave of me

Alas dependence thou’rt a brute

Want only understands

His feelings wither branch & root

That falls in parish hands

Addendum

What of letter writing & formality,

Using the goose and common trope?

A case study:

A letter sent to the Marquess of Anglesey:

‘Where is now the degree of virtue which can withstand interest? …

Should a poor man take one of Your sheep from the common, his life would be forfeited by law. But should You take the common from a hundred poor mens sheep, the law gives no redress. The poor man is liable to be hung from taking from You what would supply You with a meal & You would do nothing illegal by depriving him of his subsistence; nor is Your family supplied for a day by a subtraction which distresses his for life! … Yet the causers of crimes are more guilty than the perpetrators. What must be the inference of the poor? when they see those who should be their patterns defy morality for gain, especially when, if wealth could give contentment, they had enough wherewith to be satisfied. And when the laws ae not accessible to the injured poor and Government gives them no redress.’

The Marquis replied thus:

‘Excepting as the mere fact of the Inclosure, the forming of which no one has a right to contest, All your statements are without foundation & as your language is studiously Offensive I must decline any further communication with you.’

‘The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

But leaves the greater villain loose

Who steals the common off the goose.

The law demands that we atone

When we take things we do not own

But leaves the lords and ladies fine

Who take things that are yours and mine.’

For anyone for whom John Clare is a new discovery:

and

 

The Lonely Tree

With thanks to Bob Fry

Edited letter from Henry Burgh, Justice of the Peace,

to the Home Secretary, Lord John Russell, M.P. for Stroud:

‘Rodborough, March 29th, 1839, 6p.m.

My Lord I acknowledge receipt of Your Lordship’s Directions this morning.

I have taken measures to have them put into Execution.

Some of the Chartists came to Stroud yesterday Evening,

and today about quarter past two about 500 marched

up Rodborough Hill by my house with 9 Flags

and a strange Band of Musick…

I have stopped the Beer Shops and Publick Houses…

There are several policemen placed…’

‘Did you see any of that, Beech Tree?

Did you hear any of that, Beech Tree?

Did you hear the huzzahs for the Chartists?

And the catcalls for Lord John Russell?

Did you hear the Chartists’ Six Points,

And the declamation of the People’s Charter?

Did you see those famous national Chartist leaders:

The charismatic Henry Vincent

And the Botany Bay bound John Frost,

Up there on the horse drawn wagon,

That served as hustings for the disenfranchised?’

‘I came into this world on March 29th, 1839,

Stirred into life about two o’clock in the afternoon

By that march of hundreds of Chartists

Campaigning for the vote for working people.

It wasn’t just the light that summoned me

From my sheltered subterranean home,

It was curiosity and affinity too.

And here I have stood since then,

Offering shelter and succour and shade

To one and all,

Regardless of birth, origins, status,

Identity, orientation, gender, race or ability;

A tree that stood on a common,

That sprang to life one early Victorian spring,

Called from the earth by the tramp of hundreds,

And a sympathy for their aspirations,

Growing stronger through the centuries,

Springtide sap rising with democracy.

But don’t call me the Lonely Tree.

For just like the sycamore of the Tolpuddle Martyrs,

I am a tree of the commons and the commoners.

I am anything but a Lonely Tree.

Only those without a knowledge of this history

Could call me a Lonely Lonesome Tree.

I am a tree of the People.

I am the tree of the Commons.

I am the Commoners’ Tree.’

Homelessness

Homelessness

            Cast your mind back to the turn of the year:

‘Merry Christmas’, ‘Season’s Greetings’, ‘Happy New Year’ …

And Ben and Bexie in the doorway at Peacock’s

In their sleeping bags with books and a chess set

In the incessant torrents of December;

It was Ben and Bexie who galvanised me

As I faced the welter of Christmas charity appeals;

I didn’t know where to contribute – so many!

And as someone brought up on the adage,

‘Parity not Charity’,

I’ve always felt ambivalent about charity:

Patching up the status quo and all that,

But as William Blake said,

You can see the world in a grain of sand,

So, you can be charitable at the micro level

While keeping your eye on the ball the rich are having …

But I was also brought up in a Christian manner,

So here comes Corinthians 13.13,

The Three Divine Virtues,

Faith, Hope and Charity:

‘And now abideth faith, hope, charity,

these three; but the greatest of these is charity.’

And so here I am and so here we are,

Hoping to offer practical and financial support

To the Blue Lantern Project:

Sustainable, temporary living accommodation

For the homeless …

But, for the moment, let’s go back to Ben and Bexie,

As the personification of homelessness,

With the image of a modern-day Scrooge

Before his agonised redemption,

Looking, perhaps, like Suella Braverman:

‘Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?’

So, what did ‘Happy New Year’ and ‘Merry Christmas’

Mean to Ben and Bexie?

To answer this, let’s pursue a few synonyms

On our journey through the streets to redemption:

Homeless: unhoused – houseless – uncared for – displaced – dispossessed – outcast – unsettled – vagrant – vagabond – itinerant –

Notice how the last three shades of meaning

Morph not just into Victorian values of self-help

But, also, contemporary shades of meaning:

Remember that Tory cant about ‘crap parents’,

And as though homelessness were a lifestyle choice …

Vagrant – vagabond – itinerant –

So much of the reality of modernity

Is elided with those three words

As we shall see at the end of this presentation.

Now a few synonyms for wealth:

Riches – fortune – prosperity – affluence – property – substance – possessions

Now a few synonyms for inequality and injustice:

Disparity – unbalance – disproportion – unevenness – irregularity –

Wrong – unfair – disservice – offence – insult – injury – inequity – indignity – affront – unjust

Unhappy New Year!

Sadness – sorrow – grief – gloom – desperation – despondence – forlornness – misery – despair – distress – anguish – pain – mournfulness – dejection – depression – melancholy – hopelessness – pessimism – joylessness – wretchedness – dolefulness – weariness –

The man in the Black Dog film sleeping rough

In the tent beneath the railway bridge

In Gloucester before he was flooded out

Further broadened my horizons with this:

‘When you sleep in the streets, the streets become your home.’

Think of that when you next nestle down

At your real or metaphorical hearth –

Hearth – residence – dwelling – root – roof – shelter –

Security – protection – safeguarded –

Of course, you have none of those when you sleep rough.

Now the Church of England was once nicknamed

‘The Tory Party at prayer’.

And I suppose people with a belief

In self-help, competitive individualism,

A low-tax perception of the State as a Nanny,

And the perception of sleeping in a tent by a floodtide river

As a ‘lifestyle choice’

Might support the Office for National Statistics

In its proposal to drop the publication

Of the deaths of homeless persons

(741 in 2021)

With talk of – and I unironically quote here –

‘an improved and more efficient health and social care landscape’ –

What on earth does that mean, for God’s sake?

Meanwhile, in the real world away from that disingenuousness,

Nearly 75,000 single-parent households

Face the threat of eviction this winter,

According to Shelter’s statistical analysis,

What with falling behind with the rent and/or no-fault evictions:

The lack of ‘genuinely affordable’ social housing

Results in a supply-demand imbalance,

With competition for a roof driving up rents;

A few more stats:

1.5 million properties

Lie vacant at the moment

In England and Wales;

Nearly 275,000 people

Are recorded as homeless in England;

Think back to that long list of synonyms,

And now reflect on the fundamentals of that lexicon:

Wealth, poverty, inequality, injustice,

And reflect upon the hyper-normalisation of homelessness,

Of people sleeping in the streets and shop doorways,

Like some twenty-first century Gustav Dore engraving,

And now let’s try to translate our thoughts into action:

Together we can make a difference

As we see the world in a grain of sand,

Or in a shop doorway at Peacock’s in Stroud.

Thank-you.

Blue Lantern Pilot Project for the Homeless

Having lived and advocated in the homeless environments in the City of Gloucester, the ambition is to produce a safe and warm environment and to live without fear within our own home. For all those that are not experiencing a home, young or old, able bodied or not, right minded or not, this will be a home welcoming to all.

I personally believe we have to start somewhere and the Pilot Project is exactly that: a start with a goal to produce a temporary, transportable self-sustainable home with the wrap-around services of a community; welcoming to the homeless with the benefit of such a home and also contributing to the community where it sits.

It can then be replaced in time by a sustainable permanent structure to suit the needs of the individual and the community.

The unit exists on paper and similar units are in production now and used in various forms for the homeless.

The other moving parts to create the sustainable aspects exist today, I’m not proposing inventing the wheel, the spokes just need to be put together to create the wheel.

Steve Gower

BENEFIT GIG up The Prince Albert Saturday March 2nd 7.30

Donation details on The Prince Albert website

 

Randwick 1832 Experiment

FACTS

 

SUBMITTED TO THE SYMPATHY OF THE PUBLIC

WITH A VIEW TO CALL THEIR ATTENTION TO AN EFFORT THAT IS BEING

MADE ON BEHALF OF

 

THE DISTRESSED WEAVERS,

 

AT RANDWICK,

 

Near STROUD, Gloucestershire

 

IN A SERIES OF LETTERS WRITTEN ON THE SPOT

 

BY AN EYE-WITNESS

 

PRICE. THREEPENCE.

 

The whole of the Profits of this little publication will be given in aid of the

object it refers to.

SECOND EDITION.

 

 

TO WHICH IS ADDED ON

 

A statement of the rate at which the idle time of the Poor is exchanged, for

the blessings of Food and Raiment, by which personal decency is

promoted, and immorality checked.

 

 

 

 

Devonport:

 

  1. BYERS, PRINTER TO HIS MAJESTY, FORE-STREET.

1832

The following papers have been put into my hands by a lady, who was an eye-witness of the facts therein stated, I trust they may not be deemed unworthy the perusal of the public, as affording an affecting specimen of the beneficial results of Christian energies, judiciously exerted in relieving the distress, and ameliorating the condition of the Working Classes. Mr. G. to whom the suffering manufacturers of Randwick are indebted, for thus checking the accumulation of their miseries, is the person whose benevolent heart has for several years been exercised in promoting means for the moral improvement of the Poor; and who, with his sister, (influenced by the same feeling) have but recently taken up their abode at that village, and are in no other manner connected with the neighbourhood.

JOSEPH TROUNSELL 

Trafalgar-place, Stoke, Devenport,

           March 1st, 1832

 

———————————

Extracts from Letters written at Randwick, near Stroud, in Gloucestershire, during the month of February 1832.

                                                    ———————————–

“Mr. and Miss G. removed into the parish of Randwick, about six weeks ago. Being told there were many poor persons in the neighbourhood, they prepared themselves with a quantity of clothing, flannel belts &c. that they might be ready for the dreaded Cholera. The great mass of misery that met them the moment they exerted themselves, was quite overwhelming! Starvation threatened the village. As labour was unattainable, and the parish-officers wholly unable to meet the increasing demands for money, not a night passed without the occurrence of some robbery, and war seemed to be declared against property under all its forms. The men wandered about in a state of desperation: thirty of them were collected together on a green ready for any kind of mischief, when Mr G.- was requested to go and speak to them; he did so immediately – listened to all their sorrows, went home and spoke to their wives and children, who were in rags and misery. Having always considered that giving to the poor ruins entirely the independent spirit of man, he then proposed to them, that having nothing to do, they should work on the roads, and have some article of clothing in payment. The misery the men had experienced from being idle, led them to accept the proposal with joy, and the provision of calico and gingham was soon distributed to their wives, one of the most notable of whom sat up the whole night, and the next time Mr. G. came to the place, shewed him three little girls looking as neat as possible, in new frocks and pinafores. When the husband came home, who had been absent two days, seeking work, and saw his children so changed in appearance, he burst into tears, and though generally considered a hardened desperate man, his emotions of gratitude when he saw Mr. G. were deeply affecting. The number of applicants for work increased every hour, but they could offer nothing but their hands, as tools of every description had disappeared, either for rent or food. The first thing Mr. G. did was to buy a quantity of rakes, spades, hammers, and wheelbarrows. He then proceeded to organize his little band, choosing an old soldier for an overseer, and also a man who could keep regular accounts of the names and families of the men; how many days they worked; and the article of clothing they most stood in need of. Nothing now remained but to determine what they should do.

“The path to the Church and Sunday-School was first put into beautiful order, and last Monday, the whole gang, consisting of fifty men and boys, were set to mend a road of a mile-and-half long, leading to the house of a gentleman, who has been very benevolent to the poor. All this has been repaired without a single penny being paid, or one drop of beer drank. While Mr. G. was cheering the men on the road, Miss G. paid to the wives in clothing, the wages they had earned, promoting the men’s industry by allowing their wives to earn what they could by needle-work. Dozens of shirts, shifts, &c. are now before me, nicely made and ready for distribution; besides which these men have been supplied with potatoes to keep their families. Not one penny goes into any one’s hands, but every thing is paid either in potatoes or clothes: by this means drunkenness, as well as every kind of extravagance, is prevented. The change already in the people is really surprising: – they look so happy, feel such confidence in their benefactor, and testify such a high sense of honour, that they are really more watchful over every one of his tools, than he would be himself. – Last night two men volunteered to sit up, after a hard day’s work, to watch the tools, as they could not be put under lock and key.

“A.’s was the first money our friends have received for this noble undertaking: -they have asked no one’s assistance, and no one’s counsel but the Lord’s, and He has given them such a blessing as must be witnessed to be understood. There is such a self-evident beauty in the work that it is impossible it should not go on, and I trust God will put it into the hearts of those who have money, to help such “cunning workmen” in His school of charity,

I must not omit to say, that a copper of soup is made every week, so that any sick or nursing mother may have a good meal. I could write you sheets of most interesting details; one man and his wife have been set to weave flannel, and they are paid in calico and gingham. Another man has had his loom taken out of pawn, and is to weave cloth for jackets, &c. There is a carpenter, a stonemason, a gardener, a shoemaker, and a tailor, in the party, and each man who has a trade, is restored to his usual work, receiving the same payment as the others. The party to-night amounted to ninety-five, and the expenses of all that has yet been done do not exceed one hundred pounds!! So immense has been the good produced more by mind than money. – What would I give for some of the riches of T-. This is indeed a true “Reform,” as the men said themselves. Miss G. intends that in the evening when the work is done, and the men drawn up in order to deliver their tools, they shall sing with one heart and voice, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” – The chief singer of the chapel is to lead them, and I cannot tell you what a favour I feel it to work for so glorious a cause, and I am thankful I have seen what I shall never forget.”

 

From the same.

 

“Yesterday I had the extreme pleasure of witnessing eighty men and boys hard at work, mending a road, each with some new garment, and a dinner of potatoes, looking as happy as possible, who only a week before were ready for burning and every outrage; begging to earn a penny for their wives, and not a day’s work to be had. This room except our occupied chairs, is full of shirts, shifts, and petticoats. I wish M. had heard him lecture a great girl who came with a crowd to beg work, and a little brother dropping with rags. So Miss was packed off to make her brother tidy first, and in a few hours she brought him with every hole mended. The men went to work yesterday in a roar of laughter, for Mr. G. had established one of the party hair-cutter to the rest: every boy had his hair cut yesterday, and the men will today. I helped Miss G. supply fifty women with work. Oh, for money to help such charity!! Mr. G. never gives a garment without taking the old one, which is immediately burnt. He means to establish in the village a public kitchen, where wholesome soup of meat and vegetables will be made at the least possible expense, and a large tub of water and soap will be always ready, that every poor object, stranger or inhabitant, shall have a good meal, and go away clean. A most respectable woman is hired for this purpose, who will always be on the spot. Mr. G. refuses no man that will work, and I never saw him so gloriously employed. God’s light in him is so shewing itself to the world, that I believe hundreds will glorify our Father for the works he has been led to do. M.’s money came most opportunely, for though Mr. G.’s work goes on, his poor men, have now increased to a hundred and fifty; and as he keeps them on potatoes while they work, of course this requires money. Miss G. put the last of her charity purse into his hand to-day, and began to feel rather discouraged from no help appearing from others, but I told her that I was sure that some would come, and M.’s money fully justified my sanguine feeling.

“It is the most complete scheme I ever witnessed, and calls for every effort of mind and body to keep and organize such a number of poor fellows. Mr. G. is with his men at seven, and for the last three days has had nothing from that time till six at tea. The “meat that many know not” of, sustains this blessed follower of Him who went about doing good.” It is a brilliant exhibition of God’s inward power. Mr. G’s great object is to get his men neat to go to church, for many of the poor creatures had hid themselves in a wood to escape observation. Last Sunday I saw many in their new clothes, who had not been there for months, and we expect more next Sunday, as several smock-frocks have been worked for this week. On Wednesday I assisted in singing the verse, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow:” it was deeply interesting and affecting. After they had repaired the road to the church and the gentleman’s house, the wells were made easy of access, that the old women may fetch water without trouble, and the little paths to their cottages were mended. I went to a miserable place which all the poor must pass with their funerals, where there was such a swamp, that their feet must have been wet through before they arrived at the Church; this is now made a nice dry path, on Mr. Mc.’Adam’s plan. On this ground I heard a poor fellow beg to be taken into Mr. G‘s service, though he must have walked four miles for the purpose. Yesterday I witnessed a scene I should like to draw: – Mr. G. put his band of boys into a beautiful quarry, where they were to break stones. The hammers certainly flew faster when Mr. G-appeared, but they were as happy as possible, spending their tempers on the stones instead of their hungry parents. I went alone into some cottages yesterday; one family had only 1s.6d. a week. A man told me, from the scarcity of work, he rarely tasted any thing but bread, and not often at that. I then found a poor cripple crying from exhaustion, at four o’clock, not having tasted any thing for the day. The parish only allowed her sixpence weekly. Her wretched worn face bore marks of protracted suffering. I could not rest until she was supplied by Miss G. with a plentiful supply of soup for many days. This is poverty indeed!

From the same.

“What misery has been before me to-day, while receiving the work from Miss G.’s women; one who had five children and a sick husband, had only 4s.6d.a week; a man has just left me with actually only trousers and a waistcoat, not another rag; another woman with one arm, and clothes scarcely hanging together, is allowed nothing.

“I never heard such tales of abject suffering in my life; and every unnecessary morsel is quite an offence; my heart sickens at the sight of such real misery. Yesterday I went to a Weaver, who with a wife and five children exist on 4s. 6d. a week. The man looked both hungry and despairing at me, and his wretched hollow cheeks made me feel my very clothes a reproach. In the next cottage an old pair, broken down with want and age, had only one shilling a week. Still if more money comes, no one can possibly be more effectual in relieving this misery on less than Mr. G-. Any improvement for the general good that his head workman proposes, he allows, but nothing of any private venture whatsoever. Yesterday one of the men asked Miss G- to keep him as her gardener, but she told him that it was only by having the fewest possible servants themselves that they could serve others. “Well,” he said, “as long as I live and you live, your garden shall be kept in order, for I will come to it early and late.” As weaving has hitherto been their only employment, I set out yesterday, with a large bag of needles, and worsted to teach knitting, as all the stockings to be worn by the men are to be made by the women. Some nice girls learnt quickly, and ran off delighted, with extra needles to teach another, a charge given to each; and to-day I have given Miss G- a list of forty knitters.

One of my pupils is a poor cripple, who made my heart ache – he cannot stand, and lies awake at night, crying with pain from a wound in his back; he looked at me with such a countenance of misery, as quite overcame me. “Ma’am” he said, “I have nothing to cover me but what you see;” and he was in rags, shivering with cold, not having a bit of flannel about him. Under his stool, by the wretched chimney, sat a little dog, who never leaves his suffering master, and he said, “I would even sell my dog to buy something to keep me from the cold, though I have had it so long. I then looked at his bed, and never did I see such a nest for infection and disease. I did not leave him till he could knit well, and his beaming smile paid me tenfold for all the dirt that in any other cause would have made me sick and afraid. Miss G. supplied me with a shirt, &c. for him, and I have seen him again today, he looked so happy, having knit a great bit for me; the very occupation had done him good. He has since taught many women, and the prospect of making himself a pair of stockings quite delights him.

From the same.

“As all cottagers’ gardens have gone to ruin for want of tools, &c., Mr. G. wishes as soon as his resources will allow it, to have them all put in order, and he intends being a partner with each man in the produce of his garden, which he will stock with useful herbs and vegetables; by this means he will have a right to visit the gardens, watch over the people, cheer them at their labours, and lead them to beg the Divine blessing on the right employment of every leisure hour.

“A few days ago, as Mr. G. was going through  the Churchyard, a woman told him he was the most blessed Gentleman that ever was, and that it never could be told the misery he had saved her from, for her two boys would surely have been in Gloucester jail if he had not taken hold of them, and made them earn some decent garments; – that for some time they had been ashamed to be out in the day time, and therefore stole out as soon as it was dark, and she was quite sure that hunger would have led them to robbery and every kind of sin, “ – they are two fine boys, and now very industrious. I must tell you that the congregation at the Church is nearly double; and the Methodist Chapel is full to overflowing.

“Oh! that means could be adopted for setting these industrious fellows to work in their own way – in manufacturing blankets, flannel, and serge, for the use of the poor in different parts of the country, who will, probably, next winter, be half perished with cold for want of these essential articles. J.G. tells me that an order for £200 worth would be an immediate blessing to these poor people.

“I am happy to add that a gentleman of moderate landed property near us, has been so struck with the happy results of Mr. G.’s practical benevolence, that he immediately placed six acres of land under his direction, to cultivate potatoes for next winter, where I have just had the satisfaction of seeing some of the men employed in using the breast plough in turning up the ground.”

 

Conditions on which a Labouring Man may have Employment.

Food.

A Basket of Potatoes, for one day’s work.            For 2 days, Pinafore for a Girl.

Six Quarts of Soup, for one ditto,                                  2 ditto, Flannel Petticoat.

one quart to be delivered daily to his wife.                 1 ditto, Leather Cap.

Clothing.                                               6,7, or 8 ditto, Pair of high Boots for a child.

For 8 day’s work, a Sunday Hat.                                   2 ditto, Worsted Stockings.

3 ditto, calico for a Sunday Shirt.            14 ditto, Sunday Jacket and Trowsers.

1 ditto, a large coloured Neck  Handkerchief. 5 Gingham for a Girl’s   frock.

12 ditto, Pair of excellent Shoes.

                                                                                                       House.

4 ditto, Pair of knitted worsted Stockings. 18 days, A good single Bedstead.

12 ditto, Sunday Waistcoat.                                   6 ditto, Three Straw Mattresses.

30 ditto,                Coat.                                                      5 ditto, A Blanket.

15 ditto,                Trowsers.                          12, 14, or 18 ditto, A Pair of ditto.

13 ditto,                Breeches.                                         7 ditto, Rug Cover for the Bed.

6,7, or 8 ditto, A workman’s Smock-Frock.    6 ditto, One Pair of                                                                                              strong warm Sheets

according to length.

3 ditto, A common round Hat.                      Tools, &c. for the                                                                                                                           Labour on Land.

6 ditto, Russia-Duck Trowsers.                                         6 days for a Pickaxe.

1 ditto, Flannel Belt.                                                           4 ditto,         Spade.

4 ditto, under Waistcoat.                                                   5 ditto,        broad Shovel.

6 ditto, A working Waistcoat.                                            4 days for a Rake.

When the Man works for his Wife and Children,       15 ”      Wheelbarrow.

he may have.                                                                            ditto,        Hoe.

For 8 day’s A Pair of Women’s Shoes.                                  ditto,        Grubber.

2 ditto, Cloth for a Shift.                               1 ditto,        A Packet of Garden Seeds.

2 ditto, Stockings.                                          1 ditto, for the loan of Garden Tools

for a week.

1 ditto, Neck-kerchief.

3 ditto, Flannel Petticoat.                                   ditto, One Cwt. of Coals, delivered

ditto. Upper  ditto                                                                            at Ebley.

6 ditto, Gingham Gown and Lining.

1 ditto, Cap.

8 ditto, Straw Bonnet.                                                                      Books of Religion.

14 ditto Duffle Cloak.                                                                      For 8 days, A Bible.

2 ditto, Child’s Shift Cloth.                                                             3 ditto, Prayer Book.

2 ditto,              Shirt Cloth.                                                             3 ditto, Testament.

4 ditto, Pinafore for Boy, made up.                                            3 ditto, Hymn Book

 

No. 1 – The Labourer may give the number of Days with intervals, as it may best suit with his other engagements, – the sole object being the profitable employment of his idle time.

No. 2 – The sample of each thing to be made to be shown to the Men before the engagement of work is made.

No. 3 – Nothing to be delivered till three Days after they are earned.

No. 4 – As it is wished that every Person in the Village should have his or her hair in a decent form, a Hair-Cutter is employed to go from House to House for this purpose.

 

Any aid that may be kindly contributed towards the foregoing object, will be received by Mr. BYERS, Bookseller, Devonport; or HARVEY and DARTON, Booksellers, Gracechurch-Street, London.

 

We thank the Stroud District (Cowle) Museum Service for giving us permission to make  a transcript of the document that follows. Copyright resides with the Stroud District (Cowle) Museum Service. Thanks also to Alice Butler for making the transcriptions.
TO THE UNEMPLOYED LABOURERS OF RANDWICK & THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.

My good Friends,
As the plan which has been pursued among you for the last six weeks is entirely new, and as few even among those who have been most benefitted, could explain it to an enquirer, I have determined to give you a printed letter, which you can first read yourselves, and then lead to any one who may want to know what Christian work Mr. GREAVES is about.
You may remember we came amongst you early in December, when we found almost the whole neighbourhood in a state of physical want, and moral degradation, such as I shall not attempt to describe, neither shall I say how much of this was the necessary consequence of waste, extravagance, and profligacy. When times were good, I fear you never thanked God for then present mercies, but perhaps like the prodigal, you wasted your substance in riotous living, so when hard times came, you were not prepared to meet them. The depth of your misery then, we fear, is attributable to yourselves; but as your merciful God and Saviour will not that any of his children should want the absolute necessaries of life, so he stirred up his faithful Ministers to make an earnest appeal to him in behalf of those who thus suffered, and it is in answer to their prayers, that this plan was put into my mind, and that sufficient energy was given, to try the execution of it; to God then and to God alone, belongs all the glory for whatever good has been done, or evil prevented; so love and praise Him all ye people. When I first met you assembled on the Camp Green, you were almost famishing, without any decent apparel to go forth in search of work; you were idling not from choice it is true, but this idleness added greatly to your misery; you were completely wretched, and none seemed at hand to help you. You asked me to furnish you some occupation by which you might get food for your suffering wives, and crying children; but having neither land nor money of my own, I thought it were impossible to relieve so great a multitude; we had already laid our as much as we could spare, in materials intended for clothing, purporting to give them you by degrees; but your wants were so urgent that you offered to work for them immediately, – I consented to this, and promised that every man should be supplied in exchange for time (he could have done worse with than lose it) with potatoes almost sufficient to feed his family, and that the surplus value of his labour should be paid in excellent articles of clothing. Numbers came to me, and your neighbours, hearing there was corn in Egypt, came to earn a portion also, but none of you had any tools, so I was obliged to purchase considerable stock. I set you to a labour for the public good, and you did so cheerfully in the highways and byways as sons of the soil, seeing clearly enough that you would derive even more benefit from this than the rich; they have not to fetch water, and they can ride over a bad road, while poor men and women must walk, winter and summer, over rough stones, through mire and clay, or up and down such steep ways as are dangerous to the infirm, the aged, and the children. Six weeks hard labour, with only potatoes for your food, and not a drop of fermented liquor of any kind, has somewhat changed your neighbourhood and yourselves; and many among you now come into the house of God, wearing the appearance of decent, healthy, happy labourers. My plan has not quite satisfied the Parish Officers, as my object was not the reduction of the Poor Rates, but to relieve the poor themselves. I therefore firmly insisted that your small allowances should be continued to you, even while you were working under my direction, but if we live until next Winter, I trust and hope, the Parish will have its full share of benefit from all we are doing. Another objection has also been made, which is that the advantages of working on this plan, are sufficiently great to make you careless, and even reluctant to seek work elsewhere; this inured me to make the experiment of paying you all off, thus urging you to strive to provide for yourselves. Only a few went forth were able to get more than two or three days’ employment, and the rest pressed me most earnestly to provide them occupation a little while longer, offering again to work only for potatoes, if we cannot go on furnishing them with clothes: but I doubt not the Giver of our mercies will enable us to do this, and thus to fulfil that sacred duty which as a God of love he has imposed upon us.
And now my good friends I finish in the words of the holy men of old, – “O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together, for he has regarded the poor when he cried, the fatherless, and him that had none to help him.”
I am, in the bond of universal love, Your Christian brother,
Randwick, Gloucestershire March 18th, 1832

Personal Decency promoted, AND IMMORALITY CHECKED,

Exchanging Men’s idle time for the Blessings of Food and Raiment. Randwick 1832.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Conditions on which a Labouring Man may have Employment.

Food.

A Basket of Potatoes, for one day’s work.            For 2 days, Pinafore for a Girl.

Six Quarts of Soup, for one ditto,                                  2 ditto, Flannel Petticoat.

one quart to be delivered daily to his wife.                 1 ditto, Leather Cap.

Clothing.                                                                6,7, or 8 ditto, Pair of high Boots for a child.

For 8 day’s work, a Sunday Hat.                                     2 ditto, Worsted Stockings.

3 ditto, calico for a Sunday Shirt.            14 ditto, Sunday Jacket and Trowsers.

1 ditto, a large coloured Neck Handkerchief.   5 ” Gingham for a girl’s Frock.

12 ditto, Pair of excellent Shoes.

                                                                                                                House.

4 ditto, Pair of knitted worsted Stockings.     18 days, A good single Bedstead.

12 ditto, Sunday Waistcoat.                                 6 ditto, Three Straw Mattresses.

30 ditto,                Coat.                                                      5 ditto, A Blanket.

15 ditto,                Trowsers.                          12, 14, or 18 ditto, A Pair of ditto.

13 ditto,                Breeches.                                        7 ditto, Rug Cover for the Bed.

6,7, or 8 , A workman’s Smock-Frock.   6 “, One Pair of strong warm Sheets

according to length.

3 ditto, A common round Hat.               Tools, &c. for the                                                                                                                             Labour on Land.

6 ditto, Russia-Duck Trowsers.                                         6 days for a Pickaxe.

1 ditto, Flannel Belt.                                                           4 ditto,         Spade.

4 ditto, under Waistcoat.                                                   5 ditto,        broad Shovel.

6 ditto, A working Waistcoat.                                            4 days for a Rake.

When the Man works for his Wife and Children,       15 ”      Wheelbarrow.

he may have.                                                                            ditto,        Hoe.

For 8 day’s A Pair of Women’s Shoes.                                  ditto,        Grubber.

2 , Cloth for a Shift.                                                      1. A Packet of Garden Seeds.

2 ditto, Stockings.                            1 ditto, for the loan of Garden Tools

1 ditto, Neck-kerchief.                                                                         for a week.

3 ditto, Flannel Petticoat.                                    ditto, One Cwt. of Coals, delivered

ditto. Upper  ditto                                                                            at Ebley.

6 ditto, Gingham Gown and Lining.

1 ditto, Cap.

8 ditto, Straw Bonnet.                                                                      Books of Religion.

14 ditto Duffle Cloak.                                                                      For 8 days, A Bible.

2 ditto, Child’s Shift Cloth.                                                             3 ditto, Prayer Book.

2 ditto,              Shirt Cloth.                                                             3 ditto, Testament.

4 ditto, Pinafore for Boy, made up.                                            3 ditto, Hymn Book
No. 1, – The Labourer may give the number of Pays with intervals, as it may best suit with his other engagements, – the sole object being the employment of his idle time in some publicly useful act.

No. 2, – The sample of each thing is to be shown to the Man before the engagement for work is made.

No. 3, – Nothing to be delivered till three Days after they are earned.
No. 4, – As it is wished that every Person in the Village should have his or her hair cut to promote external decency, a Hair-Cutter is employed to go from House to House for this purpose.

No. 5, – Not more than one Basket of Potatoes to be delivered to a single Man, and two to a married Man per Week, that they may have the more Clothing.
No. 6, – The Boys are to have a quartern of Potatoes per Day, for Stone-breaking. – Each Man after his work must claim a Randwick Token which is a round piece of Metal, impressed on one side with the words “Practiced Christianity,” and “Randwick” on the reverse.
__________________________ BUCKNALL, PRINTER, STROUDWATER LIBRARY

Charles Dickens Walk

Charles Dickens Walk

Radical Stroud will be starting their Charles Dickens series of walks on Tuesday March 19th. We shall board the 8.31 iron horse and return on the 18.34 train to Stroud. Those who wish to meet us at Paddington, if travelling from elsewhere, please try to reach the terminus by about ten o’clock.

The walk will commence at Embankment underground station and proceed along Villiers Street, John Adam Street, Buckingham Street, George Court, the Strand, Bedford Street, Maiden Lane, Southampton Street, Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, Russell Street, Bow Street, Wellington Street, the Aldwych, the Strand: with a coffee stop at Somerset House.

We shall then visit Surrey Street, before making our way to Kingsway (via the Strand and Aldwych again), then Portugal Street, Sheffield Street, Portsmouth Street, Lincoln Inn’s Fields, Serle Street, Carey Street, Chancery Lane, Fleet Street, Clifford Inn’s Passage, Fetter Lane, Hen and Chickens Court, Johnson’s Court, Wine Office Court and then Ye Old Cheshire Cheese Public House for victuals and whatever takes your fancy.

We then process through Shoe Lane and St Andrew’s Street up to Holborn Circus. We then make our way via New Fetter Lane and Fetter Lane past the site of Barnard’s Inn to Staple Inn Square. We cross High Holborn, Gray’s Inn Road, and then turn into Warwick Close and then Gray’s Inn. We then walk towards the site of Furnival’s Inn to cross Theobald’s Road, before finding John Street and then the Dickens House Museum in Doughty Street.

 

After our visit and study there, the Dickensian Pilgrims might wish to write up their thoughts and observations for Ye Radical Stroude Gazette or visit the Cittie of Yorke Public House or make their way to the River Thames before once more congregating at Paddington.

 

Here’s Dickens, From The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices.1857; it’s not about Paddington but it certainly captures the atmosphere of a busy railway station.

 

‘It was a Junction-Station, where the wooden razors … shaved the air very often, and where the sharp electric-telegraph bell was in a very restless condition. All manner of cross-lines came zig-zagging into it … and, a little way out of it, a pointsman in an elevated signal-box was constantly going through the motions of drawing immense quantities of beer at a public-house bar. In one direction, confused quantities of embankments and arches … in the other, the rails soon disentangled themselves into two tracks, and shot away under a bridge and curved round a corner. Sidings were there, in which empty luggage vans and cattle-boxes often butted against each other … and warehouses were there… Refreshment-rooms were there; one, for the hungry and thirsty Iron Locomotives where their coke and water were ready … the other, for the hungry and thirsty humans … who might take what they could get…’

Festival of Terminalia

Tuesday February 20th

Radical Stroud intend to contribute to the Festival of Terminalia with a visit to Bath and John Thelwall’s gravestone. We shall then recreate the events of Citizen John’s last lecture and his death as we slip down wormholes of time. This Terminalia Festival walk will follow in the wake of literary, historical and political topographers – in the words of Lee Jackson in Dickensland, “Literary tourism has itself been described as ‘necromanticism’ – a ghostly communion with the dead author and their work – the real world haunted by the ghosts of fiction.’

Meet outside the main door of Bath Abbey at 11.30. We shall then walk to Walcot Churchyard; thence to the site of the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution (no longer there, destroyed in the Bath Blitz of 1942, but it was near the Parade Gardens, Manvers and Pierrepont Streets.). This is where Thelwall gave his final lecture. The next part of the walk will take an additional 35 minutes or so: we then saunter up Sion Hill to Winifred House, the school & home of his regular host in Bath, the Rev. William Hutchins (bombed in WW2; now Bath Spa University).

This final lecture happened in late February 1834. Thelwall died, not quite seventy, on the night following this last lecture. Professor Judith Asta Thompson comments: ‘In his youth he had made a deal with his friend, Dr. Astley Cooper, that he would let him have his heart for scientific purposes (Thelwall’s heart beat so loud that it could be heard by passers-by in the street). This seems not to have happened. Maybe you can still hear it …’

The theme of this year’s Terminalia Festival btw is ‘Time’…

TERMINALIA WALK COMPLETED:

Our peripatetic faithfully followed the words of Professor Judith Asta Thompson and we were also delighted to have a guest appearance from Steve Poole, Chair of the John Thelwall Society.

From Professor Judith Asta Thompson:

If you want to recreate it (I didn’t have time last year but will return one day to do so)… he gave his final lecture at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution on February 17 or 18, 1834 (no longer there, destroyed in the Bath Blitz of 1942, but it was downtown near the Parade Gardens, Manvers and Pierrepont Sts.). The lecture (one of his regular series on “Oratory and Elocution of the Bar, Pulpit and Senate, illustrated by appropriate Readings and Recitations; and by sketches, critical, characteristic and biographical”) started at 2 p.m. and ran for the usual 2 hours.

Afterwards (I expect he had dinner with friends first) he headed up Sion Hill to Winifred House, the school & home of his regular host in Bath, the Rev. William Hutchins (another victim of the Bath Blitz, it is now Bath Spa University, fittingly!) Google tells me it’s a 35-minute walk, and it must have been lovely. In my vignette, his friends urge him to take a sedan- or bath-chair (he’d had a fall in 1830), but with his usual peripatetic stubbornness, he insists he is perfectly capable of walking, and uses the occasion to think over his life’s journey. Later, in the dead of night, he stirs, then dies of “some affection of the heart.”  He was not quite 70.

 

In his youth he had made a deal with his friend, Dr. Astley Cooper, that he would let him have his heart for scientific purposes (Thelwall’s heart beat so loud that it could be heard by passers-by in the street). This seems not to have happened. Maybe you can still hear it …

 

I will be there in spirit …

Haunted by the words of his Night Walk (which is more easily accessible in my edition under its full title: “The Star that Shone when Other Stars were Dim. A Night-Walk in the Vicinity of Whitehall.”) But it is attached in full. I have just read it again, and I find it more moving every time, the older I get, and the darker and more glaringly gaslit is the world that surrounds us. How I long to hear even a bit from it, in your voice, bringing it to life.

 

If it were me, it would be that last few lines

 

for know

“Tho now oppression urge its meteor car                                       100

“Triumphant in a dazzled sphere below,

“Earth hath its Mina still, & Heaven its star:

“And they shall shine, & spread their glorious light,

“Victorious o’er the envious shades of night,

“When in primeval gloom extinct shall lie

“Those earth-deluding lamps that vauntful now

“Appear to merge all lustre in their brow.

“Nor think that, tho to the deluded sight

“One star alone of all the expanse seem bright,

“That all beside is dim. Thy way pursue                                         110

“As meditation leads; leaving behind

“This sense-confounding glare; & thou shalt find

“(The free horison opening to thy view)

“That not in isolated splendour I

“Maintain the regency of this deep sky,

“Nor solitary, tho transcending, he—

“The earth-star of fair freedom’s galaxy.

“A thousand & a thousand spirits still

“(Tho not the dazzled optic hence descry

“Their watchful fires) hover o’er stream & hill                               120

“Of gloom’d Iberia; & their light shall fill

“Even yet again the horizon, & re-shine

“(When fade the baser fires—as fade they will!)—

“In constellated glory round the shrine

“Of Liberty, eternal & divine!

“And Mina, with a patriot’s joy, shall own—

“Tho hail’d her brightest star, he shines not all alone.

 

I realize that even that bit is ridiculously long-winded (as of course he always was, and me too). But it and the whole thing brings tears into my eyes, as he faces old age (only 61 but hey, it was 1825) and walks “down into darkness / On extended wings” (to quote another of my favourite atheist poems, by Wallace Stevens), refusing to take the turn to religion made by so many of his erstwhile friends, but still holding on to his values, and pursuing his way.

 

What you are doing resonates with what I am, on a very benign, bright, snowless but cold winter day in my study. Just finishing one of the last paragraphs in ch 18 The Institution (which is too long and has taken far far far too long to finish, and I vow it must be done before we leave on Feb 5) in which I talk about his therapeutic prosody and pedagogy, which Julia Carlson aptly calls “therapoetics”, and which does the same thing. It is profoundly democratic (based in nature and the animal body, the common heritage of all) and activist (aiming to rouse intellectual energies and multiply national resources, by nourishing, liberating, empowering independence in living reader-speakers in collaboration with dead authors, to reanimate their words and the world). So what you are doing there is EXACTLY what his students did, not only in his Institution, but around the world (where copies of his Selections remain, marked up by his students to recreate his revolutionary voice, and energies in themselves.)

WE PLAN TO MAKE THIS AN ANNUAL EVENT ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF JOHN THELWALL’S DEATH ON FEBRUARY 17

 

Stroud Streets Walk Sunday January 21st

Some of us at Radical Stroud are giving whole hearted support to the Blue Lantern Homeless Project (led by Steve Gower of the Black Dog documentary film about homelessness). The project aims to develop sustainable temporary living accommodation for the homeless. If you fancy a walk around Stroud’s streets to discuss the history of homelessness, council and social housing; the problems of the present day and possible solutions … then we meet at the canal bridge at Wallbridge at 10.30 on Sunday January 21st. The walk will be on the level towards Paganhill along the canal and then return to town with an ascent to the old workhouse at Stone Manor. Free – but please feel free to make contributions on the day to the project or via a link that will be provided.

Fingers crossed that this does the job: just copy and paste:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-blue-lantern-homeless-pilot-project?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer

 

 

Randwick Talk Thursday January 25th

.A presentation looking at the radical history of Stroud and the local villages in the 18th and early 19th centuries with a brief look at the links between local and global history. There will also be a focus on the ‘Was Great Britain close to revolution?’ question, looking at the period from the French Revolution to the 1832 Reform Act. These contexts will then lead to a focus on the tantalising seemingly utopian experiment in Randwick in 1832. All will be revealed at Randwick Village Hall on Thursday January 25th at 7.30. £5 cash entry: cake for that as well as an hour from me.