A MISCELLANY OF HISTORY
A TEXTUAL WEAVING OF A CABINET OF CURIOSITIES
A TEXTUAL SAMPLER
Chapter Eight
The last chapter looked at the 1825 Riots and emigration with a particular focus upon Clay Sinclair of A People’s Republic of Stroud and coincidences worthy of Dickens and Hardy in the tales of his family’s emigration.
But we return to Fisher and Stroud in the 1830s: Shades of Dickens and Hardy in these laconic jottings from Fisher:
1833-12-06 Joseph KING robbed by two highwaymen, APPERLEY and WILKINSON, in Rodborough-lane.
1834-04-04 APPERLEY and WILKINSON, at Gloucester, transported for life for robbing Joseph KING in Rodborough-lane.
1839-05-18 A man named DALBY committed for trial for cutting a girl’s throat on Rodborough Hill.
1839-08-28 A man sold his wife at the Crown and Anchor, Stroud. She was a Miss RICHARDSON before marriage.
And in the modern idiom, two songs about the 1839 meeting on Selsley Hill of 5,000 people who met in support of the Chartists and political rights for the working class:
https://youtu.be/0_Z3xs1N0Og?si=OFKiX67mEAO7rcM
https://youtu.be/-0QGKqaNW3A?si=SMBGBP_0JDJmXP
I’ll never forget last Tuesday, even if I live to seventy.
We all woke up so excited, never eaten porridge so fast.
We put on our best blouses, aprons and hats,
The men shaved their chins, put on their caps,
Moleskin trousers and fustian waistcoats,
And out we strode into the lane.
Such a sight you never did see!
The men and women and children,
All marching in an orderly line past our cottage;
Then when we got to Stroud, we couldn’t believe our eyes:
Serpentine lines climbing up every valley side,
There must have been thousands!
All laughing and cheering, but sore determined,
To get our rights and right our wrongs;
Bread has never been so dear and wages are down,
With long hours for those who do have work;
Then there was the Tolpuddle Martyrs,
Then there was the New Poor Law and the Workhouse.
The Bible tells us to nurture each other in sickness and in health,
But the Workhouse rents us all asunder!
So it was such a joy to see them all,
See them all streaming from
Sheepscombe, Steanbridge and Slad,
Stroud, Stonehouse, Woodchester, Uley, Wotton,
The Stanleys, Selsley, Cainscross, Minchinhampton, Painswick,
Rodborough, Stonehouse, Randwick, Ruscombe, Bisley,
Nailsworth, Avening and Horsley, Bussage, Brimscombe,Thrupp;
Bands playing, music flowing, banners billowing:
‘Liberty’; ‘Equal Rights and Equal Laws’;
‘For a Nation to be Free it is Sufficient that She wills it’.
Then the banners from the Working Men’s Associations,
And the Radical Women’s Associations,
Then the handbills and placards listing our six points:
Universal Suffrage; Secret Ballot; Payment of MPs;
Abolition of the property qualification for MPs;
Equal constituencies; Annual Parliaments;
Then the speeches up there on top of the common:
‘The 6 points’; ‘Peaceably if we may, forcibly if we must’;
‘Those damnable Poor Law Bastilles are worse than prisons’;
‘May the Almighty inspire the people with vigour and energy’;
Cheers for our Chartist leaders’ names, groans for Russell’s;
Russell says we do not understand the laws of capital and wages, But, we do, my Lord. We most certainly do.
Further entries from Fisher about Chartism:
1837-11-07 Chartists met in large numbers: they demanded universal suffrage, vote by ballot, annual parliaments and payment of members.
1839-03-09 Chartist meeting in the Golden Heart bowling green. The magistrates ordered all the public houses to close at 10pm in consequence of Bradford allowing the Chartists the use of his house.
1839-03-28 Good Friday; Messrs FROST and VINCENT addressed a Chartist meeting on Rodborough Common. 1839-03-29 VINCENT addressed Chartists at the Cross.
1839-05-05 4th Regiment of Irish Dragoon Guards marched into Stroud. 1839-05-08 Mr PAULTON lectured on the Corn Laws 1839-05-10 4th Dragoon Guards left Stroud. 1839-05-14 Heavy fall of snow. 1839-05-16 Very hard frost.
1839-05-18 Arrival of the 12th Lancers at Stroud. 1839-05-21 Peaceable Chartist demonstration on Selsley Hill. 5000 present. 1839-06-12 12th Lancers exercised on Hampton Common. 1839-06-18 12th Lancers reviewed on Hampton Common. 1839-06-23 Chartist meeting on Stroud Hill addressed by VINCENT. Mr BURGH, JP, ordered all public houses to close from 7.0pm to 6.0 next morning.
1839-09-09 12th Lancers marched from Stroud to Cheltenham to a Chartist meeting, and returned to Stroud next morning. 1839-09-14 The Rev W POWELL received an anonymous letter stating that the Chartist would attend Stroud Church, which they did, and Mr POWELL preached to them on the text Psalm 27, verse 14. [Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.]
And in the modern idiom once more, a community film about that 1839 meeting on Selsley Hill:
https://youtu.be/ZNBuDqi1JWo?feature=shared
The Lonely Lonesome Tree
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.’