Author: Stuart Butler

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.

Randwick 1832 Experiment: Part Two

Early May 1784: ‘a gentleman was riding through Randwick and noticed “a crowd of people assembled around a horsepond”, where he saw ‘a man seated upon a chair.’ He thought this was a ‘ducking … for some transgression of local custom or morality.’ But this was Randwick Wap, ‘held every year on the second Monday after Easter in “Hocktide” – ‘a Whitsun festival, sometimes coinciding with May Day, a form of carnival’ with a “mock-mayoral election.”

Randwick Experiment Part Two

Notes taken from David Rollison’s

The Local origins of Modern Society Gloucestershire 1500-1800

 

Estimated Population of Gloucestershire 1550-1801

1550 approx. 75,000

1600 approx. 95,000

1712 approx. 128,000

1779 approx. 161,000

1801 Census 210, 267

 

                   Population of some Stroudwater Parishes 1551-1831

                                   1551        1603      1779      1801    1831

Eastington.                391           401        769        908     1,770

Stonehouse               468            474        759      1,412    2,469

Kings Stanley           234            728      1,257     1,434    2,438

Leonard Stanley.      439            417        512         590       942

Woodchester            200            217        792         870       885

Minchinhampton      835          1,002    4,000     3,419    5,114

Rodborough             401            259       1,481     1,658    2,141

Horsley.                   312            668       2,000      2.971   3,690

Painswick.               601           1,033    3,300.     3,150    4,099

Bisley.                     668           1,503    4,905.     4,227.   5,896

Randwick.              167             372      650.          856    1,031

Pitchcombe               43.            134        90            216       187

Stroud.                    969            1,508     4,000      5,422.   8,607

 

1756 Stroudwater Riots

 

‘Industrial rioting did not break out in Stroudwater until 1756 … The population data are remarkably consistent with what we know of the markets for Stroudwater cloth. When the markets collapsed, local populations were double what they had been fifty years earlier; and we may surmise that it was a younger population as a consequence of such rapid growth. James Wolfe’s comments in a letter from Stroudwater in 1756, that he expected to leave with many recruits from the unemployed young of the district, complements this impression of an extraordinary spurt of growth, followed by depression, followed by riots, followed by a renewal of overseas war.’

 

Randwick 1832 Revisited: Introduction

https://radicalstroud.co.uk/randwick-1832-experiment/

 

There are two chapters in this book about Randwick with interesting implications for the 1832 Randwick experiment as we shall see later…. But for the moment, a brief introduction:

 

Eric Wolf in Europe and the People without History wrote thus of Stroudwater: ‘one of the first areas in which English weavers lost their autonomy and became hired factory hands’ with ‘the onset of the industrial revolution in the valley of the Stroud’, while as regards Randwick, in particular, Rollison also pointed out how enclosure came relatively late to the village: ‘it retained arable strips and commons up to the early 19th century.’ So, we already note two reasons (one, industrial, and one, agricultural) for the notable levels of poverty in Randwick – and the consequent appearance of the Randwick experiment (as outlined in Utopia Britannica). There is a third reason to add here: the population peaked in Randwick in 1831 …

The World Turned Upside Down?

It’s interesting to see how Rollison, at times, as it were, appears to personify Randwick: ‘Randwick was a living symbol of the depths of unrespectability. It challenged pretension and it challenged prejudice. It looked at the respectable folk and found them wanting and it had an ingrained scepticism as to the legitimacy of cherished social conventions. It nurtured tricks and stratagems for bringing the mighty and would-be mighty down to earth … It included (and gave birth to) the radical side of contemporary popular culture voiced most commonly as a humorous scepticism towards all pretensions based on prescribed hierarchy, genealogy and tradition or wealth … It belongs to a universal type, authentic (as against appropriated and contrived) carnivalesque humour.’

 

The passage above can be readily placed alongside the Wikipedia entry describing Randwick Wap:

The Wap is an annual series of events during spring which culminates in a traditional procession and festival dating back to the Middle Ages. Various theories exist on how it began, although most villagers believe it was a celebration that followed the completion of building Randwick’s parish church.

The Wap was traditionally held on Low Sunday and Monday, the first Sunday and Monday after Easter. On the Sunday, the bells of the village church would be rung, a special service was held and a collection taken. On the Mon evening, a ‘Mayor’ was elected and he would be carried by chair to an ancient pool where he was immersed. Hordes would gather from far and wide including fiddle-playing and fortune-telling gipsies.[3] By the late 19th century, however, the Wap was becoming better known for its drunken revelry rather than as an ancient spectacle and it was evident that something had to be done.[4] In 1892, the church officials refused to ring the bells or hold a special collection to mark ‘Wap Sunday’ and although a mayor was elected, the Wap in its then form had run its course.[5]

The Randwick Wap was eventually revived in 1971 by the vicar Rev Niall Morrison (son of William Morrison, 1st Viscount Dunrossil) and now the festivities take place in the month of May.[6]

References[edit]

  1. ^“Parish population 2011”. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  2. ^“Randwick,Whiteshill and Randwick ward 2011”. Retrieved 30 March 2015.
  3. ^“A Respected Randwickian Writes”. Stroud News & Gloucestershire Advertiser. 11 April 1890. p. 4.
  4. ^“Wap”. Stroud News & Gloucestershire Advertiser. 2 May 1868. p. 2.
  5. ^“Randwick”. Stroud News & Gloucestershire Advertiser. 29 April 1892. p. 6.
  6. ^“It’s Roll Out the Cheeses”. Western Daily Press. 5 May 1975. p. 1.

 

Back to Rollison: he says that he ‘shall … show that Randwick was generally regarded as the poorest village in Gloucestershire, and that this perception was accurate’. He also looks at sexual behaviour in the village via ‘The case of the indiscreet landlord’ with the ‘depositions associated with a bawdy-court case in 1713 to explore and evoke the quality of social relations in this notoriously poverty-stricken clothworking village’; it is the only archival ‘clue’ he finds ‘to the kind of social irregularity associated with Randwick’s poverty’ but says this clue can be ‘confirmed as representative by similar cases in other Stroudwater parishes.’

The author then tells us about “The Lord Mayors of Randwick” – ‘a curious, calendrical festival or “revel”’ held ‘in the second week after Easter … a carnivalesque occasion …  usually seen as “reversal” of class and gender relations.’ Rollison suggests, ‘in the light of the material in the case of the indiscreet landlord, that what went on was probably more in the line of a celebration of the sorts of things that went on at Randwick all the time. It “turned the world upside down” in the sense that the celebration was insistent and public, claimed as a rightful custom against the desire of the magistrates, who tried to suppress it. But in truth it advertised only what was normal.

The next section ‘analyses “The Lord Mayor of Randwick’s Story”, which, according to a detailed account of the revels published in 1784, was used every year to usher in a week of “misrule”. Rollison comments: ‘I show that this song unmistakably embodied an historico-mythical explanation of Randwick’s poverty and expressed an ideal of egalitarian communitas – the reason for misrule and this provides us with insight into the collective political consciousness of a community … a moment … that lay on the border between older, preliterate … labour conditions and the directions taken by these traditions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.’

What evidence, you are thinking, does the author provide to justify his assertion about Randwick’s notable poverty? Well, here we go:

‘Randwick was the poorest village in the region. In 1671-2 exceptions from the Hearth Tax averaged 40 per cent in the Stroudwater valleys. At Randwick, with a population of about 450, the figure was nearer 70 per cent. In 1677 the parish was said to be unable to maintain its poor and a rate was ordered to be levied on other parishes in the Hundred to which it was attached. In 1712, Sir Robert Atkyns wrote that Randwick was “the highest charged to the Poor Rate of any parish” in Gloucestershire and ‘He also noted that more people were buried there each year than were baptised.’

By the end of the 18th century 110 families out of 206 in Randwick were dependent on weekly parish relief (the Stroudwater average was 40%; Randwick’s was 55%). ‘The Minister for Randwick reported that “The Working Classes in his parish [were] generally depressed for scarcity of employment, low wages, and payment in truck”’ … in consequence, he regretted the existence of “some insubordinate feelings fostered with association at the beershops, and by reading of inflammatory publications.”’

Now for THE CASE OF THE INDISCREET LANDLORD

Rollison comments: ‘The archives don’t generally provide much information on the social consequences of Randwick’s exemplary poverty, but glimpses are provided by a scandal which erupted in 1713.’ Mary Bennett and Lizzie Robbins of that parish visited Edward Field, ‘a magistrate near Stroud’, to inform him of a shocking event they had witnessed “on the day after Candlemas.”

They told Field that the chamber of their house “adjoyneth to a house belonging to Stephen Mills” and that Robbins saw Mills “beckon with his hand to Martha Thomas who went with him into his house.” Robbins was able to see through “the mudd wall” because of “a slitt or chink” but “turned from the said chink” for obvious reasons. Bennett took over and heard Mills command Thomas to “Lye down”. “I will not.” “Thou shalt.” More detail followed and ‘On this evidence Field considered that there was a case to answer …’ Rollison goes on to say that there was nothing unusual in this case with its ‘sexual irregularity, slander and gossipy defamation’ – this was the stuff of bawdy-courts – but what made this case unusual and exceptional was not just that it divided the village (‘high versus low’: the three women were all tenants of Mills), but also ‘ that the court officials clearly found it impossible to find a single unambiguously respectable witness … The poorest village in Gloucestershire was also its most “immoral” village.’ The author adds, ‘Randwick people almost certainly knew of their reputation with outsiders, and every year at Hocktide they celebrated their infamy.’

HOCKTIDE

Early May 1784: ‘a gentleman was riding through Randwick and noticed “a crowd of people assembled around a horsepond”, where he saw ‘a man seated upon a chair.’ He thought this was a ‘ducking … for some transgression of local custom or morality.’ But this was Randwick Wap, ‘held every year on the second Monday after Easter in “Hocktide” – ‘a Whitsun festival, sometimes coinciding with May Day, a form of carnival’ with a “mock-mayoral election.”

‘The gentleman described proceedings thus in the Gentleman’s Magazine: “One of the parish is, it seems … elected mock-mayor. He is carried with great state, colours flying, drums beating, men, women and children shouting, to a particular horse-pond, in which his worship is placed, seated in an armchair; a song is then given out line-by-line by the clerk and sung with great gravity by the surrounding crowd … the instant it is finished, the mayor breaks the peace by throwing water in the faces of his attendants. Upon which, much confusion ensues; his worship’s person is, however, considered as sacred, and he is generally the only man who escapes being thoroughly souced.”

“The rest of the day, and often the week is devoted to riot and drunkenness.”

When did this ceremony of turning ‘the world upside down’ commence? The earliest textual reference is 1703; but Samuel Rudder made these observations in his magisterial A New History of Gloucestershire in 1779: “At this place an annual revel is kept on the Monday after Low Sunday, probably the wake of the church, attended with much irregularity and intemperance, with many ridiculous circumstances in the choice of a Mayor, who is yearly elected on that day, from amongst the meanest of the people. They plead the prescriptive right of antient custom for the licence of the day, and the authority of the magistrate is not able to suppress it.

The whole parish is not estimated at more than 500l. per ann. but is very populous, chiefly inhabited by poor people employ’d in the woollen manufacture …”

Rollison points out that the 1703 reference ‘assumed’ that the ‘calendrical festival’ had medieval origins. He says that although this is ‘conjectural’, the assumption ‘is supported by’ festivals elsewhere defined by Easter’s date, and subsequent May Day, Hock Monday and Hock Tuesday revelries. Rollison goes on to say that ‘The context at Randwick, an industrial village in one of the districts where we have documentary evidence of early trade union activity, also established a plausible link between medieval carnivalesque festivals and a date that was to become the great annual festival of the Labour Movement.’

But now we move from class to gender: Hock Monday asserted patriarchy but Hock Tuesday saw gender relations turned upside down, and Rollison adds that this “survived to be the more enduring of the customs. According to the locality, it was customary for the wives – as a group – to bind or weave into the air those husbands who could be caught, and to release them only on payment of a ransom … Criticism of marital mistreatment or impropriety were formally and noisily expressed.”

So, it seems that Randwick was a transgressive sort of place … and as Rollison concluded, ‘Carnival was always in part “political”, and as such contained an implicit threat to the status quo. To take this further we shall now consider the Lord Mayor of Randwick’s Song, or “psalm”.’

 

THE WEAVERS’ SONG

When Archelus began to spin,

And ‘Pollo wrought upon a loom,

Our Trade to flourish did begin,

Tho’ conscience went to selling broom.

When princes’ sons kept sheep in field,

And queens made cakes with oaten flour,

And men to lucre did not yield,

Which brought good cheer to ev’ry bower.

But when the giants, huge and high,

Did fight with spears like weavers’ beams,

And men in iron beds did lie,

Which brought the poor to hard extremes.

When cedar trees were grown so rife,

And pretty birds did sing on high,

Then weavers liv’d more void of strife,

Than princes of great dignity.

Then David with his sling and stone,

Not fearing great Goliath’s strength,

He pierc’d his brains, and broke his bones,

Tho’ he was nine feet and a span in length.

Chorus:

Let love and friendship still agree

To hold the bonds of amity.

 

The gentleman wrote it down, btw.

 

Conclusion

Now, gentle reader, for all I know, you may think Rollison has over egged the Randwick Wap pudding. But here’s a description of his book:

 

‘Through a series of sharply focused studies spanning three centuries, David Rollison explores the rise of capitalist manufacturing in the English countryside and the revolution in consciousness that accompanied it. Combining the empiricism of English historiography with the rationalism of Annales, and drawing on ideas from a wide range of disciplines, he argues that the explosive implications of the rise of rural industry created new social formations and altered the communal, cultural and social contexts of peoples’ lives. Using localized case studies of families and individuals the book starts with significant detail and moves out to build up a subtle and innovative view of English cultural identities in the early modern period.’

 

Here is a link to the book for anyone who wishes to research further:

https://epdf.tips/the-local-origins-of-modern-society-gloucestershire-1500-1800.html

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

 

Walking with Charles Dickens

Stickin’ with Dickens by Katie McCue: No Deviations

Stickin’ with Dickens-

In happy anticipation I stepped on to the platform at Paddington station with my two companions.
I was ready and more than willing to put myself in the very capable hands of Stuart Butler to be led on a Dickensian adventure for the day.

What a day! Stuart led us down streets and lanes I didn’t know existed or had paid very little attention to in the past. Fact and fiction blurred beautifully  as we gazed up at the windows of a house Dickens lived in before the Thames was tamed, when its banks were but a stones throw from the house. The river where Gaffer Hexham and his daughter Lizzie rowed in their boat searching out floating corpses to rob in Our Mutual Friend.  That same river where Martha in David Copperfield thought to drown herself.

As we talked and walked on, in my own mind’s eye, I was transforming people into Dickensian folk. It wasn’t hard to do. London’s noise and bustle; workers and walkers, dandies and down-and-outs were everywhere. As my companion said he was always telling people how relevant Dickens is for today. Right on cue, just as Stuart was telling us how Dickens would take the plunge at the Roman Baths we stood before, there huddled in front if its very gate were three homeless people. A Dickensian and sadly 21st century scene before us. One of the men called out to Stuart “Thank you Boss,” as we exchanged greetings. The young woman called out as we headed off “I was only at school for 5 minutes and now I’ve had an education. …….Dickens….I heard all  that” .

As we took to The Strand the pleasing sight of St.Mary’s was ahead of us. I could positively feel Dickens senior newly wed leaving the church when Charles was yet a twinkle in their eye.

Fact and fiction continued to blur gloriously as we stood in front of the lodgings where Pip and the pale young gentleman Herbert Pocket seem to look down at us.
The Old Curiosity shop stood empty…..but was that Little Dorrit hurrying around the corner?

Stuart led us on to Lincoln’s Inn and we spent time remembering Bleak House in which the hearings about the inheritance were held. We remembered too the reality of the undercroft at the chapel next door where babies were left in the hope of being looked after. Stuart told my companion and me how those lucky babies who survived their abandonment were all given the surname Lincoln.

…..but I’m ahead of myself. What fun it was to enter the darkness of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street. The dark wood of the interior enfolded us as we stepped into the bar. I sat where I decided Charles Dickens would have chosen. A settle in the corner almost behind the door facing the roaring fire with heaps of old ash spilling out of the grate. A seat from which to watch those who entered whilst being unobserved myself. A place to consider the potential of each customer as a possible character….yes…surely Dickens would have done this as he drank ale or wine or porter in this very seat.

My account is in no way complete but these are my own “Sketches” of the day. It was wonderful and I can’t resist by ending with a favourite saying of Joe Gargery in Great Expectations: “ Pip old chap…….you and me was ever friends and when you’re well enough to go out for a ride what larks!”

I encourage you all to enjoy a day in Dickens’ London with Stuart Butler for larks of your own.

PS

James has just messaged to say that his son, who is in San Francisco, has just messaged him, describing the homelessness there as Dickensian.

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