The First Convicts Transported to NSW
To Whom it may Concern and to Posterity I have been asked to leave an account of the plight of the first convicts to be transported from the Stroud-water district to New South Wales, or, less frequently, Norfolk Island. I have said that I will do this quite willingly....
The Apprentice
I was apprenticed early (probably at the age of 11 or 12, in 1830 or 1831) to one Toby Duffell, a gun-lock filer, and also a publican, living on the Leas, near the Ranters’ Chapel, in Darlaston … I … bolted, and, for the time, cut his acquaintance and...
On Brimscombe Becoming A Port
On Brimscombe Becoming a Port Oh dear! Oh dear! This a curious age is, Alteration all the rage is – Young and old in the stream are moving, All in the general cry improving, From Stroudwater I’ve brought news down sirs, For instead of mills and scarlet clothiers,...
North Wilts Canal
Swindon: Canals in an Urban Landscape The North Wilts Canal’s construction, Almost mirrors those fraught years From 1815 to 1819, When the country seemed on the brink of revolution: The Corn Laws, the Spa Fields Riots, the March of the Blanketeers, The Pentridge...
Little Nell
The Old Curiosity Shop, 1841, Chapter 43, Charles Dickens Before she had any more time for consideration, she and her grandfather were on board, and gliding smoothly down the canal. The sun shone pleasantly on the bright water, which was sometimes shaded by trees, and...
I Am A Navigator
I was born in the parish of ———-, about the year brave General Wolfe fell at Quebec. My father worked on the new farms and fields of —————–. When wages were bountiful, he got 9 shilling a week. That went down to...