10785 RegHistorian_issue13 5/26/05 5:25 PM Page 1

RHCRHC REGIONAL HISTORY CENTRE

The Regional Historian

The Newsletter of the Regional History Centre, at the UWE, Bristol

Remembering Mary Rudge: Bristol’s Victorian Chess Champion

Bristol’s new museum…. Little Wales beyond the Severn…. The killing of Henry Murray…. Sir Richard Berkeley…. Woodtaking and customary practice in Wiltshire…. Bath and the Keppel affair…. John Thelwall’s grave…. PLUS News, Reviews and Letters

http://humanities.uwe.ac.uk/regionalhistory

Graphic Design Team 10785 UWE, BRISTOL F.5.05 Printing & Stationery Services Issue No. 13 Spring/Summer 2005 10785 RegHistorian_issue13 5/26/05 5:25 PM Page 3

The first international women’s chess tournament, held in London in 1897. Bristol’s Mary Rudge won the event. 10785 RegHistorian_issue13 5/26/05 5:25 PM Page 1

REGIONALRHCRH HISTORYC CENTRE

The Regional Historian Issue No. 13 Spring/Summer 2005

Contents

Editorial and news 2

The museum of Bristol and its public 6 Madge Dresser

Little Wales beyond the Severn? 8 The Welsh in early Tudor Bristol Peter Fleming

The man who’d have blood for his supper: 11 the killing of Henry Murray. Steve Poole

Sir Richard Berkeley: an Elizabethan career 15 Tony Nott

Woodtaking and customary practice: 19 William Hunt’s justices notebook, 1744 - 49 Carl Griffin

‘A silly ridiculous Jack in Office’: 25 Bath's town clerk and the Keppel affair, 1779 Trevor Fawcett

Sites of memory and neglect: 29 John Thelwall and the art of dying quietly Steve Poole

Mary Rudge: Bristol's world chess champion 33 John Richards

Learning to live with ‘natural wonders’: 38 the forgotten history of Cheddar Gorge Steve Poole

Reviews 40

Letters 46

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Editorial and News

Editorial and News Round-up

UWE to write pioneering history In this edition of the Regional Historian you’ll find a typically diverse of Bristol ethnic minorities Partnership with the VCH in Wiltshire and interesting selection of articles. UWE’s School of History has been awarded In addition to the Immigrants and Minorities project, UWE has also been Along with news of UWE’s exciting £120,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund as making great progress with its association with the VCH in Wiltshire. County Immigrants and Minorities project, part of a £3.3 million project called editor Virginia Bainbridge explains: The successful conclusion of negotiations to and a call for the new museum of ‘England’s Past for Everyone’, co-ordinated by incorporate the Victoria County History of Wiltshire into UWE HLSS represents a Bristol to make the most of the the University of London’s Victoria County major achievement for the future of public history. This important local history current public appetite for history, History Project, writes Peter Fleming. UWE’s research project came to the attention of Madge Dresser and Peter Fleming, there are articles here covering contribution will be a history of immigration through their RHC activities. The VCH team consists of Douglas Crowley, County everything from the political career of in Bristol from medieval times to the end of Editor, and Virginia Bainbridge, Assistant Editor, whose appointment was made the Tudor magnate, Sir Richard the twentieth century, provisionally titled possible through UWE funding. The VCH was started in 1899 and dedicated to Berkeley, to the no less remarkable ‘Immigrants and Ethnic Minorities in Bristol Queen Victoria. It aims to provide a history of each parish and town in England sporting career of nineteenth century c1000 – 2000’. This will focus on the themes from original sources. So far about half the country has been covered. Groups Bristol chess champion, Mary Rudge. of ethnic diversity and civic identity. Nine of parish histories are published together in volumes and are now also Two articles look at some of the less other volumes dealing with histories of other available at www.englandpast.net and www.british-history.ac.uk The VCH is familiar historical issues of urban localities are planned throughout the an invaluable resource for local and family historians and for academic ethnicity and remind us of the country, but the Bristol project is the only researchers. enormous impact cultural diversity has one to look at ethnicity. had upon the development of the Douglas and Virginia are currently completing the last few histories for volume ‘second city’; first Tudor citizens who The two- year project will begin in June 2005, XVIII in the Wiltshire series, covering Cricklade and surrounding parishes. discovered themselves in ‘little Wales and will be led by Madge Dresser and Peter Virginia and Peter Fleming have also applied for AHRB funding for a three-year beyond the Severn’, and then some of Fleming of UWE’s Regional History Centre. project on the history of Chippenham 1800 – 2000. This will involve UWE their nineteenth century successors An expert on medieval England's Jewish academics and local history groups and will be modelled on a similar VCH who clashed tragically with community, Joe Hillaby, will produce a Wiltshire project on the village of Codford. Part of this research, ‘Travelling Portuguese sailors at a Marsh Street chapter on Jews and other ethnic minorities through Codford’ is available at www.historyfootsteps.net together with inn in 1810. Elsewhere we find an in Bristol before 1300. As part of the project, UWE’s ‘Bristol Slavery Trail’. VCH Wiltshire has its own website at eighteenth century JP dispensing an interactive website will be set up to www.wiltshirepast.net summary justice and exercising the encourage input from members of the public. finer arts of social arbitration as he Incorporation into UWE has been a major boost to VCH Wiltshire, enabling the mediates in cases of wood-stealing in The researchers are looking forward to completion of volume XVIII and the start of volume XIX, to be centred on rural Wiltshire, while in Bath we find receiving information and oral histories from Longleat. With further funding for the last few volumes, it is now a real a Town Clerk in hot water with the the public, and are looking for volunteers to possibility that the County series will be completed. townsfolk over his imperious attitude help research and document the findings. to the people’s favourite, Admiral They are hoping to chart the relationship Keppel; and the last resting place of a between Bristol’s majority population and prominent reformer falling slowly into those from ethnic minority groups during the News from the RHC on-line team disrepair. We like to think it’s a pretty past millennium; to find out what coping Women and Philanthropy in Bristol, 1870 - 1920 good mix. But if you feel it doesn’t strategies the different groups used to quite match some of your own survive; and to consider the way in which We are pleased to announce that we will interests and organisational affiliations. historical interests, why not write us Bristol’s particular experience has been be making the results of this long-running We hope these resources will be a useful an article? We seek to cover all shaped by national and global factors. RHC project available to a wider audience addition to the RHC site and that local periods of history and our regional by the end of the summer. There will be historians may be able to supply us with interest is in the South Western The Regional Historian will carry regular two main forms of data attached to the additional information in order to expand counties of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, reports on the progress of the project, and Regional History Centre Website at this resource still further. If you can help Dorset, Somerset and Devon. All the project team can be contacted through http://humanities.uwe.ac.uk/Regionhistor please contact [email protected] contributions to the Regional the Regional History Centre website. y/index.htm. The first will be in the shape or [email protected] Historian are considered for of interactive web pages giving publication, but you might like to biographical information and images of As well as storing downloadable versions contact the editor in advance at some of the key women in Bristol of past issues of the RH, the Centre’s [email protected] philanthropic networks. webpages also host a diary page for You’ll find details of the copy date for forthcoming talks, workshops, RH14 on P4. The second will be a searchable database conferences and other activities run by containing information on a much larger record offices and history societies number of women philanthropists in around the region. If you’d like us to post Bristol. Users will be able to search the news of any events you are organising on database under categories such as career, these pages, please e-mail us and we’ll be religion, education, family, politics, glad to include them.

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Editorial and News Round-up

Seminar series 2004-5 Regional historians on tour! The Regional History Centre launched a new Port Histories: fortnightly research seminar series in October annual conference 2005 2005, with papers covering every period in This year’s RHC day conference takes the region’s history and confirming the place on September 17th 2005. Under Centre’s growing interest in all the counties the title Port Histories, the conference of the South West. Speakers were Moira looks at the social, cultural and

Martin (women’s philanthropic networks in Photo: Joachim Eibach economic life of port communities in Bristol), Peter Fleming (civic historiographies British history and seeks to draw in Bristol and Coventry), Carl Griffin (popular parallels and contrasts between the protest and the politics of timber in Wiltshire lived experience of people in and Dorset), Michael Hicks (medieval maritime towns across the country landholdings in Southern England), Steve and across the ages. You’ll find a Poole (disorderly houses in London and the booking form in this edition of RH South West), Richard Williams (street violence and full details of the conference at in 18th century Exeter), Joanne Parker (the http://humanities.uwe.ac.uk/Regionhi Victorians and King Alfred in Somerset), and story/index.htm And if you’d like to George Scott (civil defence planning at Bath be kept up to date with in 1964). If you’d like to be kept informed developments, you can mail about next year’s seminar programme, why Three members of UWE’s Regional History Centre (left to right: Dr Raingard Esser, Dr Steve [email protected] and ask to be not join our growing e-mail contact list? Send Poole and doctoral student James Lee) travelled to Athens in October to take part in the added to the e-mailing list. a message to [email protected], and Seventh International Conference on Urban History, organised by the European Association of we’ll add you to it. Urban Historians. With the conference taking as its theme, ‘The European City in Comparative Perspective’, the UWE team were part of a panel chaired by Raingard and Dr Joachim Eibach on urban stability and civic liberties in the early modern city. Using Bristol as a focus, Steve’s paper considered the impact of sodomy trials on civic consciousness while James’s looked at the role of oath-taking and oath-breaking. Raingard explored attitudes in other English towns towards migrants from the low countries, and their fellow participants in a very Subscriptions to the Deadline for international panel contributed case studies of Goerlitz, Lubeck, Leipzig, Bern, Lyon and the Regional Historian contributions small Austrian towns of Zwettl and Scheibbs. The collected papers will all be appearing in a future edition of Urban History. As many of you will have noticed, the Regional for Regional Historian has not only taken on a more Historian 14 professional design in recent editions, but it Studying for an MA in has also grown in size. Since its first publication, the RH has been produced and We welcome short history at UWE An appeal for help notices, letters and posted without charge to all its readers. But Did you know that you can study the history articles of the mailing list for the RH has almost of the South West region for a Masters The Dyrham Park Wartime approximately 3000 doubled over the last two years and it looks degree at UWE? MA programmes begin Residential Nursery, words for publication in set to continue to grow. This is all very every October, classes are taught in the the Regional Historian. 1939 - 1945 (formerly pleasing (!) but the cost is no longer evenings, and you can study either full time Please submit all copy supportable from the modest budget of (one year) or part time (two years). Two the Canonbuty Nursery) for consideration for the Regional History Centre. To safeguard compulsory modules in techniques and RH14, as a microsoft the journal’s future development and to approaches for writing and researching word e-mail attachment Can anyone help this RH reader? ensure that we can continue producing it in the history are complemented each year by a if possible, by Friday I am undertaking research on behalf of current format then, it has become necessary to variable range of option modules, and you 23rd September 2005. the National Trust into the Dyrham introduce a small subscription charge. will also write an 18,000 word dissertation Copy should be sent to Park wartime nursery, organised and on a topic of your choice. Many of our MA the editor, financed by Lady Islington. If any Subscriptions will take effect from issue 14 (Autumn students choose a regional subject for their 2005) at a cost of just £10.00 per annum. Your [email protected]. reader has any information about the dissertation and make full use of the nursery, its staff, or its residents, please subscription will include associate membership of the excellent archive materials kept in the Regional History Centre, entitling you to discounts on contact Hyla Holden at 9 Eden Villas, libraries and record offices of the south Larkhall, Bath, tel 01225 333409. future day conferences and workshops. We hope very western counties. We are recruiting now for much that you’ve enjoyed receiving free copies of the 2005-6. If you would like more information RH and that you’ll want to continue receiving it in the about studying for a History MA at UWE, future. If so, please fill out the form in the back of this please drop a line to RH and return it to us here at the Centre. [email protected]

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The Museum of Bristol

Madge Dresser is principal lecturer in The Museum of Bristol and its public History at UWE and author of Slavery Madge Dresser Obscured (2001). Formerly a Co-Director of the Regional History The Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery is a i.e. the sealed knot participants, the family with the same programming strategy. ‘Persuadables’ might well find the accounts Centre, she is now much-loved Bristol institution containing historians, the industrial archaeology buffs, ‘Dumbing down’ could dampen the of black market activity and racial tension leading the Lottery- collections of national status alongside local the stately homes visitors etc who often were enthusiasm and devalue the expertise of during the war stimulating and thought funded project on the treasures. But though its visitors often linger very knowledgeable indeed about their own both core audiences and programme provoking. And of course, these groupings History of Ethnic at Ernest Board’s grand 1930 painting of particular historical interest. providers; yet catering exclusively to the core are mere conceptual constructs, not Minorities in Bristol, 1000-2000, with Peter Some Who Have Made Bristol Famous, the group would not only exclude the bulk of hermetically sealed realities. An object or Fleming. Having served museum as a whole does not focus on the Over and above this loyal core (estimated to the population but also impede the search document might capture the imagination of as historical consultant to city’s own history. Certainly, the lives of be less than 8 million of the UK population) for more creative and imaginative ways of a ‘hard to reach’; and a multi-media display the Bristol Museum and ordinary Bristolians have yet to be we were told, there existed a second group approaching a subject. The only answer delight a ‘truth seeker’. At the 1999 Slavery Art Gallery on a number represented and as a buoyant property of some 24 million souls who might be seemed to be to offer a range of Exhibition in Bristol, a detailed eighteenth- of initiatives since 1997, market rewrites the city’s topography, there persuaded to take an interest in history programmes variously targeted at each of century map of Africa was studied by Afro- she is currently a is a real need to historicise Bristol’s urban programmes. These ‘Persuadables’ were a the respective constituencies. Caribbean school children and academic member on the steering spaces. varied lot-characterised in the survey as historians with apparently equal interest. committee for the ‘generalists’, ‘drama queens’ and ‘jugglers’. But no matter how superficial the take of a projected Museum A new ‘ Museum of Bristol’, scheduled to The ‘generalists were the largest sub-group; a ‘generalists, drama-queens particular member of the public, the richness of Bristol. open in 2008 on the site of the present largely male cohort who wanted factually- of the exhibition depends on the depth and Industrial Museum, aims to fill these gaps. based entertainment which related to the and jugglers’. scope of the research that underpins it. The proposed museum has the support of the world around them. The ‘drama queens’ Heritage Lottery Fund and the City Council. were a mainly female audience who would So, social inclusivity AND careful historical The HLF awarded £853,000 in February 2004 take an interest in history so long as it was What might those leading the Museum of scholarship; community consultation AND to develop plans for this major new packaged in a great story with characters for Bristol learn from all this? Certainly one main cutting-edge research; visual flair AND attraction with match funding from Bristol whom they could root. This was the lot who insight is that the bid for social inclusivity intellectual stimulation, celebration AND City Council. They have pledged a further would listen to a historical drama or docu- must not replace intellectual substance. Both provocation. £10.27 million towards the project and a bid drama but who, unlike the ‘generalists’ were goals must somehow be accommodated. to release these funds will be submitted to less interested in factually based Historians as well as curators must combine The Museum of Bristol must pursue the Lottery in June 2005.This ambitious programmes. The ‘jugglers’ comprised a third their energies to provide the latest most up inclusivity with style and verve, but it must project aims to ‘engage, inform and delight sub-group, more evenly distributed between to date insights into the city’s history. The also ensure substance. It must do so by visitors by providing a place where they can both sexes whose ‘members’ liked news-style new Museum must exploit its contacts with building in formal mechanisms for academics learn and be inspired by the stories that can or dramatic presentations of history, universities as well as with the wider to interact with artists, curators and be told through Bristol's collection of objects, particularly those that helped them fill in community when determining the content of planners. The public deserves no less. paintings and historical documents.’ (socially embarrassing) gaps in their historical its exhibitions and when framing its knowledge in a painless way. narratives of the city’s past. There are One of the main challenges for this project is scholars around the world researching into to inspire rather than bore its public. It must Bristol’s history and we need to enlist them exploit the possibilities afforded by new ‘One of the main challenges for into the service of this exciting project. technology in order to make visually attractive and engaging exhibits. It must this project is to inspire rather than If those less interested in History might be reach out to constituencies who have felt bore its public’. briefly entranced by a short video excluded from the world of museums and dramatisation of say, an eighteenth century galleries. sailor recounting a voyage, the ‘truth seeker’ Now, the rest of the UK population was and ‘the generalist’ both might relish the But precisely who are these constituencies? categorised as harder to enthuse about fact that this video was based on an actual Part of the answer at least surfaced at a history. Younger and largely less well- account which was available in a nearby case ‘History Away Day’ the BBC organized for educated than the ‘Core group’ or the with the former reading with sustained invited historians and Radio 4 producers in ‘Persuadables’, this ‘hard to reach’ audience interest a label explaining the provenance of Bristol last April 26th. There, Clare McGinn, saw the past as largely boring and irrelevant. the log book and related documents. The (Editor, Radio and Music-Factual, Bristol) gave This group might be tempted by highly ‘enthusiast’ might find the artifacts of naval a fascinating presentation on History and the entertaining, and undemanding formats life the most gripping complement to the public. Based on a recent BBC survey that which appeared at first sight at least to be video whereas the ‘drama queen’ might be focused (for what appears to have been the present-oriented. ‘History by stealth’ it was sufficiently engaged by the story to pursue first time) on potential audiences for BBC ventured, was perhaps the only way to get the other stories of sea captains, women history programmes, it became clear that this group to engage at all with anything pirates and shipbuilders presented in the there did exist a core audience already avid vaguely historical. same installation. for history. This core of mainly but not exclusively, older people were themselves The discussion that ensued after the If a section on ‘Bristol and the Blitz’ might divisible into two subgroups: the erudite elite presentation was both heart-felt and best woo young audiences with evocative of highly-educated and proactive ‘truth reflective. There was a consensus that one music sound effects and interactive quizzes, seekers’ and the more populist ‘enthusiasts’ could not cater for these different groups the ‘Core audiences’ and some of the

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Little Wales Beyond the Severn?

Dr Peter Fleming is Principal Lecturer and Little Wales Beyond the Severn? Associate Head of the The Welsh in Early Tudor Bristol School of History at the University of the West of Peter Fleming England. He is a past co-director of the There is a considerable Welsh presence in his appointment as a sheriff of Bristol. He the clan to hold high office in Bristol were Henry Vaughn was bailiff.7 Henry Vaughn Regional History Centre. contemporary Bristol: Welsh accents are died in office the following year. His the two John Vaughns, bailiffs in 1483/4 and doubtless used his position to open doors for often to be heard in the city's streets, and daughter, Joan, married the Bristol serjeant- 1498/9, who may have been Henry’s son and his prolific family, but he may have done the that presence has doubtless grown since the at-law John Brook (d1522), and their grandson. Thomas Vaughn, bailiff in 1496/7, same for other Welshmen: from the 1480s building of the two Severn bridges. This is magnificent brass is in St Mary Redcliffe.2 As may have been Henry’s brother, or the son of until the 1530s Greffith, Jonys, ap Howell, by no means a modern phenomenon, we have seen, Richard was not the only ap another John Vaughn who died in 1491/2, Morgan, ap Rhys, Walsshe and Williams however, and in this article, Peter Fleming Meryk in early Tudor Bristol, and there was while Richard, bailiff in 1493/4, and William make frequent appearances among Bristol's explores the experiences of the Welsh in also a Robert a Meryk, a Philip ap Meryk, Vaughn, bailiff in 1515/6, may have been bailiffs, sheriffs and mayors. The presence of Bristol during the reign of the first Welsh weaver, and a Treheyron a Meryk, while a brothers.6 According to local chronicles, in a Welshman on the throne of England would king of England, Henry VII. John ap Meryk was stabbed to death in 1527 Richard Vaughn was murdered by not have harmed the prospects of Welshmen 1490.3 William Herbert as he was returning from seeking fortune and office in Bristol, and at In Bristol, if nowhere else, Amerigo Vespucci's the duck hunting and wrestling bouts staged the start of his reign at least, Henry Tudor right to be regarded as the godfather of in the Marsh for the mayor’s entertainment. made much of his Welsh lineage, but the rise America, the man who lent his name to the ‘The presence of a Welshman on of Henry Vaughn predates Bosworth: the ‘new’ continent, is hotly contested by the Welsh were clearly not reliant on royal champions of Richard Amerik, the Bristol the throne of England would not Detail from the tomb of Thomas White, a patronage. customs official through whose hands John have harmed the prospects of fifteenth century Welsh merchant (d. 1482), Cabot received his pension from Henry VII Welshmen seeking fortune and after returning from the 1497 voyage to What really seems to have alarmed Newfoundland.1 Had contemporaries opted office in Bristol’. for ‘Vespuccia’, this debate would never have the Crown was the prospect, not got off the ground, and naming the of ethnic clashes, continent 'the Land of the Wasps' would These ap Meryks, a Meryks, Ameryks, or but of seditious collaboration’. doubtless have been thought positively Meryks, in early Tudor Bristol would have had providential by some White Anglo-Saxon no trouble finding other Bristolians of Welsh Protestants in the North. But this was not to ancestry, at least to judge by the evidence of family names. Of course, using personal As the murders of Richard Vaughn and John be. The form of his name that most ap Meryk suggest, relations between Welsh conveniently fits the 'American Godfather' names as evidence of ethnicity is fraught with difficulty: for one thing, an English and English in Bristol were not always theory conceals a real point of interest harmonious. In 1492 Henry VII’s Council was regarding the Bristol customs official, for he citizen named ‘Fleming’ may have no greater link with Flanders than a liking for Stella told that the mayor had attempted to arrest started out being called Richard ap Meryk, one Yeuan ap Roger, a tailor who had taken and if not born in Wales, was most certainly Artois. However, one need only look to south Pembrokeshire, ‘Little England beyond sanctuary in St Augustine's abbey, from of Welsh descent. So, if his proponents are where he led a criminal gang, whose most correct (which I doubt: naming your new- Wales’, to see how long lasting can be the cultural impact of population movements in notorious exploit was a robbery at Westbury found continent after the customer who parish church.8 However, given the levels of handed over your pension is rather like the distant past. Names can also change, mutating into forms more acceptable - violence and lawlessness recorded in later naming your first-born after the registrar of medieval judicial proceedings, these incidents births), America was named after a perhaps more pronounceable - to the host community: hence, Richard described himself do not necessary demonstrate any particular Welshman. Richard ap Meryk may have been underlying antagonism between the two related to either or both Richard Ameryk, in his pardon of 1495 as Richard Meryk of Bristol, merchant, alias a Meryk, alias ap ethnic groups. Rather, the overwhelming importing Spanish iron through Bristol in weight of evidence suggests that Welsh and 1437, or Richard ap Meryk, merchant and Meryk, and in his 1499 pardon as Richard Amerik.4 English in early Tudor Bristol traded together, mercer of Taunton, pardoned in 1472. were parties to each other’s property arrangements, and often intermarried. This is He was established as a freeman of Bristol, Richard was not the most prominent Welshman in early Tudor Bristol. That all the more surprising given how the and an associate of the powerful Canynges century began. family, by 1478. In his property deals he was distinction must go to Henry Vaughn, accompanied by Henry and Thomas a Meryk. described by Professor Ralph Griffiths as the town’s ‘most successful and respected Owain Glyndˆwr’s rebellion, erupting in 1400, In 1486, the year after Henry Tudor’s made a great impact on Bristol’s commercial accession, he became a Bristol collector of merchant’. Henry Vaughn was bailiff in 1469/70, sheriff in 1479/80, mayor in 1483/4, and political life. The town was a major base customs, a post he held until 1498, not for military operations against rebel forces, without controversy: he seems to have been 1485/6, and 1493/4, constable of the Bristol staple in 1491, and MP in 1487 and 1497.5 its gaol housed rebel prisoners, and it had to involved in faction fighting within the town, in St Mary's Church, Tenby. cope with deserters from the English armies and made frequent appearances before the The Vaughns had links with Aberystwyth, St David’s and Cardiff, but a branch of the and also, probably, with loyalist Welsh Exchequer court, accused of fraud and Herbert escaped. His attack may have been in 9 family had been established in Bristol since at refugees. From the outset of rebellion the corruption, and was twice pardoned (in 1495 revenge for the execution of one of his Crown was well aware of Bristol’s strategic and 1499) for these alleged malpractices. The least 1405, interestingly, at the height of ancestors in Bristol after the Wars of the Owain Glyndˆwr’s rebellion. Other members of importance. The town had the doubtful culmination of his career came in 1503, with Roses battle of Edgecote in 1469, when privilege of receiving a quarter of one of the

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Little Wales Beyond the Severn? continued The man who’d have blood for his supper

Steve Poole The man who’d have blood for his supper: is Director of the Regional the killing of Henry Murray History Centre and a Principal Lecturer in Steve Poole History at the University of the West of England. first of Glyndˆwr’s followers to be executed, opened their mouths would doubtless have If the maintenance of order on the streets of His current research is Gronw ap Tudur: on 26 September 1400 the been immediately identifiable. Yet this does early nineteenth century Bristol was never a concerned with public order, crime and sexuality sheriff was ordered to display the quarter on not seem to have been a major problem for simple matter, the constantly shifting amongst the labouring the town gates facing Wales.10 Henry IV their hosts. This raises interesting questions presence of large visiting communities of poor of South West anticipated that Anglo-Welsh relations along about contemporary conceptions of race and seafaring Europeans cannot have made it England. the border might turn sour, and in October ethnicity. Perhaps, in later medieval England's any easier. With inns, lodging houses, streets the sheriff was ordered to proclaim that, multi-lingual culture (English, Latin, French), and quays frequently awash with colourfully while North Wales may have risen, the South language was not the major determinant of vibrant but uncustomary sights and sounds, Welsh were still loyal, and so should be national identity it often is today. Perhaps, social tensions and conflicts between host allowed to go about their business while Ireland and its peoples, of whatever and ‘outlandish’ communities were rarely far unmolested.11 Nevertheless, Gronw ap Tudur’s ethnicity, were regarded as irredeemably beneath the surface. Often the detail of decomposing quarter would have been a 'foreign', Wales, after two centuries of these cultural tensions went unrecorded but, constant reminder of Welsh ‘treachery’. What English rule, was already being elided into as Steve Poole shows here, papers from a really seems to have alarmed the Crown, England in English minds. coroners inquest kept at the Bristol Record however, was the prospect not of ethnic Office, bring them vividly back to life. clashes in Bristol, but of seditious collaboration between English and Welsh. In 1. I. Wilson, The Columbus Myth (Simon & The seven and a half-inch blade that felled August 1402 a royal commission of enquiry Schuster, London, 1991), pp. 151-70. Henry Murray entered his body with such 2. into treasons within the town was given a Calendar of Patent Rolls (CPR), 1485-1494, p. force that it nearly broke his rib-cage. 33; Calendar of Fine Rolls, 1494-1509, nos. 121- remit that specified both groups as potential 3, 195-7; National Archives (NA), E122/176/10, Penetrating just below the left shoulder- 12 traitors. Relations between Welsh and 20/10-11, E159/270, 271 passim, C1/231/24, blade, it punctured a lung, pierced his heart, English seem to have returned to normal 64/181, Bristol Record Office (BRO), AC/D1/76, and left a great deal of blood on the soon after the rebellion passed its zenith in 86-7, 90a-b, 93a-b, 95, 101a, 110. pavement. By the time his companions had 1408. In 1411/12 a Welshman held high civic 3. NA CP40/924, 57, KB9/391, 96-7, C1/49/44, STAC carried him to the infirmary, Henry Murray office in Bristol, possibly for the first time, 2/1. had bled to death.1 4. CPR, 1494-1509, pp. 43, 171. that is if we are to assume that the name of 5. Details of civic office are taken from J. Latimer, one of the bailiffs for that year (and sheriff ‘The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar: its list of It was 9.30pm on an early autumn evening in in 1419/20), David Ruddok, was an civic officers collated with contemporary legal 1810 and Bristol’s Marsh Street was busy with Anglicisation of Dafydd ap Rhydderch. MSS’, Transactions of the Bristol and men and women either entering or leaving Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 26, pp. the many cheap lodging houses and inns that If the story of the Welsh in fifteenth and 130-7; The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar, ed. L. lined each side of the road. There was no T. Smith, Camden Society (1872), BRO 04720/1 early sixteenth-century Bristol is one largely (Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar). shortage of witnesses to the street brawl pushed of harmony and assimilation, then it is 6. NA PROB 11/9/9, 11/38, 13/24, 22/22; C1/126/50, that claimed Murray’s life, and the out of Portugal. In the interesting to compare it with the 406/6, 452/29, 33, 530/12-14, 586/50, 587/6, 7a- perpetrator, still clutching his bloody dagger, language of government and loyalist b; C67/48, 23. experiences of the town’s Irish population, at was quickly caught. But although the case is propaganda, the ‘liberated’ Portuguese were 7. See P. Fleming, ‘Murder, alchemy and the Wars A page from the least as recorded in the mid-fifteenth hardly remarkable for its complexity, it frequently represented as heroic fighters century. From the 1430s to the 1450s, as the of the Roses’, in the last issue of The Regional nevertheless offers a tantalising glimpse of Coroners’ inquest Historian and idem, Bristol During the Wars of against French oppression, and Bristolian into the death of English were facing serious problems some of the tensions to be found in the Roses (Bristol Branch of the Historical merchants already enjoyed strong trading ties Henry Murray maintaining their lordship of Ireland, Bristol cosmopolitan ports like Bristol at this time. Association, 2005), pp.15-7. with Lisbon and Opporto. Consequently, (reproduced by kind Irish faced discrimination: they were banned 8. P. Fleming, ‘Sanctuary and authority in Pre- Portuguese sailors were a common sight on permission of Bristol from membership of the common council Reformation Bristol’, in Historic Churches and Bristol’s streets had played host to a rich and Bristol’s streets in these years and they Record Office). and from some craft guilds, and Irish Church Life in Bristol, ed. J.H. Bettey (Bristol diverse community of temporary visitors from and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, enjoyed unusual public sympathy. ‘Lord apprentices were charged higher fees for overseas for centuries. This was particularly Wellington has defended Portugal’, asserted 13 2001), pp. 74-5. completing their training. To judge by their 9. CPR, 1401-5, pp.292, 434. true of the cramped streets and alleys closest Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal, and it urged family names, these Irish were not Gaelic, 10. CPR, 1399-1401, p.359. to the quay, and Marsh Street, at the heart Bristolians to contribute to the national relief 11. and probably not even from among the old CPR, 1399-1401, p.555. of Bristol’s Irish migrant enclave, was no fund for its ‘brave and injured’ citizens. ‘The 12. CPR, 1401-5, p.135. Anglo-Irish, but instead originated from the exception. But of course, the drinking dens conduct and condition of the Portuguese 13. P. Fleming, ‘Telling tales of oligarchy in the ‘new English’, who had recently settled in of Marsh Street and its vicinity were not used afford to Englishmen the best opportunity of Dublin and the other English towns along late medieval town’, in Revolution and by Irishmen alone, but by seafarers from a Consumption in Late Medieval England, ed. M. connecting all that is amiable and all that is the east coast. Hence, they would have been Hicks (Boydell, Woodbridge, 2001), pp. 182-4. range of European and transatlantic ports. great’, it declared, and was quick to publicise English speakers and - at least from this The Portuguese, sometimes called Britain’s the lowly background of contributors like distance - it is hard to imagine what ‘oldest allies’, were just one example. Mary Walker, a patriotic seller of oranges distinguished them, aside, perhaps, from outside the Exchange, who reportedly accent, from their Bristol-born neighbours. At the time of Murray’s death in 1810, donated 5 hard-earned shillings to the cause.2 On the other hand, the likes of the ap Britain was deeply embroiled in the war It was one of these victims of Napoleonic Meryks, ap Howells, ap Rhydderchs, ap against Napoleon, and Wellington’s forces oppression, a 23-year old seaman named Iorwerths, and ap Rhyses very probably had were ejecting the French from the Iberian Johan Desanto, that killed Henry Murray. Welsh as their first language, and when they peninsular. By 1809, Napoleon had been

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Arriving in Bristol on a brig from friends, the newcomers responded by witness had been examined by the coroner in Whitehaven, Murray was an American ‘strutting about the room, shoving October when the case against Desanto was seaman who had recently taken lodgings in themselves and others about from side to constructed. Nor was it possible now because Marsh Street. Enmity between ‘local’ and side’. This was a common enough complaint they had all long since gone back to sea. It ‘foreign’ seamen was characteristically high about Portuguese sailors who were was only at his trial therefore that Desanto however, and a poor reflection of the frequently represented as men who ‘strutted’ was able to establish for the first time that international solidarity promoted in the and ‘shoved’ Englishmen in the street.7 he had not actually been at the inn prior to press. The Iberian public image cannot have According to two witnesses on this occasion the stabbing. He had spent the evening been much enhanced for instance, by the however, some had painted their faces white, elsewhere with the family of an Irish sailor popular characterisation of two Englishmen, and others ‘had blacked their upper lips to named Malone, and simply had the pelted in the pillory for attempted sodomy at disguise themselves’.8 Matters came to a head misfortune to be walking back with them Bristol six months earlier, as ‘signor and when Murray’s shipmate Johnson began past the Hope & Anchor to his own lodgings signora’.3 In these years, notwithstanding the arguing with one of the girls and a when Murray emerged onto the pavement ‘united front’ against Napoleon, Catholicism, Portuguese seaman threatened to hit him if looking for a fight. Gibbs therefore otherness and effeminacy were closely he struck her. Murray intervened, saying that instructed the jury that since no malice or associated repertoires of public prejudice. Johnson was ‘only a boy’ and so he would motive can have moved Desanto to attack a fight the foreigner in his stead. Punches were man he had clearly never previously met, a thrown but the affray was broken up by the charge of murder could not stand. Convicted ‘Some had painted their faces landlady and the foreign seamen retreated instead of manslaughter in his own self- downstairs. defence, Desanto was returned to Newgate white; others had blacked their for six months only and then released.13 upper lips to disguise themselves’. When the English and Irishmen followed a few minutes later, they were met at the foot of the stairs by ‘ten or twelve Portuguese ‘Do not heave stones at me Murray apparently believed that a sailors with their jackets off and thrown A Marsh Street inn c.1820. Lying parallel to Portuguese sailor had insulted and punched across the left arm with their hands in their the quay and surrounded by warehousing, - give me English play!’ him as he walked alone on the quay on bosoms or in their breeches pockets’. Murray inns and cheap lodgings, the street had September 30th, and by October 4th he was appears to have run to his lodgings just become closely associated with the city’s Irish out for revenge. Private ethnic vendettas of down the street to raise some enclave by the time of Murray’s death. As Bob Shoemaker has argued, although this kind were not unusual. As one lawyer reinforcements, else, as he told a room-mate, (reproduced by kind permission of Bristol street culture was anything but polite, it had put it in a London courtroom just five weeks ‘we shall be beat by a parcel of foreigners’ . Public Library). become unusual by the end of the earlier, ‘the American sailors and the He then returned to the crowd gathered eighteenth century for Englishmen to carry Portuguese sailors are always fighting’.4 outside the Hope and Anchor. The parties fell against Desanto.12 The suspect was weapons. The most unacceptable levels of Entering the Hope and Anchor in Marsh upon one another and several witnesses committed to Newgate gaol and tried the street violence had therefore become Street with a shipmate, two Bristol Irishmen, reported seeing Johnson take a beating. following Spring when, surprisingly perhaps, popularly associated with ‘foreigners and 14 and three girls of the town, Murray Murray picked out Desanto and thumped he was cleared of Murray’s murder. For this, social outcasts’ . Certainly, the Portuguese demanded to know whether the landlady, him several times. According to a black he had to thank the attorney general and were strongly associated with knife-carrying; Elizabeth Watkins, was harbouring any seaman standing close by, Desanto first tried city Recorder, Sir Vicary Gibbs. The Recorder’s indeed their reputation preceded them. In ‘bloody foreigners’ for he was ‘determined to to save himself by shouting ‘that he was not unpopularity amongst Bristol’s labouring fact, a strikingly similar case to Desanto’s had have blood for his supper that night’. a Spaniard’, but it curried little favour with poor had been heightened in 1810 not only come before the London courts a few weeks Perhaps he already knew that a party of Murray.10 It was then that Desanto produced by the leading part he played in government before the Marsh Street affray, when a sailor Portuguese sailors had tried to book a a knife and stabbed his assailant to death. efforts to silence and imprison the radical named Jones lost his life during a brawl with private room there that morning and been MP, sir Francis Burdett, but by his vice Portuguese seamen at Wapping. When three refused by Mrs Watkins. Either way, the Brandishing the weapon again as the crowd presidency of the city’s oppressive Society for Portuguese mariners threw rocks at him and Portuguese having returned that evening to fell back, Desanto shouted ‘stand off, stand the Prevention of Vice. As a man who had Jones retorted, ‘do not heave stones at me; use the public bar instead, Mrs Watkins off’, then ran to another Marsh Street inn, been attacked and insulted by a Bristol give me English play’, he was asking them to readily told Murray about them and served the Ship. But he was pursued and the bloody crowd at the opening of the previous year’s fight ‘fairly’ and without weapons. Within him with drink.5 knife wrestled from his grasp. Three assize, Gibbs was in no mood now for the minutes however, Jones had been stabbed in Englishmen marched him to bridewell and protestations of Murray’s disreputable the belly, causing the deep wound from which The American, Irish and English arrivals went left him with the turnkey. Asked what he was comrades. He consequently spent much of he later died. Like Desanto, the defendant straight upstairs in search of their quarry. doing walking the streets with such a dagger the trial barracking witnesses and accused was convicted of manslaughter and gaoled for Murray seemed agitated and wouldn’t sit in his possession, he answered simply ‘that it the Hope & Anchor’s landlady of a year. Following a number of other cases in down but ‘walked about smoking a pipe’. was his Country fashion’.11 embellishing her evidence in a vain attempt the capital during these years, the reputation When another party of Portuguese sailors to make her disorderly establishment appear of Portuguese seamen for knife-work became arrived, he pointed them out and joked The coroner’s inquest that sat on Murray’s respectable. so firmly established that in 1814 an loudly, ‘Here come some Greeks!’ (that is, an body the following day examined witnesses Englishman arrested for petty theft by two unintelligible body of indeterminate for eight hours but needed little time at the More pertinently however, as Gibbs was London watchmen ‘swore if he got clear he 15 foreigners).6 According to one of Murray’s end to record a verdict of wilful murder undoubtedly aware, not a single Portuguese would act Portuguese fashion with us’.

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Sir Richard Berkeley

Tony Nott Sir Richard Berkeley: An Elizabethan Career is a retired teacher. He is currently a freelance Tony Nott lecturer and researcher in local history. His latest published work, which he It would be wrong to suggest that the 1 Bristol Record Office (BRO), Coroners inquest co-edited with Joan historical mingling of nations on Bristol’s into the death of Henry Murray, Quarter Hasler, is Wells Convocation Act Books quays was always more productive of Sessions Papers, JQS/P/271, information of Nathaniel Smith, surgeon, 5 October 1810. 1589-1665, volumes 90 & antagonism than multi-cultural integration, 2 Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal (FFBJ) 27 April 1811, 91 in the Somerset Record and UWE’s current Immigrants and Minorities 25 May 1811 Society Series.. research initiative will surely turn up plenty 3 FFBJ, 5 May 1810. of evidence to prove it. Today indeed, Bristol 4 Old Bailey Proceedings Online celebrates its historic trading links with (www.oldbaileyonline.org, 26 April 2005), Portugal’s own second city, through a September 1810, trial of Emanuel Joseph, t18100919-32 twinning arrangement with Opporto. But 5 FFBJ, 20 April 1811; BRO Coroners inquest, the trial of Johan Desanto and the records of informations of Elizabeth Watkins and John the inquest that preceded it are valuable for Johnson. the rare and fascinating insight they offer us 6 BRO Coroner’s inquest, information of John of some of the social tensions underlying Johnson. The slang use of the term ‘Greeks’ in daily life on the streets and quays of this context may be found in M. Harris (ed)., The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (London, plebeian Bristol. 1994 edition) 7 Such language is a feature, for example, in evidence offered in a number of cases heard at The house that Berkeley built: Stoke House and its park in the late 17th century as drawn by the Old Bailey in 1810-11. See footnote xv Johannes Kip for Sir Robert Atkyns’s The Ancient And Present State of Gloucestershire (1712) below for full references. 8 BRO Coroners inquest, information of John Photo: Tony Nott Johnson, Patrick Sullivan and Henry Towley. 9 Bristol Gazette, 25 April 1811. 10 BRO Coroners inquest, information of Sir Richard Berkeley, a harasser of smugglers was killed in an accident in a naval Henry Towley at home and a schemer at court, was engagement against the French in June 1545. 11 BRO Coroners inquest, information of arguably one of the most politically astute A cannon being fired “brake all to pieces, Patrick Sullivan. landowners of the Elizabethan age. Here, and standing himself at the recoile of the 12 FFBJ, 13 October 1810. Tony Nott profiles the complex political and same, one piece not so much as haulf the 13 Bristol Gazette 25 April 1811. The account of the diplomatic career of the first builder of Stoke quarter of a hazel nut shell, strake him trial given in FFBJ (20 April 1811) is more cursory. House. besides the pappe and out at toppe of the 14 Robert Shoemaker, The London Mob: Violence sholder.” Sir John was taken back to and Disorder in Eighteenth Century England Driving northwards out of Bristol on the M32, Portsmouth where he died. Thus ended any (London, 2004), p.174. one cannot fail to be impressed by the hopes that the young Richard may have had 15 Old Bailey Proceedings Online imposing sight of the newly renovated Stoke of an easy entry into court circles. (www.oldbaileyonline.org, 26 April 2005), House. Although extensively remodelled since September 1810, trial of Emanuel Joseph, t18100919-32. Another Londoner, Thomas Davis, it was first built in the 16th century by Richard For any aspiring gentleman, an adequate was stabbed during a fight with Portuguese Berkeley (1531-1604), it still stands as a income was a necessity and unfortunately seamen in December 1810, and a third, John monument to the political ambition of this Richard in 1552 inherited only five main Douglas, in October 1811. In the latter two 16th century gentlemen of ancient lineage manors well scattered throughout the cases, the accused Portuguese were both but initially modest means. county: Stoke Gifford, Kingsweston, and acquitted. In January and April 1811 however, Rockhampton in the south, Uley in the centre two Portuguese seamen, Antonio Cordosa and Juan Baptista Peniza, were separately and Richard Berkeley was a member of a cadet and Marsden in the north east. A marriage capitally convicted for stabbing English sailors branch of one of the most prestigious families that would bring him some much-needed on the streets of London, the former for in Gloucestershire – the Berkeley family of cash was a necessity and at some time during murder, the latter for assault with intent to Berkeley Castle. Although his branch had left the mid 1550s he married Elizabeth Rede murder: see t18110109-31 & t18110403-53. For the main stem in the 14th century, Lord daughter of William Rede of Bristol. Little is Mason’s case see t18141026-34. Berkeley was still his most obvious political known of Rede except for some property patron if Richard wished to play a major role transactions which show him to have been a in county politics. His own family background man of means. almost certainly gave him a desire for a career not just in county society but in the more An entry into county government for Richard elevated circle of the royal court. His father, was relatively assured because of his name Sir John Berkeley (1510-1545) had gained the and family connections but the Rede favour of Thomas Cromwell, becoming the marriage brought him connections within King’s standard-bearer in 1539 with a pension the City of Bristol that became useful in his of £40 per annum while his uncle Maurice had early career. There was certainly some become a gentleman usher of the Privy improvement in financial liquidity possibly Chamber in 1541. Unfortunately, Sir John’s because of the marriage, because in 1559 career came to a premature end when he Richard extended the Stoke Gifford estate

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southwards towards Bristol by buying from High Sheriff of Gloucestershire at the 1569 Burleigh felt that Richard would be useful to Besides success, the 1590s also brought Nicholas Thorne land in Stapleton, Horfield assizes and was forced to flee to Italy. him as part of his network of clients and so family strains. His son Henry had become a and Barton which had belonged to the Whatever the truth of these rumours, it soon disregarded any slurs on Richard’s reputation. disappointment to Sir Richard. He was dissolved St Bartholomew’s Hospital and became evident to Richard that if he was to His confidence was not misplaced and the obviously not possessed of his father’s energy followed this up in 1564 with the purchase of pursue a successful career at court as his newly knighted Sir Richard, was to remain and ability and his behaviour may have been the manor of Stapleton from his uncle Sir father had done, he would need a new loyal to the Cecils for the rest of his life. The embarrassing to his father especially when Walter Denys of Syston. Leland had patron, because the disgrace and execution Cecil connection soon proved advantageous contrasted with that of Thomas Rowe, Sir commented in 1546 that the manor house at of the Duke of Norfolk in 1572 had eroded and for the rest of the 1570s Sir Richard Richard’s new stepson, destined to become a Stoke Gifford was in a dilapidated condition any political influence that Richard’s patron received a number of local commissions from celebrated traveller, diplomatist and friend so Richard was able, after 1564, to Lord Berkeley might have had. the Privy Council to investigate various of the poet John Donne. One possibility is concentrate on building a new house much matters in the port of Bristol. It is possible that Henry may have embraced the Catholic grander than that at Stoke Gifford and the that he was also given a commission to faith of his wife which could have been massive plinth on which the house was built investigate trade matters abroad in 1580. His politically embarrassing for his father had he still exists today as a monument to his new friendship with the Cecils however did come to London. Whatever the reason, his ambition. The building was partly financed not stop him from keeping links with more father refused permission for him to come. In by the sale of the manors of Rockhampton, conservatively religious families in 1592, Henry decided to try to flee the Uley and Kingsweston between the years Gloucestershire and Warwickshire who were country and was detained in Southampton. 1566 and 1571. important in local politics. His son Henry and On being brought back to London, he was daughter Elizabeth married into the interrogated by the Privy Council who found Having established himself at the extreme important Throgmorton family and his him to be possessed of a “very melancholy southern edge of the county, it was essential daughter Mary married a Hungerford. humour” and sent him back to his father if he were to play an important part in with the friendly advice to “ bear a milde county politics that he had a base in the hand over him … for the better prevention prosperous north of the county as well. From ‘The massive plinth on which the of mischief likely to ensue”; it could have his father he had inherited the small manor been that Henry was suffering from a of Marsden and in 1564 he bought the house was built still exists today as depressive illness possibly brought on by his reversion of the neighbouring manors of a monument to his ambition’. father’s refusal to let him live in London. Rendcombe and Calmsdon from Sir Humphrey Stafford, leasing them from his Whatever the state of his mental health, cousin Roger Lygon in 1566. His public life By the mid 1580s it would have seemed to Henry was to play no further part in Sir commenced when he became a county JP in most observers that Sir Richard’s career could Richard’s life and from then on Henry’s son, 1562 and sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1565. not develop any further. He was now in his Richard, became his heir and the focus of his His involvement with Bristol also began at mid fifties and his activities were mostly local grandfather’s life. The Berkeley/Rowe this time. As sheriff he sat on a commission but Burleigh nevertheless still considered him alliance was sealed by the marriage in 1598 with the mayor to inquire into the extent of as a useful servant and by the later 1580s Sir between the younger Richard and Mary corruption and smuggling in Bristol and The title page to Berkeley’s The Felicity of Richard, now a widower, was regularly Rowe the daughter of Sir Richard’s second Gloucestershire. His family life was also Man (1598): a ‘homespun and amateurish visiting London for consultations on local wife Eleanor. Elizabeth Throgmorton was prospering with the birth of his son and heir work’? affairs with Burleigh at Ely House. also an embarrassment to her father when in Henry c 1560 and all seemed set fair. Then in 1593 her adherence to the catholic faith 1568 things began to go wrong. A further blow came in 1573 when Lord It was then that he made the important step came to the notice of the Privy Council and Berkeley finally rejected a double marriage of becoming one of the gentleman members she was separated from her children and Richard’s patron Lord Henry Berkeley had alliance between his family and that of of the Privy Chamber with direct access to placed under house arrest. become involved in a dangerous political Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the current the Queen. The means to pay for a game when he secretly supported his royal favourite which Richard had advised prolonged presence in London was achieved Despite these family problems, Sir Richard brother-in-law the Duke of Norfolk’s plan to him to accept. Lord Berkeley’s absence from by his second marriage c. 1590 to Eleanor was still considered by the Privy Council to be marry the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, the home when Queen Elizabeth visited Berkeley Rowe, widow of Robert Rowe the son of the a “safe pair of hands” and was entrusted heir to the English crown who had recently Castle in 1574 finally destroyed any influence late Lord Mayor of London, Sir Thomas with various difficult tasks. In 1596 he was fled from Scotland and was in custody in the he might have had at court. By that time Rowe, which brought him an estate at made Lieutenant of the Tower of London north of England. Lord Henry and his however, Richard, a political realist, had Leyton in Essex, a London residence and where he was part of the group who relations the Denys and Lygon families, who sought another patron, William Cecil Lord connections with the London commercial interrogated the Jesuit John Gerard. Gerard were also involved, were very conservative in Burleigh the Lord Treasurer, who was elite – the Rowes were related to Sir Thomas revealed in his autobiography that Sir matters of religion and although confessing instrumental in securing a knighthood for Gresham the founder of the Royal Exchange. Richard, with his catholic sympathies, found adherence to the Church of England secretly him in 1574. In 1590 he was made by the Queen, a the torture that Gerard was subjected to very favoured the old religion. If the various member of the Council of Wales and now distasteful and it was clear from his informers are to be believed, this group, Despite numerous accusations about his regularly waited on the Queen who correspondence with Robert Cecil that he including Richard, plotted to raise troops in “treasonous” activities in 1568 which were honoured him with a visit to Rendcombe on was glad to be relieved of his post in 1597. support of Norfolk. One hostile witness later sent to Burleigh at this time by men who her summer progress in September 1592. claimed that Richard himself assaulted the resented his adoption of Richard as a client,

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Wood-taking and customary practice

Dr Carl Griffin Wood-taking and customary practice: William Hunt’s gained his PhD at the Justices Notebook, 1744-49 University of Bristol where he also held an Carl Griffin ESRC post-doctoral fellowship. More recently At the age of nearly 70 in March 1600, Sir Besides his other qualities, Sir Richard also he has been working at Richard undertook his most sensitive political learned to be tactful and deferent and in the the University of Southampton where he assignment, that of the supervision of the dangerous world of Tudor politics to keep his has continued his disgraced Earl of Essex in Essex House. He mind to himself. His epitaph is fitting, he research interests in was obviously very assiduous in his duties for probably composed it himself: “Though all popular protest, court gossip observed: “Sir Richard Berkeley men may desire to know my name and face, criminality, welfare and has so straight a charge to be ever with him yet no man may desire to know my mind. If social policy, and the and observe his doings, that it is a question anyone wishes to know who I am, reply I social enrolments of which holds the other prisoner.” His four know not, but let that man be advised to plants, animals and months careful guardianship of Essex and his know himself”; a salutary warning for machines. Recent constant communication with Secretary anyone researching Sir Richard’s career. publications include Robert Cecil paid dividends when in 1601 he papers examining the was made Deputy Lieutenant of Selected sources genesis of the so-called Gloucestershire but he was disappointed at Details of Sir Richard Berkeley’s estates are in ‘Swing Riots’ in Southern not being made Vice Chamberlain at Court. the Gloucester Record Office in the Beaufort History and Rural History, At Christmas 1603, the rift with his erstwhile papers D 2700, and in the Patent Rolls Series and examinations of the patron was finally healed when both elderly in the Public Record Office. His surviving historiography of rural men spent Christmas together at Berkeley correspondence may be found in Historical protest in the Journal of Castle and it was no coincidence that Sir Manuscripts Commission Salisbury Papers Historical Geography. Richard was elected as one of the MPs for Vols. 1 & 2 and in The Calendar of the Gloucestershire in the 1604 Parliament. He Correspondence of the Smyth Family of took his seat in March 1604 but soon became Ashton Court 1548-1642, Bristol Record ill and died in April 1604. Society Vol. XXXV. A short biography of Sir Richard can be found in John Smyth’s Lives of the Berkeleys, Vol. 1. Details of Sir Richard’s William Hunt’s home territory. West Lavington and surrounding area from Andrews ‘Bear a milde hand over him … public life appear in the Calendar of State and Dury’s map of Wiltshire (1773). Papers Domestic and in the Acts of the Privy for the better prevention of Council. A critical account of Sir Richard’s The surviving notebooks of eighteenth with later Yorkist and Tudor legislation mischief likely to ensue… book “The Felicity of Man” may be found in century magistrates can often be used by reflecting Naval fears that wood was being The Dictionary of Seventeenth Century British historians to investigate the extent to which wasted,2 it was not until a Statute of 1663 Philosphers ed Andrew Pyle, Bristol 2000, customary culture was constrained and (15 Charles II c.2 ‘An Act for the punishment Sir Richard Berkeley’s career shows how a pp 55-56. regulated by law. Wood-gathering may have of unlawful cutting or stealing or spoiling of skilful selection of the right patron could been essential to the economy of the rural wood and underwood and destroyers of bring about advancement. His energy, ability poor, but it remained theft in the eyes of the young trees’) that powers were given to, and loyalty were recognised by the Cecils as law. Carl Griffin opens the notebook of firstly, issue warrants against suspected being valuable despite any reservations they William Hunt of West Lavington in Wiltshire wood-takers, and, secondly, to prosecute the might have had about his religious and finds it was a crime that kept the taking of wood in all contexts.3 This statute, sensitivities. His humanity was often magistrate peculiarly busy. as Bob Bushaway has suggested, represented expressed in his care about what happened a major departure from manorial customs, to his faithful servants and in his care of the The period between the mid seventeenth- effectively shifting responsibilities away from prisoners in his charge. He was also a well- century and the mid eighteenth-century manorial and forest courts to magistrates educated man. In 1598 his The Felicity of witnessed a dramatic redefining of property who were empowered to apprehend ‘all and Man, recently described as a ‘homespun and rights and the nature of the commodity in every person or persons they shall suspect, amateurish’ work of philosophy and religion, rural England. The needs of a having or carrying, or any ways conveying, was published by William Ponsonby, the commercialising agriculture well-represented any burthern or bundles of wood, publisher of Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund in the legislature to clearly demarcate underwood, poles, or young trees, or bark or Spenser. Its anecdotal style and accessibility ownership of the natural world and the bast of trees, or any gates, stiles, posts, pales, made it so popular that two more editions concomitant increase in momentum of the rails, or hedgewood, broom or furze’. A first were published in the next 25 years, both of enclosure movement meant that the offence under this Statute was punishable by which are in Wells Cathedral Library. Sir customary practices of the rural poor a 10/- fine, plus damages, whilst a second Richard like many busy ambitious men wrote surrounding the gathering of wood for fuel offence led to a month’s incarceration with in his book that the happy life was achieved increasingly came into conflict with the rulers hard labour.4 by having “a quiet life and meane estate, of rural England.1 voide of worldly cares”, an aspiration that he As with all legislation, whilst it responded to did not pursue in his own life. Whilst wood taking had been carefully a perceived universal need, it was enacted in rationed by manorial customs and village by- reaction to earlier localised enclosure laws from as early as the seventh-century disputes, not least in the villages adjoining

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the forests of the Dorset, Somerset and encompass underwood, hedgewood, hollies, notebook kept by Wiltshire magistrate sexual assault, Hunt adjudicated in 80 cases), Wiltshire borders which were both more thorns, or orchard trees which were instead William Hunt is a notable exception.14 malicious damage to windows and water densely populated than other English forests punished by a 40/- fine or a month’s hard bays, and, more unusually, cases of ‘pissing’ and also more chronically pauperised.5 These labour.10 Hunt lived at West Lavington on the in a hat and throwing bricks down a disputes were motivated both by attempts to northern fringes of the immense, and largely chimney.17 restrict common-pasture rights and the more It is clear therefore that the legislature uncultivated, Salisbury Plain, and acted as general loss of common of est’overs, firebote between the mid seventeenth-century and magistrate in the division comprised of in Of all these acts it was the taking of wood and housebote through enclosure, increased the mid eighteenth-century constantly theory, if not in practice, the Hundreds of which kept Hunt busiest: of the 358 cases 95 restrictions over how rights could be sought to redefine the relationship between Swanborough, and Potterne and Cannings.15 (26.5%) involved the taking of wood or exercised, the increasing cost of ‘licenses’ to those with capital and those without, shifting In his magisterial duties Hunt meticulous hedge and fence-breaking. In the vast exercise use-rights and the general erosion of from a self-regulating rural England which recorded every case in which he acted majority of these cases no reference was the value of such rights.6 The most common rationed access to the ‘accidental’ bounties of summarily between 1744 and 1749, though it made to the quantity of wood taken, though way in which these disputes were played out nature through manorial courts, to a rural does not explicitly state that in all cases Hunt in all cases of shrouding it was stated that was not through overt protests, but rather England where the commodity was the acted as a single justice. In total, Hunt made only one tree had been shrouded, whilst through the day-to-day taking of wood universal language and was enforced and adjudications on 358 separate occasions, and occasionally adverbs other than ‘some’ and regardless of such restrictions and, so it upheld through the twin pillars of the as Crittal, the editor of Hunt’s notebook, ‘quantities’ were deployed. For instance, on would seem, the Statute of 1663. This taking market and the law. In practice though it suggests it was those acquisitive acts ‘that 28 January 1745 Hunt granted a conviction of wood was, therefore, imbued with a remains unclear as to how these new tools had once been accepted as common rights warrant against two West Lavington political edge: it was not simply a matter of were actually used by both ‘victims’ of that made up the vast majority of all cases in labourers for cutting and carrying away one taking fuel but rather an attempt by virtue timber-taking and magistrates let alone which Hunt had to act including wood- stump belonging to the Earl of Abingdon of practice to imbue their claims with the air whether the criminalisation of customary taking and poaching.16 Other acquisitive acts (171) for which they were fined seven of legitimacy. As such, it is important to note practices actually led to a shift in plebeian ranged from the relatively common – shillings each, whilst on 5 December 1746 a that even such supposedly ‘everyday’ practices, drawing them into fuel markets. robbing fields, gardens and orchards – to the Wedhampton labourer was fined five practices could be minor epiphanies of rather more obscure, including the theft of shillings and bound to recognizances of £10 resistance, though the law regarded such acts Whilst all major studies of crime and well chains, flints and perukes, some of for carrying away ‘large’ quantities of as thefts rather than acts of a malicious criminality in eighteenth-century England which were obviously consumed within the hedgewood belonging to a yeoman of the nature. make reference to wood-stealing it would household with other stolen goods same parish (371). appear that it was no more common place presumably disposed of either through urban The protest element in wood-taking was than other acquisitive crimes. However, it is fences or the many higglers that traversed Wood-taking could take a wide variety of recognised by a further Statute enacted clear that a total reliance hitherto upon the rural England. different forms, though in 43 cases Hunt under Charles II which separated malicious systematic series of quarter sessions and simply noted that the defendants were damage to timber trees from the lesser assize records totally masks the scale of the charged with stealing ‘wood’. The shrouding ‘offence’ of wood-stealing,7 but it was not number of cases which the judicial system ‘The most common way in which of maiden trees (elms, ashes, oaks and four until the passing of the so-called ‘Black Act’ dealt with.11 Indeed, relatively few cases of cases involving unnamed trees) was common in 1723 that malicious intent was effectively wood-taking ever reached the higher courts. these disputes were played out as was the cutting of willow setts. legislated for. This Act, which in a single For instance, of the 37 cases presented to the was not through overt protests, Conversely, the taking of already processed piece of ambiguously worded legislation Epiphany, Easter and Midsummer Hampshire but rather through the day-to-day wood was relatively rare with only seven made capital offences of the many acts of Quarter Sessions in 1789 only two related to cases involving the taking of pails or hurdles rural protest thereby creating more capital wood-taking and neither of these were cases taking of wood’. from fences; two cases involving the taking offences overnight than any other European were actually tried by the quarter sessions of knitches; and two cases sawn timber. country had in their entire penal codes. If but rather sentences of six months were Clearly, whilst necessity was the motive, invoked, a person now found guilty of imposed outside of the sessions. Hunt also had to deal with many cases wood-takers rarely extended their activities having cut down a tree ‘planted in any involving poor law disputes, either in to taking processed timber and instead avenue, or growing in any garden, orchard In a sense, this is not that surprising as if the relation to non-relief of paupers, the refusal almost always confined their actions to or plantation’ was liable to be hung.8 1766 legislation was invoked, the quarter of individuals to support their families, taking wood straight from hedges, copses sessions would only ever deal with third settlement disputes or bastardy. Excise and woodlands. It is worth noting though Before the 1766 legislation, the law offences, whilst if the Statute of 1663 was evasion, most commonly through selling the vague phrase ‘wood stealing’ could regarding the taking of timber only used the quarter sessions would, in all liquor without a license; fraud; failure to pay possibly cover not only thefts from woods recognised the difference between timber probability, not try any cases of wood- wages, poor rates and tithes; leaving service; and hedges but also thefts from sheds of trees and non-timber trees, indeed it was not taking.12 As such, part of the problem in abuse of character; swearing and cursing; others’ fuel supplies.18 until then that the taking of dead wood was attempting to offer a more detailed, more failing to obey the Sabbath; and, detaining unambiguously criminalized.9 This nuanced understanding is the fact that until goods all occasionally required Hunt’s As already noted, the area around West strengthening of the law was, in a sense, 1822 petty convictions for wood theft were jurisdiction, as did failures to obey his Lavington was not particularly well wooded only partial in that it was a move towards not returned to the Quarter Sessions.13 The summons and false accusations. But other and this meant that many parishes suffered offering a range of differing punishments only possible way in which we can analyse than for acquisitive crimes, Hunt was most an imbalance between supply and demand. depending upon the use-value of the timber the usage and impact of the shift in frequently called upon to judge upon cases Moreover, being removed from the coast and taken, and whilst this list of trees was legislation is through justices’ papers, which which involved some element of protest: distant from the towns of Marlborough, expanded seven years later it still did not are both very rare and rarely systematic. The most commonly, assault (of which, excluding Salisbury, Warminster and Westbury meant

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that coals were expensive, and as such during In 73% of cases men were the sole occasions when the defendants were also sometimes occasionally questioned the the winter the need to somehow procure defendants, whilst women were the sole acquitted (in all cases for a lack of evidence) status of timber as commodity: the shrouding fuel was potentially chronic. It is not defendants in only 19% of cases, with a indeed, nobody was found not guilty on the of a willow was deemed too ‘frivolous’ (273) surprising therefore that the seasonality of further 6% involving both men and women. evidence provided. Some defendants though to concern the law, whilst, presumably, other the cases brought before Hunt matches that In the final 2% of cases the gender was not found guilty were either pardoned, as in the cases were presented to and subsequently found by Timothy Shakesheff for nineteenth- mentioned. Clearly, if 80% of wood taking case of the Urchfont female labourers; thrown out by Hunt. As such, the nature of century Herefordshire, thereby cases involved men and only 25% women, respited; or excused by Hunt, in one case of wood as commodity was constantly being demonstrating that the taking of wood was we have been rather hasty in assuming the willow shrouding because it ‘[a]ppeared so tested by both the poor and farmers and motivated primarily by the need to heat role of women in subsistence related frivolous’ (273). More importantly, not one landowners with Hunt acting as arbitrator. labouring dwellings (see figure 1). However, activities remained static both over time and case was passed on to a higher court and Similarly, even though the law between 1744 the concentration in the work of Shakesheff between different areas. Whilst Hunt did not only one person was committed to the and 1749 could be used to prosecute the and others upon the use of quarter sessions record the ages of the defendants, it would Bridewell for a second offence. It is clear takers of fallen timber there is no evidence to records for analysing the seasonality of appear that people at all stages of the life- therefore that, as Crittal has suggested, in suggest that Hunt prosecuted anyone for specific crimes has resulted in a rather cycle took wood. For instance, in February every case of wood-taking Hunt used the such an act. As Bushaway has suggested, distorted picture, as the date of the sessions 1745 Hunt prosecuted widow Betty Draper of Statute of 1663 rather than any of the more fallen timber was the ‘flotsam and jetsam’ of or the date of the commitment of the Market Lavington by the sum of one shilling recently passed legislation.21 the countryside and was deemed to be a defendant has been used as a proxy for the (166) whilst in May 1744 the sons of Robert customary windfall.23 date of the offence rather than analysing Lane along with William Wilson the younger individual indictments. Moreover, the relative of Market Lavington were fined five shillings ‘The nature of wood as commodity The concept of the commodity necessitates paucity of cases tried before the quarter each (99). Two of the major groupings of was constantly being tested by that everybody pays the same price for the As a prominent sessions means that it is impossible to make wood takers were collectives of often same good, and therefore the system of fines landowner, Hunt any conclusions about short-term fluctuations unrelated young men and collectives of both the poor and landowners should mirror this offering a proportionate had a well- 19 in crime rates. Detailed and extensive young women, though, perhaps with Hunt acting as arbitrator’. punishment according to the value of the developed sense of magistrates notes however allow for a much unsurprisingly, the former grouping was far property ‘stolen’. In practice though, it is clear his own historical more sustained and detailed analysis. For more frequent. that Hunt’s fines were levied not in relation identity. This is his instance, in December 1746 Hunt dealt with As such, in the mid-eighteenth-century every to the value of timber taken, but rather to bookplate. ten cases of wood-taking alone, a rate far There is some evidence to suggest that case of wood-taking that was tried at the the circumstances of the individual. Whilst (Reproduced from higher than any of the other years which the women acting without the assistance of men quarter sessions represented the peak of a such a brief analysis does not fully permit the Wiltshire Notes & notebook covers, whilst the figures relating were treated more leniently by Hunt. In April very deep iceberg. Whilst many cases could ‘moral’ dimensions of this important aspect of Queries, Volume 2, to the summer months suggests that wood- 1746 a search warrant was issued against have been sent to the higher courts, Hunt’s English law as practiced and the practices of 1896-98) taking was even less of a problem to three female labourers of Urchfont who, notebook clearly demonstrates the the poor, it would appear that to some magistrates at that time of year than an when they came before Hunt, were importance, as Peter King has recently noted, extent E.P. Thompson’s concept of the ‘moral analysis of quarter sessions records suggests. pardoned ‘out of regard of their great of the single magistrate acting as an economy’ can be applied to wood-taking in 24 poverty and their promises of not offending arbitrator.22 Hunt’s discretion and his eighteenth-century West Lavington. Here Figure 1: Seasonality of wood-stealing cases in the like again’ (322). Even in a case where willingness to find defendants guilty but was a ‘particular historical formation’, a brought before Justice Hunt, Wiltshire, 1 two female brick-makers of Market then only levying a small fine meant that downland community defined by the shared 744-49. Lavington not only cut down a plum tree but prosecutors could avoid the potentially practices and values associated with also destroyed a quantity of mustard seed – lengthy delay of waiting for the sessions and pastoralism and subjected to the vicissitudes clearly an act of plant maiming (see Griffin, the costs of the prosecution whilst the of an agrarian capitalism that was becoming forthcoming) where the Black Act could have county did not have to meet the costs of increasingly intensive but still uneven in its been invoked – the punishment was five securing the defendant(s) in custody and the local scope. The taking of wood was clearly 20 shillings for damages (447). Hunt, to some parish the potential expense of keeping the defined in the context of West Lavington as extent, adjusted the fines levied according to defendant’s family relieved. Indeed, five an illegal practice, as too were E.P. circumstances, though the fifteen shilling cases of wood-taking were ‘agreed’ without Thompson’s food riots, but whilst the law fine made against West Lavington labourer the need to appear before Hunt, and in a may have offered potentially clear guidance, William Gough for stealing willow setts (228) further four cases the defendants were landowners, farmers and Justice Hunt’s despite his willingly confessing suggests Hunt forgiven by the complainants without Hunt complex practices of discretion combined was either occasionally inconsistent, perhaps having to adjudicate. with the customary practices and beliefs of due to pressure from the prosecutor, or that the poor regarding the ownership and this policy was only de facto one even in What does Hunt’s notebook tell us about the allowable usages of wood suggest that a Hunt’s own mind. process of commodification in the English profound countryside moral economy existed countryside? Simply put, through the lens of in relation to wood. Indeed, it is worth By far the most common punishment was the wood-taking, the key tenets of capitalism – considering, in light of Roger Wells’ recent levying of a crown fine (21 cases), followed the commodity and the law – were never a identification of a cornland moral economy in by eight cases of a half crown fine, though in given but were always being contested at a the south-east wherein issues of access to several cases fines of other amounts between variety of different levels. Whilst Hunt was land were paramount, whether natural one shilling and fifteen shillings were handed ready to prosecute and in the vast majority of resources represented the most profound and 25 down. Few and far between were the cases found in favour of the prosecutor, he important moral economy of all.

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‘A silly, ridiculous Jack in Office’

Trevor Fawcett ‘A silly, ridiculous Jack in Office’: is a former editor of Bath Bath’s Town Clerk and the Keppel Affair of 1779 History and a founder of the History of Bath Trevor Fawcett Research Group. His most recent publications, Bath 1 M. Overton, Agricultural Revolution in subsequent references to Hunt’s notebook Admiral Keppel’s trial for cowardice in 1779 lights that same evening, yet the magistrates Administer’d (2001) and England: The Transformation of the relate to Crittall’s edited version. made him one of the most talked-about hesitated before giving assent, partly it Bath Commercialis’d 15 (2002) are published by Agrarian Economy 1500-1850 (Cambridge Crittall, op. cit., p.4. naval figures of the age. The political seems from political scruple, partly from fear University Press, Cambridge, 1996); J. 16 Ibid., p.14. These figures do not relate to Ruton Press. Chapman and S. Seeliger, Enclosure, the number of separate cases which Hunt ramifications of his recovery and re- of street disorder. Environment and Landscape in Southern presided over, rather the total number of instatement as a popular Whig hero are England (Tempus, Stroud, 2001). For times on which Hunt had to adjudicate, this well-known; much less familiar however, is But at least the Town Clerk knew where his considerations of wood-taking see: B. is an important distinction as it clearly the enormous impact the affair had upon duty lay. Professing outrage at the flying of Bushaway, ‘From Custom to Crime: Wood- indicates what took up Hunt’s time as well Georgian Bath. Trevor Fawcett probes the the Corporation flag without proper Gathering in Eighteenth and early as the relative amount of the different types local angle. authorisation and on a non-royal occasion, Nineteenth-Century England: A Focus for of civil and criminal business he had to Conflict in Hampshire, Wiltshire and the preside over. he complained to the Archdeacon, South’, in J. Rule (ed.) Outside the Law: 17 Ibid., various cases. By late 1778, with the American War going demanded explanations from the various Studies in Crime and Order 1650-1850 18 An analysis of the less comprehensive from badly, Lord North’s administration was churchwardens, and had the flag hauled (Exeter University Press, Exeter, 1982), pp. more detailed justices’ papers from the increasingly under fire from its political foes, down and the bells silenced. It was a futile 65-101; T. Shakesheff, ‘Wood and Crop Theft Jervoise estate records from Herriard in the Rockingham Whigs. Its decision to court- gesture, as well as foolhardy, given the city's in Rural Herefordshire, 1800-60’, Rural Hampshire shows that wood thefts were martial the popular Admiral Keppel only excited mood. The Abbey at once retaliated History, 13 (2002), pp. 1-18. frequently of already felled timber either 2 K. Thomas, Man and the Natural World: stacked and awaiting being carted or from made matters worse. The charge that Keppel by hoisting a Union Jack and a flag of St Changing Attitudes in England, 1500-1800 wood sheds: Hampshire County Record had failed properly to engage a French fleet, George, and that evening the illumination, (Allen Lane, London, 1983), p.198. Office 44M69/G3/various. brought by Vice-Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser, clearly in preparation for days by the pro- 3 E. Crittal, The Justicing Notebook of William 19 Shakesheff, op. cit., p.4. was both ill-founded and blatantly political, Keppel faction, made a splendid show. Hunt 1744-1749 (Wiltshire Record Society, 20 C. Griffin, ‘The Many Place(s) of Trees in for Palliser sat on Lord Sandwich’s Board of Devizies, 1982), p.15. Rural Society; or, the strange case of ‘Plant Admiralty which the Whig opposition, of Many buildings exhibited lamps and 4 Bushaway, op. cit., 77-78. Maiming’ in Eighteenth-Century England’, 5 R. Manning, Village Revolts: Social Protest forthcoming. whom Keppel was an active member, was transparencies with naval themes, and and Popular Disturbances in England, 1509- 21 Crittall, op. cit., p.15. constantly harrying. The ensuing five-week- though Bath’s new Guildhall was not 1640 (Clarendon, Oxford, 1989), pp.98, 101- 22 P. King, ‘The Summary Courts and Social long court-martial, held at Portsmouth and illuminated, Council members showed some 2, 262-3. Relations in Eighteenth-Century England’, attended by many Whig leaders, gripped the partisanship by meeting to toast Keppel’s 6 Bushaway, op. cit., pp.74-5; Manning, op. Past and Present 183 (2004), pp.125-172. nation’s imagination and was reported in success. Crespigny’s house in Royal Crescent cit., p.270. 23 Bushaway, op. cit., p.101, n.1. 7 24 every detail by the press, the Bath Chronicle was bedecked with lights, but the Town Bushaway, op. cit., p.79. E.P. Thompson, ‘The Moral Economy of the 1 8 E.P. Thompson, Whigs and Hunters: The English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century’, and Bath Journal not excepted. Many naval Clerk’s, only three doors away remained dark Origins of the Black Act (Allen Lane, Past and Present 50 (1971), pp. 76-136; colleagues testified in Keppel’s favour and in and was lucky in the circumstances to avoid London, 1975) p.23; L. Radzinowicz, A Idem., ‘The Moral Economy Reviewed’, in the end he won his case with ease, was broken windows. Elsewhere ‘the names of History of English Criminal Law and its Idem., Customs in Common (Penguin, acquitted with honour, and found himself an Sir Hugh (Palliser) and a certain Lawyer were Administration from 1750: Volume I Stevens London, 1992), pp.242-3. instant hero. Celebrations erupted written on pieces of paper and unanimouly 25 and Son, London, 1948). R. Wells, ‘The Moral Economy of the English throughout the country, while North, condemned to the Jordan (i.e. the 9 This Act allowed for the summary Countryside’, in A. Randall and A. punishment before a single magistrate by Charlesworth (eds.) Moral Economy and Sandwich and Palliser were vilified for chamberpot)’. up to a £20 fine or between six and twelve Popular Protest: Crowds, Conflict and bringing the prosecution and had their months imprisonment for ‘wilfully cut or Authority (Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2000), houses ransacked by rioters. The lawyer in question, Town Clerk since break down, bark, burn, pluck up, lop, top, pp. 209-272. 1776, was John Jefferys. Settled in Bath by crop, or otherwise deface, damage, spoil or c.1740 and taking advantage of Bath's urban destroy or carry away any Timber tree’. A growth, he soon built up a strong legal second such offence the fine or gaol ‘Why did it misrepresent the practice in land deals, mortgages, loans and sentence increased, whilst a third offence celebration as a riotous occasion was punishable by seven years investments. Not only did this bring him transportation. and claim that it was all got up by considerable business with private developers 10 13 Geo III c.33 and 9 Geo. III c.41. A further a set of 'patriotic banditti'? such as Richard Marchant (a fellow Quaker) statute added that if the offence was and the younger John Wood,3 his expertise committed by night, an offender could be also recommended him to the Corporation. transported for 7 years as the crime was then a felony: 6 George III c.36. The news from Portsmouth reached Bath at 6 As early as 1748-9 we find him busy about 11 For the reliance upon easily quantifiable a.m. on Friday 12 February 1779, delivered by the city’s water rentals and in surveying city 4 and comparable judicial sources see: J. Innes express to the Royal Crescent house of C.C. property, and under Lewis Clutterbuck and J. Styles, ‘The crime wave: recent Crespigny, Receiver-General for the Admiralty (Town Clerk 1757-76) he seems to have acted writing on crime and criminal justice in 5 but a fervent Keppel supporter.2 As the word as part-time deputy. When in 1776 (having eighteenth-century England’, in A. Wilson pointedly deserted the Quakers for the (ed.) Rethinking Social History: English spread and the church bells began a joyous Society 1570-1920 and its Interpretation peal, the Corporation flag was raised on the Church of England) he succeeded as full (Manchester University Press, Manchester, tower of the Abbey Church on the Town Clerk he must have understood 1993), pp.203-4. instruction of churchwarden Richard perfectly how the Corporation worked. 12 Hampshire Quarter Sessions Calendars, all Atwood. This encouraged the other parish Meanwhile, through moneylending sessions 1789, Hampshire County Record churches to follow suit. Already there was operations and attorney’s work, he had Office Q9/1/436-9. become a rich man, held land, occupied a 13 general expectation that the city would Shakesheff, op. cit, pp.14-5. 6 14 Wiltshire County Record Office A1/1/19. All ‘illuminate’ with a celebratory display of prestigious house, and lived in comfort.

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much the Town Clerk had done on his behalf the most alarming circumstance of all Jerkem’s empire: Bath’s - ‘taking the trouble... of serving the Office is... the amazing ascendancy he has Georgian Guildhall, pictured of Chamberlain for him [in 1776-7] and now gained over the Corporation.... [and] here in 1794, was completed in that of Mayor, for both of which Mr. Crook the implicit faith, passive obedience, 1779, the year of the Keppel allows himself utterly ignorant and and non-resistance, of the Majority of affair. The impressive incapable’. them; at the rate that matters go on, neoclassical façade epitomised we may in a short time reasonably the grandiloquence of the city’s There may have been some truth in it. expect the Mayor reduced to a mere governing corporation and Although he had served on Council for Caput Mortuum, and the two Justices made a fine setting for the twenty-five years, Crook, an apothecary, [to] little or no better than Non- exercise of Jefferys’s seems not to have been cut out for the entities... [while] the whole Body authority.(Reproduced by kind onerous post of Chamberlain (the city's taken together deserves a second permission of Bath Central financial officer) or the role of decisive time [the first occasion being during Library) Mayor. The current Chamberlain too, the ex- Ralph Allen's dominance in the early silk merchant James Ferry, had been 1760s] the appellation of THE ONE- overwhelmed by his duties and imprudently HEADED CORPORATION8 . trusted the city financial affairs to deputies.7 The trouble was that by electing its Mayor All this was separately corroborated in a and other key executive officers for quite contemporary Bath weekly, Salmon’s short terms and mainly on grounds of Mercury, which over many months from seniority, the Corporation’s competence November 1778 to July 1779 exposed all varied from year to year. Moreover, any Jefferys’ dealings with linen draper Tobias Mayor depended heavily on the advice and Salmon and his printer son John Salmon, professional skills of the Guildhall’s éminence whom Jefferys had prosecuted for libel and grise, the Town Clerk. If he came under obliged to serve a three-month gaol public scrutiny, as Jefferys did in 1779, so did sentence. Here little is spared in the damning The Keppel celebration put all this - and his way for the Bath authorities to justify the ways of the Corporation. account of Jeffery’s confrontational style role within the Corporation - under an themselves. Why a letter to the London (even over a private conveyancing issue), his unwelcome spotlight. rather than the Bath press? Why was the Despite pressure to reveal the authorship of ‘tyranny’ over the Corporation, his Mayor's name spelled wrongly? Why the the now notorious letter to the Morning usurpation of powers, and his abysmal The Bath press led the personal criticism need for the Town Clerk to witness the Post, the Corporation said nothing, but reputation among his fellow lawyers and directed against him. In opposing the account? Why did it misrepresent the Bath neither did they leap to the Town Clerk’s former Quaker brethren. festivities Jeffreys had acted like an officious, celebration as a riotous occasion and claim defence. When in mid-March Keppel himself impertinent fool, ‘a silly ridiculous Jack in that it was all got up by a set of ‘patriotic visited Bath on his triumphal progress, the Nevertheless the record of Council meetings Office’ with a freak in his head, a banditti’? People smelled a rat. Had Jefferys celebrations broke out anew with bells, the in 1779 fails to mention any official rebuke ‘blockhead... absurd enough to suppose that dreamed up the letter himself? firing of cannon, acclamations, and another to Jefferys or any obvious curb on his public rejoicings for the Honour of the Navy illumination at which several hundred people activities. He was soon at work again on of England... and the King's own Admiral, accompanied an effigy of Jeffreys municipal business, including the time- should be considered an insult to the King’. ‘Jeffreys’s effigy was tossed (represented as half-Quaker, half-lawyer, and consuming and costly Chancery case against And along with this came nastier insinuations labelled ‘John the Scrub’) and tossed it onto St Michael’s parish that the Corporation was about his Anglican conversion, claiming he onto a bonfire in front of the a bonfire in front of the Royal Crescent to currently fighting. Yet perhaps he had been had been christened out of expediency - Royal Crescent to loud hisses loud hisses and groans. And there was chastened. In 1782 the astute Henry 'more from interest than principle, and that and groans’. further ridicule of ‘John the Scrub’ in Harington, a councilman himself, went out he was not a servant of God but of popular ditties and in a mock playbill for The of his way to praise Jefferys as an Mammon’. Mayor of Bath and The Double Dealer incorruptibly honest Town Clerk, 9 This notion was far from absurd, judging directed by ‘Black Jack‘. More serious, knowledgeable in law and moderate in fees. An affair that was the talk of Bath (‘from the from the opinions being ventilated in the however, was the accusation that the There are no more accusations of his lording Barber's Boy up to the profound Politician’) Bath newspapers. One ironic contribution Corporation had allowed its Town Clerk’s it over the Corporation and he continued now reached a wider audience through a suggested that to save further dispute within ‘Vanity and Avarice... Insolence and Tyranny’ actively in post until his retirement in 1800. letter printed in the London Morning Post of the Corporation the Mayor and J.P.s should far too much scope: 17 February. This purported to be a simply hand over their powers to ‘our most statement of facts signed by the Mayor of excellent Town Clerk’ whose extreme Bath and two Justices, and witnessed by modesty would surely not stop him filling Jefferys as Town Clerk, and while it offered three offices at once. A letter from ‘Justice’ some explanation for the Corporation’s, and ostensibly defending Jefferys hinted that Jeffery’s, actions on the day of the something of the sort had taken place illumination, it contained obvious already, and that the friends of the current inaccuracies and in any case seemed a curious Mayor, Simon Crook, were well aware how

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Sites of memory and neglect

Dr Steve Poole is Director Sites of memory and neglect: of the Regional History John Thelwall and the art of dying quietly. Centre and still feels an irrational attachment to Steve Poole the Romantic enthusiasm of the English Jacobins. 1 In addition, two pamphlets on the court-martial The burial fields around St Swithin’s Church headstone to pay their respects or organise a came out at Bath in weekly numbers as it was in at the top of Walcot Street in Bath contain whip round. He is John Thelwall. If any readers are interested in helping to progress. some pretty impressive mortal remains. 2 The local repercussions of the Keppel acquittal conserve Thelwall’s There’s Fanny Burney for instance, and Jane If the name doesn’t mean very much now, can be followed in issues of Bath Chronicle and monument, please Austen’s dad. And Sir Edward Berry, one of perhaps it’s because the ‘best liberties of his Bath Journal Feb-Mar 1779, usefully reprinted in contact the Regional Letters, Extracts, &c. taken from the Bath News- Nelson’s captains, a veteran of the Nile and fellow men’ were won long ago in distant History Centre, UWE. Papers, &c. respecting the Conduct of Jeffery Trafalgar. These three eminent visitors to battles of which we have since grown weary. Jerk’em, Esquire (Bath?, 1779). Bath all have more in common than Thelwall argued for universal suffrage at a 3 R.S.Neale, Bath 1680-1850: a Social History approximation in death however, for their time when to do so was not only (London, 1981), 163-8. 4 Bath Chamberlain’s Accounts (Bath Record monuments are also the subject of unfashionable but downright dangerous. In Office) 6 Apr, 27 Aug and 6 Sep 1748, 5 Dec expensive recent facelifts. 1794, as a platform speaker and pamphleteer 1749. for the London Corresponding Society, he 5 Thus in 1765 it was Jefferys, not Clutterbuck, This is money well spent of course. Funeral had found himself in the dock of the Old who prosecuted market forestallers on the monuments are the furniture of memory and Bailey with eleven other fledgling democrats, Council's behalf (Bath Chronicle 18 Apr 1765). mourning, markers that remind us not only arraigned by the government for High Later Clutterbuck had a second deputy in Councilman Thomas Harford and in 1775 had to of human mortality but of the Treason. Although platform oratory apologise for allowing his deputies to inflate impetus to leave behind a good was not yet the highly developed their importance by wearing gowns (Bath impression. Like statues, popular art it would later Journal 16 Oct 1775). they’re memorials not just become, Thelwall was not 6 John Jefferys’ personal accounts, covering 1762- to past times but to the only a pioneer but 90, are held at Somerset Record Office, individuals whose words reputedly one of the DD/WLM/Box 1. He held a plot of the Rivers estate on Lansdown (shown on Bath Plan 47 in and deeds still lend ablest mass Bath Central Library) by which he later blocked the past a character communicators of the an important road scheme. and make history age. Government John Thelwall at the 7 For Ferry’s incompetence see especially personal. But feared him less time of his trial for Scorpion’s letter in Bath Journal 8 Mar 1779. celebrity is a fluid because of what he High Treason in 1794 Ferry, though, was one of the Corporation's (Reproduced by kind state and its said than because of more zealous Keppelites, displaying that permission of Bristol attribution is his ability to make it allegiance in a spectacular private display at the Public Library) illumination. sometimes persuasive. To 8 Introduction to Letters, Extracts... cited in note 2 contentious. suggest, as they did, above. that a public 9 Bath Anecdotes and Characters, by the Genius It’s easy to reflect campaign for the Loci [Henry Harington] (London, 1782), 134-5. upon the irony of all right of adult males this if you stand for a to vote in moment on an parliamentary elections overgrown concrete might undermine the path on the south side of constitution and endanger the mortuary chapel in the life of the King may front of the inscribed stone sound a little far-fetched to that marks burial plot 1002. us. To the British government in Since 1834, successive winter frosts the decade of the French Revolution have worked away at the surface of the however, it did not. Thelwall and his ‘co- stone to destabilise the lettering, but at the conspirators’ were only acquitted of treason moment it remains perfectly legible. It and spared a grisly public hanging because appears to be an epitaph not only to a man the trial jury refused to play ball with but to language itself and to the abstractions prosecuting counsel. of liberty. Heady stuff? Here’s a sample: ‘In his utterances Englishmen experienced the And as Thelwall never forgot, he owed his full beauty and energy of their native liberty not just to the logic of his case but to speech. His oratorical powers were only the unparalleled eloquence of his defence surpassed by his devoted zeal and attorney, Thomas Erskine. Unbridled by unflinching efforts to promote the best prosecution, Thelwall’s intoxication with the liberties of his fellow men’. And here’s where power of verbal expression continued to he parts company with Burney, Austen and develop. No sooner was he out of jail than Berry, though he lived through the same he returned to public speaking, risking his turbulent times as they. For he cannot afford neck once again in the struggle for the a facelift himself and there are no crowds of suffrage, his footsteps dogged by Home heritage-hunters beating a path to his Office spies and informers. Had he not

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resorted to firearms to foil a cynical had closed by tracing the history of political parliamentary reformers in 1794 were lowered, and certainly no crowds of conspiracy to impress him into the Navy in oratory from classical Rome to its finest hour charged with high treason.’4 Promulgating mourners. Thelwall would not perhaps have 1797, he may even have ended up on the – the defence performance of Thomas the memory of 1794 was crucial to both of wanted a hero’s farewell. Beyond the realms Agamemnon with Captain Berry of the Nile. Erskine in1794. On his last night on earth them and the Whig reformers of 1832 took of rhetoric and oratory after all, the liberties But instead, he befriended fellow wordsmiths then, with what the local press called ‘a the Jacobin legacy to their hearts. This is he eulogised were no more obviously secure Coleridge and Wordsworth and attached copiousness of historical illustration which we more than may be said for their attitude to than they had ever been. Even as the earth himself to them at Alfoxton to write cannot attempt to follow’, he was still paying the future Chartists, Lovett and Cleave, who settled on his grave, six Tolpuddle farm liberatory poetry. his dues.1 were booed and jeered when they tried to labourers were awaiting trial and move a universal suffragist amendment at transportation in Dorchester for forming a Thelwall spent the rest of his life in pursuit of The fact that historical memory was clearly so the very same NPU meeting that had trades union, and in Bath the newsvendor his two greatest passions, the English important to Thelwall only makes the neglect welcomed Thelwall. John Cogswell and his wife were awaiting language and political justice, convinced of his own ‘memorial’ more poignant. As trial for selling Richard Carlile’s unstamped throughout that the key to the latter lay in custom dictates, its inscription begins with radical newspapers. Cogswell, who regarded mastery of the former. He realised in other the somewhat ironic phrase, ‘To the memory ‘Successive winter frosts have himself as a ‘consistent republican’, had words, that words are weapons and the pen of John Thelwall’. At the time of his death, emerged from a six month prison sentence is mightier. In 1817, he was editing his own the Bath Journal believed he had ‘made worked away at the surface of the for exactly the same offence in October 1833. radical newspaper, the Champion. In 1831 he himself distinguished on occasions which will stone to destabilise the lettering’. Opening a new shop in Chandos Buildings, was doing his bit in the successful struggle form the subject of History2. The Treason he returned to selling titles like the Gauntlet, for the Reform Bill. And in 1834, at the age trials of 1794 were certainly fixed in the Cosmopolite, Reformer, the Destructive and of 68, he was still travelling the country, historical memory of English radicals. The When Hardy died in October 1832, Thelwall the Poor Mans Guardian, but was re-arrested practicing the art of oratory by lecturing on acquittal of the twelve Corresponding Society was the last surviving veteran of the trials, in March. At the assize, he received another its historical origins and arguing its place as members had been marked by and the only guest of honour at the Golden six months and his wife was fined7. an agent of change. This is why Thelwall was commemorative junkets in the Golden Lion Lion commemoration a month later. In an in Bath. Mid way through a course of eight tavern in Smithfield every November 5th ‘emphatic’ speech, he ‘dwelt upon the Thelwall’s grave remained unmarked for evening lectures at the Literary Institution, until 1833. The principal defendants were history of the dangerous times when such seven months. Then, thanks to the efforts of his weakening heart gave way and he died reunited annually at these events until, by attempts were made to extinguish the his widow and some friends in London, the quietly in his bed. The previous evening he 1829 there were only three of them left alive, liberties of the people’ and ‘said that present memorial was paid for and put into Thomas Hardy (the society’s secretary and perhaps this would be the last occasion on place. It was originally intended as a John Thelwall’s founder), John Richter, and Thelwall. Richter which he would ever address that assembly’. temporary marker, to be replaced by a frost-damaged died in the summer of 1830, his last public In this, he was right5. Thelwall delivered his handsome ‘mural monument’ by public headstone at St utterance a speech in support of the second final great public oration over Hardy’s grave subscription at a later date. But it never Swithin’s burial French Revolution, an event which ensured in London to a crowd 20-40,000 strong. happened. Thelwall would probably not have ground, Bath; a that ‘I shall die happy’3 ‘Apparently under the influence of strong welcomed material flamboyance as a site of memory and and excited feelings’, Thelwall held up to his signifier for memory in any case. At Hardy’s neglect. (photo: Steve Poole) audience an engraved memorial tablet funeral four months earlier, he had urged ‘Beyond the realms of rhetoric recording the names of the 1794 trial jury mourners to understand that his was ‘not a picked out in gold against a purple grave to demand pompous monument or and oratory, Liberty was no more background. Conflating one historic act of colossal effigies’, for Hardy’s monument obviously secure than it closure with another, he recalled Hardy’s first should be memory itself8. had ever been’. act of liberty on release from gaol – a first visit to the grave of his wife who died while Which leaves us with a conundrum. he was still in captivity. Then he completed Thelwall’s headstone will soon require Hardy and Thelwall both lived to see the the circle: ‘My tears must here drop onto the restoration if it is to continue prompting Great Reform Act pass into law and for both grave of the last of my associates and memory in the future. Its inscribed words will of them it was a matter of the deepest perhaps the time is not distant when a flake and fall. Thelwall himself believed historical significance. Sharing a platform for similar close shall be put to my existence words of little consequence until animated 6 the reformist National Political Union with Sir also’ . by expressive oratory, which is precisely why Francis Burdett in 1831, Thelwall recalled his he devoted his life in equal measures to own prosecution for ‘advocating that very But it was Thelwall’s misfortune not only to politics, elocution and poetry. The purpose of cause which our patriot king and his be the sole surviving veteran of 1794, but to commemoration, he might tell us, is to enlightened ministers were at present doing die quietly and obscurely on the provincial inspire action and without it, we may as well their utmost to carry to a successful lecture circuit rather than in the capital. His surrender all such sites of memory to neglect. consummation’, while in 1832 Hardy wrote to funeral, unnoticed by either the national or One has only to recite some of the obscure Lafayette in Paris, of the ‘revolution that has local press, was recorded only in the burial names adorning the commemorative plaques taken place in this country – for revolution it records of St Swithins Church. It seems placed on Bath’s buildings a century ago to is. The King and his ministers have now unlikely there was anybody there who knew be reminded that celebrity is a historical turned reformers! They are guilty of the very him, nobody to invoke his memory with phenomenon. But perhaps Thelwall deserves same crime (if crime it is) for which ‘strong and excited feelings’ as his casket was better than this. In an advanced liberal

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Mary Rudge

John Richards has been a Mary Rudge: Bristol’s World Chess Champion chess player for over 40 years. He has been John Richards General Secretary and Chairman of the Bristol & District Chess League and democracy like our own, in which a universal 1 Bath and Cheltenham Gazette, 11 & 18 February She was “the leading lady player of the The first mention of Mary in Bristol is in 1875 the editor of the Bristol Chess Times. He used to franchise has produced an electorate that is 1834. world”1 and “known throughout the length when she played Blackburne - who gave a 2 manage the Bristol team largely indifferent to politics, wary of Bath Journal, 24 February 1834. and breadth of the land”2 in the last quarter blindfold simultaneous display against ten 3 Times, 7 November 1829, 23 August 1830. in the national chess ideology and disdainful of rhetoric, John 4 of the nineteenth century. The pinnacle of opponents. The following year she played in Times, 6 December 1831, 19 October 1832. league. He is also a Thelwall might yet have something relevant 5 her career was winning the first another blindfold simultaneous display given Times, 6 November 1832. qualified chess arbiter. He 6 10 to say to us. Times, 20 October, 1832. international women’s chess tournament in by Zukertort. At this stage Mary had not has a day job as an IT 7 Gauntlet, 10 November 1833, Bath Chronicle, 1897, but she lived a life of genteel poverty made much of an impact on the chess world. project manager at the 21 March and 18 April 1834. Carlile came to Further reading on John Thelwall and died almost forgotten. John Richards When John Burt wrote his history of the University of Bristol. Thelwall’s best historian is certainly Greg Bristol and Bath himself for eighteen days in uncovers the extraordinary career of Mary Bristol Chess Club in 1883, Mary was January 1834 to lecture on ‘political, domestic Claeys, whose The Politics of English and individual economy’ (socialism), and became Rudge and argues the case for a blue plaque considered worth just two very brief Jacobinism: The Writings of John Thelwall embroiled in an acrimonious debate with a to mark her achievements. mentions. If she had been recognized as a (Pennsylvania, 1995) provides an excellent Christian lecturer, G. B. Orchard. The city press leading woman player at this time then Burt annotated selection of Thelwall’s political was unremittingly hostile. See his account in the Mary Rudge was born in Leominster on the would surely have recorded it. and rhetorical writings, but see also E. P. Gauntlet, 5 and 12 January 1834. 6th February 1842 to Henry and Eliza Rudge. 8 Thompson’s last academic essay, ‘Hunting the Times, 20 October 1832. Henry was a surgeon and “very fond of chess Jacobin Fox’, Past & Present, 142 (1994), and played a fairly strong game, though he ‘Mary must have really made the which traces the post-1794 years in typically never took part in public chess. He taught quirky style. For a solid analysis of Thelwall’s the moves to his elder daughters, and they in men sit up and take notice’. contribution to political thought, see Iain turn taught Miss Mary.”4 Leominster was a Hampsher-Monk, ‘John Thelwall and the small town and could not have provided eighteenth century radical response to much in the way of serious competition, so it The arrival of Henry’s sisters must have political economy’, Historical Journal, 34, 1 is unsurprising that the first record of Mary caused a major upheaval in his life and, in (1991). Fittingly enough however, the most playing chess is in a correspondence particular, a need for new accommodation. prolific Thelwall scholar of recent years has tournament in 1872.5 The first mention of Before 1876, Henry does not appear in the been a professor of English, Michael over the board competition is in August 1874 residents’ lists. In 1876-77, he was living at Scrivenor. See his current monograph, when Mary played in Class II at the Meeting Walmer Villa, 48 Wellington Park, Clifton. Seditious Allegories: John Thelwall and of the Counties’ Chess Association, at This house may have been owned by St Jacobin Writing (Pennsylvania, 2001), and a Birmingham.6 John’s, because when he moved to become number or related essays, the most recent of curate of another church, St Thomas, Bristol, which is ‘John Thelwall and the Revolution of Two months later Dr Rudge died, leaving in 1878, he also moved house to 8 Burlington 1649’ in T. Morton and N. Smith (eds.), Mary, 32, and her sister, Caroline, 41, to fend Buildings (now Burlington Road) Clifton. Radicalism in British Literary Culture, 1750 - for themselves. Both women were unmarried Perhaps Henry’s new post at St Thomas still 1830: From Revolution to Revolution and they went to live with their brother did not bring in enough money because the (Cambridge, 2002). Henry in Bristol. Henry was 37, also Rudges had a new plan. The following year unmarried, and had been a curate at St John they took over the new Luccombe House Evangelist, Whiteladies Road, Clifton since Preparatory School on Redland Green; Henry 1870.7 became the schoolmaster and we can assume his sisters helped with the teaching.11 The Mary started playing chess seriously and, for school was described as providing “'high her, the move to Bristol was particularly class education for boys, 7-11. Efficient fortuitous. Bristol had a long chess history; masters providing a thorough grounding for 12 the Bristol Chess Club was formed in 1829 or public schools.” The venture may have 1830 and is thought to be the first English started successfully because Henry gave up club outside London. More importantly for his curate’s post in 1881, but by 1885 things this story, in 1872, the new Bristol and were going wrong. In January, the school 13 Clifton Chess Club Association voted to admit was advertising for pupils , but by August it women: “During the year the vice-president seems the school closed and the Rudges 14 proposed that ladies should be admitted to left . the Club as associates, at an annual subscription of 5s., which was agreed to. We Henry moved to become curate at North 15 believe that no members of the softer sex Meols , near Southport, but Mary stayed in were admitted as subscribers, by any chess Bristol. What happened immediately after club in this country, prior to this date.”8 the school closure is not clear – Mary did not Although Burt’s claim is very doubtful – there appear in two matches that autumn that she 16 are examples going back to the eighteenth would normally have played in . But she century9 – Mary had ended up in a place eventually reappeared on the chess scene that was going to give her the opportunity and this time she quickly began to make a to play competitive chess. real impact. This is all the more remarkable

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as she was already 45 years old. On 12th Lancashire. By 1889 he had moved a short March 1887 she played on board six for distance to Church Town, Southport.24 The Bristol against Bath at the Imperial Hotel, same year he succeeded in getting a new Bristol, and she got a draw against a Mr W E post, as Curate and then Rector of St Mary, Hill. At the beginning of 1888, Rudge played Newent, Gloucestershire.25 It appears that and won on board six for Bristol & Clifton Mary decided not, or was not invited, to against City Chess & Draughts Club17, and move to Newent. In any case, Henry was then drew with Blackburne in a simultaneous destined not to enjoy his new post for long; display on 1st March.18 The following year he died in September 1891. Mary must have really made the men sit up and take notice as she won the challenge cup Over the next few years, Mary took part in of Bristol & Clifton Chess Club.19 However, the various competitions, playing for Bristol & very same month (June 1889), Mary was in Clifton,26 and for Gloucestershire,27 and also dire financial straits. moving to Dublin for several months at a time. She won the Ladies’ Challenge Cup in ‘Our readers will be sorry to hear that Cambridge in 1890 and was third in Class II. Miss M. Rudge, of Clifton, is at By now, the British Chess Magazine could present in very depressed pecuniary describe Mary as “known throughout the circumstances; so much so that she has length and breadth of the land”.28 felt obliged (though most reluctantly) to give her consent to an appeal In 1896, Mary won Class II at the Southern being made on her behalf. We are Counties' tournament, at the Imperial Hotel. sure English chessplayers will not Mr Stevenson tied for first place, with a score 1 allow one of their best lady players to of 6 /2. The latter beat Mary in their game, Mary Rudge at the first international women’s chess tournament in London, 1897. After remain in actual, though it is to be then waived his right to play off, giving Mary eighteen wins and a single draw, she won the event together with prize money totalling £60 hoped only temporary, want, and the first prize of £5.29 (picture: author’s collection) contributions for its relief, however small, will be thankfully received by The British Chess Magazine commented her entitled to style herself lady chess champion the Rev. C.E. Ranken, St Ronan’s, ‘By November Mary was being play was marked by a lack of risk taking and of the world, is very satisfactory to her many Malvern, and acknowledged by him published only highlights of her games, but friends.”31 privately to the donors.’20 hailed as the leading lady player they did confirm the status of the event: in the world’. "Rudge in capital form, … displayed those At the age of 55, Mary had reached the Perhaps the school venture had wiped out qualities of steadiness and tenacity for which pinnacle of her career. It is certain that the any funds or legacy that had once existed. she is renowned. … Her play was marked £60 prize money was also very welcome. Mary was reduced to relying on a form of The following year, 1897, the first throughout by care, exactitude and patience. Afterwards it was back to the more mundane charity, as she became a companion to international women’s chess tournament was Someone said of her, 'She doesn't seem to life of playing in Bristol and Dublin. various ladies. The most important of these held at the Ladies’ Club in London. Twenty care so much to win a game as to make her ladies was Mrs FF Rowland, who lived at players entered. Two rounds per day were opponent lose it.' She risked nothing, she In 1898 Mary played against the men’s world Clontarf, near Dublin, and also Kingstown. played, with a time limit of twenty moves in never indulged in fireworks for the purpose champion, Emanuel Lasker, in a simultaneous Frideswide Rowland was a significant figure one hour. Some expressed concern that the of startling the gallery; if she got a Pawn she display at the Imperial Hotel. Lasker was in late nineteenth-century chess, both as a event would be too taxing for the ladies. kept it and won, if she got a piece she kept it unable to finish all the games in the time problemist and, with her husband, Thomas B and won, if she got a "grip" she kept it and available32 and Mary’s was one of those Rowland, as a chess journalist and writer of It is likely that Mary was urged to enter and won, if she got a winning position she kept it unfinished. Mrs Rowland described how chess books. And so Mary started alternating her supporters may have raised money to and won. Not that she always outplayed her Lasker had been winning but made a mistake. between living in Bristol and Ireland. enable her to stay for a couple of weeks in opponents in the openings, or even in the He graciously conceded defeat in this game London. If so, it was worthwhile as Mary mid-games, for the reverse was sometimes when it was unfinished at the call of time By September 1889, Mary was living in sailed through the event undefeated with the case; but risking nothing she always because he would be lost with best play.33 She Clontarf where, possibly inspired by Mrs eighteen wins and one draw. managed to hold her game together, and continued to play for Bristol and for Rowland, she composed and published a then in the end her experience as a Gloucestershire.34 The following year, Mary chess problem (in the Clontarf Parochial “Miss Mary Rudge, of Clifton, won her tournament player and her skill in end was playing in Dublin “with great success”.35 Magazine)21. She also gave a simultaneous games in the eighteenth and final positions came in with powerful effect.'” display - she won all six games22 - and it is rounds of the International Chess Mary’s health deteriorated sometime in the possible that she was the first woman in the Tournament, played in London, at the “Miss Mary Rudge has for long enjoyed the next few years. Her sister Caroline died in world to perform a ‘simul’. By November Ladies’ Chess Club, on Saturday. Miss reputation of being the strongest lady 1900 leaving her on her own. In 1912, there Mary was being hailed as “the leading lady Rudge came out as first prize winner of 23 chessplayer in the world, and the fact that was a new appeal for funds. The Cork player in the world”. 1 30 £60, her full score being 18 /2 points.” she has carried off the first prize in the Weekly News published the following present tournament, thereby becoming announcement by Mrs F.F. Rowland: Meanwhile, brother Henry was still in

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‘Miss Mary Rudge is the daughter of So how good a player was Mary Rudge? 1 Colombia Chess Chronicle, 1 November 1889, pp the late Dr Rudge, and after his death Although she was considered the best 92-93, quoted in Winter, E, Chess Note 3281 she resided with her brother, who woman player in the world it is doubtful that 2 British Chess Magazine (BCM), 1890, p264. 3 General Register Office, reference March 1842 kept a school, but since his decease she was all that strong. A reasonable Leominster XXVI/194. The date of birth is often she is quite unprovided for, her sisters indicator of her strength is that she played given, erroneously, as 1845. are also dead, and she is without any around boards 4 to 8 for both Bristol & 4 BCM, 1897, p289. income of any kind. She lived as Clifton and for Gloucestershire, and that she 5 Personal e-mail from C.P.Ravilious, saying Tim companion with various ladies, and played in the second strongest section (Class Harding has record of Mary playing in the first was for some years resident with Mrs II) of tournaments at regional and national correspondence tournament of The Amateur Chess Magazine (Ed James T.C.Chatto) which Rowland, both at Clontarf and level. So, relative to her male began in the summer of 1872. Kingstown. Whilst at Clontarf, she contemporaries, she was not as strong as a 6 Burt J, The Bristol Chess Club, 1883. played in the Clontarf team in the top female player of today, but this is not to 7 Crockford’s Clergy List, 1889. Armstrong Cup matches, and proved a belittle her achievements. She played chess at 8 Burt, J, op cit. tough opponent, drawing with J. a time when women were not encouraged to 9 BCM, 2004, p666. Howard Parnell and winning many a play, in fact often positively discouraged. She 10 Burt, J, op cit. 11 1881 Census, RG11, 2504 / 23, 39. fine game. She was also engaged at also started at a late age for a chess player 12 Web site: bristolinformation.co.uk/schools/ the DBC to teach and play in the and had her greatest success at 55. In 13 Clifton Chronicle & Directory (CCD), afternoons. At the Ladies’ contrast, when the first official women’s 14 January 1885. International Congress, London, she world championship tournament was held, it 14 CCD, Rev H Rudge is listed at Luccombe House took first prize (£60), making the fine was a 21 year old, Vera Menchik, who was up to 12 August 1885, but no one is listed at score of 19_ in 20, the maximum [18_ victorious. By coincidence, the tournament that address for the rest of the year. 15 Clergy List for 1886. from 19, in fact]. Miss Rudge held the was also in London, almost exactly thirty 16 CCD, 18 November 1885. The two matches were Champion Cup of the Bristol Chess years after Mary’s triumph, and Vera won by an internal club match over twelve boards and Club, prior to Messrs H.J. Cole and F.U. a similar score: ten wins, one draw, no losses. an 8-board match against Oxford University. Beamish. Miss Rudge is now quite 17 CCD, 18 January 1888. helpless from rheumatism and is Mary deserves to be better recognised and 18 BCM, 1888, pp186-7. seeking admission into a home or (if remembered as a pioneer of women’s chess. 19 CCD, 5 June 1889. 20 BCM, 1889, p231. possible) the Dublin Hospital for A blue plaque in Bristol would be a good 21 CCD, 11 September 1889. Incurables. A fund is being collected start, but we need to find a building to place 22 CCD, 30 October 1889. for present expenses, pending her it on. Her only definite address in Bristol, 23 Colombia Chess Chronicle, op cit. admission, and chessplayers are asked Luccombe House, no longer exists.40 Perhaps 24 Crockford’s Clergy List, 1889. to help – either by influence or a good alternative would be the Imperial 25 Crockford’s Clergy List, 1890. money. Donations may be sent to Mrs Hotel where she played on many occasions, 26 BCM, 1894, p48; BCM, 1895, pp 17, 68, 511. 27 BCM 1895, p220. Rowland, 3 Loretto Terrace, Bray, Co. and the venue for her near-win against 28 BCM, 1890, p264. Wicklow, or to Mrs Talboys, 20 Lasker. The Hotel is now named Canynge Hall 29 BCM, 1896, p389. Southfield Park, Cotham, Bristol.’36 and it is the home of the University of 30 CCD, 7 July 1897. Bristol’s Department of Social Medicine. 31 BCM, 1897, p285-296. The next few years must have been very 32 CCD, 30 November 1898, gives the story of difficult indeed. In 1918, Mary attempted to Very few detailed records of Mary’s games Lasker not finishing but does not mention Mary by name. solve her financial problems when a cousin, seem to have survived and I have found just 33 Weekly Irish Times, 14 January 1899. James Barrett, died intestate. Mary claimed nine so far. They are the games against W. 34 BCM, 1898, p200. to be sole next of kin, but another Barrett Berry (Birmingham, 1874), J. H. Blackburn 35 BCM, 1899, p454. claimed to be the grandson of the deceased’s (1875), Harsant (1883), R. Fedden (twice) 36 Source: American Chess Bulletin, May 1912, uncle and hence sole heir.37 Mary’s claim (Bristol, 1885), Charles Drury (Dublin, 1889), page 112, quoted in Winter, E, Chess Note 3281. appears to have failed.38 W Cook (Dublin, 1890), Louisa Fagan 37 London Gazette, 2 August 1918. 38 London Gazette, 8 November 1918. (London, 1897), and Emanuel Lasker (1898). 39 British Chess Magazine, 1920, p13, quoted in Mary moved, at some point, to Truro and Doubtless more remain to be found in old Winter, E, Chess Note 3281. then to the British Home for Incurables, newspapers and magazines and I would be 40 Personal e-mail from G Nichols, Streatham. She died in Guys Hospital, happy to receive any that turn up. 17 January 2004. London, on 22 November 1919. The British Chess Magazine accorded her just three lines: Acknowledgments “As we go to press we learn with Gerry Nichols provided a lot of assistance and great sorrow of the death, at information on the Rudges in Bristol. Several Streatham last month, of Miss Mary others have helped with information, Rudge, winner of the International including Harrie Grondijs, Christopher Ladies’ Tournament in 1897.”39 Ravilious, Mike Truran, and Edward Winter.

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Learning to live with ‘natural wonders’

Dr Steve Poole is Director of the Learning to live with ‘natural wonders’: Regional History Centre the forgotten history of Cheddar Gorge Steve Poole

Every so often, a routine request for help through it. The omission is both odd and Until the present B3151 was cut through from the media turns up something unfortunate. The view from the top of the Cheddar village in 1827, it remained an unexpected. UWE’s Regional History Centre cliffs permits some pretty unrivalled aesthetic isolated community. The new road directly was recently asked by Channel Five pleasures; indeed, travellers could use the connected Cheddar to Bristol for the first television for help with a forthcoming spot to identify landscapes fitting all three of time, the economic benefits of which, its programme called Britain’s Finest Natural the Romantic period’s favourite ‘ways of architects hoped, would be ‘the means of Wonders. In common with its forbears, seeing’: the beautiful, the picturesque and cultivating and civilising the miners’. Not Britain’s Finest Stately Homes and Britain’s the sublime. Yet early travel guides did little everyone saw the benefits however. Some Finest Ancient Monuments, the makers of to promote it. William Gilpin, for instance, favoured diverting the road through the this new addition to the heritage canon barely noticed the gorge at all as he made safer self-governing borough of Axbridge, asked a panel of ‘experts’ to identify twelve his way through Somerset from Bath to the for ‘upon production of the plan, a young contenders for the title. The list was antiquarian gothic splendours of Wells man asked, who, in the name of all that is subsequently whittled down to a ‘top ten’ cathedral. courageous, would venture upon a road cut by the votes of TV viewers and Radio Times through cheddar wood?’3 readers, and the resulting programme will How should we understand such apparent take us to each site in ascending order until, indifference? Somerset’s first historian, John Popular conceptions like these will not have at the end, ‘Britain’s Most Popular Natural Collinson, was certainly impressed with the encouraged many tourists to make a close be felled by avalanches. In 1906, about half a Wonder’ is revealed. Unsurprisingly perhaps, place when he put pen to paper in 1792. Its A charabanc outing inspection of Cheddar cliffs. A rough road million tons of unstable rock fell into the the world famous limestone chasm of ‘awful scenery’ made it ‘the most striking from Coleford about had been laid through the gorge itself some gorge during storms on one winter’s night, Cheddar Gorge is one of the places that scene of its kind in Great Britain’; the time previously, but in the mid nineteenth happily killing nobody but leaving boulders to set off for made the top ten. ‘winding passage’ of the chasm ‘in many century it remained ‘seldom passed by all over the road ‘in picturesque confusion’. Cheddar, c.1920. One places very narrow and scattered over with carriages’. The newspaper press considered The accident strengthened calls for all of the party Cheddar is, of course, one of Britain’s biggest rude loose fragments of fallen rocks’1. that the ‘loneliness, as well as the winding quarrying to stop, and for the cliffs to be remembers the tourist attractions. More than half a million Exciting though this may sound, a number of nature of the road, which prevents the view preserved for future generations but that impact as they drove people visit the place every year, and four factors may be said to have influenced of objects approaching until they are very was only achieved in 1910 when the National through the Gorge, fifths of them pay good money to the politer visitors to keep away. near, points out this spot as too favourable 5 Trust bought out the mineral company . ‘Of course, in those proprietor, Lord Bath, to see Gough’s and for the commission of crime’. Local banditti Cox’s show caves as well. What the To begin with, by Collinson’s time the days you’d never were imagined behind the rocks in every What all this helps to remind us of then, is programme makers wanted from us was Cheddar district was dreadfully poor. seen anything like it bend of the road, especially after a farmer that the attitude of the public to the ‘natural some historical data on the gorge’s Although many gentlemen of sensibility had in your life. One old named Baker was robbed and battered to wonders’ of the British Isles has a less than popularity. More than anything, and perhaps learned to look upon the ragged poor as lady said, ‘stop it, death in the gorge in broad daylight as he straightforward history. The bank holiday because some good archive footage was quaintly picturesque, the labouring classes made his way back from an upland flour mill crowds that make their way through stop it!’ to the man readily to hand, they wanted to hear about around proto-industrial Cheddar had a less 4 in 1841 . Cheddar Gorge today to congregate amongst driving and he said, Edwardian holiday crowds, brimming rustic reputation. The calamine miners for the ice-cream and trinket shops at the ‘What for missus?’ charabancs of merrymakers, chuffing steam instance, struck Hannah and Martha More as The decline of the mining industry together southern end are a relatively modern She said, ‘I don’t like trains on the Cheddar Valley line and famous ‘savage and depraved… brutal in their with improvements in rural policing did phenomenon. Tourism, we might recall, has a it down here, it isn’t cheeses ripening in caves. This is, of course, natures and ferocious in their manners’. After much to spruce up the district’s image by the fascinating history; something to think about safe!’ So he stopped one of the happy stories one can tell. But having mud thrown at his carriage as he end of the nineteenth century, and the perhaps next time you find yourself stuck in Cheddar’s historic encounter with tourism is went through the village in 1789, their friend the coach and she arrival of the Cheddar Valley railway in 1869 an Easter Monday traffic jam on the actually a good deal older than that and the William Wilberforce willingly bankrolled their walked down…’ made public access a good deal easier. Mendip Hills. gorge has not always enjoyed such a positive endeavours to ‘civilise’ the miners in Additionally, the discovery of archaeological Reprinted with image. In fact, its history as a tourist Cheddar’s fledgling Sunday schools. Yet remains in Cox’s and Gough’s caves in the Britain’s Finest Natural Wonders will be permission from attraction is somewhat chequered. whatever results their philanthropy may have 1830s and 1890s created a more educational broadcast on Channel 5 at a later date. ‘Coleford as t’were: produced, the people of Mendip continued rationale for serious tourism. The cave Memories of 1 Although Henry of Huntingdon found his to be represented not just as coarse, but as systems, then as now, proved a far greater John Collinson, The History and Antiquities of Coleford, Somerset way to Cheddar cliffs as early as 1150 and criminals too. ‘Many were thieves’ wrote attraction than the gorge. In fact, visits to the County of Somerset (1793), pp. 573-4. 2 from 1900-45’ declared them one of the four wonders of Hannah More, ‘all ignorant, profane and Quoted in V. Waite, ‘Something must be done the cliffs had become even more hazardous for Cheddar’ in A. W. Coysh, E. J. Mason and V. (Coleford Oral England, their attractions were slow to catch vicious beyond belief’. As late as the 1840s, a by the early twentieth century because Waite (eds), The Mendips (London 1954), pp. History Group, 2000). on. This was partly because for many disappointed visiting cleric who had run the Walter Long, landowner on the western side, 95-104. centuries prior to the conceptual invention of gauntlet of villagers trying to sell him wild had sold them off to a rapacious company of 3 The Times, 26 November 1826 ‘leisure time’, Britain’s wildest upland areas flower seeds and mineral rocks, found ‘some mineral extractors. The destruction of the 4 The Times, 6 November 1841 5 were more likely to be regarded as desolate traces of former barbarism still in existence’ central area of the gorge by unrestricted The Times, 16 July 1896, 26 December 1903, 6 February 1906, 23 July 1910. and unproductive wastes than aesthetic not the least of which was the discovery of quarrying was already underway in 1895, pleasure grounds. Yet, even when the thirst one ragged woman still living in a ‘wild and and by 1903 it was noted, ‘a large surface of for picturesque travel was at its height squalid’ cave2. the cliff has been skinned, a steam crusher during the later eighteenth century, the best- has been established and carting goes on known tourists constructed itineraries that briskly throughout the day’. Assuming they went around or past the gorge rather than were not deafened by the steam crusher, visitors in these conditions were as likely to

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Book reviews

Book reviews Official and not Unofficial Stone Stories Brian Edwards looks at recent books on Avebury and Stonehenge

Julian Richards, Stonehenge: solstice, but outstanding in quite another Andy Worthington, Stonehenge: Celebration barbed wire. This account also makes plain A Photographic History, sense is an apotheosised mug-shot of and Subversion, (Alternative Albion, June that there are two ingredients you will be (English Heritage August 2004), Professor Richard Atkinson ‘in pensive mood’. 2004), paperback 290pp £14.95. unlikely to find in any official guide - a hardback 240pp £17.99. Whilst Atkinson is of course important to the ISNB 1 872883 76 1 questioning attitude and an outside view of ISBN 1 85074 895 0 history of Stonehenge he is identified in a officialdom. To criticise this book would be number of other photographs, and given the If the official book is an enthusiast’s account like John Mills complaining about the lager Julian Richards is a highly respected limitation on the total number of images in by a professional, then this next book could in J Lee Thompson’s Ice Cold in Alex (1958). archaeologist and widely appreciated the book there are other inclusions that be considered a professional account by an A champagne Celebration it isn’t, but it is presenter, and the majority that buy would have been preferable. What should enthusiast. Stonehenge: Celebration and just what was required and proved Stonehenge: a history in photographs will have filled this page is immediately to hand, Subversion is a vibrant account propelled by memorably satisfying. probably be very pleased with this well as the portrait overwhelms a photograph of a lively but easy read, and the subject tackled produced overview that provides them with a the restoration in 1964. by Andy Worthington is one on which Mark Gillings and Joshua Pollard, Avebury, photographic spread covering the last 150 histories emanating from the site have (Duckworth 2004), paperback 212pp, £16.99. years. As a memento of a heritage visit it This photographic history was an ideal remained silent. ISBN 0 7156 3240 X presents good value and on a broader basis opportunity for English Heritage to make the many of the photographs will be of interest restoration story readily accessible and Reading this book after focusing on the Gillings and Pollard, are two of the directors to those that have not seen them before, but understood, but sadly whilst it does indeed medium of photography, it was surprising of the Negotiating Avebury Project who have in terms of being an official history what feature, the extent and level of interference how challenging this account is to the official done much to keep the public informed of proves most interesting is what is not have not been made obvious. A sequence history just through what is presented in the their work. From guided tours of the digs included. similar to those featuring Stone 60, could visual. Worthington’s written account could through to comprehensive website pages easily have been included. An example would stand alone and offers very much more than that include interim reports be a staged sequence of the restoration of its supporting illustrations, but that these (http://www.arch.soton.ac.uk/Research/Avebu 1901, from which the height and protruding books arise from opposing views is no more ry/), they also give talks in village and town tenon of the former leaning stone came to obvious than in the photographs. A halls, and publish accessible as well as dominate the site. Not only is this interesting comparison on this basis is further learned texts. Their dedication to public from the viewpoint of public history, it is encouraged, as surprisingly the number of history is reflected in Avebury, one of the important to make such contrasts plain images included in support of the text of particular plus points of which is the number because Stonehenge’s time elapsed state and Celebration and Subversion are in excess of of pages reflecting the history of the site iconographic character was utterly that included in the photographic history. matching the number dedicated to transformed by the restorations, and unless prehistory. This book incorporates evidence made evident the public remain misled as to Evidently one of the differences behind the from recent research, but more importantly the historic state of the monument. In 1901, two sets of images, beyond the standpoint of discusses traditional interpretations and a local vicar stated that the future would each author and respective publishers, resultant understandings in relation to the remain confused about the past unless the extends from the official professional and site. This book was written to be read by Many of the photographs selected to restorations were made plain on an unofficial bystander nature of the anyone, and it provides as good a start to represent this history are as expected: the information plaque. A century on, and given photographers. Beyond the obvious contrast the history of this site as it does an earliest known, the first and others from the the incredible range of photographs regarding confrontation, in Worthington’s extension. air, some early turnstiles, the approach by available to official sources, it is book there are clothes-abandoned people road from the east in the 1930s, and Druids disappointing that more wasn’t made of this dancing, bathing, and performing chores Rosamund Cleal and Joshua Pollard (editors), and festivals are featured in an accessible opportunity. seemingly unaware of the camera or the Monuments and Material Culture: papers in official history of the site for the first time. A people around them. This draws attention to honour of an Avebury archaeologist – Isobel photograph of the protest at the fencing of Prior to restoration Stonehenge had a wild the stance of the photographs in the official Smith, (Hobnob Press 2004) £25. the monument in 1901 is also included, and roughness that visitors could ‘feel’. It was history that, aside the smiley women ISBN 0 946418 19 5 there is an interesting sequence starting with evident to even the casual Stonehenge visitor sheltering under stone 60, by comparison an enigmatic shot of women sheltering through the unevenness of the stone setting, appear somewhat staged and posed. Amongst so many fascinating and useful under Stone 60 in 1958. The same stone is the bumpiness of the soil, and the Worthington’s book includes many happy papers in this book for broader interest, then shown a year later being shuttered in jaggedness around the footings. The site is smiling people and spontaneous laughter, worth reading are ‘East of Avebury: ancient order to fill that particular hideaway with now kept in trim and having robbed where in all the photographs included of fields in a local context’ by Peter Fowler, and concrete, then the opposite page displays a Stonehenge of its natural time honoured festival gatherers in the official history it ‘Monuments that made the World: third shot in the sequence of the resulting objectivity, the twentieth-century appears no-one is smiling, and other than performing the henge’ by Aaron Watson. filled-in stone. Of the unexpected, seven transformed it into a modern manufactured Morris dancers, two workers saying ‘cheese’, Bruce Eagles and David Field also supply photographs featuring graffiti, all but one of and manicured exhibition. The English VIPs on walkabout and the Stone 60 women, much insight in ‘William Cunnington and the which were large and spread over five pages, Heritage photographic history does not it was as if there were few smiles about. Long Barrows of the River Wylye’. Anyone more than reminded and went beyond detract from this state, and this is perhaps interested by ‘Changing Avebury’, as making a point. The book includes one the crux betwixt official and unofficial The history of celebration and subversion appeared in 3rd Stone 47 (2003) and particularly amazing photograph, taken by histories. The former attempts to smooth and may not appeal to some sections of society, reprinted in the previous edition of Regional Les Wilson of Lebaya Ol Dinyo Laetoli of tuck away rough edges, whereas unofficial to whom I would say the story appears not at Historian 12 (Autumn 2004), will be Tanzania amongst the stones at the winter history exists because of them. all dislocated when viewed from outside the interested in a very good paper in this book

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by Rick Peterson with Josh Pollard and Mark its influence further south is harder to importance and there are strong indications, Lancaster and York, moreover, they were Gillings: ‘Destruction of the Avebury measure. Landscape is another obvious factor too, of a powerful anti-government faction now at an end. Monuments’. given its due weight, but others, both less operating in the town. This is not too obvious and more thought-provoking, are difficult to explain. Both the crown's Throughout the wars, Peter Fleming Christopher Chippindale, Stonehenge suggested. The large number of royal manors financial demands in the l450s and Bristol's concludes, the main determinant of Bristol’s Complete, (Thames and Hudson 2004), may have been a factor in the proliferation worsening economic prospects (resulting, in political behaviour had probably been paperback 312 pp £12.95. ISBN 0 500 28467 9 of towns, as may the efforts at town part, from Lancastrian economic; calculation rather than conscience foundation by local lords - including the military failures) were had, as likely as not, explained why men First published in 1983, this new and bishops of Bath and Wells; trade cycles, war hardly likely to inspire reacted as they did to the turbulent expanded edition of this classic is worth and natural disasters are also discussed. The loyalty to Lancaster; events of these decades; and, in every penny of the cover price. story is complex, and this book demonstrates Richard Neville, earl of this, Bristolians seem to have-been that urban development is often not a simple Warwick, a successful no different to most people in linear process: prosperity, and sometimes naval commander and fifteenth-century England. He must towns themselves, come and go. It also increasingly prominent surely be right. demonstrates the value of taking the long Yorkist, had lands in Other Reviews Keith Dockray view. The dispersal of urban functions, and the vicinity; and there Tony Scrase, Somerset Towns: hence the nature of settlement in present- seems to have been Changing Fortunes, 800-1800 (Tempus, 2005) day Somerset, is attributed to developments no love lost between Sue Hardiman, The 1832 Cholera ISBN 0-7524-3423-3 £17.99 before the Conquest: ‘Ethelred II is probably Bristol and Henry VI’s Epidemic and its Impact on the City of largely responsible for the situation in formidable queen, Bristol (Bristol Branch of the Historical For those with a serious interest in the Somerset’, a factor probably not mentioned Margaret of Anjou. Association Pamphlet, 2005) ISSN 1362 historical geography of the South West, and in current media discussion of the reasons for 7759 £2.50 particularly of Wells, Tony Scrase needs no the recent Lib-Dem takeover of the county! Soon after seizing introduction, despite the fact that much of the throne in Peter Fleming The European cholera epidemics were his work has been published as UWE working 1461, the new largely the product of empire. Soldiers papers or journal articles. However, this, and Yorkist king and traders carried it from its Asian his 1999 book, Streets and Market Places in Edward IV visited Peter Fleming, Bristol and the Wars of the homelands. The disease reached England South West England: Encroachments and Bristol, perhaps out of real Roses, 1451-1471 (Bristol Branch of the in 1831. Informed observers had tracked its Improvements (Edwin Mellen Press), should gratitude for the town's role in his success. Historical Association, 2005), ISSN 1362 7759, progress across continental Europe, but bring him a still wider audience. That book Yet, within a decade, a significant proportion £3.00 being forewarned was not to be forearmed. examined the development of streets and of its ruling elite had become implicated in The disease was not properly understood open spaces, with particular reference to mounting Lancastrian resistance and, Previously, in the splendid series of local until much later in the century, and Bath and Wells, and offered a critique of the apparently, accepted Henry VI's restoration history pamphlets published by the Bristol ignorance combined with the appalling state common public-private space dichotomy. This to the throne without demur. Why? Perhaps branch of the Historical Association, Peter of public health - crucially with regard to book shifts the focus from that relatively Edward IV had promised more than he could Fleming has written about women in later water supplies and sewerage, the primary 'micro' level to take in the urban deliver to Bristol’s mercantile community; the medieval Bristol (pamphlet 103) and Bristol means of transmission, and particularly in development of an entire county, while at king's preference for a Burgundian rather castle (110). Now he has turned his attention working-class urban areas - left few the same time drawing comparisons with than French alliance hardly suited its best to the town's role in the Wars of the Roses defences. Bristol was especially vulnerable; it other counties within and without the interests; and, most importantly, once (113), a subject on which he has unrivalled was, as one visitor noted in 1830, ‘a vast and region. Over a period of a thousand years, Warwick the Kingmaker fell out with Edward knowledge. Source material is sparse, dirty city’, its poor huddled into filthy hovels Tony Scrase charts the contrasting fortunes of in the later l460s, his consistent championing unfortunately, but Fleming certainly makes without access to clean water. The city’s two Somerset towns, drawing heavily on taxation of a pro-French policy (much more the most of what there is, including hitherto rivers, the Frome and the Avon, together records to do so. Somerset is an intriguing favourable to Bristol's trading interests) may unfamiliar evidence to be found in both the with the Cut, were little better than open choice for such an exercise, since, while it has well have proved pivotal in explaining the Bristol Record Office and the National sewers. The first Bristol case was reported in an unusually large number of towns - town’s acquiescence in the short-lived Archives at Kew. July 1832 and the epidemic lasted until depending on one’s definition of the term, reademption of Lancaster, in 1470/1. As a November. This was not to be the end, and an issue carefully explored in this work - result, however, Bristol found itself at the Traditionally, the first battle of St. Albans in cholera returned to Bristol’s streets none of these are of any great size: none of centre of the Lancastrian regime’s last gasp May 1455 is regarded as the beginning of the intermittently, but as the century progressed its largest - Taunton, Bath, Frome, in 1471: a contingent from the town fought Wars of the Roses. It was a Yorkist victory lessons were learnt, thanks in part to the Bridgwater, Shepton Mallet, Yeovil or Wells - for Margaret of Anjou at Tewkesbury; and, by then, several members of Bristol's work of a Bristol doctor, William Budd, who would be classed as cities on any other basis Edward IV won the battle and regained his ruling elite had already begun to show argued the case nationally for clean water than being cathedral towns, and are easily throne; and, perhaps, Bristol’s political elite enthusiastic support for Richard of York (who supplies and effective sewerage, and the dwarfed by Bristol. The presence of the was fortunate not to suffer more than it did held substantial estates nearby) and his severity of the attacks diminished. While ‘Metropolis of the West’ is one of the factors by way of retribution. Instead, the town mounting criticisms of Henry VI’s Lancastrian Bristol was slow to respond, by the 1860s its considered as a possible explanation for this received an early pardon in January 1472, government. When civil war erupted with a public health reforms had made it a model situation, and while it is concluded that maybe because of the ‘good lordship’ of the vengeance between 1459 and 1461, the for action in other cities, and the cholera Bristol probably has had an inhibiting effect king’s brother George Duke of Clarence. In Yorkists clearly recognised Bristol's strategic outbreaks of that decade made relatively on urban growth in the north of the county, the sense that the Wars of the Roses were little impact. dynastic struggles between the houses of

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Sue Hardiman’s pamphlet began life as a Barb Drummond, The New Eden: defensive measures taken against grave defeatism to bravery and self sacrifice. An dissertation written as part of her MA degree An Introduction to Arnos Vale Cemetery, robbers (bodies were regularly snatched for interesting point is made that Mass at the University of the West of England. Bristol (2005), available from the author, at medical dissection) and on oddities such as Observation’s special investigation team Dissertations, unfairly or not, may have the PO Box 2460 Bristol BS3 9WP, £5 + SAE. the tomb of Thomas Humpage, who died in found that Bristol was suffering from poor reputation of being dull and stodgy - 1938; he was an engineer, and his tomb is morale and unimaginative leadership and ‘solid’ is the euphemistic epithet Arnos Vale owes its origins in part to the adorned with pipework, complete with bolts, that Bristolians were coping less well than often ascribed to them - but this is pressing necessities of nineteenth-century faithfully rendered in stone. Another, that of other parts of the country. No satisfactory certainly not the case with this population growth and urbanisation: in a navy cook who died shortly after 1918, explanation for this was given. work. After explaining the short, the parish churchyards were full, and declares, ‘We have whacked the Huns’! While background, in terms of the the death toll resulting from epidemics, such Arnos Vale cannot compete with Highgate or The strength of the book lie in the wealth of nature of the disease, its origins as the cholera of 1831-2 (see the review of Pere Lachaise for celebrity occupants - even detail about the different ways in which men and contemporary Sue Hardiman’s pamphlet in this issue) its most famous burials would come some and women experienced the Blitz and understanding, the author pushed the situation to crisis point. Arnos way behind Marx and Jim Morrison in any reacted to it, and in particular the presents a vivid and at times Vale was opened in 1839. However, it was test of public recognition - it still has its share psychological and social consequences of the shocking picture of the Bristol also the product of changing fashion. It can of memorials to the local great and good: bombing. I was less convinced by the use of epidemic. There are several be seen as an Anglicised version of the Drs John Addington Symonds and William the term siege and the comparisons made striking vignettes, such as the pioneer cemetery of Pere Lachaise in Paris, Budd (for whom, once again, see Sue with Leningrad, since Bristolians were not cut mob attacking the funeral itself modelled on the English landscape Hardiman’s pamphlet); Mary Carpenter and off from food supplies or access to the procession of a cholera garden, and which in 1813 inspired the George Muller, social reformers, and, from a outside world. It would have also been useful victim, believing that he comment, ‘For the home of death has very different milieu, Raja Ram Mohun Roy, to have had further comparisons with other was about to be buried become the new Eden’. As Barb Drummond the Bengali reformer and writer. British cities and an analysis of how best to alive (cholera, we are points out, high burial fees (as insisted upon use different types of personal testimony. Peter Fleming told, can induce a state by the Anglican Bishop Monk) meant that it Nonetheless, this is an accessible book with hard to distinguish from was only from the 1850s, when the bulk of plenty of interest for the general reader and death, from which some may the city’s other burial sites were closed, that for students. It provides a starting point for Helen Reid, Bristol Under Siege: Surviving have awoken in their graves). Against the Arnos Vale began to develop into a anyone interested in the way in which a local the Wartime Blitz. (Bristol: Redcliffe Press general picture, there are grimly fascinating necropolis on the scale of its French study can enhance our understanding of the 2005) ISBN 1 904537 25 1 £8.95 detailed accounts of cholera ‘hot spots’, such prototype, or indeed, of Highgate. Increasing relationship between war and social change as St Peter’s Hospital, the gaol, and St James pressure on space inevitably changed its and in particular the myths that have From June 1940 until April 1941 Bristol Barton, whose annual fair was cancelled character, and the original conception, of developed around the spirit of the Blitz. suffered from saturation bombing at regular amid debates that reached as far as the tombs standing in splendid isolation beside intervals and was the fourth most bombed June Hannam Prime Minister. Good use is made of local sinuous paths winding between judiciously city in Britain. Bristol’s Blitz is far less well newspapers of the period, together with a planted oaks and poplars, was replaced by known, however, than that of London and range of other documents. The Bristol regimented graves and ‘municipal planting’. Liverpool. Helen Reid’s book seeks to redress John Lyes, Bristol, 1934-1939 (Bristol Branch experience is presented in the contexts of As if in reaction to this, grave plots became the balance by exploring in detail the ways of the Historical Association Pamphlet, 2004) local initiatives - such as the establishment of increasingly ‘suburban’ in character, with in which Bristolians coped for almost a year ISSN 1362 7759 £3.00 Arnos Vale cemetery and the local board of tight little fences and trim, self-contained with the constant air raids. Drawing on health - as well as national and international gardens. The cemetery today has been the personal testimony written at the time in This is the fifth in John Lyes’ series of developments. While it is a pity that a clearer subject of much controversy, and, prone to diaries, Mass Observation surveys or pamphlets chronicling events in Bristol from indication of the scale of the 1832 mortality theft and vandalism of various kinds, it might newspapers and on oral interviews recorded 1901 to 1939, inspired by the Victorian John could not have been given, this is still a be described as exhibiting faded glory. Even over fifty years later she provides graphic Latimer’s Annals, which charted Bristol’s compelling and very useful account of this so, it is still a peaceful enclave, and a haven descriptions of the destruction of buildings, history from the Middle Ages to his present. grim episode in Bristol’s nineteenth-century for wildlife. Following its take over by Bristol physical privations endured by the Those familiar with Latimer’s works, or with history. It is also a work that inevitably City Council in 2003 a charitable trust was population and the varied emotional the previous pamphlets in this series, will suggests parallels with our present century: established to maintain and repair it, and reactions of those affected. Photographs know what to expect: a chronological listing when reading of the hysteria, ignorance and some of the profits from the sale of this taken by the Bristol photo-journalist Jim of events in the public life of the city. Thus, fatalism (middle-class altruists distributing pamphlet go towards this worthy cause. Facey provide an added dimension to our for January 1935 we have, successively, prayer tracts rather than clean water or food understanding of the ways in which the Blitz notices of the Medical Officer of Health’s to the afflicted poor) that attended the Barb Drummond’s introduction will prove was experienced. For the most part the testimony on cancer deaths, the amount of epidemic of 1831-2 it is impossible not to invaluable to those tempted to explore this chapters are organized chronologically, but unpaid overtime worked by Council clerical reflect upon modern attitudes towards intriguing survival. In addition to its history, two, ‘Morale’ and ‘Heroes- and Cowards?’, staff, the visit of the Belgian ambassador, a HIV/AIDS. she provides a guide to the architecture and explore a particular theme. These are lecture given by Winston Churchill, and an (Bristol HA pamphlets can be purchased from building materials of its tombs, and notices perhaps the most challenging parts of the incident in the County Court where the Peter Harris, 74 Bell Barn Rd, Bristol BS9 2DG; of some of the more notable individuals who book since they raise questions about the judge rebuked a female witness for not please add 35p postage for one pamphlet found their last resting place there. Not conventional wisdom that everyone pulled wearing a hat. There is no interpretation or and 15p for each additional one.) everyone may think tomb architecture a together during the Blitz and demonstrate discussion, just ‘facts’, unsorted, presented in particularly engaging subject, but one cannot Peter Fleming that reactions varied from fear and the order in which they occurred. Now, there fail to be diverted by passages on the

44 45 10785 RegHistorian_issue13 5/26/05 5:25 PM Page 46 ✄ Letters Port Histories:

Postbag British Society and Maritime Culture English broadcloth Annual Conference of the Regional History Centre,

are doubtless many, particularly professional Dear Editor, University of the West of England, Bristol historians, who deplore such an approach as an uncritical regurgitation of the ‘mere dross I read the letter printed in RH 11 about of history’; but there are many others - English Broadcloth with interest, having just Saturday September 17th 2005 probably outnumbering the doubters - who moved to Trowbridge, a former cloth town will find this pamphlet hugely enjoyable, and in Wiltshire. I thought other readers might St Matthias Campus, UWE that enjoyment will result from the very like to know that Wiltshire and Swindon ‘deficiencies’ just listed. Whether or not this Record Office contains many records of the For further details see RHC webpages is ‘History’, this work is stuffed full of cloth industry, including pattern books of intriguing anecdotal snippets. For instance, samples. Trowbridge Museum has a there is the meeting, at Redland in 1935, working loom which reproduces the cloth calling for the abolition of all blood ‘sports’, and has just produced a video about it. whose speakers were drowned out by the Ken Rogers, the retired County Archivist is Booking as an associate member baying, catcalls and, finally, fireworks an expert on the West Country woollen emanating from the pro-hunting lobby; in industry and author of several books on it. costs you less! 1938 four shoplifters from Knowle West were I followed up the subject with him and convicted on the evidence of a detective found that he has seen no examples of the Subscribe now to the constable who had improvised the ‘rainbow selvedges’ mentioned in Tom forerunner to CCTV, in the form of an eight Leonard’s letter in local weaving, and foot ladder and a spy hole the size of a suggested that the cloth from this region Regional Historian sixpence bored into the wall of a was possibly too expensive for bulk-export. Redcliffe Hill shop; and the licensee of However, he is happy to help with further the White Horse Hotel prosecuted for enquiries and may be contacted via the Registration for Port Histories is £25.00 for non-members, or £20.00 for allowing bagatelle to be played on a County Record Office. members and students. Becoming an associate member of the Regional Sunday. Given the period, there are History Centre now will cost you just £10.00 p.a. and entitle you to big savings also many local echoes of ominous Yours sincerely, on RHC day conferences and workshops (including Port Histories) as well as a year’s subscription to events on the wider stage: Moseley’s the Regional Histories. Subscriptions take effect from issue 14 (Autumn 2005). Simply complete the form below and Fascist boot boys on the march, and Dr. Virginia Bainbridge return it to us here at the Centre. Please make all cheques payable to the University of the West of England. the demagogue himself addressing Assistant Editor the Bristol Round Table; Sir Victoria County History of Wiltshire Dr Steve Poole, Regional History Centre, St Matthias Campus, University of the West of England, Stafford Cripps, MP for Bristol University of the West of England Oldbury Court Rd, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 2JP East, expelled from the Labour party for supporting the anti-war movement. As war loomed, Name ...... Bristolians’ reactions ranged from prayer to taking delivery ...... of air raid shelters, but life - that is, what with hindsight Address (please print) ...... looks like an endless cycle of trivia - went on: on 12 September 1939 ...... the same Council meeting that noted the declaration of war and the measures taken ...... by the Emergency Committee also noted with approval that the Prevention of Damage by ...... Rabbits Act had received the royal assent. Whatever threats would be posed by the Luftwaffe in the years to come, at least the E-mail ...... good people of Bristol would have the means to defend themselves against rodents. I would like to become an associate member of the RHC and subscribe. I enclose £10.00: yes no Peter Fleming

We (two people living at the same address) would like joint associate membership at £15.00: yes no

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46 10785 RegHistorian_issue13 5/26/05 5:25 PM Page 48

Please return to: Dr Steve Poole, Regional History Centre, St Matthias Campus, University of the West of England, Oldbury Court Rd, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 2JP

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