Fragments of Two Centuries Part 9

Mr. Thomas Wortham, the treasurer to the Corps, found that the Royston people came out well with their money and equipment for {70} repelling the invader. E. K. Fordham's name appears in the list for L25; the Rev. Thomas Shield for L10 10s., and "personal service"; William Nash L10 10s.; John and James Butler for L5 5s. each; Waresley and Fordham L5 5s.; Thomas c.o.c.kett "two stands of arms and accoutrements complete"

[what kind, not specified], and others followed suit.

Royal reviews and grand hospitalities were common in the Metropolitan district, such as the Grand Review in Hyde Park, but perhaps the most memorable in which the Hertfordshire Volunteers took a part was the Grand Review of the Militia, Yeomanry, and Volunteers in Hatfield Park, on the 14th June, 1800, in the presence of the King and Queen and other members of the Royal Family, Cabinet Ministers, and a host of distinguished people, whom the Marquis of Salisbury entertained at Hatfield House with such splendid hospitality that the entertainment cost L3,000. Forty beds were made up at Hatfield House for the accommodation of visitors. The general company must have been immense, for carriages and wagons, gaily decorated, "extended in a line for three miles in length," and the scene was brightened "by the presence of the ladies wearing white dresses." The hospitality for the men under arms was on the most generous and famous scale. About seventeen hundred men sat down at 17 tables, laid out on the Western side of the House. The following is a list of the good things placed upon the tables upon that memorable occasion:--80 hams, 8 rounds of beef, 100 joints of veal, 100 legs of lamb, 100 tongues, 100 meat pies, 25 edge-bones of beef, 100 joints of mutton, 25 rumps of beef roasted, 25 briskets, 71 dishes of other roast beef, 100 gooseberry tarts, &c., &c.

The commissariat appears to have been at the "Salisbury Arms," for this part of the hospitality, where we learn that there were killed for the occasion:--3 bullocks, 16 sheep, 25 lambs.

Inside the historic building of Hatfield House the scene was worthy of the occasion too, for here, in King James' Room, King George and the Royal Family sat down to a sumptuous dinner, while the banquet for the Cabinet Ministers and others extended to 38 covers, and the whole affair engaged the services of 60 regular servants, and 60 extra waiters were employed for the occasion besides. Such a gathering inside and outside the home of the Cecils as that of 1800 has scarcely been equalled since, excepting perhaps by that of royalty in the Jubilee year of Queen Victoria in 1887.

The following was the muster of Volunteers with their captains a.s.sembled at this memorable review:--

Royston and Barkway, captain, Rev. Thomas Shield, 70 men; Hertford, Captain Dimsdale, 103; Hatfield, Captain Penrose, 77; Ware, Captain d.i.c.kinson, 76; St. Albans, Captain Kinder, 74; {71} Hitchin, Captain Wilshere, 70; Bishop Stortford, Captain Winter, 58; Cheshunt, Captain Newd.i.c.k, 48; Hunsdon, Captain Calvert, 39; and Wormley, Captain Leach, 29.

In accordance with the plan of drafting the Volunteers out for permanent duty in other districts, we find in 1804 the Royston and Barkway Corps, under command of Captain Shield, doing 23 days permanent duty at Baldock, concluded by the firing of three excellent volleys in the Market Place. Having completed this patriotic duty, they were reviewed by Colonel Cotton, and afterwards dined together on the Bowling Green, and "the day was concluded with the utmost conviviality and harmony." The Ba.s.singbourn Corps (afterwards incorporated with Chesterton) in like manner went on permanent duty at Newmarket; an event which was followed by a review on Foxton Common by General Stewart, when, "at the end of the town they all mounted in wagons stationed there to receive them, and drew together a great part of the beauty of the town to witness the scene," and were afterwards hospitably entertained by Mr. Hurrell.

The efficiency of the men got together in defence of their homes and kindred was generally spoken highly of in the records of the times, but I am sorry to add that in one case a drummer belonging to the Royston Volunteers was tried by Court Martial and sentenced to receive 50 lashes for absenting himself without leave, but the rev. captain, though a stern disciplinarian, had a tender heart and fatherly interest in his men, for we further learn that "when the proceedings of the Court had been read to the Corps, and everything prepared for the execution of the sentence, Captain Shield the commandant, after an impressive address to the Corps and the prisoner, was pleased to remit the punishment."

Upon the subject of Volunteer marksmanship a little piece of statistical information in the British Museum, referring to the Boston Volunteers, shows the capacity of the men for hitting the target (no question of Bullseyes!) The total number of men firing was 108 and, after several rounds each, the number of men who had actually hit the target was 37, the number of those who did not hit the target 71--not quite Wimbledon or Bisley form!

Though the immediate danger of an invasion pa.s.sed away by Boney having other work on his hands, the French were afterwards in evidence in a different capacity, for as many as 23,600 French prisoners were at one time maintained in different parts of England, a famous centre for them being Norman Cross, between Huntingdon and Caxton. They lingered here, now amusing their hosts with representations of Moliere's plays; now making fancy articles in straw, &c., some of which are still to be found in many houses in Cambridgeshire. {72} Companies of them were even so far indulged as to be shown over the University buildings at Cambridge previous to resuming their march through Royston, en route for Chatham and Tilbury, to be returned home to France!

At last, Buonaparte's reign of fighting seemed over, and with his retirement to Elba there was such a peace-rejoicing as comes only once or twice in a century.

Come forth ye old men, now in peaceful show, And greet your sons! drums beat and trumpets blow!

Make merry, wives! ye little children stun Your grandames ears with pleasure of your noise!

At Cambridge, Marshall Blucher was lionized, and here, as elsewhere, the celebrations were on a grand scale. At Royston it was one of the social land-marks of the first quarter of the century. The peace rejoicings took place here on June 29th and 30th, 1814. On Wednesday, about 12 o'clock, the Under Sheriff of the county, preceded by a band of music--and such a band of music! made up of some thirty or forty players on instruments--followed by a numerous cavalcade, proceeded first from the Bull Hotel to the Cross, and there the proclamation was first read. The procession then returned to the Market Hill, where it was read a second time, and from thence to the top of the High Street, where it was read for the last time. In the evening, "brilliant illuminations" took place with transparencies and variegated lamps. On the following day (Thursday) the bells rang merry peals, and at one o'clock about nine hundred of the inhabitants sat down to a good dinner on the Market Hill. At four o'clock the gentlemen and tradesmen sat down to an excellent luncheon on the Bowling Green at the Green Man Inn, after which many appropriate toasts were given by the chairman, Hale Wortham, Esq. At intervals the Royston Band, "who very politely offered their services," played some popular pieces. To conclude the day's festivities, a ball was given at the a.s.sembly Room at the Red Lion. I believe the only person now living who remembers sitting down to that famous dinner on the Market Hill is Mr. James Jacklin, who was then a very little boy with his parents.

The rejoicings were unbounded and images of "Boney" were carried about in almost every village on donkeys or men's shoulders, and afterwards burned on the village green. No one dreamed that Waterloo was still in store, but alas it soon appeared as if all this patriotic eloquence, and peace rejoicing, would have to be _un_said, for in a short time there came the alarming news that Napoleon had escaped from Elba and was returning to France! He did return, and so did Wellington!

Waterloo was fought and won, but, the English people having, as the Americans say, been a little too previous with {73} their rejoicings over Elba, made less of the greatest battle of the century than they might otherwise have done.

So pa.s.sed away a figure which had troubled the peace and conscience of Europe for a generation, the tradition of whose expected advent on our sh.o.r.es did for many a year after discolour the pages of our country life, like some old stain through the leaves of a book, and the old Bogie which frightened children in dame schools only disappeared with the Russian scare which set up the Russian for the Frenchman in Crimean days.

CHAPTER VII.

DOMESTIC LIFE AND THE TAX-GATHERER--THE DOCTOR AND THE BODY-s.n.a.t.c.hER.

By the fireside, in health and disease, and in the separations and contingencies of family life, we must look for the drawbacks which our great-grandfathers had to put up with during that remarkable period which closed and opened the two centuries, when great changes ever seemed on the eve of being born, yet ever eluded the grasp of the reformer. What a sluggish, silent, nerveless world, it must have been as we now think! On the other side of the cloud, which shut out the future, were most of the contributories to the noisy current of our modern life--from express trains and steam hammers to lucifer matches and tram cars! Steel pens, photographs, postage stamps, and even envelopes, umbrellas, telegrams, pianofortes, ready-made clothes, public opinion, gas lamps, vaccination, and a host of other things which now form a part of our daily life, were all unknown or belonged to the future. But there were a few other things which found a place in the home which are not often met with now--the weather-house (man for foul weather and woman for fine)--bellows, child's pole from ceiling to floor with swing, candlestick stands, chimney pot-hook, spinning wheel, bottle of leeches, flint gun, pillow and bobbins for lace, rush-lights, leather breeches, and a host of other things now nearly obsolete. In the better cla.s.s houses there was a grandfather's clock, and possibly a "windmill" clock, but in many villages if you could not fix the time by the sun "you might have to run half over the village to find a clock."

One of the primal fountains of our grandfathers' domestic comforts was the tinder-box and flint and steel. Without this he could neither have basked in the warmth of the Yule-log nor satisfied the baby in {74} the night time. But even this was not sufficient without matches, and, as Bryant and May had not been heard of, this article was made on the spot. In Royston, as in other places, matches were made and sold from door to door by the paupers from the Workhouse, by pedlars driving dog carts, or by gipsies, and the trade of match-makers obtained the dignified t.i.tle of "Carvers and Gilders." At by-ways where a tramp, a pedlar, or a pauper, did not reach, paterfamilias, or materfamilias, became "carver and gilder" to the household, and made their own matches. In one case I find the Royston Parish Authorities setting up one of the paupers with a supply of wood "to make skewers and matches to sell."

[Ill.u.s.tration: TINDER-BOX, FLINT, STEEL, AND MATCHES.]

The tinder-box, like other household requisites in all ages, was sometimes very homely, sometimes of "superior" make. The above ill.u.s.tration is of one rather out of the common, and the artist has brought the different parts together rather than showing the process, for the lid would have to be removed before the tinder beneath could be fired. The most common form of tinder-box was an oblong wooden box, of two compartments, one for the tinder and the other for flint and {75} steel. At Elbrook House, Ashwell, is one, in the possession of Edward Snow Fordham, Esq., said to be two hundred years old. The process of getting a light by means of the tinder-box involved a little manual dexterity and mental philosophy--if the fugitive spark from the striking of the flint and steel set alight to the tinder, well; you then had simply to light your clumsy sulphur-tipped skewer-like "match," and there you were! If the tinder happened to be damp, as it sometimes was, and the spark wouldn't lay hold, you were not one bit nearer quieting the baby, or meeting whatever might be the demand for a light in the night time, than was an ancient Briton ages ago! When the modern match was first introduced as the "Congreve" the cost was 2s.

6d. for fifty, or about 1/2d. each, and when, a few years later, the lucifer match was introduced, they were sold at four a penny! Now you can get more than four well-filled boxes for a penny!

In the first quarter of the century the supply of fuel was very different from now. By slow and difficult means did coal arrive.

Cambridge was the nearest centre for this district, and thence the coal used in Royston was obtained. Tedious and troublesome was the process of dragging it along bad roads, and between Cambridge and Royston this made a difference of about 7s. per ton in the price. Farm labourers, when agreeing for their harvest month, generally obtained, either by bargain or by custom, the right of the use of one of their master's horses and carts after harvest for a day to fetch coals from Cambridge.

Another concession made by the farmer to the men was that each man was allowed after harvest a load of "haulm," or wheat stubble, left in the field from reaping time. This "haulm" was useful not only for lighting fires with, but, like the bean stubs, for heating those capacious brick ovens in the old chimney corners, in which most of the cottagers then baked their own bread. Sometimes the stage wagoners brought a "mixed"

cargo, and put coals into their wagons to fill up, and undersold the dealers (at less than 13d. a bushel), and the practice was complained of at Cambridge, more especially respecting Royston and Buntingford districts.

It may seem strange now to speak of persons, even at a hospitable board, having taken too much salt, carefully replacing some of it, upon economical grounds; but, considering that there was then a duty of a guinea a bushel upon this necessary article, it is not surprising. Our grandfathers paid about 6d. a pound for their salt; the commonest calico was 10d. a yard, and printed calicoes 2s. 2d. per yard. In 1793 the average price of sugar, wholesale, was 66s. 7 1/2d. per cwt., exclusive of duty. Between 1810 and the Battle of Waterloo were many times of scarcity, with wheat varying from 100s. to 126s. a quarter, and some in Royston market reached 20s. a bushel. As to clothing, there were very few ready-made clothes, and the village tailor was a man of importance {76} when leather breeches and smock frocks were in general demand. A smock frock, washed till it was quite white, was as common a sight then as was the scarlet cloak worn by our great-grandmothers, but both these familiar sights have disappeared as completely as the yellow leather top boots, to be seen on Sundays up till fifty years ago in the Churchyards of rural England.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A LADY OF THE PERIOD.]

The vagaries of fashion at the beginning of the century were of almost inconceivable variety and extravagance; not only the ladies, but dandies of the opposite s.e.x wore stays for the improvement of the figure, and curled their hair with curling irons! Though wigs had almost gone out of fashion, hair powder had not. In a former sketch a figure of a lady in the earlier years of the reign of George III. was given. The above is another specimen of head gear at a later period of the same reign.

{77}

Trades necessarily followed fashions, and, when snuff-taking was almost universal, the manufacture of gold, silver, and baser metal snuff-boxes, was a thriving trade. A hair dresser's shop up to the end of last century was also different in appearance from one to-day, and was furnished with perukes, or wigs for all sorts of heads. At Upwell, in the Fen, in 1791, a wig caught fire in such a shop and "before the fire could be put out thirty-six wigs were destroyed."

Luxuries were much more limited than now, and many things then regarded as such have since got placed in a different category. At the end of the last century a pianoforte had not figured in any Royston household, but it came at the beginning of this century when Lady Wortham as she was always styled--as the daughter of Sir Thomas Hatton, Bart., and wife of Hale Wortham, Esq.--became the owner of the first piano at their house in Melbourn Street (now Mr. J. E. Phillips').

Newspapers were among the luxuries of the household, and their circulation was of a very limited character. When, for a town of the size of Royston, two or three copies did arrive by a London coach the subscribers were generally the princ.i.p.al innkeepers--the Red Lion, the Crown, and the Bull--and to these inns tradesmen and the leading inhabitants were wont to repair. The only alternative of getting a sight of the paper was that they could, on ordinary occasions, have it away with them at their own homes upon paying a penny an hour for its use. On special occasions when any great foreign event became known--for papers contained but little home news--the compet.i.tion for the paper was an exciting event, the above arrangement was hardly elastic enough to meet requirements, and crowds gathered about in the inn yards on the arrival of a coach to learn some momentous piece of intelligence with more or less accuracy from post-boys and others, who in their turn had heard it from somebody else whose friend had been able to communicate it with the authority of having actually "seen it in the paper." The essence of the news required was generally victory or defeat in battle, or trials at a.s.sizes, and could soon be told. The supply of papers was limited pretty much to the _Times_ and _Morning Chronicle_ from London, while the _Cambridge Chronicle_ was then the princ.i.p.al local newspaper.

As the Chancellor of the Exchequer derived a revenue from the stamp required for each newspaper (as well as upon advertis.e.m.e.nts) the lending of a newspaper was looked upon in the light of smuggling, and an Act was pa.s.sed providing that "any person who lends out a newspaper for hire is subject to a penalty of L10 for every offence." But I fear that with even this terrible inducement to buy your own paper, and the natural zeal for the spread of knowledge of a man like Henry Andrews, the astronomer, as agent for the sale of newspapers in our {78} town, very few copies were actually bought, and that most of the "news" which could not be obtained from the coaches was obtained by the Royston tradesmen in that illicit manner of lending and hiring, though forbidden by law!

Work and wages, closely connected with the condition of home life, did not present a very cheerful picture. The labourer, and all engaged in husbandry, had much longer hours than now. An old writer on husbandry says, "the dairymaid should always be up in the morning between three or four o'clock." The young fellows living "in service" on the farm had never done till it was time to go to bed, and, having but very little if any money to spend and nowhere to go, a short interval for supper by the kitchen fire was about the only recreation they enjoyed to vary their lot.

It was a time when there was little room for squeamishness as to the conditions under which men laboured--when little boys, instead of brooms, were sent up ill-constructed chimneys, with no sense of remorse from their employers, who in their turn had probably commenced business by going up themselves and saw no reason against the practice. At a later date, however, there was a great stir made about this practice, which led to its coming before a Committee of the House of Lords. One of the Payment family--who then, as now, carried on the business of chimney sweeps in Royston and its neighbourhood--was called as a witness to give evidence before the Committee of the House of Lords. I am credibly informed that the member of the Royston firm was at first rather alarmed at the prospect, thinking no doubt that he was about to be called to account as a "climbing boy," but when he found what was the nature of his errand, that his evidence was considered of so much value by the House of Lords, and that it meant a few days' holiday in the great city provided for him free of expense, the incident was one to be remembered with pride. A few courageous spirits set to work raising subscriptions to provide "machines," as now used, instead of "climbing boys," but, incredible as it may seem, met with a good deal of opposition at first, both from householders and master sweeps.

Among those who took up the question was Mr. Henry Fordham, then a young man at Hertford.

Let me conclude this reference to sweeps with a story from this district, vouched for by the old newspapers at the time, viz., that in one of the villages in the district was a chimney sweep who had sixteen sons all following the same occupation!

Among outside agencies which broke in upon the old domestic life of the period none was more potent or omnipresent than the tax-gatherer. You could not be born, married, or buried, without the consent of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, so to speak; for there was at the end of the last century a 3d. tax upon births, marriages, and burials, and it {79} appears that the clergy were allowed a commission of 2s. in the L, for the collection of the tax. Among the objections to it was that the poor man could not sometimes pay it without borrowing the money, and yet was made equal with the rich in regard to the amount. Even occupiers of cottages had to pay the window tax, unless exempt by the receipt of parish relief, but, by many thoughtful men of the time, its application to agricultural labourers was looked upon with disfavour.

About the end of the last century there was hardly anything that a man could see, taste, handle, or use, that was not taxed--windows, candles, tobacco pipes, almanacs, soap, newspapers, hats, bricks, domestic servants, watches, clocks, hair powder, besides nearly every article of food! All these in turn came under the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, till, as Sydney Smith said, "the school-boy had to whip a taxed top, the youth drove a taxed horse with taxed bridle along a taxed road; the old man poured medicine, which had paid 7 per cent., into a spoon that had paid 15; fell back upon a chintz bed which had paid 22 per cent., and expired in the arms of an apothecary who had paid a licence of L100 for the privilege of putting him to death; and immediately his property paid 2 to 10 per cent., and his virtues were handed down to posterity on taxed marble."

The extravagant vagaries in the fashions of dressing the hair formed a tempting point for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to come down upon, and the tax in the form of "hair-powder certificates," at the rate of a guinea a head, occasioned perhaps more commotion in fashionable circles than any other tax. It was a profitable source of revenue owing to the great use of hair-powder, and at the same time its disuse would mean a gain in the supply of flour, of which it was largely made, for consumption. Short hair, or "crops," soon came into fashion as a means of evading the tax and "dishing" the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a re-action which was responsible for the following parody of _Hamlet_:--

To crop, or not to crop, that is the question:-- Whether 'tis n.o.bler in the mind, to suffer The plague of powder and loquacious barbers; Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And, by the scissors, end them?

From the old Royston Book Club debates of last century it will be remembered that I quoted the result of a vote upon--which of the three professions, of divinity, law and physic, was most beneficial to mankind, and that the doctors could only get one vote, against a respectable number for law and divinity. I ventured to suggest that the bleeding, blistering and purging at certain seasons was probably responsible for {80} the low estimate of the medical profession, and of this may be given the following example--

In 1799, the parish doctor's bill for the Therfield paupers contained twelve items for "blisters," eight for bleeding (at 6d. each!), and in another, eight for "leeches."

There was a much more detailed account given in the old doctors' bills of a century ago than in the curt missives which are now usually limited to the "professional attendance" with which the old bills began, and the "total" with which they finished; "bleeding, blistering, leeches, vomits, julep, boluses," &c., were all duly accounted for.

The following is a _bona fide_ doctor's bill of 1788, delivered to and paid by a resident in one of the villages of this district:--

s. d.

Bleeding----Daughter . . . . . . . 1 0 A febrifuge Mixture . . . . . . . 2 4 Bleeding----Self . . . . . . . . . 1 0 A Cordial Mixture . . . . . . . . 2 4 A Diuretic Tincture . . . . . . . 1 6 Two Opening Draughts . . . . . . . 2 0 The Mixture repd . . . . . . . . . 2 4 Bleeding----Daughter . . . . . . . 1 0 Two Opening Draughts . . . . . . . 2 0 -------- L0 15 6

The item "Bleeding----self" is a trifle ambiguous, but probably it was the parent and not the doctor upon whom the operation was performed!