If ever a man deserved the term ‘villain’ rather than ‘hero’ it was William Douglas, Third Earl March and later Fourth Duke of Queensbury. Born in 1725 (four years before Richard Hall) he outlived Richard by nine years, dying in 1810. The man was a disgusting old lecher, a rake who never married but had a penchant for young girls, particularly dark Italian ones. He was also a prodigious drinker, a keen follower of horse racing, and an inveterate gambler. He was 52 when he inherited the dukedom in 1778, his two cousins who were direct in line having predeceased him. Thereafter he became known as ‘Old Q’. Arguably the faults which would have been permitted in a younger man only became notorious with Old Q simply because he never did reform, or repent his wicked ways, or give up debauching young girls. He was nothing if not consistent, right into old age.

It is a curious thing, fate. Most people comply with the adage of Master Shakespeare (‘some are born great; some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them’) but then occasionally you get a person who lives a squalid, mean little life, and yet who is immortalised and lionised as a hero while nothing could be further from the truth. An example of the latter person was Dick Turpin. That he lived is not in doubt. That he was ever the derring-do hero who lived a life of passion and swaggering nonchalance is unlikely. That he owned a horse called Black Bess, or rode it from London to York in a day is not only false but a straight lift from the exploits of a much earlier criminal. Why, Turpin was not even a highwayman for most of his life. He was a thief, a sadistic torturer, a murderer and a thoroughly unpleasant guy. So how come he is immortalised as some kind of folk hero?

One suspects that Turpin would be the most amazed of all at the transformation. He had been born in Essex in 1706 the son of a famer John Turpin, who at one time was proprietor of a public house called the Crown Inn. He was apprenticed as a butcher, in Whitechapel, but apparently “conducted himself in a loose and disorderly manner.”
When his apprenticeship finished he reputedly married a local girl called Miss Palmer. He subsequently opened a butcher’s shop in Essex, but gained a reputation for dealing in beef and lamb stolen from local farms, and venison poached from the deer parks and forests of the neighbourhood.

Richard Hall’s version of a deer park.

He also tried his hand at smuggling, but failed miserably. He himself was not averse to a little cattle rustling, being caught in the act of stealing two oxen. He fled the scene and went into hiding and at some stage became a member of the notorious Essex Gang a.k.a. the Gregory Gang.

Their ‘speciality’ was raiding remote farmhouses, often late at night, terrorising the inhabitants before stealing their valuables. He was not averse to torturing his victims to help them remember where they kept their valuables – on one occasion holding his elderly female hostage over the open fire until she revealed the hiding place. On at least one occasion the gang raped a young servant. Hardly the stuff of legend…

According to the Newgate Chronicle ‘they fixed on a spot between the King’s-Oak and the Loughton Road, on Epping Forest, where they made a cave, which was large enough to receive them and their horses. This cave was inclosed within a sort of thicket of bushes and brambles, through which they could look and see passengers on the road, while themselves remained unobserved. From this station they used to issue, and robbed such a number of persons, that at length the very pedlars who travelled the road, carried fire-arms for their defence: and, while they were in this retreat, Turpin’s wife used to supply them with necessaries, and frequently remained in the cave during the night.’

The gang ventured further afield, becoming notorious throughout the Home Counties not least because of their ruthlessness and their willingness to resort to torture. Their offences were regularly reported in the Press and by 1735 the London Evening Post was reporting that the Crown had offered a reward of fifty pounds for the capture of the gang. Two of the gang were caught, but Turpin escaped through a window just as the constables arrived. For a while he lay low in the depths of Epping Forest. Here he met up with Tom King – a far more likely candidate for a person having a reputation as a swash-buckling ne’er-do-well.

The Newgate Calendar is a fascinating publication – albeit one not necessarily too worried about following strict truth. It was a sort of National Enquirer of its day. It started as a monthly bulletin of executions, kept by the Keeper at Newgate Prison, but the name was appropriated by others and became a byword for the sort of chapbook which delighted audiences in the Eighteenth Century, who could not get enough lurid prose listing the heinous exploits of rapists, thieves and murderers, particularly when they got their come-uppance. Who cared that the events described were not always accurate: they were thrilling tales of criminals, and by the middle 1770s it was described as being one of the three books most likely to be found in the average home (the other two being the Bible and Pilgrims Progress).

Meanwhile back in Epping Forest…The exploits of King and Turpin had led to the reward for their capture being increased by one hundred pounds – enough to tempt a gamekeeper in the forest called Thomas Morris to track Turpin down. Turpin was cornered, and shot Morris dead. The murder was reported to the Secretary of State and the Newgate Calendar takes up the story:

“It having been represented to the King, that Richard Turpin did, on Wednesday, the 4th of May last, barbarously murder Thomas Morris, servant to Henry Thompson, one of the keepers of Epping Forest, and commit other notorious felonies and robberies, near London, his Majesty is pleased to promise his most gracious pardon to any of his accomplices, and a reward of 200 pounds to any person or persons that shall discover him, so that he may be apprehended and convicted. Turpin was born at Thackstead, in Essex, is about thirty, by trade a butcher, about five feet nine inches high, very much marked with the small-pox, his cheek-bones broad, his face thinner towards the bottom; his visage short, pretty upright, and broad about the shoulders.”

Shortly after this, Turpin decided that he wanted to get rid of his own nag, and took a fancy to a fine horse belonging to a Mr Major. He stole the new horse at gunpoint (horse-stealing being a hanging offence, ranked as high as murder on the scale of felonies). Mr Major would not take the loss lying down: he had handbills printed and circulated around pubs in the London area; he described the horse and named Turpin as the perpetrator. In fact Turpin had stabled the horse at the Red Lion in Whitechapel, but it was Tom King who came to collect it and who was faced by two constables lying in wait. To follow the Newgate Calendar:

King … drew a pistol (and) attempted to fire it, but it flashed in the pan; he then endeavoured to draw out another pistol, but he could not, as it got entangled in his pocket. At this time Turpin was watching at a small distance and riding towards the spot, King cried out, “Shoot him, or we are taken;” on which Turpin fired, and shot his companion, who called out, “Dick, you have killed me;” which the other hearing, rode off at full speed.

King lived a week after this affair, and gave information that Turpin might be found at a house near Hackney-marsh; and, on inquiry, it was discovered that Turpin had been there on the night that he rode off, lamenting that he had killed King, who was his most faithful associate.”

Turpin fled North and settled near York under the identity of ‘John Palmer’. He continued to rustle cattle in neighbouring Lincolnshire and in 1738 became involved in an incident when he shot a rooster belonging to his landlord. When the landlord (named Mr Hall, but as far as I know no relation) remonstrated with Turpin, our hero replied that if he would give him long enough to reload his gun he would shoot him also. The constables were called, and people started asking questions about how Mr Palmer was able to finance his lifestyle. People had noticed that when he disappeared to Lincolnshire he invariably returned with a different horse and was flush with funds. The magistrates had him locked up on suspicion of horse stealing. And here the tale takes a curious turn. The Newgate Calendar reports:

“After (Turpin) had been about four month in prison, he wrote the following letter to his brother in Essex:

“Dear Brother,
York, Feb. 6, 1739.
“I am sorry to acquaint you, that I am now under confinement in York Castle, for horse-stealing. If I could procure an evidence from London to give me a character, that would go a great way towards my being acquitted. I had not been long in this county before my being apprehended, so that it would pass off the readier. For Heaven’s sake dear brother, do not neglect me; you will know what I mean, when I say,
I am yours,
“JOHN PALMER.”

Apparently the brother declined to pay sixpence for the letter, since he knew nobody of the name Palmer in York, and the letter was returned unopened to the local Post Office in Essex. Here fate intervened: the letter was seen by a school-master by the name of Mr Smith. He had taught Turpin and amazingly claimed to reconize the handwriting, and he rushed off to tell the local magistrate. The letter was opened and the true identity of John Palmer was revealed. The Newgate Calendar continues:
“Hereupon the magistrates of Essex dispatched Mr. Smith to York, who immediately selected him from all the other prisoners in the castle. This Mr. Smith, and another gentle man, afterwards proved his identity on his trial.

On the rumour that the noted Turpin was a prisoner in York Castle, persons flocked from all parts of the country to take a view of him, and debates ran very high whether he was the real person or not. Among others who visited him, was a young fellow who pretended to know the famous Turpin, and having regarded him a considerable time with looks of great attention, he told the keeper he would bet him half a guinea that he was not Turpin; on which the prisoner, whispering the keeper, said, ‘Lay him the wager, and I’ll go your halves.’

When this notorious malefactor was brought to trial, he was convicted on two indictments, and received sentence of death.”

Only at this stage did Turpin begin to show the flamboyance and style for which he is now remembered. He reportedly bought himself a new fustian frock and a pair of pumps (so that he could look his best on the way to his execution) and paid ten shillings to each of five men to act as mourners. They accompanied him as he waved gaily to the crowds when he was placed in a cart and wheeled off to York racecourse on 7th April 1739. Or, as the Newgate Calendar put it:

“On the morning of his death he was put into a cart, and being followed by his mourners … he was drawn to the place of execution, in his way to which he bowed to the spectators with an air of the most astonishing indifference and intrepidity.When he came to the fatal tree, he ascended the ladder; when his right leg trembling, he stamped it down with an air of assumed courage, as if he was ashamed of discovering any signs of fear, Having conversed with the executioner about half an hour, he threw himself off the ladder, and expired in a few minutes.”

It wasn’t quite the end for Dick Turpin. He was buried six feet down but that first night body-snatchers exhumed the corpse and absconded with it. It was apparently found the next day in the garden of a local doctor, whereupon it was coated with quick lime and re-interred.

And the fables? They started immediately after his death with the publication of a book entitled ‘Life of Richard Turpin’ but only really gained credence when Harrison Ainsworth published his novel ‘Rockwood’ in 1834. He was the one who introduced Black Bess, and who attributed to Turpin a ride to York which was actually made thirty years before Turpin’s birth, by one John (‘Swift Nick’) Nevison. The tale was told and re-told, becoming more and more embellished in the re-telling, and slowly a charmless, cruel and murderous young man who killed his own partner was turned into ‘dandy highwayman, folk hero of his day’. But whoever said that life was fair?

The papercuts are all made by my ancestor Richard Hall, mostly dating from the 1780s (lots more are to be found in The Journal of a Georgian Gentleman).

THIS POST IS A DUPLICATE TAKEN FROM MY MAIN BLOGSITE at http://blog.mikerendell.com

David Brewster, 1781 – 1868, an engraving by William Holl.

Occasionally I come across a scientist who suddenly steps off his academic perch and comes up with something totally unexpected. One such man was David Brewster, born in 1781 in Jedburgh Scotland. His range of interests included that of a physicist, mathematician, astronomer, inventor, and writer. He was a scientist who studied light – prisms, polarisation of light, mirrors, stereoscopes, lighthouse lenses, etc., He was a Member of the Royal Society, was showered with medals and awards, and was made a knight of the realm in 1831. He is also credited with having invented the sea thermometer. He was an eminent scientist yet in 1815 he came up with the kaleidoscope, an invention which he patented two years later.

He had originally intended it as a scientific tool. It consisted of a tube with two mirrors at an angle at one end and a translucent disc at the other through which diffused light could pass. In between he placed coloured beads. With two mirrors the beads were shown in multiple reflection, the patterns illuminated against a black background. Introducing a third mirror placed at 60° produced six duplicate objects, with eight if the angle was 45°. The three mirrors meant that the patterns filled the whole field of vision.

Brewster turned to a famous lens developer Philip Carpenter to develop his invention once the patent came through in 1817. It was a sensation, with over 200,000 kaleidoscopes sold within three months in London and Paris alone. Carpenter simply could not keep up with demand and Brewster was forced to seek his permission to bring in other manufacturers. He hoped to make a fortune from the invention, but unfortunately for him a mistake on the patent application meant that others were able to copy it with impunity.

In later years he was to become Principal of St Andrews University (1837 to 1859) and then of Edinburgh University (1859, up to his death nine years later). He was devoutly religious, highly strung and often highly irritable with people who disagreed with his views. His scientific works are sufficiently obscure as to be quite beyond my limited abilities to understand. Suffice to say that Encyclopedia Britannica delivered this obituary after his death in 1868.

“His scientific glory is different in kind from that of Young and Fresnel; but the discoverer of the law of polarization of biaxial crystals, of optical mineralogy, and of double refraction by compression, will always occupy a foremost rank in the intellectual history of the age.”

And the name kaleidoscope? Well for those of us who never woke up in time for Greek lessons it is a combination of three words from ancient Greece meaning ‘tool for observing beautiful shapes.’ In other words, it does what it says on the tin. Thanks Sir David, and many happy returns of the day! (His birthday was on the Eleventh of December).

NB This post echoes my main blog at http://blog.mikerendell.com (go there for up to date posts)

15th November marks the 273rd  anniversary of the birth of Sir Frederick William Herschel, or, to give him his full Germanic name, Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel.

 He is one of my favourite characters of the century because he showed what ‘the ordinary guy’ could do simply by being observant. He did what no-one had done for thousands of years before him – he discovered a planet (later called Uranus) and in so doing set the whole science of astronomy on its head. The discovery doubled the size of the known solar system. He discovered that Saturn has two moons. He was the first to notice infra-red radiation. Not content with that he pesonally designed, made, and put up the world’s biggest telescope in his back garden – you don’t do that in our era because you would need a budget larger than Greece’s national debt to do so! Oh and he catalogued around 2400 new stars (which he called nebulae), and if that didn’t fill his nights sufficiently, he also composed a couple of dozen symphonies, a number of oboe concertos and a harpsichord sonata …

He had originally come to Britain as a 19 year old, following in the footsteps of the royal family and their entourages who had drifted across the Channel from Hanover to set up camp here in the mid 1700’s. He was an oboist in the Hanover Military Band and took a job in Bath teaching music and as resident organist at the Octagon Chapel. He was made Bath’s  Director of Public Concerts and in 1780 was made Director of the Bath orchestra. Somehow that didn’t fill enough hours and he was apparently spending up to 16 hours a day on his hobby, polishing his reflective mirrors and looking at the stars...

In this work he was aided by his sister, the diminutive Caroline Herschel about whom I blogged earlier this year. In March 1781 he identified the new planet which he called ‘Georgium Sidum’ (literally, George’s Star) even though he knew it to be a planet rather than a star, but it shows the lengths he was prepared to go to in order to flatter his monarch. It worked in the sense that George III made Herschel his personal astronomer (as opposed to the Astronomer Royal) and awarded him a pension of £200 for life, which enabled him to give up teaching and concentrate all his efforts on observing the universe.

In 1782 he and his sister moved to Datchet, moving on to Slough three years later. He was busy selling his polished mirrors to other astronomers throughout Europe, and building his own telescopes (he made some 400 during his life-time) The largest of all these ‘scopes was a forty foot monster which he constructed in his garden (no planning controls in those days!)…  

Herschel was the first person to work out that the solar system was moving through space, that the Milky Way was disc-shaped, and comparatively recent re-reading of his note books suggest that he actually noticed the rings around Uranus (many years before it was otherwise established).

He coined the word asteroid to describe moons and minor planets. He also observed sunspots on the surface of the sun, speculating that this was evidence of life there (indeed he took it for granted that all the phenomena he observed featured their own life forms).

He was knighted in 1816.

He helped found the Royal Astronomical Society in 1820 and lived long enough to hand over the baton of astronomical discoveries to his son John.I am including a picture of John because quite simply, apart from Sir Patrick Moore I cannot think of anyone who looks more like a brilliant astronomer! Who needs a comb to search the universe… 

John was also the first person to photograph onto glass – this being a picture of his father’s 40-foot telescope at Slough taken in 1836 (original in Science Museum). 

               
                 Postage stamp from 1970 (Herschel's telescope in background).

And dont forget: my blogs are now to be found at http://blog.mikerendell.com and will not be available on this site for very much longer!

NB This is a draft of the blog posted on my main blogsite, at http://blog.mikerendell.com

The artist George Romney died on the  fifteenth day of November 1802. His life spanned an almost identical period to Richard Hall. In his lifetime he became one of the most fashionable portrait painters of the Age.

He is perhaps best remembered for painting more than fifty portraits of Nelson's mistress Emma Hamilton. He first met her as Emma Hart in around 1781. He became pre-occupied by her, painting her over and over agin, often from memory, and often in heroic or historical guises such as Joan of Arc. He referred to her as his 'divine Emma'

A provocative little minx, to be sure, but I rather prefer Romney as the master of the 'Lady in a Flamboyant Hat' style of painting - to my mind, a fine hat makes for a fine portrait and you cannot get much better than some of these:

Mrs Musters

                                                         Miss Constable

Lady Edward Bentinck (born Elizabeth Cumberland).

                          Lady Milnes, painted in 1788   

He occasionally painted his sitters without a hat, sometimes making do with a tiara as here with his 1770 portrait of Mary White

But I prefer 'Mrs Tickell at Ascott' - this is what I call a hat.

                                                                  

Romney had a somewhat unusual family life - he lived apart from his wife for nearly forty years, maintaining her financially in the Lake District while he was based in London, but returning to her for the last two  years of his life when his health started to fail.

He steadfastly refused to have anything at all to do with the Royal Academy, despite beign asked to exhibit there on many occasions, possibly because of his aversion to anything at all which was connected to Joshua Reynolds, whom he loathed.

                         A self-portrait.

Farewell, George Romney, you faithfully recorded the Age in which you lived. Especially the hats. We remember you fondly, for tomorrow is the anniversary of your death.

 

                               A Chippendale style chair, circa 1780                          

At the same time he took a wealthy Scottish businessman  called James Rannie into partnership, enabling him to concentrate on his masterpiece  The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker’s Director. It contained 161 engraved plates of “elegant and useful designs of Household Furniture in the Gothic Chinese and Modern Taste.”  It was a sell-out success, as was the second edition in the following year. A third edition, with additional illustrations came out in 1762. The Director is important because it was the first time a publication had appeared listing designs for others to copy, and because of the success the Chippendale name has been synonymous with the rococo style. It does not mean that all the pieces of ‘Chippendale’ were made by him, although it is true that he employed some fifty in-house carpenters and any number of outworkers. His role was as artistic director, dealing with wealthy clients and supervising the workforce. Ideally he preferred to be given a commission to design the furniture for a grand house, from top to bottom, (such as at Harewood House, situated between Leeds and Harrogate) but he also sold ‘off the peg’ items from the London premises to the passing trade.

His partner James Rannie died in 1766 but his share in the business was sold to their accountant Thomas Haig and for a time the business was known as Chippendale Haig & Co. With passing years Thomas the elder Chippendale had less to do with the business – he remarried in 1776 and had two more children, and by then his role had passed to Thomas Chippendale junior. The old boy had moved to Hoxton and died there of tuberculosis on 13 November 1778. He was buried at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London and various memorials have been erected in his memory including a statue in his home town of Otley and another outside the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. 

                                Chippendale ladderback mahogany chair circa 1800. 

                                                         Courtesy of http://www.antique-antiques-uk.com/     

This left the younger Thomas to soldier on until 1803. It must have been a difficult time for Thomas junior because Haig was the senior partner. When Haig died that year there were insufficient funds to pay his legacies and Thomas was forced to liquidate his assets and was declared bankrupt in 1804. He finally quit the St Martin’s Lane premises in 1813 and died in 1822. 

The above is an earlier version of today's post at my main blogsite which is at http://blog.Mikerendell.com

Today marks the anniversary of a man who has gone down in history as ‘The Butcher’ – a name oddly enough bestowed on him by his elder brother the Prince of Wales, for political reasons. The two did not get on…  

  To give him his actual name, William Augustus was born on 15 April 1721 in London and was the third son of George II and Caroline of Ansbach. The title ‘Duke of Cumberland’ was bestowed on him as a five year old. He became a soldier and achieved great popularity for his bravery in the (successful) Battle of  Dettingen (1743), where he was wounded in the leg by a musket ball. He was immediately made a Lieutenant General and within two years was placed in command of the combined British, Hanoverian, Austrian and Dutch forces. His inexperience was demonstrated at the Battle of Fontenoy, where he was comprehensively beaten by France's Marshal Maurice de Saxe on 11 May 1745.

 The 'martial boy' had been depicted as a great military general in this 1744 engraving (shown courtesy of the British Museum): 

                                             

Later in 1745 Cumberland was recalled to England to oppose the invasion of England led by ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie' (Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, grandson of the deposed king James II). His appointment was hugely popular, particularly with the army. Up until then the rebel army had been highly successful in making use of ‘the Highland Charge’. At the Battle of Prestonpans in September 1745 and the Battle of Falkirk in January 1746, the Highland Charge caused havoc against the English army.

It was with this background that Cumberland marched up to Edinburgh and  headed towards Aberdeen and then Inverness. By now he had insisted on the army being trained to combat the Highland Charge. The first row of infantry were to hold their fire until the enemy were just twelve yards away. While the front rank re-loaded, the second rank fired their guns. By the time the third rank had fired their guns, the first rank were ready to fire again.

Some of the English infantry had the benefit of using the more modern firelocks instead of the older matchlocks which were slow to re-load. Some of their guns had bayonets with which to dispatch any Scots who got too close – no match on their own for the Scottish broadsword but effective when used in conjunction with this style of fighting.  

When the forces met at Culloden Moor near Inverness on 16 April 1746, the Highland Charge failed to make its mark. Some one thousand Scots died. After the battle Cumberland was purportedly in his tent playing cards. When he was asked for orders he wrote "No quarter" on the back of the nine of diamonds -  a card still known to this day as the 'curse of Scotland'.

How Richard Hall noted the victory at Culloden.

The resulting hunting-down and indiscriminate killing of men women and children in the Scottish Highlands left deep scars in much of Scotland – although interestingly the good burghers of Glasgow were so pleased with him that they promptly awarded Cumberland  an honorary degree. The Highland Scots reviled him, and re-named the Common Ragwort (a noxious weed which gives off an unpleasant odour when bruised) as ‘Stinking Billie’. It is however quite wrong to attribute the naming of the flower ‘Sweet William’ to Cumberland by the English (as many have suggested) since the plant ‘Dianthus barbatus’ had been known by that name for several centuries.

  'Sweet William' popularly but erroneously thought to have been named after Prince William.

                Common Ragwort or Stinking Billie   

Cumberland  returned to London  a hero. He was awarded an additional £25,000 per annum i.e. over and above what he already received. His brother the Prince of Wales was alarmed at the popularity of his kid brother (and perhaps miffed because he himself had been denied a military role in the campaign)  and he orchestrated the use of the epithet ‘Butcher’ whenever his brother was mentioned.

Cumberland went back to Flanders, still in charge of British forces, and he led them to comprehensive defeats at Laffeldt in 1747 (War of Austrian Succession) and at Hastenbeck in 1757 (during the Seven Years War). This last battle allowed the French to take over Hanover, and Cumberland was relieved of his role as commander-in-chief of the army.

He returned to England, his reputation tarnished, being met by his father George II with the words "Here is my son who has ruined me and disgraced himself". It was a little hard, since the King had himself authorised his son to agree the surrender terms.

Cumberland resigned from all his military positions and largely retired from public life. He had time on his hands to indulge his favourite hobby, gambling: he gambled at bare kuckle boxing matches and he gambled  at horse races. In 1750 his favourite boxer Jack Broughton was up against the unknown Jack Slack. The Duke placed ten thousand pounds on Broughton to win ( a truly vast sum for a single bout, at odds of ten-to-one ON i.e. staking ten grand to win one thousand) and then watched in horror as his champion was defeated and near-blinded by the young upstart Slack, after a mere quarter of an hour.  

From time to time Cumberland meddled in domestic politics, apparently trying to get William Pitt restored to office. He was however in poor health – obese and never fully recovered from the wound to his leg, he suffered a stroke. His death on 31 October 1765 was sudden. He was 44 years old (the same age at death as two of his siblings). He is buried at Westminster Abbey and his name is especially remembered in the States where the Cumberland Gap as well as the Cumberland River, Mountains, and Plateau are named after him.

 

Richard's cut-out showing soldiers riding in single file.

                      John Peel, Cumberland farmer and keen huntsman.  

Prudence suggests I preface my words with a confession: I am not here to express an opinion one way or another about hunting. I have never hunted, but have never sought to sabotage a hunt either. I simply comment on the life of one who lived to hunt, pine marten and hares mostly, but foxes if the chance arose. He is immortalised in a song, written in his lifetime by a close friend, and I thought it was worth finding out about the man behind the song.

The words were written by Peel's hunting companion John Woodcock, in Cumbrian dialect. Woodcock frequently refined and altered the song, and over time some of the lines have changed. It seems clear that the original version referred to ‘a coat so grey’ – nowadays it is usually ‘a coat so gay’ (referring presumably for the fashion to wear hunting pink, allegedly after the tailor named Mr. Pink. Legend has it he was a London tailor who bought large quantities of red material after the American War of Independence in 1783 and became popular for hunting attire. Mr Pink may however have been apocryphal  since no-one has located his date or place of business). It is in any event more likely that John Peel, a rugged farmer in a desolate area of the moors, hunted in a coat woven from the local Herdwick sheep, which are about as grey as you can get.

John Peel was probably born in 1776 – the records show that he was baptized the following year. The family lived at Greenrigg in the parish of Caldbeck, a remote area on the Cumbian Fells where farming was hard and the population sparse.

  When he was twenty he fell head over heels with the eighteen year old Mary White, daughter of a local (more prosperous) farming family. Her family were aghast and forbade the marriage. Mary’s mother interrupted the banns as they were being read with the words ‘I forbid the banns. They’re far ower young!’ Undeterred the impetuous John Peel borrowed 'Binsey' (his father’s fleetest horse) and eloped with his lovely lady. She shimmied down from her bedroom window at midnight (ah, the stuff of romance!) and together they galloped up to Gretna Green (across the border in Scotland). They returned married a few days later.

 

A paper cut-out of horse and hounds, made by my ancestor Richard Hall c. 1780

Typically he would set off at daybreak and hunt all day, covering as much as 50  miles of the roughest terrain before returning to sink a pint (or three) at the Sun Inn at Ireby. He must have made a striking figure - a tall man,who stood bolt upright, with chiselled features and bright blue eyes.

                    John Peel's memorial, before it was desecrated and smashed by hunt sabateurs.

In some ways we may think it rather appropriate that the London home of the Prime Minister is in Downing Street, a place named after a man who was notorious as a spy, an opportunist, and a money-grabbing turncoat.

George Downing was born in Dublin in 1624 into a staunchly puritan family. He emigrated to the American colonies with his parents when he was 14 and when the Civil War broke out he decided to return to Britain, working his passage on board  ship as a preacher. He arrived in England in 1646, determined to help the cause of the Parliamentarians and joined the army of Sir Thomas Fairfax, initially as a chaplain. He decided to follow a more military calling and in 1649 Oliver Cromwell sent him north into Scotland to act as a spy. He was given the rank of Scout Master General (equivalent to a Major General) and was wounded in the Battle of Dunbar in 1650. Four years later saw his marriage to a ‘lady greatly distinguished for beauty’ namely Frances, the 21 year old sister of the Earl of Carlisle, and daughter of Sir William Howard. The connection afforded a further boost to his career and Cromwell sent him to France to spy on the Royalists who had fled to the Continent after the execution of Charles I.

By now Downing had been elected to Parliament and, as an MP, needed a London base. He bought the interest of the Crown in some land and buildings known as Hampden House and Peacock Court at Axe Yard King Street in Whitehall. Here he became friends with the likes of John Milton, (Paradise Lost), and Arthur Haslerig, (parliamentary leader).

By now on a salary of £1000 a year, he was asked to embark on a diplomatic career, based at The Hague in Holland, and this provided him with further opportunities to spy and report on the activities of royalists in exile. He mediated in various disputes and generally made sure that he was well rewarded for his efforts. Armed with an unusual skill – sign language (which he learnt by virtue of having attended a school for the congenitally deaf in Kent) he employed a veritable army of deaf people to assist him in garnering information from those around him. The deaf servants acted as pick-pockets and spies – feloniously acquiring keys and private documents.  Downing quickly developed a reputation as a man who spent more time in espionage than he did in diplomacy: he was feared by everyone.

A cartouche of the Downing coat of arms above the date 1673, incised above the door of St Denis Church, East Hatley, Cambs.

When Oliver Cromwell died, Downing remained in post during Richard Cromwell’s protectorship but events in 1660, when Charles II came to power, necessitated a swift epiphany. He announced that he had suddenly seen the error of his ways; that he had been led astray while he was in Massachusetts as a youngster. His change of heart was emphasised when he alerted  Charles, before he returned to England to claim the crown, of an assassination attempt. Charles became king and rewarded his ‘loyal servant’ with a knighthood – and promptly gave him back his old job in Holland. Swiftly he denounced his erstwhile colleagues, and three of the signatories of the ‘regicide’ deed were captured and sent to the gallows. Downing was appointed a Teller of the Receipts of the Exchequer, a post which appeared to allow vast funds to attach themselves to his sticky fingers. He acquired estate after estate throughout Cambridge. He picked up a baronetcy in 1663 and became involved in the overhaul of the Treasury and the way parliament provided funds for the Crown.

Subsequent service to the country included talking the Dutch into handing over New Amsterdam (now New York), and using his influence to see to it that Parliament passed the Navigation Acts. These helped underwrite English commercial and Naval power, and contributed to the security of the State and its ability to promote its interests worldwide.The guy was unstoppable. After the Great Fire of London property speculation became the order of the day. Downing wished to redevelop his property in Whitehall and in vain tried to winkle out the tenant (the Hampden family) but in the end had to wait for the tenancy to expire in 1682. Downing submitted plans for the construction of a cul de sac containing more than a score of three-storey terraced houses. They were intended as prestigious residences (in practice it may not be a surprise to hear that they were jerry built). In his modesty he called the road Downing Street. In practice he never lived to see the development finished off – he died in 1684 and building work finished two years later. Fast forward to 1732 and the properties had passed to the Crown. George II decided to give the buildings comprising 10, 11 and 12 Downing Street to Robert Walpole in his capacity of First Lord of the Treasury. Walpole only accepted the gift as long as it was not personal to him, but was to his successors as well. It was  intended that the First Lord of the Treasury (i.e. the Prime Minister) would reside at Number 10 and his Chancellor in the adjoining Number 11 Downing Street.  This then was the arrangement applying to the address throughout the time Richard Hall was a child.

Downing had made enemies at every turn. Samuel Pepys, at one time his secretary, found him odious and mean and denounced him as a 'perfidious rogue'. The other famous diarist of the age John Evelyn complained that the man was “ a great traitor against his Majestie but now insinuated into his favour, & from a pedagoge & fanatic preachr, not worth a groate, becoming excessive rich.“

Downing Street courtesy of Wikipedia

The story of the actual buildings will be the basis of a separate post, but it is certainly ironic that the name of Downing lives on at the very heart of British politics. He was an able administrator, a capable reformer of the Treasury, but also a man entirely lacking in a moral compass. A rogue, a traitor, a miser and a  relentless opportunist, it is small wonder that for years the expression ‘doing a George Downing’ was synonymous with shady dealing and corruption.

“It was at Rome, on the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing Vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the City first started to my mind”

So Edward Gibbon recounted the circumstances in which he came to write his magnum opus, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Other commitments meant it was another four years before he started writing in earnest, and it was to be 1776 before the first of six volumes was published, the final volume emerging from the presses in 1788.

                          Edward Gibbon by Henry Walton    

He was one of seven children, and the only one to survive infancy. Born in Putney to a family which was originally well-to-do but which had lost a fortune with the stock-market crash of 1720 (shades of Richard Hall’s own family misfortunes in the same South Sea Bubble) he had a weak constitution. As he himself put it, he was "a puny child, neglected by my Mother, starved by my nurse." Life took a turn for the better when his mother died, because he was put under the wing of his beloved "Aunt Kitty," Catherine Porten, who ran a boarding house at Westminster School and who fostered in the young boy a love of reading and intellectual challenge. He went up to Magdalen College Oxford where, to his father’s immense rage, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1753. He was taken out of university and packed off to Lausanne in Switzerland, where as put it, "The various articles of the Romish creed disappeared like a dream." He reconverted to the Protestant faith on Christmas Day 1754.

By then the family fortunes had recovered. He stayed on in Switzerland, and travelled around Europe on the Grand Tour, for a number of years studying the classics and reading voraciously. He returned to England in 1765 and on his father’s death in 1770 found himself sufficiently well-off to move to Bentinck Street in London and to join London society.  In 1774 he became a freemason of the Premier Grand Lodge of England, and in the same year was elected Member of Parliament for Liskeard – a post he filled with total lack of effort and effect since he was by now fully occupied in writing Decline and Fall.

The Blue Plaque at Bentinck Street

When the first volume came out it was a big success – bringing both fame and fortune to its author. He struggled on year after year to finish the great story, completing the writing process at Lausanne in June 1787. Thereafter, it was downhill all the way: a number of his close friends died and this coincided with a decline in his own health. He cut a sad and lonely figure, enduring much pain and discomfort. He had to face a number of operations, the last of which caused peritonitis which eventually led his death on 16^th January 1794 aged 56.

Decline and Fall was a masterpiece because of the use of primary sources, and because of the research and analysis  which went into it. He used footnotes extensively, often drawing parallels with contemporary events, frequently using wit and humour. He was meticulous with his citations and developed a style copied by others, including Winston Churchill.

Gibbon’s style of writing makes it easy to read. Not everyone endorsed his views – particularly where he relegated the story of Christianity to a mere description of a historical phenomenon, rather than as a Divine event. Indeed he went further, suggesting that Christianity had itself weakened Rome, encouraging Romans to believe in a better life to come, rather than going out and doing 'manly things' to safeguard and expand the Empire. Because he criticized the Church the book was banned in some countries for a time.

Image courtesy of Abe Books

Gibbon was a very quotable writer: these are some of the quotations I like:

Books are those faithful mirrors that reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes.
Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.
Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.
Fanaticism obliterates the feelings of humanity.
History is little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expenses, and my expense is equal to my wishes.
I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.
I was never less alone than when by myself.

And finally:
Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.