Transportation to Australia of convict, Sarah Murden

Today’s article is about my namesake – Sarah Murden (also written as Murdin), who was born on 16 February 1803, at Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, to parents John, a shoemaker, and his wife Ann née Beebby. Sarah’s younger brother, John followed in his father’s footsteps and he became a shoe maker; a traditional role in Northamptonshire, famed for its shoe industry. Sarah’s life, however, took a very different path and not in a positive way.

There is no evidence of Sarah having married in her twenties, as most of her peers probably did, nor of her occupation. However, given that the main employers in Wellingborough at that time were shoe/boot makers, it’s highly likely that Sarah would have worked for such an employer, perhaps working alongside other members of her family.

Walton, Henry; The Shoemaker; Northampton Museums & Art Gallery

Sarah’s name came to prominence locally, when, at the age of 28 her name appeared in the Northamptonshire Mercury, 26 November 1831 – for larceny. Sarah was charged with

the theft of three pairs of army upper leathers, from the warehouse of Mr Mark Sharman, shoe manufacturer of Wellingborough.

Mark Sharman’s company was probably one of the largest and oldest in the town, situated on Sheep Street, near to The Hind coaching inn.

At the Shoemaker’s Shop c1825 (c) National Trust, Wimpole Hall; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

From the nature of her theft it would appear quite likely that Sarah was an employee at Sharman’s, but as to why she stole from her employer is lost to history, but her sentence for this crime was not imprisonment, instead, she received a seven year sentence of transportation to Australia, as apparently this was not her first crime for theft, but it hasn’t been possible to ascertain further details of her earlier misdemeanour, but it seems highly likely that she had already received a warning about what would happen if she committed any further crimes. A warning she clearly chose to ignore. Times were exceptionally hard back then for the likes of Sarah and her family and in all likelihood she stole in order to help support the family, but this crime could potentially have had a greater impact on her family, especially if they all worked for the same employer.

Around the end of July 1832, Sarah boarded the transportation ship, The Fanny, but when The Fanny set sail from London for Port Jackson, Australia, cholera had already made its appearance onboard, according to the ship’s surgeon, who stated that this was possibly due to one of the sailors who had already contracted it.

Fortunately though, none of the women onboard succumbed to it, however, about thirty women did go on to develop scurvy. At the insistence of the surgeons, The Fanny put in to the Cape of Good Hope, where fresh provisions were procured and the prisoners were given an opportunity to recuperate.

Eventually, after a journey of 188 days at sea, The Fanny arrived at Port Jackson, Sydney, on February 2, 1833.

Port Jackson 1823 State Library of New South Wales

Upon arrival, prisoners physical details were recorded in the Gaol Description and Entrance Books which recorded that Sarah was 5 feet in height, slender build, with brown hair, hazel eyes and a sallow complexion.

As with all other prisoners, Sarah was immediately set to work having been sent to a Mr and Mrs W Wolcott, a shoe maker on George Street, Sydney. Potentially an ideal employer, given Sarah’s possible previous employment on the other side of the world.

But all was not well with Sarah’s placement, as according to the New South Wales Government Gazette of 18 December 1833 – Sarah had made a bid for freedom. This didn’t go well, as she was captured and returned to her placement.

George Street Sydney1855

Sarah was clearly not happy with her situation, as on Wednesday 8 Jan 1834  her name appeared again on a list of runaways who had been apprehended, along with an account of her court appearance.

Sarah Murden was charged with ‘bolting from her mistress, Mrs Woolcot, of George Street,’ putting herself under the protection of an unnamed man for three weeks. She was then picked up in the area of Kent Street, by someone who suspected her to be a runaway who took her into custody. Something was said about her going back to her mistress, but on hearing this, Sarah simply shrugged her shoulders and said:

she would be blowed if she would go back again and would suffer any punishment rather than return.

The phrase, ‘be careful what you wish for’ springs to mind, as the Bench decided that the best thing to do with her rather than return her to her placement was to sentence her to two months at Parramatta, a goal often used for runaways.

On 3 March 1827, Michael Perrin, also from Wellingborough, a shoemaker and soldier, found himself in court with his accomplice, Philip Hustwaite, charged with stealing a feather bed and a pair of blankets from a mansion house in Wellingborough, owned by Thomas Pochin, Esq. The pair were sentenced to seven years transportation. They were swiftly removed from Northamptonshire to Portsmouth, where they were confined of the Leviathan prison hulk or a few months (conditions onboard the hulks were described as horrendous), then onwards to Australia onboard The Phoenix.

Michael then seemed to disappear from records for a while, but in 1833 he reappeared when he applied to marry Sarah Murden. Whilst Sarah was still bonded, Michael was noted to be free, so even though his sentence had not run its course, his freedom had clearly been granted.

The couple married despite Sarah’s situation, her freedom was not granted until 20 July 1841, some ten years after her initial sentence – could this have been due to her bad behaviour? It would seem likely.

However badly she had behaved during her sentence, she and Michael had a long and fruitful marriage, seeing Sarah given birth to two daughters, Sarah and Elizabeth, both of whom went on to have their own families and it is highly likely that Sarah and Michael’s descendants still live in Australia.

Sarah died on 9 July 1866, interestingly this was just 6 months, to the day after the death of the victim of her crime, the shoe manufacture, Mark Sharman.

I have the definite impression that Sarah was quite feisty, and I do have to say that I like that about my namesake.

Sources

State Archives NSW; Kingswood, New South Wales; Gaol Description and Entrance Books, 1818-1930; Series: 2517; Item: 4/6296; Roll: 855

New South Wales, Australia Convict Ship Muster Rolls and Related Records, 1790-1849 

New South Wales, Butts Of Convicts’ Certificates Of Freedom 1827-1867

Bateson, Charles. The Convict Ships 1787-1868

Featured Image

Prison Hulk in Portsmouth Harbour. Louis Garneray (1783–1857). National Maritime Museum

 

 

Guest post by Bibi Cox O’Brien – ‘To Myself’: Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire’s newly discovered poem

As many of my regular readers will know, I am extremely interested in the life of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and have written several articles on here about her, but today I am incredibly thrilled to welcome a new guest to All Things Georgian.

Bibi Cox O’Brien graduated from the University of Sheffield in 2022 with a BA and MA in English Literature and is set to go to Oxford University later this year to pursue a DPhil in early modern women’s poetry manuscripts. Her research interests lie primarily in 17^th century poetry, but her enduring love is that of women’s literature, and a dedication to honouring women who have made history with their intelligence and literary talents. With that, I’ll hand over to Bibi to tell you all about her discovery.

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire’s legacy as a figure of immense public interest is both enduring and unsurprising. Her rich life, full of political influence and salacious scandal, has bestowed on her a cultural icon status. Nevertheless, a question remains over what we know about her private self and her innermost thoughts. We know more than enough about the facts of her life, but we know very little about her own opinions of how others saw her, or how she saw herself. However, these questions can begin to be answered with the recent discovery of her 1776 poem ‘To myself’.

Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire at Buxton in 1777. Courtesy of North Yorkshire Archives

Whilst on a work placement at the Chatsworth House Archives, I came across the poem. I was meant to be transcribing letters of correspondence for the work placement but requested some further items from a small archival collection called ‘Papers of Georgiana Cavendish’ which contained what was described as ‘notebooks and scrapbooks.’ I was an MA English Literature student at the time, but I knew I had a keen interest in women’s poetry manuscripts, so when I read a letter by Georgiana’s brother which mentioned some verse written by her that he had circulated amongst peers and had been wildly popular, I wondered if there was something of interest still waiting to be found in the archives. What I ended up finding surpassed my expectations.

Angelica Kauffmann, Portrait of Lady Georgiana, Lady Henrietta Frances and George John Spencer, Viscount Althorp (1774)

‘To myself’ is a deeply personal and private poem, written by Georgiana in 1776, when she was only nineteen years old, yet somehow both predicts and comes to terms with her blossoming fame. At the top is the inscription ‘Althorp’, her childhood home, suggesting this is where it was written, another indicator of her relative youth. In the poem, she articulates a duality of self, expressing the nuances of her identity which existed in private, and how she saw herself in relation to her fame. She clearly and rationally sets out the premise that there are two parts of her, the public and the private sides. She expresses the almost paradoxical qualities which she possesses, whilst maintaining an unyielding self-assurance. It is a remarkable poem, and one which holds the potential for new insights about her character.

Althorp House, Northamptonshire by William Daniell YCBA

Throughout the poem, she uses a direct address to ask herself questions about her own identity, resulting in a rumination on her own sense of self, something which is largely absent from the various biopics and biographies. She sets out two distinctly separate parts of herself, a compartmentalisation which she perhaps used to understand herself and her burgeoning fame. The poem begins with multiple pronouns which express her multiplicity:

‘Tell me myself & if thou canst tell true

What are thy merits & thy failings too

Art thou as some n doubt will think they know

An Idle being merely form’d for show

A trifling toy the plaything of the day

To flutter for a while then fade away

And yield the palm with a reluctant sigh

Whilst newer charms engage each gazer’s Eye’

 

Her immediate acknowledgement of what others ‘think they know’ about her is striking, and signals that she was aware not only of what she thought of herself, but what others thought of her too. She paints herself as a ‘toy,’ and a ‘plaything,’ a seemingly lifeless object which others use for their own gratification. The revealing phrase ‘reluctant sigh’ suggests again that she was acutely aware of her status as a caricature of aristocratic femininity and prominence as a salacious celebrity figure, several centuries before the arrival of throwaway celebrity culture.  However, rather than simply acknowledging her public perception, Georgiana goes on to challenge that perception in comparison with how she saw herself. She asks herself:

‘Say does thy Soul Contract its blunted rays

To live for Admiration & for praise

Say does thy bliss consist in being told

A Flattering tale – Worn out because ‘tis Old’

She answers herself in a forthright tone that she was ‘not formed for vanity alone.’ She continues with a striking sense of self-acceptance of her youthful naivety:

‘Tis true much folly may my faults enlarge

And ‘twould be falsehood to deny the charge

Yet Candour says and what she breathes is truth

Some folly ever was allied to youth’

Her stark revelation that she has vices, and that she can even be prone to vanity, but that she is a complicated woman who is acutely aware of her potential to bring about her own downfall, is an element of her personality which is difficult to ascertain without delving into a primary source such as this. The fact that to a certain extent, some of her weaknesses and flaws did in fact bring tragedy into her life in the end, demonstrates her incredible emotional intelligence in predicting it years prior. It is a bold admission for anyone to make; that they have faults and possess parts of themselves which they themselves are critical of. It is another thing entirely for a young woman on the verge of an extraordinary life to admit it in such beautiful verse.

The Duchess of Devonshire. Thomas Gainsborough 1783

She continues by using a rich array of imagery, setting up a dichotomy between flowing streams and sturdy trees to express her duality of self. The flowing streams represent vanity and the follies of her youth, which carry her away despite her best efforts to resist. She admits she can be easily carried away by the ‘glittering surface of the stream / I to the substance have preferred the dream.’

At the end of the poem, she uses trees to juxtapose the rapid stream of vanity and to establish a symbol of reason which equally resides within her:

‘Yet oft times too in leisure’s silent grove

Where not a breeze can thro’ the branches move

Where thought seem’d graven on the spreading boughs

To reasons throne my Soul has part’d its Vows’

In these final images, she skilfully paints a pastoral and intimate scene in the solitude of a private moment, where she joins with reason in a metaphorical exchange of vows, providing a contrasting image to that of ‘the plaything of the day.’ Her prevailing attitude it seems, is one of duality. Much like Walt Whitman, who almost 80 years later asserted “I contain multitudes,” Georgiana was compellingly mindful of the two opposing sides of her personality.  She is aware she contradicts herself, but her overall message, it seems to me, is that she is capable of being many things at once.

There is the vain side, perhaps the side which popular culture both in her time and to an extent today, have grasped hold of. The fashion icon; the gambler; the adulterer. But what is there all along, and arguably what prevails at the end of the poem, is her reflective, fiercely intelligent side. The part of her which longs for reason and sense, and battles to understand who she really is. It is clear from ‘To myself’ that Georgiana was determined to know herself and to reflect on what it means to have public and private sides. She wrote poetry at only nineteen years old about her own vices and inadequacies, and how others took those weaknesses and turned her into a ‘being merely form’d for show.’ That is, I think, an impressive accomplishment.

Georgiana’s private poetry may hold the key to unlocking her private self. Not the private self which comes with affairs or drug abuse, and which has been drawn out many times before, but her inner monologue. Truly, what it was like to be her. ‘To myself’ has the ability to challenge stereotypes of Georgiana as a vain celebrity, or even as a martyr of tortured women. She was not a passive victim of the patriarchal structures within which she lived, but an active and extraordinarily intelligent woman who possessed a self-awareness rare in any teenager. If this is how she felt at nineteen, it may be safe to assume that in later years, she only became more self-aware. She had weaknesses, as does everyone, but her weaknesses should be embraced, and she should be viewed as a complicated and nuanced woman, just as she saw herself.

You can read a full transcription of ‘To myself’ on the Chatsworth House website: https://www.chatsworth.org/visit-chatsworth/chatsworth-estate/art-archives/devonshire-collections/archives/to-myself/

You  can listen to Bibi on BBC Woman’s Hour, in discussion with historian, Dr Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. 

Featured Image

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire after 1778. Courtesy of Royal Collections Trust

Harriet Bouverie of Delapre Abbey

A while ago I wrote about an article about the ‘scale of Bon Ton’ which was used to rank twelve high society ladies for their ‘virtues’. It was subsequently published in the Morning Post of 2 October 1776. Coming in at number 4 was Mrs Harriet Bouverie, one place above the famous Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.

I was then contacted by Avril Gilbert, who is a volunteer at Delapre Abbey in Northampton where Harriet Bouverie lived. During lockdown, Avril was part of a group that researched her life  and she’s with us today to tell us more about their scandalous findings, but to begin with, we have a portrait of  Harriet.

Harriet Bouverie (née Fawkener, later Lady Robert Spencer); Edward Bouverie. Courtesy of NPG

So who was Harriet, a mere ‘Mrs’ surrounded by five Duchesses, a Countess and three Ladies?

In Northampton, a group of volunteers at Delapré Abbey, the home of Harriet’s husband Hon Edward Bouverie, spent lockdown piecing together her life story and we think that the scandal we discovered makes for very interesting reading!

Harriet was born in 1750 to Sir Everard Fawkener and his wife Harriet Churchill. However, in 1758 Sir Everard died leaving his widow with a mass of debts. It was probably due to this that Harriet needed to marry at just fourteen. Whilst she had no wealth to offer a husband, Harriet certainly had the right family connections; through her mother’s line, she was related to the Churchills of Blenheim and connected to the Spencer’s of Althorp.

Harriet’s prospective husband was Mr Edward Bouverie, an eligible bachelor from a wealthy Huguenot refugee family.

A copy of a portrait of Edward Bouverie (left) hanging at Delapré Abbey. Courtesy of the website Helpful Hiker

Edward’s grandfather had purchased the title Viscount Folkestone and his older brother was the first Earl of Radnor. Although Edward did not have a title, his mother had left him her land and property in Northamptonshire and when neighbouring Delapré Abbey came up for sale, it was purchased, creating an estate of considerable size. All that he needed was a suitable bride, someone with the right connections.

Courtesy of Delapre Abbey

On 17th June 1764, the twenty-six-year-old Hon. Edward Bouverie married the fourteen-year-old Harriet Fawkener by special license at St George’s Church in Hanover Square, Westminster.

Aged 16, Harriet fell pregnant and delivered Edward an heir, the healthy baby boy shown in the Reynolds portrait above. Over the next twenty-two years, Harriet had 7 more children, five daughters named Harriet, Frances, Mary Charlotte, Jane, and Diana, and two sons named John and Henry Frederick.

This is where the story gets really interesting! During our research, we discovered a letter written by Lady Louisa Stuart in 1802 which stated 

Mrs Maxwell is the tell-tale Bouverie, for there never was such a perfect indisputable Spencer, Lord Robert’s walking picture, the very prettier creature that ever was seen.

We realised that Mrs Maxwell was Harriet’s fourth child, Mary Charlotte,  who married William Maxwell Esq in 1799. This raised a number of questions:

• Who was Lord Robert Spencer?
• How did he and Harriet meet?
• Was there any evidence of an affair?
• What was Edward’s reaction?
• If Robert was the father of Mary, which other Bouverie children did he father?

Robert was the youngest son of Charles Spencer, the third Duke of Marlborough who lived a very privileged life. Educated at Harrow then on to Christ Church College, Oxford, where he met and made a lifelong long friend, Charles James Fox. In 1766, Robert went on a grand tour arriving back in England in 1768 when he was ‘elected’ MP for Woodstock.

Reynolds, Joshua; Lord Robert Spencer (1747-1831); National Trust, Woolbeding

Harriet and Robert must have met at some point afterwards. By the 1770’s they were both key members of the Devonshire House ‘circle’, Robert a close relative of Georgiana and Harriet a member of Georgiana’s inner circle. (Edward also hovered somewhere in ‘the circle’).

Both Robert and Harriet shared a passion for Whig politics. Whilst researching her life, we uncovered the following in a letter dated 1793 written by Sylvester Douglas, Baron Glenbervie:

“Mrs Bouverie… looked very handsome and is still armed with a great deal of matron-like seduction….Lord Orford (Horace Wimpole) said a good, though very severe thing about her… Mrs Bouverie had been talking a great deal of democratical language and had declared that she hoped to see the time when there would be no overgrown fortunes, and when the poor would be in easy circumstances and the fine ladies would lay down their coaches and walk the streets.”

Had she been allowed to stand for Parliament, we would have voted for her!

However, Lord Orford went on to say:

“he had no doubt a great deal of regard for his relation Mrs Bouverie”, but that he “always thought she had turn for street walking”.

Ouch! Was he hinting at her adultery?

In 1784, Harriet and Robert must have spent a lot of time in each other’s company owing to the snap general election that was called. The ladies of the Devonshire House Circle were determined to get Robert’s great friend and fellow Whig, Charles James Fox, elected as MP for the Westminster constituency and they canvassed hard for him, perhaps even more so than the men!

Unfortunately, our research didn’t lead us to a love letter, but we did find further gossip about Harriet and Robert’s relationship in letters from the time.

Our earliest source was a letter from 1777 in which George Selwyn, a well-known gossip, mentioned that Robert, Edward and Harriet had been at Brighthelmstone together at the home of Lady Holland.

In November 1781, Selwyn wrote:

“Bob’s political tenants will be very tardy in remitting him their rents. but between Foley House and the run of Mrs Bouverie’s kitchen, with his own credit at Brookes’s and his shares in and an affinity to an opulent bank, and flourishing trade, he may find subsistence.”

Selwyn certainly knew that Robert was very well acquainted with Harriet!

Although a few years after the deaths of Harriet and Robert, in 1844 letters of the former celebrity gossip Beau Brummell were published. He wrote:

“Mrs Bouverie was a very attractive and engaging woman, and her conduct when living with Lord Robert, who was very constant to her, was in other respects so amiable and exemplary, that it elicited from Charles Fox, the paradoxical remark that “they made adultery respectable”.

In Brummell’s collection there was also this poem about Harriet written by Charles James Fox.

She loves the truth, though she lies till she’s black in the face;

She loves virtue, though none in her conduct you trace;

Her delicate feelings all wickedness shocks;

 Though her lover’s Lord Robert, and her friend is Charles Fox!

Whilst we discovered much about Harriet and Robert, very little was written about Edward, perhaps because he was a very quiet man, never once speaking in all his years in Parliament.

We found a letter written in 1803 by the MP Thomas Creevey which stated that he had supped with Fox and the Whig leaders at Mrs Bouverie’s house and noted that Mrs Bouverie lived in tranquil amity with Lord Robert, Mr Bouverie raising no objection.

Brummell wrote that, sometime after her last child was born, Harriet “placed herself under the protection of Lord Robert”. This was not as harsh as it sounds. Harriet went to live with Robert, yet Edward still spent a lot of time with them both! A letter written in 1808 by Lady Lyttleton following a visit to Robert’s house at Woolbeding in Sussex revealed that Edward was there too and told us more about him:

“The honours of the house were done by Mrs Bouverie, a lady still very beautiful though past fifty, and who is in more than one sense the mistress of that abode. Her ill-fated husband, a poor old twaddler, was there too.”

Edward died in 1810 and a year afterwards, Harriet finally married Robert, the love of her life. They had a further fourteen years together before Harriet passed away in 1825. Robert lived on until 1831 and was buried next to Harriet in the grounds of All Hallows Church on his Woolbeding estate.

In Lady Lyttleton’s letter, she also wrote

“Papa saw several children playing about but thought it not prudent to inquire minutely into their heritage for fear of getting into some scrape.”

So how many of the children were Edward’s and how many were Robert’s?  We know that Harriet fell pregnant with Edward, her first child, in 1767 whilst Robert was on his Grand Tour of Europe, so baby Edward was Edward’s legitimate son.

The first daughter, Harriet, was born in 1771 but we can’t be sure that the affair had started by then. Harriet married James St Clair, the Earl of Roslyn. Although she died before Robert, her husband James is mentioned in Robert’s will. Was that an acknowledgment of paternity?

Frances Bouverie never married. She died in1848 and was buried with Harriet and Robert at Woolbeding. Could she be Robert’s child?

Mary Charlotte, the tell-tale Bouverie, was highly likely to have been Robert’s child.

John Bouverie became the Rector of Woolbeding and was also buried with Harriet and Robert. Given that he was born after Mary, he probably was Robert’s child.

Jane Bouverie was born in 1781, so probably Robert’s.

Sir Henry Frederick Bouverie was born in 1783. At the time it was rumoured that he was Robert’s son, and he probably was. He was also mentioned in Robert’s will.

Diana Bouverie was definitely Robert’s child. What more evidence do you need than the fact that he left Woolbeding to her.

Earlier we mentioned the story of Lord Melbourne, a silent character who visitors to Devonshire House barely noticed, who once Lady Melbourne had presented him with an heir, allowed her the freedom to do and see whom she pleased. Perhaps this was the same for Edward; maybe once he had his heir, he allowed his young wife to follow her heart? We will leave you to make up your own minds!

If you would like to find out more about Delapre Abbey and the lives of the people who lived there, please click on this link.

A Murder at Fleet Prison

We begin this story, which only just made it onto our radar, with two gentlemen – Lewis Pleura, who was born in Italy and referred to himself by the title of Count, and who was very fond of gambling, and as such, eventually found his way into Fleet debtors’ prison, where he became acquainted with Nathaniel Parkhurst.

View of the inner court of the Fleet Prison, with the prisoners playing rackets and skittles on the left, 1807. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Nathaniel was from the village of Lower Catesby, near Daventry and descendant of John Parkhurst, the owner of Catesby Abbey and one of county’s major landowners of the time. He went up to Wadham College, Oxford in 1692, aged 16 where he got in with the wrong crowd who spent their time ridiculing religion, and making a jest of the scriptures, and everything that was held sacred.

It was on 3^rd March 1715 that Nathaniel Parkhurst was indicted at the Old Bailey for the murder of Lewis Pleura and on a second count, of stabbing.

Parkhurst and the deceased were fellow prisoners in the Fleet prison for debt. Parkhurst had apparently sat up drinking until three o’clock in the morning when he went into the room of Pleura where an argument broke out between the two with Parkhurst saying that Pleura owed him four guineas.

Soon after this, everyone was woken by screams of ‘murder, murder’ and Parkhurst was found with his sword having stabbed Pleura some twenty times, leaving a trail of blood all over the floor.

A Plan of Fleet Prison. British Museum

The surgeon was immediately sent for, but of course, it was far too late. He dressed the deceased and placed him in bed, declaring that Parkhurst had assassinated him. Parkhurst, seeing the deceased in bed went to the corpse shouting ‘damn you Pleura, are you not dead yet?’.

When questioned about the murder, Parkhurst said he had no knowledge of committing it and that he had been in an ‘unhappy state of mind’ for the past two and a half years. Witnesses were called to confirm that Parkhurst was not of stable mind, however evidence proved to be the opposite – he knew exactly what he had done. The jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death.

T1729. The Representations of the several Fetters, Irons, & Ingines of Torture that were taken from the Marshalsea Prison. Item F shows the strong room at Fleet. British Museum

Soon after he received sentence of death, he began to see the error of his ways and acknowledged the truth of the religion he had ridiculed. He confessed that the dissolute course of life which he had led had wasted his substance and weakened his intellectual faculties.

It was recorded that on the morning of execution, he ordered a fowl to be prepared for his breakfast, of which he seemed to eat with a good appetite and drank a pint of liquor with it, then was launched into eternity of on 20^th May 1715, leaving a wife and two children, John and Altham.

The state of our prisons in 1788

As you do, we have just stumbled upon a book titled ‘An Account of Prisons and Houses of Correction in the Midland Circuit’, which provides details of the conditions within the prisons following a review carried out by John Howard Esq., prison reformer, on behalf of the Duke of Montagu, so we thought we would share some bits with you.

Howard’s aim was to review the physical condition of the prisons, and the benefits or otherwise of the prisoners themselves.

The morals of prisoners were at this time as much neglected as their health. Idleness, drunkenness and all kinds of vice, were suffered to continue in such a manner as to confirm old offenders in their bad practices, and to render it almost certain, that the minds of those who were confined for their first faults, would be corrupted instead of being corrected, by their imprisonment.

Hogarth, William; A Rake’s Progress: 7. The Rake in Prison; Sir John Soane’s Museum

Howard made a series of recommendations regarding prisons including these:

Every prison be white-washed at least once every year, and that this be done twice in prisons which are much crowded.

That a pump and plentiful supply of water be provided, and that every part of the prison be kept as clean as possible.

That every prison be supplied with a warm and cold bath, or commodious bathing tubs, and that the prisoners be indulged in the use of such baths, with a proper allowance of soap and the use of towels.

That attention be paid to the sewers in order to render them as little offensive as possible.

That great care be taken, that as perfect a separation as possible be made of the following classes of prisoners. That felons be kept entirely separate from debtors; men from women’ old offenders from young beginners; convicts from those who have not yet been tried.

That all prisoners, except debtors be clothed on their admission with a prison uniform and that their own clothes be returned to them when they are brought to trial or are dismissed.

That care be taken that the prisoners are properly supplied with food, and their allowance not deficient, either in weight or quality.

He also recommended that gaolers were to be  paid a proper salary, that religious services take place and that no swearing was to be permitted. A surgeon or apothecary be appointed to tend to the sick. That attention be paid to the prisoners on their discharge and that, if possible some means be pointed out to them by which they may be enabled to gain a livelihood in an honest manner.

Thomson, W.; The Upper Condemned Cell at Newgate Prison, London, on the Morning of the Execution of Henry Fauntleroy; Museum of London

The book provides brief details of the finding at some of the prisons, so we thought we would share a few of these with you:

County Bridewell – Warwick

A new prison is finished and occupied. There are separate apartments and courts with water, for men and women; and vagrants have a court and apartments separate from the other prisoners. Allowance, as in a gaol.

No coals: no employment at present; but a long room, ten feet and a half wide is provided, with looms, and other materials for work.

1788, Feb. 15        Prisoners – 10.

Birmingham Town Gaol

The court is now paved with broad stones, but dirty with fowls. There is only one dayroom for both sexes, over the door of which there is impudently painted ‘Universal Academy’. Neither the act for preserving the health of prisoners, nor clauses against spirituous liquors are hung up. The gaoler has no salary, but still a licence for beer.

1788, Feb. 14                Prisoners – 13.

British (English) School; Daniel Lambert (1770-1809), Keeper of Leicester Gaol around 1788; Compton Verney

Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire

Two rooms. No court: no water. Keeper’s salary only £4

1788 Aug. 7.                     No prisoners.

Tideswell, Derbyshire

An old house lately purchased. Prisoner were formerly confined in a room in the inn keeper’s public house. No allowance, keeper’s salary £20

1788, Aug 3.      No prisoners.

County Gaol at Nottingham

At the entrance is this inscription on a board ‘No ale, nor any sort of liquor sold within the prison’. Gaoler’s salary now £140. The prison too small. The debtors in three rooms, pay 2s a week each, though two in a bed. They who can pay only 6d are in two rooms below, confined with such felons as pay 2s a week. The other felons lie in two dark, offensive dungeons, down thirty-six steps called pits, which are never white-washed.

Another dungeon in 1787 was occupied by a man sentenced to two years solitary confinement. The town ‘transports’ and criminals are here confined with the county felons, which it may be hoped the magistrates will soon rectify. The room used for a chapel was too close, though when I was there, only one debtor attended the service. Allowance to felons now 1 and a half pence in bread and a half penny in money. Five of the felons were county, and give town convicts.

1787, Oct 23,    Debtors       9

                          Felons etc. 21

1788, Aug 6,     Debtors   12

                          Felons etc. 10

County Bridewell, Folkingham, Lincolnshire

No alteration in this offensive prison. Court not secure. Prisoners locked up. No water: no employment. Keeper’s salary £40 out of which he maintains (of starves) his prisoners.

1788, Jan. 17,   Prisoners 3

Lincoln City and County Gaol

No alteration. Through the window of the two damp cells, both men and women freely converse with idle people in the street, who often supply them with spirituous liquors till they are intoxicated. No court: no sewers: no water accessible to the prisoners. Gaoler’s salary augments £20 in lieu of the tap.

1788, Jan 16   Debtors none. Felons etc. 5

County Gaol at Northampton

Gaoler’s salary £200, out of which he is to give every prisoner three pints of small beer a day.

In the walls of the felons court there are now apertures for air. The prison clean as usual. The new room for the sick is over the Bridewell, with iron bedsteads and proper bedding. The bread allowance to felons is a fourpenny loaf every other day (weight 3lb 2oz). County convicts 2s 6d a week.

1787, Oct 27 Debtors 9.  Felons etc. 20.

Featured Image

The Humours of the Fleet. Courtesy of Lewis Walpole Library

Crimes of the Clergy: The Rev. Septimus Hodson

On Christmas Day 1808, Miss Fanny Chapman wrote in her diary the following entry:

Mrs Porcher in a letter to Cooper tells him it is reported in London that Mrs Fenwick is going to be married to Mr Hodgson, the infamous seducer of many of the girls at the Asylum some years ago!!!

This somewhat vague but tantalizing comment needed further investigation to establish more about this ‘infamous seducer’ but the chances of finding him seemed like a mammoth task and possibly not one worth pursuing until now.

George and Amanda (custodians of Fanny Chapman’s diaries) recently began looking at a will that provided some clues as to his identity and to cut a long story short, they have tracked him down, so it seems only right to correct Fanny’s spelling of his name (it was Hodson) and then to ‘name and shame’ him. So here we go with a grizzly, if not unfamiliar story.

Rev Septimus Hodson. © British Museum

Septimus Hodson was born 17^th February 1763, the son of Rev. Robert Hodson and his wife Mary in Huntingdonshire. He was educated at Caius College, Cambridge after which he was ordained into the priesthood.

Having found his parents and education I began to look for any potential marriages for him. The first marriage I came across took place when he would have been under the age of 21! The Marriage Act, 1753 did allow couples under 21 to marry by Banns, as in this case, either with parents consent or if the parents did not forbid it. Septimus married Ann Bell on 9 June 1783.

This was to be a very short marriage as Ann Hodson née Bell was buried at St Mary with St Benedict Church, Huntingdon on the 14th May 1784.

St Mary with St Benedict Church, Huntingdon. © Robert Edwards via Wikimedia

A little under two years later on the 15 March 1786 Septimus married Miss Charlotte Affleck, the daughter of Rev W. Affleck, who conducted the ceremony at All Saints Church in Stamford, Lincolnshire.

Hay Harvest at Stamford, Lincolnshire Nathan Fielding; Peterborough Museums

On 7 March 1788 he became a preacher at Tavistock Chapel, Broad Court near Drury Lane, amongst his duties he was appointed Chaplain-in-ordinary to George, Prince of Wales.

Septimus and Charlotte produced 5 children during this time, Charlotte (1790), William (1791), Charles Phillip (1793), Robert Eyres (1795) and finally Gilbert (1796).

This extract from The Aldine Magazine of Biography, Bibliography, Criticisms and the Arts of 1838 provides quite a picture of contented domesticity and to a certain extent ignores what was to follow apart from a reference to Septimus being accused of plagiarism.

Never shall I forget calling on the above mentioned gentleman, upwards of forty years since, on behalf of a poor country curate who was anxious to come to London on literary pursuits, and to fill the situation of assistant reader, then vacant at the Asylum. I was introduced to the Rev. Mr. Hodson, in his peculiarly neat and handsome apartments, where his accomplished and beautiful wife, and I think the finest family of children I ever saw, were partaking of a dessert. He politely asked me to partake, and pressed me to take wine, which I did; and from his easy and graceful manner, his handsome form and figure, and animated countenance, added to those of his smiling cherubs of children, on whom my eyes were fixed, I thought I never witnessed so much conjugal happiness and domestic felicity in my life.

By 1789 he had been given the living of Thrapston in Northamptonshire and had also been appointed chaplain to the Orphan Asylum, Westminster Road, in the parish of Lambeth. This is the point at which the horrors of his actions became clear  and, if true, what follows is quite distressing.

The female orphan asylum, Westminster Bridge Road, Lambeth.
Credit: Wellcome Library, London.

VILE ACTIONS OF THE REVEREND SEPTIMUS HODSON

Child violator, formerly Chaplain to the Orphan Asylum, Westminster Road.

“Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not.”

The Asylum of which Mr. Hodson was an unworthy Chaplain, educates and provides for numerous female Orphans, who otherwise would be consigned to lives of infamy and ruin.

Mr. Hodson was celebrated as a preacher, and noted for the uncommon sanctity of his manners; he had a fine person, and always assumed such a sincerity of heart in delivering his exhortations from the pulpit, that the chapel was crowded to an overflow whenever he preached; but alas! he was fair without and foul within. The Monk of Lewis’s novel was not more infamous, and whilst outwardly attending to the salvation of the helpless Orphan’s souls he was inwardly meditating the ruin of both body and soul.

From his situation, he had access to the Orphans, at all hours, and a little child, named Fox, about thirteen years of age, was selected by him for the object of depraved debauchery.

In fact he violated the hapless Orphan’s person; to call it by the name of seduction would be untruth: for surely a child at her time of life could only be a passive instrument in the hands of one, whom she had been taught to look up to with fearful obedience.

The pregnancy of Fox, as a natural consequence of illicit intercourse, ensued, and she, most probably tutored by the artful and lustful priest, delivered herself in a certain office in the chapel yard; and there left the infant, which she imagined would never be heard of.

Suspicions, however, were immediately awakened, and the infant was found, and as a natural effect of contrition and fear, Fox pointed out the father of her offspring. The Governors and Committee were horror struck at the Reverend Divine’s hypocrisy and depravity; but they had no power to punish him beyond dismissing him from his office, and striking his name from the list of Chaplains, which was instantly done, in as marked a manner as possible.

The Reverend Violator, incredible as it may appear, was suffered to retain his gown; and we cannot help reflecting that the good Bishop Porteus, then in charge of the Metropolitan see, must have been very strangely misinformed respecting this hideous transaction, or he would never have permitted the criminal to escape with impunity.

Mr. Hodson now resides on his living at Thrapston in Northamptonshire; we are sorry for it, he merits the severest punishment; penitence, it is true, can atone for any crime, but few repent in affluence and prosperity; it is poverty and obscurity, disgrace and obloquy, that wring the sinner’s soul, and make him sensible of all he has lost upon earth, and the little he has to hope for in heaven.

Such corrupt pillars only for a time uphold a fabric by deceitful support that it may fall unexpectedly with more tremendous ruin: and they should be at once levelled with the ground, never more, to rise in a conspicuous situation.

If we hear anything more of this fortunate sinner, it shall be recorded; such a person cannot remain long in obscurity; success will throw him off his guard at last, and the punishment so long delayed come with tenfold vengeance on his head, when the stings of a guilty conscience are made additionally severe by the bodily pangs of old age.

The Ipswich Journal, 14 October 1797, reported that

‘The Prince of Wales has commanded that the name of a certain Rev. Seducer be erased from the list of His Royal Highnesses Chaplains’ and that he has been ‘suffered to resign, in consideration of the services he has rendered to the charity’.

The Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 12^th October 1797 confirmed the story.

A Clergyman, Preacher to the Asylum, has lately seduced a young woman, retained as a singer in the Chapel of that Charity. By which act, the man has ruined himself and family, disgraced the Charity and his profession, brought shame on the unfortunate object of his passion, and set a most unpardonable example for a man of his character to the world.

A Reverend Seducer, who lately turned a wolf against the very flock he had been appointed the shepherd to protect, is highly indignant at the liberty we have taken in reprobating the enormity of his offence. How ungrateful, he says, is the public to whom he has rendered so many pious services in permitting the remembrance of his numerous virtues to be thus concealed by his merely indulging in a single weakness – for it ought not to be forgotten that,

A godly man that has served out his time

In holiness, may set up any crime;

As scholars, who have taken up their degrees,

May set up any Faculty they please.

(Morning Chronicle, 27 October 1797 who described him as ‘The Clerical Seducer’.

I did, of course, wonder what happened to Miss Fox; did she survive this horrific experience and what became of her?

The answer appeared in The Morning Post and Gazetteer of 26 January 1801:

The girl that was seduced by Septimus Hodson at the Asylum is now married to a gentleman of about seven thousand a year, and now goes regularly to the asylum, every Sunday in her own carriage.

This report was not quite accurate and later revision was published in the Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 2 February 1801.

The statement in the Papers respecting the Asylum Girl of the name of Fox, who was so basely seduced by a late Chaplain of that Charity, is erroneous. She is neither married to a Gentleman of 7000l. per annum, nor attends the Asylum every Sunday in her own carriage, because she has succeeded no more to the one than the other:- but, from her exemplary conduct, she has wedded a widower near Barnet, who is possessed of about 500l. per annum, with whom, and his amiable family by a former wife, she now partakes of a domestic felicity, not very frequently enjoyed.

The Monthly Visitor and Entertaining Pocket Companion, Volume 12 described Miss Fox as ‘the asylum warbler’ but so far I haven’t managed to track down her marriage.

She was noted as a beauty and had received offers of marriage from several gentlemen before the Reverend Hodson debauched her (which does suggest that she was older than thirteen years). She was retained as a singer in the Chapel, and contemporary newspaper reports give the information that the child was not born alive but Miss Fox suffered a miscarriage. It was during this traumatic event and whilst she feared that she was dying that she gave the information which proved the Reverend’s guilt (no-one had suspected she was pregnant until she lost the child).

The girl is an orphan, bred up from infancy in the charity, and afterwards articled to it as a singing girl. She is very pretty, and rather of a gay than grave appearance; and has had several offers of marriage. A gentleman of property has solicited her hand.

(Ipswich Journal, 14 October, 1797)

On the other hand, we find that by the 14 March 1809 Septimus had been widowed and had married again, his next wife being Frances Fenwick, the widowed daughter of G. Burden. The service was performed in Doncaster, Yorkshire again by his father-in-law, Rev Affleck. Frances was the one referred to in Fanny’s Diary.

This marriage proved to be a financially lucrative one for Septimus as his wife had inherited the Bywell estate in Northumberland from her late husband and upon her death, it transferred to Septimus, who then sold it for £145,000.

Then finally, at All Saints South Kirkby, near Wakefield, Yorkshire on the 16 October 1826 he married once more, and his final spouse was Margaret Holford, author; her most successful work was a historical verse romance entitled Wallace, or, The Fight of Falkirk. She was also a good friend of Robert Southey and another close associate of hers was Joanna Baillie, a Scottish poet and dramatist.

Joanna Baillie 1762-1851, Dramatist by Mary Ann Knight.

Hodson was to die on the 12 December 1833 in his seventy-first year. The inscription of his grave at St John the Evangelist, Sharow, near Ripon, Yorkshire reads:

Sacred to the memory of the Revd.Septimus Hodson late Rector of Thrapston in the county of Northampton And Perpetual Curate of Little Raveley In Huntingdonshire. He died on the 12th day of December AD 1833 In the seventy first year of his age. His widow offers this poor brief tribute To his beloved memory ‘I shall go to him, but he will not return to me’.

He left £1500 in his will (about £75,000 in today’s money) to his wife, so despite this shocking incident in his life he appears to have married well, produced several children and lived an enjoyable life, I can only hope the same was true for Miss Fox. Was it all true about Miss Fox, I really don’t know, so I will leave it for you to draw your own conclusion.

Sources:

The Clergy Database

The Crimes of the Clergy; Or, The Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken, issues 1-13

The Gentleman’s Magazine, volume 87, 1800

Literary Memoirs of Living Authors of Great Britain, 1798

Find a Grave

The Monthly Visitor, and Entertaining Pocket Companion, volume 12, 1801

An historical, topographical, and descriptive view of the county of Northumberland, and of those parts of the county of Durham situated north of the river Tyne, with Berwick Upon Tweed, and brief notices of celebrated places on the Scottish border. 1825

Romany Gypsies of Georgian England

Well, we said that our blog was going to be about ‘All Things Georgian‘ and so far we have written about relatively mainstream topics. However, as well as historians we are also both keen gypsiologists  so we could not resist writing about a group of people who remained largely ‘under the radar’ during the Georgian era – the gypsy community.

Gypsies in a Landscape by George Morland, c.1790
(c) Bristol Museum and Art Gallery

Today and throughout history gypsies have received  ‘bad press’,  in part due to the nomadic lifestyle they led, but also for the fact that when things went missing the finger was immediately pointed at the local gypsies, often quite rightly so, as the press of the day confirmed. Given the amount of publicity their antics had it could be argued that it should make these nomadic people easier to trace for gypsiologists, sadly though, on the whole, quite the contrary is true as they prove to be a complete nightmare to track down.

Gipsy Encampment by George Morland, c.1790-1795; Walker Art Gallery.

Gypsies were renown for changing both their forenames and their surnames as well as using names that were almost unpronounceable making tracing their family history even more complex and difficult to track down than tracing your average family. There were several main groups that travelled around the countryside using the surnames Smith, Boswell and Grey (Gray), changing their names as quickly as the weather, presumably to avoid detection.

Many of the men were given biblical first names such as Elijah, Nehemiah, Absalom, Moses and Wisdom whereas the women had some beautifully exotic sounding names such as  Cinnamenta,  Trezi Ann , Lamentana or names taken from nature such as Ocean or Evening. One thing we have learnt about the gypsies through the numerous years we have spent researching our own families apart from their unique lifestyle, culture and language was their propensity for the re-use of first names which helps greatly when trying to link members of the same ‘tribe’ but equally provides gypsiologists with an immense headache when trying to untangle who the possible parents were.

The Gypsies by William Simpson
(c) Dumfries and Galloway Council (Kirkcudbright)

Baptisms – the vast majority of gypsy children were baptized and it was quite common for them to be presented for baptism on more than one occasion and at  more than one church. The reason for this being that it was accepted tradition for the ladies of the parish to give the children gifts, so the gypsies soon learnt which were the best parishes to get their offspring baptized at, having had the child baptized and received gifts, they swiftly moved on to another parish where they promptly repeated the exercise, thereby receiving more ‘goodies’ – a crafty scam if you could get away with it!

Their marriages were of course a great cause for celebration and equally their funerals were treated with much pomp and ceremony.

FAREWELL TO THE KING OF THE GYPSIES

Died on the 15th inst of February 1826 aged 60 Absalom Smith better known in the neighbourhood of Nottingham as “King of the Gypsies”, leaving behind him a wife and 13 children (to whom he is said to have left 100 pounds each)and 54 grandchildren. He was attended in his last illness in his camp in Twyford Lane, by doctor Arnold and two surgeons. He was followed to his grave in Twyford churchyard by a large retinue of gipsies on Friday last. He was interred in his coat the buttons of which are silver and marked A.S, lest his circumstance should be a temptation to disturb his body. His followers caused alternate layers of timber and straw to be put into the grave with the earth.

As well as their often unusual names their ‘occupations’ remained largely unique to their community – basket maker, besom maker, bone gatherer, cutler and grinder,  clothes peg maker, cane chair mender, skewer maker. The vast majority made objects they made were created from things produced by nature, they then sold them around the towns and villages, making their other occupation that of hawker or seller of goods. 

Travelling Gypsies by Thomas Barker c.1787
(c) The Holburne Museum

They were also renown for being horse dealers, though quite where they acquired these animals remains something of a mystery, or at least better left unsaid! At the beginning of June each year gypsies would travel from far and wide to the village of Appleby, Cumbria to trade their horses, this small village having being granted a Royal Charter to do so by James II in 1685.

National Portrait Gallery NPG 1469; John Clare by William Hilton

Gypsies were and still are today regarded by many as ‘curiosities’ for their nomadic and  seemingly unorthodox lifestyle, none more so than by the Georgian poet John Clare (1793 –  1864), also known as ‘ The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet’ who frequently met up with and wrote poems about the gypsy community. Clare was not judgmental about them, but merely described their nomadic lifestyle through his poems such as this one:   

The Gipsy Camp

The snow falls deep; the Forest lies alone:
The boy goes hasty for his load of brakes,
Then thinks upon the fire and hurries back;
The Gipsy knocks his hands and tucks them up,
And seeks his squalid camp, half hid in snow,
Beneath the oak, which breaks away the wind,
And bushes close, with snow like hovel warm:
There stinking mutton roasts upon the coals,
And the half roasted dog squats close and rubs,
Then feels the heat too strong and goes aloof;
He watches well, but none a bit can spare,
And vainly waits the morsel thrown away:
‘Tis thus they live – a picture to the place;
A quiet, pilfering, unprotected race.

Clare also noted in his diary on 3rd June 1825:

‘Finished planting my auriculas – went a-botanizing after ferns and orchises and caught a cold in the wet grass which has made me as bad as ever – Got the tune of Highland Mary from Wisdom Smith a gipsey and pricked another sweet tune without a name as he fiddled it’.  As Wisdom Smith was a direct ancestor he warranted specific mention.

Gypsies in a Landscape by Alexander Fraser
(c) Paisley Art Institute Collection, held by Paisley Museum and Art Galleries; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

This is an excerpt about Ryley Boswell, born 1798 from the book by George Smith, ‘Gipsy Life, being an account of our Gipsies and their children.’

Ryley, like most of the Bosvils, was a tinker by profession; but though a tinker, he was amazingly proud and haughty of heart.  His grand ambition was to be a great man among his people, a Gipsy king (no such individuals as either Gipsy kings or queens ever existed).  To this end he furnished himself with clothes made after the costliest Gipsy fashion; the two hinder buttons of the coat, which was of thick blue cloth, were broad gold pieces of Spain, generally called ounces; the fore-buttons were English “spaded guineas,” the buttons of the waistcoat were half-guineas, and those of the collar and the wrists of his shirt were seven-shilling gold-pieces.  In this coat he would frequently make his appearance on a magnificent horse, whose hoofs, like those of the steed of a Turkish Sultan, were cased in shoes of silver.  How did he support such expense? it may be asked.  Partly by driving a trade in “wafedo loovo,” counterfeit coin, with which he was supplied by certain honest tradespeople of Brummagem; partly and principally by large sums of money which he received from his two wives, and which they obtained by the practice of certain arts peculiar to Gipsy females.  One of his wives was a truly remarkable woman.  She was of the Petalengro or Smith  Her Christian name, if Christian name it can be called, was Xuri or Shuri, and from her exceeding smartness and cleverness she was generally called by the Gipsies Yocky Shuri—that is, smart or clever Shuri, Yocky being a Gipsy word signifying “clever.”  She could dukker—that is, tell fortunes—to perfection, by which alone, during the racing season, she could make a hundred pounds a month.  She was good at the big hok—that is, at inducing people to put money into her hands in the hope of it being multiplied; and, oh, dear! how she could caur—that is, filch gold rings and trinkets from jewellers’ cases, the kind of thing which the Spanish Gipsies call ustibar pastesas—filching with hands.  Frequently she would disappear and travel about England, and Scotland too, dukkering, hokking, and cauring, and after the lapse of a month return and deliver to her husband, like a true and faithful wife, the proceeds of her industry.  So no wonder that the Flying Tinker, as he was called, was enabled to cut a grand appearance.  He was very fond of hunting, and would frequently join the field in regular hunting costume, save and except that instead of the leather hunting cap he wore one of fur, with a gold band round it, to denote that though he mixed with Gorgios he was still a Romany chal.

In this series we will recount some of the stories of gypsy life, so watch this space.

Gipsy Camp; George Morland; The Stanleyand Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds