The Pope Dines With His Sisters. 1903

St. James’s Gazette. Saturday 19th September 1903

THE POPE DINES WITH HIS SISTERS.

An event to which considerable importance is attached in Roman circles took place yesterday, when the new Pope [Pius X] , defying all tradition, invited his three sisters to dine at his own table. Hitherto (as the Rome correspondent of the “ Daily Chronicle ” points out) it has always been deemed highly incorrect even for the most eminent ecclesiastics to sit down with his Holiness. On finding the Pope deaf to entreaties not to violate hoary observances, the Head Chamberlain, it is said, broke into loud sobbing, and retired to his apartment, whilst a Cardinal of noble extraction who happened to be calling at the Vatican drove off a state of great irritation. Another distinguished personage was stirred by the Pope’s reluctance to create his sisters countesses. Without a title it was urged there would be an insuperable obstacle to them being received in polite society. The Pope, hearing of this, exclaimed, “ They have a title already. They are sisters of the Pope.”

John Rickman 1771-1840 – The man who suggested the census

As it’s UK Census day today, I’m re-publishing this from four years ago.

We’ve been clearing out cupboards, and this cutting from The Times from 11th May 1961 was in a book, in a tea chest full of papers, letters, and photographs. It’s a companion piece to the post about Thomas “Clio” Rickman from July that year. John Rickman is a very distant cousin, probably something like a seventh cousin seven times removed.  The details are here

MAN BEHIND THE SCENES FRIEND OF LAMB WHO SUGGESTED

AND CONDUCTED THE FIRST  CENSUS

BY ORLO WILLIAMS

John Rickman 1771 -1840

Characteristically, in death as in life, he has kept out of the headlines. I had waited to see whether he would be remembered when the census was being taken, but he was not. And yet he does deserve to be given his share of honour. I refer to John Rickman, As a quite unknown young man in 1796 he wrote an article on ” The Utility and Facility of a general Enumeration of the People of the British Empire”. This led to the founding of the fortunes of his remarkable back-room career. Abbot (who as a member of Parliament fought for the census) took Rickman on as his secretary and when, in 1802, he was elected Speaker the connexion continued. Rickman. was given a house in the precincts. He died, being then Clerk Assistant in 1841. [Entertainingly, given that Orlo Williams was Rickman’s biographer, the date in the article was wrong. John Rickman died on the 11th August 1840]

REVOLUTIONARY YOUNG MEN

There is a good deal to be said about Rickman’s purely parliamentary life. But for this story, some of which I discovered in the unpublished portions of Lord Colchester’s diaries, now in the Public Record Office, I must refer readers to my book on The Clerical Organization of the House of Commons, 1661-1850 (Clarendon Press, 1954). It is a much earlier work of mine. The Life and Letters of John Rickman (Constable, 1912), to which l must refer them for the full statement of Rickman’s connexion, which was lifelong, with the census and of his career, character and friendships (with Robert Southey, Lamb, Coleridge, George Dyer, Telford, Hazlitt, Crabb Robinson and the Burneys).

The correspondence between Rickman and Southey lasted from their first acquaintance, made in 1795, as revolutionary anti- governmental young men till 1839 when they were both Passionate Tories and Rickman had been assisting Southey in composing a series of dialogues never published to counteract what Rickman called ” Mobocracy “ and oppose the first Reform Bill.

It is in one of his early letters (December 27, 1800) that Rickman makes a definite statement regarding his connexion with the first Population Act and the first census. It comes at the end of the letter, which comments on many things~-Southey’s poem Thalaba, George Dyer’s- extraordinary. foibles and the high price of food. Finally Rickman, who was not yet in Abbot’s employ, wrote:- –

ENERGY AND JUDGMENT

“I have another occupation offered me…. At my suggestion, they have passed an Act of Parliament for ascertaining the population of Great. Britain, and as a compliment (of course) have proposed to me to superintend the execution of it…. I suspect all this attention-(it is more immediately -from G. Rose) is intended as a decent bribe: which I shall reject, by doing the business well, and taking no more remuneration, than I judge exactly adequate to the trouble. It is a task, of national benefit, and I should be fanciful to reject it because offered by rogues. As they well know me for their foe, I cannot suspect them of magnanimity enough to notice me with any good intention. At all events, I shall go strait forward ”

The House of Commons 1808

This passage illustrates two sides of Rickman’s character, his energy in undertaking any labour involving the public good and his peremptory judgments of all politicians whose policies he either rejected or despised. His letters to Southey are peppered with similar judgments. For instance, “Pitt had genius without acquired knowledge: whence his affectation of infallibility and all the woes of Europe “. Again: “Charley Fox eats his former opinions daily, and even ostentatiously, showing himself the worst man but the better Minister of a corrupt Government, where three people in four must be rogues and three deeds in four bad”; or, after a joyful account of the Regent’s rebuff to Grenville and Grey in 1811, ” the pangs of the M. Chronicle are delicious. Canting Villain ! “ and his description of Lord John Russell’s first speech on the Reform Bill: “the backing Speech of the Tricolor Donkey Lord was truly asinine.”

MASTERLY- ” ABSTRACT”

However, he was mistaken in his suspicions of a bribe in I800, for it was Abbot who suggested to Rose that Rickman should be offered the superintendence of the returns; and also un-foreseeing in supposing that it would be a short-term activity.  As events turned out he did the work of the Registrar-General’s Office of today on the censuses of 1801, 1811, 1821 and 1831. published a masterly “Abstract of Returns” in 1833,and in the last year of his life was working on returns of births, deaths ,and marriages from 1570 to 1750 to be prefaced to the census return of 1841.  Moreover, in that year, in a letter to the Home Office defending himself against an anonymous attack, he showed that, though he received on an average 500 guineas for each return, out of which he had to defray in advance all working expenses for clerks, &c., he was actually a financial loser. In fact, he had no recognition. from any Government for his statistical labours, though he was elected F.R.S. in 1815.

John Rickman abhorred publicity. and despised self-advertisement; ho sought no rewards but from his conscience. His name has not resounded through the ages. Yet to the army of Lamb-lovers he is immortal as a friend of Elia [Elia was Charles Lamb’s pen name in the London Magazine]. Lamb’s letter to Manning of November 3, 1800, describing his new acquisition of a ” pleasant hand”, his neighbour in Southampton Buildings, is famous; and it is balanced by a letter from Rickman to Southey a month later in which he remarks on his pleasant neighbour opposite, who “laughs as much is I wish, and makes even puns, without remorse of conscience”.

NEAR STARVATION

Equally famous is Lamb’s letter to Rickman of November, 1801, inimitably re- counting George Dyer’s visit to him when almost expiring from starvation. Rickman sent this letter from Ireland to Southey, ” a letter from Lamb of exquisite perhaps un- paralleled description “, and with it that rarity, a letter from Dyer himself to Southey describing his sickness and typically deploring his disability to assist that conceited, dilatory, hopeless but not un- gifted- creature George Burnett, Lamb’s “ George II “, whom Rickman tried vainly to employ and. to convict of his own stupidity. Then Coleridge, too, was Rickman’s friend and admirer. He wrote to him in 1804: ” All your habits of action and feeing, your whole code of self-government – would to God I could but imitate them as entirely as I approve of them! ” And in another letter of 1811 he made.some extremely interesting comments on Lamb’s too convivial habits, notably of “the unconquerable appetite. for spirit (that) comes in with the tobacco “ .These early friendships died, as did their objects: it is sad to record that Southey and Rickman made to one another cold and pitying comments on Lamb’s death in 1835.

Raising funds for the Patriotic Fund in 1854.

” The Patriotic Fund was raised to assist the widows and children of those killed in action or dying on active service during the Crimean War. ”  – Hansard (HC Deb 26 February 1901 vol 89 cc1187-8). The idea of fundraising seems to be fairly forward looking, given that the Allied invasion of the Crimea had only begun on the 14th of September 1854. Having said that, by the time of the meeting in Cobh  there had already been three battles [Alma, Balaclava, and Inkerman] and British casualties were approaching 8,000 with approximately 1,500 dead.

There is a gaggle of family at the meeting, though it’s unclear how many O’Bryens are there. Henry H. O’Bryen is definitely there because of the reference to Capt. O’Bryen. But the reference to R. H. H. O’Bryen confuses things a little. Robert is R.H. O’Bryen, and Henry is H.H O’Bryen so they could well both have been there. Both were in Cobh at the time, aged forty, and thirty-nine respectively. Dr. Verling, R.N. is James Roche Verling who is their rather older [aged 67] first cousin once removed. His first cousin James Ronayne is there, who is also their second cousin.

 

MEETING AT QUEENSTOWN—THIS DAY. ( FROM OUR REPORTER.)

A meeting of the inhabitants of Queenstown was held in the Court-house, at 12 o’clock to-day,(13th November 1854)  for the purpose of receiving subscriptions in aid of the ” Patriotic Fund,” and appointing a committee to collect subscriptions through the town. The attendance was rather thin, and amongst those present were :- Rear Admiral Sir Wm. F. Carroll; W. M. Drew, J.P.; Captain Purvis, R.N.; Rev. Mr. Lombard; Wm. Cronin, M.D.; Lieutenant Williams, R.N.; John Cronin, M.D.; James Seymour;  Horace T. N. Meade, M.D.; S. Harman; Dr. Verling, R.N.; Rev. Mr. Conner, Michael Graham, Dr. Scott, Mr. Sheppard, Rev. Mr. Pounce, James Ronayne, Hugh Cole, R. H. H. O’Bryen, James Hammond.

On the motion of Dr. Meade, seconded by Capt. O’Bryen, the chair was taken by Rear Admiral Wm. F. Carroll.

Mr. S. T. French and Dr. Meade were requested to act as secretaries to the fund, and Mr. Hammond consented to act as treasurer.

The Chairman said, on such an occasion as the present it was unnecessary for him to address the meeting at any length. They all knew the purpose for which they had assembled – to assist the widows and orphans of those who had perished gallantly fighting for the cause of their country (hear, hear).

A committee was then appointed, consisting of the magistrates of Queenstown Petty Sessions, the local clergymen of all denominations, together with Capt. H. H. O’Bryen, Capt. de Courcey, Dr. Scott, and Dr. Meade.

The Chairman begged to observe that, wherever the committee might happen to go throughout the town, he hoped even the smallest subscriptions would be thankfully received ; for such sums would, from persons in humble circumstances, as expressively show the feeling that existed abroad in the cause of those who were suffering from the loss of their husbands, and the poverty of their fatherless children, as larger sums received from wealthier people (hear, hear).

A subscription list was then opened, and in the course of few minutes a sum amounting to £87 was collected ; but it expected when the returns from the committee of solicitation are received, that a large sum will be realised.

Cork Examiner Monday 13th November 1854  © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Portadown News – Interesting Items 1905

Portadown News Saturday 14th October 1905

INTERESTING ITEMS.

A constable returning from a police football match at Pontypridd travelled in the same railway compartment as a clergyman, who got out with the wrong bag. The cleric went home with football boots and jersey, and the policeman with cassock and surplice!

A terrier jumped up at Mrs. F. D. Walker in Regent-street, and tore her feather boa, the sleeves of her dress, and her skirt. The lady recovered three guineas damages in the Bloomsbury County court, when the dog’s owner admitted that the animal had “a silly – perhaps nasty – habit of playfully dying at the lace or frills of a lady’s dress.”

Edward Murphy, lodge-keeper to General Thackwell, of Aghada Hall, was injured by being shot while the general and a party of guests were snipe-shooting over the bogs at Ballymacandrick, Co. Cork.

Rory Oge O’More/Ruaidhri og ua Mordha

O’MORE, RORY or RURY OGE (d. 1578), Irish rebel, called in Irish Ruaidhri og ua Mordha, was second son of Rory O’More, captain of Leix, by Margaret, daughter of Thomas Butler, and granddaughter of Pierce or Piers Butler, eighth earl of Ormonde [q. v.] (cf. Lodge, Peerage of Ireland, ed. Archdall, iv. 19; and Harl. MS. 1425, f. 119b). Sir Henry Sidney once called him ‘an obscure and base varlet,’ but his family was one of the most important of the minor Irish septs, and also one of the most turbulent.

Rory O’More (fl. 1554), the father, was son of Connell O’More (d. 1537), and early acquired the character of a violent and successful chieftain. On the death of Connell a fierce dispute broke out between the three sons—Lysaght,Kedagh, and Rory—and their uncle Peter the tanist. Peter was for the time a friend of the Butlers. Consequently the deputy, Lord Leonard Grey, supported the sons; and, although Peter was acknowledged chief, Grey got hold of him by a ruse, and led him about in chains for some time, Kedagh then seems to have secured the chieftainship, Lysaght having been killed; but he died early in 1542, and Rory, the third brother, succeeded. He, after a period of turmoil, agreed on 13 May 1542 to lead a quieter life, and made a general submission, being probably influenced by the fact that Kedagh had left a son of the same name, who long afterwards, in 1565, petitioned the privy council to be restored to his father’s inheritance. Like other Irish chiefs of the time, O’More was only a nominal friend to the English. In a grant afterwards made to his eldest son his services to King Edward VI are spoken of; but they must have been of doubtful value, as an order of 15 March 1550-1 forbade any of the name of O’More to hold land in Leix (App. to 8th Rep. Dep.-Keep. Publ. Rec. Ireland). At some uncertain time between 1550 and 1557 Rory O’More was killed, and was succeeded by a certain Connell O’More, who may be the Connell Oge O’More mentioned in 1556 in the settlement of Leix (cf. Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors, i. 400, and Cal. State Papers, Irish Ser. 1509-73, pp. 135,414). He was put to death in 1557 (Annals of the Four Masters, ii. 1545). Rory left two sons, Callagh and Rory Oge. Callagh, who was brought up in England, was called by the English ‘The Calough,’ and, as he describes himself as of Gray’s Inn in 1568, he may be assumed to be the John Callow who entered there in 1567 (Foster, Reg. of Gray’s Inn, p. 39). In 1571 Ormonde petitioned for the Calough’s return, and soon afterwards he came back to Ireland, where in 1582 he was thought a sufficiently strong adherent to the English to receive a grant of land in Leix (Cal. State Papers, Irish Ser. 1574-85, pp. 392, 412).

Rory Oge O’More, the second son, was constantly engaged in rebellion. He received a pardon on 17 Feb. 1565-6, but in 1571 he was noted as dangerous, and in 1572 he was fighting Ormonde and the queen at the same time, being favoured by the weakness of the forces at the command of Francis Cosby, the seneschal of Queen’s County, and the temporary absence of Ormonde in England. In this little rebellion the Butlers and the Fitzgeralds were united against him; but when, in November 1572, Desmond escaped from Dublin, it was Rory Oge O’More who escorted him through Kildare and protected him in Queen’s County (cf. 12th Rep. Dep.-Keep. Publ. Rec. Ireland, p. 78). He was mixed up in Kildare’s plots in 1574, and taken prisoner in November. But he was soon free, and Sidney, when on his tour in 1575, wrote of him: ‘Rory Oge O’More hath the possession and settling-place in the Queen’s County, whether the tenants will or no, as he occupieth what he listeth and wasteth what he will.’ However, O’More was afraid of the deputy, and when Sydney came into his territory, he went to meet him in the cathedral of Kilkenny (December 1575), and ‘submitted himself, repenting (as he said) his former faults, and promising hereafter to live in better sort (for worse than he hath been he cannot be).’ Hence we find a new pardon granted to him on 4 June 1576 (ib. p. 179). But in the next year he hoped for help from Spain, and, pushed on by John Burke, his friend, he made a desperate attack on the Pale. He allied himself with some of the O’Connors, and gathered an army. On 18 March 1576-7 the seneschal of Queen’s County was commanded to attack Rory Oge and the O’Connors with fire and sword (13th Rep. Dep.-Keep. Publ. Rec. Ireland, p. 25). There was good reason for active hostilities, as on the 3rd the insurgents had burned Naas with every kind of horror. Sidney wrote to the council the same month: ‘Rory Oge O’More and Cormock M’Cormock O’Conor have burnt the Naas. They ranne thorough the towne lyke hagges and furies of hell, with flakes of fier fastned on poles ends’ (Cal. State Papers, Irish Ser. 1574-85, p. 107; cf. Carew MSS. 1575-88, f. 110). Later in the year O’More captured Harrington and Cosby. They were rescued by a ruse. O’More’s wife and all but O’More himself and one of those who were with him were killed. Infuriated at being caught, O’More fell upon Harrington, ‘hacked and hewed’ him so that Sidney saw his brains moving when his wounds were being dressed, then rushing through a soldier’s legs, he escaped practically naked (Carew MSS. 1575-88, f. 356). He soon afterwards burned Carlow; but in an attempt to entrap Barnaby Fitzpatrick, baron of Upper Ossory, into his hands, he was killed by the Fitzpatricks in June 1578, and his head set up on Dublin Castle. He left a son, Owen McRory O’More, whom John Burke, son of the Earl of Clanricarde, took charge of. The English got hold of him after some difficulty, and foolishly allowed him to return to his own country. He became as great a rebel as his father, and, after a life of fighting and plundering, in which, however, he recovered almost all Leix, was killed in a skirmish near Timahoe, Queen’s County, 17 Aug. 1600. Moryson called him ‘a bloody and bold young man,’ ‘The Four Masters’ an ‘illustrious, renowned, and celebrated gentleman.’ After his death the importance of the O’Mores as a sept was gone.

[Bagwell’s Ireland under the Tudors; Webb’s Compendium of Irish Biogr.; Cal. of State Papers, Irish Ser., and of the Carew MSS.; State Papers; Annals of the Four Masters, ed. O’Donovan, vols. vi. vii.; authorities quoted.]

Source: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 42 O’More, Rory (d.1578) by William Arthur Jobson Archbold

England in 1819 by Percy Bysshe Shelley

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King;
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring;
Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know,
But leechlike to their fainting country cling
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.
A people starved and stabbed in th’ untilled field;
An army, whom liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield;
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;
A senate, Time’s worst statute, unrepealed—
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.

Peterloo – The Masque of Anarchy – September 1819

This was Percy Bysshe Shelley’s response to the Peterloo massacre in Manchester that took place 200 years ago today.

1

As I lay asleep in Italy

There came a voice from over the Sea,

And with great power it forth led me

To walk in the visions of Poesy.

2

I met Murder on the way–

He had a mask like Castlereagh–

Very smooth he looked, yet grim;

Seven blood-hounds followed him:

3

All were fat; and well they might

Be in admirable plight,

For one by one, and two by two,

He tossed them human hearts to chew

4

Which from his wide cloak he drew.

Next came Fraud, and he had on,

Like Eldon, an ermined gown;

His big tears, for he wept well,

Turned to mill-stones as they fell.

5

And the little children, who

Round his feet played to and fro,

Thinking every tear a gem,

Had their brains knocked out by them.

6

Clothed with the Bible, as with light,

And the shadows of the night,

Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy

On a crocodile rode by.

7

And many more Destructions played

In this ghastly masquerade,

All disguised, even to the eyes,

Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.

8

Last came Anarchy: he rode

On a white horse, splashed with blood;

He was pale even to the lips,

Like Death in the Apocalypse.

9

And he wore a kingly crown;

And in his grasp a sceptre shone;

On his brow this mark I saw–

‘I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!’

10

With a pace stately and fast,

Over English land he passed,

Trampling to a mire of blood

The adoring multitude.

11

And a mighty troop around,

With their trampling shook the ground,

Waving each a bloody sword,

For the service of their Lord.

12

And with glorious triumph, they

Rode through England proud and gay,

Drunk as with intoxication

Of the wine of desolation.

13

O’er fields and towns, from sea to sea,

Passed the Pageant swift and free,

Tearing up, and trampling down;

Till they came to London town.

14

And each dweller, panic-stricken,

Felt his heart with terror sicken

Hearing the tempestuous cry

Of the triumph of Anarchy.

15

For with pomp to meet him came,

Clothed in arms like blood and flame,

The hired murderers, who did sing

`Thou art God, and Law, and King.

16

We have waited, weak and lone

For thy coming, Mighty One!

Our purses are empty, our swords are cold,

Give us glory, and blood, and gold.’

17

Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd,

To the earth their pale brows bowed;

Like a bad prayer not over loud,

Whispering — `Thou art Law and God.’ —

18

Then all cried with one accord,

`Thou art King, and God, and Lord;

Anarchy, to thee we bow,

Be thy name made holy now!’

19

And Anarchy, the Skeleton,

Bowed and grinned to every one,

As well as if his education

Had cost ten millions to the nation.

20

For he knew the Palaces

Of our Kings were rightly his;

His the sceptre, crown, and globe,

And the gold-inwoven robe.

21

So he sent his slaves before

To seize upon the Bank and Tower,

And was proceeding with intent

To meet his pensioned Parliament

22

When one fled past, a maniac maid,

And her name was Hope, she said:

But she looked more like Despair,

And she cried out in the air:

23

`My father Time is weak and gray

With waiting for a better day;

See how idiot-like he stands,

Fumbling with his palsied hands!

24

`He has had child after child,

And the dust of death is piled

Over every one but me–

Misery, oh, Misery!’

25

Then she lay down in the street,

Right before the horses’ feet,

Expecting, with a patient eye,

Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.

26

When between her and her foes

A mist, a light, an image rose,

Small at first, and weak, and frail

Like the vapour of a vale:

27

Till as clouds grow on the blast,

Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,

And glare with lightnings as they fly,

And speak in thunder to the sky,

28

It grew — a Shape arrayed in mail

Brighter than the viper’s scale,

And upborne on wings whose grain

Was as the light of sunny rain.

29

On its helm, seen far away,

A planet, like the Morning’s, lay;

And those plumes its light rained through

Like a shower of crimson dew.

30

With step as soft as wind it passed

O’er the heads of men — so fast

That they knew the presence there,

And looked, — but all was empty air.

31

As flowers beneath May’s footstep waken,

As stars from Night’s loose hair are shaken,

As waves arise when loud winds call,

Thoughts sprung where’er that step did fall.

32

And the prostrate multitude

Looked — and ankle-deep in blood,

Hope, that maiden most serene,

Was walking with a quiet mien:

33

And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,

Lay dead earth upon the earth;

The Horse of Death tameless as wind

Fled, and with his hoofs did grind

To dust the murderers thronged behind.

34

A rushing light of clouds and splendour,

A sense awakening and yet tender

Was heard and felt — and at its close

These words of joy and fear arose

35

As if their own indignant Earth

Which gave the sons of England birth

Had felt their blood upon her brow,

And shuddering with a mother’s throe

36

Had turnèd every drop of blood

By which her face had been bedewed

To an accent unwithstood,–

As if her heart had cried aloud:

37

`Men of England, heirs of Glory,

Heroes of unwritten story,

Nurslings of one mighty Mother,

Hopes of her, and one another;

38

`Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number,

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you —

Ye are many — they are few.

39

`What is Freedom? — ye can tell

That which slavery is, too well —

For its very name has grown

To an echo of your own.<

40

`’Tis to work and have such pay

As just keeps life from day to day

In your limbs, as in a cell

For the tyrants’ use to dwell,

41

`So that ye for them are made

Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,

With or without your own will bent

To their defence and nourishment.

42

`’Tis to see your children weak

With their mothers pine and peak,

When the winter winds are bleak,–

They are dying whilst I speak.

43

`’Tis to hunger for such diet

As the rich man in his riot

Casts to the fat dogs that lie

Surfeiting beneath his eye;

44

`’Tis to let the Ghost of Gold

Take from Toil a thousandfold

More than e’er its substance could

In the tyrannies of old.

45

`Paper coin — that forgery

Of the title-deeds, which ye

Hold to something of the worth

Of the inheritance of Earth.

46

`’Tis to be a slave in soul

And to hold no strong control

Over your own wills, but be

All that others make of ye.

47

`And at length when ye complain

With a murmur weak and vain

‘Tis to see the Tyrant’s crew

Ride over your wives and you–

Blood is on the grass like dew.

48

`Then it is to feel revenge

Fiercely thirsting to exchange

Blood for blood — and wrong for wrong —

Do not thus when ye are strong.

49

`Birds find rest, in narrow nest

When weary of their wingèd quest;

Beasts find fare, in woody lair

When storm and snow are in the air,1

50

`Asses, swine, have litter spread

And with fitting food are fed;

All things have a home but one–

Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none!

51

`This is Slavery — savage men,

Or wild beasts within a den

Would endure not as ye do–

But such ills they never knew.

52

`What art thou Freedom? O! could slaves

Answer from their living graves

This demand — tyrants would flee

Like a dream’s dim imagery:

53

`Thou art not, as impostors say,

A shadow soon to pass away,

A superstition, and a name

Echoing from the cave of Fame.

54

`For the labourer thou art bread,

And a comely table spread

From his daily labour come

In a neat and happy home.

55

`Thou art clothes, and fire, and food

For the trampled multitude–

No — in countries that are free

Such starvation cannot be

As in England now we see.

56

`To the rich thou art a check,

When his foot is on the neck

Of his victim, thou dost make

That he treads upon a snake.

57

`Thou art Justice — ne’er for gold

May thy righteous laws be sold

As laws are in England — thou

Shield’st alike the high and low.

58

`Thou art Wisdom — Freemen never

Dream that God will damn for ever

All who think those things untrue

Of which Priests make such ado.

59

`Thou art Peace — never by thee

Would blood and treasure wasted be

As tyrants wasted them, when all

Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.

60

`What if English toil and blood

Was poured forth, even as a flood?

It availed, Oh, Liberty,

To dim, but not extinguish thee.

61

`Thou art Love — the rich have kissed

Thy feet, and like him following Christ,

Give their substance to the free

And through the rough world follow thee,

62

`Or turn their wealth to arms, and make

War for thy belovèd sake

On wealth, and war, and fraud–whence they

Drew the power which is their prey.

63

`Science, Poetry, and Thought

Are thy lamps; they make the lot

Of the dwellers in a cot

So serene, they curse it not.

64

`Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,

All that can adorn and bless

Art thou — let deeds, not words, express

Thine exceeding loveliness.

65

`Let a great Assembly be

Of the fearless and the free

On some spot of English ground

Where the plains stretch wide around.

66

`Let the blue sky overhead,

The green earth on which ye tread,

All that must eternal be

Witness the solemnity.

67

`From the corners uttermost

Of the bonds of English coast;

From every hut, village, and town

Where those who live and suffer moan

For others’ misery or their own.2

68

`From the workhouse and the prison

Where pale as corpses newly risen,

Women, children, young and old

Groan for pain, and weep for cold–

69

`From the haunts of daily life

Where is waged the daily strife

With common wants and common cares

Which sows the human heart with tares–

70

`Lastly from the palaces

Where the murmur of distress

Echoes, like the distant sound

Of a wind alive around

71

`Those prison halls of wealth and fashion,

Where some few feel such compassion

For those who groan, and toil, and wail

As must make their brethren pale–

72

`Ye who suffer woes untold,

Or to feel, or to behold

Your lost country bought and sold

With a price of blood and gold–

73

`Let a vast assembly be,

And with great solemnity

Declare with measured words that ye

Are, as God has made ye, free–

74

`Be your strong and simple words

Keen to wound as sharpened swords,

And wide as targes let them be,

With their shade to cover ye.

75

`Let the tyrants pour around

With a quick and startling sound,

Like the loosening of a sea,

Troops of armed emblazonry.

76

`Let the charged artillery drive

Till the dead air seems alive

With the clash of clanging wheels,

And the tramp of horses’ heels.

77

`Let the fixèd bayonet

Gleam with sharp desire to wet

Its bright point in English blood

Looking keen as one for food.

78

`Let the horsemen’s scimitars

Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars

Thirsting to eclipse their burning

In a sea of death and mourning.

79

`Stand ye calm and resolute,

Like a forest close and mute,

With folded arms and looks which are

Weapons of unvanquished war,

80

`And let Panic, who outspeeds

The career of armèd steeds

Pass, a disregarded shade

Through your phalanx undismayed.

81

`Let the laws of your own land,

Good or ill, between ye stand

Hand to hand, and foot to foot,

Arbiters of the dispute,

82

`The old laws of England — they

Whose reverend heads with age are gray,

Children of a wiser day;

And whose solemn voice must be

Thine own echo — Liberty!

83

`On those who first should violate

Such sacred heralds in their state

Rest the blood that must ensue,

And it will not rest on you.

84

`And if then the tyrants dare

Let them ride among you there,

Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew,–

What they like, that let them do.

85

`With folded arms and steady eyes,

And little fear, and less surprise,

Look upon them as they slay

Till their rage has died away.

86

`Then they will return with shame

To the place from which they came,

And the blood thus shed will speak

In hot blushes on their cheek.

87

`Every woman in the land

Will point at them as they stand–

They will hardly dare to greet

Their acquaintance in the street.

88

`And the bold, true warriors

Who have hugged Danger in wars

Will turn to those who would be free,

Ashamed of such base company.

89

`And that slaughter to the Nation

Shall steam up like inspiration,

Eloquent, oracular;

A volcano heard afar.

90

`And these words shall then become

Like Oppression’s thundered doom

Ringing through each heart and brain,

Heard again — again — again–

91

`Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number–

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you–

Ye are many — they are few.’

Great-grandpa is 200 yrs old today…

John and Emily Gray in 1889, with George, Jesse, and Kitty.

 

John Gray III, (1819 -1893) was born on Wednesday the 13th January 1819, four months before Queen Victoria, and almost seven months before Prince Albert. He was born in a house in Broad Street, in the City. The house was demolished in the early 1860’s to build Broad Street Station, which in turn was demolished in 1986.

Broad Street Station, 1865

Broad Street station was next door to, and to the west of Liverpool Street Station. In fact one of the original entrances to Liverpool Street tube station is still in Broad Street. The remainder of the old Broad Street station  is now the part of the Broadgate office complex.

 

He is one of the more fecund ancestors, fathering thirteen children, nine of whom lived to adulthood; though he was beaten in those stakes by his father who had fourteen, starting at the age of nineteen with a wife who was pregnant when they married on Christmas Day 1816. She was nineteen, and John Gray II (1798 – 1868) was just eighteen. He carried on fathering children for the next thirty-nine years.

Both rather put John Gray I (1763 – 1821), respectively father, and grand-father, to the younger two men to shame, who only had two children apparently.

John Gray III was married at the age of twenty-two, a father at twenty-four, and fathered his youngest child – Walter – my grandfather when he was seventy. Grandpa was born a month after his father’s seventy-first birthday in 1890.

My great-grandmother was younger than all her four step-children.

According to more recent family history un-earthed, John worked for S.W.Silver & Co. in Cornhill for over fifty years. They  began in the 18th Century as Colonial and Army agents, clothiers and outfitters principally to those in the Army and Colonial Service, as well as acting as shipping agents for such people travelling overseas; and John always described himself as a “hosier” – i.e. dealing in hosiery.

S.W.Silver expanded into waterproof clothing, and then waterproof and insulated cables. eventually setting up a factory on Woolwich Reach on the north bank of the Thames in 1852. The factory continued to expand, employing most of the local population, and the area became known as Silvertown, a name that still exists today.

John and family moved out of the City, and south of the river by the 1840’s, living at various addresses in Lambeth, and Southwark, until finally moving to Croydon. By 1891 he is living at 186 Selsdon Road, Croydon next to the Pack Horse pub with Nelson Gray his 38 yr old widowed son, and his second family. Two years later he is dead.

So Happy Birthday.

Silver Jubilee of a Sister of Mercy (Agnes Bellord)- September 1910.

This is a revision and addition to an old post from almost two years ago. It was originally included because the Bellord siblings are all brothers and sisters-in-law of the other Agnes Bellord (neé Purssell) who is one of Lady O’Bryen’s sisters.  They are all almost twenty years older than she (Agnes) is. What hadn’t struck me at the time was some of the other connections in what is initially a very simple paragraph.

Both Elizabeth and Josephine Bellord were Sisters of Notre Dame in Liverpool and are the direct successors of Sister Mary of St. Philip [Fanny Lescher] at Mount Pleasant, and Sister Mary of St. Wilfrid [Adela Lescher] at Everton respectively. So in one of those nice twists and turns, Ernest O’Bryen’s cousins are replaced by his wife’s brother-in-law’s sisters in Liverpool, and another of the sisters is a nun at the Convent of Mercy in Crispin Street, in the East End. The nuns also helped support the Providence Row Night Refuge which provided nearly 2,600,000 free nights’ lodgings, and 5,200,000 free meals between 1860  and 1931. Providence Row was run as charity separate from the convent, and heavily supported by the Purssell family, with Alfred Purssell chairing the committee, followed at various times by his son Frank, and two sons-in-law Wilfred Parker, and another of the Bellord siblings Edmund.

It’s all a long way from the Original Red Cow, at 22 Long Lane in Smithfield where all the children were born.

 

On September 1, Mother Mary Aquinas,[Agnes Bellord] of the Convent of Mercy, Crispin-street, E., celebrated the Silver Jubilee of her profession. In addition to the blessing of the Holy Father, the jubilarian was the recipient of many congratulations from clergy, convents, the friends of the Night Refuge and Homes in Crispin-street, with which she has been so long connected, and the past and present pupils of St. Joseph’s School. Mother M. Aquinas is a sister of the late Bishop Bellord. Three of her sisters, two of whom survive, became Sisters of Notre Dame, one being at present Sister Superior at Mount Pleasant Training College,[Elizabeth Bellord – Sister Edburga of the Cross] and the other Sister Superior at Everton Valley, Liverpool. [Josephine Bellord – Sister Gilberta of the Blessed Sacrament]

The above text was found on p.21, 10th September 1910 in “The Tablet: The International Catholic News Weekly.” Reproduced with kind permission of the Publisher. The Tablet can be found at http://www.thetablet.co.uk .

Dolphin, of Turoe, co. Galway.

This post started very differently. Sometimes it becomes much more interesting following the female line – it’s often more difficult because things like Burke’s Landed Gentry often only list the girls by name, or just as  ” had issue, two daus.” but it can throw up some surprising results.

This started with a search for more information about Thady Grehan II (1775 – unknown) who was Peter Grehan (1749 – unknown) and Mary Roche’s eldest son. Why Thady was in the West Indies, and why his younger brother was the main beneficiary of their uncle’s will is another story.  The search led to their sister Mary who married ” Hubert Thomas Dolphin, of Turoe, co. Galway, and had issue.” and the splendidly named Dolphin family is where this all comes from.The Dolphins were one of the original Anglo-Norman families in Ireland, so by the time of Hubert and Mary Grehan’s marriage they had been in Ireland for about six hundred years. The family ” sustained great losses by confiscations and forfeitures” during the seventeenth century. But they still had land, and Hubert Thomas inherited the estates of his uncle John Dolphin, who had seven daughters. Two became nuns, and the rest all married in a very close circle.

Hubert Dolphin’s first cousin Eleanor Dolphin married Thomas Reddington, and Eleanor and Tom’s daughter Eleanor Reddington married Stephen Roche who is Mary Dolphin’s [nee Grehan] first cousin.  Another of Hubert Dolphin’s first cousins Celia Dolphin married John McDonnell and their daughter Cecilia marries into the O’Conor family. In this case to Roderic O’Conor, who is a fourth cousin of Owen O’Conor (1763 – 1831) who became the O’Conor Don in 1820 having succeeded to the title on the death of his fourth cousin Dominick O’Conor (d. 1795).  So lots of cousins marrying cousins, and some great -uncles and aunts in the picture, specifically 5x Great-Uncles and Aunts Peter Grehan, Mary Roche, and  Jane Moore, and Owen O’Conor. Owen is also Patrick Grehan I’s brother-in-law.

But it also brings us Maria O’Conor – Roderic O’Conor’s sister, her husband John Kelly, their children, and most specifically two of their grandsons Gerald and Arthur Neilan.