Tag: John Rickman

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

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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 But for this story, some of which I discovered in the unpublished portions of Lord Colchester’s diaries, now in the Public Record Office, I must refer readers to my book on The Clerical Organization of the House of Commons,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.

Rickman pedigree from 1480.

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This post derives its content from two different  sources. The first was a hand written family tree on lined paper, along with two cuttings from “The Times” from 1961, in a book called “A Hundred Years of Enterprise, – Centenary of the Clay Cross Company Ltd, 1837 -1937”. They had all been in an old tea chest for at least thirty five years. The second source was from “My Ancestors, By Norman Penney, F.S.A,, F.R.Hist.S. Printed For Private Circulation By Headley Brothers, Bishopsgate, Ex., And Ashford, Kent, 1920.” found online back in February 2017.

Initially, I was very impressed that Mme. Rickman had traced the family back to 1512, though because she was doing direct  descendants, it could be frustrating at times, because it would name a great, grandfather, for example, and “4 other sons”. The direct great-grandfathers are in bold.

Richard Rickman Born in Wardleham, Hampshire, England in 1480, and had a son called Richard

Richard Rickman 1512 – ???? Born on 1512 to Richard Rickman. Richard married Isabell – unknown surname and had 3 children. He died in Wardleham, Hampshire, England.

  1. Robert Rickman
  2. John Rickman 1542-1599
  3. William Rickman 1547-1609

William Rickman 1547 -1609 Born in Wardleham, Hampshire, England on 1547 to Richard Rickman and Isabell unknown surname  He died in 1609 in Stanton Prior, Somerset, England. Mme Rickman’s notes continue; ” He removed to Stanton Prior, near Bath where he possessed the manor, advowson [ the right to appoint the priest] , and other appurtenances. “ He had a son, John:

John Rickman  1587 – ???? Born to William Rickman and unknown wife. John married Edythe Bally, and also married Ophelia Marchant and had a child. Mme Rickman’s notes continue; ” He was baptised at Stanton Prior on 25th March 1587.”

  1. John Rickman 1611-1680

John Rickman. Born on 1611 to John Rickman and Ophelia Marchant.Mme Rickman’s notes continue; ” He was baptised at Stanton Prior on 7th July 1611.” John married Alice Dunn Unknown-1680 and had 2 children. He died in 1680 in Selborne, Hampshire, England.

  1. John Rickman 1656-1722
  2. Joseph Rickman 1657-1745

John Rickman Born in Inams, near Great Hamwood, in the parish of Selborne, Hampshire, England on 1656 to John Rickman and Alice Dunn. John married Margaret Knell 1659-1704, [Mme Rickman has her as Margaret Edwards. She is, in fact, both, because it was a second marriage] and had 8 children. John married Abigail Reynolds Unknown-1723 and had a child. He died in 1722 in Hurstmonceux, Sussex, England. Mme Rickman’s notes continue; ” He was the first who joined the ‘Friends’ [Quakers].”

  1. Joseph Rickman 1691-1747
  2. John Rickman 1681-1713
  3. Mary Rickman 1683-Unknown
  4. Gershan Rickman 1688-Unknown
  5. Margaret Rickman 1689-Unknown
  6. Ambrose Rickman 1690-Unknown
  7. Nicholas Rickman 1695-1713
  8. Elizabeth Rickman 1698-Unknown
  9. Benjamin Rickman 1707-1751

Joseph Rickman was born in the village of Gardner Street, near Hurstmonceux, Sussex,  on 1691 to John Rickman and Margaret Knell. Joseph married Ann Baker 1694-1778 and had 4 children. He died on 7 Feb 1747 at Park Farm, in Hellingly, Sussex, and buried in Gardner Street.

  1. Joseph Rickman 1714-1776
  2. John Rickman 1715-1789
  3. Thomas Rickman 1718-1803
  4. Elizabeth Rickman 1722-1757

John Rickman 1715 – 1789  married Elizabeth Peters and had 8 children, according to one account, or 10 according to another. Born in Hurstmonceux, Sussex, England on 1715 to Joseph Rickman and Ann Baker. He died in 1789 in Lewes, Sussex, England.

  1. Elizabeth Rickman 1743-1797
  2. Richard Peters Rickman 1745-1801
  3. Joseph Peters Rickman 1745-1810 married Sarah Neave 1747-1809 died in Dublin. They had three sons: Thomas Rickman 1776-1841, John Rickman 1779-1835 this one appears to have married Sarah Godlee,1798 -1866,  George Peters Rickman 1785-1875.
  4. John Rickman 1747-1764 died aged 17
  5. Samuel Rickman 1755-1799 died aged 44
  6. Ann Rickman 1757-1793
  7. Sarah Rickman 1759-1837
  8. Thomas Clio Rickman 1760-1834

Richard Peters Rickman 1745 – 1801 married Mary Verrall 5th June 1767, and had 9 children, or possibly 16 children, or even 17. All the children were apparently educated at Ackworth school in Yorkshire,He died in 1801 in Lewes, East Sussex, England.  Richard Peters Rickman was the elder of twin brother, and had rather more children than his brother Joseph Peters Rickman who seems to have only had three.

  1. Elizabeth Rickman 1768-1833 married John Hodgkin of Pentonville (1766-1845), , had four sons of whom the first two died in infancy. The third son, Thomas Hodgkin MD (1798-1866), Thomas Hodgkin MD married relatively late and left no children: with Sir Moses Montefiore he travelled to the Holy Land and Morocco to plead for better treatment for Jews in those areas; it was on a journey to the former that he died in 1866, and he is buried in Jaffa.It is from his younger brother, John Hodgkin junior (1800-1875), that the contemporary Hodgkin family descends. John Hodgkin junior’s first wife, Elizabeth Howard Hodgkin (1803-1836), was the daughter of the meteorologist and chemist Luke Howard (1772-1864), perhaps best known for his system of describing clouds.
  2. Lucy Rickman 1772-1804 married her first cousin Thomas Rickman 1776-1841, the son of her father’s twin brother, Joseph Peters Rickman.
  3. John Rickman 1774-1859 had a son also called Richard Peters Rickman (probably) and seems to have left about £120,000 when he died. RP Rickman II died in 1876 leaving £45,000. Seems to have been somewhat miserly, according to the book “The Quakers of Lewes”
  4. Sarah Rickman 1776-1837
  5. Ann Rickman 1780-1830
  6. Samuel Rickman 1782-1836 
  7. Jane Rickman 1785-1846
  8. Susanna Rickman 1787-1859
  9. George Rickman 1791-1835

Samuel Rickman 1782-1836 removed to Liverpool from Lewes in 1809. He married Hannah Cooke 1790 – 1873, in Liverpool, on September 1, 1816, in a joint wedding with his brother-in-law, Isaac Cooke, who married Sarah Robson. Sam and Hannah had two children. Sam was buried in the Friends Burial Ground, in Hunter Street, Liverpool, and Hannah, thirty seven years later in the Friends Burial Ground, in Liscard, Cheshire.

  1. Mary 1814 -1849
  2. Samuel (1815 – 1885)

Samuel Rickman (1815 – 1885) m. Catherine Throp (1820 – 1903) 4th February 1845. They had  8 children

  1. Samuel Rickman 1846 – 1917 m. Emily Rachel Binns 1849 – 1935
  2. Mary  1847 –   Unknown but after 1901
  3. Charles William 1849 –  Unknown
  4. Reginald John 1850 –  Unknown
  5. Frances Amy 1852 –  in 1901 she seems to be either domestic staff or teaching at Eton
  6. Wilfred 1854 –   Unknown .
  7. Kate 1856 –   Unknown, but after 1911 
  8. Josephine 1858 – 1930

There seems to be a curiously small amount of information on what happened to most of the children. Only Sam, and Josephine seem to have married. The 1871 census helps a little in telling us what the children were doing at the time. Both Mary and Frances are teachers, Charles and Reg are both book-keepers, 16 year-old Wilfred is an apprentice to a ship broker and 25 year-old Sam’s a cotton broker. There doesn’t seem to be any further records of the three younger sons.

In 1881, Kate is a nurse at Westminster Hospital aged 24, and then rather curiously staying in St Helens with the Morris family in 1911 Max Morris is 32, and born in Kiev. Mary his wife is 28. Kate is 52. Mary Morris’s retired parents are also living there, so she may well still be nursing

In 1891, Mary is 43 and living with her widowed mother at 14 Slatey Road (1 Cambridge Terrace), Claughton cum Grange, Birkenhead. By 1901 they have moved to Arnside in Westmorland in the Lake District. Catherine Rickman is now 81.

Samuel Rickman 1846 – 1917 m. Emily Rachel Binns 1849 – 1935. They have 3 children

  1. Reginald Binns Rickman (1882 -1940)
  2. Florence  who marries Theo Kimber and has a daughter Nancy
  3. Rachel unm.

Are John Rickman (1771-1840) and Thomas “Clio” Rickman (1761- 1834) related?

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The cuttings about “Clio” Rickman, and John Rickman were in a book called” A Hundred Years of Enterprise, Centenary of the Clay Cross Company Ltd” privately printed in 1937.  There was a third piece of paper in the book which is a handwritten partial family tree,  tracing fourteen generations of Rickmans back [well technically eleven generations on the piece of paper, and the last three on the inside flyleaf]. It’s fascinating, and frustrating at the same time because it traces back a direct male line with references to the siblings as “4 others” and so on. But it’s an impressive piece of research for the 1960’s and stretches back to 1512.

The first generation is Richard Rickman in Wardleham, near Selbourne, Hampshire, with a wife called Isabel. They are listed as having at least two sons; John born in 1542, and William, five years later, in “about” 1547. William is the direct ancestor, and the notes against him are as follows “Born about 1547 at Wardleham. Removed to Stanton Prior, near Bath where his children were born, and where he purchased the manor, advowson, and other appurtenances.”

The following is from the opening chapter of the “Life and letters of John Rickman”  by Orlo Williams, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1912.    “From the genealogical researches made by John Rickman ‘s father, the Rev. Thomas Rickman, it appears that the family of Rickman, Rykeman, or Richman, originated in Somersetshire, for the arms or,[gold background] three piles azure,[blue wedge]  three bars gules,[red stripes] over all a stag trippant  [represented in the act of walking] ; with a crest, a stag’s head couped proper were originally granted to Rickman of Somersetshire. The family seems to have overflowed first into Dorsetshire, where John Ritcheman is known to have been rector of Porton in 1380, and members of the family represented Lyme in Parliament in the reigns of Henry iv. and Henry v. The Rickmans of Hampshire, from whom John Rickman more immediately sprang, had the same arms and a slightly different crest with the motto, ‘ Fortitude in Adversity.’ The earliest mention of the family is in the parish register of Wardleham, where the baptism of John Rickman, son of Richard Rickman and Isabel his wife, is recorded in 1542. A William Rickman who lived at Marchwood in Eling [ Marchwood is a village on the edge of Southampton water just east of the New Forest. Eling is the parish it is in] appears in 1556 among the subscribers to the defence of the country against the Spanish Armada. In 1623 a Richard Rickman was married at Eling to Elizabeth Stubbs, and their son William was baptised in 1627. The son of this William, James Rickman, was father of three sons, William, John, and James, the first of whom was born in 1701 at Milford. John Rickman, the subject of this book, was his grandson.”

Stanton Prior, Somerset.
Church of St Lawrence

It appears probable that John, and Clio are related, but with no disrespect to the Rev. Thomas Rickman there seem to be gaps between Richard Rickman in 1623, and the earlier Richard Rickman in 1542. We definitely claim the earlier Richard and Isabel Rickman as the parents of William Rickman who moved to Stanton Prior, where the family were for two generations of John Rickmans.  John Rickman Junior (1611-1680) moved to Hampshire to a house called “Inams” or “Inhams” in Great Hamwood, three miles from Alton, in the parish of Selbourne. His son, John Rickman III (1656- 1722) , was the first of the family to become a Quaker. He is “Clio” Rickman’s great grandfather.

It seems likely that the Richard Rickman, whose son was christened in 1542, was the elder brother of the William Rickman recorded at Marchwood in 1556. If so this would make John Rickman (1771-1840) and Thomas “Clio” Rickman (1761-1834) seventh cousins, but with radically different politics.

Tom Paine’s Biographer – Thomas “Clio” Rickman, 1761- 1834

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We’ve been clearing out cupboards, and this cutting from The Times from 27th July 1961 was in a book, in a tea chest full of papers, letters, and photographs. Thomas “Clio” Rickman is a great, great, great, great, great uncle. [The article is in normal font, comments in italics].

Thomas Clio Rickman 1761- 1834

TOM PAINE’S BIOGRAPHER

” CLIO ” RICKMAN, BOOKSELLER, PUBLISHER AND OCCASIONAL POET

FROM A CORRESPONDENT 

Thomas “Clio” Rickman, the intimate friend, publisher and biographer of Thomas Paine, who wrote the second part of the Rights of Man in Rickman’s London house, was born 200 years ago, on July 27, 1761. From 1768 to 1774 Paine lived as an exciseman in Rickman’s native town of Lewes in Sussex. It has been stated in the Dictionary of National Biography that their intimate friendship began in Lewes when both were members of the radical “Head- strong Club “, which met at the White Hart and of which Paine was ” the most obstinate haranguer”. But Rickman was only a lad of 12 when Paine left Lewes for good in 1774, and their close association only began when he returned from America in 1787, by which time Rickman had also left Sussex, though he continued to contribute much occasional verse to the Sussex Weekly Advertiser under the pen-name ” Clio “, which he added later to his real name.

DISOWNED BY RELATIVES.  He had left his native town disowned by his Quaker relatives and with a reputation for “revolutionary habits”. According to E. V. Lucas, who was his great- great-nephew, he was refused admission to a house in the neighbourhood where he had “eight impressionable nieces “. Instead, so the family story goes, their father often entertained him at a local inn. The London house where he lived, as bookseller and publisher, until his death at the age of 73, still stands, though the street has been renamed and renumbered, so that No. 7 Upper Marylebone Street is now No. 154 New Cavendish Street. The upper parts still preserve the original structure.

Tom Paine’s table

It was here, in the seventh house from Cleveland Street, that Tom Paine lodged with Rickman and his family in 1792, “playing at some game in the evening: chess. dominoes, drafts, but never cards” and writing part two of the Rights of Man on a table highly prized by Rickman and furnished by him with a brass plate inscription. The table appears to have been last seen in public at a Thomas Paine Exhibition held in 1896 at the Bradlaugh Institute in Newington Green Road. At that time it belonged to the daring publisher Edward Truelove, of Hornsey. Where is it now ? The late Adrian Brunel, a leading authority on Paine. made many unsuccessful efforts to trace it.

Clio was the youngest son of John Rickman (1715-1789) of The Cliffe, Lewes, by his wife, Elizabeth Peters (unknown -1795). He seems to have been the youngest of eight children; five sons, and three daughters. The twin brothers Richard Peters Rickman (1745-1801), and Joseph Peters Rickman (1745-1810) appear to have had the largest families; with Joe, apparently, having had eleven children, of which five had died in infancy. Richard had at least  at least nine, and possibly as many as sixteen children. I’ve traced nine, of which six were girls.The “eight impressionable nieces ” are probably the daughters of Richard Peters Rickman, because Joe only had, at best, three girls who survived infancy. Elizabeth Rickman (1768-1833) the eldest of the “impressionable nieces ” was the mother-in-law of Elizabeth Howard, whose father Luke Howard was the “Namer of Clouds”, and her granddaughter Elizabeth Hodkin was married to Alfred Waterhouse, the architect of amongst  other buildings, the Natural History Museum, Manchester Town Hall, Strangeways Prison in Manchester, and the National Liberal Club in London.

“The table highly prized by Rickman”……”Where is it now ? The late Adrian Brunel, a leading authority on Paine made many unsuccessful efforts to trace it.”      The answer to the table is it is is the People’s History Museum in Manchester, beside the River Irwell, about four minutes walk away from the old Granada Studios, and about a mile away from the Working Class Movement Library in Salford where Adrian Brunel’s collection of Thomas Paine memorabilia is kept. Adrian Brunel was a playwright and film director whose career started in the silent era, and reached its peak in the latter half of the 1920s. So close, but still not together.

Edward Verrall Lucas

E. V. Lucas, his great- great-nephew was, according to Wikipedia; Edward Verrall Lucas, CH  (1868 – 1938). He was an English humorist, essayist, playwright, biographer, publisher, poet, novelist, short story writer and editor. He joined the staff of Punch in 1904 and stayed there for the next thirty four years, and also became the chairman of Methuen and Co in 1924.  Rather bizarrely, he seems to have been a Companion of Honour serving at the same time, as amongst others, Winston Churchill, Jan Smuts, Lilian Baylis, John Buchan, Frederick Delius, and Lady Astor. The Verrall in the name is the clue, and his great, great uncle and aunt  must also have been Richard Peters Rickman (1745-1801), and his wife Mary Verrall, or great great great granny and grandpa.

ADDITIONAL PUZZLES There are two further Rickman puzzles which the bicentenary of his birth may be an appropriate moment to discuss. What E. V. Lucas rightly called Clio Rickman’s ” finest poetic achievement “ is the epitaph on the scholarly brewer Thomas Tipper which may be seen, excellently preserved, on his tombstone in Newhaven churchyard. This epitaph was greatly admired by Charles Lamb but, according to Thomas Moore’s account (in his Diary) of the “singular dinner party “ at which he heard Lamb recite it on April 4, 1823, in the presence of Coleridge and Wordsworth. he misquoted the fourth line from the end. What Rickman wrote in 1785 was this: “He played through Life a varied comic part, And knew immortal Hudibras by heart.” Lamb changed the original to this: “He well performed the husband’s, father’s part, And knew immortal Hudibras by heart,”  thus spoiling one of Clio’s best lines.

ODD COINCIDENCE The other conundrum which awaits solution arises from a letter written by Rickman to his friend the surgeon Edward Dixon on December 23, 1829, the original of which has been discovered bound up with the copy of Rickman’s Life of Thomas Paine which now belongs to Mrs. Perceval Lucas, widow of another of Clio’s great- great-nephews, to whom I am indebted for her kindness in showing it to me. In this moving but hurriedly penned letter, Clio appealed to his friend on behalf of a poor man called if I have accurately deciphered the writing, ” Telford “, who was “severely ill “ and whose family, two days before Christmas, were ” literally starving”.  By what is presumably only an odd coincidence, John Rickman, the “inventor” of the census, was an intimate friend of Thomas Telford, the famous engineer, but the poor man for whom Clio was begging Edward Dixon’s “kindness, skill, assistance and friendship” can hardly have been that great and wealthy man. Who then was ” poor Telford “ ?

Mrs. Perceval Lucas, is Edward Lucas’s sister in law, and is a third cousin by marriage, probably three times removed. Perceval Lucas (1879-1916) played an important part in the revival of morris dancing in the early twentieth century, and edited the first two editions of “The Journal of the English Folk Dance Society” in 1914, and 1915. Even so, that didn’t stop him enlisting in 1914, being commissioned in the Infantry in 1915, and dying of his wounds in France in July 1916. Perceval and Madeline Lucas were the models for D.H.Lawrence’s characters Winifred  and Egbert in his short story “England, My England” first published in 1915. ” John Rickman, the ‘inventor’ of the census” is a more distant Rickman cousin we’ll come to separately.

IMPOSING LIST Hardly less puzzling is the fact that in 1803 Clio was able to obtain nearly 600 eminent subscribers for the two volumes of his collected verse, which he modestly but only too truly called Poetical Scraps.

Thomas Jefferson

The imposing list of the eminent, headed by the Prince of Wales and including the President of the United States, and, not least, Mrs. Fitzherbert (who had befriended Rickman when he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in 1792) is certainly more enthralling than the very minor verse itself.

Perhaps the most remarkable item is the “free translation” of the “Marseillaise “ which Rickman made in France in 1792 after he had escaped from England and from imprisonment:

Haste, ye noble sons of France

See, the glorious days advance:

Tyrants, and their slavish train,

Raise the bloody flag in vain.

Tuileries gardens

“Occasional” poet seems indeed the apt name for one who admitted having first written his “Picture of Paris ” (” Dirt and splendour here combine, All that’s filthy, all that’s fine “) in pencil on a statue in the Tuileries and an unpleasant attack on Portsmouth with a diamond on an inn window in that “filthy” town itself. In pleasanter vein, some ” pastoral verses “ written at Barcombe Mills on the river near Lewes when he was a boy, go admirably to the tune of  “The Lass of Richmond Hill “, and may well have pleased the then owner of ” Glyndebourne” who was another of Rickman’s distinguished supporters and subscribers.

I rather love the idea of graffitiing poems onto statues, kind of like a poetic Banksy, and also “modestly but only too truly called Poetical Scraps” is a very back-handed compliment, but does make one rather want to seek out the poems.  Maria Fitzherbert (1756-1837) was a mistress of the prince of Wales, and went through a form of marriage to the future Prince Regent on 15 December 1785, in the drawing room of her house in Park Street, Mayfair. She was twenty eight, and twice widowed, he was twenty three. The marriage was considered invalid under the Royal Marriages Act 1772 because it had not been approved by King George III and the Privy Council, and she was a Catholic. The relationship lasted almost ten years.