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John E.Pritchard.

BRISTOL .

SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF

A LONG LIP^E.

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,i:is

SOME RECOLLECTIONS

A LONG LIFE,

WILLIAM STURGE

1893.

Sot private Ctcculation onlg.

37?

SOME RECOLLECTIONS

OF

A LONG LIFE.

The thought has often occurred to me
Preliminary. that some reminiscences of a long life,
including an account of some of the changes vs^hich
have taken place under my ow^n observation, and
brief notices of some people I have known, may be
interesting and instructive to my descendants and
immediate connections. Hitherto want of leisure
has prevented my commencing such a retrospect ;
but now the seclusion of a summer holiday at a
quiet Welsh watering-place invites me to spend
some of my leisure in the attempt to begin, though,
on the eve of completing my seventy-third year, I
feel but little ability for the task.
I may premise that I do not contemplate any-

SOME RECOLLECTIONS

thing of the character of an autobiography. My
life has been too uneventful to clothe its records
with much interest. Born in Bristol on the 21st of
^ August, 1820, I have lived in that city all my life.
With the exception of some notices of public
events, my records must therefore be principally
confined to my native city ; and the comparatively
obscure station I have filled in life must necessarily
limit the scope of my recollections.
, I commence with the year 1830, when
Accession of j ^ j
William IV. I ^as ten years old. I remember the
death of George IV. in June of that year, and the
accession of his brother William IV., who was duly
proclaimed King by the Mayor at the Council House.
The occasion was signalised by a long procession
through the principal streets, which I witnessed
from the window of a friend in Dolphin Street. It
was headed, I think, by the Mayor, Aldermen,
and Common Council, the clergy of the Church of
England, Nonconformist ministers, accompanied
by deputations from the various trades and manu
factures carried on in the city, with flags and
banners. What much struck my youthful mind
was a veritable man on horseback clad in ancient
armour with sword and spear. A similar procession
took place on the accession to the throne of Queen

OF A LONG LIFE.

Victoria, on 20th June, 1837. I think these pro
cessions had their use in impressing on the popular
mind the accession of a new Sovereign to be re
spected as the head of law and order.
The Bristol arid Clifton of 1830 did
Population
and Extent of not Contain half the population, nor
Bristol. covered half the area, of the present
city. Though far outstripped in population and
commerce by the great towns of the North of
England, Bristol has during the present century
made a sound and steady progress, and is still the
unrivalled capital of the West. The population in
1801 was 63,645 ; in 1821, 87,779 > ^^ 1831, 103,886;
whilst the population of the city and county, or
municipal borough, was at the census of 1891
221,700, and of the Parliamentary borough nearly
300,000. To give some idea of the extended area
of the city, I may mention that Richmond Terrace,
Clifton, looked out upon green fields the whole way
to Durdham Down ; that not a house existed in
Tyndall's Park, which extended its grassy slopes
and clumps of trees all the way from the top of
Park Street to Cotham ; that there were no houses
on the wide tract now covered by Lower Redland,
extending from White Ladies Road to the Glou
cester Road ; that Cotham new road did not exist ;

SOME RECOLLECTIONS

that Sydenham Hill and the adjoining streets were
an open tract known as " Mother Pugsley's Fields";
that Horfield was a small country village; that
Ashley Down was green fields ; that the Gloucester
Road was unflanked by houses beyond the end of
Catherine Place, near the top of Stokes Croft ;
and that the wide space between Ashley Road and
Bishop Street, St. Paul's, consisted of market
gardens. The vast suburb of the out-parish of St.
Philip and Jacob did not exist, except a few houses
along the Stapleton and Kingswood Roads. On
the south side of the city the New Cut was the
boundary ; and at Bedminster the extensive district
between East Street, North Street, and Coronation
Road (now called Southville) was entirely rural.
From this description some idea may be gathered
of the extension of the city during the last sixty
years. The change in the external aspect of the
ancient city, though great, is not so striking as
might have been expected during so long a period.
The old narrow streets remain, but they formerly
contained many more picturesque specimens of
"old Bristowe" in the overhanging and gabled
fronts of the houses. Broad Street in particular
was flanked on one side from the Council House

OF A LONG LIFE.

to the Guildhall, and on the other from Christ
Church to Taylor's Court, with houses of the olden
time, including the picturesque fronts of the White
Lion and White Hart Hotels, both fine specimens
of the old-fashioned hostelry. The shops in Wine
Street, High Street, and Broad Street were mostly
dark and low, overhung by the upper storeys, and
with small-paned windows, the large square of
plate-glass not having then come into vogue. The
tradesmen lived behind and over their shops, not
having aspired to houses in the suburbs. The
handsome buildings and large establishments of
Baker, Baker & Co. and Jones & Co. had not
been founded, and the modern competitive system
of small profits and quick returns had not come
into practice. Banking was carried on by private
firms in plain but commodious buildings ; the
modern system of joint stock banks, carried on in
palatial edifices, not having commenced. In its
more modern architecture the city was singularly
deficient in taste and display, the new fronted
houses being mere brick walls with plain windows.
In fact the only public building of any architectural
pretensions was the Exchange, with its fine classical
fagade. One redeeming feature was in the towers
and spires of the numerous old churches, which

10 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
diversified the view of the city from the surrounding
hills. The sanitary state of the city was bad.
Sanitary state. The ancient city had an imperfect system
of sewers, which discharged into the Avon. These
sewers, and also the repair and maintenance of the
streets, were under the jurisdiction of " The Pitching
and Paving Commissioners" — a body with limited
powers, — and the streets were proverbially dirty.
The large and increasing suburb of Clifton and the
other out-parishes had no sewers, and the drainage
was into private cess-pools, often constructed under
the floors of the houses. Add to this that the water
supply of the entire city was from public and private
wells, in too many cases contaminated with sewage,
and you may imagine what was the state of the
public health. Fevers of malignant type raged not
only in confined courts and narrow alleys, but also
in the more open and modern suburbs. I know of
no statistics of the death-rate in those days, but I
have little doubt that it was largely in excess of that
of the present day. The construction of the Bristol
Water Works under the company's first Act of
Parliament, passed in 1846, has proved an invalu
able blessing in improving the health and comfort
of the citizens by an ample supply of pure water.

OF A LONG LIFE.

The municipal government of the ancient
Government, city was in the hands of the old un-
reformed Corporation, composed of the Mayor,
Aldermen, and Common Council — a self-elected
body who had the control of the Corporate property,
the income of which they expended as they thought
fit, and rendered no public account. The Mayor had
a handsome allowance of about £2,000, and main
tained a liberal hospitality at the Mansion House
in Queen Square. This head Magistrate, with two
High Sheriffs, was elected annually by the Court of
Aldermen. The Recordership was then a higher
salaried appointment than it now is, and was
'usually filled by a barrister of the first standing.
Amongst those who from time to time filled the
office I may name Dunning, Sir Vicary Gibbs, Sir
R. Gifford, Sir J. Copley (afterwards Lord Lynd-
hurst). Sir Charles Wetherell, and Sir Alexander
Cockburn (afterwards Lord Chief Justice of Eng
land). The Mayor and Aldermen exercised the
functions of Magistrates ; but there were no police,
except a few night watchmen, or "charlies," who
paraded the streets and bawled out the hour of
night. Under such a regime a vast amount of crime
must have been committed with impunity, although
the city had for some years been lighted with gas.

12 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
The year 1830 was the end of the old order of
things, which commenced with the Revolution of
1688 and continued during the reigns of William
III., Anne, and the four Georges. With the excep
tion of one year, in 1806, the Tory party held the
reins of power for 46 years — from 1784 to 1830.
Some advance towards more liberal views com
menced with the accession to power of George
Canning in 1827 '> but even he was strongly opposed
to Parliamentary reform. In 1S28 Dissenters were
for the first time admitted to political privileges by
the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, under
the auspices of Lord John Russell. In 1829 the
Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel suddenly
brought forward and carried the Catholic Emanci
pation Act, to which they had hitherto offered a
strenuous opposition. This broke up the Tory
party ; and at the General Election which followed
the accession of William IV. to the throne the
Duke of Weflington's Ministry found itself in a
minority in the House of Commons. The Duke
endeavoured to reunite the party by his celebrated
declaration against Parliamentary reform, when he
said that the British Constitution, as it then stood,
was absolute perfection and required no reform.

OF A LONG LIFE. 13
.^^ „ , I well recollect the great struggle which
The Reform ° °°
E>"- ensued on the introduction of the great
Reform Bill in 1831, and ended after a desperate
resistance, which brought the country to the brink
of a revolution, in its triumphant passing in 1832.
The public enthusiasm in its favour was such as
has never since been evoked by any event. As a
schoolboy I caught the infection, and, although I
had not heard of Sydney Smith's humorous illus
tration that "all schoolboys believed that one
effect would be that gerunds and supines would
be abolished, and that currant tarts would fall in
price," I had some vague idea that good times
were at hand. Looking back after the experience
of sixty years, there is no doubt that the opponents
of the measure were right in their view that it was
a peaceful revolution, which transferred power from
the upper to the middle classes, and broke down
the outer line of defence against democracy.
The Bristol I was at school when the Bristol riots
Ri°tS' occurred on the rejection of the bill by
the House of Lords in October, 1831 ; but I well
remember seeing, a few months afterwards, the
ruins of the houses burnt by the mob round nearly
two sides of Queen Square.

14 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
Pariiamentar ^ ^^^^ rccoUect the last election that took
Election, place in Bristol under the old regime in
the summer of 1830. The franchise was then vested
in the " freemen," who had not only electoral, but,
I think, some commercial privileges. I believe the
freedom of the city might be acquired by purchase ;
but the sons of freemen, and any man who had
married a freeman's daughter, or who had been
apprenticed to a freeman, was entitled to take up
his freedom on payment of certain fees. Nor was
the right lost by non-residence. My grandfather,
William Stephens, having acquired his freedom,
came to Bristol, after many years' residence at
Bridport, to record his vote for the anti-slavery
candidate. There had long been an understanding
between the Whig and Tory parties in Bristol that
each party should return one member ; but whilst
the Tories were united, the Whigs were usually
split into two sections. In 1812 that great and
good man, Sir Samuel Romilly, contested Bristol in
the Whig interest ; but, to the disgrace of the city,
was defeated by a nobody supported by the other
section. In 1830 the Tory candidate was Richard
Hart Davis, a Bristol merchant, who had repre
sented the city for many years, and the Whig
candidates v^^ere James Evan Baillie, a West India

OF A LONG LIFE. 15
merchant, who supported the powerful West Indian
interest, and Edward Protheroe, who was supported
by the anti-slavery party. The poll was kept open
for nearly a week. Party colours were generally
worn — blue by the Tories, pink and blue by Baillie's
supporters, and orange by Protheroe's. Large sums
of money were spent, public-houses were opened,
drunken men reeled about the streets, and the
windows of the Buftls and Rummer Hotels (the
head-quarters of the two Whig factions) were
smashed by the mob. The election resulted in the
return of Davis and Baillie. My brother Henry
and I played at election in our garden in Wilson
Street : he espousing the blue and I the orange
interest ! At the next election, on the dissolution
of Parliament during the Reform furore in 1831, no
Tory could venture to stand, and the two Whig
candidates, Baillie and Protheroe, were returned
unopposed. I was at school during the elections of
1832 and 1835 ; but I well recollect the election
after the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837, when
Miles was returned at the head of the poll, and
Berkeley defeated Fripp, the other Conservative
candidate, by the narrow majority of 56. The great
feature of that election was that the polling booths,
iiistead of being distributed over the city, were all

i6 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
erected in Queen Square, which during the two
days of the election was an animated scene of
crowds wearing party favours, with bands of music,
but happily no breach of the peace occurred.
,, . . , Whilst on the subiect of elections, I
Municipal ¦' '
Reform. jj^^y rcfcr to the first election of Town
Councillors, which took place after the passing of
the Municipal Corporations Act in 1835. Under
the provisions of this Act, the old irresponsible
oligarchy which had for centuries dominated
Bristol and other ancient corporate towns was
broken up, and the citizens for the first time had
the management of municipal affairs placed in their
own hands. The election was hotly contested in all
the wards by the Conservative and Liberal parties,
with the result that on the first division in the new
Council the two parties divided 24 to 24. On the
next division, which was for the election of aldermen,
one soi-disant Liberal, the late Christopher George,
changed sides, and by this means carried the elec
tion of twelve Conservative aldermen out of a total
of sixteen. This circumstance resulted in the supre
macy from that day to this of the Conservative
party in the Council, the Liberals never having
succeeded in returning a sufficient number of
Councillors to out-vote the Conservative aldermen

OF A LONG LIFE. 17
in the periodical election of their successors. I
may remark that then and for many years after
wards the Council was composed, far more than it
now is, of men of standing and position. The
march of democracy has of late resulted in the
election of too many men of a lower class, ignorant
and narrow-minded, acting on "penny-wise and
pound-foolish " principles, and wholly unfit to take
a part in the management of the affairs of a great
city. . . It may be interesting to record my im-
Characterisacs j o j
of pressions of some peculiar characteristics
Bristol People, ^f ^j^g Bristol pcoplc. For a long period
of some centuries' duration Bristol was the second
city in England, and her merchants carried on a
lucrative foreign trade, implying on their part energy
and an active commercial spirit. In 1497 Sebastian
Cabot sailed from Bristol, under the auspices of the
Guild of Merchant Venturers, on his voyage of dis
covery to America. An old proverb, of what date
I know not, "Ship-shape and Bristol fashion,"
bespoke a thorough and enterprising mode of con
ducting business. Another old proverb, "Bristol
men sleep with one eye open," bespoke a vigilant
and, perhaps, grasping spirit. A long course of
prosperity, unchecked by the competition of any

1 8 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
rival port, may perhaps have fostered a somewhat
indolent and phlegmatic temperament, ill-adapted
to cope with the sharp and ever-growing competi
tion of modern times. Bristol's supremacy, however,
continued until early in the reign of George III.
Up to that period the South of England was ahead
of the North in commercial importance ; but the
invention of the spinning-jenny by Arkwright, a
North-countryman, and that of the steam-engine
created the vast cotton industry of Lancashire,
which required the facilities for export and import
of a neighbouring port. Liverpool soon shot ahead
of Bristol, and became the second port in England,
backed by a rapidly-increasing manufacturing popu
lation. It is a common remark that this result was
due to Bristol's supineness and lack of energy. I
do not think so. No efforts could, in my opinion,
have enabled Bristol to secure this new trade.
Meanwhile other great industries, including coal
and iron works, centred in the North, whilst the
trade and manufacture of Bristol and the West of
England remained stationary. I think it probable
that this state of things was due to some lack of
enterprise in Bristol, whose merchants, having en
riched themselves by the importation of slaves to
work their West Indian estates, were slow to risk

OF A LONG LIFE. 19
their money in other adventures. Certain it is
that for many years, and down to the present day,
Bristol has had the reputation of being a slow-
going place. There is no doubt that about sixty
years ago the trade and commerce of Bristol de
clined. The construction of the Floating Harbour,
about 1810, was a great work worthy of the city;
but the heavy dues levied by the Dock Company for
many years crippled the port, and it was not until
1848, when the Corporation by a great public effort
acquired the docks for the city, that this heavy
incubus was removed. Since that date the trade
of the port has increased sevenfold, notwithstanding
the loss of the West Indian and Spanish wool
trades, formerly the staple trades of the port. One
great drawback to its prosperity is the want of a
large export trade, and another is the tortuous tidal
river Avon, ill-adapted for navigation by large steam
ships. This defect has been partially remedied by
the improvement of the river and the construction
of the Avonmouth and Portishead docks, but at a
cost which entails a burden on the city and is a
great barrier to further extension.
Reverting to the peculiar characteristics of the
Bristol people, I may remark that Bristol has not
been prolific of great men. She has produced no

20 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
great statesman or orator; for Burke, who repre
sented the city in Parliament from 1774 to 1780,
was not a native of Bristol. In literature, Southey
is the only considerable name ; in art. Sir Thomas
Lawrence and Bird, painters, and Bayly, sculptor;
in science. Dr. James Cowles Prichard, author of
The Physical History of Mankind. In philanthropy
the record is second to none : witness the names
Colston, Whitson, Carr, Reynolds, and, in our
own day, George Thomas, Joseph Eaton, and Mary
Carpenter. Perhaps I shall not be wrong in describing the
people as somewhat narrow-minded, litigious, and
stubborn in disposition; hard and close-fisted in
money matters, brusque in manner, and careless in
dress, but liberal in the support of public charities.
In former days the women had the reputation of
being plain in person. This doubtless gave rise to
the absurd tradition that Queen Elizabeth, struck
by the lack of feminine beauty on one of her pro
gresses through the city, gave the Bristol women as
a dowry, in token of their ugliness, the right of
conferring the freedom of the city upon any one
who would marry them ! A relative of mine, a man
of great observation who resided in London, used
to remark fifty years ago that he observed a broad

OF A LONG LIFE. 21
and coarse style of feature in our streets. The
working classes are generally of stocky, broad-
shouldered build, and of great bodily strength.
Harriet Martineau, in her History of England
During the Thirty Years' Peace, describes a Bristol
mo.b as the most dangerous in England. Be this
as it may, the crime of murder is comparatively
rare, although there is no lack of less heinous
crimes. The movement of population from one
centre to another, which has been brought about
by the railway system, and the commercial and
manufacturing changes of modern times, tend to
eliminate the mental and physical peculiarities of
particular districts, and to reduce the population to
a more uniform type.
No one born in these days of railways.
Locomotion. i i i
electric telegraphs, and telephones can
form an idea of the state of the country sixty years
ago as to locomotion and means of communication.
The upper and more wealthy classes travelled in
post-chaises, drawn by two, and often by four,
horses, ridden by postiHons clad in red or yellow
jackets and top-boots. The horses and riders were
changed at stages of fifteen or sixteen miles at the
roadside inns or posting-houses. The pace was
from eight to ten miles an hour, according to the

22 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
nature of the road, and a journey of one hundred
miles was a long and fatiguing day's work. The
charge was is. 6d. per mile for two, and 3s. per mile
for four horses, to which must be added 3d. per mile
for each post-boy, and turnpikes, making the total
cost nearly 2s. per mile for two horses and 4s. per
mile for four horses. The cost of a day's journey
of one hundred miles would therefore be £10 per
day for two horses and £20 per day for four. At
this rate none but the very wealthy could often
travel, and long journeys were few and far between.
The middle-classes travelled by stage-coaches drawn
on the great lines of road by four horses, and on
crossroads by two or three. The pace varied from
eight to ten miles an hour ; the fare was about 6d.
per mile for inside places, of which there were four,
and about 3d. per mile for outside places, of which
there were twelve, besides the coachman and guard.
Some six coaches per day conveyed the entire coach
traffic between Bristol and London, three or four
coaches that between Bristol and Birmingham, and
perhaps as many that between Bristol and Exeter.
Two-horsed coaches ran every hour between Bristol
and Bath, performing the journey in an hour and
a-half. Many of the four-horsed coaches were
handsome vehicles, drawn by spirited and well-

OF A LONG LIFE. 23
caparisoned horses, driven by a smart and skilful
whip. As the coach rattled along the streets of the
country towns on the route, the guard playing a
tune on the key-bugle, the tradespeople came to the
doors of their shops to see the sight ; and when at
length the coach was pulled up at the principal inn
to change horses, the fresh team for the next stage
was waiting, and was rapidly harnessed ; the coach
man mounted the box and grasped the reins in
true professional style, the bugle played, the whip
cracked, and off went the coach amidst a crowd
of admirers. Stage-coach travelling was pleasant
enough in fine weather ; but in winter the cold was
intense, and sometimes in summer the dust was
unpleasant. The travelling gear was a long great
coat with a thick handkerchief round the neck.
Railway wrappers had not been invented. Many a
time have I dismounted after a long journey with
benumbed hands and feet, and shivering with cold.
As for the poor, they travelled but little, and either
tramped on foot or got a lift on the slow stage-
waggons.
Transport of The transport of merchandise in those
Merchandise. jja,ys was a slow and tcdious process, both
by road and water. Bristol was well placed as a
centre of distribution. Her coasting vessels com-

24 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
manded South Wales and the whole of the Bristol
Channel. The Severn, navigated by vessels called
"Severn Trows," large barges constructed both for
sailing and towing, provided access to Gloucester,
Worcester, and the Midland Counties. The Kennet
and Avon Canal Navigation afforded direct water
connection with London, Reading, Devizes, and
Trowbridge. The Wilts and Berks Canal traversed
an extensive agricultural district, and the Stroud-
water Canal formed a connecting link from the
Severn to Stroud and the cloth mills of that district.
The turnpike roads were traversed by huge stage
waggons, drawn by six and eight horses at a pace
not exceeding three miles an hour. The trans
mission of goods by these means occupied as many
days as it now does hours. It is doubtful whether
much has been gained by giving railways a monopoly
of the goods traffic of the country, and it would
perhaps have been better if the legislature had
forbidden the absorption of canals by the railway
companies. Locomotion in the city was carried on
by two-horsed coaches and one-horsed flys, mostly
dirty and inferior vehicles. The hansom-cab had
not been invented, and there were no omnibuses or
tramcars.

OF A LONG LIFE. 25
The One of the greatest and most beneficent
Post Office. changes of the last sixty years has been
in the Post Office. The rates of postage would in
the present day be almost prohibitive. The postage
on a letter of a single sheet from Bristol to London
was eleven pence, and from other places in propor
tion. There was, I think, a twopenny local post.
It was not the practice to prepay the postage on
letters, and the amount of postage annually paid by
large business firms was a heavy tax. The Royal
mails on long routes were four-horsed coaches, which
carried passengers ; on the shorter routes, mail-carts.
In large cities there were not more than two
deliveries daily, in small towns only one, and in
many country villages there were no deliveries, but
people were obhged to send for their letters to the
nearest post-office. Though the practice was
illegal, there was an extensive carriage of letters
by private hand. Many letters were made up into
parcels, and forwarded by the next stage-coach.
Peers and Members of Parliament had the privilege
of franking letters by signing their names and
writing the addresses in full. Many an autograph
did I obtain in this way. The daily number each
person could frank was limited, and those persons
.who had the privilege were pestered by applications

26 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
for franks. There was no book-post or parcel-post,
and parcels were usually transmitted by means of
the stage-coaches, and often by private hand. I
well recollect the inauguration of the penny postage
in 1840, and the extraordinary pictorial design, by
the artist Mulready, adopted by the Government for
the first envelopes. The system entailed a loss of
revenue for several years ; but the enormous increase
in the number of letters soon produced a gradually
increasing revenue. The cost of postage greatly
limited correspondence, and intimate friends and
relations wrote long, crossed letters on large sheets
of paper, as double sheets entailed double postage.
Letter writing was then a more important and
interesting art than it now is, and often formed the
only means of communication between near and
dear friends in those days of slow and expensive
traveUing. I fear that in the present day of cheap
railway trains, the art has sadly degenerated.
The postal communication with foreign parts
was extremely slow and tedious. A letter to Paris
and reply occupied nearly a week, and to other
parts of the Continent of Europe several weeks,
according to distance. Communication with America
was an affair of months, and with India little, if
anything, short of a year. The periodical arrival

OF A LONG LIFE. 27
of the mails from distant parts was anxiously
awaited, and often brought late news of disaster,
sickness, and death. The number of English
residing abroad was, however, small compared with
the present day.
I need hardly say that there were no electric
telegraphs or other means of anticipating the arrival
of news earlier than the ordinary channels of post
and locomotion. In short, the pace and exigencies
of life were immeasurably slower than they now are.
There was no scope for the feverish activity of the
present day, with its reckless spirit of gambling and
speculation. I fear the change has not raised the
tone of commercial morality, but has tended rather
to degrade than improve the national character, by
leaving little time for reflection amidst the unceasing
whirl, hurry, and excitement.
The A great change has taken place in the
Pabhc Press, p^^jjc press, moTc especially in the pro
vincial newspapers. No daily papers were published
in the provinces. Four weekly papers were pub
lished in Bristol, three on Saturdays : Felix Farley's
Bristol Journal (of Tory politics), the Bristol Mirror
(neutral), and the Bristol Mercury (Liberal) ; one in
the middle of the week, the Bristol Gazette (Liberal),
pubhshed by John Mills, brother to Macaulay's

28 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
mother, and therefore his uncle. Some years later
a new paper was started called the Bristol Times,
supported by the younger and more ardent Conser
vatives, and edited by Joseph Leech, whose death
took place only a few months ago. This paper was
ably conducted, and in the course of years absorbed
first the Journal and then the Mirror. Leech was an
Irishman, with a rich vein of his countrymen's
humour. One broadsheet was sufficient for each of
these weekly papers, which contained only brief
summaries of news. The price was sevenpence,
including the Government duty of threepence or
fourpence, and a duty on paper. My father took in
the Bristol Mirror, and I well recollect the avidity
with which I perused the news of the week. There
was an advertisement duty, which greatly limited
the practice of advertising.
I have often made the remark that the most
powerful and most far-reaching changes of my life
time have been railways, cheap postage, and cheap
newspapers, which have greatly increased the power
and happiness of the people at large, though, as is
the case with all things human, the improvement is
not unmixed with some alloy.

OF A LONG LIFE. 29
A vast change has taken place during the
The Social ° _ '^ _ ° _
Condition of last sixty ycars in the social condition
the People. , , , _,, , r . ,¦
of the people. The system 01 protective
and revenue duties was then in full forcft.
p • s of Pro- There was a heavy protective duty on
visions, etc. vvhcat, based on a sliding scale varying
with the market price. The importations were on a
small scale, and nearly the entire quantity required
for consumption was grown at home. The price
ruled on an average more than double that of the
present time. Bread was perhaps 50 per cent.
dearer than it now is ; on the other hand, meat was
at least 25 per cent, cheaper, the price not exceeding
sixpence per lb. Tea and sugar were about double
their present price, paying heavy revenue duties ; but
then the quality of both these articles was superior,
as China tea had not then been superseded by
inferior Indian tea, nor West Indian sugar by beet
root. Rents of houses were lower, but there was a
heavy and oppressive tax on windows — a tax on
light and air ! This tax was levied at so much per
window, including even the cellar gratings. Nearly
the whole revenue of the country was raised from
the assessed taxes and revenue and excise duties.
Happily there was no property and income tax, with
its inequalities and inquisition. The duty on the

30 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
light wines of France and Germany was prohibitive,
and these wines were never seen except on the
tables of the wealthy. Port and sherry were the
only wines drunk by the middle classes. The
practice of brewing beer at home was much in
vogue, the light bitter ales of the present day not
having been brought into consumption. Writing-
paper was much dearer than it is now, and was used
with more economy, even the backs of letters being
torn off and saved for use by " those who living
saved a candle-end." On the whole, I incline to
think that the smaller expense of living compared
with that of the present day resulted more from
economy in habits than from a lower rate of cost.
Less luxury pervaded all classes, except perhaps the
higher and more wealthy.
The Profits of The profits of trade and manufacture
Trade. were greater and less fluctuating than
they now are. The " cotton lords " made enormous
fortunes, and also the wealthy merchants. The
profits of retail trade were larger : the system of
"small profits and quick returns" had not come
into play. Competition in business was far less
keen than in the present day. Postage prohibited
the modern system of trade circulars which now
flood every post, and the advertisement duty the

OF A LONG LIFE. 31
practice of perpetual advertising. On the other
hand, the volume of trade has vastly expanded, and
the numbers who live by it have greatly increased ;
but the risks attending the employment of capital are
greater than ever. The system of Limited Liability
Companies was then unknown. Whilst it has
enabled great undertakings to be carried out which
could not have been effected by private enterprise,
with the risk of loss of the entire capital, the
system, for want of proper safeguards, has created
a host of reckless and profligate adventurers, who,
by means of false but seductive prospectuses pro
mising great profits, have for many years beguiled
a too credulous public into the loss of untold
millions of money.
Wages of The wages of the labouring classes have
Labour, greatly increased during the last half-
century. Bristol artisans earned 3s. to 3s. 6d. per
day, as compared with 5s. to 6s., and did more work
for their money. Agricultural labourers in the West
of England earned but 8s. to los. per week ; indeed,
in Dorset wages were said to be as low as 6s. At
the then price of bread, it is a wonder how body
and soul were kept together. Yet when horse
threshing-machines were first introduced, there were
rick-burnings in some parts of the country, lest they

32 SOME RECOLLECTIONS

should supersede the flail ! Strikes now and then
occurred in the manufacturing districts, but they
were confined to small numbers, — want of communi
cation, cheap newspapers, and postage rendering
impossible the vast and dangerous combinations of
the present day. It is with great satisfaction that I
record that no class has benefited more than the
working classes during the last half-century. These
classes have yet to learn to use their newly-acquired
power with moderation, and to refer the rate of
wages to arbitration, instead of resorting to persistent
strikes, which entail enormous loss both on them
selves, their employers and the public at large.
The Church ^ great change has taken place in the
of England. Church of England. There were then,
as now, the High and Low Church parties ; but the
term " High Church " had not the same meaning as
it now has. It rather applied to that large section
of the clergy who filled their position in an easy
going way, held services once, and in some cases
twice, on Sundays, never in the week except on
festival or public fast days (the former being very
sparsely observed), had communions monthly,
hunted and shot with the squire, and, so far as their
means allowed, lived as country gentlemen, and kept
a stock of sermons, which came round at regular

OF A LONG LIFE.

33

periods. The Low Church, or Evangelical party,
was then in its zenith, led by Simeon and Venn,
earnest in preaching, holding Bible readings and
prayer meetings at the houses of their more wealthy
parishioners, strict in life, and tolerant towards
Dissenters. Their influence was great, especially in
the towns, and they first roused the Church from
the long lethargy of the eighteenth century. Their
system was, however, somewhat hard and narrow,
and has gradually declined. The Broad Church
was not then known as a distinct school in the
Church ; it owes it origin to Dr. Arnold, whose
liberal views still have considerable influence. The
Oxford or Tractarian movement commenced in
1833, with the primary object of defending the
Church against the assaults of the Whig party, then
in the plenitude of its power, by the cry of "The
Church in danger," and the revival of Anglo-Catholic
doctrine and practice ; but the advanced ritual of
our days was as yet undreamt of. We are all aware
how the " Catholic revival," with its sacramental
theories, its sacerdotal claims, vestments, incense,
confessional, and ornate services, has. since per
meated the Church, until it bids fair to absorb all
other schools of thought within her borders.
Despite much that is repugnant or distasteful to the
3

34 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
minds of many earnest Christians, there can be no
doubt that a great change for the better has taken
place in the earnestness and devotion of the clergy,
and their influence over their flocks.
The Dress of The dress of the people has undergone
the People, much change during the last fifty years.
In those days gentlemen of the upper or middle
classes usually dressed in black broadcloth; a few
of the more old-fashioned gentry wore blue coats
with high velvet collars and gilt buttons. Some of
the younger dandies wore cut-away coats of olive-
green cloth with gilt buttons, and figured silk waist
coats ; the trousers were tightly strapped down
under the WeUington boots ; long greatcoats were
worn down to the heels, divided behind from
the waist downward, the light short paletot not
having been invented. Stocks or cravats, of great
height and stiffness, on which the chin rested, were
worn round the neck, surmounted by a high stand-up
collar reaching to the ears. Bound in these fetters,
the wearer could hardly turn his head to the right-
hand or to the left, and the effect was a stiffness of
manner, which added to his personal dignity, if not
to his comfort. The modern innovation, or rather
revival after the lapse of upwards of two centuries
of beard and moustache was then unknown. The

OF A LONG LIFE.

35

face was closely shaven, except the whiskers, which
the elder men cut short, but the younger men wore
longer, whilst the dandies vied with each other in
the shape and curl. A high narrow-brimmed hat,
varied in summer by a white beaver, crowned the
figure, the easy-going bowlers and " wide-awake "
hats of this degenerate age not having been
invented — a remark which also applies to the loose
brown, grey, and mixed coloured morning suits
now worn, which may be said to be in keeping with
the free-and-easy manners and customs of the
day. The' clergy affected no clerical garb, but dressed
in the ordinary black suit and high-crowned hat of a
gentleman, with the only distinguishing mark of a
white neck-cloth. The straight-cut collarless coats
and broad-brimmed round-crowned hats of the
present day were then the peculiar garb of the
Society of Friends — a novel illustration of the old
proverb that "extremes meet 1"
Of the change in the dress of the ladies it does
not become me to say much. The vagaries of
fashion were as many-sided then as they are now,
I may, however, mention one great improvement :
the large bonnet, which entirely hid the side face,
having been superseded by the more graceful hat
3 *

36 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
and head-dress. The hair was worn with a high
top-knot, and in front either with curls or smooth
side-locks fastened behind the ear ; the modern
frizzled hair covering the forehead would have been
thought the head-gear of a savage I
Few indeed were the recreations of those
Recreations. i-z- i , ^
who could not anord to do as Cowper
says was the fashion upwards of a century ago :
" In coaches, chaises, caravans, and hoys,
Fly to the coast, for daily, nightly joys."
Cock-fighting has not, I think, been practised
during the present century, but prize-fighting was
not put an end to until within the present reign.
Dog-fighting, poaching, and the public-house were
the chief attractions of the working classes, not
then called by the odious modern French term of
employes. The only holidays were Christmas, Easter,
and Whitsuntide. There were no outings, cheap
excursion trains, public parks and gardens — though
Bristol enjoyed the inestimable advantage of her
wide, breezy CHfton and Durdham Downs. There
was now and then a game of cricket ; but neither
that fine athletic game nor football had become
national institutions, contributing greatly to the
health and enjoyment of the people.

OF A LONG LIFE. 37
The hours of business were longer than they are
at the present day. Shops were kept open from
eight o'clock in the morning until eight at night.
When I first entered my father's office as a pupil
the office hours were from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., with
intervals for meals. I went home to dinner at 3
o'clock, returned to the office at 4 ; and for a short
time walked home to tea at 6 o'clock, and returned
at 7. Smoking was much less in vogue among the
upper and middle classes than it now is. The
wealthier smoked cigars, the farmers and lower
class of tradesmen the old-fashioned " church
warden " pipe, and the working classes a short clay
pipe ; but the almost universal smoking of short
wooden pipes at all hours of the day was then
unknown, and the same remark may be made as to
the cigarette. The question whether increase of
smoking is on the whole good or evil will receive a
different answer from smokers and non-smokers.
I must not pass over the great question of
Education. . . . _ • i ¦,,
Education. The- education of the middle
classes was then principally in the hands of private
schoolmasters, whose qualifications varied in kind
and degree from the learned dignity of Dickens'
" Dr. Blimber " to the ignorant, low, and cunning

38 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
" Squeers " of his Dotheboys Hall. Many of these
establishments were respectably conducted on
moderate terms, but the general standard of learning
wa^ not high. There were not nearly so many
great public schools as there now are, and many of
the old foundation Grammar Schools had almost
lapsed. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge
were confined to the nobility, landed gentry, and
plutocracy. The sons of Nonconformists were
entirely excluded. Speaking generally, I should say
that the number of well-educated men among the
middle classes has greatly increased, and that their
education is of a higher type.
A far greater change has, however, taken place
in the education of the labouring classes. Sixty
years ago there was no Government Grant appli
cable to education. The only schools were those of
the National Society, established for the education
of the people in the principles of the Established
Church, and the British and Foreign School Society,
for education with no religious teaching except the
Bible. Excellent as both these institutions were in
their way, they failed to reach large masses of the
people, who never learned to read or write, and
signed with a mark. Both Board Schools and
Voluntary Schools are now doing good work under

OF A LONG LIFE. 39
trained masters and mistresses, and the quality of
the education given is tested by Government
Inspectors. In fact, a better English education is
now given to all classes than was in many cases
available to the middle classes half a century ago.
The Society 1 °ow procccd to deal with the chauges
OF Friends, ^hat havc taken place in my time in the
Society of Friends, the religious body in which I
was born and educated, and of which I have been
an unworthy member all my life. I approach this
part of my task under a sense that it is attended
with peculiar difficulty, and a fear that I may not
succeed in doing justice to it, at all events, in the
opinion of some of my friends who may peruse these
pages. I begin vvith an attempt to portray the
state of the Society as it was from fifty to sixty
years ago. The Society continued much in the
condition in which it was placed by the revival of
the discipline about or soon after 1760. That revival
purged away many disorders that had gradually
crept in during the first half of the century. There
was then, as now, no written creed. Barclay's
Apologv was regarded as a standard exposition of
the principles of the Society, but was too deep and
recondite for the general reader. William Penn's
and other Friends' writings of that date were found

40 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
in most Friends' libraries, but were unattractive to
the young. A somewhat hazy mysticism prevailed,
in which the doctrine of the Atonement held a less
prominent place than it now does, and of which the
outward masks were the absence of any set form of
worship, the reliance of the ministers on a divine
spiritual afflatus without human preparation for the
exercise of their gifts, and the absence of the out
ward rites of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. I
think there was a more mystical sense applied to
texts of Scripture than there is now.
The"Hicksite 'During the early years of the present
Schism, century a wide division of religious
opinion became apparent in America. One party,
led by an able and subtle minister, Elias Hicks,
professing a deep spirituality, rejected the doctrines
of the Divine nature and Atonement of Jesus
Christ. The other party, which styled itself
Orthodox, believed in these doctrines. Both parties
claimed to be the true successors of Fox, Penn, and
Barclay. In 1827 an open schism occurred, when
at least one-third of the Society in America embraced
the views of Elias Hicks.
The " Beacon " As a warning to English Friends against
Controversy. |.j^jg hcrcsy, Isaac Crewdson, a minister
in good esteem at Manchester, published, in 1833 or

OF A LONG LIFE. 41
1834, ^ work entitled A Beacon to the Society of Friends,
in which he not only exposed Elias Hicks' errors, but
advocated views of religious truth of a more
evangelical character than were then held by the
Society. A fierce controversy ensued. A committee
was appointed by the Yearly Meeting to assist
Lancashire Quarterly Meeting in dealing with the
case ; but in the end Isaac Crewdson and a number
of other Friends at Manchester seceded from the
Society, and established a separate Meeting, which
died out in the course of a few years, most of its
members joining other religious communities. The
disruption extended to Bristol, where, as well as in
many other places, not a few Friends seceded.
There was a war of pamphlets. Ministers denounced
the opposite party from the gallery. I myself heard
Sarah Grubb commence a sermon at our Quarterly
Meeting with the words : " Friends, what is the
state of this Meeting ? There is spiritual wicked
ness in high places," alluding to two eminent
ministers of the Evangelical school who were
sitting by her side. I also heard Ann Jones, turning
to a knot of Friends of that school, say : "I know
that some of you despise women's preaching. I
care not for that." She was also reported to have
said in the Yearly Meeting : " I charge you, as you

42 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
shall answer it at the last great day of account, hpw
you trample on the ashes of those who are dead in
the Lord."
Looking back to these events, one cannot but
think that the divergence of opinion was not so
great but that it might have been tolerated without
separation. It really might be described as High
Church and Low Church, two "schools of thought"
(a term of more recent origin) which might have
existed side by side with mutual forbearance and
regard. In the course of a few years the Society
generally adopted those Evangelical tenets which it
had condemned, and at the present time symptoms
of reaction are apparent in the opposite direction.
Much of the ministry I heard in my
The Ministry. youth was powerful, earnest, rousing, and
emotional — too often delivered in a sing-song tone
of voice, and addressed to the feelings rather than
the understanding. I think the women bore the
palm. There was what I may describe as a school
of prophetesses, possessing great fluency, power,
and gift of language. The Friend, on rising, often
took off her bonnet — a sure sign that she had a long
message to deliver. There was sometimes with both
sexes a habit of addressing the particular states and
conditions of some present — an exercise of the gift

OF A LONG LIFE. 43
of discerning of spirits. I am sometimes led to
fear that the gift of preaching has degenerated since
those days. The power, the warmth, the emotion,
the spiritual discernment are almost gone, and in
their place there is too often nothing but a few trite
commonplaces, or a string of texts of Scripture,
delivered in a cold, monotonous manner little
calculated to instruct the mind or arouse the
feelings. The number of Friends travelling in the ministry
was much greater than it now is. Many of these
had " concerns " to visit Friends in their families, a
house-to-house visitation which was often edifying.
The individual members were sometimes addressed,
and I well remember the awe with which these
occasions inspired my youthful mind.
There was a common practice among ministers,
when mixing in the social circle, of having " oppor
tunities." In the midst of conversation, it would be
discovered that a minister was " under concern."
First one and then another dropped into silence.
When the Friend had delivered his message con
versation was resumed in a grave and subdued tone.
These occasions were not always edifying, and were,
I think, sometimes exercised with more zeal than
discretion, especially when they occurred after

44 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
meetings for worship and discipline four or five
hours in length.
Quarterly Meetings had not only their religious
but their social side. The slow means of travelling
made it necessary for Friends to go the day before
and return the day after. This gave friends and
relations the opportunity of social intercourse which
they could not otherwise enjoy, and young people
the means of acquaintance, from which many a
happy marriage resulted. Now-a-days, alas ! Friends
rush to Meeting by the railway train, are engaged
all day in meetings for worship and discipline, and
return in the evening weary and jaded, with no time
for pleasant social intercourse. The change is
inevitable, but is none the less to be deplored.
Speech, Dress No ouc not old cnough to Tccollect it cau
and _ °
Deportment, form an idea of the stress laid in my
youth on "plainness of speech, behaviour, and
apparel." No one was admitted into membership,
nor was any member permitted to touch the ark of
the discipline or to hold any office in the Society,
who did not strictly conform to its rules in these
respects. When Joseph John Gurney, born a
member of the Society, but not brought up in its
ways, became a Friend from conviction, he put on
the garb, used the plain language, and felt it his duty

OF A LONG LIFE. 45
to enter the drawing-room of a lady, as well as that
of the Bishop of Norwich, with his hat on ! I have
the authority of the late Dr. Ash for an amusing
anecdote of Amelia Opie, who had mixed much in
the gay world, and who rather late in life became a
Friend and adopted the speech and costume.
Being accosted by one of her fashionable friends
with the words: "What, Amelia, bonnet and all?"
she naively replied: "Yes, bonnet and all, thou
wretch!" The shibboleth had perhaps some
advantages. It was a barrier to much mixture with
the world, and was a safeguard to the young ; but
it encircled the Society with a strong fence, which
few felt inclined to break through.
The Dress of The " thrce-decker," or looped hat, and
Friends. pj^^^j shoc-buckles of the last century
had mostly gone out of date before my time ; but I
recollect a few examples, e.g. my grandfather,
William Stephens, the late John Waring, and (I
think) Joseph and William Gundry, of Calne.
Before the looped hat came into vogue amongst
Friends it had been the fashionable head-covering,
adorned with gold lace. Friends wore it plain,
without the lace ; but nevertheless it was an innova
tion, and led to the remark in a Friend's journal of
the middle of the last century: "About this time

46 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
came in the vain custom of looping up of the hat."
The looped hat was succeeded by a very low, round-
crowned, broad-brimmed hat. By degrees the
crown became square and the brim a little less in
breadth. I recollect my father telling a story of a
worthy ancient Friend at Taunton calling attention,
with disapproval, at a Quarterly Meeting to the
practice of wearing hats that did not fit close to the
head. In my time the hat-brims had somewhat
diminished in width ; and were, in fact, altogether
discarded by most of the younger men, whose only
distinguishing mark was a collarless coat, the front
turned back with velvet facings so as to resemble a
collar : indeed, one young friend of mine had a false
seam on the back of his neck to increase the
illusion 1 Many of the young lady Friends wore
jaunty silk bonnets, which set off a pretty face to
advantage, and their evening costumes were of the
richest grey silk or satin. Alas ! the stern Quaker
shibboleth could not keep the demon of vanity out
of the fold !
Music was altogether forbidden. George
Music. Fox says in his journal : " I was moved to
cry against all kinds of music, for it burdened the
pure life." Yet in another place he remarks :
" About this time I was moved to sing." So late as

OF A LONG LIFE.

47

1853 or 1854 the Yearly Meeting's Epistle contained
a strong condemnation of the study and practice of
music. Yet the musical ears and melodious voices
of the younger Friends could not be restrained from
indulging in untaught singing. I was one of the
first in Bristol to introduce the piano, and to have
my children taught music. This greatly grieved my
dear father, who addressed to me a strong written
remonstrance ; and I was also called to account by
an Overseer on answering the queries in the Monthly
Meeting. Who would have thought that only thirty
years later music would be generally taught, not
only in Friends' families, but in their public
schools ! The Temperance movement in its present
Temperance scusc had uot commcnced. After Mr.
Movement. Thrale's death, in 1781, his executor. Dr.
Johnson, sold the brewery to a Quaker named
Barclay, the founder of the present firm of Barclay,
Perkins, & Co., remarking, in true "Johnsonese" :
" Sir, we are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and
vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond
the dreams of avarice." Truman, Hanbury, Buxton,
and Co. was also originally a Quaker firm. In my
own time the Crowleys of Alton, and the Lucas's
of Hitchin, carried on the business of brewers.

4'3 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
Friends also carried on the business of wine and
spirit merchants : witness the eminent London firm
of Lister and Beck. No stigma was then attached
to these trades. Members carrying them on in the
present day would be looked upon as delinquents,
and admonished, if not disowned. I would rather
Friends acted in the spirit of George Fox, who,
when asked by his young convert William Penn
whether he might continue to wear his sword,
replied : " Wear it as long as thou canst." Wine
and beer were usually provided on the tables of
Friends, but were for the most part used with
great moderation. There were, however, some
exceptions. The Society was much more numerous
Number of
Friends in Bristol and the West of England than
in Bristol. . . . , , .^ t n
it IS in the present day. In or about 1830
Bristol Monthly Meeting contained 636 members,
whose costumes were conspicuous in our streets. It
is now reduced to about 400. Besides the Meeting
House at the Friars, there was another in Temple
Street, used in my time only for a weekly meeting
on Sixth days ; that at the Friars' being then held
on Third days. I now and then accompanied my
mother to the Sixth-day Meetings. In 1832 the
Meeting House was used as a Cholera Hospital, and

OF A LONG LIFE. 49
afterwards became a Jews' Synagogue. If the
number of Friends in Bristol had kept pace with
the population, there should now be about 1,400
members. The reasons for this diminution, instead
of increase, afford much food for reflection, on which
I do not propose to enter.
Meetings for worship were long in duration. On
First-day mornings we met at the Friars' Meeting
House at ten o'clock, and seldom separated before
twelve. In the evening we met again at six o'clock,
and sat from an hour and a-half to two hours. In
the week of the Quarterly Meeting, which met on
Fourth day, the usual week-day meetings, on Third
day at the Friars and on Sixth day at Temple
Street, were both held, so that there were three
meetings for worship in the week.
Leading My Recollections will not be complete
Friends, -vvithout an attempt to portray the charac
ters of some of the leading Friends who have come
under my notice. I commence with :
Joseph John JOSEPH JOHN GURNEY. Towards the
Gurney. closc of the last century there were many
wealthy Friends, much attached to the Society and
frequenters of its worship, but who conformed to its
usages in no other way. Joseph John Gurney's father,
John Gurney, was one of these. The Gurney family,
4

50 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
having amassed great wealth as bankers at Norwich,
mixed with the aristocracy and best families of the
county. Soon after he had attained man's estate,
J. J. Gurney, following the example of his sister,
Elizabeth Fry, adopted from conviction the religious
views and assumed the garb and speech of a plain
Friend. In the course of a few years he felt called to
the work of the ministry. I first saw him when I was
a boy at Thomas Ferris' school. He attended the
General Meeting for Sidcot School in 1831, in pursu
ance of the object of promoting a more systematic
study of Holy Scripture in Friends' schools. His min
istrations had for a time a great effect upon us boys. I
recollect his visiting our schoolroom, and presenting
our master with £2, to be expended in giving prizes
of books to those boys who passed the best exami
nation in scriptural knowledge, of whom I was one.
When a young man, I occasionally heard J.J. Gurney
preach, both at Bristol and at the Yearly Meeting.
He was a tall, somewhat portly, and very handsome
man, with the polite and finished manners of a
gentleman of the old school. He had received
a good education, was a good classical scholar, and
possessed a mind of great intellectual power, which
he had improved by study. He was the author of
several important works : Essays on Christianity, The

OF A LONG LIFE. 51
Papal and Hierarchical System, Thoughts on Habit
and Discipline, and The Principles and Practices of the
Society of Friends. These works were much esteemed
in their day, but are now almost forgotten, and are
only to be found in the libraries of some of the older
Friends. J. J. Gurney, with Josiah Forster and
some others, took a middle part in the Beacon con
troversy ; and I should say that the views of religious
truth now held by the Society are in great measure
based upon his teaching. My recollections of him as
a minister are that he was powerful, but somewhat
prolix in matter, and heavy in manner and delivery.
William William Forster was one of the most
Forster. eminent ministers and philanthropists of
the Society in this century. His sympathy for
human suffering was so acute as to afflict him with
great mental distress. His extraordinary exertions
and privations for the relief of the famine-stricken
Irish in 1847, and the active part he took in pro
moting the abolition of the slave trade and slavery,
especially in America, and his death in Tennessee in
1854, whilst engaged in the latter service, are too
well known to require more than an allusion in these
pages. In person he was tall and unwieldy, and he
was naturally of a phlegmatic temperament. He
was not a frequent speaker ; but when roused by an
4 *

52 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
unusual afflatus, he seemed to drink the waters of
inspiration from a deeper source than other men, his
frame quivered with emotion, and he poured forth
spiritual things in a torrent that carried all before
it — in " thoughts that breathe and words that burn."
Josiah ^i's brother, Josiah Forster, was an
Forster. Elder of great weight and authority, and
perhaps exercised more influence in the Society
than any other man. He had a copious, ready,
and persuasive eloquence, and might be said to be
the leader of the Yearly Meeting, in which he was a
very frequent speaker. He had a singular habit of
prefacing his opinions with the interrogative " What
if I say?" In person he was tall and ungainly.
He may be said to have spent the greater part of a
long life in the service of the Society. He died in
the year 1870, full of years, regretted and beloved by
all who knew him.
Of Elizabeth Fry I can only say that I
Elizabeth Fry. . ,,
heard her preach occasionally. One could
not fail to be struck with the dignity of her appear
ance, the loving and flowing language of her ministry,
and the melody of her voice.
John Pease was one of the most eloquent
John Pease. ^
preachers I ever heard. He had an extra
ordinary flow of matter and language, and a silver-

OF A LONG LIFE. 53
toned voice, which carried away all who heard
him. Sylvanusand Of Sylvanus and Mary Fox, of WelUng-
Mary Fox. ^on, I saw a good deal from time to time.
Sylvanus Fox's countenance was expressive of a
holy sanctity untainted by the world. He was
cheerful and affable in society, and in manner the
true Christian gentleman. His preaching was
earnest, loving, and emotional, delivered in a fine
voice and with appropriate action, and in meetings
for worship he was rarely silent. His wife, more
subdued, but also a minister, seemed to live in an
atmosphere of divine contemplation — in the world,
but not of it. When young, as Mary Sanderson,
she had accompanied Elizabeth Fry in her early
visits to Newgate. More heavenly-minded people
I have never met with. Sylvanus Fox died suddenly
in 1851, when on his knees in prayer, at the house
of Cornelius Hanbury. It was almost like a transla
tion ! " And Enoch walked with God : and he was
not ; for God took him." (Gen. v. 24.)
I may add one or two anecdotes of these dear
Friends which came under my observation. Once,
at my father's dinner-table, Sylvanus Fox, as was
his wont, had prefaced the beginning and end of the
meal with a few sentences; and when the dessert

34 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
was placed on the table, he followed with the words :
" Behold the table spread with the precious fruits
of the earth 1 Eat, O Friends ; drink, yea, drink
abundantly, O beloved 1 " (Canticles v. i.) On
another occasion, I think in 1842, I was spending a
Sunday at the house of Sylvanus Fox, when he and
his wife felt a " concern " to hold a meeting with the
" navvies " then engaged in constructing the White-
ball Tunnel, near Wellington, on the Bristol and
Exeter Railway. S. Fox, jun., Francis Fox, C.E., and
myself, with a few others, were requested to make
the needful arrangements. We drove to the spot,
where we found a collection of wooden huts, in
which the navvies lived. The men, smoking their
pipes, and their wives and children were sitting at
the doors. Sylvanus Fox and his wife took their
stand in the centre, and we walked round asking the
people to draw near ; but to little purpose. " Ay,"
said one man to me, "we'll come when they do
make a start." Whereupon I whispered to Sylvanus
Fox that he must not wait for them. He at once
commenced, and powerfully addressed them at some
length, but in language, I thought, rather too refined
for their ears. At the close we distributed tracts.
One poor fellow sat on the ground sobbing, and
Sylvanus and Mary Fox spoke kindly to him, and

OF A LONG LIFE. 55
tried to clench the effect. " Oh ! never mind he,
sir," said another man, "he's only shamming!"
On our return, Sylvanus and Mary Fox, delivered of
their burden, seemed like birds uncaged.
The Bristol I begin my list of Bristol worthies with
Friends. — the honoured name of George Thomas.
George
Thomas. He was the son of John Thomas, a Bristol
merchant, who was one of the first promoters, if not
the founder, of the Kennett and Avon Canal — in
those days a great public work. He must have been
a man of good property, for he resided in his latter
years at Prior Park, near Bath, which has since
become a Roman Catholic Seminary. His son
George was born in or about 1795. He received but
a plain English education, nor do I think he improved
it much by reading. He was eminently a man of
action. To great natural shrewdness and decision
of character he added a sound discriminating judg
ment, and an unswerving integrity, which raised him
to a position of great influence among his fellow-
citizens. He was a member of the first Town
Council elected under the Municipal Corporations
Act in 1835. He was Chairman of the Board of
Charity Trustees, and of the Bristol Water Works
Company. A strong political partisan, he was for
jnany years the leader of the Liberal party in

56 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
Bristol ; and he might have represented his native
city in Parliament, had he been so minded. His
weight in counsel was such, that when, after listening
attentively to a long discussion, he summed up,
beginning with the words " Now mind," enforced
by an emphatic movement of the hand, there was
no appeal from his decision, which was as an oracle.
Possessed of much wealth, he was munificent in his
support of public institutions, especially the Bristol
General Hospital, of which his friend Joseph Eaton
and himself were the founders. He was also liberal
in his private charities, not letting his right hand
know what his left hand did. In short, he was a
model citizen, and we ne'er shall look upon his Hke
again. He was an attached and consistent member
of the Society of Friends, and filled for many years
the station of Elder. In person he was of the
middle height, with a pleasing countenance and a
bald head : " Those white locks thinly spread
Round the bald polish of that honoured head."
His eyesight was so strong that, though he
lived to an advanced age, he never wore glasses.
He usually walked the streets with his head cast
downwards, as if absorbed in thought. His manners

OF A LONG LIFE. 57
were plain, but affable ; he could be stern upon
occasion. He died in 1869.
His widow, Eliza Thomas, has just passed
ElizaThomas' , ., i
away, even while these pages were in pre
paration, at the great age of 98, respected and beloved
by all. I must not omit to mention the name of
Joseph Eaton. another philanthropist, Joseph Eaton.
He headed the subscription list for the founding of
the Bristol General Hospital with the munificent gift
of ^5,000, and he subscribed liberally towards its
yearly income. He was one of the first promoters
of the Total Abstinence Society in Bristol, and
devoted both his time and money to its support.
He was a staunch Friend, and filled for some years
the station of Elder. He was of feeble constitution,
but lived to old age. He was held in great esteem
by his fellow-citizens.
Dr. Edward Doctor Edward Ash was, I believe, born
^^^- in Bristol ; at all events, he came of an
old Bristol family. He studied medicine, and for
some years he practised as a physician at Norwich,
where he was acknowledged as a minister, and
became an intimate friend of J. J. Gurney. In 1837
he retired from practice and removed to Bristol,
where he resided for the rest of his hfe. As a

58 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
minister, he was a great accession to the Meeting.
His religious views were strictly Evangelical. He
was a good Biblical scholar of the old school, firm
in his belief in the plenary inspiration of the sacred
volume. He was the author of a little book entitled
Christian Faith and Practice, and of Six Lectures on the
Apocalypse, which I heard him deliver in the Baptist
College in Stokes Croft. Perhaps he succeeded as
well as others who have attempted the interpretation
of that mystical book. In ministry Dr. Ash was
remarkably clear in matter, cogent in his exposition
and application of Scripture, and earnest in his
delivery. His discourses were far more connected
in substance and correct in language than is usually
the case with extempore preaching in the Society of
Friends. Some years after Dr. Ash's removal to Bristol,
the Meeting for Sufferings announced its intention
to re-publish Barclay's Apology. Dr. Ash held this
work to be so unsound in doctrine that he entered a
protest ; and this being without effect, he resigned
his position as a minister, to the great regret of his
friends. For some years he held rather loosely to
the Society, though he continued frequently to attend
its meetings for worship. He even went so far as
occasionally to occupy a Congregational pulpit, and

OF A LONG LIFE. 59
to partake of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
By degrees, he returned to his allegiance to the
Society, and resumed his ministry, speaking from
the Elders' gallery. In the course of years he
became fully reconciled, and was again acknowledged
as a minister in unity. This episode in his life was,
I think, due to a morbid state of mind, induced
by a somewhat rigid interpretation of scriptural
doctrine. He lived to a good old age, and, after a
gradual decline, in the year 1873 he died, in such an
assured hope of a blessed immortality, that he
seemed to be only preparing for a short journey
from home.
Samuel Samuel Capper was an eminent minister
Capper. Jq Bristol Meeting in my early days. He
was a Friend of the old school of thought. He was
not a frequent speaker in our meetings ; but when he
spoke his matter was weighty and impressive, though
his communications were generally brief. For many
years he had a " concern " to hold pubhc meetings
in a tent in various parts of the country. I never
attended one of these meetings, but I have heard
that on these occasions his gift was much enlarged,
and well adapted to his audience. Once he ventured
to hold such meetings in Ireland. He held very
strong views against Roman Catholic error, and he

6o SOME RECOLLECTIONS
published a bulky volume, entitled The Acknowledged
Doctrines of the Church of Rome, with the view of
explaining its doctrines for the better information
and warning of Protestants. I fear the book was
little read.
Samuel Capper once occupied a large farm in
Wiltshire, which he gave up during the depression
of prices that ensued on the resumption of cash
payments a few years after the end of the great
French war. He then took a silk mercer and linen-
draper's shop in Corn Street, Bristol, in which he
was very successful. But becoming uneasy at
ministering to the fashionable requirements of female
vanity, he conscientiously purged his hands by giving
up the business, though he had a large family to
provide for. In person he was short and stocky ;
in feature refined ; he was always neatly dressed
in the plainest Quaker garb. He died suddenly
in 1851, whilst attending a First-day evening
meeting at Weston-super-Mare.
Joseph Davis was born about 1789. He
Joseph Davis. j.
claimed to be lineally descended trom
Rollo, Duke of Normandy, and had a pedigree-tree
showing all the connecting links. In early Hfe,
whilst a law student in London, he was drawn for
the Militia, and refusing to serve or to find a sub-

OF A LONG LIFE. 6i
stitute, he suffered a month's imprisonment for
conscience' sake. His first wife was my father's
sister, and although she died before I was born, and
he married again, we always called him and his
second wife — a sister of the late Samuel Harford
Lury — uncle and aunt. He had a very accurate
knowledge of the law of Real Property, and there were
few titles in which he could not find a flaw. His
wills and settlements were masterpieces of legal lore
and draughtsmanship. Like Napoleon in action, he
took large pinches of snuff to clear his head when
advising a client or discussing a point of law with a
brother lawyer. I used to think his mind more
acute and precise than comprehensive. Like a far
greater lawyer. Lord Eldon, he was much given to
doubt. He had some peculiar and antiquated
notions about the duty of the Society of Friends in
relation to the State. He used to say that it was
the duty of Friends to live under the Government
de facto without interfering in politics, a maxim
which he carried into practice — for although his
opinions were those of a high Tory, he never gave
a vote. He took an active part in Friends' Meetings
for discipline, into which he carried his precise and
formal mode of transacting business. For many
years he usefully filled the position of vice-chairman

62 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
of the Board of Guardians of the Clifton Union,
and cheerfully gave up one day a week to the
Board. In person he was tall and spare, with a
countenance and manner of severe dignity. He was
always very neatly dressed in a plain but well-made
Quaker garb. He always addressed his letters
to business firms " So-and-So, Esqrs.," instead of
" Messrs. So-and-So." In early life he published a
volume known as Davis's Digest of the Laws Relating
to the Society of Friends. He died January i6th,
1872, aged 82 years.
My uncle, Young Sturge, was born in
Young Sturge. 1782, at Redhouse Farm, Westbury-on-
Trym, near Bristol. I only knew him in his late
middle-life. He was a tall portly man, with a fine
ruddy countenance, and was always neatly dressed
in a plain Quaker garb. He was, both physically
and spiritually, a very "weighty Friend," and filled
for many years the office of an Elder. He was
greatly esteemed for the soundness of his judgment,
both in spirituals and temporals. He was a man of
few words and grave deportment, seldom relaxing even
into a smile. He was a stern master, as I, who was a
pupil in his office, well knew to my cost — plenty of
blame, but little praise. Yet I can truly say that
while I feared I loved him ; for if he ever un-

OF A LONG LIFE. 63
bent to anyone, it was to myself. His Quakerism
was of the old orthodox type, before the Society
was so deeply tinctured with philanthropy as it now
is. He used this world as not abusing it — not
despising the good things of this life, but not
allowing them to gain the mastery over him. He
was guilty of one bon mot. Once when his health
was drunk at a city feast, and a worthy alderman,
who had imbibed quite enough of the generous wine
drunk on these occasions, accosted him with " Your
good health, Mr. Sturge," he replied : " Friend, I
hope that in drinking my health thou wilt have a
care not to injure thine own."
His personal habits were peculiar. He retired
to rest punctually at nine o'clock, woke at three, then
lit his lamp and read in bed, rose at five, lit his
study fire, worked at his professional papers until
seven, and breakfasted, winter and summer, at that
early hour, to the great discomfiture of his family.
At eight his carriage was ready if he had business in
the country, or he went to the Commercial Rooms
to read the London evening papers, and at half-past
eight was busy in his office.
His politics were those of an old Whig, and he
would quote as his motto Pope's lines :
" For forms of government let fools contest,
Whateier is best administered is best."

64 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
He was a staunch Protectionist and opponent of the
Repeal of the Corn Laws, which was agitated a few
years before his death, fully believing that it would
prove the ruin of English agriculture. When re
appointed Clerk of the Monthly Meeting, at fifty- five
or fifty-six years of age, I recollect his remarking
" that he was in the decline of life and of those
faculties which were required for the duties of the
office, but he would do his best." Statesmen of
that age were not in those days considered mere
tyros with their careers before them. Mental power
would now seem to wear longer than it did half a
century ago.
My uncle died on 2nd February, 1844, after three
days' illness from a paralytic seizure, aged 62 years,
and was interred in Friends' quiet rural burial-
ground at Hazel, where his ancestors had been
buried since the days of George Fox.
The late Barton Dell was an original
Barton Dell. °
and " no man's copy." He was brought
up as a schoolmaster, and was for some years
engaged in private tuition. His mind was severely
logical : he dearly loved an argument for its own
sake, and was ready armed against all comers. I
have known him in the pubhc room at a hotel
challenge some sentiment uttered by a stranger, and

OF A LONG LIFE. 65
as he warmed with his subject he would stand up in
the middle of the room with folded arms, and not
desist until he had, at least in his own opinion,
utterly vanquished and routed the foe. He was,
however, a pleasant companion, with a mind full of
matter and of much conversational power.
I forbear to 'portray those two excellent
William Tanner - ^ •'
and Robert men WiLLiAM Tanner and Robert
Charleton. Charleton, of each of whom there is a
brief but lively memoir in a recent work entitled
Friends of Half a Century. Their memory is green
amongst us, and their works do follow them.
Amongst my female friends I must not
Anne and
Marianna omit to mention Anna Tuckett, the wife
T'uckctt of Philip Debell Tuckett, and Marianna
Tuckett, the wife of Francis Tuckett, of Frenchay
- — both charming women, whose refined and well-
bred manners shone all the brighter under their plain
Quaker garb. The formerperhaps the more dignified
and formal^ the latter the more lively both in manner
and conversation. Of the same type was my late mother-in-
Elizabeth Allen. law, Elizabeth Allen, one of the most
agreeable and superior women I have ever known ;
handsome even to old age, and of graceful and
dignified manners. 5

66 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
And now I complete my retrospect of the
Retrospect. past and of the changes which have taken
place during my time. The study has been most
interesting and instructive to myself, and I trust may
not be without interest and instruction to those of
my relatives and private friends who may think it
worth perusal. I do not think my little work worthy
of more general circulation. Whilst writing, I have
seemed to myself like a man standing on the brow
of a hill with the past spread out like a landscape
before him. Those worthy people whose characters
I have attempted to portray seem to have passed
one by one before the view of my mind. I hope
these sketches, though brief, are sufficiently lifelike
to give to those of the present and next generations
some idea of what manner of men and women they
were. As the traveller, viewing the brilliant sunset
of a fine summer day, looks forward perhaps with
anxiety to the weather of to-morrow, so I cannot
help casting my thoughts on the probable changes
of the next half-century, though I shall not live to
see them. What of the Society of Friends ? What
Prospects of
the Society ot of its futurc ? It has ceased to be a
Friends. separate and exclusive religious body,
trafficking with the world, buying and selling, but

¦ OF A LONG LIFE. ^7
holding aloof from its society, protected by a peculiar
speech and garb. Most Friends now mix more or
less in general society, and in many cases cease to
limit their matrimonial connections within the
narrow circle of their own Society. How few entire
families remain true to the religious principles in
which they were brought up! And I cannot help
thinking this will be the case more and more. Yet
what bright examples of religion and virtue have I
attempted to portray in these pages ! I believe I
shall not be far wrong if I say that the proportion,
or, to use a statistical term, the percentage, of such
persons is greater than in any other religious body
of those who, without fee or reward —
" Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame."
Yet since the first great convincement, which may
be said to have taken place in the forty years that
ended with the death of George Fox, in 1690, the
Society has gradually languished and decreased in
numbers in Great Britain and Ireland for two
centuries down to the present day; for although
there has recently been a slight turn of the tide, it
is hardly worth mentioning. The same may be said
of the older Yearly Meetings in America, and
although a revival has taken place in some of the
Yearly Meetings in the Far West, it can hardly be
5 *

68 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
said to be on Quaker lines. I confess I see no
symptoms of a change in the prospects of the
Society, unless some great awakening should take
place in the ordering of Divine Providence. The
Society will probably continue to hold up to the
world a bright example to be respected, but not
likely to lead to much increase in the profession of
its religious principles.
What does the Society do to spread its principles ?
Where is the powerful and rousing ministry ? Where
are the cheap and popular publications to attract and
convince the minds of the people ? It is true there
are Home Missions, but there is little in doctrine to
distinguish them from the missions of the Baptist or
Wesleyan. No doubt much good is done, but it is
not in the way of Quakerism.
The State: ^^^ "ow I vcnturc to tum my thoughts
its Future, to the probable social and political changes
and °
Probable of the futurc. The growth of democracy
Deve opment. ^^^^ ^^ ^^^j^ ^^ ^^^^ from the passiug of
the Reform Act in 1832 ; and if, in the period that
has elapsed since that date, it has attained its pre
sent development, what will be its power and what
its achievements by the year 1950 ? The power
wielded by the people will increase year by year ;
and although there will probably be occasional

OF A LONG LIFE. 69
symptoms of Conservative reaction, yet in the long
run great changes will be effected. I confess I think
that those who have a long life before them have
reason to look forward to the future of this country
with great apprehension. I am not a believer in the
virtue of government by the sheer force of numbers.
I believe it to be the great delusion of modern
times. But the die has been irrevocably cast, and
nothing now remains but to endeavour, if possible,
to restrain and mitigate the results. Look at the
recent resort to brute force by thousands of colliers
in the Midlands, and of dock labourers at Hull, to
compel their fellow-workmen to cease work at their
dictation, and say whether democracy may not be a
system of tyranny, which will increase in power,
unless in the future some practical method can be de
vised of settling disputes between capital and labour.
Persistent attempts will be made from time to
time to throw the entire taxation of the country
upon the owners of property. Penny after penny
will be added to the income tax, and percentage after
percentage to the death duties, to pay for increased
expenditure, voted by those classes who will not be
called upon to contribute. Landowners wiU be
required by County, District, and Parish Councils to
give up, under compulsory powers, their best lands

70 SOME RECOLLECTIONS
for the creation of small holdings, and will be taxed
for the erection of the necessary buildings, whilst
they will be left to do the best they can with those
portions of their estates not deemed good enough
for cultivation by the small holder. Outvoted in
Council by his own labourers, and impoverished by
the fall in value of his land, the Squire will leave his
Manor House to go to ruin, and it will be as described
by the poet Crabbe :
" Forsaken was the hall,
Worms eat the floor, the tap'stry fled the wall,
No fire the kitchen's cheerwf grate displayed,
No cheerful light the long-closed sash conveyed."
That the gradual extinction of the old territorial
system is inevitable, I have no doubt whatever. But
the small holder will find to his cost that his new
landlord, the Parish Council, will have the pound
of flesh, and will exact from him the uttermost
farthing. One essential to the success of the small holder
is that he and his wife and family should perform all
the labour required for the cultivation of his little
farm. All may go well for a while ; but sickness or
death may intervene, or bad seasons, or bad luck
with his stock may occur, and he may find himself
unable to meet his engagements, and his last state

OF A LONG LIFE. 71
will be worse than the first. I cannot say that I think
the small holding system likely to prove a success,
especially in purely agricultural districts, away from
great markets for garden and dairy produce.
The Socialists, not at present a numerous party,
desire that the State should acquire all realised
property of every kind, and either hold it in trust
for, or divide it amongst, the people at large. With
their views, they would not only nationalise the land,
but confiscate railways and other public works, and
repudiate the national debt. I dismiss the considera
tion of these schemes as too visionary for the present
day, whatever may be their power fifty years hence.
A far more powerful party would disestablish and
disendow the Church, and reform, if not abolish, the
House of Lords, as the great barrier against con
stitutional changes. The disestablishment and dis-
endowment of the Church of England, so far as
Wales is concerned, are within the range of practical
politics. It is an open question whether disestablish
ment would not improve rather than injure the
position of the Church. But I confess that. Non
conformist though I am, I have little sympathy with
disendowment. The ecclesiastical revenues are not
the property of the Church at large, but of the
episcopal and capitular corporate bodies, and of

72 SOME RECOLLECTIONS.
the parochial rectors and vicars. No doubt the
State has the power to deal with these revenues,
as it has already done with those of the Irish Church.
But transactions of this kind tend to imbue the
minds of the people with lax notions of the owner
ship of property, and are, in my opinion, dangerous.
Power is now in the hands of the people. How
is that power to be regulated, and applied, and
diverted towards proper objects ? How is the steam
to be shut off, in order to slacken the pace of this
mighty engine of the State ? My answer is. By the
diffusion of religious education, and the inculcation
of habits of thrift and economy among our im
provident working classes, who, with higher wages
and cheaper living than were ever before known,
may well put by a provision for old age. The
great thing to aim at is to use every endeavour
to increase the number of those who have some
thing to lose, and who will therefore range them
selves on the side of law and order. How best
to promote this most important end should be the
aim of the statesmen of the future.
THE end.

J. W. Arvowsmith, Printer, Quay Street, Bristol.

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