Devonshire Characters and Strange Events

At the Prebendary’s desire, the head of his child had been cut off and the skull opened to examine the condition of the brain, and to ascertain the amount of water that was in it. And it is remarkable that this operation took place in the room immediately above the kitchen in which a few weeks before the cook had seen the apparition of the headless child.

“Pending the intervening night, the inmates of the nursery being removed to another sleeping room, the nursemaid, during half an hour, while lying in bed, heard his accustomed tones of voice as distinctly as when occasionally lying with her during lifetime. Sitting up, she heard the voice continued precisely in the usual mode constantly resorted to by the affectionate child, to engage his nurse’s nocturnal attention, if through fatigue reluctant to be disturbed. His vocal tones were peculiarly winning, coaxing, and caressing. They retained their pristine character during the period of apparition. Forgetful, for the time, of all impossibility of reanimation, through dissection of the cerebellum, she concluded, through protraction of the phenomenon, that life was restored. On walking out on the staircase, and remaining ten minutes, the voice continued to attend her, until hastening to the coffin and without success endeavouring to force open the lid. His favourite sister, Maria, lying in a crib in the same room, heard her brother’s voice with equal distinctness, both that night and the two following days. She, indeed, heard the sound of his voice so frequently transmitted from the attic room, as repeatedly to be induced to hasten thither in expectation of finding him alive. Her mother, sitting in the drawing-room, likewise heard the same articulate sound. At one time, the girl at the foot of the stairs, and the servant at the nursery door, both heard the infant’s tones repeated at the same time from the attic room. At another time, Maria, during five minutes, saw the apparition of her brother’s hand stretching out of the room window where his body lay; and she knocked at her mother’s door, calling her out to see Lautus, as he was alive. Before her mother arrived, she saw the hand turned round and drawn in at the window. She continued to hear his voice coming in the same direction the succeeding day.

“At night, her mother, entreated by her father to deny herself the pleasure of saluting her deceased darling’s icy lips, reluctantly yielded to the injunction. She was subsequently awakened from sound sleep by sensible perception of a wing fluttering on her lips, with such rapidity as nearly to suspend breathing. Sitting up in the bed, she then heard the more distant sound of which fluttering, equally distinct to the ear as previously perceptible by contact. It continued for some time in the upper part of the room. On searching the following morning, no material object elucidating the phenomena was by any means discoverable, both window and door having through the night been closely shut and locked.”

That this was none other than a moth that escaped notice by day by clinging to a curtain with folded wings is obvious enough.

The reader is by this time doubtless so tired of the inflated style of the Prebendary, that he will be grateful to have the rest of the story told in plain English.

The Rev. Jonas had made up his mind to have Fontelautus buried in the garden of his home, and arrangements were made that his five sisters were to be the bearers. But this was at once met by the positive refusal of Maria, who declared that she would be no party to the burial of her brother, who, she was assured, was still alive. After the funeral she remained in an agony of distress, and this idea continued to possess her, and so firmly impressed her mind, that at length, to appease her and satisfy her that Fontelautus was really dead, he was dug up again.

Such is the story that the Prebendary thought would be annihilation to materialism.

He was the author of a good many books. I give the titles of a few.

Church Reform, by a Church Radical, and Other Tracts. Exeter, 1834–5.

Alliance of Church and State, Neither Sinful nor Unscriptural. London, 1834.

Key to the Regalia, with Anecdotes of the Late King. London, 1820.

Architectura Sacra. Exeter, 1819.

Cat o’ Nine Tails. Exeter, 1823.

The Landscape Gardener. Chelsea, 1835.

The Rev. Jonas Dennis himself died at Polsloe Park on 6 December, 1846, aged seventy-one. His only ecclesiastical preferment in life was the prebend of Carswell, one of the four prebends attached to the church of St. Mary, in the Castle of Exeter, which he held from 1799 to the day of his death, receiving the yearly emolument of £2 13s. 4d.

He was buried at Otterton, and his grave and tombstone, as well as those of his wife, are in the churchyard.

If Providence had chosen him, as the voice from heaven intimated, to reform the Church, it made a most unhappy selection, as his inflated and absurd style of writing and speaking made him an object of ridicule not of respect, and deprived his efforts of success.

I will add some of the stories from the second part of his Hammer of Materialists.

Prebendary Salter, M.A., tutor to the son of the former Bishop Fisher, of Exeter, translated to Salisbury in 1807, declared that one night he saw his father’s apparition standing by the bedside. At the same time his little child began to whimper, and this roused his wife, who also saw the spectre, and both particularly noticed the peculiar plaiting of the shirt. In a short time a special messenger arrived bringing information that the old gentleman was dead.

Sarah, wife of James Smith, of Peckham, Russia merchant, and herself a descendant of General Monk and mother-in-law of John Dennis, the brother of Prebendary Jonas, saw a female friend’s apparition at the foot of her bed. Next day a letter arrived announcing the dying anxiety of the party for an interview with Mrs. Smith, to entreat her kind attention to her surviving orphans. The moment of dissolution coincided with that of the apparition. Mrs. Burrow, aunt of Baron Giffard, informed the author that going up Fore Street, Exeter, one night, she saw, walking at a little distance before her, an intimate acquaintance named Jones, a retired silversmith. Perceiving him to halt at the door of the house where he had been formerly established in business, she hurried her pace to catch him up, when he vanished as she reached the spot. Next morning a messenger arrived to announce his death, which had occurred at the very time of her seeing the spectre.

Mrs. Woodall, of Dartmouth, a widow, blind, was informed by letter from her daughter-in-law in November, 1797, of the death of her cousin, her sister-in-law; Miss Sarah Woodall replied through an amanuensis that she had previously known of the death, by feeling the clay-cold hand of her cousin clasp her own as she lay in bed.

The late Lady Rolle was reported to have been seen after her decease by the gardener at Bicton, at the gate of the Dutch garden.

The gardener of Franklyn, in St. Thomas by Exeter, then in the possession of a family named Jones, said that he saw his father’s ghost whilst he was at work in one of the gardens of the mansion.

Mr. Pearce, of Exeter, a retired wine merchant, informed the author that his little child had been wont in the mornings to leave his crib in the nursery and run to his father’s room and cuddle into his bed. Once when the child was very ill Mr. Pearce saw him come in as usual in his nightshirt, whereat he shouted angrily to the nurse in another room to rebuke her for allowing the child to leave its crib whilst so ill. The child had not left it – at that moment it had died.

A male servant of the late Colonel Templer, of Teignmouth, in November, 1810, during an incessant fall of rain, swelling the rivers and carrying away bridges, had three successive dreams the same night, in which he thought that some one, in danger of death on the Dawlish road, was calling to him to come to his aid. So persuaded was the man that he was truly summoned, that he hastily dressed, saddled and mounted one of his master’s horses, and proceeded along the road in the darkness, till his horse suddenly drew up and refused to proceed. Dismounting, he found a woman apparently dying in a channel of water furrowed deep across the highway. By this means her life was preserved.

The late Mr. Smith, of Exeter, proprietor of a muslin warehouse, in three successive dreams in the same night, which he separately repeated to his wife, was summoned to go at once to Bodmin. He obeyed, and on arriving there, heard that the assizes were being held. Out of curiosity he went into the court and heard the judge ask whether any one had seen the prisoner on the day and at the hour at which he was charged with having committed a murder in the west of Cornwall. Looking at the accused, Mr. Smith exclaimed, “Why! he was in my shop in Exeter on that very day.” Through such conclusive evidence an alibi was established, and the prisoner was acquitted and discharged.

The Rev. Mr. Reynolds was master of the Grammar School, Exeter. He lost his wife, and after that, possibly because his spirits failed him and he lacked energy, the school declined seriously and he thought of giving it up. While he was debating this in his mind, one night he saw the figure of a woman stand by his bedside. She told him that she was his mother who had died in childbed at his birth, and that she had been suffered to come to him to encourage him, and bid him go on with the school, for that a notable improvement in his circumstances would take place if he remained at his post. He communicated this to Dr. Rennel, rector of Drewsteignton.

The last story I shall quote is of a different character. Mr. Tuckfield, of Little Fulford by Crediton, was presumedly dead, and was laid in his shell, and men were set to watch through the night. They were plentifully supplied with candles and spirits. In the dead of the night one pulled out a pack of cards and the two began to play, and as they played they drank, till they became intoxicated.

Then said one to the other: “I say, Bill, old Squire Tuckfield he did like a drop o’ spirits in his day. I reckon it won’t do him a crumb o’ harm to give him a drop now.” And taking his glass of almost neat spirits, he poured it down the throat of the deceased. Thereat, to their dismay, the supposed corpse gasped, opened its eyes, sat up, and said: “Give me another drop and I’ll take a hand of cards with you.”

WILLIAM LANG, OF BRADWORTHY

Foortie Articles exhibited against William Lang who was Vicar of the Parish of Broadworthy, &c., humbly presented in the High Court of Parliament. London, 1641.”

“To the Rt. Honourable the Knights, Citizens and Burgesses assembled in the Commons House this present Parliament.

“Humbly showing to the Honourable Assembly that one William Lang, Vicar of the Parish of Bradworthie aforesaid, having for about eighteen yeers last past grievously vexed his parishioners with infinite Vexations and causeless Suits to their exceeding great oppression, and to the ruine and undoings of many of them, and lived with great dishonour to God, and scandall to the Ministrie; He, the said Lang, being guiltie of Symonie, Common Barretrie, Forgerie, Practising to poyson some, and Endeavouring to pistoll others of his Parishioners, with many other foule and gross misdemeanors, particularlie set forth, and expressed in the paper herewith annexed, the consideration whereof is hereby humbly presented to the Honorable Assemblie.

“That the said Lang lived till he was about the age of 30 yeers by day-labour, and daily hedged and ditched, threshed and carried Sand, in the same Parish, and places adjacent, being never admitted of any Universitie.

“That then he became a Sheriffe’s Bayliffe and arrested divers in his own person.

“That about 20 yeers since he forged several Warrants, and the Justices of Assizes having notice thereof, gave order for his Apprehension, whereupon he fled into Ireland.

“That about four yeers after, he returned and pretended he had taken Orders in Ireland, and did officiate as a hireling Reader, untill by Carey, Bishop of Exeter, he was suspended for foule misdemeanors.

“That he purchased his Vicarage of Bradworthie for Money, by unlawful Symony, by means of one Robert Yee (Yeo), who being demanded by some how he should make a Common Bailiff (naming Lang) Vicar of Bradworthie, who answered that he had then such power, that if his Horse-head could but speak, he could have made him Vicar of Bradworthie.

“That same Lang, being desirous to be licensed to preach and pray, conscious of his own Insufficiencie to undergo Examination, procured one Nicholas Hunny to be examined for him by the name of William Lang, and so goes for a Preaching Minister.

“That ever since he hath been Vicar, he hath taken upon him to be a common Soliciter of Causes in the Courts at Westminster, and frequented London Tearmly, and taken Money for Solicitations.

“That he hath commenced Causeless Suits against his Parishioners in the Court of Star-Chamber, the Court of High Commission, the Court of Audience, the County Court of Devon, the Consistory Court at Exeter, all at once, and hath had above fourtie severall Suits at one time, and above eightie of his Parishioners and others in Suite at one time, and having by vexatious Suits utterlie undone divers of them, their wives and children.

“That he hath had four Bills in the Star-Chambre depending at one time against fourty of his Parishioners, where some have depended twelve yeers, and thereby compelled his Parishioners to travell to London, tearmely from Bradworthie, being 200 miles distant.

“That divers of his Parishioners have several Times been enforced to give Compositions to him, whereof some have payed to him £40, some ten, some four pounds, some lesse, at his pleasure to redeem them from oppression and causeless Suits.

“That he hath prosecuted Nicolas Eliot with unjust and causeless suits this twenty yeers and upward, to his damage above £500, and hath utterly undone him, his wife and children, and hath kept him excommunicate for these two years last past.

“That he hath of meere malice … undone Robert Judd, his wife and children, by taking wrongfully from them his lands and goods to the value of above £300, not leaving him worth one mouthful of Bread; and in this extreme Povertie did cast into Prison the said Robert Judd, and excommunicated him this eight yeers last past; and the said Judd doth still stand unabsolved, notwithstanding there is no cause against him; nor did his malice cease there, for he hath prosecuted Robt. Judd’s children to their imprisonment and ruine.

“That he having about six or seven yeers since agreed with Anthony Nicholl, one of his Parishioners, for fourteen shillings per annum, in lieu of the Tithes of his Tenement, did notwithstanding shortly after sue Nicholl and threaten him that unless he would give him Twenty shillings per annum, and £5 for so quiet a composition, he would make him spend more yeerly than the Rent of his Tenement, and so forced Nicholl to a new Agreement, and gave him a note under his hand, that for 20 shillings per ann. he should, etc… Yet two yeers after the latter Agreement he sued Nicholl and forced him to compound by paying 24 shillings per annum, and £5 for his Love.

“That for 3d due he sued Richard Snowe, in the Consistorie at Exeter, and put him to £4 or £5 charge about it.

“That he suborned Gabriel Williams of Torrington to enforce actions against his Parishioners.

“So he forced William Cann, John Bishop, Richard Lile, Lewis Dennis, Robert Terdrew, John Yee, to come to composition with him.

“That he hath affirmed that if his Chancell were full of Gold and Silver, he would spend it all to be avenged of his Enemies, and that he would never give over his Parishioners with Suits, untill he lay down like a Hare before the Hounds.

“He dealt with one Christopher Pugsley to poyson four of his Parishioners, Thomas Vigers, Richard Facye, Robert Bishop, and Thomas Boundye, and gave 20s 6d to said Pugsley to buy Ratsbane with promise of Money upon the Fact committed, which Pugsley attempted three Times, and besides there is more than Suspicion that he poysoned his Predecessor’s Wife, whose Estate he had, and was tied to maintain her during her Life.

“That he Conspired to cause the Death of his Predecessor Twiggs.

“That he carried a Pistoll to kill Mr. Thomas Vigurs then in Suit with him, and did threaten Thomas Woodroffe, a Minister.

“That he dealt with Pugsley to burn the Barn and Corn Mowes of Samuel Chappell.

“That he committed divers Forgeries since he hath been Vicar of Bradworthie.

“That during his Absence above 7 yeers since he left Matthew Lile, a Miller, to read Prayers in Church, and since then Philip Natt, a Taylor.

“That he causeth Dorothie Lang, his daughter, to catechise in Church.

“That being required to baptize a child, he bade the Woman to cast a Dish of Water in the face of the child, and call it John or Joan, in the Name of, etc., and this would be well enough. Which Child lived more than 10 weeks after and died unbaptized.

“That he obtained a Licence to sell Wine, and hath kept a Tavern in the Vicarage for four yeers.

“That a Child being baptized, the Woman that held the Child softly and modestly requested him to put back the Child’s Head-covering; he answered, ‘Go thy Wayes home, and teach thy Maid to whip her Cat.’

“That being requested by a parent to christen her child, he answered, ‘What, wilt thou have me christen thy Old Sow?’

“That he affirms the Book of Canticles to be but a kind of bawdy Song.

“That he never preacheth or catechiseth in the Afternoon on Sabbath Days, but goes to the Alehouse, and makes himself so drunk that he can neither go nor stand.” When this was published William Lang was a prisoner in London.

That there is considerable exaggeration in these charges – I have not given all – goes without saying, but that there was a strong case against the vicar nevertheless cannot be doubted. The facts of his legal proceedings against his parishioners were indisputable; the surmises that he had poisoned Mr. and Mrs. Twigg are worthless. That his daughter catechized in church is harmless enough; it is what is done by many a parson’s daughter nowadays where there is no Sunday-school room.

Reckless charges and complaints against the clergy whom their parishioners did not like were eagerly received by the Parliament on one side and by the King on the other. Thus Larkham, the intruding vicar of Tavistock, was petitioned against, and the petition put into the King’s own hand, with twenty-four articles against him, imputing faction, heresy, witchcraft, rebellion, and treason. This was in 1639 or 1640.

Mark Twigg, the vicar, was buried on 9 November, 1622, and seems to have been a son of Ralph Twigg, of Lawhitton, and Joan, daughter of John Cory, of Putford. His widow was buried by Lang in 1638, so that if Lang had the charge of her he endured it for sixteen years. The wife of W. Lang was Helen Hockin; he married her in 1607.

Lang was succeeded by Elias Eastaway in 1641. He was buried 10 June, 1646, when his son, of the same name, quietly stepped into his place. This Elias married Penelope Cleverdon on 25 March, 1647–8; and his daughter, Elizabeth, was baptized 23 January, 1647, before they were married, and she was buried 30 June. Elias had a son of the same name baptized 14 November, 1649, and a daughter in 1652, another son, Elias, in 1653, and a son, Richard, in 1656, and a daughter, Margaret, 1659.

Elias was quite ready to conform, so as to retain his living, at the Restoration, though he had been a burning and a shining light among the Puritans. He held the living till his death in 1680. He had been instituted 10 January, 1648–9, only a few days before the execution of the King.

WILLIAM COOKWORTHY

Augustus was about to indulge the Romans in a great series of spectacles, races in the circus, gladiatorial shows in the arena, and theatrical performances, all gratis, free and for nothing. Down came the rain in torrents all night. The streets were swimming, the Tiber swelled and rolled down a volume of yellow water. The good folks of Rome were in despair. But when morning dawned the skies cleared, the sun shone forth, the streets dried as by magic, and the shows were carried out with the utmost splendour. At night on the palace wall was scrawled in chalk: —

It rained all night, the day was bright,Jove and Augustus share All-might.

Augustus was flattered and asked who had written these lines. Presently a poetaster, Bathylus, stood forward and confessed that he was the author, and was rewarded most liberally. Next night, the same lines were written on the wall, and under them the line: “I wrote the verse, another claimed the fame,” and underneath four times repeated “Sic vos non vobis,” or “Thus you, but not for you.” Bathylus was sent for and required to complete the lines. He scratched his head, turned red, and declared his inability to do this. Then from the throng came a tall, swarthy man, modest in his bearing, and wrote in chalk: —

Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves,Sic vos non vobis velera fertis oves,Sic vos non vobis melificatis apes,Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves.

That may be rendered thus: —

Thus you, but not for you, birds build their nest,Thus you, but not for you, ye sheep in fleeces drest,Thus you, but not for you, ye bees the honey drain,Thus you, but not for you, ye oxen ploughing strain.

He who wrote this was P. Virgilius Maro, and Bathylus became the laughing-stock of Rome.

I tell this story because up to a certain point it illustrates the fortunes of William Cookworthy. At the present day many hundreds of men live in ease and happiness through the discovery of china-clay by Cookworthy, but he himself reaped no advantage by what he discovered.

The town of St. Austell in Cornwall may be said to live on china-clay that is exported to the Staffordshire potteries. Before the discovery by Cookworthy, it was not known that the kaolin, the essential ingredient of porcelain, was to be found anywhere, except in China. But Cookworthy, who has put bread into the mouths of thousands, who created the manufacture of porcelain in England out of home-produced kaolin, reaped not a penny advantage from his discovery.

Kaolin is found elsewhere, in Devon, on the fringe of Dartmoor. Now, the visitor to Plymouth, as he passes by the head of the Laira, will see a milk-white stream flow past the line. It is the overflow from the kaolin works at Lee Moor. Cookworthy did not, however, discover the china-clay on the borders of Dartmoor, where it abounds.

China-clay or kaolin is obtained from highly decomposed granite, and consists of the disintegrated and metamorphosed felspar of that rock. Often on the outskirts of the granitic masses of Cornwall the rock is so decomposed by the percolation of rain-water holding carbonic acid in solution that the granite may be dug with a spade to the depth of twenty feet or more. China-stone also is found similarly composed of disintegrated granite, and contains quartz as well as kaolin. It is used in the manufacture of glaze for earthenware. From S. Austell, where three thousand persons are engaged in raising and cleaning the kaolin, something like forty thousand tons are annually exported to Staffordshire for the manufacture of porcelain. But it is employed also largely in the calico-weaving districts as the principal ingredient in sizing and loading calico. It is also used in paper manufacture for the highly glazed and smooth sheets employed for illustrations.

But to come to William Cookworthy. He belonged to a Quaker family of Kingsbridge. His grandfather, William Cookworthy, married Susanna Wearmouth in 1669, and died in 1708. His father, a weaver, also William Cookworthy, born in 1670, married Edith Dobell in 1704, and died in 1718. William the third Cookworthy was born in 1705. After the father’s death the widow was left in straitened circumstances, and received assistance from the Friends’ Monthly Meeting. Although reduced to poverty, with a family of seven children, the eldest only fourteen years old, the widow struggled bravely through her difficulties. William, the eldest son, was apprenticed after his father’s death to the firm of Bevan, chemists and druggists, London, also Quakers. At the close of his apprenticeship, with the assistance of his employers, he set up for himself as a wholesale chemist and druggist at Plymouth, the firm being entitled Bevan and Cookworthy, and the place of business was in Notte Street, and here he lived for many years, and there died.