Devonshire Characters and Strange Events

When the Devon Volunteers landed in South Africa, Sir Edward saw to their disembarkation, and also saw them leave for the front. One of the Barnstaple men relates that as they moved away Sir Edward put his hands to his mouth, funnel-wise, and shouted: “Mind, you Devon chaps, give the Boers a d – d good hiding.”

During the war Sir Edward stayed in one of the smallest hotels in Cape Town, near the docks, as more convenient to his work than one that was larger and up town. But the food provided there was execrable. Sir Edward, unable to stomach this, one day provided himself with a gigantic cheese that he had purchased, and entered the coffee-room carrying it, and thereon he made his lunch.

At the same time there was staying in the hotel a Dutchman whom every one looked upon as a spy. In the evening Sir Edward was late for dinner, and the Hollander early. Imagine, therefore, the gallant captain’s disgust when on entering the room he found the Dutchman tucking into his cheese. He paused in the doorway, stared, and then thundered out: “I say, waiter, look there! I’m d – d if that Boer spy isn’t eating my cheese! By heavens, it’s a bullet or two he should have inside him and not my cheese!”

Every one but the Dutchman burst into a roar of laughter.

He was made C.B. in October, 1900, and was naval A.D.C. to Queen Victoria, and afterwards to the King, from 1899 to 1904. On his return from South Africa he took command of the fleet reserve at Devonport. He was promoted to Rear-Admiral in January, 1902, and on June 10th, 1904, was appointed Admiral-Superintendent, with charge of His Majesty’s naval establishments at Gibraltar. He had married the daughter of the late Commander R. C. Whyte, R.N., of Instow, in 1880, and by her had four sons and six daughters.

He returned to England hale and cheerful in 1900. On arriving in North Devon he was welcomed by his tenantry with great rejoicings, and was presented with an illuminated address, which was read in the presence of a large assembly of local notabilities by his brother, the rector of Sherwill. His first words in reply were, “You said that very well, Pass’n Charles.”

He went back to his duties at Gibraltar, where he died on September 17th, 1906. The body was brought to Plymouth in the Formidable, and thence conveyed by train to North Devon, and the obsequies took place at Sherwill. Sir Edward had seldom resided at Youlston when in England, but at his bungalow, Instow.

“Outside his own country and navy,” said the Paris edition of the New York Herald, “the untimely death of Rear-Admiral Chichester, R.N., cannot be more regretted than by the American people and its naval service. During the critical period succeeding the capture of Manila, this British officer proved himself a steadfast supporter of our rights in those waters. While scrupulously observing the obligations imposed on him as a neutral, his official and personal conduct strengthened the hands of Admiral Dewey, harassed as he was by the inexplicable and annoying performances of the German admiral on that station. The prompt and graceful action of Rear-Admiral Brownson on his arrival off Gibraltar, with the American armoured cruiser division, in furnishing an escort for the funeral of this distinguished officer, will therefore be earnestly approved by our Government and people. It was both a recognition of the personal esteem in which Rear-Admiral Chichester was held, and a fitting official testimony to the services rendered by him when our friends were few and far between.”

The Morning Chronicle said: “Admiral Sir Edward Chichester was a splendid specimen of the British naval officer. In physique, in his bluff heartiness of manner, in his racy conversation, in the very roll of his walk, he was every inch a sailor. Wherever he went he carried with him the savour of the sea. A thorough West-countryman – a man ‘of Bideford in Devon’ – he preserved the traditions of the old Elizabethan sailors, and seemed indeed to be in the lineal succession to Grenville and Hawkins, to Drake and Raleigh.”

Equally sympathetic was a notice in the Standard: —

“In Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Chichester there has passed away a sailor after Lord St. Vincent’s own heart. We had said after Nelson’s, but Nelson had no hand in the administrative work of the Navy, in which Sir Edward took so great, if subordinate, a share. He belonged to a class which will probably become more and more rare in the Navy – the type of blunt sailor who is a sailor first, second and last, but who, just because he is all a sailor, is also an inimitable diplomatist, prompt and resolute, seeking no quarrel, but fearing no responsibility. We do not for a moment imply that these qualities are not to be found in abundance in the new Navy; but the naval officer of to-day has the habits and manners of the world in a degree to which a sailor of the school of Sir Edward Chichester did not attain.”

At a dinner given in honour of Sir Redvers Buller in Exeter, in November, 1900, the late Lord Clinton, in the course of a speech on that occasion, said: —

“I believe if ever there was the right man in the right place, it was Sir Edward Chichester. Go outside England – go to America, and ask what is thought of him there. We know that the opinion is very high. I believe if the American Navy were at war, and found Sir Edward Chichester on the high seas without an escort, they would kidnap him, and place him at the head of the American Navy. Many American stories are told about Sir Edward. They are perhaps not all true. But if not all true, I think they are well conceived. There is one I have heard about an admiral who greatly admired Sir Edward, and greatly admired England. The admiral bought a lion cub, and wishing always to have the type of Britain before him, he called it Chichester. Sir Edward Chichester, I dare say to his sorrow, was never a combatant officer in this war, but his heart was with his gallant comrades who arrived so opportunely at Ladysmith.”

Some remarkable coincidences were noted on the occasion of the death of Admiral Chichester.

His flagship, the sloop Cormorant, was formally paid off on the date of his death, and recommissioned for similar service under Rear-Admiral J. G. C. Goodrich, who left Plymouth for Gibraltar to take up his appointment. In accord with an arrangement made some weeks before, the battleship Formidable was directed to call at Gibraltar and embark the paid-off men of the Cormorant for passage home. The Formidable on reaching Gibraltar received the news of Sir Edward’s death, and was at once ordered to arrange for the body to be received on board, so that the late admiral and the crew of his flagship came home in the same vessel – a vessel which was also bound to her paying-off port. The paying-off of a flagship on the same day as that on which the death took place of the admiral whose flag she bore was probably unique in the annals of the British Navy. It was also a noteworthy circumstance that Rear-Admiral Goodrich, who in the ordinary way would have succeeded Admiral Chichester early in the ensuing month, left Plymouth Sound on the very same day as that on which the body of his predecessor arrived at that port from Gibraltar.

The speech of Captain Chichester to the German admiral – “That is a matter known only to Dewey and me” – may be seen inscribed in the Naval School in Annapolis, U.S.A., where it embellishes one of the walls of the academy. It may be noted that Annapolis is one of the most British towns in the United States, in the style of its streets and architecture generally, and there is surely no English name more beloved in the American Navy than that of bluff old Admiral Chichester.

1

Whiteway’s Wine of the West Country.

2

They are not so represented in the three lithographs that were published at Torquay. But two others beside this correspondent mention their appearance in “bloomers.”

3

M. B. Synge, A Short History of Social Life in England. London, 1906.

4

Whitfeld, Plymouth and Devonport, in Times of War and Peace, 1890, pp. 296–7.

5

“Venez en bas, et montez le ‘Scuttle’ et allez en bas.”

6

“Lady Howard, of Fitzford,” in Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1890.

7

Mr. J. R. Chanter, “A History of Lundy Island,” in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1871. Reprinted in Lundy Island, 1877.

8

W. Cotton, “An Expedition against Pirates,” in Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1886.

9

R. Pearse Chope, “Benson, M.P. and Smuggler,” in the Hartland Chronicle, 1906.

10

Chanter, Lundy Island, 1877. Besides Mr. Chanter’s History, my authority is Mr. R. P. Chope’s articles on “Lundy Pirates” and on “Benson” in the Hartland Chronicle, 1906.

11

In the tract, twenty-two.

12

For this last instance, see Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1900, p. 84.

13

Depositions relating to Mr. Stucley’s doings in Spain, August, 1571, quoted by Froude in his History of England.

14

O. King to Burghley, 18 February, 1572. Ibid.

15

Letter from T. Lorkin to Sir T. Puckering.

16

The ballad, with its melody, is given in Songs of the West, 2nd ed., 1905.

17

This play was by Charles Johnson – not the author of the Lives of the Pirates. It was acted at Drury Lane in 1713. John Dennis wrote to the Master of the Revels to expostulate with him for having licensed this play, which he considered as a prostitution of the stage, an encouragement to villainy, and a disgrace to the theatre.

18

We might be led to suppose that we were reading of the proceedings of the Belgians in the Congo Free State.

19

“The Early Poetry of Devonshire” in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association for 1874.

20

She was daughter of George Cain, carpenter, and was baptized 8 December, 1728.

21

Annie Davies, died 6 February, 1815; buried in South Audley Street Church.

22

His pupils paid him £210 each.

23

His grammar is here perplexed.

24

Reprinted in the Journal of the Royal Institute of Cornwall, 1904.

25

Worthy (C.), Devonshire Parishes, II, pp. 371–4. Exon., 1888.

26

Switzer, Introduction to Hydrostatics and Hydraulics, p. 342.

27

Smiles, Lives of Boulton and Watt, pp. 62–8. London, 1865.

28

Pengelly (W.), “Notes on Slips,” in Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1882.

29

Entries in an old Bible, in the Western Antiquary, 1885, p. 196.

30

Universal Magazine for 1781.

31

Memoirs of P. Stockdale, I, 313–14. London, 1809.

32

“The Exmoor Scolding and Courtship,” by T. N. Brushfield, M.D., in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association for 1888.

33

See W. F. Collier, “Wrestling,” in the Cornish Magazine, Vol. I, 1898.

34

For a full account, most graphically written, and from which I have quoted, see Mr. Whitfeld’s Plymouth and Devonport, in War and Peace, Plymouth, 1900; also the Sporting Magazine for 1826–7; the Annual Register, 1826.

35

Thornton (Rev. W. H.), Reminiscences of an Old West-country Clergyman, 1897.

36

R. N. Worth, Transactions of Devonshire Association, 1876.

37

Law Magazine, Vol. VII, p. 331.

38

Sir W. Jones’ Works (1799), Vol. IV, p. 577.

39

Mackenzie’s History of the Macleods, p. 431, says it was Anna Maria who married John Wilson. He does not mention her sister Isabella at all. Burke’s Landed Gentry of 1846 mentions Isabella but not Elizabeth.

40

Whitfeld, Plymouth and Devonport, in War and Peace, p. 244.

41

This is probably the second man shot when crouching against the wall mentioned by Andrews

42

Neither of these charges was investigated by the Commissioners, as beyond the scope of their inquiry, which was confined to the actual “massacre.”

43

Both Dr. Magrath and Lieut. Avelyn deny in their depositions that on this occasion Captain Shortland was intoxicated.

44

“He went down with the military with both hands in his breeches pockets.” Evidence of James Carley, turnkey.

45

This contravenes the statement made by the prisoners in their memorandum.

46

Captain Shortland pretended that the soldiers charged without his having given the command – all evidence to the contrary. The Commissioners did not believe him.

47

David Spencer Warren, one of the witnesses, said: “Captain Shortland, when he told them to fire, was in front, one soldier beside him. They might have fired at his side or over him without hurting him.”

48

This disposes of the allegation of the prisoners that Shortland had placed the soldiers there before the ringing of the alarm bell.

49

This disposes of the charge made by the prisoners that no proper notice was given them that they were to turn in.

50

The stone-throwing did not take place in the outer yard or Market Square where these two warders were, but later in the inner yard.

51

This is disingenuous. He says nothing about the forcible breaking open of the gate.

52

This was James Greenlaw.

53

This is contrary to the general evidence, and contrary to his subsequent admission.

54

Burnard (R.), Dartmoor Pictorial Records, IV. Plymouth, 1894.

55

For fuller accounts of the house and family see Transactions of the Devonshire Association, Vols. XXXII and XXXV.

56

For in that year “Roger de Nort’ Wyke” appears in the jury list of S.T. Hundred (Assize Roll, Devon, 175, m. 35).

57

See Notes and Queries, 10, S. VIII, pp. 9, 73, 74. – E. L. – W.