James Woodford, carpenter and chartist

Front matter

JAMES WOODFORD, CARPENTER AND CHARTIST. LONDON: gilbert and ritington, printers, st. John's square. JAMES WOODEORD, CARPENTER AND CHARTIST. II r HENRY SOLLY, author op "working men's clubs /and institutes," "the shepherd's dream," " gonzaga : a tale of florence," ETC. IN TWO VOLUMES. YOL. I. Eon .on : SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON. SEA.RLE, & RIVINGTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. 1881. \_All rights reserved.] TO J. R. SEELEY, M.A., BEGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. Dear Mr. Seeley, The following pages, I regret to say, are the best, or at all events the only answer I can give to a request you once made me that I should write an his torical sketch of the Chartist movement from mj own personal recollections. Though I cannot offer you what you asked for, I think " James Woodford " practically supplies an important part of the historical links you desire; and I can only hope you and others will accept them " for better, for worse," though they may be by no means better but decidedly worse than you expected.

I am aware that you object to mingling history and fiction. You urge that, of course, history is of no use unless so far as we can rely on its accuracy. But in the present case I can guarantee the historic truth of all the portions of Woodford's narrative relating to public events and public characters. You may accept them with entire confidence. While as regards the mingling with history, private biography and adventures (whether real or fictitious), you will for give me for holding to my belief that the additional VI INTRODUCTORY LETTER. vividness and reality thereby given to the facts and lessons of history, far outweighs the drawback of a want of absolute accuracy with regard to the private narrative. But I fully admit that such historic fic tion, or semi-fiction, should be given to the world, not as a substitute for the regular historic record, but only as an addition.

Apart, however, from any slight historical value the following "recollections " ofa Chartist carpenter aud joiner may possess, I think they may have a certain special value, at the present time, to those persons (a numerous class) who desire to be of use to the great industrial classes of this kingdom. For they accu rately describe what various workmen of the past and present generation think and feel on many important points vitally affecting the welfare of the whole com munity. Without pledging myself as to all the details of Woodford's personal narrative, I can vouch for its truth as representing, with complete fidelity, the views and modes of thought of large numbers of operatives in regard to those topics ; and I have reason to know that working men, generally, would accept it as, on the whole, a thoroughly faithful picture of what it professes to describe.

Chapter I

It was a snowy Saturday night, in De cember, and we were talking about the Thatchers, for there had been a row over there earlier in the evening, and father had gone across to try and stop it, and had just come back. I remember mother saying — " Fifteen years ago, who'd have thought it 'ud a' come to this ! Why, it was one of the prettiest little weddings as ever I see, for I remember a lot of us elder Sun day school girls went up to church, and brought her a few flowers. Poor Polly ! she was always a favourite wherever she went, though she was so pretty — and vain enough for two." " Aye," said my father, chiming in, " she were a beauty, and no mistake, and though I was but a lad, I fancied myself in love with her, hke the rest of us. Do you mind our coming over from Ockerton, Molly, that Sunday morning, and bringing those dog-roses and things ?

We all thought it a fine thing to get married, and looked up to Tom Thatcher as a confounded lucky dog. Tom was a good-looking, strapping young chap at that time, he was." " Yes," said mother, " and I remember how the kind old vicar (I wish we had one as good among us now) looked at them admiring like, and yet a bit sorrowfully, I thought, as he shook hands, and they went off to make their mark in the book. He had seen a good many young couples go from that altar quite as well looking and happy ; and some of them hadn't too much luck arterwards." Then we all sat quiet, looking into the fire. Presently says I, " What happened to them, then ? " "What happened? " said my dad. " Why this happened. The young fellow had just got a situation of twelve shillings a week, a cottage, and pickings, as farming man up there at the Hall, Squire Fletcher's. He was a Lunnon banker you know, making heaps of money in town, and wasting a bit of it pretty freely, as I could see, in what they call " hamatoor " farming down here.

Well, Tom That eher got the benefit of it, and he went to work with a will on the bit o' farm, and she looked arter the cows and poultry, and I often used to think as I went about the place, what a nice life of it they had." " But how came you to see so much of them, then, father ? " " Why, don't you know I was the gentle man's carpenter, Jemmy, kept on reg'lar at work all the year round, on the fences, and carts, and repairs in and out o' doors ? And I got the place, Master Jemmy, just afore you were born," said my father, stroking my head kindly, as if I had been the cat. Then there wTas another silence, till father went on again, rather slowly, — " Poor Polly. But troubles didn't come all at once. I remember some time afore I went to the Hall for good, I were doing a job for my master, and I saw she had got a bonny little girl in her arms, and looked as bright and happy as you could wish."

I looked at mother, and gave a bit of a wink. " That's Maggie," says I, " she comes to our Sunday School." Mother smiled but said nothing, and father went on, — " After a time there were more children, and then there were complaints up at the Hall about the milk and eggs, and the young mother was accused of keeping what she didn't ought to. Then Thatcher was too fond of the ' Three Blackbirds,' — but the worst job of all was he and a lot more of Essex carters got drinking one day at a ' public ' in Whitechapel, after he had been selling Squire's hay, and when he came home the money was short, and he said he'd been robbed. But the master was told how Tom had been standing treat, and then how they got to ' tossing for pots.' So there was a reg'lar row about it, and Tom, he'd have had the sack at once, but Polly goes up to Madam, and sobbed herself into ' his-strikes,' and pro mised it should never happen again.

But somehow arter that the Squire was always very stern with Tom, and seemed to be always suspecting him like, and Tom sulked, and his wife was peevish, for the children came fast, and he was a great deal more at the ' Three Blackbirds ' than was good for any of them, except land lord. He made a good thing of 'em all, he did. Well, you see, one night, about six o'clock, it was getting dusk, and I was just shutting up my workshop in the coachyard, when I heard such a row in Thatcher's cottage. He was swearing at his wife like a costermonger, and she scolding like twenty cats, and then I heard a scream, so I ran down and coachman after me — he was just putting his horses to — and there lay poor Polly all of a heap, for the brute had knocked her clean over. ' This won't do, Master Tom,' says I, and we picked the poor woman up, and found she was more frightened than hurt, though her eye was blackened.

Then Tom wanted to fight me, but coachman wouldn't let us, and he went out, up the yard, swearing worse than ever, and as he went up to wards the Hall, not thinking in his cups what he was about, who should he meet but young Master Fletcher come to ask what was the matter, and why the carriage didn't come round. So Tom, seeing him, turns sharp round on us, who were just behind him, gives coachman a noser, which makes him look hke a butcher, and runs off to the barn. Young master gets all the story out of coachman in the heat of the moment, for he was mortal angry, as was natural, and next day Tom and his wife got notice to cut, this time for good and all. I never saw a little chap look so flabbergasted as poor Master Edward that night, for he was a kind-hearted, delicate little fellow, you know, and he was very fond of poor Polly, and of Tom too, for that matter.

Tom used to put him up on the cart-horses and take him about the fields, so he cried like a baby when they were going. Tom's worked on the roads ever since. He'll not get another berth like that in a hurry." I was very unhappy myself by this time, for before that night I sometimes thought my pretty Maggie had got trouble at home, and it was plain enough now, that the " scrimmage " which had made my father go over to the Thatchers' an hour or two before, wasn't the first thing of the kind there, nor likely to be the last. When I saw Maggie at Sunday school, next day, looking so pretty and down hearted, and as if she had a world of shame and trouble to hide, and then heard her in the choir afterwards singing like an angel, I said to myself, " Now, Jemmy Woodford, you see what you've got to do for the rest of your days.

You'll just help Maggie Thatcher to bear her troubles, and bring her better days, mind that ! " And so I've tried my best to do it ever since ; God knows that. But not exactly in the way I once thought it might be. Though, perhaps, it was all for the best. I couldn't think so, however, for a long time, and I'm not sure about it now. I often thought it very hard, for I knew Maggie first, and, I may as well say it outright, I loved her from that day, with all my heart, though we were but mere boy and girl ; couldn't help loving her, and always shall. Well, there was a lad came to be appren ticed to father, named Davie Roberts. He and I took to each other, though he was a year or so younger than myself. But he was a bold, daring, venturesome lad, and yet as tenderhearted as a girl. I got him to come to Sunday school, for I liked my teacher, and knew it 'ud do Davie good ; but he had been knocked about at day school (and at home too), and when he found he weren't to be licked at Sunday school, he gave teachers a deal of trouble.

He seemed to enjoy teasing them, and didn't get much good, I thought, from coming ; but years after, I know he looked back sorrowfully enough to their patient kindness, and that did him a deal o' good when he and they were miles apart. Their teaching wasn't all lost. But at the time, he only seemed to care about what he called asserting his independence, and revenging himself on anybody as taught him for bad treatment elsewhere. For all that, he was such a bright, high-spirited young chap ; all the girls liked him, and I soon saw Maggie Thatcher thought a good deal of him. I fancy he became a sort of hero in her eyes, because he was always getting into scrapes somewhere, and getting punished for them. Sometimes she was very angry with him, but still always admired him, and was uncommon sad when at last one Sunday he was declared to be " the baddest boy in the whole school," and was going* to be expelled.

Yet it wasn't wickedness in him, or I know she'd have hated him. And I fancy the thought came in her mind that perhaps she could reform him ; for I came upon 'em once by a stile, and she was half crying, and begging him to be a better lad, and not vex teachers so, and if he'd promise, she would speak to her own teacher and try to get him kept on. I passed on as quick as I could, with merely a " good night," but I could see his face was as red as a turkey-cock's comb, and I suppose he did promise, for though he never took much to his lessons, either there or anywhere else, he was kept on, and behaved a deal better; and about a year afterwards, when the Squire and Parson gave the " School Treat," and the prizes,— young Davie, he gets a prize for good behaviour ! Maggie, as usual, got two or three, and when I saw them in a corner of the field after tea, showing each other their books, I guessed how it was all going.

I should have liked well enough to show my beautiful books to the pretty little lass, God bless her ! But it wasn't to be ; and I tried not to be so mean as to envy him, for I could see how happy he was. There was another little lass came to that school, whom the lads thought a good deal of, and a prettier, livelier little maid than Kitty Barber one wouldn't often see. She was a merry soul, to be sure, at that time ; always up to fun and mischief, and making everybody as merry as herself when they'd let her. We used to call her " Puss-in-Boots," because she used to come to school one winter in a rare fine pair of fur-edged boots, of which she was mighty proud and made a great show of, and her name being Kitty, it all suited very well. But though she was so merry and bright, I wasn't over fond of her, for you see she was an orphan brought up by an uncle and aunt, who lived near the Thatchers', and Maggie Thatcher had always been uncommon kind to her.

I often thought what a blessing it was to Kitty, or might have been, to have as a friend a girl with Maggie's good sense and modesty, to keep her flightiness in check ; and I knew that many a time Maggie's advice would have kept poor little " Puss-in-Boots " out of scrapes; and many's the time, too, when Maggie's candle was burning at night that she might mend Kitty's old clothes, or to get her ready for church and school in her new finery. So I didn't like to hear Maggie made fun of and laughed at behind her back by a girl to whom she had been like a little mother. Nor I didn't like the sharp things Kitty would say to Maggie, some times to her face, when Davie and a lot of us was by, and so make all the other boys laugh at Maggie. She didn't mean any thing particular unkind, and didn't think how ungrateful it was to her benefactor.

But there, — Kitty thought a deal of Davie Roberts, like most of the other girls, and that made her tongue stiuging when she saw he thought so much of Maggie. I suppose that's all as it generally is. As for Maggie, she came down upon Kitty sharp enough, I fancy, when they were by themselves after one of these little affairs ; but she kept on being her friend, and working for her all the same, and never changed. Father, coming home latish one night, told us he had been kept at the Hall, fixing a temporary work-bench over a sofa for young Master Edward, who had met with an accident at school some days ago, and had to be brought home in the carriage. " He is a lively young chap," said my father. " And as full of funny fancies as an egg is of meat," added my mother. " Do you mind his harnessing our little Jem to his wheelbarrow along with the big Newfound land dog, and making 'em tear round the grounds after dark last winter, with a penny trumpet and the stable lanthorn ?

" We all laughed, and says I, " He is a nice young chap, free with his apples and marbles, and not a bit of pride in him." But father turned sharp on me, and says he, quite stern-like, " Jem, how dare you take things from the young master ? I won't have my sons cringing to rich folk for apples or anything else." " But I don't cringe, father ; he will have me take them, and I never asked him for nothing in my life, and you shouldn't say so ! " I added, for my b;ick was up. " Don't answer your father like that, sir," said mother. There was a brother chip, named Bill Stokes, supping with us that night ; came to Broadfield to consult father about a job at the school at Ockerton, where young Master Fletcher went, and where he was employed. So to make things pleasant again, he says, " Ah ! I mind when that young chap first went to Ockerton School, my heart sometimes ached for him, among all those rough lads.

For you see he seemed rather delicate and only used to women-folk, and there were some precious young blackguards and bullies in the Doc tor's team. I've seen the tears in his eyes many a time, but he got laughed out of all that, and holds his head up now with the best." "Aye," said my father, " And I hope he'll have cried enough over his own little troubles to have some feeling, when he grows up, for the big troubles of others. Poor folk in this land want a word said for them, now-a-days. " Bully makes bully, we used to say," answered our visitor. " But, howsomever. vol. i. c I suppose the big folk are beginning to speak up for the little 'uns. They carried that 'ere Reform Bill in first-rate style over the Tories heads and the Duke's sword ! " " Yes," replied my father, " but I don't see as it's doiug us any good.

I've no need to grumble, but I can't abear to hear how all the poor folk are suffering in Spital Fields and down in Leicester and Notting ham, and all through Lancashire and York shire, and over in Ireland. Big Dan may well beat his big drum for ' Repale ' as he calls it ! I tell you what it is, mate," continued my father, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, " the rich folk don't know what poor folks feel, and what's more they don't know how to treat 'em like Chris tians." " Like Christians ! " echoed our friend. " They don't treat 'em as well as their dogs and horses, though they do look on us as some sort of inferior creature." " I've wondered to hear that nice little chap, Master Fletcher," said my father, " talking sometimes about his father's ser vants and work-people as if they were so many niggers.

Yet he'll be as sociable and friendly with me as you please when he comes to handle my tools in the work shop. It's only bad bringing up, and hearing his governor talk about the lower orders, and such like, in that nasty proud way." " Well, we'll have our innings some day," chuckled Mr. Stokes, rubbing his hands cheerfully. " We must keep our eyes open, and look out for our chance, Woodford." So rising, he shook hands and departed, leaving me in great wonderment as to how and when " poor folk " were to get their innings, and who would bowl to them, and what bats they would use, all which became plain to me, and a good many more, in due time. c

Chapter II

Time went on, and I was out of my ap prenticeship ; and through father's speaking for me to Squire Fletcher, I got a good berth at once in the yard of a friend of his (a great timber-merchant), down at Rotherhithe ; and who should come down a year or two later to live there for a time but young Master Edward himself. I had made a few acquaintances, but they were not worth much, and a deal too fond of the beer to suit my book. So I was un commonly glad when the young gentle man took to me pretty heartily ; for all that he wTas rather proud, and made me understand there was a difference between us. But when he did talk and make him self agreeable — ah, there was nothing I had known like it. Lucky for me he was very fond of rowing, and it was hardly safe for him to go on the river there by himself, because of the lot of steamers and craft of all kind, up and down every minute, and the strong tides and the timber-rafts.

So, as I had got handy with my oar, he used to ask for me to go with him now and again ; and so we often had a good pull together. He was uncom monly plucky, I should say, on the water, and rare fun it often was. But the way in which we dodged the steamers some times made my flesh creep a bit, not being a regular boatman, and Master Edward a very bad swimmer. Then at night some times he would stand talking with me a bit on the wharf. He had got to look after the erection and management of some new machinery for a patent, and a mill-wright and one of the engine-fitters stayed to watch the experiments when the machinery was ready, sometimes half through the night ; so they and I used to have many a chat. They were very intelligent, steady fellows in the main, and liked to give me a wrinkle or two that would do me no harm, not like some of the chaps in the building trades whom I used to meet at the " Sawyer's Arms."

Joe Rufford was the name of the engine fitter ; I can't remember what they called the other. But though young master was always very civil to these men, barring his being nasty sometimes, and expecting more than they were inclined to give, he plainly thought they were only a more in telligent kind of horse or machine of some sort. But it seemed to me that was what nearly all the upper-class folk thought in those days of the " great unwashed," as I've heard them call us. And if Master Edward had not known me as a boy, learnt a little carpentering of me, and played with me at the Hall, he would not have been as friendly, I guess, as he was down at Rotherhithe, and even then when I had clone anything for him that he wanted, he seemed to forget all about me as much as if I had been an old shoe.

Not that I wanted a tip, and as for a glass ! I should think not indeed. Father drummed all that out of me, as I said, years before, and made me want to be always as independent as the gentlefolk themselves. So I hated to see fellows sneaking up and touching their hats and asking for " something to drink," when ever they had done a job for a gentleman, or, may be, had only been talking to him a bit. Rot their meanness ! I know how the gentry despise us for all that sort of thing. Father, as I said, shook those notions out of me. But what I mean was that Edward Fletcher knew a deal more than I did, and had read a wonderful lot, and I often wished he'd let me look at some of the many books he had got there. and talk to me about them; for I was fond of reading, but could not often get hold of a book, and I thought he was often rather lonely like, and I used to say to him in my mind, " Why don't you ask me up to that room of yours when you're all alone, and tell me a bit about the tides and stars, and Canada, and Rebellion there, and what the 'Mericans are doing with their Republic, and all that."

But I didn't dare ask him, not even for a book. Yet he would not have been as proud as he was, I am certain, but for the ways o' thinking of all his class. But I believe he was a bit selfish with all his pleasant kindly ways, not caring much for other folk — I mean for poor folk — he cared a deal when he saw any of his own set in trouble. But I did think it rather strange, when I was took ill there once, and even the head clerk at the wharf came to ask after me, and left half-a-crown with my landlady to get me something nourishing, Master Edward never came a-nigh me the whole time. But he had a deal on his mind, I will say that. The gentleman who had taken out the patent which Master Edward was doing his best to work into shape, was a reg'lar queer customer. He'd drink brandy and water like a fish, and come down to the wharf more than half screwed before dinner, pull off his coat and work with a will, making the men fly about till they were half mad, but still keeping them at it, and knowing just what he wanted them to do.

By Jingo ! he was a clever customer, with an eye like a hawk. But he was too clever by half. He'd all sorts of smart projects and rare notions. If he could only have stuck to one or two of them, and made them complete, he might have been the richest man in England. But Master Edward never could get things to go right, because his employer, this Mr. Brindley, was never to be found when wanted ; and the poor young gentleman fretted liimself to fiddle sticks in sheer disgust. I've known him sit out in the shed by the engine-fire hour after hour till past midnight, waiting for Mr. Brindley to come and finish some im portant experiments ; and more than once, when everything was going to the bad for want of the master, I've rowed him across the river at 11 or 12 o'clock at night, and he has tramped up Limehouse Road and fished the governor out of the back-parlour of a certain tavern, and brought him down to the wharf just in time to save the cookery.

But all that wTasn't business, and couldn't last. Young Master made a fine discovery himself in another hne, and Brindley was reg'lar cock-a-hoop about it, and told him he'd made their fortunes, and years afterwards it was proved that if they had worked on at it, Brindley' s estimate of its being worth 20,000Z. a year was under the mark. But what can you do with a chap that's always boozing ? Young Master Fletcher, at all events, couldn't either lead or drive him, fret as he might. Poor fellow ! He had something more to fret about, I fancied, than not getting a livelihood. His father could give him bread and cheese. But I think there was a young lady in the case, whom he was desperate fond of, and her folks wouldn't hear of it, because he had nothing to live on, and she was very beautiful, I heard, and many to woo her, and her family held their heads as high as the Fletchers, or higher.

So he was in a great taking about the failure of these experiments, and Brindley's drinking, and, at last, one day they came to high words, and I couldn't help overhearing young Master say in a towering rage (for the window was open, and I at work just below), " I wish to God I had never seen you, Brindley ! " and then the fellow, who had been drinking hard as usual, got into such a passion, I thought I should have had to go to part them. He swore he'd knock young- Fletcher down, and I don't know what he wouldn't do ; but the young gentleman held his own, and as they didn't come to blows, I stayed outside. Then there was a low murmuring of voices, and next I heard Brindley saying he was very sorry, and he didn't know how much Master Edward had on his mind, and he mustn't give way, and they'd manage between them to make a heap o' money, and he should win the young lady after all ; " faint heart never won fair lady," and so on, till my young gentleman looked quite bright again for a few days.