The Life and Struggles of William Lovett in his pursuit of Bread, Knowledge and Freedom; with some short account of the different associations he belonged to and of the opinions he entertained

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WILLIAM LOVETT.

THE

Chapter I

In resolving to string together the events of my life I am hopeful that they may be of interest to my working-class brethren, with whom and for whom I have laboured for the last forty-five years, in the hopes of improving our social and political condition. The success of our efforts has not been to the extent of my wishes, although I believe great progress has been effected; and if the following pages may in any way serve to stimulate younger and wiser men to continue the contest, earnestly but discreetly, till the victory is won over political injustice, social oppression, ignorance and wrorg, I shall not have written them in vain. I am conscious of my inability to make my story interesting by style or force of language, and therefore I shall tell it right on as I best can. I was born on the 8th of May, in the year 1800, in the little fishing town of Newlyn, situated about a mile westward of Penzance, in the county of Cornwall. My mother’s maiden name was Kezia Green; she descended froma family of that name, well known in the west of the county for their skill as blacksmiths, and their strength and dexterity as wrestlers, trophies won by my grondmother’s brother being still in the family. My father was a native of Hull, of the same name as myself, and the captain of a small, trading vessel, often entering the port of Falmouth, where he met with my mother. He was, however, unhappily drowned in his last voyage home before I was born, 80 I can say nothing further respecting him. My mother, however, in her lonely position, was relieved and taken care of by an affectionate brother, one who possessed great goodness of heart. Soon after this he commenced business as a ropemaker, and, being suceessful in the beginning, was able to render her ample assistance while i was an infant. He possessed an amiable disposition and a well-informed mind, which he had been assiduous in cultivating, and was always held up to me as an example by my grandmother. He died, however, of a decline, in his 82nd year, and when I was very young. My mother being thus thrown entirely on her own resources, fortunately possessed a vigorous constitution and a persevering spirit, so that, by labouring industriously in the usual avocations of a fishing town, as well as by selling fish in Penzance market, she was enabled to bring me up in some degree of comfort, as well as to support for the most part her aged mother, who became greatly dependent on her. Among my earliest recollections was that of being taken in my grandmother’s arms to see the illuminations for the short peace of 1803, was that of seeing a plentiful supply of raisins in the town, occasioned by the | wreck of the fig-man—as she was called—the vessel that,

I think, knocked down the works of the wherry mine in a storm ; and was my being driven home by an old shopkeeper of the town for having run down street m my night-clothes- after my mother. I have also deeply engraven on the memory of my boyhood the apprehensions and alarms that were experienced amongst the inhabitants of our town regarding the press-gang during the war. ‘The cry that “the press-gang was coming ” was sufficient to cause all the young and eligible men of the town to flock up to the hills and away to the country as fast as possible, and to hide themselves in all manner of places till the danger was supposed to be over. It was not always, however, that the road to the country was open to them, for the authorities sometimes arranged that a troop of light horse should be at hand to cut off their retreat when the press-gang landed. Then might the soldiers be seen, with drawn cutlasses, riding down the poor fishermen, often through fields of stunding corn where they had sought to hide themselves, while the press-gang were engaged in diligently searching every house in order to secure their victims. In this way, as well as out of their boats at sea, were great numbers taken away, and many of them never more heard of by their relations. On one of those exciting occasions, it so happened that an old man and his daughter were out at one end of the town, beside a small stream cleansing fish, The daughter was a woman between thirty and forty, and her father, I should think upwards of sixty, though he looked younger. Being thus engaged when the press-gang landed, and she being deaf, one of the gang had been and seized her father, and was bearing him off before she was aware of it. On raising her head, and seeing her father borne off a prisoner, she snatched up one of the dog-fishes she was opening, and running up to the man she asked him what he was going to do with her daddy. Pointing tothe man-of-war at a distance, he told her he was going to take him aboard that big ship. The words had scarcely passed. his lips before she fetched him a blow across his face with the rough dog-fish, that made him relinquish his hold. Then seizing her father with one hand, and resolutely defending him with the dog-fish in the other, she kept hér opponent at bay till other women and boys ‘came to her assistance, Thus was Honour Hitchens, by her courage, enabled to bear off her daddy in triumph amid the cheers and rejoicings of half the women and boys of the neighbourhood.

Like most children, when very young, my love of play was far greater than that of learning, for I was sent to all the dame-schools of the town before I could master the alphabet. Of my first school I remember being sent home at midsummer with a slip of paper round my hat with my name on it in red ink, given as a holiday present. Ofmy second school was the being put in the coal-cellar for bad conduct, on the second and last day of my being there, Eventually, however, I was instructed to read by my great grandmother, who lived in the village of St. Creed, about three miles from our town, she being at that period about eighty years of age. A circumstance I remember in connection with this kind old lady induces me to believe that I had a good memory when a child. My mother, who generally paid me a visit once a week to bring me clean linen, on one o¢casion made me a present of Dr. Watt’s Divine Songs, saying at the same time, “ William, when you have learnt them all, I will make you a present of a new Bible.” This promise so far stimulated me to my task, that I had learnt to repeat them all from memory in a fortnight’s time; and I eagerly sent home word by a neighbour to tell my mother to bring the preseut she promised me as I had learnt all the songs. On going to meet her a portion of the way, as I usually did, fcaounted on a large rock to await her coming, and as soon as ehe saw me at a distance, she held up the Bible to assure me that my request had not been forgotten. I soon, however, got too troublesome for my poor great grandmother, and was taken home; and I remember that the day after I nearly cut off the top of a finger in playing with a knife.

My grandmother's sister then took me to live with her for a short time. She was a kind-hearted woman, but fond of drink at times, and I, having accidentally broken one of her windows, one day was sent home ina tiff. I was then sent to a boys’ school to learn “to write and cypher,” thought at that time to be all the education required for poor people. It was the only school in the town at that time, and I had two masters while there, The first master was a severe one, and the second was somewhat worse. . Custises on the palm of the hand and very severe canings were punishments for not recollecting our tasks, and on one occasion I saw him hang up a boy by the two thumbs with his toes just touching the ground for playing truant. Here, too, I caught the small-pox from seeing a little girl brought into the school in her grandmother’s arms; she having her little face and arms thickly beset with the dark-scabbed pustules, caused a strange shivering sensation to come over me at the moment, and in a short time I was taken ill with the disease. I think that.fear had much to do with it, though the germs must undoubtedly have been wafted towards me. I must here state that the disease at that time being greatly dreaded, I was constantly cautioned by my friends to avoid all children that had had it recently, and being thus brought suddenly face to face with it, with no means of escape, I naturally felt alarmed. And whata terrible disease it was I can well remember, for I think I was seven or eight years old.

But bad asI had it I was not marked with it as numbers of my schoolfellows were ; for so terrible were its ravages at that period, that I can vividly remember the number of seamed and scarred faces among them. Vaccination at that time had not been introduced into our town, though inoculation for the small-pox was occasionally resorted to; but it was looked upon as sinful and a doubting of providence, although about that period one in every fourteen persons born died from its ravages. Having made but little progress at this school, when I got well I was sent to another about a mile from the town and near the parish church. Here I learned to write tolerably well, and to know a little of arithmetic and the catechism, and this formed the extent of my scholastic acquirements. I remember being once flogged severely by the master, and I think I deserved it. It was in the winter time, and his little boy had set a trap in the garden for catching birds, when myself and another boy seeing some birds in the trap pulled down the opening and caught them. We then wrung their necks, brought them into the school, and put them into our school bags unobserved. Not having however wrung their necks effectually, in a short time they began to flutter, and this led to our detection and punishment. This master was, however, a very clever and ingenious person, and I think also a bit of a wit; for he being too busy on one occasion to set me a copy requested me to write one for myself. From some curious notions I had formed of royalty, I wrote for my copy—‘ All Kings have long heads,’? which when my master saw, he wrote on the oppogjte page, “ All horses have longer heads.” To prove how anxious my poor mother was to check the least deviation from what she believed to be right and just in my conduct, I will relate the following: “ Having returned from school one winter evening, and finding my mother not returned from market, I went tomeet her. On crossing a beach leading to the next village, I saw two persons at a little distance from me seeking for something with a lantern. Before I came to them, seeing something shining upou the beach, I stooped down and found it to be a shilling. 1 accordingly made my way towards the parties, believing them to be seeking for it. But on enquiring what theyhad lost, I was replied to with a buffet on the head, and bidden to go my way. Taking this in dudgeon, I went on and took the shilling with me. Not meeting with ‘ my mother on the road I turned back, and found that she had got home before me. To her I told my story about the shilling, half believing that I had acted rightly, after the treatment I had received, until I saw the frown gathering on my mother’s countenance, and the rod being sought for, by a few strokes of which I soon became enlightened to the contrary. She then took me back to the owner of the shilling, to apologize to him for not having given it to him as soon as I

ound it; and on my way back I received from her a lecture on honesty, which I never afterwards forgot. This old gentleman, to whom I took back the shilling, was a man of some little property in our town, and had, I believe, a large spice of humour in his composition as the following anecdote shows:—He having an orchard at the upper end of the street he lived in, from which he found it difficult to gather much of its fruit, by reason of repeated thefts, got an old man, who lived in a cottage at the bottom of it, to rent it from him. This old man was a journeyman miller,‘and made a great profession of religion ; but was withal a very curious specimen of a religious man, as he could never be induced to say grace over fish and potatoes, a very common dinner in a fishing town, The first question when he came home at noon, was to ask his mistress what she had got for dinner. If it happened to be baked potatoes, pork, and pie-crust—a favourite dinner with him—Uncle Jemmy would kneel down and make a long grace over it; but-if it was a dinner of fish and potatoes, Uncle Jemmy could never be induced to say grace ; for he always persisted that “God Almighty never ordained fish and potatoes for a working man’s dinner.” But to return to my story about the orchard. When the bargain had been concluded about the rent, mode of payment, &c., Uncle Jemmy turned to the proprietor and said, “Now, Mr. Pollard, if you have no objection, P’ll say a few words of prayer over our bargain?’? No objection having been made, Uncle Jemmy knelt down and began his prayer, praying that God would send sunshine and showers, that he would protect the trees from blight, - that he would give him abundant fruit, and that when the apples were ripe, he would prevent the boys from stealing them. At this point in his prayer, Mr. Pollard, who was standing up near him, tapped him on the shoulder and huinorously said, “ Uncle Jemmy, do you remember the time when I caught you in the orchard with your pockets full of apples?’?’ Upon whieh Uncle Jemmy turned angrily round and said, “Oh, Mr. Pollard, you should never interrupt a man in his pers for those you know were only eating articles, and now you have spoiled my prayer.” He, evidently conceiving that in his case there was no sin to steal “eating articles,” though he had earnestly prayed a the boys might be prevented from doing the same thing. af

My mother, belonging to the Methodist Connexion, enforced on me very rigidly a regular attendance at chapel or church, and the reading of texts, prayers, and portions of Scripture, in the interval between the hours of attendance, so much so indeed, as to materially lessen the good she sought to confer; for though I could seldom evade her wigilance, I began to think the duties imposed on me more irksome than profitable. The being obliged to frequent a place of worship three times of a Sunday, strictly prohibited all books but the Bible and Prayer-book, and not being allowed to enjoy a walk, unless to chapel, or recreation of any description, are sufficient to account for those boyish feelings. My poor mother, like too many serious persons of the present day, thought that the great power that has formed the numerous gay, sportive, singing things of earth and air, must above all things be gratified with the solemn faces, prim clothes, and half sleepy demeanour of human beings; and that true religion consists in listening to the reiterated story of man’s fall, of God’s anger for his doing so, of man’s sinful nature, of the redemption, and of other questionable matters, instead of the wonders and glories of the universe; of the wondrous laws that govern it; of trying to understand and live in accordance with those laws; of performing ourmoral and religious duties; of trying to improve ourselves and to elevate our race; and of striving to make earth more in accordance with heaven. But although my mother was’ strict in the particulars I have referred to, she was very kind and indulgent to me in other respects.

She took great pains in keeping me scrupulously clean and respectable in my person, and—what I then thought a very superfluous duty —great pains to keep me from playing with the boys of the town; for as I delighted in all kinds of boyish amusements, her mandates in this particular gave me much mental pain, as well as frequently involved me in many scrapes. But what enabled her, more than threats or promises, to keep me from vicious associates, was the encouragement she gave, and the inducements and means she afforded me for amusing myself at home. She laboured to convince me that good of some description was always to be realized trom my cutting, carving, drawing, digging, or writing at home; but that nothing but vice, mischief, or folly could be gained by associating with the ignorant, idle, and vicious boys with which the streets abounded. One of my amusements after school hours, was the enclosing, digging, and cultivating a very small flower garden, which I had formed partly out of an old ruin adjoining our house. Another was what I then designated “drawing,’’ being very rough sketches of birds, and flowers, more showy than natural. My first colours, however, were only bits of different scloained stones, which ° I found on the beach, or dug out of the rocks when the tide was out, and which I rubbed down on another stone. But having copied out some bills for a German quack doctor, who lodged in the neighbourhood for a short time, he gave me some information about the names, and the mixing of water colours, as well as the place and mode of pare better drawing materials at the market town.

ith a few pence, given to me by my indulgent mother, I went and bought a few brilliant sorts, and the very showy productions these enabled me to make, soon met with a ready market among the neighbours, whose walls in ashort time were very gaily, if not very tastefully, ornamented. I also possessed some skill in the use of my knife; and boats, carved birds, and the making of bird-cages, afforded me much amusement, as well as often provided me with capital for new projects. It must not be supposed, however, that these home amusements, nor my mother’s good advice, were so far effective as to keep me altogether from play; for the love of it is so natural in youth, that the more it is sought to be restrained, the more it is craved after, and the buoyancy of feeling at times breaks through all restraints, especially when any great temptation presents itself. Such a temptation presented itself to me one fine moonlight night—and of a Sunday too—when a number of boys were assembled on the sands at play. My mother, I knew, had gone off to chapel, in the belief that I was safe at my aunt’s taking tea, and as my aunt was not very particular in her enquiries when I went out, I bounded off as soon as I could to join in the fun. When I got down, however, I found the sands wetter than I expected, and having on a new jacket ond trowsers, I began to think it would be better to look on than join in the play. Before long however, a mischievous fellow slyly suggested to another that it would be good fun to push me down and spoil my new clothes.

The idea was no sooner suggested than it was acted on, for one of them came upon me suddenly and pushed me backwards, but in falling one of my legs caught under in some way, and produced a terrible sprain in my ankle, said by the doctor to be far worse than a broken bone. I was carried home by the boys; my mother was sent for from chapel, who pronounced it to be a judgment inflicted upon me for breaking the Sabbath, but notwithstanding sent for the doctor. I suffered great pain with it, and it took many weeks’ doctoring before I had the use of it again. I had, however, scarcely got ovet this trouble when I got into another, though not so painful nor expensive. It happened that a very large basking shark was found floating on the ocean, by some of the fishermen of the town, and towed on shore. It was of course a favourable opportunity for an assemblage of boys; and while the fishermen were busy in cutting it open, and taking out the great quantity of liver and oil found in it, the boys were busy in their way in extracting amusement out of it. The mouth of the fish having been propped open by means of handspikes, some boys—myself among the number—had got into its mouth cutting away a black stiff bristly fringe, that lined a part of it, and which bore a comb-like appearance. While we were thus busily employed, other mischievous fellows were busy in kicking the bottom of the handspikes on one side, which brought the jaws plop together and-laid us sprawling at the bottom. Our cries soon brought assistance, and the mouth of the fish was opened, but the plight we were in from the oil and slime into which we were tumbled, can be better imagined than described. I remember it was some days before I got over my fright.

The time, however, had now arrived when it was necessary that I should learn some useful employment, and as my Uncle had been prosperous in his business of ropemaking, it was resolved that I should be apprenticed to that trade. JI was accordingly bound to a frm of three persons, for the term of seven years. But very soon after I was bound the partnership was dissolved, and I was transferred for the remainder of my time to the acting partner. I may here observe that the division of labour, which is generally carried on in London, and other large towns, is not pursued in that part of the country, as far as ropemaking is concerned, so that an appreutice has to learn as many different branches of the trade as would take as many different apprenticeships to acquire in London and other places. This causes the country business to be a laborious one, and so I found it tobe. Our rope-yard, being some distance from town, I had, in common with others, to carry to it heavy loads of hemp for our daily supply of spinning ; and it being an open yard, nor far from the seacliff, and very much exposed to the weather, caused me to feel the cold severely at first. I was also a mere stripling, very thin and tall, and no way fitted by my constitution for that laborious business. My master was also a very unfit person, at that time, for the instruction of youth, he being given to drink, very passionate, and scrupled not to relate in our presence many anecdotes of his dissipations among the women in early life.

He was also very unreasonable at times, for he very frequently sent me with a heavy load of rope to the adjoming towns after I had done a hard day’s work, so that when I returned home, my extreme fatigue has often taken away my appetite for food. But what I felt more severely than the labour inflicted on me, was the coming and going some of these lonely roads by night, for popular credulity had peopled particular spots with ghosts and appearances of various kinds, and in which I wasa firm believer. For thenumerous storiesregarding those nocturnal visitants, told to mein infancy, reiterated in boyhood, and authenticated and confirmed by one neighbour after another, who had witnessed, they said, their existence in a variety of forms, riveted the belief in them so firmly in my brain, that it was many years after I came to London before I became a sceptic in ghosts. Nor was the belief in them confined to the young, for my master was so fearful of walking these lonely roads after dark,—when he went to neighbouring villages to collect his debts, or to obtain orders,—that he mostly, ordered me or my fellow apprentice, to come to meet him, and accompany him home. I remember one dark winter evening going to meet him, in company with a young fellow I had induced to be my companion, and not finding my master at the place appointed, we had to follow him to the next village. Our road to this was up through a long dark lane, in a part of which a ‘monumental stone was erected, on account of a murder having been committed there.

Previous to our approach to this dreaded spot our fears had subdued our tongues and .quickened our pulse; but conceive our feelings, when we saw through the darkness a monster ghost of about three feet high, with erect horns, and large eyes glaring at us, from immediately opposite the monument. We shrunk back for a moment in great terror, but our presence seems to have alarmed the monster also, for it rose up and proved to be a farmer’s heifer, which had quietly laid itself down in front of this murderer’s monument— which folly had erected in a public highway—doubtless without ever suspecting it would be taken for a demon. On another occasion, when we were making a cable for a large Indiaman, I saw another of those supposed ghosts. It was of a Sunday evening, and all the ropemakers of the town had assembled to help us with our large job, the consent of the parson having been first obtained, an essential requisite at that period, for working on a Sunday. About midnight my master found out that his stock of brandy was exhausted, and as the men on such occasions expected brandy, or other spirits, and as two well-known women lived at Mousehold, a village about a mile off, who dealt in the smuggled article, he thought the night time very opportune for obtaining it. I was accordingly sent off with a large bottle to procure some. I went with a very sorrowful heart; for it was a solitary way along the edge of the cliff, it was a ghostly hour, and many were the ghosts and goblins that had been seen on that road.

It was, however, a bright moonlight night, and I had scarcely proceeded a quarter of a mile before I saw in the distance before me what appeared to be the outline of a woman all in white. It being such a solitary road, and such a lone hour of: night, that it never once entered my head to think it a being of flesh and blood. No, it must be a ghost, ‘but there was one consolation, which I drew from the ghost stories I had heard, it must be good ond not evil, for all good spirits were said to be white. Thus encouraged I went on, but with strange fears and curious imaginings notwithstanding, to overtake this good ghost; for though I was on the search after spirits, they were not of this complexion. ‘The nearer I approached the better it seemed, as far as regards colour, for it was white from top to toe. When I got within a few yards of this stately slow walking figure I made a little noise with my feet, when lo! my ghost turned round and waited my approach. Alas! she was of the earth most earthly, for she proved to be the kept mistress of a lawyer of Penzance, and was returning home at this unseemly -hour. Soon after my apprenticeship our home was broken up by my mother marrying a man with whom my grandmother and myself could not be comfortable ; we therefore took a small house and went to live together, our subsistence depending for the most part on the five shillings’per week which I received as wages, eked out by the little which my grandmother could earn in the fishing season.

Our food consisted of barley-bread, fish and potatoes, with a bit of pork on Sundays. In fact, barley-bread was the common food in my boyhood, excepting that. the fishermen mostly took a wheaten loaf'to sea with them. I have also heard my mother say that so scarce and dear was corn of all kinds the year I was born in, that she could not get bread enough to satisfy her hunger, although she travelled many miles round about to seek to purchase it. Ié so happened that my bedroom window in this house was exactly opposite the window of a house having the reputation of being haunted. It was not, however, e deserted house, although most of its inmates had been frightened at different times by the ghost; the particulars of which, and the forms it assumed, have often been told me by mother, son, and daughter, with whom I was well acquainted. Whether an indigestible supper had anything to do with their fright, I had not the sense then to enquire. For me to pass this house, when visiting a neighbour at night, required what Mrs. Chick would call “on effort.”” But to avoid seeing the ghost from my bedroom window, I adopted the expedient of shutting my eyes whenever I entered the room. I mention these silly things to show that superstition of one kind or another was the curse of my boyhood, and I have reasons for believing that such notions are still firmly believed by thousands of our people. And those rulers, who by a wise system of education can succeed in enlightening the rising x generation, so that they may laugh down such absurdities, will render to society a benefit none can estimate so well as those who have been the victims of such superstitious delusions ; for, notwithstanding the progress of knowledge among our people, by means of the press, the school, and the rail, the belief in ghosts is still widely entertained.