Yorkshire Almanac The Rev Henry Nussey – St John Rivers in Jane Eyre – attends his church’s Sunday School festival at Birstall

24 August 1832: The Rev Henry Nussey – St John Rivers in Jane Eyre – attends his church’s Sunday School festival at Birstall

Ellis. H. Chadwick. 1914. In the Footsteps of the Brontës. London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons. Pseudonym of Esther Alice Chadwick (1882-1928). Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

Friday, Aug. 24th (1832). To-day the Church Sunday School Festival was celebrated. The ladies and gentlemen connected with the school, the teachers and children, met in the school at half-past one. A hymn was sung, and prayers were read by the Vicar, after which the prizes in books were distributed. All then proceeded to Church, where there was singing and an address from Mr. W. Heald, jnr., to parents, teachers, and scholars. They then walked round the village, and returned to the school, where they sung in the school-yard, and after this all the scholars were regaled, the girls with buns and tea, and the boys with buns, beer and porter. These were afterwards dismissed, and the ladies and gentlemen sat down with the female teachers, having had beer and porter, etc. At eight o’clock supper was introduced, consisting of the Old English cheer, roast beef, plum-pudding and good beer, to which from 80 to 100 sat down. The day then concluded with music and singing.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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What Became Of The Real St. John Rivers?

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What Became Of The Real St. John Rivers?

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The letter then details the replacement its authors have in mind, who is willing to pay a substantial bribe for the privilege:

There is a monk of the house called Marmaduke [Bradley], to whom Mr Timmes lent a prebend in Ripon church, now abiding upon the same prebend, the wisest monk within England of that cote and well learned, 20 years officer and ruler of all that house, a wealthy fellow, which will give you six hundred marks to make him abbot there, and pay you immediately after the election, without delay or respite, at one payment, and as I suppose without much borrowing. The first fruits to the king is a thousand pounds, which he with his policy will pay within three years, and owe no man therefore one groat, as he saith, and his reason therein is very apparent.

William Thirsk was implicated in Bigod’s rebellion in early 1537, and hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn and his head displayed on the London walls on Whit Friday (25 May) of that year (Wriothesley 1875). Bradley surrendered the monastery in 1539 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

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