27 October 1866: Dr Hook, Dean of Chichester, writes to his wife from his old vicarage in Leeds
I guess that on 5 November 1856 Dr. Hook was writing about this image: “Called at Mr. Stone’s, the artist, who wanted to see me to colour the photograph. Terrible ugly fellow I am. Can’t help it. Would be other than I am in many things if I could.” Is there a coloured copy? (Anon 1885).
William Richard Wood Stephens. 1885. The Life and Letters of Walter Farquhar Hook, 7th Ed. London: Richard Bentley and Son. Get it:
.Unedited excerpt
If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.
To Mrs. Hook – Meeting old Friends.
Headingley, Leeds: October 1866.
Here I am at last in our old home. The darkness, the smoke, and the dirt have certainly increased, but there are still as warm hearts as ever. All along the line from Derby it was a shaking of hands at almost every station. My old friend, Richworth, who was in the first class that I formed at Leeds, and whose appointment to the station at Derby was a loss to me twenty-eight years ago, has risen to be station-master. People were evidently amused at our greeting. I exclaimed, “Why, Richworth, how old and fat you have grown!” He returned the compliment, and then we talked of old times and how we had both risen to comfortable berths in our old age. At Sheffield junction the ticket-collector exclaimed, “Why it’s t’ old Doctor,” and gave me his fist, and called two subs to do the same… When we stopped at the triangle at Leeds there sat on the wall an engine-man. He looked at me for a time, and then poked his oily fist into the carriage, “Eh! Mister Hook, come to see t’ old place again?” His comrade joined him and added, “Come for Reform Meeting on Friday, eh! Doctor?” and then we all laughed. At the station I was surrounded by friends.
Comment
Comment
Whence the date assigned? On Thursday 25 October it is said that on (Monday) 29 October Hook and the Archbishop of Canterbury will visit Leeds, perhaps suggesting that he wasn’t already there. Travel from Derby via Sheffield probably didn’t take much less than the four hours achieved in 1840 (Bradshaw’s Railway Companion 1840), so, given that his engagement began in the morning, Hook wouldn’t have had time to get there from Derby on the Monday. Neither would he have travelled on Sunday – he was staying with his replacement, the Rev. Atlay, and probably preached or spoke in some sense – the previous letter speaks, possibly exaggeratedly, of three sermons and and two lectures in Leeds. He cannot have travelled on Friday, or the comment about “the Reform Meeting on Friday” wouldn’t have been made. That leaves Thursday or Saturday, and I’m guessing Saturday.
Which Sheffield station? Which train company?
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Tags
Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.
- Chichester (1) W/G ·
- Church of England (94) W/G ·
- Derby (3) W/G ·
- 📌Headingley (15) W/G ·
- Hook, Walter Farquhar (1798-1875) (6), known as Dr Hook, High Church and Vicar of nonconformist Leeds (1837-59), responsible for what is now Leeds Minster and many ecclesiastical and social improvements to the city W/G ·
- Leeds railway station (4) W/G ·
- 📌Leeds (249) W/G ·
- 📌Sheffield (80) W/G ·
Comment
Comment
Whence the date assigned? On Thursday 25 October it is said that on (Monday) 29 October Hook and the Archbishop of Canterbury will visit Leeds, perhaps suggesting that he wasn’t already there. Travel from Derby via Sheffield probably didn’t take much less than the four hours achieved in 1840 (Bradshaw’s Railway Companion 1840), so, given that his engagement began in the morning, Hook wouldn’t have had time to get there from Derby on the Monday. Neither would he have travelled on Sunday – he was staying with his replacement, the Rev. Atlay, and probably preached or spoke in some sense – the previous letter speaks, possibly exaggeratedly, of three sermons and and two lectures in Leeds. He cannot have travelled on Friday, or the comment about “the Reform Meeting on Friday” wouldn’t have been made. That leaves Thursday or Saturday, and I’m guessing Saturday.
Which Sheffield station? Which train company?
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Similar
1 July 1840: The opening of the Hull and Selby Railway terminates the threat to Hull’s port from Goole, Scarborough and Bridlington
5 March 1829: Henry Burton of Hotham tells a rowdy public meeting at Beverley to petition parliament against Catholic emancipation and preserve “the Protestant constitution”
Comment
Comment
Via Roy Wiles (Wiles 1965).
Events
“Sunday last” is 25 August, but Fawcett managed to get in by 11 September:
On Wednesday last Mr. Fawcett for the first time performed Divine Service in the chapel of Holbeck, but was escorted to and from the chapel by a party of Dragoons, who kept guard at the doors during the service. Notwithstanding this precaution, some evil-disposed people found means to break the windows and throw a brickbat at Mr. Fawcett while he was in the reading- desk. The Sunday following he went through the service unmolested. And on Sunday last he preached a most excellent sermon, 46th verse of 13th chapter of Acts… The same night some prophane sacrilegious villains broke into the chapel and besmeared the seats with human excrements.
On 22 September he was able to conduct a reduced Sunday service in peace:
On Sunday last the Rev. Mr. Fawcett was received and behav’d to by his congregation at Holbeck with great decency… One of Mr. F.’s friends admitted their favourite preacher to his pulpit in the town-by this means the tumultuous part of the people were mostly drawn away from Holbeck, and the curate left at liberty to perform his duty amongst the peaceable and well-disposed inhabitants of the chapelry.
However, on 22 October we read that
In the night between the 16th and 17th inst., the windows of the chapel of Holbeck were again broken. No wonder, when Holbeck contains such a nest of vermin whom neither the laws of God or man can confine within the bounds of decency, etc.
For which John Robinson, a “Houlbecker,” was in November sentenced to be whipped and to pay a fine of £5 (Griffith Wright 1895).
In the summer of the following year he published his first Sunday’s sermon and and his resignation letter. I think that in the following Fawcett is quoting things actually said to him:
A man might oftentimes, by due Care and Watchfulness, perhaps very safely defeat the Schemes, and discourage the Practices of the private Pilferer; and yet, whenever this is done, it is commonly suspected to be done rather for the Preservation of his own Property, than out of a pure Regard to the Public-good: But when he is attack’d in his house, or upon the road by open Plunderers, and requir’d to deliver, or suffer himself to be rifl’d of what he is possess’d of, with some one of these dreadful Alternatives, of having his Brains immediately blown out,” or their hands “wash’d in his hearts Blood,” or “having bis “Entrails pull’d out at his Mouth,” or “being “buried alive,” it will Then surely be accounted highly Romantic in him to reject their demands, out of a Pretence to prevent the bad Influence of their Example; and he will be generally suspected of giving a Proof of his Fool-hardiness or his Avarice, rather than of his public Spirit, by such a Refusal.
In the resignation letter he says that he
perform’d the Duty of the Curacy for near Three Months after he gain’d Admission into the Chapel, and this too, rather to prepare a Say for the peaceable Reception of any other Person whom the Patron shou’d think proper to nominate, that out of any Prospect of reconciling the People to himself.
Fawcett declines to attribute responsibility (“Who the Incendiaries were, the Sufferer neither Pretends to Know, nor Desires to be Inform’d”). He also explicitly excuses the lord of the manor, who at this juncture I take to be Lord Irwin (aka Henry Ingram, 7th Viscount of Irvine) rather than the Whiggish Scholey family, as well as other leading citizens (Fawcett 1755).
Was Fawcett a lousy preacher, or was the mob’s alternative, whoever he was, utterly adorable? Was there a Whiggish or Radical element at work? Was there some element of revenge for Samuel Kirshaw’s victory over James Scott in the struggle from 1745-51 for the vicarage of Leeds (Taylor 1865)? Perhaps you know.
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