5 January 1846: Writing to fellow-botanist William Borrer, Richard Spruce of Ryedale despairs of his Pyrenean mosses arousing interest amid George Hudson’s railway mania
Richard Spruce. 1908. Notes of a Botanist on the Amazon and Andes, Vol. 1. Ed. Alfred Russel Wallace. London: Macmillan and Co. Get it:
.Excerpt
I am afraid I shall find no one but yourself when I return to England who will deign to look at Pyrenean plants – you appear to be all going mad about railways. I get hold sometimes of a Times or Morning Chronicle, with supplement on supplement of railway advertisements, and I turn over page after page until I am quite in despair of arriving at any news. And when at last I come to something that looks readable, I still find it to consist almost entirely of accounts of railway meetings, etc. You appear also to have undergone such strange metamorphoses! Par exemple, when I read “the Railway King is determined to have a narrow gauge into Cornwall,” it is scarcely credible that his said majesty is no other than my old acquaintance George Hudson, quondam [former] linen draper of York! Alack! alack! what will this world come to!
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.
Abbreviations:
- ER: East Riding
- GM: Greater Manchester
- NR: North Riding
- NY: North Yorkshire
- SY: South Yorkshire
- WR: West Riding
- WY: West Yorkshire
Comment
Comment
Via John Bibby (Bibby 2022).
Something to say? Get in touch
Original
I am afraid I shall find no one but yourself when I return to England who will deign to look at Pyrenean plants — you appear to be all going mad about railways. I get hold sometimes of a Times or Morning Chronicle, with supplement on supplement of railway advertisements, and I turn over page after page until I am quite in despair of arriving at any news. And when at last I come to something that looks readable, I still find it to consist almost entirely of accounts of railway meetings, etc. You appear also to have undergone such strange metamorphoses! pour exemple, when I read “the Railway King is determined to have a narrow gauge into Cornwall,” it is scarcely credible that his said majesty is no other than my old acquaintance George Hudson, quondam linen draper of York! Alack! alack! what will this world come to!!
160 words.
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.
- Borrer, William (1781-1862) (1), Sussex-based botanist
· - Botany (4) ·
- Draper (3) ·
- Exploration (3) ·
- France (31) ·
- George Hudson (4) ·
- Linen (3) ·
- Moss (1) ·
- Pyrenees (2) ·
- Railway Mania (5) ·
- Richard Spruce (1) ·
- Ryedale (7) ·
- Spain (9) ·
- Stock market bubble (1) ·
- Terrington (1) ·
- The Times (5) ·
- 📌York (164) ·
Similar
- 11 July 1858: In Whitby, Walter White buys a religious ballad printed at Otley and called ‘The railway to heaven’
- 8 May 1849: Amid revelations of fraud at the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway, Richard Nicholson, business partner and brother-in-law of the Railway King, George Hudson, drowns himself in the Ouse at York
- 30 January 1846: Charlotte Brontë tells her old schoolmistress, Margaret Wooler, that Emily’s railway investment strategy may be unsustainable
- 23 September 1846: Wilkie Collins’ Captain Wragge, an amiable rogue, walks out into York
- 1 July 1840: The opening of the Hull and Selby Railway counters threats to Hull’s port from Goole, Scarborough and Bridlington
- 28 November 1796: The Royal Navy seeks recruits among the seamen of Sculcoates, Cottingham and Little Weighton (ER)
- 1 August 1813: The 51st Foot wear bay leaves, not white roses, on Minden (now Yorkshire) Day, as they drive the French back over the Pyrenees
- 6 July 1825: James Backhouse, a Quaker nurseryman from York, triumphs with exotic varieties at the Yorkshire Horticultural Society’s summer meeting in Leeds
- 21 August 1880: Johnnie W. recounts a wildflower expedition in the children’s column of the Leeds Mercury
- 7 August 1611: Jonas Poole’s London whaler sinks in Forlandsundet (Spitsbergen), but Thomas Marmaduke is initially reluctant to take the survivors on board the Hopewell of Hull
Search
Donate
Music & books
The Headingley Gallimaufrians: a choir of the weird and wonderful.
Music from and about Yorkshire by Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder.
RSS feed
Bluesky
Extwitter