200 Magazine November / December 1822 2022

FIVE GENTLEMEN OF VERONA IN SPAIN RIFT

Britain has broken with Europe’s other great powers by opposing armed intervention on the side of Spain’s autocratic king.

ERUPTION, BLAZE, EARTHQUAKE

Five hundred die as fire destroys foreign trading posts in Canton, China. Vesuvius blows its top, and a quake hits Valparaiso, Chile.

FREED ‘ORATOR’ HUNT URGES REFORM UNITY

Henry Hunt is out of gaol and calling for radicals to unite to secure political reform. But his return to London drew disappointing crowds.

ROYAL OPERA HOUSE COVENT GARDEN | FLICKR

Britain at odds with Europe over Spain

are mounting of a military intervention in Spain by Europe’s great powers after the issue dominated the summit at Verona in Italy. But Britain has made it clear it will not be taking part in any operation to restore the absolute power of the Spanish king, who is at odds with his liberal government.

The political temperature in Spain has been at boiling point since July when guards loyal to King Ferdinand VII staged what’s been called a badlyplanned and worse-executed operation. As many as 3,000 troops loyal to the king are said to have lost their lives.

French representatives at the Congress of Verona made it clear that their country was happy to go it alone in taking military action to restore King Ferdinand to full power, even though Austria, Russia and Prussia also indicated their opposition to the moderate liberal and democratic administration in Madrid.

Britain alone opposed intervention in Spain. The Duke of Wellington said Britain had no sympathy for revolutionaries, but believed nations should be allowed to set up whatever form of government they thought best.

The duke took the place of Lord Castlereagh in Verona after the foreign secretary’s death in August. His fame from Waterloo made him a big draw at the congress, at least until, as one observer put it, he “hurled his bombshell” and said Britain would not be involved in Spain. British concerns about military intervention are understood to centre on the prospect of the peace achieved in 1815 with Napoleon’s defeat being reversed, a revitalised France (or radicalised by defeat), and French troops dominating Spain. The Foreign Secretary, George Canning, is known to believe that the mood in Spain is harmless, if confined there.

French interventionism is being driven by hardline conservative ‘ultras’ close to King Louis XVIII who are anxious to restore the country’s prestige and, at the same time, stop democratic and radical ideas crossing the Pyrenees from Spain.

Consternation about Britain’s stance has been commonplace among delegations in Verona. There have been claims that the UK has allied itself with Spain in return for commercial advantages.

Spanish crisis explained

The Spanish king, Ferdinand VII, has been at loggerheads with liberals, radicals and democrats and their ideas for much of his tumultuous two-part reign.

Briefly king in 1808, Ferdinand re-established an absolutist monarchy when he was restored to the throne in Madrid in 1814. He rejected the country’s liberal constitution of 1812, one of the most progressive in the world.

The constitution had established a constitutional monarchy with freedom of the press, separation of powers, and almost universal male suffrage.

In 1820, a military uprising, fuelled by unrest among troops bound for South America where Spanish colonies were seeking independence, forced the king to accept liberal ministers and revert to the principles of 1812.

Ferdinand remained king but in name only, held under virtual house arrest and never accepting his country’s move towards democracy during what became known as the ‘Trienio Liberal’.

The failure of the rebellion by royal guards in July, divisions between radicals and liberals, economic problems, and insurgent activity have left Spain in a continuing crisis.

Sources close to the British Foreign Office say that the Duke of Wellington and his Tory cabinet colleagues only became aware of a large French army close to the Spanish border as the duke reached Paris on his way to the congress.

Latest reports are that a military hospital is under construction at Bayonne in the French Basque country close to Spain, with munitions and horses building up there. In addition, 40,000 newly-trained troops have been called up.

Fears

Freed ‘lion’ slams Tories and urges unity, but gets muted welcome in London

Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt has been released from prison after serving 2½ years for his role in the pro-reform meeting in Manchester in 1819 that was broken up by troops, leading to what became known as the Peterloo massacre.

Celebrations by radical supporters have taken place in Somerset, where Mr Hunt was incarcerated, and across the country. But what reformers hoped would be a triumphal entry into London by Mr Hunt a fortnight after his release turned into something of a damp squib.

Although Mr Hunt has claimed that as many as 500,000 people turned out to support him, newspapers and even independent observers say the crowds were just a fraction of the huge numbers that welcomed him into London in 1819 at the height of the post-Peterloo protests.

In his first speech as a free man, Mr Hunt called for unity in the campaign to secure reform of Parliament and the right to vote. Speaking at the inn where he breakfasted with supporters after his release from Ilchester gaol, Mr Hunt attacked Tory ministers.

“The object of the present government is to set the labourer against the farmer, he said, “It is in both of your interests to resist this snare and you can effectively do so by taking one course; which is, to join the manufacturing interests in seeking a reform of the representation of all Englishmen.”

Greeting women reformers, Mr Hunt said, “You are come to see the lion, who is just out of his cage, and just as ready as ever to devour his enemies.”

Mr Hunt’s procession left Ilchester for Glastonbury, where he is lord of the manor, before reaching his Wiltshire home two days later.

Celebrations of the radical leader’s release took place across England, from market towns like Petersfield in Hampshire, and eastern rural areas like Boston, Spalding and Holbeach in the fenlands, to industrial centres like Newcastle.

Henry Hunt is seeking a county meeting in Somerset to call for political reform, realising that the Tory ‘Six Acts’ of 1819 have limited other types of action. But he will need to improve his finances, by promoting sales of the roasted grain breakfast powder he developed as an alternative to coffee and tea. This has become popular among radicals as it is not taxable, cutting income to the Exchequer. >>> 1822’s People

о Tories in Manchester reacted to Mr Hunt’s release with a special newspaper, the Manchester Comet, “Or a Rap at Radicals”. It lampoons Mr Hunt, radicals, and the women reformers backing him. o

о Radical journalist John Thacker Saxton, a key figure in the defunct Manchester Observer, was arrested in Bolton for shouting “Hunt and Liberty” after a confrontation inside a public house.

Hazlitt hits out at Beckford’s ‘cathedral turned into a toy-shop’

The social commentator William Hazlitt has launched an outspoken attack on the novelist, art collector, travel writer and politician William Beckford over the sale of his lavish mansion in Wiltshire.

The pre-auction viewing of Fonthill Abbey near Salisbury filled newspaper pages all summer, with visitors coming from all over the country to check out the art and furniture going under the hammer.

Then, in early October, Mr Beckford did a private deal with Scottish gunpowder millionaire John Farquhar to buy his estate for £275,000, and most of its treasures and fittings for a further £25,000. The auction was called off.

Now William Hazlitt has used November’s edition of the London Magazine to say that the only proof of Mr Beckford’s taste, in his view, is that he got rid of the collection.

In one withering passage, the essayist and critic calls Fonthill Abbey “a desert of magnificence, a glittering waste of laborious idleness, a cathedral turned into a toyshop, an immense Museum of all that is most curious and costly, and, at the same time, most worthless, in the productions of art and nature”.

There are suggestions that William Beckford may now be regretting the sale.

Mr Beckford is said to particularly lament the loss of his huge library, and may hope the deal falls through. >>>

A NEW PORTRAIT OF HENRY HUNT WILLIAM HAZLITT

Coal bosses spurn Tyne keelmen’s olive branch

Pit

owners in the NorthEast of England have given a frosty response to proposals from striking keelmen on the River Tyne that could have led to an agreed return to work after the bitter two-month-long industrial dispute.

A meeting of keelmen in Newcastle in late November unanimously backed a call for a settlement of “the unhappy differences” that led to the dispute, and sought an “amicable reconciliation” between them and the employers.

But, when coal bosses met the next day, the strikers’ calls for restoration of previous working conditions, preference in allocating work to be given to jobless keelmen, and for their influence to be used to secure the release of men jailed during the dispute fell on deaf ears.

Significantly, the keelmen have dropped their demand for immediate limits on new technology. They are worried that ‘spouts’ that can load coal directly into collier ships would be likely to end the need for their flat coal-boats.

Burglars and thieves spared execution with sodomy convicts

Two men were abused by a large crowd and had missiles thrown at them as they were hanged for sodomy outside Newgate gaol in London.

John Holland (48) and William King (50) died on their own after other condemned men petitioned the authorities that they should not be executed alongside them.

Newspapers, as usual, referred only to “unnatural offences,” instead of detailing the charges against Holland and King. The Star says the other convicts viewed their crimes as so heinous that they made their extraordinary appeal to the courts, which was granted by King George.

Some reporters say there were cries of “where’s the bishop?” as the two men were hanged. This is a reference to the scandal over the behaviour of Percy Jocelyn, the Anglican Bishop of Clogher. In September, he was found in the back room of a London pub in a compromising situation with a young soldier.

Six men were executed outside Newgate two days later for robbery (2), burglary (2), stealing in a shop (1) and highway robbery (1). With Holland and King, these were the first hangings in Britain in two months.

Source: Capital Punishment UK (with thanks to Richard Clark

At the moment ships taking coal from Newcastle are limited in how far they can go up the river because of its shallowness.

The coal owners’ hard line was signalled in late October when they ordered the keelmen to return to work or face losing their jobs and being replaced by strike-breakers.

At its peak, seven ‘men-ofwar’ navy vessels have been anchored in Shields harbour, and local militias were drafted in to support police and regular troops, and special constables recruited.

Tory ministers have sided with the employers. The Home Secretary, Robert Peel, has sent marines to Tyneside, calling the strikers “deluded”. Troops have been authorised to fire on anyone throwing stones at strike-breaking keels. Marines have fired at keelmen shouting abuse and there are reports of stones being thrown, but without any fatalities. Several keels have been sunk by strikers, and rioting has taken place in North Shields and Scotswood.

o >>> News from Now (p12)

A former prisoner has warned that treadmills, now increasingly common in gaols in Britain, may fail to deter crime.

Identified only as ‘Laurence Larceny’, he has given the Literary Gazette a prisoners’ view of the punishment, shown above in action at Brixton prison in Surrey,

The first week was distressing, he said, with pain and stiffness in the calves and thighs. But soon it just became a form of exercise, with other convicts describing it as easier than their work. “To reform thieves it is wholly inadequate. It tends to confer no character, and operates by degradation,” said Lawrence Larceny.

BRITISH LIBRARY | PUBLIC DOMAIN

COURTESY OF DISCOVERY MUSEUM , TYNE & WEAR ARCHIVES & MUSEUMS

THE OWNERS OF WYLAM COLLIERY, JUST NORTH OF NEWCASTLE, MODIFIED A STEAM LOCOMOTIVE (PICTURED RIGHT), SO THAT IT COULD BE MOUNTED ON A KEEL BOAT TO ACT AS A TUG AND PULL CARGO AND STRIKE-BREAKERS ALONG THE RIVER. WYLAM DILLY HAS BEEN IN USE SINCE 1813 TO HAUL COAL FROM THE COLLIERY TO THE TYNE.

Orangemen in clashes with Dublin authorities

Tensions in Dublin have risen sharply, after troops and police were deployed to stop members of the Protestant Orange Order decorating a statue of King William III in early November to mark the anniversary of his birth.

Dublin’s lord mayor banned ‘dressing’ the monument in a bid to avoid a repeat of disturbances in July when Orangemen marked the ‘Glorious Twelfth’ and the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne. Protestants make up a quarter of the cty’s population. John Smith Fleming acted with the support of Marquess Wellesley (below), the Lord Lieutenant, but without the backing of Dublin’s council.

The presence of security forces around King William’s statue in College Green was not sufficient to avoid trouble. Two Orangemen received bayonet wounds as they fought with British troops.

In a sign of government disapproval, Orange toasts were omitted from the programme of an official banquet in Dublin to mark the anniversary of King William’s birthday.

An extraordinary intervention by a leading campaigner in favour of the socalled Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland contains what is being taken as a warning to Marquess Wellesley, who is in favour of removing restrictions on Catholics sitting as MPs and holding public offices.

Sir Harcourt Lees, in a letter to Ireland’s AttorneyGeneral, warns of what he sees as the risk that “Popery will yet be enthroned within the walls of Parliament”.

Questioning whether Marquess Wellesley has “weathered the storm” of Orange anger, Sir Harcourt uses the letter to assure the Tory government’s viceroy in Ireland that the storm has not yet even taken place.

о More violent attacks, attributed to agrarian secret societies, have been reported from Ireland’s southern and western counties. In Co. Cork, firearms were seized and arson attacks took place in several locations. Near Limerick, a house was levelled and a landowner warned by ‘Rockite’ assailants not to demand rent from his tenants. At Clones, Co. Monaghan, Protestants were attacked and a magistrate threatened.

Fifteen men were apprehended by police who staged a raid on a notorious gambling den in one of London’s most fashionable streets. Officers used a ladder to enter the premises on the first floor of 33 Pall Mall, so avoiding reinforced doors, heavy duty bolts, and the attention of look-outs. Magistrates gave the green light for the operation after information was received from a former gambler.

Twelve weavers from Coventry have been heavily fined and jailed for six or nine months each after being found guilty of offences under the Combination Acts, which make it illegal for workers to unite to increase wages. Prosecutors said combinations of this sort were rightly considered as injurious to the public interest.

Parts of Westminster looked as if they had been hit by the fury and devastation of an earthquake after a huge gas explosion in Pall Mall, according to witnesses. Shopfronts were blown out and the insides of buildings wrecked. Gas is thought to have escaped from pipes and been ignited by a lit candle in the cellar of the Westminster Wine Company’s premises. But fire was averted and there were no fatalities.

Bishop goes missing as he is sacked for immorality

The bishop at the centre of a sex scandal has been dismissed by the Anglican church in Ireland.

Percy Jocelyn, Bishop of Clogher since 1820, failed to attend a church court hearing in Armagh and was dismissed by the newly-appointed Primate of All Ireland, Rt. Rev. Lord John Beresford.

The verdict read out by Archbishop Beresford said that Bishop Jocelyn was guilty of “divers crimes and excesses, and more especially for the crimes of Immorality, Incontinence, Sodomitical practices, habits and propensities”.

The bishop, 58, was discovered in the back room of a London public house in July in a compromising situation with a young soldier, an incident that dominated the news for weeks.

Isaac Cruikshank’s cartoon (left) reflected public anger over the behaviour of a senior priest. The scandal became so great that the Archbishop of Canterbury said that it was not safe for a bishop to show himself on the streets of London.

Percy Jocelyn’s exact whereabouts are not known, but it is reported he may be living in Scotland under an assumed name.

The Irish carriage-driver who was public flogged in 1811 after making allegations of a similar nature against Percy Jocelyn has been the guest of honour at a dinner in London. James Byrne was convicted of malicious libel and jailed for two years after a judge called his claims a wicked calumny.

о

Speaking at the dinner, the radical campaigner and journalist William Cobbett said Percy Jocelyn had been guilty of a “heinous and detestable vice, which a few years ago was scarcely heard of”.

A collection was taken for James Byrne, his wife and four children.

Triple disaster: Vesuvius erupts, Valparaiso quakes, Canton blazes

Two natural disasters and a fire started by accident have hit Chile, Italy and China. As many as 500 people are said to have died in a huge fire in the Chinese port of о Canton. About 70 perished in an earthquake 80 miles from Chile’s capital, Santiago.

The blaze that destroyed foreign-owned warehouses, stores and offices in Canton is likely to have the most serious international, trading and economic repercussions.

In Chile, the epicentre of the earthquake was just over 15 miles from Valparaiso, a city of 16,000 people where trade has flourished since independence from Spain in 1818. The seaport has become a favoured stopover point for long-distance voyages, and seen substantial immigration from Europe, including the emergence of a British community in recent years.

The main shock lasted up to three minutes, leaving Valparaiso in ruins, causing fires and destroying homes and businesses in many smaller towns. A British resident, Maria Graham, has given an eye-witness account that you can read on this page.

As many as 700 homes in Valparaiso were reduced to rubble and it is there that most deaths occurred. But fatalities were also reported among miners in pits at Petorgue, where shafts caved in. A canal was filled in, and small sand volcanoes spotted on beaches.

In Italy’s Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Vesuvius produced a major eruption for the first time since 1794. A correspondent has told the Morning Chronicle in London that “general panic” seized the population of the town of Torre del Annunziata. This is near the ancient city of Pompeii which was buried by the eruption in 79 AD. Cinders were an inch deep soon after the volcano began erupting, and residents lowered furniture from windows and requisitioned vehicles to make their escape.

British woman tells of ‘horrible sensation’

“At a quarter past ten, the house received a violent shock, with a noise like the explosion of a mine; and Mr Bennet, starting up, ran out, exclaiming, “An earthquake, an earthquake! For God’s sake follow me!”

Never shall I forget the horrible sensation of that night. In all other convulsions of nature we feel or fancy that some exertion may be made to avert or mitigate danger; but from an earthquake there is neither shelter nor escape.

On the night of the nineteenth, during the first great shock, the sea in Valparaiso bay rose suddenly, and as suddenly retired in an extraordinary manner, and in about a quarter of an hour seemed to recover its equilibrium; but the whole shore is more exposed and the rocks are about four feet higher out of the water than before ”

A former translator and book editor, Maria Graham is the author of a tourist guide to Italy, and a biography of the painter Nicolas Poussin.

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In Torre del Annunzata, gunpowder from a factory was removed after fears of an explosion caused by falling ash. In Torre del Greco, police arrested 19 men dressed in women’s clothes who were looting hastily vacated homes.

In China, as many as 40,000 people have been left homeless after a huge fire on the waterfront in the port city of Canton in the south-east of the country.

Some analysts say Canton could take 30 years to recover because of losses suffered by local merchants and traders. Their ‘factories’ are the main and only legal site of most Western trade with China.

Five hundred people lost their lives in the blaze, which raged for two days. Some reports say that local authorities would not allow buildings to be pulled down to act as fire breaks, and that Europeans were stopped from taking this action themselves.

The so-called ‘Thirteen Factories’ - offices, trading posts and warehouses belonging to European countries and traders - were destroyed. Britain’s East India Company alone lost woollen goods, silk, cloth, and 30,000 chests of green tea worth an estimated о £1 million.

THE THIRTEEN ‘FACTORIES’ OF CANTON WERE TRADING POSTS FOR BRITAIN, DENMARK, THE NETHERLANDS, SPAIN, SWEDEN, AND THE UNITED STATES.

MARIA GRAHAM, PAINTED IN 1819

Writer Maria Graham was a witness to the earthquake in Chile. She has been living in Valparaiso since April after her sea captain husband died on the journey from Britain.

>>> 1822’s People (p11)

Joy as Beethoven set to break symphony silence

Ludwig van Beethoven’s near-decade without unveiling a new symphony is set to come to an end, it has been confirmed. The German maestro has been commissioned to write a new work by London’s Philharmonic Society.

It will be Beethoven’s first symphonic work for an orchestra since the Eighth received its premiere in 1814. The composer, now 51, will be hoping that it will receive a warmer critical response than the last symphony, though he regarded the Eighth highly.

The commission was confirmed at a meeting of the Philharmonic Society in mid-November. They have agreed to pay Herr Beethoven о £50 for the new work, to be completed by March next year.

The news is sure to be greeted with delight by his many admirers in Britain. Although Ludwig van Beethoven has never visited this country, his links with the society and leading musical figures are said to be close. He employs a London agent, Ferdinand Ries (pictured lower right), a member of the society, who has played a key role in negotiations.

Beethoven has been working on ideas for a new symphony since 1817. He agreed then to compose new orchestral work for the London society, but this has not been pursued since 1820.

The decision to commission the new work was taken in November, and the society has stipulated that the symphony should remain unpublished for a period of 18 months. The symphony will contrast with the composer’s main preoccupation this year in Vienna, his new choral work, the Missa Solemnis.

Ludwig van Beethoven completed his first symphony in 1801 and since then his Third (the Eroica), Fifth, and Sixth (Pastoral) have achieved major recognition. It is clearly a format that has brought the composer some of his greatest success, and there are suggestions a tenth symphony may follow.

But Beethoven’s health is not good. He has been coping with a lengthy attack of gout this year, and his deafness limited contact with Giacomo Rossini when the German maestro welcomed him to his Vienna home this summer. o

Debut at 11 for Hungarian pianist

A young Hungarian musician, Franz Liszt, is being hailed as a prodigy after a first public performance that, according to critics, displayed ‘astonishing talent’ that bordered on the incredible.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Franz played works by Beethoven and Rossini at Vienna’s Town Hall. He is being taught by Carl Czerny and Antonio Salieri. There are suggestions that he may soon meet Beethoven. o

Shipwreck hits London stage

A musical about the loss of the East India Company vessel, the Grosvenor, in 1782 has had its London premiere at the Royalty Theatre, Whitechapel. The Grosvenor was sailing from Ceylon to London when it sank off the Cape coast in southern Africa. Just four survivors got back to Britain, 27 had died immediately, and others starved or joined local tribes. The show features comic songs, Indian dancing, and a ‘dog of intelligence’.

What Happened When

OCTOBER

22: Major eruption by volcano of Vesuvius in Italy for the first time in 28 years. (More on p. 6)

23: Caledonian Canal opens, linking Scotland’s east and west coasts. (8)

30: Henry Hunt released from prison after serving 2½ year sentence for conspiracy imposed for role in Manchester proreform meeting in 1819. (3)

31: Percy Jocelyn, Bishop of Clogher dismissed by Anglican church’s Metropolitan Court of Armagh after sex scandal. (5)

NOVEMBER

4: Disturbances in Dublin involving members of the Orange Order. (5)

5: James Byrne, carriage-driver who was flogged after making allegations against Rev. Percy Jocelyn in 1811 is honoured at public dinner in London. (5)

9: US Navy vessel USS Alligator and three pirate schooners in naval battle off Cuban coast. Ship‘s commander Lt William Allen dies of gunshot wounds.

10: Philharmonic Society of London commissions Ludwig van Beethoven to write new symphony for о £50. (this page)

11: Henry Hunt enters London after his release from prison (3)

18: Hetton colliery railway opens in Co. Durham. (8)

19: Earthquake hits Chilean city of Valparaiso. (6)

22: Fire destroys so-called ‘Thirteen Factories’ of Canton, China. (6)

200 Magazine is edited by John Evans. He gratefully acknowledges the help of Jane Evans, Jude Painter, Red Rocket Studio, Terry Dunne, Larry Breen, Charlotte Smith (Royal Philharmonic Society), Lisa Ross (Scottish Canals), Andy Bogle (Northumbrian Words), Mary Shannon (University of Roehampton), British Newspaper Archive, Cambridge University Library, Central Bedfordshire Libraries. General comments: feedback@200livinghistory.info Copyright issues/takedown requests: please contact john@freehistoryproject. uk marking your email 'urgent'. Amazon links, where given, are included because of the detail, reviews and purchasers' comments provided. Secondhand copies of books can be obtained using www.bookfinder.com We aim for 100% accuracy, but please check with visitor attractions before travelling to any mentioned in these pages.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN, PAINTED IN 1823 BY LAZARUS GOTTLIEB SICHLING, AFTER WALDMÜLLER (ABOVE) AND FERDINAND RIES, PAINTED BY CHARLES PICART IN 1824.

FRANZ LISZT

Telford’s great canal is completed - a decade late

Thomas Telford’s huge artificial waterway linking Scotland’s north and eastern coast with its west, is finally open, a decade later than anticipated, and costing double original estimates.

A steam yacht made the first journey through the canal, sailing from the Muirtown locks in Inverness to Fort William, a distance of over 60 miles in a near straight line. This follows the route of the Great Glen, the valley dissecting the Scottish highlands.

Large crowds watched the first journey from canalside, with cannons firing and military bands playing. The canal is being hailed in newspapers as a “great national undertaking” of which the country should feel pride.

Parliament gave the goahead for the construction of the canal in 1803, awarding the contract to the Scottish civil engineer Thomas Telford (pictured rt). Work began the next year, with an expectation that it should be completed early in the next decade.

The original budget of £474,000, mainly from the Treasury, has proved unrealistic. Latest figures put the total cost at о £910,000.

The project’s supporters insist that the canal has faced unprecedented challenges, cutting through some of the most mountainous terrain in the UK. Sceptics insisted the canal could not be built, but have been proved wrong.

Backers pointed to its temporary and longer-term economic benefits, bringing work to an area suffering from high unemployment. The canal has created a new trade route across Scotland, enabling people and goods to move more quickly.

Its most distinctive features are 29 locks, the biggest in the world. The project team was aided by the first steam dredger used in Scotland.

Thomas Telford’s current projects elsewhere in the UK include a bridge over the Menai Strait in Wales, and upgrading and building new sections for a trunk road from London and Holyhead, boosting connections to Ireland. o

Pit railway opens minus horse power

The country’s first new railway using only steam locomotives and no animal power has been opened in County Durham. o

The railway links the recently-developed Hetton colliery with the town of Sunderland eight miles to the north. The line has been designed by engineer George Stephenson, and has attracted national and international attention.

Three Stephenson ‘patent travelling engines’ are being used on the private railway, working in conjunction with fixed engines covering a hilly stretch of 1½ miles.

The owners of the Hetton mine have been determined to see their output loaded directly onto coastal vessels at ‘staith’ wharfs, rather than relying on keelboats to take coal out to deeper water, as is the case in Newcastle.

Hetton’s completion will enable Mr Stephenson to focus more on the public railway from Stockton to Darlington. His achievements at Hetton are understood to have been a factor in the decision to pick him to lead the bigger project.

Triple disasters

Volcanoes, 2nd edn (1862), by George Poulett Scrope Hathi Trust

Journal of a residence in Chile, during the year 1822, by Maria Graham (1824) Google Books

Beethoven symphony

Beethoven and Britain, by Leanne Langley - British Library website

Beethoven, by Barry Cooper Amazon

Beethoven, by Denis Matthews Amazon

Beethoven-Haus, BonnMuseum website

Caledonian Canal

Scottish Canals website Institution of Civil Engineers website

The Life of Thomas Telford, by Samuel Smiles Internet Archive

Man of Iron: Thomas Telford and the Building of Britain, by Julian Glover Amazon

Thomas Telford: Master

Builder of Roads & Canals, by Anthony Burton Amazon

Hetton railway

Hetton Colliery Railway bicentenary website

The First Railways, by Derek Hayes Amazon George Stephenson, by Hunter Davies Amazon

Sir William Knighton

Regency History blog (Rachel Knowles)

Raffles and Singapore

Raffles and the Golden Opportunity, by Victoria Glendinning Amazon British Museum website

Stamford Raffles’s career and contributions to Singapore, Singapore Infopedia

Sarah Biffin

Without Hands: The Art of Sarah Biffin, by Emma Rutherford and Ellie Smith (eds) The Art Newspaper

SCOTTISH

A LITHOGRAPH OF HETTON COLLIERY DRAWN THIS YEAR BY JAMES HARDING

THE CANAL BASIN AT MUIRTOWN, NEAR INVERNESS, AND THOMAS TELFORD (BELOW)

This month, in 200’s diary column, the man who could be just what the doctor ordered for King George, an upbeat Raffles returns to Singapore, and the mounting problems facing the busker the papers call ‘the London fiddler’ and ‘Black Billy’

The whispering has already begun. Just weeks after taking on the role of keeper of the privy purse in the royal household, it is clear that Sir William Knighton now holds a position with unique access to George IV and potentially extraordinary power and connections.

The King is said to dine ‘têteà-tête’ with Sir William, and to address him in letters as his ‘dearest friend’, signing letters ‘most affectionately yours’. Sir William gave up his medical practice in September and he now works full-time for the King at Carlton House. Interestingly, the skills Sir William has brought to the King’s London residence go well beyond medical qualifications or what might be expected of a courtier. He is said to possess a shrewd grasp of finances, which may help to keep the king’s spending under control, and even reduce his debts. A private secretary, by the sound of it, in all but title. o

Our latest intelligence

Word from the Far East is that Sir Stamford Raffles has returned to Singapore where he founded a trading post in 1819, impressed by the island’s location at the southern tip of the Malay peninsula and its excellent natural harbour.

The job of private secretary to the monarch, which critics (especially Whig politicians) believed was unconstitutional, was scrapped with the departure of Sir Benjamin Bloomfield. The King is said to be happy at the change but has got his way in the appointment of Sir William, who insiders say has just as much clout as Sir Ben, perhaps even more.

Sir William became one of the then Prince Regent’s physicians a decade ago. He had qualified first as an accoucheur, and some close to the court are still said to refer to him dismissively as the ‘man midwife’. But it cannot be denied that he has made a rapid rise through medical and royal ranks.

Black Billy - as the busker Billy Waters is known - is a popular figure for many Londoners, playing the fiddle and dancing, as he is doing in this new picture at Charing Cross.

But all is not well. Also dubbed the King of the Beggars, Billy Waters, who is in his 40s, is in far from good health as Christmas nears.

Sir Stamford (above)

in Sumatra,

governor, in October. He has told friends he is staggered by its growth, as he puts it, “from an insignificant fishing village to a large and prosperous town”. It would be difficult, to name somewhere with brighter prospects, he says, “Here all is life and activity”. o

>>>>> Notes from Now (p11)

The peg-legged US-born former Royal Navy sailor is struggling to make ends meet for his wife and children. Now he is suffering afresh because his character in the West End dramatisation of Pierce Egan’s hugely popular Tom and Jerry, paints a too rosy picture of life as a beggar. His income has slumped as a consequence.

SIR WILLIAM KNIGHTON

arrived from the East India Company possession of Bencoolen

where is also

The view from the capital

This was published by map and travel guide publisher Edward Mogg in 1820. It was the sixth edition of a series that began in a revolutionary new circular format in 1805. Towns, villages, forests, parks, roads, rivers and buildings are identified, most (but not all) using our modern spellings. Within the red line, letters could be sent for two pence (1p decimal), a charge that is similar to today’s 95p for a first-class letter, о allowing for inflation - but there were complaints about its cost. If you live within the limits of the map, its quality is such that you should be able to zoom in to find your area.

1822’S PEOPLE

Fast

facts on news-makers

Henry Hunt, radical politician

Entered politics as radical campaigner during Napoleonic Wars | Dubbed ‘the Orator’ after speeches to Spa Fields meetings in 1816 | Keynote and only speaker at 1819 St Peter’s Field (“Peterloo”) meeting broken up by troops | Jailed for 2½ years for seditious conspiracy | Elected MP in 1830, beating future PM Edward Stanley in Preston by-election | Presented first petition for women’s right to vote in 1832 | Opposed Whig Reform Bill as insufficiently radical | Lost seat in first postReform Act election in 1833

from

200 years ago

b: 6 November 1773, Upavon, Wiltshire | Age now in 1822: 49 d: 13 February 1835, Alresford, Hampshire, aged 61

Buried: St Peter’s Church, Parham Park, West Sussex

Wikipedia History of Parliament online National Portrait Gallery Peterloo: Whatever Happened to Henry Hunt?, National Archives blog Wiltshire’s Orator Henry Hunt and the Peterloo Massacre, Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre Blog Books: ‘Orator’ Hunt, by John Belchem Amazon Peterloo, by Robert Poole Amazon

William Hazlitt, writer Wikipedia

Essayist, drama & literary critic, painter, commentator & philosopher | Ranked alongside Samuel Johnson and George Orwell as greatest essayists in English language | Worked as a journalist for papers including Morning Chronicle and The Examiner | 1822 essay The Fight hailed as pioneering sports journalism | Writing like Table Talk and The Spirit of the Age often criticised by Tories

Maria Graham, writer and scientist

Artist, traveller, published author, botanist, editor & art historian | Published two books on India on return to UK in 1811 | Wrote Italian guidebook and biography of painter Poussin in 1820/21 | Recorded effect of 1822 earthquake but conclusion that land could be lifted proved controversial, but accurate | Grave restored in 2008 by Chilean government

b: 10 April 1778, Maidstone, Kent | Age now in 1822: 44 d 18 September 1830, London, aged 52

Buried: St Anne’s, Soho, London

National Portrait Gallery Project Gutenberg - Works by Hazlitt

The Hazlitt Society

In Our Time, BBC Radio 4 A memorial for Hazlitt, by A.C. Grayling (The Guardian)

b: 19 July 1785, near Cockermouth, Cumbria | Age now in 1822: 37 d 21 November 1842, London, aged 57

Buried: Kensal Green Cemetery, London

Wikipedia National Portrait Gallery Project Gutenberg - Works by Graham

Maria Graham: trailblazer and peepshow maker - V & A Blog Maria Graham, and a large earthquake in Chile, 1822European Geosciences blog The adventures of Maria Graham - Gardens Trust blog

NOTES FROM NOW

Observations

about the news from 1822

Is there anywhere that respects, almost reveres, a European colonial pioneer in quite the same way as the Asian island nation of Singapore? Unlike Christopher Columbus, Cecil Rhodes or Captain Cook, Raffles of Singapore does not appear to need his reputation polishing.

There is a surprising, if unflattering, acceptance of the role of women in the drive for political reform at the time of the Peterloo massacre of 1819, and in the years after, in an unlikely quarter.

The Manchester Comet was published in late 1822 as a reaction to the release from prison of Henry Hunt, the ‘Orator’ who was the only person actually able to speak before sabre-slashing troops forcibly broke up the St Peter’s Field pro-democracy meeting in the city in August 1819.

Satirical one-off publishing by Manchester’s powerful Tory establishment it may have been, but page three is striking because it contains a large drawing of what are said to be the “Female Radical Reformers of Manchester”.

This white polymarble statue of Sir Stamford Raffles, whose arrival back in Singapore in 1822 we report this month, stands where he is said to have made land three years earlier. It is, according to the country’s tourist board, a “national icon”, a good spot for selfies with “this popular figure,” who stands proud with “arms folded and looking thoughtfully out to sea”.

Raffles gets plenty of credit on the Visit Singapore website, which hails “the Raffles effect” as the decisive factor in the creation of modern Singapore. The Raffles Hotel is today a byword for luxury, while Raffles Boulevard and Raffles Avenue (an extension of Stamford Road!) cut through the city centre. And even the country’s Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, posts on Facebook about a visit to Raffles Terrace, where Sir Stamford lived. o

Chetham’s Library in Manchester, which holds what is believed to be the only surviving copy of the Comet, says the image (however inaccurate) is the only illustration that remains of this women’s group.

Although clearly trying to undermine the women reformers by depicting them as drinking, dancing on tables or canoodling, the publication was ridiculing them because they were important - as the library, puts it, “not simply because they could make banners and caps of liberty, but because they were able to educate their children in the principles of reform”.

All lit up: Telford’s Scottish canal’s double century is celebrated

The

completion and opening of Thomas Telford’s Caledonian Canal in October 1822 was marked two centuries later by a series of night-time illuminations shining light on some of its bestknown landmarks.

On the anniversary, a 130-yearold two-masted Dutch sailing ship, the Kommandoren (pictured above right), recreated the first journey through the 22 mile (35 km) manmade waterway, part of the 60 mile (96 km) canal linking Scotland’s east and west coasts.

The day before, Neptune’s Staircase at Banavie and Gairlochy lighthouse were lit up as a part of Scottish Canals’ year-long programme to mark the double bicentenary of the Caledonian Canal, and of the Union Canal.

No British premiere for Beethoven’s 9th

Even though Ludwig van Beethoven’s epic choral Symphony No. 9 in D Minor was commissioned by the Philharmonic Society of London (now the Royal Philharmonic Society), it was first performed in the composer’s adopted home city of Vienna, not in Britain.

A UK premiere may have been the hope or intention of the Philharmonic Society, but it did not happen, nor did Beethoven comply with their timescale. He was not to be hurried and the society’s delivery date of March 1823 came and went.

The Ninth Symphony’s world premiere was on 7 May 1824 at Vienna’s Kärntnertortheater, with contralto Caroline Unger famously turning the deaf composer around to accept the audience’s plaudits.

The first UK performance finally took place at the Argyll Rooms in London in March 1825, extraordinarily to mixed press reviews

Beethoven died in 1827, aged 56, and never did come to the UK, in spite of his many contacts with the country. o

The Union, another Telford project, went significantly over budget like the Caledonian, but was completed much more quickly, in just four years. It connects Edinburgh and Falkirk, and was built to bring minerals, especially coal, to Scotland’s capital city.

The arrival of railways hit the canal’s traffic, it went into steady decline and was closed in 1965. But it was reopened in 2001 as part of the £83m Millennium Link, the largest canal restoration in Britain. o

‘Without hands’, a free exhibition about the remarkable life of Sarah Biffin (1784-1850), who taught herself to write and draw despite being born with no arms, runs until 21 December at Philip Mould & Company in Pall Mall, London. Biffin established herself as a portrait painter, taking commissions from royalty, touring the UK, and teaching minature art. The exhibition includes handbills and broadsides from Biffin’s time in travelling fairs, where she was billed as the ‘Eighth Wonder’ - though the idea of a disabled person on show in quite this way is bound to jar today. o

THE ORIGINAL OF THIS SELFPORTRAIT FROM 1821 WAS SOLD FOR £137,500 IN 2019, AFTER BEING VALUED AT £1,200-£1,800.

ABOVE: PLAQUE AT THE LOCATION OF THE FIRST UK PERFORMANCE, REGENT STREET, LONDON.

The modified steam locomotive used to break the Tyne keelmen’s strike in 1822 is on show at the National Museum of Scotland. Wylam Dilly is one of the two oldest surviving locomotives in the world.

The Edinburgh museum also has a scale working model Puffing Billy, which was also designed by William Hedley in Northumberland in 1813/14, is on display at the Science Museum in London.

BOTH PICTURES: PETER SANDGROUND / SCOTTISH CANALS

ENGRAVING BY R.W. SIEVIER,, AFTER SARAH BIFFIN. WELLCOME

ABOVE: A VETERAN CARGO SHIP, KOMMANDOREN, AT TOMNAHURICH BRIDGE, RECREATING PART OF THE FIRST JOURNEY THROUGH THE CALEDONIAN CANAL, 200 YEARS TO THE DAY AFTER IT OPENED.

LEFT: NEPTUNE’S STAIRCASE AT BANAVIE, NEAR FORT WILLIAM, COMPRISING EIGHT LOCKS, THE LONGEST OF ITS TYPE IN BRITAIN.

Timelines: Caledonian | Union