200 Magazine March 1823 / 2023

#9

MARCH 1823 / 2023

DEGRADING, CRUEL AND PERNICIOUS

That’s what William Wilberforce thinks about slavery, as the campaign for abolition hits the road to spread its message.

MASSACRES CLAIMS

3,600 LIVES IN GREECE

Ottoman forces slaughter women and children in a cave on the island of Crete, in the latest bloody massacre in the Greek war of independence.

BRITISH SHIPS GO

FURTHEST SOUTH

Captains James Weddell and Matthew Brisbane get their ships nearer the South Pole than ever before, 532 miles below the Antarctic Circle.

King George has had enough of cartoons like this. Now he wants ministers to clamp down on them. Details - page 2.

the bathing belles of Brighton to return to his yacht and go to Cowes.

NEWS FROM 1823 ON WHITE PAGES

COMMENT FROM 2023 ON BLUE PAGES

Uncomfortable though the depiction may be to modern eyes, the exploits of busker Billy Waters, who died in March 1823, were commemorated in bone china later in the 19th century. Find out more.

о TOP OF THE PAGE EXPLANATIONS

o FURTHER RESOURCES ON PAGE 9

The life-saving body this man, Sir William Hillary, said was needed in 1823 was set up in 1824 and became the RNLI. Hear his appeal which fell on deaf ears in Whitehall. Find out more

ONLINE ONLY ALWAYS FREE

This silhouette is the only known depiction of Frances Rollaston. In 1823, she was raising money to help women in Ireland, but she also fought slavery and opened her own infant schools. Find out more.

Guest writers Michael Taylor (on the defenders of slavery) & Mary L. Shannon (on Billy Waters) Archive

This 1819 cartoon by George Cruikshank appeared two days after the Peterloo massacre, and shows the then Prince Regent leaving

King George vents over cartoons and ‘madness’

The King is understood to have told the government that Sunday newspapers are abusing the freedom of the press and that ministers should put a stop to “indecent” and

caricatures of him that are widely available in London.

The monarch’s fury, voiced in a letter to the Home Secretary, Robert Peel, seems to have been sparked by a story in The Sunday Times in early February. The paper, which only began publishing last November, said the “melancholy truth” was that the King’s current medical problems were hereditary.

The Sunday Times then made clear that it was referring to the mental health issues that afflicted his father, King George III, being transmitted to descendants. Others were concealing the truth about the King’s disorder, said the paper.

This magazine has seen a copy of the King’s letter, which reveals his anger at the newspapers in very clear terms. One observer says the King has been “shaken by such malicious insinuation; he had been hurt long enough by the jibes and caricatures of the Press”.

In the letter, King George says “steps should be taken” against Sunday newspapers and he asks ministers to consider legal action by the Attorney-General against The Sunday Times. It is understood that this has already been discussed by the Cabinet.

However, ministers are believed to be sceptical about the chances of a jury in London or Middlesex convicting a newspaper of, presumably, libel.

King George has put forward the idea of trebling the duty paid by Sunday papers, a step similar to those taken by this government in the ‘Six Acts’ passed after the Peterloo massacre in 1819. This would likely have the effect of reducing circulation and readership, and threaten the finances of some publications.

Sources at Carlton House, the King’s London residence, say George reads all newspapers, and feel it is his duty to do so. But he believes there is mischief as a result of abuses by the press of their freedom.

King George’s anger is directed too at what he feels are obscene caricatures of him. His letter warns that “there is scarcely a shop in London that deals in such trash in which the King is not exposed in some indecent, ridiculous manner. This is now become a constant practice, and it is high time that it should be put a stop to.” o

Fears grow over monarch’s health

King George remains in Brighton, where snowfall in recent days is being blamed for a renewed flare-up of his gout. This is just the latest health issue afflicting the head of state, who was unable to open Parliament in person at the start of February as a result.

Friends of the King are understood to feel that he has aged significantly in recent months.

“He suffers dreadfully from rheumatic gout so as hardly to be able to turn in bed without screaming,” one said. “I cannot help feeling that his life is very precarious - one thing after another always starting up and keeping him so weak and ill.”

Should symptoms get worse, it is likely that the King may have to use crutches to get around, and he may be confined to the Royal Pavilion. o

THE KING HAS LONG BEEN A TARGET OF CARTOONISTS. HERE, IN 1792, JAMES GILLRAY SHOWS HIM WITH A BURSTING WAISTCOAT, AN ALMOST FINISHED HAM, AND SIGNS OF GAMBLING DEBTS AND THE POX.

THIS 1820 CARTOON BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK HARMED THE KING’S CASE AGAINST HIS ESTRANGED WIFE AS HE SOUGHT A DIVORCE AND TO STRIP HER OF THE TITLE OF QUEEN. SEEING IT, HER ATTORNEY, HENRY BROUGHAM, SAID THAT IF THE KING HAD A “GREEN BAG” OF EVIDENCE AGAINST THE QUEEN,. SO SHE MIGHT HAVE ONE TOO AGAINST THE KING.

IN THIS NEW CARTOON BY CHARLES WILLIAMS, THE KING IS HAVING TO SWALLOW THE APPOINTMENT OF GEORGE CANNING LAST YEAR AS FOREIGN SECRETARY. CANNING IS TO HIS RIGHT, WITH LORD LIVERPOOL.

“ridiculous”

Degrading, cruel and pernicious - Wilberforce tears into slavery

William Wilberforce has launched an extraordinary attack on slavery, as campaigners have begun to set up the new group which is to fight for its abolition.

On the opening page of a new pamphlet, just published, Mr Wilberforce describes slavery as “a system of the grossest injustice, of the most heathenish irreligion and immorality, of the most unprecedented degradation, and unrelenting cruelty”.

This message from the leading campaigner for the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 is called “an appeal to the religion, justice, and humanity of the inhabitants of the British Empire in behalf of the negro slaves in the West Indies”.

Calling slavery “a national crime of the deepest moral malignity,” Mr Wilberforce says that its continuation “can only be accounted for by the generally prevailing ignorance of its real nature”.

Few Britons, he says, realise the condition of black slaves, with a mistaken focus previously on individual cases of cruelty, not the system as a whole. Mr Wilberforce says that plantation owners living in Britain are as ignorant as anyone,

William Wilberforce will switch his efforts to Parliament in the next week, when he will present a petition against slavery from the Society of Friends, the Quakers. The Dorset MP, Thomas Fowell Buxton, is then expected to take over the leadership of anti-slavery MPs.

The campaign is based at Aldermanbury in the City of London, and its central committee chaired by the progressive Whig MP for Norwich, William Smith

Thomas Clarkson, a leading campaigner against the slave trade but now aged 62, is to travel the country to mobilise a network of anti-slavery groups. It is clear that the AntiSlavery Society intends to deluge Parliament with petitions calling for early legislation against slavery.

Zachary Macaulay, who has experience as a manager at a sugar plantation with slaves in Jamaica, is expected to run a new magazine, the AntiSlavery Monthly Reporter.

Eight trampled to death in crush at Newcastle theatre

A mass panic in a packed theatre in Newcastle-uponTyne after the discovery of a small fire has led to the deaths of eight people.

A box in the Theatre Royal was set alight shortly after the start of the second act of a performance of the play, Tom and Jerry. Although the fire was almost immediately extinguished, shouts of ‘fire’ led to a stampede of upwards of 900 theatre-goers in the gallery.

Eight people died, literally trodden to death” according to observers, as panic gripped the audience.

Attempts to calm down the audience were unsuccessful.

“All in vain, said one reporter, “A deaf ear was turned to the judicious advice.”

Tributes have been paid to the theatre’s manager, Mr de Camp, for his efforts to end the panic, without which the death toll would have been higher.

The campaign will face stiff opposition from what is known as the West India Interest.

o Who are ‘The Interest’ - p. 9

Soldiers are being blamed for an incident at Tralee in Co. Kerry in which a young shoemaker was stabbed in the face with a bayonet. Dragoons are said to have run through the centre of the town, assaulting onlookers, first with bayonets, then with carabine airguns. Magistrates were unable to stop the soldiers’ rampage.

Bath is to have a Literary and Scientific Institution, following the establishment of similar bodies promoting science and the arts in Newcastle and Leeds. Finance is now being raised, with the hope that a building will be ready in 1824 or 1825, on the site of the Lower Assembly Rooms which burned down in 1820,

A MID-19TH CENTURY ENGRAVING OF ‘THE HEROES OF SLAVE TRADE ABOLITION’ IN 1807’. OF THE FIVE MEN SHOWN, ALL ARE LEADERS OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, BAR GRANVILLE SHARP, WHO DIED IN 1813.

AN 1827 DRAWING OF THE EXTERIOR OF THE THEATRE ROYAL, BUILT IN 1788

Ugly scenes after Tory defeat in Irish by-election

Violence

has followed the victory of a candidate committed to giving Catholics the right to sit in Parliament in last month’s by-election in County Dublin.

A pro-emancipation Protestant, Colonel Henry White, defeated the hardline anti-Catholic Tory, Sir Compton Domville by 994 votes to 849. Col. White’s success is being attributed to a campaign organised by Daniel O’Connell, widely regarded as the leader of Ireland’s Catholic majority. He mobilised Catholic tenants to vote for Col. White and against the candidate backed by their landlords.

This is being seem as one of the first occasions on which the potential impact of tenant voters has been realised, to the fury of Protestant landowners. It may inspire Mr O’Connell to repeat the exercise, and even organise Catholics across all of Ireland.

Trouble happened in Dublin after the declaration of the result as Col. White’s victory parade went through the streets, accompanied by supporters and a military band. At first, the mood was buoyant, with cheering outside the Guinness brewery when an employee held up a ‘145’ sign, the pro-emancipation majority.

Disturbances started when the procession reached Trinity College. Students are said to have thrown stones at the marchers, who returned them, smashing windows, with some entering the building.

Three people are reported to have been killed and several seriously hurt. Police who tried to arrest people throwing stones at the college were injured, and magistrates were surrounded by a crowd armed with shillelagh clubs as they questioned stone-throwers.

Worse violence erupted after dark when a mob, armed with bludgeons, ran through the city centre, cheering the name of the losing Tory candidate and assaulting anyone who refused to join in the shouting. The crowd broke windows at Col. White’s HQ and demonstrated outside Daniel O’Connell’s home.

New institution urged to save lives of seafarers Civil war damage repaired in Peterborough Cathedral

The UK needs a new service dedicated to saving lives at sea, according to an exNapoleonic war officer who has led rescue attempts on the Isle of Man, where two Royal Navy vessels were wrecked late in 1822.

Sir William Hillary joined with local fishermen in efforts to save the crew of HMS Vigilant in a gale last October. But he is known to have been frustrated at the simple boats available for the rescue and the reluctance of some men to help because of the risk.

Now Sir William has published a pamphlet appealing for the formation of a о National Institution for the Preservation of Lives and Property from Shipwreck.

The appeal has been sent to the Royal Navy, ministers and VIPs, however reports suggest the Admiralty is unenthusiastic about the idea of a body devoted to life-saving, with substantial funding necessary as well as training.

Sir William Hillary (pictured above) says the heart of the institution he has proposed must be a large body of men “in constant readiness to risk their own lives for the preservation of those whom they have never known or seen, perhaps of another nation, merely because they are fellow creatures in extreme peril”.

Official figures indicate that there are an average of 1,800 shipwrecks a year around the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland. The danger of shipwreck is an accepted way of life at sea.

Almost 180 years after being badly damaged by Parliamentary forces during the Civil War, repairs have at last begun at Peterborough Cathedral in Northamptonshire.

Troops commanded by Oliver Cromwell wreaked havoc inside the building in 1643. It was built as an abbey in 1118 and designated a cathedral by Henry VIII in 1541 after the break with Rome.

Objecting to images in churches and features regarded as Catholic, the soldiers destroyed paintings, stone carvings, an altar, chapel, cloisters, stained glass windows and books.

Legal disputes followed the end of the republic and return of the monarchy, including over the ownership of the dean’s house.

Sporadic building happened during the 18th century, but it was not until the appointment of James Henry Monk as Dean of Peterborough last year that a restoration project began, costing о £6,000. The architect is Edward Blore, responsible for Sir Walter Scott’s house, Abbotsford

The work is expected to be finished about 1830. Some original materials are being reused, like this font, rescued from use since the 1640s as a flower tub in a nearby garden.

DANIEL O’CONNELL

Antarctic mission goes boldly where no man has gone before

TwoBritish ships have gone further south than any other vessels in recorded marine history, beating the achievement of Captain James Cook fifty years ago by 214 nautical miles.

The unprecedented southerly voyage is a personal triumph for James Weddell, the captain of the brig, Jane, who is on his third mission to the Antarctic in the space of just four years. The second ship is the cutter, Beaufoy, led by Matthew Brisbane

The ships reached 74.15 South and longitude 34.16’.45” West, 532 miles south of the Antarctic Circle on 20 February before a decision to turn back, with no land in sight.

The two crews are said to be “naturally much disappointed” at not finding a southern continent. Land was first sighted by a Russian expedition in 1820, and there are disputed claims that an American captain set foot on a new landmass in 1821.

Arctic update

The Royal Navy expedition to find a North West Passage from the Atlantic to Pacific Oceans remains ice-bound even as the Arctic spring has begun. The crews of HMS Fury and HMS Hecla spent the winter at the Inuit hamlet of Igloolik. It is believed to be the first contact the area’s inhabitants have had with Europeans.

Capt. Weddell says he “re-animated” the crews by praising their patient and orderly behaviour and making them aware of their recordbreaking achievement. “Our colours were hoisted, and a gun was fired, and both crews gave three cheers,” he said. An allowance of grog further dispelled the sailors’ gloom. The newly discovered sea has been named after King George.

Record crowd for Fen skating

As many as 8,000 spectators have watched a new star emerge in East Anglia’s winter sport of speed skating. It is believed to be a record attendance in the Fenlands.

Good weather brought the crowds to Carter’s Bridge at Chatteris in Cambridgeshire for 13 heats and finals.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Winner John Young from Nordelph, Norfolk, took the title from his older local rival John Gittam, who he beat in a heat. Young skated eight miles in total to claim the о £10 first prize. Young is pictured (centre) about to start the final. Speed skating is experiencing a boom in the Fenlands as a result of severe winters. o

This has given officers led by Capt. William Edward Parry a unique opportunity to study the behaviour and lives of those they call Eskimaux. Their report, according to Capt. George Lyon of the Hecla, will identify issues about bigamy and care for the dying, but will be positive about men’s treatment of women. “The women are treated well; are rarely, if ever, beaten; are never compelled to work, and are always allowed an equal authority in household affairs with the men.” o

200 Magazine is edited by John Evans. He gratefully acknowledges the help of Jane Evans, Jude Painter, Larry Breen, Katrinah Best (Birkbeck), Jennifer Hunt (Rugby School), Lydia Porter (Hatchard’s), Elizabeth L. Boineau (International African American Museum), Alex Carton (Peterborough Cathedral), British Newspaper Archive, British Library, Cambridge University Library, Central Bedfordshire Libraries. General comments: feedback@200livinghistory.info Copyright/takedown issues: 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.

CAPT. JAMES COOK’S SOUTHERN RECORD IN 1773 HAS BEEN BROKEN

INUIT WOMEN, IN AN ENGRAVING BY EDWARD FINDEN

GEORGE CRUIKSHANK PRINT OF THE SKATING AT CHATTERIS, CAMBRIDGESHIRE, IN JANUARY. THE WISBECH COACH STOPPED TO LET PASSENGERS WATCH THE RACE.

THE BRIG JANE AND CUTTER BEAUFOY AT LATITUDE 68 DEGREES SOUTH SAILING THROUGH A CHAIN OF ICE ISLANDS IN FEBRUARY.

Massacre claims 3,600 lives in Crete, as proGreek mood grows in UK

Asmany as 3,600 Greek civilians, mainly women and children, are reported to have been murdered in a cave on the island of Crete. This is just the latest bloody episode in the war between Greeks seeking independence and the forces of the Ottoman Empire.

Local residents had taken refuge in caves, after Ottoman forces ravaged the Lassithi Plateau on the east of the island. Greeks blocked the entrance leading to a siege.

Ottoman forces are reported to have lit fires near the entrance to the cave of Milatos, filling it with smoke. Most of those who finally emerged were killed. But there is uncertainty over the number who died, and some observers believe the number may be significantly lower.

News of this latest massacre is likely to fuel demands for action in support of the Greek independence fighters in Western Europe, in particular in Britain.

“100 dead” in Maltese tragedy

A London Greek Committee has just been set up, with hopes that Lord Byron, who is in Italy, may back the campaign.

The London group is seeking to increase support for the Greek cause among British politicians and opinion formers, and raise loans for the Greeks in the City of London. A Devon businessman, John Bowring, is one of the leading figures. He was held in France for six weeks last year over claims he was a spy.

More than 100 boys are feared dead after falling down a fight of stairs at a convent in the capital, Valletta, during celebrations of Malta’s annual carnival.

The children, aged 15 or 16, were crushed as they waited to collect bread being distributed as part of the festivities. Adults and extra children got into the convent and the boys intended to receive the free food fell, after being left in darkness when a gas lamp went out.

Carnival has been a big event on the Mediterranean island since the 1530s, with games, pageants, and historical re-enactments.

Crete massacre is just the latest bout of bloodletting

The mass murder on Crete is just the latest bloodletting in the Greeks’ war to secure independence from the Ottoman Empire, with massacres of noncombatants committed by both sides. These are the main bloody episodes:

April 1821: With the war barely underway, most of the residents of the Greek quarter of the Ottoman capital, Constantinople were slaughtered. Patriarch Gregory V was hanged for not stopping the drive for independence. A number of senior clerics were also executed in April and May. Property was looted and churches destroyed.

Spring-Summer 1821: Over 20,000 Turkish residents of the Peloponnese are said to have been killed. Greek mobs with clubs, scythes and firearms killed, plundered and burned. “The Turks of Greece left few traces, one observer wrote. “They disappeared suddenly and finally...unmourned and unnoticed by the rest of the world.”

ABOVE: THIS GERMAN ENGRAVING DEPICTS THE MASSACRE IN CONSTANTINOPLE IN APRIL 1821. IT SHOWS GREGORY V BEING HANGED. HIS BODY REMAINED FOR THREE DAYS SUSPENDED FROM THE GATE OF THE PATRIARCHATE.

о IN HIS MEMORY, THE GATE (RIGHT) WAS WELDED SHUT AND IT HAS REMAINED CLOSED EVER SINCE.

This included massacres at Navarino and Tripolitsa. Up to 3,000 Muslims died at Navarino in August 1821. A promise of safe conduct is reported not to have been honoured by Greek commanders. Children were left to drown, with babies smashed against the rocks.

September 1821: At least eight thousand Muslim civilians are said to have been massacred following the end of the siege of Tripolitsa, along with Jews. Men whose limbs had been cut off were roasted over fires, and pregnant women butchered and decapitated.

July-October 1821: The head of the Orthodox Church in Cyprus was executed in Nicosia, and 500 were hanged or beheaded, despite orders to end the killing. A mob murdered church leaders in Larnaca in October, and many villages were de-populated.

April-August 1822: About four-fifths of the Greek population of 100,000 on Chios, near the Ottoman mainland, were killed, enslaved, or had to flee the island. Ottoman forces carried out reprisals after Greek irregular forces landed on Chios to seek support.

GREEK FORCES ARE SHOWN AFTER THE SURRENDER OF NAVARINO IN AUGUST 1821. A MASSACRE FOLLOWED.

Infurther dramatic developments in crisisridden Spain, the country’s king has sacked his liberal ministers, only to be forced to re-instate them after street protests.

King Ferdinand has long been at loggerheads with his government in a political clash of direction and policies. There are widespread expectations that this will lead to armed intervention at any moment by neighbouring France on the side of the ultra-conservative head of state in Madrid.

Relations between king and ministers deteriorated further last July when the royal guard staged a revolt that was quickly put down by troops loyal to the government.

The sacking by King Ferdinand VII of Evaristo Fernández de San Miguel’s military-backed government in February was soon reversed after what were immediately dubbed the ‘regency riots’.

Crowds, gathered outside the royal palace, called for the king to be deposed and replaced by a regency, protests that the authorities appear to have done little or nothing to stop.

The Irish journalist Michael Joseph Quin witnessed the dramatic events that led to King Ferdinand being forced to take back the ministers he had sacked only hours earlier.

Mr Quin says news that the liberals had been dismissed spread fast.

As many as 500 protesters gathered outside the palace and, with their numbers swelled to four figures, they were able to position themselves under the king’s drawing room window, although they failed to get into the building. Troops intervened, but only to make the protesters retreat, back just ten paces from the palace.

The crowds shouted that the king was a tyrant, chanting ‘Depose him from the throne’, ‘Kill him’, and ‘Citizens, is this man fit to be our king?’.

It is understood that Ferdinand had reacted in violent and ‘ungentlemanlike’ terms when ministers asked him to leave Madrid.

о Fresh developments just reported from Spain have the king being forced to move to Seville, 300 miles south, 600 miles from the French border. French troops, perhaps numbering as many as 100,000, are said to be positioned just across the border, waiting for a command to invade and restore Ferdinand to full authority.

Read Michael Joseph Quin’s despatch from Madrid here o

Ferdinand forced to reinstate sacked liberal ministers after revolt ‘Terror of the Gulf’ Lafitte dies in battle, Pirates of the Caribbean hanged

The legendary ‘gentleman pirate’, Jacques Lafitte, is reported to have been killed in a naval confrontation in the Caribbean. Most of his crew of 60 died with him.

According to one report, Lafitte’s vessel was boarded by crew from a British sloop; in another, onboard an armed private vessel in the service of Colombia. he fought a brief battle with two Spanish ships in the Gulf of Honduras, and was buried at sea.

Whichever is true, this appears to mark the end of a notorious pirate and privateer, who has been called the ‘gentleman pirate’ and ‘terror of the Gulf’. Lafitte was a complex figure, who was targeted by the US authorities, at other times aiding them.

Jacques Lafitte, born in France in 1782, ran a large black market pirate business off the coast of Mississippi, proclaimed his own kingdom of Barataria, spied for Spain, and helped the Americans in the battle of New Orleans against Britain in 1812.

о The British colonial authorities in Jamaica have executed ten Caribbean pirates of Spanish origin in Kingston. The British cutter, HMS Grecian, according to latest reports, has captured a privateeer schooner off Cuba, killing 30 pirates.

These are being seen as further indicators of Britain’s tough approach to pirates, at a time when the United States is stepping up its efforts.

The Royal Navy is increasingly co-operating with the US Navy to tackle piracy, as relations between the two countries have thawed after the War of 1812. The two former enemies worked together last November in an operation against pirate vessels off the Cuban coast.

President James Monroe authorised the creation of an anti-piracy squadron two years ago, amid growing concern about its effect on the US and its trade with Europe.

Commodore David Porter’s ‘Mosquito Fleet’ is now at sea in the Caribbean. o

KING FERDINAND VII, PAINTED BY FRANCISCO GOYA IN 1815

JACQUES LAFITTE AND HIS PIRATES CLEARING THE DECKS OF A CAPTURED BRITISH EAST INDIAMAN VESSEL

Old FOx’s JOurnal

latest intelligence

Northamptonshire’s ‘peasant poet’, John Clare, is having a hard time after the success of his rural verse, and visits to London in 1820 and 1822.

Clare, 29, is said to be nearly penniless and has told friends that he must give up alcohol, because his drinking is hurting not only himself but his family. Wife Patty is pregnant and the Clares already have two young daughters.

Itlooks increasingly likely that Britain will get a visit before the end of this year from Gioachino Rossini, who has fast become as big a name in musical circles as Ludwig van Beethoven.

It is anticipated that Rossini and his wife, the prima donna Isabella Colbran, will leave Venice later this month to go to Bologna and nearby Castenaso for what they hope will be a quiet spring and summer. His only public commitment is believed to be writing a cantata in honour of the Three Graces sculptor, Antonio Canova, who died last year, to accompany the unveiling of a bust in Treviso

Born in Helpston, near Peterborough, Clare achieved fame in 1820 with the release of his Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery by John Taylor, John Keats’ publisher One critic has spoken of his poetical genius “in the humble garb of a farm labourer”.

The Italian operatic composer (pictured above) spent much of 1822 in Vienna, where the midyear opera festival was dominated by his work. He left in December for Venice, where he finished his two-act opera, Semiramide, based on a tragedy by Voltaire. It had its premiere at the La Fenice opera house last month.

Word now is that Rossini will go to Paris later this year, probably in November, before spending Christmas and the new year in Britain.

This could be an extended visit, because there is talk of a season of Rossini operas at the о King’s Theatre in Haymarket. Aside from the massive public interest that is likely and the demands on his time to meet leading figures in London society, a lengthy stay is sure to have an extremely positive effect on the Rossini family’s finances. o

The Duke of Wellington may be an unbending conservative member of the Earl of Liverpool’s Tory cabinet. But 200 has news that may surprise both his admirers and radical critics.

Apart from the despatches of the British ambassador, Sir William a Court, ministers in London have another source of news from Madrid, as fears mount of a French invasion.

John Clare secured an aristocratic patron and met Hazlitt, Coleridge and Lamb in London, but his Village Minstrel (1821) proved to be the ‘difficult second collection,’ attracting less attention, though a second edition is due out later in March. o

The duke and Don Miguel Ricardo de Álava became close friends when the Spaniard was his aide-de-camp in the Peninsula War, and with him at Waterloo. Now the general is a left-wing liberal, president of the Cortes, and critic of King Ferdinand. But they keep in touch through the duke’s secretary, FitzRoy Somerset, sent to Madrid to urge the liberals to compromise. o

JOHN CLARE, PAINTED BY WILLIAM HILTON IN 1820

This month, in 200’s diary column, London readies itself for a visit by classical music’s hottest property, the surprising political ‘back channel’ that the Duke of Wellington is using to stay in touch with events in Spain, and how John Clare, the peasant poet, is struggling

ROYAL SOCIETY OF MUSICIANS OF GB, CC

‘The Interest’ - uncovering the opponents of 1823’s new anti-slavery campaign

The campaign launched in London in January 1823 to abolish slavery knew it had a fight on its hands. It would come up against powerful forces in Britain and its empire, marshalled by what was known as the West India Interest. But who were these people?

Michael Taylor,

author of The Interest, explains.

In the early months of 1823, the British campaign against slavery lurched into gear. In January, the veteran abolitionists met in London to establish the Anti-Slavery Society; in February, they issued their prospectus; by March, William Wilberforce had presented a petition from Quakers to MPs; and in May, Thomas Fowell Buxton moved in Parliament for amelioration and ‘gradual’ emancipation of enslaved people in the British West Indies.

In doing so, however, the abolitionists would provoke the wrath of one of the most formidable political lobbies in British history. The West India Interest comprised the slaveholders, planters, and merchants for whom the defeat of the abolitionist campaign now became a consuming obsession.

Dozens of MPs and peers constructed the political defence of slavery in Parliament; vast meetings of bankers and financiers called for the protection of the money they had invested in the plantation economy; and the colonists in the Caribbean even threatened to secede from the British Empire should the government seek to abolish slavery.

In these early months of the campaign, it was the West Indians who held sway. They had friends in government, among them the foreign secretary George Canning, the home secretary Robert Peel, William Huskisson, and the Duke of Wellington. They also commanded the favour of the conservative press, and influential journals such as the Quarterly Review and Blackwood’s Magazine

MICHAEL TAYLOR IS A HISTORIAN.

THE INTEREST: HOW THE BRITISH ESTABLISHMENT RESISTED THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY (2020) WAS SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING; HIS NEXT BOOK, IMPOSSIBLE MONSTERS: DINOSAURS, DARWIN, AND THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION WILL BE PUBLISHED BY THE BODLEY HEAD.

These provided welcome homes for articles which invoked the Bible, protectionist economics, racial theories, and imperial security in defence of slavery. And when, in August 1823, the enslaved people of Demerara rebelled in search of their ‘rights’, it was the abolitionists – and their agitation – who were blamed.

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New US museum to open in June

Four hundred years of African American history will be highlighted in a new museum in Charleston, South Carolina, on the spot where at least 100,000 men, women and children landed during the slave trade.

The International African American Museum will open on 27 June to tie in with ‘Juneteenth’. Since 2021 it has been a nationwide public holiday to mark the day in 1865 when slaves in Texas were told of Lincoln’s proclamation two years earlier setting them free.

King George and cartoons

George IV - A life in caricature, by Kenneth Baker Amazon

George IV, Regent and King, by Christopher Hibbert Amazon

Gout in the time and person of George IV, by E.G.L. Bywaters British Medical Journal

Inside George’s Breeches: The Health of George IV Brighton and Hove Museums blog

Exploration

Barrow’s Boys, by Fergus Fleming Amazon

Fen skating

Chasing Ice: The Story of Fen Skating YouTube

Greek War of Independence

The Greek Revolution: 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe, by Mark Mazower Amazon

That Greece might still be free by William St Clair Internet Archive

Spain

Spain, 1808-1975, by Raymond Carr Amazon

Pirates

Pirates: predators of the seas, by Angus Konstam Internet Archive

Who were the real pirates of the Caribbean?, Royal Museums Greenwich website

Gioachino Rossini

Rossini, by Richard Osborne Amazon

John Clare

A Right to Song, the Life of John Clare, by Edward Storey Amazon

John Clare, by Jonathan Bate Amazon

Wellington

Wellington, Pillar of State, by Elizabeth Longford Amazon

Wellington, A Personal History, by Christopher Hibbert Amazon

The museum occupies land on which Gadsden’s Wharf, one of America’s main slave trading ports, was based, and (above) tells the story of the transatlantic trade in humans.

The museum will highlight the untold stories of African Americans and reflect their contribution to life in the USA, as well as events like the slave rebellion in 1822 in Charleston.

The migrant musician who was news, even in death

The death of Billy Waters in March 1823 was of such note that London newspapers reported it the next day. But why did this disabled black busker, originally from America, arouse such interest? His biographer Mary L. Shannon investigates the entertainer whose identity was appropriated for the gain of others, and his own destruction.

Billy Waters was an African-American exsailor, who had lost a leg serving on the Royal Navy ship HMS Ganymede and so turned to busking in London to supplement his meagre pension. Waters performed in the streets of London’s West End; he adopted the distinctive costume of cocked hat, sailor’s jacket, and wooden leg which – together with his fiddleplaying, his dancing, and his trademark song ‘Kitty/Polly will you marry me’ – made him a well-known figure on London’s streetscape.

Waters’ widest fame came, however, after he was immortalised in W. T. Moncrieff’s hit 1821 stage version of the phenomenally popular book Life in London (1820-1), written by Pierce Egan, and illustrated by Robert and George Cruikshank.

Near the Adelphi, the real Billy Waters performed. Inside, the white actor Signor Paolo played Waters on stage in a scene set in a tavern near Seven Dials which he was said to frequent.

‘Billy Waters’ became a famous (fictionalised) character in Regency and Victorian culture. His image turns up in prints, caricatures, books, and periodicals. The character was performed on stage in London, Bristol, Hull, and Edinburgh, and then in Boston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia.

His solution was to create an incredible performance act where he sang, danced, and played music all at the same time.

MARY L. SHANNON IS A WRITER, RESEARCHER, AND SENIOR LECTURER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ROEHAMPTON, LONDON. HER BIOGRAPHY, BILLY WATERS IS DANCING: HOW ONE BLACK SAILOR FOUND FAME IN REGENCY AND VICTORIAN BRITAIN IS FORTHCOMING FROM YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS. HER RESEARCH HAS BEEN FUNDED BY THE LEVERHULME TRUST AND THE RESEARCH

But William Waters the man has been shrouded in obscurity – until now. Born in America and an experienced mariner, he joined the British Navy on the eve of the 1812 War with the fledgling United States. After a terrible accident he had one leg amputated and was deemed ‘unserviceable’; with that, his seafaring days were over.

Now he had a new problem: how could a black man with a physical disability and a small pension survive and feed a family in post-war London?

In a city of one million people (twice the size of Paris) including a black population of around 10,000 (estimates vary), there were numerous black servants, beggars, and street sellers visible in the streets as part of the diversity of the international metropolis. Disabled street performers were nothing new as injured veterans returned from the Napoleonic Wars with physical and mental scars and very few job prospects, especially at a time of economic depression.

But Waters’ performance skills and eye-catching costume made him the crowd’s delight and an artists’ dream.

Waters’ fame sustained him but then destroyed him. He saw none of the revenue from the drawings and writings about him. The character of ‘Billy Waters’ was performed on stage by white actors in blackface: his identity was appropriated for the gain and entertainment of others.

This had real impacts: when he became a character in Moncrieff’s hit play (called Tom and Jerry), Londoners decided he must be welloff and stopped giving him money for his street act. He died in poverty in a London workhouse, supposedly cursing the play.

Waters was a creative innovator and an entertainer in an age when black performers were supposed to conform to the stereotypes established by white spectators. He made use of the materials available to him to develop his striking performances. His talents should be celebrated but also the challenges he was up against must be recognised. It’s time we re-assessed Waters’ legacy to popular culture.

More information:

London

UK Parliament - Billy Waters

bicentenary 2023 Early Day Motion Strandlines blog - the Busker of the West End

ABOVE: HOW THE MORNING ADVERTISER REPORTED BILLY WATERS’ DEATH ON 22 MARCH 1823 RIGHT: AN 1830 PORTRAIT OF BILLY WATERS.

Mary L. Shannon, The multiple lives of Billy Waters

Royal Museums Greenwichcollection objects

Literary Reading Group - Can we “rescue” Billy Waters?

NOTES FROM NOW

Observations about the news from 1822

ThomasClarkson, a veteran of the successful drive in the Britain of 1807 to abolish the transatlantic trade in human beings, was just approaching his 63rd birthday this month 200 years ago. His campaigning days might have been over at what was then a quite advanced age, but Clarkson was no ordinary man.

In spring 1823, Thomas Clarkson was a key part of the new movement, begun in January, to abolish slaverynot just the trade itself, but the ownership of people across the British empire. He covered 10,000 miles on horseback, spreading the word and setting up local anti-slavery groups. Clarkson, unlike William Wilberforce, lived long enough to see not only legislation passed to abolish slavery in 1833, but emancipation itself actually happen in 1838.

For Thomas Clarkson, the revelation that fighting slavery should be his life’s work came in 1785.

After entering an essay competition at Cambridge University on the subject of slavery, Clarkson spent the journey back to London engrossed in the issue. He stopped his horse and paused for a break at Wadesmill in Hertfordshire, where he resolved to devote his life to the ending the “calamities” of slavery. The spot where man and horse stopped is marked by an obelisk and display board on Ermine Street, what was then the main road. These are pictured above. ____________

Most extraordinary though is the fact that Wells was of mixed race, with a plantation owner father and a black slave mother on St Kitts. He was described by one visitor to his estate as “a man of very gentlemanly manners, but so much a man of colour as to be little removed from a Negro”.

Nathaniel Wells’ ethnicity seems to have been no barrier to him being appointed by the then Prince Regent in 1818 as Britain’s first black high sheriff, as well as a deputy lieutenant of Monmouthshire.

One

of the slave-owners who was compensated in 1837, to the tune of о £1,400, for the freeing of his 86 slaves on the Caribbean island of St Kitts was a wealthy Welsh land owner, whose home was Piercefield House in Monmouthshire. Nathaniel Wells was a pillar of the community, a magistrate, churchwarden, and lieutenant in the local yeomanry.

Piercefield House has spent much of the last 200 years in a sad state of repair, shown below left. Part of the estate is now Chepstow racecourse and the park hosts the Green Gathering festival in August.

In March 1823, Wells had just married Esther Owen, whose brother-in-law was William Wilberforce’s son. Did William senior and Wells ever meet? One can only wonder how any conversation about slavery would have developed.

The silhouetted woman in black below is Frances Rolleston, a key figure in the ladies committee set up to send clothing to women and children in Ireland after the famine in 1822. The ladies’ main focus in 1823 was to raise funds “for improving the condition and promoting the industry and welfare of the female peasantry,” as they put it. Frances had a full life with interests including poetry, painting, and astronomy (writing a book, Mazzaroth: the Constellations), as well as working with William Wilberforce against slavery and setting up infants schools. A biography by Jane S. Poole appeared in 2017.

William Wilberforce’s attack on slavery in March 1823 was published by Hatchard’s of Piccadilly, founded in 1797 by John Hatchard. Extraordinarily, 200 years on, they are still there at 187 Piccadilly, now London’s oldest bookshop.

LEFT: A BUST FROM THE WISBECH AND FENLAND MUSEUM IN THOMAS CLARKSON’S CAMBRIDGESHIRE HOME TOWN. THE MUSEUM HAS A NUMBER OF ARTEFACTS ABOUT CLARKSON. ABOVE AND RIGHT: THE OBELISK AND DISPLAY IN HERTFORDSHIRE, WHERE HE RESOLVED TO SPEND HIS LIFE FIGHTING SLAVERY.

LEFT: PIERCEFIELD HOUSE, 2021 BELOW: THE ONLY DEPICTION OF FRANCES ROLLESTON EXISTNG RIGHT: HATCHARDS IN THE LATE 19TH OR EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Getting ready for bicentenaries in London, Newcastle, Oxford and Rugby

This year sees notable anniversaries, with activity already under way to mark 200 years of a sport, pioneers from education and engineering, and a student debating society that has often made the news since 1823.

LONDON: What is now Birkbeck, a college of the University of London, owes its existence to a public meeting in a tavern in November 1823. It started as the London Mechanics’ Institute, providing adult education for working people, and today specialises in evening teaching.

Birkbeck 200 website Commemorative book BBC Radio 3 programme

NEWCASTLE: Robert Stephenson and Co, named after the legendary engineer, was founded in June 1823, to produce steam engines, locomotives, track and waggons. Their first engine, Locomotion No. 1 hauled the first train on the Stockton and Darlington Railway when it opened in 1825. Stephenson Trust Facebook Exhibition

OXFORD: The United Debating Society, independent of the university, was born in March 1823, holding a first debate in April, and in 1825 became the Oxford Union. It says it is the most prestigious debating society in the world and has often ruffled feathers, as in its ‘King and Country’ debate on war in 1933. Winston Churchill called the vote not to fight ‘abject, squalid, shameless”.

RUGBY: We have to be less precise on dates, but, sometime between September and December 1823, a pupil at Rugby School in Warwickshire is supposed to have taken a ball in his arms and run with it, “with a fine disregard for the rules of football as played in his time”. William Webb Ellis cannot have realised he was inventing rugby football. Birthplace of the Game website

Signs still of Civil War damage to cathedral, as repairs underway in 1823 Massacre remembered

As we approach four centuries after the Anglican cathedral at Peterborough was badly damaged during the Civil War of the 17th century, there are still signs of what happened in 1643some obvious, some less so.

The Royalist stronghold had been seized by parliamentary forces under the command of Oliver Cromwell, and they wreaked havoc.

Cromwell’s men took exception to signs of what they perceived as Catholic practices and objects in the cathedral.

Nearly all the stained glass was destroyed, the altar, cloisters and a chapel demolished. Most library books were burned, but the church’s ancient Chronicle was saved when a priest convinced an illiterate soldier that it was a bible, and gave him ten shillings (50p) for it.

First repairs were done from 1822 to 1830, but much of it was undone by further restoration work sixty years later.

The Ottoman massacre in 1823 of 3,600 people, mainly women and children, during Greece’s War of Independence is marked by a chapel (below) inside the cave where they died, at Milatos on Crete

BIRKBECK; A STATUE OF ROBERT STEPHENSON AT THE NATIONAL RAILWAY MUSEUM, YORK; THE OXFORD UNION IS ADDRESSED BY US SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY IN 2016; AND A STATUE OF WILLIAM WEBB ELLIS AT RUGBY SCHOOL IN WARWICKSHIRE.