State-created crime

One Rev. John William Horsley was born 170 years ago today. Although not much remembered, he was a social reformer of great character - as much at home helping inmates in Clerkenwell prison as making room for children to play in his church or guiding groups of parishioners on nature walks in Switzerland. Distinguished by a very large beard, he became a significant figure in Southwark, where he served as mayor for a year. In the late 1880s, he published a remarkable book - Jottings from Jail - to help ‘remove that ignorance of what our prisons and prisoners are’ and to suggest ways in which all ‘should feel their responsibility for the existence of crime and sin and misery’. One chapter in the book is based on a diary he kept towards the end of his term as prison chaplain. In one entry - many others of which are enlivened by a near-bitter sarcasm - he argues: ‘There is such a thing as State-created crime.’

Horsley was born on 14 June 1845 in Dunkirk, near Canterbury, Kent, the eldest son of a churchman. He was educated at King’s School, Canterbury, and at Pembroke College, Oxford. After teaching for a few years, he was made assistant curate in Witney, and then, in 1875, moved to be curate of St Michael’s, Shoreditch. A growing interest in social issues led him first to an appointment as chaplain at Clerkenwell prison, where he served from 1876 to its closure in 1886. In 1877, he married Mary Sophia Codd, the eldest daughter of Captain Codd, governor of the prison. They had two sons and five daughters, though Mary died young, in 1890.

Subsequently, Horsley worked for the Waifs and Strays Society (later, The Children’s Society). After becoming vicar of Holy Trinity, Woolwich, he began campaigning for improved housing and sanitation in the area. By 1894, he had become rector of St Peter’s, Walworth. Here, he is well remembered for clearing the church’s great crypt so as to transform it into a playground for poor children in the neighbourhood. He believed that working for the welfare of children, defending their rights and recognising their importance, was a key to reducing crime. To set an example, he became a total abstainer, and campaigned actively for the Church of England Temperance Society, as he did for the Anti-Gambling League.

Horsley went on to serve as chairman for Southwark’s public health committee and for its largest workhouse. In 1905, when the new diocese of Southwark was created he became honorary canon of the cathedral; and, in 1909, he was mayor of Southwark. Two years later, he retired to the vicarage of Detling, near Maidstone, only resigning in mid-1921, just months before his death. He had been an enthusiastic alpinist and naturalist during his life, and had regularly taken groups of his parishioners for walking tours in Switzerland. There is very limited further information about Horsley readily available online - much of this bio has come from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (which requires log-in). Jack McInroy also has some information on his Walworth Saint Peter Blog. That said, Horsley’s autobiography (up to 1910 or so) can be read freely at Internet Archive.

In 1887, shortly after his role at Clerkenwell prison had come to an end, Horsley put together a collection of his thoughts and writings on the prison system. It was published by T. Fisher Unwin and called Jottings from Jail - notes and papers on prison matters (freely available at Internet Archive).

In the preface, Horsley states: ‘These jottings from jail are just what their name implies. Time certainly, ability probably, was and is wanting, if I contemplated something more ambitious, a more detailed record of the experiences and observation of a decade spent as a chaplain of a metropolitan prison into which there came about an hundred thousand men, women, and children of all sorts and conditions, from the wholesale murderer to the child remanded only to be helped out of misery into the possibility and prospect of happiness and usefulness. These are but notes that I made from time to time, or articles or papers that were produced on sundry occasions and for divers audiences whom I wished to interest in the phenomena of crime in order that they might work for its prevention or cure. [. . .] My aim is to remove that ignorance of what our prisons and prisoners are, which in our grandsires’ days was the hardly excusable excuse for the existence of iniquities now inconceivable; to create or sustain more interest in, and sympathy for, a large but often forgotten or despised class of our brethren, and to suggest ways in which all in their several stations should feel their responsibility for the existence of crime and sin and misery, and so labour for the removal or prevention of all that makes these evils common and almost inevitable.’

Also in the preface, Horsley thanks Miss Manville Fenn for the design of the cover: ‘It represents a selection from my private collection of burglarious implements; some jemmies or sticks (Anglice, crowbars), one of which was presented me by him whose autobiography opens this book because he thought “it would be safer with me than with him;” some twirls or skels (skeleton keys and picklocks); a wedge for securing doors from the inside, a steel one for safe work; some neddies or life-preservers; and the firearms that it has become fashionable to carry, more out of bravado and because the mock-hero Peace (a canting old liar when under my care) used one than from any determination or desire to use them.’

Inside the book there is one chapter called A Month’s Prison Notes which is, in fact, a diary kept by Horsley for a month. He explains: ‘When the approaching abolition of the prison made it probable that I should speedily be regretting my discharge almost as much as the prisoners hope for theirs, one of the many things in my mind was the wish that I had had time to keep a private as well as an official diary, and to have noted down from day to day such incidents or observations as might have been useful in many ways hereafter. [. . .] True, I had kept for nine years notes of all cases of attempted suicide, which were between three and four hundred a year, and of all other cases specially commended to my notice by the magistrates; true, also, that I have a large notebook full of statistics and all sorts of curious subjects coming to my notice in prison; true, also, that my memory is retentive; but yet a daily record of things of interest would have been useful. During my last August I therefore endeavoured to make such a daily record as might show the varied nature of the work, and teach those who are not connected officially with prison work in what direction their intercessions and kindly thoughts and actions might tend.’

The diary is notable not only for the facts and figures Horsley brings to light about the prison and its prisoners, but for his lively use of sarcasm to stress social/political points.

3 August 1885
‘Of nine fresh cases on the female side I find one is 18, one 19, two 20, one 21, and the average age of all nine is only 25.

A lad, aged 19, spends four shillings in fourpenny ale, and then after midnight runs out with his baby, aged 13 months, and tries to drown himself and it. His wife was a rope-ground girl, and aged 15 at her marriage. A stalwart, intellectual, and good living race is likely to arise from such parentage!

The next case to which I come is that of a lad of 17 who has attempted suicide. How? I got into a pond. Why? Because I wanted to go to sea. This sounds humorous, but it turns out that he was trying to frighten his parents into acquiescence with his wishes. [. . .]

A rescue-worker complains to me of how Bank Holiday upsets girls who have hitherto been quiet and contented in Homes. It is commonly observed. The memories of drinks and “larks” attached to that day will come crowding in.’

5 August 1885
‘A woman, aged 36, has been eight years free, but has suffered five and seven years’ penal servitude. She must have begun young! She was turned out of doors “for cheek” by her stepfather when she was 15, then fell in with thieves and got five years when 15 for robbing a man of £63 in the street. She is not old, but she has outlived the possibility of a schoolgirl being sent to penal servitude for her first theft. There is such a thing as State-created crime.

A woman, aged 27, remanded for drunkenness and trying to rescue her husband, who was apprehended for being drunk and assaulting the police when they both had been “chucked out” of a public curse. They had regular work and are in comfortable circumstances; but then one must enjoy Bank Holiday. They have had seven children; one is living: of course this has nothing to do with their intemperance.

Justice Manisty sentences a man to two years for outraging a child aged 10, and regrets the law does not allow him to give more. The same copy of the paper records an exactly similar case in America - only there the man got twenty years. Oh our beautiful and righteous laws! “Who steals my purse, steals trash” - but can get penal servitude for so doing. Who steals the virtue of a child - cannot be punished half so severely. Oh these laws! “Proputty, proputty, proputty, that’s what I hear ‘un say.” [A quote from Tennyson.] Protect our spoons of course as long as they exist, but a national tumult is necessary to get protection for our girls.’

6 August 1885
‘Girl, aged 17, remanded for a petty theft from her place, and that I may find a Home for her if she promises well. Her mother says she is beyond her control, runs away from her places and gets into bad company, and that she has never been right since she was 10, when a “man” got six months for violating her. Two other girls, aged 13 and 9, were similarly treated by him, being waylaid on their way home from school. He was an accountant.

Another girl of the same age and charged with a similar offence I send to another Home. Her mother is dead, her father in the workhouse, and she has been brought up in a workhouse school, which quite accounts for her dulness and obliquity of moral vision. The huge barrack schools are utter ruin for pauper girls in comparison with any other system. Why is the British rate-payer so slow to note that children in Sutton District School cost £30 a head, while in Cottage Homes, such as those at Marston Green, the cost is but £20 10s., and children boarded out (e.g., by the King’s Norton Union) cost but £10 9s. 10d. a head per annum? I suppose they like to go on paying highest for the worst system and results, rather than lowest for the best.

A third girl this morning will go hopefully into a Home. She is only 18, but has led an immoral life for six months, yet is modest and quiet in manner; an orphan likewise.

An ex-prisoner is sent to me by a lady that I may help him. I find in conversation that a man for whom he worked twenty months is kindly disposed towards him and is now manager to a large firm. Yet it had never occurred to him to call on him! Verily, some men’s idea of seeking employment is to lie on their back with their mouth open, expecting it to be filled.

“Do you remember me, sir?” Yes, I did. This prisoner, a young clerk who had embezzelled in consequence of his drinking habits, and in spite of a wife and two young children, was a boy under me in a good school, of good birth, and his uncle an Archdeacon.

Sent to a refuge M.C., who was discharged this morning from Millbank and came to see me. For nine years have I striven to keep her straight, and to sixteen Homes have I sent her. A perfectly hopeless case of dipsomania I fear, but one must work against hope if one cannot work with it.’

7 August 1885
‘A young man, crippled and with only one hand, a friendless clerk, is helped and taken in by Mr. Wheatley, of the St Giles’s Christian Mission. Trusted on an errand with a cheque he absconds. Eventually he gets work at Westminster, and plays his employer the same trick. When no spark of honesty or of gratitude is discoverable, what can be done?’

8 August 1885
‘A country girl, aged 19, immoral and shameless, though only a month in London. Admits that sheer laziness and dislike to work have brought her on the streets.’

9 August 1885
‘Five males and one female brought in yesterday for attempting suicide. But “trade was bad” with us yesterday, for only forty men and six women were admitted.’

11 August 1885
‘A young lady with eight aliases, and all addresses given found to be false, is resigned and martyroid because every word of hers is not believed against those of others.’

12 August 1885
‘I wonder if this flower-girl, aged 18, used to sing the popular song, “We are a happy family.” She is in for assaulting her mother with a poker, and has twice previously been in for drunkenness: the mother is living apart from her husband, and has spent ten months out of twelve in Millbank doing short terms for drunkenness: a younger brother and sister have been sent to Industrial Schools. Yet the wonder is that any members of some families do right, and not that many do wrong. On what a pinnacle of virtue, inaccessible to a countess, is the daughter of a convict father and gindrinking mother who keeps straight!

Twice this week have I written to the Reformatory and Refuge Union to set their special officer on children that I find to be living in houses of ill-fame, of which the denizens or keepers come here. In one case, at any rate, there seemed a dereliction of duty on the part of the police, who, when they apprehended the mother, should have rescued the children.

Fate is the convenient scapegoat of those whose “can’t” is a shuffling substitute for “won’t” or “don’t like.” This man is in for theft from a public-curse; he is badly consumptive through drinking long and heavily; his father died of alcoholic phthisis; he has often tried to abstain, but never for more than six weeks; he has been warned by a physician at a hospital of how he is committing suicide; but he “supposes it is Fate.” ’

14 August 1885
‘One does not lose the sound of Bank Holiday (nor of Derby Day) rapidly in prison. A woman in yesterday for being drunk and violent had been a teetotaller for nine months up to Bank Holiday. A man who cut his throat after Bank Holiday spent in a public-curse was only yesterday well enough to be brought up and remanded.

Went last night to get the police in a certain district to take up a scandalous case of a girl, about 13, living with and being taken out nightly by her mistress, a notorious prostitute. Suggested that the case might have been dealt with any time this last four years under the Industrial Schools Act Amendment Act (which will go down to posterity as Miss Ellice Hopkins’ Act, as the Criminal Law Amendment Act will be called Mr. Stead’s). But the inspector had never heard of the Act. Quite courteous and willing to take up the case, of which he knew a great deal, but was ignorant of the Act under which scores of children in London alone have been rescued from immoral surroundings. The fact is, if the police know that those at head-quarters desire that an Act should be enforced, they can and will enforce it; if they do not know, or know the contrary, they don’t.’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 14 June 2015.

Early South African diary

Adam Tas is remembered today not only as a key figure in early Cape Colony history but also as the author of what is often considered South Africa’s first political diary. Written in prison 320 years ago, his journal is a vivid and detailed account of colonial tensions, injustice, and resistance. Only some parts of the diary survive - starting in June 1705 - and these have been collated and annotated in an edition published by the South African Library.

Tas was born in 1668 in Amsterdam and arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1697. Like many Dutch settlers of the time, he sought opportunity in the expanding Dutch East India Company (VOC) colony. By 1704, he had married the wealthy widow of a prominent landowner, and he soon found himself among the elite burgher class of the colony.

During Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel’s administration, which began in 1699, tensions grew between independent settlers (known as ‘free burghers’) and the VOC’s increasingly monopolistic control over agriculture and trade. Tas emerged as the leading voice of protest against what he and others saw as corrupt practices by van der Stel and his allies. In 1706, Tas led the drafting and submission of a formal petition to the VOC authorities in the Netherlands, signed by 63 burghers, accusing van der Stel of abuse of power.

In retaliation, van der Stel had Tas arrested and imprisoned in the Castle of Good Hope. He was held for over a year without trial. The controversy, however, drew the attention of the VOC headquarters in Amsterdam, and in 1707 van der Stel was recalled. Tas’s efforts had helped bring about one of the earliest recorded successes of colonial resistance against VOC administration. Tas died in 1722. A little further information is available at Wikipedia.

Tas’s diary, kept during his imprisonment, provides historians with a rare first-person account of political thought and resistance in the early Cape Colony. It documents not only the daily routines and hardships of incarceration but also his reflections on justice, governance, and the role of conscience in public life. 

The original diary, written in Dutch, was lost but two partial copies survive. One, held in the Government Archives in The Hague since 1706, covers the period from 13 June to 14 August 1705. Another copy, discovered in Cape Town in the early 20th century, includes most of the material from the Hague manuscript and extends to December 1705, January, and February 1706. The South African Library later published a compendium of the two copies, as edited by Leo Fouché, with Dutch and English on facing pages. In addition to the diary itself, the book contains a detailed appendix discussing the broader political conflict with van der Stel. It is freely available to read online at Internet Archive. See also Historical Publications South Africa.

June 1705 [first entry]

‘Shortly after midday put in Hans smith and his good dame; they did send three Hottentots before with some goods, the which the said Mr. Hans Jacob had brought with him for us yesterday from the Cape. And first he did deliver me a letter from my sister Tas, together with one ream paper brought over by Mr. Fredrik Paran from Mr. Ysbraud Vincent, as also the book containing the story of the brothers Cornelia and Jan de Wit, and eleven numbers of the ‘Boekzaal’ lent a time ago to Mr. Starrenburg, and thereafter to Mr. van Putten. Further, 5 pair women’s and two pair men’s stockings sent us by mother out from the old country, two parcels powders, the book of sermons by the Rev. Balthazar Becker of blessed memory, and a canister with 8 measures tea, the same purchased for us by Mr. Kina; likewise 3 earth jars of gin of Mr. Pfeijffer; as also 6 lbs. hops of the same, but without invoice - sufficient good for the poor farmer. Last a letter from Mr. Kina, writing me how that the vessels ‘de Unie’ and ‘Zandhorst’ was come to anchor in Table Bay the 11th current, the last with a full cargo of timber for the Cape. Further that the ‘Berkenroode’ and another Zeelander likewise was upon point to come in. He do write also of his being for a time forth of his office by reason of some damned commission they do put upon him, for to be present at the unloading the wares from out the vessels. He writes me too that the third mate, David Brouwer, of Delft, hath got him a wife; and last he give me to know how that Hendrik ten Damme was lately become book-keeper at f.30, and a full-blown cashier, and that in the space of five years; whereto he did add, if that do so continue, he shall shortly grow to be Governor, for that, as it do seem, his fortunes in this kingdom is fast assured, etc.

After Hans smith with his goodwife had spent a little time with us, the lady with her dish of tea, etc., and we two together with our glass or two of wine and sundry pipes tobacco, they did make their way home at their ease. Am told among other things how that Mrs. Selijns is brought to bed of a son, as also how she is come together again with her husband, and how they do now live together. If this be like to hold, time will discover.’

14 June 1705 

‘Dull morning, with rain. A goodly rain too in the night, it being now blessed weather, for the which we do owe God thanks. Not to church to-day. Mr. Bek holding service at Drakenstein. Rained this day in showers, with sometimes hail between. Am told that Mr. Bek have made no sermon at Drakensteiu to-day, considering it did rain too hard. Our clerical crew in this country do vastly fancy their ease.’

9 December 1705

‘Warmish morning. Put in this morning my brother Jacobus van Brakel. Had news to tell, and among the rest how that there was four men at the Cape the Governor purposed for to oppress and persecute whatever he was able, to wit, Husing, Meerland, van der Heijden, and Tas, that was the foremost men chargeable with the mischief that was occasioned him, and there might one day befall those men what was befallen certain rioters and robbers in the riots at Amsterdam, that was hanged from a window of the weigh-house; a scurvy parable to even with rogues and rioters honourable men that would spend their strength in service of the community. Further, that the Governor thought to appear presently at Stellenbosch, for to take some persons there to task, or read them something of a lesson. At home they do scare children with a bogey, but men that do live in honour and in innocence, and are conscious of no ill-doing, need not to be dismayed of any man. Also a certain woman (T. D.) had been saying that the Governor might fairly lay certain parties by the heels, and had gotten for answer that mayhap the same could break the Governor his neck. But there is no man he hath more diligently taken aim against than my uncle Husing, albeit he cannot do the man the smallest hurt. Also he had averred that there was three things he had done, the which should breed him the greatest mischief, the first that he did conclude a contract with my uncle Husing for the slaughtering, the second that he had yielded the right to barter, and the third that he had given the wine contract unto Pfeiffer singly. So that he is now in a parlous strait place, nor knows where he shall turn. Meantime he do go about to win folk to his following. The aforesaid lady did likewise observe that the Governor was mighty astonished Diepenauw was fallen off of him, nor had he looked for it of the fellow. I doubt not in due course there shall more things befall him, the which he looked not for. And hereto may the good God send His blessing, for the posture of things here is now grown so outrageous, as it do go beyond all bound and measure. When brother van Brakel had eat breakfast here and drunk a glass or two of wine, he set forward to Mrs. Elberts’. This day the rest of our grain carried to the mill; it come to 16 muids. In the afternoon our slaves been busy cutting the ripest of the corn. In the evening come Mr. van der Heijden here for to speak with me; I did retail him the above news, and after a pipe of tobacco he took his leave.’

Remarks and collections

Thomas Hearne, Oxford scholar and librarian, died all of 290 years ago today. He is highly regarded for his editions of historical works which he managed to continue publishing throughout his life - this despite falling out of favour with the university authorities for refusing to take oaths of allegiance to the crown. Apart from his valuable chronicles, Hearne’s diaries are also highly rated, not only for providing much information on books/manuscripts and intellectual history, but for portraits of eminent scholars and academic figures of the day. They are also a good read: Hearne is quite unguarded in his opinions, and he recounts interesting news items of the day, as well as amusing anecdotes.

Hearne was born at Littlefield Green in Berkshire, in 1678, the son of a parish clerk. He received an early education thanks to a wealthy neighbour. Later he was educated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he studied classical history, philology, and geography, graduating in 1699. He came to the attention of the principal, Dr John Mill, for whom he did transcription work. In 1701, he was taken on as an assistant by John Hudson, the newly appointed librarian of the Bodleian Library, and set to work on a planned edition of Thomas Hyde’s Bodleian catalogue of printed books. (Hudson, however, gave up this project, and when the catalogue was finally published in 1738 by a successor to Hudson, Hearne’s work was uncredited.)

Soon after joining the library, Hearne published his first book, Reliquiae Bodleianae (1703), a collection of correspondence between the library’s founder, Sir Thomas Bodley, and his first librarian, Thomas James. Hearne also published, with Hudson’s help, editions of Latin classics; undertook bibliographical research for many visiting scholars, such as Jeremy Collier and Bishop Francis Atterbury; and contributed to various important historical chronicles and literary works. By 1712, he had risen to second librarian; but, thereafter, he failed to advance further in the university because he proclaimed himself nonjuror, i.e. he refused to take oaths of allegiance to King George I (a requirement of higher offices). Indeed, his written reflections on nonjurism and nonjurors became increasingly problematic for the university, and caused mounting tension with Hudson. Eventually, in 1716, having failed to take a legally-required oath, he was dismissed from his position in the Bodleian; the door locks were even changed to bar him entry.

Subsequently, Hearne was denied use of the university imprint, and measures were put in place to forbid him printing from Bodleian manuscripts. He was also persecuted for a short while by the university authorities. Nevertheless, he managed to pursue a living for himself as a private publisher, using historical manuscripts from other libraries, such as the Ashmolean, and Trinity College in Cambridge. Also, he had a considerable following among collectors and scholars who assisted in bringing many of his works to publication.

Hearne fell ill in 1735 and died, unmarried, in his lodgings at St Edmund Hall on 10 June. His library was sold soon after, and (ironically) his diaries, correspondence, and manuscript collection ended up at the Bodleian Library. The fullest biography of Hearne online can be found at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (though log-in is required); otherwise Wikipedia, Berkshire History have briefer bios.

According to the ODNB, Hearne’s reputation today rests especially on his diaries, a series of 145 octavo diary volumes, written between 1705 and 1735, which he entitled ‘Remarks and collections’. The ODNB says: ‘[These] are filled with detailed information about books and manuscripts, contemporary scholarship, and intellectual history. They also contain lively if politically prejudiced portraits of the lives of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century scholars and antiquaries and autobiographical pieces. Though less accessible today (as workbooks, the diaries are also filled with scholarly and bibliographical detail) than the more urbane diaries of Evelyn and Pepys, Hearne’s volumes are still rewarding when read entire.’

Hearne’s ‘Remarks and collections’ was first edited by Philip Bliss and published, in 1857, as Reliquiæ Hearnianæ: The Remains of Thomas Hearne being extracts from his MS. Diaries (two volumes). This was republished in 1869 in three volumes. Then C. E. Doble and others edited the diaries for the Oxford Historical Society’s edition in 11 volumes (1885-1921). The original Bliss edition can be read online at Googlebooks or Internet Archive, and the Doble editions can also be found at Internet Archive. Images from Hearne’s manuscript diaries can be viewed at the Digital Bodleian website. Here, though, are several extracts taken from the 1857 edition.

14 September 1705
‘I was told last night that in the great fire at London was burnt a MS. Bible curiously illuminated, like the historical part of the Bible in Bodley’s archives, and that ’twas valued at 1500 libs.’

21 September 1705
‘Last night I was with Mr. Wotton (who writ the Essay on Ancient and Modern Learning) at the tavern, together with Mr. Thwaites, and Mr. Willis. Mr. Wotton is a person of general learning, a great talker and braggadocio, but of little judgement in any one particular science. He told me, he had begun sometime since to translate Graeve’s Rom. Demarius, but had not finished, and could not tell whether he should ever perfect it.

Mr. Wotton told me, Mr. Baker of St. John’s col. Cambridge had writ the history and antiquities of that college; and that he is every ways qualified (being a very industrious and judicious man) to write that hist. and antiq. of that university. He told me also, that he really believed Cambridge to me much later than Oxon.’

27 November 1713
‘Mr. Tompion of London, one of the most eminent persons for making clocks and watches, that have been produced in the last age, dyed last week. Indeed he was the most famous, and the most skillfull person at this art in the whole world, and first of all brought watches to any thing of perfection. He was originally a blacksmith, but a gentleman imploying him to mend his clock, he did it extraordinary well, and told the gentleman that he believed he could make such another himself. Accordingly he did so, and this was his first beginning, he living then in Buckinghamshire. He afterwards got a great name, lived in London, was acquainted with the famous Dr. Hooke, grew rich, and lived to a great age. He had a strange working head, and was well seen in mathematicks.’

22 April 1715
‘This morning was a total ecclipse of the sun. It began after eight o’clock. But the sky being not clear, the observations that were designed were in a very great measure hindered. There were many papers printed, before it happened, about it. This inserted [described in a footnote], is done by D. Halley. It was very dark when it happened. The birds flocked to the trees as they do at night. Many people used candles in their houses as in the night.’

19 February 1716
‘This has been such a severe winter, that the like hath not been known since the year 1683/4. In some respects it exceeded that. For tho’ the frost did not last so long as it did at that time, yet there was a much greater and deeper snow. Indeed it was the biggest snow that ever I knew: as it was also the severest frost that ever I have been sensible of. It began on Monday Dec. 5th, and continued till Friday, Feb 10th following, which is almost ten weeks, before there was an entire thaw. Indeed it began to thaw two or three times, but then the frost soon began again with more violence, and there was withall a very sharp and cold and high wind for some days. When it first began to thaw, and afterwards to freeze again, it made the ways extreme slippery and dangerous, and divers accidents happened.’

23 August 1716
‘Sir Christopher Wren says the ways of making mortar with hair came into fashion in queen Elizabeth’s time. Sir Christ. says there were no masons in London when he was a young man. Sir Christ. is about 85 years of age.’

13 December 1716
‘I had this day a hint given me as if the present vice-chancellor and some others (to be sure some of our heads of houses) have a mind to force open my chamber, and to sieze upon my papers.’

18 April 1719
‘A present has been made me of a book called The Antiquities of Barkshire, by Elias Ashmole, esq. London, printed for E. Curll, in Fleet-street, 1719. 8vo in three volumes. It was given me by my good friend Thomas Rawlinson, esq. As soon as I opened it, and looked into it, I was amazed at the abominable impudence, ignorance, and carelessness of the publisher, and I can hardly ascribe all this to any one else than to that villain Curll. Mr. Ashmole is made to have written abundance of things since his death. All is ascribed to him, and yet a very great part of what is mentioned happened since he died. For, as many of the persons died after him, so the inscriptions mentioned in this book were made and fixed since his death also. Besides, what is taken from Mr. Ashmole is most fraudulently done. The epitaphs are falsely printed, and his words and sense most horribly perverted. What Mr. Ashmole did was done very carefully, as appears from the original in the museum, where also are his exact draughts of the most considerable monuments, of which there is no notice in this strange rhapsody. I call it a rhapsody, because there is no method nor judgement observed in it, nor one dram of true learning. Some things are taken from my edition of Leland, but falsely printed, and I cannot but complain of the injury done me.’

6 June 1719
‘Last Sunday died Edmund Dunch, of Little Wittenham, in Berks, esq. parliament for Wallingford, being about 40 years of age. He was a very great gamester, and had a little before lost about 30 libs. in one night gaming. He had otherwise good qualities. By gaming most of the estate is gone. He was drawn into gaming purely to please his lady. King James I. said to one of the Dunches (for ’tis an old family) when his majesty asked his name, and he answered Dunch, “Ay, (saith the king), Dunch by name, and Dunce by nature.” ’

This article is a slightly revised version of one first published on 10 June 2015.