Tag Archives: History

Canterbury Cathedral library

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Here at Special Collections, we’ve recently been taking an extra special interest in the work of Canterbury Cathedral Library. The University of Kent’s Templeman Library is linked to the Cathedral’s library through the acquisition of the Mendham Collection but unfortunately in recent years there has been little opportunity to further this link.

However, all that is about to change. Over the next few months, we’ll be undertaking staff working exchange visits between Special Collections and the Cathedral library, to get to know the work and collections involved and how we can help each other. The Cathedral Library and its team have already proved invaluable to us, offering conservation, advice and, when it comes to disasters, immediate assistance! We hope that we can now build up a co-operative service for researchers and lecturers from the University, to make the most of our combined collections.

In keeping with this spirit of shared information and expertise, we hope to be able to publicise Cathedral library events and news on this blog from time to time. The first of these announcements is the Cathedral library’s programme of events for 2011 – including the launch of the newly refurbished library building, at which Dr David Starkey will give a talk on his favourite books from the library. Do have a look at these and come along to discover the history and heritage which the Cathedral and its library has preserved for centuries.

Melvillodrama

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While getting out materials for researchers interested in pantomime and melodrama, I came across an interesting note, penned by Andrew Melville III while drafting his unpublished MS;

Today people look to the front-page of a newspaper for their melodrama

Publicity postcard

Publicity postcard for the Melvilles' The Girl Who Lost Her Character

I was intrigued by this opinion, suggesting that we still need that touch of the dramatic in our lives, even if melodrama is generally seen (within the theatrical industry as well, I believe) as second rate, over-acted and a generally primitive form of drama. When I started to think about it, though, I began to see what Andrew III meant.

After all, many newspapers and magazines rely on that sense of the over-dramatic to outdo one another and sell as many copies as possible.

There was fierce competition during the time of the Melvilles’ ownership of several London and provincial theatres, but this was not specifically from rival melodramas, nor from television or radio, but from music hall. ‘It is no good charging 6d when the opposition (possibly a Music Hall) can afford to do it for 2d’ Walter Melville explained in the September 1905 edition of Stageland (0600336). Despite this time of increasing competition for all forms of entertainment, especially before the time of any government subsidy, the Melville family were successful in their acting, writing and management of a number of theatres in London and the provinces. Perhaps the most spectacular success of the family was the partnership between Frederick and Walter Melville, who jointly ran the Lyceum, the Prince’s Theatre and other major theatres, mainly in London. Their melodramas, most notably the ‘Bad Women Dramas’, filled the Melville theatres after the pantomime season, continuing a long theatrical tradition well into the twentieth century.

Fred & Walter

This pair come across as a larger than life duo, with their entire lives revolving around the theatre. Walter was the senior, eldest son of Andrew Melville (I) and his wife Alice, born in 1875, with Frederick the next eldest son, born in 1877. There was a degree of seniority in Walter’s relationship with his brother; according to Andrew III, Walter tried to dominate his brother, but they were ‘twin spirits’ and their success was the result of their ‘mutual endeavour’ (Melville, 0599809/23).  The considerable size of their fortunes at the time of their death is testament to their success, but the relationship was fairly tempestuous. From 1921, the brothers were embroiled in a dispute with one another which spilled into a legal quarrel, with both posting notices to announce that the disagreement would force them to shut down the Lyceum at the close of the pantomime. On the last night of the pantomime, February 18th 1922, one of the stars called the brothers on stage, with the news that they were reconciled (0599809/9). The pair shook hands and appeared amicable; however, it is far from clear that they knew anything about this reconciliation before they set foot on the stage. They also had short shrift for any other person who they disapproved of. Walter recounts a trip to a ‘second rate Provincial theatre conducted by my young brother’, most likely Andrew II, who amassed a fortune of his own. The attitude of the eldest son to his siblings gives us some clues into the working and personal relationships of the Melville family.

Eccentricity

Walter Melville

Walter Melville

There was certainly a degree of eccentricity about the elder Melville brothers. Andrew III recalls his uncle Walter’s constant aura of theatricality, describing his ‘luxuriant’ overcoat and painstaking dress, including a wide brimmed black hat (599809/23). Walter himself recounts his father’s lessons in the ‘Dignity of the Theatre’, which ensured that he always wore his dark, ‘dress clothes’. Apparently the comedian Fred Leslie thought that Walter ‘was the funiest thing he had ever seen’, at which Walter commented ‘I cannot remember what there was particularly funny in my attire’ (599887/5). In contrast, Fred Melville was described in an obituary as having ‘cared nothing about dress’ (Daily Telegraph, 6 April 1938); he ‘rarely wore a coat to match his trousers or a waistcoat that went with either…wore low Byronic collars and frequently dispensed with a tie’ (599997/6). Fred was also had a ‘fanatical passion for physical fitness’ (599997/6), and a fear of draughts;

‘At panto rehearsals he would erect a shelter in the stalls from odds and ends of scenery, then stand outside it complaining of the cold, enveloped in two heavy overcoats, his trousers tucked into his socks’ (599809/9)

In contrast to Walter, who ‘never knew to what limit a practical joke should go’ (which cost him numerous friends), Andrew III recalls Fred’s ‘shrewdness with considerable wit and humour’ (599997/5). This is aptly illustrated in Fred’s speech Are Authors Cribbers? (0599809/12) which appears to have been written in connection with a legal case for copyright. In it, he states that authors are often the opposite of their heroes, perhaps referring to his own melodramatic plays, and that all known plots are to be found in the Bible, from which playwrights may copy if they choose. The case of Dion Boucicault, himself frequently bound up in litigation relating to copyright, is used as an illustration, and Fred goes on to recount his father’s anger at an unlicensed production of one of his own plays in America. Rather than pursue an expensive legal case, Andrew I put on three of the offending manager’s plays, unliscenced, in revenge. Fred’s own theatrical nature is revealed in the conclusion of his rousing defence. After relating a complaint he received from the famous Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, on the grounds that the Melvilles had stolen a scene from one of his plays, Fred wrote:

Frederick Melville as Reverend Knight

Frederick Melville as Reverend Knight

I was astounded – I had been accused of copying the French from the actual words. I am no cribber. As there had obviously been some mistake, what was I to do because I was certainly not going to submit to the terms of the letter. Just what I did is shown in a letter to Tree saying – “My sketch is taken from my play – A World of Sin – which was produced in 1890. Will you give me the date of the production of your play, because this is of great importance and if you find my play was produced earlier than the French play, you owe me an apology.”

There was no reply.

Oh Herbert, why did you not reply? Oh, Herbert!

The effect of this oration was no doubt similar to the popular reactions to the brothers’ plays.

Fred and Walter ran the Lyceum from 1910-1938, when they leased it to various managers. Andrew Melville III writes ‘in those days, Walter smoked a pipe and drank tea…until about 1910…he forsook the pipe for cigars and the tea for champagne’ (599809/23). This was hardly surprising, given the success of the partnership, but the Melvilles were always more concerned about business than celebrity. Walter’s motto was ‘give the public what they want’ (Stageland, September 1905), while at Fred’s last appearance in public, at the closing of Beauty and the Beast at the Lyceum in 1938, he expounded the principle of pleasing ‘the child that is in us all’ (599997/2). These principles and the brothers’ loyalty and commitment to their work and their employees, ensured that they were remembered with their brother Andrew II as the ‘three musketeers of melodrama’.

Reading the typescript reminiscences of Walter and Fred, including a humourous incident relating to weapons on stage, their theatrical and perhaps even melodramatic personalities spring from the page. Andrew III relates ‘it cannot be said that the Melvilles possessed the ‘charm of the Terrys’ or the ‘social standing of Irving” (599807/10), yet the three brothers, who died within a year of each other, were described as belonging ‘to one of the oldest theatrical families in London and the provinces’. One of Fred’s obituaries adds the accolade that Meville dramas had been played all over the world and acted in many languages. Perhaps there is more truth than eccentricity or melodrama in the plaque beneath the bust of Walter Melville which used to sit in the foyer of the Standard Theatre, Shoreditch:

There is Only One Shakespeare and the is Only One Walter Melville.

Flu a hundred years hence

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Given that there’s so much in the news about flu outbreaks at the moment, I thought it would be interesting to look at some of the reactions to the influenza outbreak in 1919, from the Kingsley Wood scrapbook which covers the period November 1918 to October 1919. During this time, Sir Howard Kingsley Wood was involved in the setting up of the new Ministry of Health, as well as being part of the Local Government Board and M.P. for Woolwich.

The Spanish flu outbreak of 1918-1920 swept across the world with huge numbers of fatalities, particularly killing  younger victims through an overreaction of the immune system. Those with weaker immune systems were therefore more able to survive the virus. The devastating effects of the Spanish flu were exacerbated by the First World War, through lifestyle and the unusual population movement of seriously infected individuals.

The Daily Sketch published a self-congratulatory account of a ‘conference on influenza’ on 1st March 1919, which it claimed to have inspired. In the course of the public debate, the government’s advice to ‘keep fit’ was criticised, since fit people also fell ill. The chairman, Sir Malcolm Morris, also described the prescription of ‘a permanganate of potash and salt as a nasal douche’ as ‘”a horrible solution”‘. Dr Murray Lesli advised:

Start the day with a good breakfast ; have a brisk walk before starting work. Mental strain, lack of food and sleep, owing to the war are predisposing causes of influenza.

Oral cleanliness and good ventilation of public transport and public spaces were advocated; Dr Kirkhope, the Medical Officer for Health in Tottenham, advised that all badly ventilated cinemas should be closed. However, Kirkhope also argued that the disease was not influenza but a ‘continuation of many diseases’, since, at this time, scientists not yet conclusively discovered the causes of the flu virus.

‘Dr Lowe argued that we eat too much boiled food’

More ‘striking’ opinions included the demand by Sir St. Clair Thomson that anyone who coughed or sneezed on public transport ‘without putting a hand or handkerchief to the mouth should be prosecuted for indecency’. The possibility of taking ‘disciplinary measures’ against infected people who handled food and did not take precautions against infecting others seems to have been popular.

‘Persons with a cough should wear masks, but not the general public.’

According to this article, there was a difference of opinion amongst the experts about the ‘question of alcohol’; perhaps it is a coincidence that the lower section of the page is taken up by an endorsement of supplying whisky to those suffering with influenza!

As part of the ‘war on disease’, the first Minister for Health for England was appointed on 10th June 1919. Dr. Christopher Addison (1869-1951) had entered politics because he believed that governments were more able to change the health of the poor, and of society in general, than individual doctors. The Daily Mail announced Dr. Addison’s appointment in June 1919 as the start of a ‘war on disease’, where prevention was paramount in a country in which:

‘consumption is as prevalent today as smallpox in the seventeenth century.’

One of the many improvements associated with social welfare and efforts to improve the nation’s health following the First World War were housing reforms. As the cutting from Answers from 2nd August 1919 put it, the intention was to ‘Scoot that Slum!’ The Daily News had reported in May of the same year that over three million people were living in cramped conditions of two to a room, describing a ‘great breeding place of disease.’

‘Bred in towns, reared in alleys, mewed up in stuffy rooms, no wonder people became irreligious, bat-eyed, materialistic, and Bolshevik.’

Kingsley Wood’s opinion of the place of slums as the cause of all the country’s ills were popular amongst many public-spirited gentleman of the time, who also wanted to build for the future. However, this proved difficult for the people who wanted to live in the newly developed ideal homes. Ways and Means from 6th September 1919 describes a leaked interview which Kingsley Wood gave to the Observer, in which he claimed that the government was ‘to-day settling where the Englishman of a hundred years hence is to live.’ While we may be grateful in 2019, the people of 1919 were more concerned with the ‘leaky lodgings and lack of lavatories’ which they had to put up with while the building work progressed increasingly slowly.

The Kingsley Wood scrapbooks are not yet catalogued but are in date order. They consist of cuttings largely from Sir Kingsley Wood’s political career and items of interest from his work as a lawyer. If you would like to look at these scrapbooks, email us at specialcollections@kent.ac.uk for an appointment.

Turbulent Times

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So, I have finally been able to do some research on one of the indentures which we discovered earlier in the year and I thought you might like to know the results…

1657 document

This particular document is from the ‘thirtenth day of July'(sic) 1657, and records William Wiseman mortgaging the lands of his family in the parish of St Mary’s and Allhallows, including the manor of St Mary’s Hall, in the hundred of Hoo, Kent. One Robert Wiseman, ‘Doctor of the Civill Lawes’ (sic) is to pay £1,000 for these lands, and to pay an annual rent of one pepppercorn on the feast of St Michael the Archangel (otherwise known as Michaelmas, on 29th September) for the term of one thousand years until 16th July 1661, by which time William Wiseman or his heirs agree to have paid back £1,240.

William Wiseman's signature and seal

William Wiseman was the second son of Sir Thomas Wiseman of Rivenhall in Essex, referred to in this document as ‘Esquire’ but he later became baronet, on 15th June 1660. William was born around 1630 and became the MP for Maldon; the baronetcy was created specifically for him and became extinct on his death (without heirs) in 1688. The timing of his elevation to the peerage is informative; it seems likely that Sir William had made a good impression on  Charles II, who returned to Britain in May 1660 to be restored as monarch eleven years after his father’s execution. Gathering more information on Sir William will take some time, especially because the Wiseman family had several titled branches in Essex, including the baronetcy of Canfield Hall and Thundersley, and because William appears to have been a popular Wiseman family name.

Robert Wiseman, it transpires, was rather more influential than his brother. The seventh son of Sir Thomas, he matriculated from Cambridge as a pensioner in 1628 and purchased muskets and ammunition during the early period of the civil war for Trinity Hall; these weapons were later confiscated by Cromwell. Robert progressed through Trinity Hall until 1653 and became a judge and jurist. He was warranted as an advocate in the Court of Arches in 1640 and in 1656, he published The Law of Lawes, or, The Excellency of Civil Law above All Other Humane Laws Whatsoever, championing the use of civil law. He became advocate-general on 15th June 1660 (intriguing since his brother became a baronet on the same day), was knighted in 1661 and reached the height of his career when he was appointed Dean of  the Arches, in 1672, effectively presiding over Doctor’s Commons. He was married twice; his second wife, Elizabeth North, was the daughter of the fourth Lord North and went on the marry William Paston after Sir Robert’s death. Sir Robert also died without leaving heirs, in 1684, leaving his wife as the executor of his will.

Robert Wiseman of Doctors Comons London doctor of the Civill Lawes

In total, there are three documents: the indenture referred to above, on parchment, and two smaller documents (almost A4 sized) on paper, both of which refer to the ‘Indenture or deed indented’. These smaller documents appear to be a receipt for the sum of £1,000 received by Sir William and an agreement to pay Sir Robert £2,000 if Sir William or his heirs default on the arrangement. These  documents does not include any signature or mark by Sir Robert Wiseman, but all three documents related to this transaction are signed by Sir William Wiseman. One of them even looks as though it was written by him.

There are three other names recorded on these documents as witnesses: Francis Clarke, Alington Payneter and Geo. (possibly George?) Gaell.Although I haven’t had much time to research any of these names in detail, it looks as though there are relatively straightforward links with the two Wisemans.

A Sir Francis Clarke of ‘Ulcombe, Kent’ gave consent for his daughter, aged 22, to marry in 1682 and entertained Charles II on the eve of his restoration at his house in Rochester. While I could find no immediate mention of Alington Payneter (perhaps due to spelling differences), it appears that one George Alington requested permission to alienate lands he held in Gillingham, Rainham, Chatham and Breadhurst (Brodehurst) in 1621, prior to the marriage of Elizabeth Alington and William Payneter: this may be a clue to some of Alington Payneter’s ancestors. So these two, it appears, were men local to the lands in north Kent which were to be mortgaged.

Witnesses to 1657 document

The third, presumably George Gaell, may be the George Gaell who died in 1667 at the age of 1663 and whose memorial records his position as Procurator in Curia de Arcubus: Procurator of the Court of Arches. Presumably, this man was known to Sir Robert.

There is one more thing that is interesting in the indenture. As part of a security clause, it is stated that this agreement is binding in spite of any ‘Order of Orders Ordinance or Ordinances Act or Acts of Parliament or other supreme authority’. This mortgage was signed on 13th January 1657, in which it was agreed that Sir William would pay Sir Robert in six-monthly installments, beginning on 16th January 1658 and ending on 16th July 1661. During this time, the Commonwealth collapsed; following Oliver Cromwell’s death in September 1658, his son Richard was installed as Lord Protector but was unable to maintain control of the army or its generals. Charles II returned to London on 29th May 1660 and was crowned in April 1661, a matter of weeks before the last installment of  William Wiseman’s payments was due. This simple mortgage agreement therefore covers a major turning point in British history, from Commonwealth to monarchy.

It is probably over-enthusiastic to suggest that the reference to the decisions of ‘Parliament or other supreme authority.’ is anything more than a product of the uncertainty of everyday life at this time, since the beginning of the Civil War in 1642. Although the men involved in this agreement all appear to have been closer to Royalist than Parliamentarian in their sympathies, it is highly unlikely that any of them could have foreseen the return of the king two years before the event. However, with Oliver Cromwell taken ill early in 1658, it is possible that the Wisemans were concerned about further political social and political upheaval, and took every precaution to ensure that this document was binding in every eventuality. Whether they hoped for the restoration of the monarchy which appears to have benefited both brothers is something that we will probably never know.

There you go; that’s just one of the recently discovered documents that gives a fascinating insight into the lives of people living through some of the most turbulent times of British early modern history.

Have a look at these links to see transcriptions of the texts:

Mortgage agreement between William Wiseman and Robert Wiseman

Receipt of payment

Agreement of payment

Latest news

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Well, having promised updates I’m afraid I got carried away with the work. Transcription is never more exciting than when you realise that the ink was drying at a time when Henry VI’s uncles were getting their infant nephew the crown of France, or just a month after Oliver Cromwell had been confirmed Lord Protector in 1657 (three years before the monarchy was restored, in 1660).

However, my transcription of these indentures is now finished, and it only remains to translate and check out the background of the people and places involved. This could be a lengthy process, and will hopefully involve people far more expert than myself, but I hope to be able to share the information we gather through the blog.

Your Canterbury‘s Florence Tennent broke the news this week; her article can be found on page 5 of this week’s issue.

A slight correction is needed to the last post – although we thought that Charles Dickens was writing to Sir Charles Darley, further investigation (and the eagle eyes of Angela Groth-Seary) suggests that the gentleman in question was Sir Charles Pasley. There is a substantial amount of Pasley-Dickens correspondence extant, and the signed note we discovered would tie in to the exchanges between them during 1855, while Dickens was resident at Tavistock House. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, after 1855, Pasley devoted much of his time to re-editing his published works. This may offer a clue to ‘the enclosed’, the subject of the note, which Dickens ‘read…with much pleasure’ but which has been seperated from this note and is now almost impossible to identify.

While the vast majority of these items appear to be of small significance in political or national terms, it appears that there is still plenty to learn from them about life in Kent and Essex over the last 600 years.

This time, updates will follow!