MONTHLY BLOG 166, WHY DID THE MAN IN THE MOON – WHO CAME DOWN TOO SOON – ASK HIS WAY TO NORWICH?

/in , /by

If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2024)

Man in the Moon

Man in the Moon © istock/ Getty Images 2024

The man in the moon,
Came down too soon,
And asked his way to Norwich;
He went by the south,
And burned his mouth
By eating cold plum porridge.

It’s a charming nursery rhyme, with many minor variants in the wording. This version is the one that I knew and loved as a child. Song historians like to point out hidden messages in such traditional verses, designed to amuse the adults who sang these songs to their unsuspecting offspring.

Yet, in this case, the experts conclude that the words of ‘The Man in the Moon’ probably do not convey any secret meaning. They are simply agreeable nonsense, in which the City of Norwich features primarily to rhyme with ‘porridge’. Children would enjoy the thought of the Man in the Moon actually coming down to visit Planet Earth. And they would laugh at the upside-down qualities of the lunar traveller whose mouth was burned by cold food. Suitably weird!

Only much later did I think more specifically about the role of Norwich, when I began my doctoral research on that city’s fascinating history.1 I quickly realised that, throughout many earlier eras in British history, it would not have seemed at all surprising that the Moon Man should want to visit the East Anglian capital.

For many centuries, after all, Norwich was one of Engand’s leading provincial capitals.2 It had famously lively inhabitants, who were known for their readiness to express radical views – whether by popular riots or by voting for radical candidates in eighteenth-century parliamentary elections. And the city lay at the heart of a major textile-producing area, making the famous ‘Norwich stuffs’ [light worsted cloths]. In other words, Norwich was an urban Manchester-equivalent, long before Manchester itself boomed in the nineteenth century to become a great Northern regional capital and the new ‘Cottonopolis’ of the world.3

All these thoughts came flooding into my mind as we approach October and I prepare to travel to Norwich to talk to a Conference – later in the month – on the city’s historic appeal. I hope that the Man in the Moon gets to join us. And I will take care not to dine on cold plum porridge, just in case …

ENDNOTES:

1 I.A. Opie (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1951); A. Jack, Pop Goes the Weasel: The Secret Meanings of Nursery Rhymes (2010); L.K. Alchin, The Secret History of Nursery Rhymes (2013).

2 P.J. Corfield, ‘Norwich on the Cusp: From Second City to Regional Capital’, in C. Rawcliffe and R.G. Wilson (eds), Norwich since 1550 (2004), pp. 139-66. Also published within PJC website: see https://www.penelopejcorfield.com/pdf26.

3 I. Beesley, Victorian Manchester and Salford (1988); S. Hylton, A History of Manchester (2003).

For further discussion, see

To read other discussion-points, please click here

To download Monthly Blog 166 please click here

MONTHLY BLOG 165, HOW DID BENJAMIN FRANKLIN DISCOVER THE POWER OF LIGHTNING?

/in , /by

If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2024)

Lightning Flash © Clipart 2024

During the summer months, I’m getting through big task after big task. I’m feeling increasingly happy. But right now I don’t want to compose a long BLOG. After all, there are no rules that specify how long a BLOG must be. It’s an optional thing, done to salute the world and (hopefully) not to be too boring. So for September 2024, here is one of my favourite jokes:

          Q: How did Benjamin Franklin discover the power of lightning?

          A: It just struck him.

No loud laughter required. But a pleasant smile would be good.
PS: For website showing in real time where lightning is striking world-wide, see https://www.lightningmaps.org/.

For further discussion, see

To read other discussion-points, please click here

To download Monthly Blog 165 please click here

MONTHLY BLOG 164, COPING WITH MULTI-PRESSURES

/in , /by

If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2024)

Head spinning

Head Spinning © Vector Art 2024

This BLOG records my super-busy time in May/June/July 2024 and my tactic for coping. Before departing for a mini-break in western Ireland, followed by the annual ISECS-EC meeting 1 – this year in Maynooth, near Dublin – every research task that I had ever placed in the ‘Futures’ pipeline came to fruition simultaneously and unexpectedly. My head span. I was psychologically upset.

By temperament, I am what is known as a ‘Taskie’ (‘Tasky’?), as opposed to a ‘Multi-tasker’. I really like to focus upon one job at a time. How then to cope with half a dozen large tasks, as well as lots of little ones, all of these being authentically urgent at the same time?

My first instinct was to take to my bed. I was exhausted in advance and wanted only to sleep. But every time I awoke, I felt even more agitated. The tasks still needed urgent attention … and the time for delivery had been shortened. I did not even try taking to the bottle, because I knew that recovering after a bout of heavy drinking would only make me feel much, much worse.

Well, there was only one thing for it. I had to compile a super-list, in which I ruthlessly prioritised all these tasks. I then sub-divided the list into groups, and dealt with one group at a time. The rule was then, whilst doing one group, not to think or worry about the others.2 And, within each group, then to complete the tasks in the specified order. Otherwise, there’s an ever-present risk that the easy things get done and the trickier ones get endlessly postponed.

Once one group of tasks is done, then a short breather is allowed – before getting into the next group. It’s like climbing a mountain range by looking constantly at the intermediate peaks – and not staring all the time at the summit of Mount Everest.

In a nutshell, it’s compartmentalise – concentrate – complete … and, dear readers, I managed to finish all my urgent tasks before taking a break in Ireland. The weather was not brilliant but the lifting of multi-pressures, plus the glorious Irish greenery and unbeatable Irish hospitality, certainly was!

Roll on the next work crisis, if the finale is as pleasant … Do I really mean that?? I thought that retirement was supposed to be a period of calm and relaxation. Nevertheless, I seem to get busier and busier day by day. Oh well! Let’s make a list, compartmentalise … and look forward to the next big breather.

ENDNOTES:

1 For the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies/ Société Internationale, see https://oraprdnt.uqtr.uquebec.ca/portail/gscw031?owa_no_site=304.

2 Having written this BLOG, I then checked on the web, under the heading of too-many-things-to-do-all-at-once, and discover that this method of grouping tasks together is called ‘Chunking’. Glad to know that others are playing in the same ball-park. For a more elaborate version, see https://www.tonyrobbins.com/blog/power-of-chunking (viewed 30/7/2024). ‘Chunking’ is also used as a technique for improving human memory: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking (psychology) (viewed 30/7/2024).

For further discussion, see

To read other discussion-points, please click here

To download Monthly Blog 164 please click here

MONTHLY BLOG 163, DO PARTISAN IDENTITIES ADD A PLEASANT FLAVOUR TO DAILY LIVING – OR DO THEY REALLY CONSTITUTE A TRAP THAT UNDERMINES TRUE HUMAN SOLIDARITY?

/in , /by

If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2024)

Fig.1: Shutterstock (2024) – Tug of War

This BLOG is copy of my review, published in The Political Quarterly, Vol. 95/2 (April-June 2024), pp. 376-77, under the title ‘Uniting the Human Race’.

The book under review = Yascha Mounk, The Identity Trap:A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time (Allen Lane, London, 2023), pp. 401. See link = http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.13393.

Note: I was invited by the journal to contribute this review, since I have already written on the subject of ‘Identities’ in one of my most widely read and quoted BLOGs to date.1

The truth is that all individuals have more than one identity. They can be classified under many headings – whether by age, citizenship, class, education, ethnicity, gender, intelligence, language, region, religion, or sexuality … to name some commonly invoked criteria. If an identity is chosen voluntarily – for example as fan of a football club or pop group – it can be a delightful thing to own and to share with fellow fans. How much importance to attach to this identity then becomes a matter of choice.

Yet, if one special aspect of an individual’s existence is singled out and harshly attacked, then that one identity can quickly become all-preoccupying – whether in defiant pride or fearful resentment. Subjective emotions quickly overtake dispassionate analysis. Little wonder that political campaigners often appeal to simplified sectoral identities – and stoke the stereotypes, to keep the polemical fires burning. Human solidarity is undermined.

That danger is the core message of Yascha Mounk’s new book on The Identity Trap. He himself is of Polish parentage, born and reared in Germany, educated in Britain and the USA, and currently working in the USA. As a result, he lives with the complexities of identity. He has described himself, for example, as a native German-speaker who never felt at home in Germany. And in this book, he takes up his pen to warn the world against crude over-simplifications.

Mounk’s writing style is chatty and accessible. Each chapter ends with a useful list of key points. At the same time, his arguments are buttressed by ample documentation. His purpose is deadly serious.

An opening peroration explains both ‘the lure and the trap’ of identity politics (pp.1-21). The story gathers force by examining the American Civil Rights movement of the1960s. Insofar as the book has a (muted) hero, he is the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Junior. He sought to forge an ecumenical campaign, endorsed by people of all skin colours and backgrounds. In his famous speech ‘I have a Dream’ (August 1963), he expressed the hope that one day: ‘little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls’. A colour-blind universalism and egalitarianism will prevail.

However, some colleagues began to fear that King’s soaring idealism lacked hard-edged realism. They called instead for ‘Black Power’ to deliver a more immediate route to remedy injustices. And, over time, as progressive reforms came only slowly, others on the American political Left began to lose faith in universalist solutions to deep-rooted inequalities.

Accordingly, Part 1 of this book (pp. 23-81) examines the genesis of what Mounk calls the ‘identity synthesis’, whereby universalist/liberal values are exchanged for sectional ‘affinities’. After the Second World War – with the growing awareness of the Holocaust and the advent of the atomic bomb – faith in grand visions of the progressive unfolding of history began to falter. Thinkers like Michel Foucault (1926-84) argued that knowledge systems were nothing more (or less) than expressions of power. And Jean-François Lyotard (1924-98) proclaimed, equally firmly, that the era of ‘Modernity’ had ended. Instead, people were living in a new ‘Age of Postmodernity’, in which absolute values were yielding to relative ones.

Critics of universalism thus argued that legal systems were not benevolently impartial. They were instead ‘cloaks for privilege’. One radical maxim stated that ‘Neutrality is political’. Another declared that: ‘Racism is permanent’. Action to help society’s most disadvantaged groups (especially those defined by race, gender and sexuality) was urgently needed. Separate ‘identities’ were thus not to be denied. Instead, they were to be embraced – and each group should be helped separately, secure in the validity of its own ‘lived experience’. A ‘proud pessimism’ (pp. 69-71) had arrived.

After that, Mounk devotes Part 2 (pp. 83-126) to demonstrating how the ‘identity synthesis has swept through American Universities – and begun to influence corporate, philanthropic, and political life as well. The impact of social media simultaneously encourages the sharing of confessional narratives. In addition, Mounk notes the human capacity for ‘group think’, especially on emotive issues. Furthermore, the Presidency of Donald Trump fuelled a surge of frustration and anger amongst the American political Left. Radical zeal was channelled into immediate campaigns on the ‘identity’ frontier, where local successes could raise morale.

Having recognised the ‘lure’ of identity politics, Mounk turns in Part 3 (pp. 129-235) to refute its claims. Here he pulls no punches. The ‘identity synthesis’ has too many internal contradictions to constitute a coherent philosophy. For a start, disadvantaged people do not always agree among themselves. Then societies are not all perennially divided into mutually uncomprehending groups. There is much overlapping and sharing. Thus it is historically erroneous to think that each type of cultural output belongs exclusively to one specific group and cannot be adopted or adapted by others. Moreover, a ‘cancel’ culture that halts free discussion of such issues risks fuelling despotism rather righting injustices.

Building upon those criticisms, Mounk in Part 4 (pp. 239-90) ends with a rousing defence of liberal democratic values. With care and empathy, people can understand and help one another. Universalist programmes to provide good health care, housing, education, job opportunities, access to transport, peaceful neighbourhoods, and freedom from discrimination, can – given time and commitment – work wonders. ‘Progressive separatism’ is not actually progressive. Instead, it inculcates a negative pessimism.

These debates are likely to continue. But Mounk now detects a growing readiness among critics of the ‘identity synthesis’ to voice their objections – as he has decided to do in this admirably thoughtful book.

In that spirit, this reviewer wishes to add one further point that is not fully covered by Mounk. At one stage (p.100), he cites (disapprovingly) the case of an eminent American University where students are discouraged from stating that: ‘There is only one race, the human race’. Elsewhere, too, Mounk refers to racial classifications as ‘dubious’ (p. 262).

But let’s be franker. The attempt at establishing a so-called ‘scientific racism’ led into an intellectual blind alley. Experts could not even agree on the number of separate ‘races’. Today, geneticists confirm that all people carry variants of one biological template, known as the human genome.2 Hence individuals from all branches of the human family can inter-marry and breed fertile offspring – the fundamental test of one common species. Mounk does himself refer to the ever-growing number of so-called ‘mixed-race’ individuals (p.14), who do not fit into simple ‘racial’ classifications. But are they fully human? Of course, they are.

True, some people today maintain strongly racist attitudes. That’s an urgent problem for societies to address. Yet it’s not a good reason for endorsing the separatists. Humanity must avoid the ‘identity trap’ and walk with Martin Luther King. He sought to transform: ‘the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood’ [or: siblinghood!] King was brutally cut down in his prime. But his cause and his optimism are needed today more than ever. Can the human family get its global act together, at this time of climate crisis? That’s another huge and urgently-unfolding story … but anyone immediately seeking a measured faith in liberal human universalism should read Yascha Mounk.

ENDNOTES:

1 PJC, ‘Being Assessed as a Whole Person: A Critique of Identity Politics’, BLOG no.121 (Jan. 2021).

2 See esp. L. Cavalli-Sforza and F. Cavalli-Sforza, The Great Human Diasporas: The History of Diversity and Evolution (London, 1996).

For further discussion, see

To read other discussion-points, please click here

To download Monthly Blog 163 please click here

MONTHLY BLOG 162, HAPPY CANVASSING MEMORIES

/in , , /by

If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2024)

Fig.1: Satire of Charles James Fox
(kneeling centre),
canvassing the Westminster parliamentary electors in 1784:
detail from an anonymous print, entitled
‘A New Way to Secure a Majority: Or, No Dirty Work Comes Amiss’ (1784).
Original in British Museum Dept. of Prints & Drawings, no: 1868,0808.5288.

Happy canvassing memories indeed! I no longer go out knocking on doorsteps – been there, done that, for many years, from the age of fifteen onwards! But, in this month of busy electioneering, when many of my friends are still on the stump, I can’t keep the memories at bay …

Political activists have a very mixed reputation, as has the political process itself.1 Door-to-door canvassers are sometimes seen as pests. Or as cravenly kow-towing to the voters. The image of Charles James Fox, the Whig reform candidate in Westminster election in 1784 (shown in Fig.1) pulls absolutely no punches. He is shown as literally arse-licking the voters. The shopkeepers and tradesmen, meanwhile, are lining up to receive his grovelling submission. (Either way, it worked. Fox won the seat, despite intense campaigning against him from the government, headed by Fox’s great political rival, the Younger Pitt).2

Well, needless to say, the canvassing that I have undertaken was always more dignified. Generally, I enjoyed the process. Rarely encountered voters who were rude or personally unpleasant. Often, it was just a case of ‘Will you be voting Labour?’ …, and, after the reply: ‘Oh thank you’ … or not as the case may have been.

Meanwhile, there were, from time to time, real doorstep debates. We canvassers are not supposed to linger but instead are required to press on relentlessly. But I enjoyed the rare chances for real conversations. Once as a student, when canvassing close to my parental home in Sidcup, I remember an impromptu doorstep encounter – discussing the pros and cons of comprehensive education with a genuinely questing voter, who was keen to get my views – and to share his. It was a stimulating exchange.

Later, on another occasion, in 2004, after the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003, a voter said curtly to me, on the doorstep, that all supporters of the Labour Party were war-criminals. Well, I could not let that pass unchallenged; and, although the leader of our canvassing team was urging me to move onwards, I remained for a good half an hour. We talked, at first fairly heatedly. but then more calmly. I did not myself support the invasion; but I reviewed the case for ousting Saddam Hussein; and I also talked about the immediacy of politics – the need for snap decisions; and the non-stop debates within as well as between the political parties.

By the end, the voter thanked me. She had not changed her mind – nor had I tried to change it for her. But she understood why I remained in the Labour Party – and she was glad that I’d stayed to talk through the issues.

Such moments made the whole procedure worthwhile. Rational democracy in action! And there have been plenty of other doorstep debates, though usually less basic than rebutting accusations of war-criminality.

Yet … I also learned that politics is not always about considered deliberations. There is scope too for quick and pointed repartee. Once, when first canvassing with my father in Sidcup, a voter asked on the doorstep with real anger in his voice: ‘What about the Labour Government’s failed groundnut scheme?’ 3 I then knew nothing of the issue (and cannot claim much expertise now!) Fortunately, my father was at a nearby doorstep. Quickly, I asked the voter to wait and ran over to consult my canvassing mentor. He said: ‘Go back and ask in reply: “What about Suez?”’4  I promptly did so. The voter stopped ranting and muttered ‘Oh yes, you’ve got a point there!’ He confirmed that he’d vote Labour – and I learned the value of smart repartee.

So there we are! In the big political battles, doorstep canvassers are mere foot-soldiers in the trenches. They know that. And the voters know it too. Yet, as already noted, these doorstep consultations are usually conducted politely. Voters may not want to see you at the moment that you call. But they do like to know that the political parties are out-and-about in the neighbourhood, talking to voters and picking up on local issues and casework. If there is no canvassing, there are liable to be complaints of: ‘We never see you!’ But they do often see Labour canvassers in Battersea, where I now live. It’s good for the voters; and educational for the canvassers too! ‘What about the groundnut scheme?’ … ‘Well, what about Suez?’ Long live doorstep democracy!

ENDNOTES:

1 See e.g. R. Behr, Politics – A Survivor’s Guide: How to Stay Involved without Getting Enraged (London, 2024).

2 For Charles James Fox (1749-1806), see L.G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (Oxford, 1992); and for context, consult the impressive website on ‘Eighteenth-Century Political Participation and Electoral Culture’: https://ecppec.ncl.ac.uk.

3 For the Labour government’s project in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) the mid-1940s, see A. Wood, The Groundnut Affair (London, 1950); and N. Westcott, Imperialism and Development: The East African Groundnut Scheme and its Legacy (Woodbridge, 2020).

4 For the Anglo-French 1956 invasion of Egypt, see H. Thomas, The Suez Affair (London, 1967); S. Lucas, Britain and Suez: The Lion’s Last Roar (Manchester, 1996); and K. Kyle, Suez: Britain’s End of Empire in the Middle East (London, 2003).

For further discussion, see

To read other discussion-points, please click here

To download Monthly Blog 162 please click here

MONTHLY BLOG 161, DO LOCAL PEOPLE CARE ABOUT THE DIRE STATE OF WANDSWORTH PRISON?

/in , /by

Exterior View of HM Wandsworth Prison from Heathfield Road
Source: Wikipedia

Do local people care about the dire state of Wandsworth Prison, as currently reported by reliable sources? Yes, they do. Perhaps surprisingly, but certainly encouragingly, they do.

On Wednesday 10 April 2024, I attended an evening meeting at St Anne’s Church Wandsworth, called by a concerned group of local Quakers and others who were launching their Wandsworth Prison Improvement Campaign.1 The capacious venue was packed. We did not have an official register of attendance; but my own head-count made it at least 250 people. Mainly middle-aged; but with a scattering of youngsters too. All listening intently.

We heard testimonies from prison reform campaigners, the former prison chaplain, former inmates, and the relatives of people currently serving time within the Prison. It is one of the largest in the country. It was opened in 1851, initially as the Surrey House of Correction, designed to hold some 700 prisoners. In 2023 it was estimated to be holding double that – between 1,300 and 1,500 inmates, including a number of individuals who are only on remand. The guilty and the innocent alike are housed in cells that were built for one inmate and now serve two. Rats and other vermin are rife.

Moreover, because of current staff shortages, those within spend much of the time locked up in their small cells, without opportunities for exercise, recreation or socialising with anyone other than their cell-mate. Little wonder that drug abuse is reportedly rife.2 Little wonder too that incidents of violence, in the form of inmate attacks upon one another and upon staff, are reportedly rising.3 In addition, there are growing numbers of prisoners with mental health problems – and an escalating shortage of (poorly paid) staff.

The packed audience was clearly uncomfortable at some of the information provided. And also indignant. But what impressed me was the positive mood of determination, rather than a collective and hopeless despondency. People were all asking: what can we do? The answer is that we must all, in our different ways, try to shine a light onto the closed prison. It is part of our neighbourhood. It employs people who are our neighbours. A proportion of the inmates are no doubt our local neighbours too (though prisoners are also moved round the country depending upon the availability of cells to be filled). And prisoners, having served their time, also return to the communities in which we all live.

Many small acts of lobbying, writing to our MPs, attending protest meetings, spreading the word, etc. will add up to something rather more than the sum of lots of individual actions.

So overall, the evening was one that conveyed appalling and distressing information, but also one that inspired those present with civic determination to campaign for change. Great! The mood at the first anti-slavery rallies in the 1790s must have been rather similar.4 We need a national conversation about the role of prisons – and, importantly, about safe alternatives to prisons – and the vital need to rehabilitate rather than brutalise offenders, who are all fellow citizens.

Small pebbles thrown into a pond can make major waves! Good luck to the Wandsworth Prison Improvement Campaign! Its website gives helpful advice on how best to lobby MP and prison ministers. Feeling civic (as I am)? Throw a pebble and help to get urgently needed and seriously real reform.

ENDNOTES:

1 For details see https://www.wandsworthprisoncampaign.co.uk/.

2 Report on BBC News 7 Sept. 2023, ‘Wandsworth Prison Life: Decay, Drugs and Drudgery’.  For context, see too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_Prison_Wandsworth.

3 An Independent Monitoring Board was reported in Evening Standard 11 Oct. 2023, as finding conditions in the prison ‘inhumane’ and the resulting environment ‘unsafe’ for both guards and prisoners: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/wandsworth-prison-conditions-independent-monitoring-board-report-b1112696.html.

4 See e.g. Z. Gifford, Thomas Clarkson and the Campaign against Slavery (1996); C. Midgley, Women against Slavery: The British Campaigns, 1780-1870 (1992); and J.R. Oldfield, Popular Politics and British Anti-Slavery: The Mobilisation of Public Opinion against the Slave Trade, 1787-1807 (1998).

For further discussion, see

To read other discussion-points, please click here

To download Monthly Blog 161 please click here

Horse-Drawn Clapham Omnibus, running from Camberwell Green to Clapham (1880s), on display in London Bus Museum, Cobham Hall, Brooklands Rd, Weybridge, Surrey.

MONTHLY BLOG 160, WHO MADE THE CLAPHAM OMNIBUS SO FAMOUS?

/in , , /by

If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2024)

Fig. 1: Horse-Drawn Clapham Omnibus,
running from Camberwell Green to Clapham (1880s),
on display in London Bus Museum,
Cobham Hall, Brooklands Rd, Weybridge, Surrey.

In mid-March, I was delighted to give an illustrated talk to the Clapham Society. The packed audience kindly laughed at my jokes – and asked great questions. And the event was held in a venue, wittily named The Clapham Omnibus.1 Which set me wondering about the origins of naming ‘The Man on the Clapham Omnibus’ as the (fictional) embodiment of a ‘reasonable citizen’.

The phrase was first recorded in an English court of law in 1903; and, this formulation (with local variations) has remained current in the parlance of the Anglophone legal system. Its original wording was attributed to Charles Bowen, an erudite and witty Victorian judge.2

A person on the Clapham omnibus (these days we would include women as readily as men) would not be taken as a major leader of style and fashion. But, equally, such a person would not come ‘from the back of beyond’. The south London suburb of Clapham was manifestly not a key centre of either industry or international commerce. Yet it was no backwater. It was a hub of circulating news and information, being located on the Portsmouth Road (now classified as the A3 trunk road), running between the City of London and Portsmouth. And there were other main radial routs crossing through the parish, such as the Brighton Road (now the A24) – all taking goods and people into and out of town, along with news and information as a matter of course.

Would Charles Bowen have travelled on these south London routes? Undoubtedly yes. He made his legal career in London; but in 1872 he purchased a country residence named Colwood House – near to Cuckfield in the West Surrey hills – not far from the London to Brighton Road. Whether he actually rode on a Clapham omnibus (pictured above) remains unknown. But he must have traversed through Clapham many times.

And here’s a further thought. What had Clapham to do with the formation of public opinion? Nothing officially, of course. But in the early nineteenth century, the leading group of anti-slavery campaigners became renowned as the ‘Clapham Sect’ or (more sarcastically) as the ‘Clapham Saints’.3 Their media-savvy campaign was one major contributing factor (though not the only one) in changing British public opinion from indifference to support for anti-slavery.4  So the name of Clapham already had resonance. When Charles Bowen was coining a witty phrase to signify a reasonable citizen, aware of the issues of the day – even if not an expert – he could imagine that individual to be travelling on the Clapham omnibus with complete plausibility.

Amusingly enough, for a Battersea resident like myself, two leading figures in the ‘Clapham Sect’ actually lived in the neighbouring parish of Battersea. They were William Wilberforce, with a house on Broomwood Road,5 and his cousin, the banker Henry Thornton, resident on Battersea Rise.6 But the Battersea Society is not trying to rename these ardent campaigners as the ‘Battersea Sect’. They walked or drove a mile across Clapham Common to worship at the Holy Trinity Church, sited within the north-east corner of the Common, attracted by the evangelical preaching of its Anglican minister John Venn.7 Fittingly enough, therefore, the campaigners were, unofficially, named after the parish whose church acted as their initial focal point.

How much the resonance of that association influenced Charles Bowen remains unknown. Yet the result is that Clapham is famous both for the anti-slavery campaigners8 – and for the people on its omnibus. Good luck to them all!

ENDNOTES:

1 For the Omnibus Theatre, 1 Clapham Common Northside, SW4 0QW, see https://www.omnibus-clapham.org.

2 Charles Synge Christopher Bowen, Baron Bowen (1835-94) of Colwood (Sussex): see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bowen,_Baron_Bowen (viewed 31 March 2024); and an admiringly affectionate memoir by H.S. Cunningham, Lord Bowen: A Biographical Sketch … (London, 1897).

3 See E.E.F. Smith, Clapham Saints and Sinners (Extract from Clapham Antiquarian Society, 1987); M. Bryant, The Clapham Sect (Clapham Society, 2003); S. Tomkins, The Clapham Sect: How Wilberforce’s Circle Changed Britain (Oxford, 2010).

4 See discussion in B. Hilton, The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought, 1795-1865 (Oxford, 1988).

5 A plaque (affixed in 1906) today adorns the side of 111 Broomwood Road, at the junction with Wroughton Road (SW11), where Broomwood House, quondam residence of William Wilberforce, stood until 1904. For an overview of Wilberforce (1759-1833) and his impact, see W. Hague, William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner (London 2007).

6 Henry Thornton (1760-1815) lived in a grand residence named Battersea Rise House (demolished 1907), on Battersea Rise, SW11, and was buried in St Paul’s Church, Clapham, as recorded by a commemorative plaque. For his life and times, see S. Meacham, Henry Thornton of Clapham, 1760-1815 (Cambridge, Mass., 1964).

7 For John Venn (1759-1813), who was actually himself born in Clapham, see M.M. Hannell, John Venn and the Clapham Sect (London, 1958); re-issued, 2003).

8 The campaigns continue to this day, as there are still globally millions of people living in slavery or neo-slavery, despite official United Nations prohibitions: for details and membership, see https://www.antislavery.org.

For further discussion, see

To read other discussion-points, please click here

To download Monthly Blog 160 please click here

MONTHLY BLOG 159, BUT NOW SPRING IS COMING AND IT’S TIME FOR FRESH PLANS

/in , /by

If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2024)

Daffodils © Clipart 2024

Good things can happen at any time of year. As can bad ones. But there is something basic about the cyclical nature of the seasons in Britain that encourages a degree of seasonality in human thought patterns. The perceptible lengthening of the daylight hours, the sight of radiant blossom on the trees, and the budding of the first daffodils encourage a sense of renewal. Time for fresh plans!

True, we have already discovered greenfly on the first green shoots of leaves on the rose bushes … but that’s also part of life.

I don’t want to recount all the details of my current plans – for writing books, planning more books, giving lectures, and organising various good projects – but I am happy to record the springing of renewed activity.

‘There’s no time like the Spring/ When life’s alive in everything …’ (Christina Rossetti).1 ‘I am amazed at this Spring, this conflagration/ Of green fire lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze/ Of growing …’ (D.H. Lawrence).2 ‘Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year’s pleasant king/ Then blooms each thing … / Cold does not sting; the pretty birds do sing …’ (Thomas Nashe).3  ‘Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring/ In triumph to the world, the youthful Spring …’ (Thomas Carew).4 ‘If ever there were a Spring day so perfect/ So uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze/ That it made you want to throw/ Open all the windows in the house/ And unlatch the door to the canary’s cage/ …/ Well, today is just that kind of day’. (Billy Collins, abridged).5

Of course, the poets are not slow to stress that Spring is transient. And to point out that the beauty of Spring offers a stern reproach to the ugliness that too often mars human relationships with other humans. Think of wars; famines; drastic material inequalities; community hatreds; territorial disputes; the misuse of creative technologies; ecological degradation and species loss; the growing climate crisis – and (so far) the failure of international political organisations to cope with that litany of horrors.

Such thoughts are more than enough to wipe the smile off the face of anyone who is overly complacent.

At the same time, however, I’ve enjoyed the time just spent, finding a diverse range of poems, with diverse emotions, about the coming of Spring. I am enjoying the real thing all around us as well. And, yes: the turning of the seasons brings a message. To quote Goethe: ‘We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves’. That includes our civic commitments as well as our private projects. And now is a good time to start the renewal! It’s Spring!

ENDNOTES:

1 C. Rossetti (1830-94), ‘Spring’, first pub. 1862; available in C. Rossetti, The Complete Poems, ed. R.W. Crump and B.S. Flowers (Penguin, 2001), p. 28.

2 D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930), ‘The Enkindled Spring’, first published 1916; available in D.H. Lawrence, Complete Poems, ed. D. Ellis (Penguin, 1957).

3 T. Nashe (1567-c.1601), Spring, the sweet Spring’ is a song from his play Summer’s Last Will & Testament (1600).

4 T. Carew (1595-1640), ‘The Spring’, first published in a collection of poems in 1640.

5 B. Collins (b.1941), from his poem Today, first published in 2000.

For further discussion, see

To read other discussion-points, please click here

To download Monthly Blog 159 please click here

MONTHLY BLOG 158, AFTER THE MIDWINTER JOLLITY, THE NEVER-ENDING DRY COUGH…

/in , /by

If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2024)

Drawing of Cough © Doodle-Vector 2024

What comes after the Midwinter jollity and Ho-ho-ho!? (And this year it was all very jolly indeed). Alas, however, the answer in mid-January was a never-ending dry cough: hack, hack, hack!

If other people’s illnesses can be boring, then usually one can muster up some interest in one’s own. But not a dry cough. It is very boring indeed. The entire body struggles repeatedly to cough up … nothing at all. There’s no phlegm, no satisfactory feeling that one is clearing clogged lungs. Just a never-ending cough, cough, cough. Every rib aches. It’s impossible to sleep at night, so the days are passed in an exhausted trance. One cannot even listen to soothing music, because someone in the audience is coughing unbearably.

Basically, it was an enforced ‘time out’. (By the way, it was not Covid, a routine test showed). It was not a relaxing rest, because it was so uncomfortable. It was not in any way romantic (no lying in languid elegance on a chaise-longue, writing great poetry). Nor was it beautiful in any way. The coughing body does not feature in great art. Staying put to cough non-stop was totally boring.

Was there any silver lining? Well … that’s a good challenge to the incorrigible Pollyanna in me. After all, the cough did stop after a few days, which was a great bonus in itself. And being briefly unwell certainly did make me appreciate the inestimable value of good health. Such a cliché … but valid for all that.

So, as I am now recovering, I am resolving to get even fitter than I was before the never-ending cough struck. I am back in the swimming pool in the early mornings – pushing myself to kick hard all the time, and not to hang around at end of each length. Annoyingly, I am still unusually tired a lot of the time. At last, however, I can feel a spring returning into my step. Ah, Spring …

For further discussion, see

To read other discussion-points, please click here

To download Monthly Blog 158 please click here

MONTHLY BLOG 157, HOW THE GEORGIANS CELEBRATED MIDWINTER (*)

/in , /by

If citing, please kindly acknowledge copyright © Penelope J. Corfield (2024)

Variety was the spice of Midwinter festivities under the Georgians. There was no cultural pressure to conform to one standard format. Instead, people responded to diverse regional, religious and family traditions. And they added their own preferences too. Festivities thus ranged from drunken revelries to sober Puritan spiritual meditation, with all options in between.

It was the Victorians from the 1840s onwards – with the potent aid of Charles Dickens – who standardised Christmas as a midwinter family festivity. They featured Christmas trees, puddings, cards, presents, carol services, and ‘Father Christmas’. It’s a tradition that continues today, with some later additions. Thus, on Christmas Days in Britain since 1932, successive monarchs have recorded their seasonal greetings to the nation, by radio (and later TV).

Georgian variety, meanwhile, was produced by a continuance of older traditions, alongside the advent of new ones. Gift-giving at Christmas had the Biblical sanction of the Three Wise Men, bringing to Bethlehem gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. So the Georgians substituted their own luxury items. An appreciated gift, among the wealthy, was a present of fine quality gloves. But, interestingly, that custom, which was well established by 1700, was already on the wane by 1800 as fashions in clothing changed. Embroidered gloves, made of lambskin, doeskin, or silk, were given to both men and women, as Christmas or New Year gifts. These luxury items may be said therefore to have symbolised the hand of friendship.

Fig.1: Add MS 78429, John Evelyn’s Doe-Skin Gloves,
17th century, British Library. Public domain.

The first illustration shows a fringed and embroidered glove once owned by the diarist John Evelyn. It was presented to him by the young Russian Tsar, Peter the Great. He had, during his semi-clandestine stay in England in 1698, resided in a property at Deptford, owned by Evelyn. The headstrong visitor caused considerable damage. So Peter’s farewell gift to Evelyn might be seen not so much as a mark of friendship but as something of a royal brush-off.

Presents can, after all, convey many messages. In the Georgian era, it was customary also for clients or junior officials to present gloves as Christmas or New Year gifts to their patrons or employers. The offering could be interpreted as thanks for past services rendered – or even as a bribe for future favours. That was especially the case if the gloves contained money, known in the early eighteenth century as ‘glove money’.

For example, the diarist Samuel Pepys, who worked for the Admiralty Board, had a pleasant surprise in 1664. A friendly contractor presented Pepys’ wife with gloves, which were found to contain within them forty pieces of gold. Pepys was overjoyed. (Today, by contrast, strict policies rightly regulate the reception of gifts or hospitality by civil servants and by MPs).

Meanwhile, individuals among the middling and lower classes in Georgian Britain did not usually give one another elaborate presents at Christmas. Not only did they lack funds, but the range of commercially available gifts and knick-knacks was then much smaller.

Instead, however, there was a flow of charitable giving from the wealthy to the ‘lower orders’. Churches made special Christmas collections for poor families. Many well-to-do heads of household gave financial gifts to their servants; as did employers to their workers. In order to add some grace to the transaction, such gifts of money were presented in boxes. Hence the Georgians named the day-after-Christmas as ‘Boxing Day’ (later decreed as a statutory holiday in 1871). Such activities provide a reminder that midwinter was – then as today – a prime time for thanking workers for past services rendered – as well as for general charitable giving.

Innovations were blended into older Midwinter traditions. Houses interiors in 1700 might well be festooned with old-style holly and ivy. By 1800, such decorations were still enjoyed. But, alongside, a new fashion was emerging. It was borrowed from German and Central European customs; and the best-known pioneer in Britain was George III’s Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. In 1800, she placed a small yew tree indoors and hung it with decorations. Later, a small fir was substituted, becoming the Victorians’ standard ‘Christmas Tree’, as it remains today.

Overlapping customs were, however, feted in the cheery Christmas carol, ‘Deck the Hall(s) with Boughs of Holly’. It was an ancient Welsh ballad, Nos Galan, habitually sung on New Year’s Day. Child singers were then treated by gifts of skewered apples, stuck with raisins. ‘Deck the Hall(s)’ was later given English lyrics in 1862 by a Scottish bard. And it’s still heartily sung – long after holly has lost its decorative primacy.

Many famous Christian hymns were also newly written in the Georgian era. They included: While Shepherds Watched … (1703); Hark! The Herald Angels Sing! (1739); and Adeste Fideles/ O Come All Ye Faithful (Latin verses 1751; English lyrics 1841). These all appeared in the 1833 publication of Christmas Carols, Ancient & Modern, edited by the antiquarian William Sandys/ He had recovered many of these songs from the oral tradition. Now they were all recorded in print for future generations.

Notably, a number of the so-called Christmas carols were entirely secular in their message. Deck the Hall(s) with Boughs of Holly explained gleefully: ’Tis the season to be jolly/ Fa la la la la la la la la. No mention of Christ.

Similarly, the carol entitled The Twelve Days of Christmas (first published in London in 1780) records cumulative gifts from ‘my true love’ for the twelve-day festive period. They include ‘five gold rings; …  two turtle doves’ and a ‘partridge in a pear tree’. None are obviously Christian icons.

Fig.2: Anonymous (1780). Mirth without Mischief. London:
Printed by J. Davenport, George’s Court, for C. Sheppard, no. 8, Aylesbury Street, Clerkenwell.
pp. 5–16

And as for Santa Claus (first mentioned in English in the New York press, 1773), he was a secularised Northern European variant of Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of 26 December. But he had shed any spiritual role. Instead, he had become a plump ‘Father Christmas’, laughing merrily Ho! Ho! Ho! (Songs about his reindeers followed in the twentieth century).

Given this utterly eclectic mix of influences, it was not surprising that more than a few upright Christians were shocked by the secular and bacchanalian aspects of these midwinter festivities. Puritans in particular had long sought to purify Christianity from what they saw as ‘Popish’ customs. And at Christmas, they battled also against excesses of drinking and debauchery, which seemed pagan and un-Christian. One example was the rural custom of ‘wassailing’. On twelfth night, communities marched to orchards, banging pots and pans to make a hullabaloo. They then drank together from a common ‘wassail’ cup. The ritual, which did have pagan roots, was intended to encourage the spirits to ensure a good harvest in the coming year. Whether the magic worked or not, much merriment ensued.

Fig.3: A Fine and Rare 17th Century Charles II Lignum Vitae
Wassail Bowl, Museum Grade – Height: 21.5 cm (8.47 in)   Diameter: 25 cm (9.85 in).
Sold by Alexander George, Antique Furniture Dealer, Faringdon, Oxfordshire:
https://alexandergeorgeantiques.com/17th-century-charles-ii-lignum-vitae-wassail-bowl-museum-grade/

For their opposition to such frolics, the Puritans were often labelled as ‘Kill-Joys’. But they strove sincerely to live sober, godly and upright lives. Moreover, there was no Biblical authority for licentious Christmas revelries. Such excesses were ‘an offence to others’ and, especially, a ‘great dishonour of God’. So declared a 1659 law in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, specifying penalties for engaging in such ‘superstitious’ festivities.

Zealous opposition to riotous Christmases was especially found among Nonconformist congregations such as the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists and Quakers. They treated 25 December, if it fell upon a weekday, just like any other day. People went soberly about their business. They fasted rather than feasted. Sober Christmases thus became customary in Presbyterian Scotland and in the Puritan colonies of New England. It was true that, over time, the strictest rules were relaxed. The Massachusetts ban was repealed in 1681 by a Royalist Governor of the colony. But ardent Puritans long distrusted all forms of ‘pagan’ Christmas excess.

One consequence was that people sought other outlets for midwinter revelry. A great example is Scotland’s joyous celebration of New Year’s Eve or Hogmanay. (The name’s origin is obscure). One ancient custom, known as ‘first footing’, declares that the first stranger to enter a house after midnight (or in the daytime on New Year’s Day) will be a harbinger of good or bad luck for the following year. An ideal guest would be a ‘tall dark stranger’, bearing a small symbolic gift for the household – such as salt, food, a lump of coal, or whisky. General festivities then ensue.

All these options allowed people to enjoy the ‘festive season’, whether for religious dedication – or to celebrate communally the midwinter and the hope of spring to come – or for a mixture of many motives.

No doubt, some Georgians then disliked the fuss. (Just as today, a persistent minority records a positive ‘hatred’ of Christmas). All these critics could share the words of Ebenezer Scrooge – the miser memorably evoked by Dickens in A Christmas Carol (1843). Scrooge’s verdict was: ‘Bah! Humbug!’

Yet many more give the salute: ‘Merry Christmas!’ Or on New Year’s Eve (but not before) ‘Happy Hogmanay!’ And, as for Scrooge: at the novel’s finale, he mellows and finally learns to love all his fellow humans. Ho! Ho! Ho!

ENDNOTES:

(*) First published in Yale University Press BLOG, December 2023: https://yalebooksblog.co.uk/2023/12/08/how-the-georgians-celebrated-christmas-by-penelope-j-corfield/

For further discussion, see

To read other discussion-points, please click here

To download Monthly Blog 157 please click here