coast, questions were asked in the House of Commons relative to
wireless telegraphy between the lighthouses and the coast. On that
occasion one of the most valuable suggestions was made by a shipping
expert, who considered that the Board of Trade should make it
compulsory that a light rocket apparatus should be carried by all
vessels, so that, when in distress, if near the coast, the crew could
send a rocket ashore. This marine engineer said: "On shore the rockets
must be fired by practised men, such as coastguards, because they have
to strike a small object; but on a vessel they have only to hit the
land, and if people are about, the line will quickly be seized and
made fast. At present, too, horses and wagons have to be used, and
sometimes it is difficult to find a road leading down to the spot from
which help must be rendered. Probably for twenty pounds an appliance
could be kept on board a vessel which would send a line ashore in less
time and with more certainty than at present. When a vessel is being
blown ashore, I have seen rockets fired from the land return like a
boomerang to the cliff on account of the strength of the gale. In my
judgment, mariners should assist in their own salvation."
On this Mr. H. Trengrouse, grandson of the inventor, wrote to the
_Cornishman_, 24th April, 1905:--
"Your suggestion in the _Cornishman_ of the 15th instant ... that all
vessels should be compelled by the Board of Trade to carry this
apparatus, is very practical, and should, and I trust may, be soon
adopted.
"It may interest your readers to learn that the inventor, my
grandfather, the late Mr. Henry Trengrouse, of Helston, urged this
upon successive Governments without any encouragement whatever, and I
on two occasions have also suggested it to the principals of the
Marine Department of the Board of Trade, who have informed me of a
strong opinion always entertained, that on the occasion of wreck,
there would probably not be any one on board possessing sufficient
knowledge of the use of the apparatus to render it of any value; which
seems very strange indeed, and might be readily obviated by, at least,
the captain and officers of vessels being instructed in its
use--surely simple enough. My grandfather devoted much time to make it
so; and the advantage of an appliance for use on board is so palpable,
and the loss of life during many years by its absence so considerable,
that it is extremely gratifying to observe a renewed and increasing
interest in the subject, which I hope, Sir, as you state, being so
important, may now be kept to the fore.
"I am, Sir,
"Your obedient servant,
"H. TRENGROUSE."
That this admirable letter to the _Cornishman_ should at the time
produce no effect on the Board of Trade is what every one who has had
any dealings with that Board would predicate.
At length, however, some goading has roused that obstructive, inert body
into inquiring into this matter. I read in the _Daily Express_ of 27th
January, 1908: "The question whether the carrying of rockets for
projecting lifelines should be made compulsory on all British ships is
being investigated by a special committee appointed by the Board of
Trade. One witness before the committee said that he had seen fifty men
drowned within sixty yards of the shore in a gale, and that all might
have been saved had the vessel been equipped with line-throwing guns."
So--after the lapse of eighty-six or seven years, and the loss of
thousands of lives that might have been saved had not the Board of
Trade been too inert to move in the matter--an inquiry has once more
been instituted. Let us hope that after this inquiry the matter may
not be allowed to fall again into neglect.
That the rocket _fired from the shore_ has been already the means of
saving lives, the following report on it made to the Board of Trade,
for the year ending 30th June, 1907, will testify:--
"During the year ended as above, 268 lives were saved by means of the
life-saving apparatus, that is to say, 127 more than the number saved
by the same means during the previous year, and 67 more than the
average for the previous ten years. The total number of lives saved by
the life-saving apparatus since 1870 is 8924. This number does not
include the large number of lives saved by means of ropes and other
assistance from the shore."
After the loss of the _Berlin_, belonging to the Great Eastern
Company, in 1907, the attention of the Dutch Government was called to
the advantage of having the rocket apparatus _on board ship_, and
legal instructions were drafted, making it obligatory upon all vessels
of over two hundred tons gross to carry rocket apparatus.
Henry Trengrouse's noble life was a failure in so far as that it
brought him no pecuniary results--covered him with disappointment,
reduced him to poverty. He received, in all, for his life's work, and
the sacrifice of fortune and the landed estate of his ancestors, £50
from Government, £31 10_s._ from the Society of Arts, and a diamond
ring that in his time of need he was constrained to pawn, and which he
was never able to redeem.
Russell Lowell puts these lines into the mouth of Cromwell, in his
_Glance behind the Curtain_:--
My God, when I read o'er the bitter lives
Of men whose eager hearts are quite too great
To beat beneath the cramp'd mode of the day,
And see them mocked at by the world they love,
Haggling with prejudice for pennyworths
Of that reform which this hard toil will make
The common birthright of the age to come--
When I see _this_, spite of my faith in God,
I marvel how their hearts bear up so long;
Nor could they, but for this same prophecy,
This inward feeling of the glorious end.
Henry Trengrouse married Mary, daughter of Samuel and Mary Jenken,
19th November, 1795. She was born at S. Erth, 9th September, 1772, and
died at Helston, 27th March, 1863. By her he had one son only who
reached manhood, Nicholas Trevenen Trengrouse, who died at the age of
seventy-four; and one daughter, Jane, who married Thomas Rogers,
solicitor, of Helston; Emma, who married a Mr. Matthews; and two, Mary
and Anne, who died unmarried, the first at the age of eighty, the
latter at that of ninety-four.
To Mr. Henry Trengrouse, the son of Mr. Nicholas T. Trengrouse, I am
indebted for much information relative to his grandfather, as also to
a lecture, never published, delivered in 1894 by the Rev. James
Ninnis, who says in a letter to Mr. H. Trengrouse, junior: "Most of
the detail I have taken from notes of my father, dated 1878; he got
them from conversation with your respected father."
Mr. J. Ninnis' grandfather had stood on the beach by the side of Henry
Trengrouse, watching the wreck of the _Anson_.
A portrait of the inventor, by Opie the younger, is in the possession
of the family at Helston, as is also the picture of the wreck of the
_Anson_ sketched at the time by Mr. Trengrouse. For permission to
reproduce both I am indebted to the courtesy of the grandson of the
inventor.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] _Morning Leader_, 29th October, 1902.
[9] There is an engraving of it in the _Annual Report of the Society
of Arts_ for 1821. The life-preserving rocket was exhibited on the
Serpentine before the Duke of Clarence, afterwards King William IV, on
May 28th, 1819. People looked on as at some firework display, and
nothing came of it.
[10] Trengrouse's apparatus fitted into a case 4 ft. 3 in. long by 1
ft. 6 in. wide.
THE BOTATHAN GHOST
IN April, 1720, Daniel Defoe published his _History of the Life and
Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell_. In August a second edition was
called for, of which some copies included a pamphlet that had been
printed in June: "Mr. Campbell's Pacquet, for the Entertainment of
Gentlemen and Ladies," and this "Pacquet" contains "A Remarkable
Passage of an Apparition, related by the Rev. Dr. Ruddle, of
Launceston, in Cornwall, in the year 1665."
It has been assumed that this ghost story was a bit of invention of
the lively imagination of Defoe. Mrs. Bray in her _Trelawny of
Trelawne_ stated that the story could not be true, as no such a name
as Dingley, which was that of the ghost, was known in Launceston. As
it happened, James Dingley had been instituted to the vicarage of the
very parish of South Petherwin, in which the ghost appeared, in the
same reign in which the apparition occurred, and he assisted Ruddle in
his ministrations in Launceston, and the name occurs to this day in
the town and neighbourhood. In fact, Dingley, Pethebridge, and Dingley
are bankers there.
In the same heedless fashion Cyrus Redding wrote in 1842 that the
story was "told with so much simplicity of truth that it is difficult
to believe that the tale is not, as novel writers say, 'founded on
fact.'" And he goes on to state: "No clergyman of the name of Ruddle
had been incumbent in Launceston for two hundred years past, at least
in S. Mary's Church." Yet the monument of Parson Ruddle is in the
church, and he occupied the living from 1663 to his death in 1699.
[Illustration: "PARSON RUDALL"
_From a painting in the possession of the Rev. S. Baring Gould_]
Again, Samuel Drew, in his _History of Cornwall_, blunders as to the
locality, making the apparition appear in the parish of Little
Petherick, near Padstow.
Next Mr. Hawker, of Morwenstow, fabricated a "Diurnall" of Ruddle,
which adopted Drew's error, and by altering the date made the story as
given by him disagree with the facts as they stand upon record.
The "Remarkable Passage of an Apparition" was no invention of Defoe;
it was a genuine narrative written by the hand of John Ruddle himself.
This has been conclusively demonstrated by the late Mr. Alfred Robbins
in the _Cornish Magazine_, 1898.
John Ruddle, M.A. of Caius College, Cambridge, was instituted to the
vicarage of Altarnon on May 24th, 1662; and the incumbency of S. Mary
Magdalen, Launceston, becoming vacant by the ejection of the
Independent intrusive pastor, Ruddle was appointed to it, and "began
his ministry at Launceston on y^e Feast of Our Saviour's Nativity,
1663." At the same time he received the appointment to the Launceston
Free School as master.
Now it so fell out that he was invited on the 20th June, 1665, to
preach a funeral sermon on the occasion of the burial of John Eliot at
South Petherwin. John was the son of Edward Eliot, of Trebursey, who
was the third son of Sir John Eliot, who died in the Tower of London.
After the conclusion of the service, Parson Ruddle was leaving the
church, when an "ancient gentleman" addressed him, and, Ruddle says,
"With an unusual importunity almost forced against my humour to see
his house that night; nor could I have rescued myself from his
kindness, had not Mr. Eliot interposed and pleaded title to me for
the whole of the day." However, Ruddle promised to call on the old
gentleman, whose name was Bligh, and whose house was Botathan.
The Blighs were an ancient family, well connected and owning a good
estate, but Botathan was not a house of any pretence, and it is now
the dwelling of a farmer, and has not the appearance of having been
the residence of a county family.
On the following Monday John Ruddle went to Botathan, where he partook
of an early dinner, and a neighbouring parson had been invited to meet
him.
"After dinner this brother of the coat undertook to show me the
gardens, when, as I was walking, he gave me the first discovery of
what was mainly intended in all this treat and compliment. First he
began to tell the infortunity of the family in general, and then gave
an instance in the youngest son. He related what a hopeful, sprightly
lad he lately was, and how melancholic and sottish he was now grown.
Then did he with much passion lament that his ill-humour should so
incredibly subdue his reason; for, says he, the poor boy believes
himself to be haunted with ghosts, and is confident that he meets with
an evil spirit in a certain field about half a mile from this place as
often as he goes that way to school.
"In the midst of our twaddle the old gentleman and his lady came up to
us. Upon their approach, and pointing me to the arbour, the parson
renews the relation to me; and they (the parents of the youth)
confirmed what he said, and added many minute circumstances. In fine,
they all three desired my thoughts and advice in the affair."
Neither the parents nor the parson who made this communication
believed that the boy saw anything; they shrewdly suspected that he
was lazy, and made the apparition an excuse for not going to school.
Ruddle, however, saw the boy, and was convinced of his sincerity. "He
told me with all naked freedom, and a flood of tears, that his friends
were unkind and unjust to him, neither to believe nor pity him; and
that if any man (making a bow to me) would but go with him to the
place, he might be convinced that the thing was real.
"'This woman which appears to me,' saith he, 'lived a neighbour here
to my father, and died about eight years since; her name, Dorothy
Dingley. She never speaks to me, but passeth by hastily, and always
leaves the footpath to me, and she commonly meets me twice or three
times in the breadth of the field.
"'It was about two months before I took notice of it, and though the
shape of the face was in my memory, yet I did not recall the name of
the person, but I did suppose it was some woman who lived there about,
and had frequent occasion that way. Nor did I imagine anything to the
contrary before she began to meet me constantly, morning and evening,
and always in the same field (the Higher Brown Quartils), and
sometimes twice or thrice in the breadth of it.
"'The first time I took notice of her was about a year since, and when
I first began to suspect it to be a ghost, I had courage enough not to
be afraid, but kept it to myself a good while, and only wondered very
much about it. I did often speak to it, but never had a word in
answer. Then I changed my way, and went to school the under Horse
Road, and then she always met me in the narrow lane, between the
Quarry Park and the Nursery, which was worse. At length I began to be
terrified at it, and prayed continually that God would either free me
from it or let me know the meaning of it. Night and day, sleeping and
waking, the shape was ever running in my mind, when, by degrees, I
grew pensive, inasmuch that it was taken notice of by all our family;
whereupon, being urged to it, I told my brother William of it, and he
privately acquainted my father and mother, and they kept it to
themselves for some time.
"'The success of this discovery was only this: they did sometimes
laugh at me, sometimes chide me, but still commanded me to keep to my
school, and put such fopperies out of my head. I did accordingly go to
school often, but always met the woman by the way.'"
When Parson Ruddle had heard this story he promised the boy to go with
him next morning to the field, and went with the lad to the hall,
whither the parents and the parson, the Rev. Samuel Williams, came to
meet them from the parlour. They began at once to importune Ruddle
about the interview and to pass remarks on the boy, who fled from them
to his own room. The vicar of Launceston begged them to restrain their
curiosity till he had made further investigation into the matter.
"The next morning, before five o'clock, the lad was in my chambers,
and very brisk. I arose and went with him. The field he led me to I
guessed to be twenty acres, in an open country, and about three
furlongs from any house. We went into the field, and had not gone
above a third part before the spectrum, in the shape of a woman, with
all the circumstances he had described her to me the day before, met
us and passed by. I was a little surprised at it, and though I had
taken up a firm resolution to speak to it, yet I had not the power,
nor indeed durst I look back; yet I took care not to show any fear to
my pupil and guide, and therefore telling him that I was satisfied in
the truth of his complaint, we walked to the end of the field and
returned, nor did the ghost meet us that time above once.
"At our return the gentlewoman watched to speak with me. I gave her a
convenience, and told her that my opinion was that her son's complaint
was not to be slighted, yet that my judgment in his case was not
settled. I gave her caution that the thing might not take wind, lest
the whole country should ring with what we had yet no assurance of.
"In this juncture of time I had business which would admit no delay,
wherefore I went to Launceston that evening, but promised to see them
again next week. Yet I was prevented by an occasion which pleaded a
sufficient excuse. However, my mind was upon the adventure. I studied
the case, and about three weeks after went again, resolving, by the
help of God, to see the utmost.
"The next morning, the 27th day of July, 1665, I went to the haunted
field by myself, and walked the breadth of the field without any
encounter. I returned and took the other walk, and then the spectrum
appeared to me, much about the same place where I saw it before, when
the young gentleman was with me. In my thoughts it moved swifter than
the time before, and about ten feet distant from me on my right hand,
insomuch that I had not time to speak, as I had determined with myself
beforehand.
"The evening of this day, the parents, the son, and myself being in
the chamber where I lay, I propounded to them our going all together
to the place next morning, and after some asseveration that there was
no danger in it, we all resolved upon it. The morning being come, lest
we should alarm the servants, they went under the pretence of seeing a
field of wheat, and I took my horse and fetched a compass another
way, and so met at the stile we had appointed.
"Thence we all four walked leisurely into the Quartils, and had passed
above half the field before the ghost made appearance. It then came
over the stile just before us, and moved with that swiftness that by
the time we had gone six or seven steps it passed by. I immediately
turned head and ran after it, with the young man by my side; we saw it
pass over the stile by which we entered, but no farther. I stepped
upon the hedge at one place, he at another, but could discern nothing;
whereas I dare aver that the swiftest horse in England could not have
conveyed himself out of sight in that short space of time. Two things
I observed in this day's appearance. (1) That a spaniel dog, who
followed the company unregarded, did bark and run away as the spectrum
passed by; whence it is easy to conclude that it was not our fear or
fancy which made the apparition. (2) That the motion of the spectrum
was not by steps and moving of the feet, but a kind of gliding, as
children upon ice or a boat down a swift river.
"But to proceed. This ocular evidence clearly convinced, but strangely
frightened, the old gentleman and his wife, who knew this Dorothy
Dingley in her lifetime, were at her burial, and now plainly saw her
features in this present apparition.
"The next morning, being Thursday, I went out very early by myself, and
walked for about an hour's space in meditation and prayer in the field
next adjoining the Quartils. Soon after five I stepped over the stile
into the disturbed field, and had not gone above thirty or forty paces
before the ghost appeared at the farther stile. I spake to it with a
loud voice, whereupon it approached, but slowly, and when I came near
it moved not. I spake again, and it answered, in a voice neither very
audible nor intelligible. I was not in the least terrified, and
therefore persisted until it spake again and gave me satisfaction. But
the work could not be finished at this time; wherefore the same evening,
an hour after sunset, it met me again near the same place, and after a
few words on each side it quickly vanished, and neither doth appear
since, nor ever will more to any man's disturbance. The discourse in the
morning lasted about a quarter of an hour.
"These things are true, and I know them to be so, with as much
certainty as eyes and ears can give me; and until I can be persuaded
that my senses do deceive me about their proper object, and by that
persuasion deprive myself of the strongest inducement to believe the
Christian religion, I must and will assert that these things in this
paper are true."
It must be noted that Defoe in his printed account omits the names of
the family of Bligh, and that he changes Dorothy Dingley into Mrs.
Veale. Parson Ruddle's original MS. is not in existence; it was
probably given to Defoe; but a copy is preserved made by the son of
the Rev. John Ruddle. Defoe was in Launceston acting as a spy for the
minister Harley in August, 1705, and at that time he must have got
hold of the MS. After the signature "John Ruddle" at the end of the
narrative and the date is the sentence: "This is a copy of w^t I found
written by my father and signed John Ruddle. Taken by me, William
Ruddle," who had become vicar of South Petherwin in 1695, and who
became subsequently incumbent also of S. Thomas-by-Launceston. This
copy bears the following attestation: "The readers may observe y^t I
borrowed the remarkable passage of y^e grandson of John Ruddle who had
it from his Uncle William Ruddle. I think I'm exact in its
transcription. I well know the s^d John Ruddle to have had (and I
daresay deserved) the character of a learned and eminent Divine, and I
also knew his son y^e sayd William Ruddle, a Divine whose character
was so bright y^t I have no room to add to its lustre, and I hereby
certify y^t I copyed this from y^e very hand-writing of the sayd
William Ruddle. _Quinto die Februarii Anno Dni_, 1730. James Wakeman."
As Mr. Robbins says: "The completeness of the body of proof of the
Ruddle authorship leaves nothing therefore to be desired."
Parson John Ruddle eventually became prebend of Exeter, and held the
vicarage of Altarnon along with that of Launceston to his death.
Ruddle does not state that the boy Bligh was his pupil at Launceston
Free School, but one does not see to what other school he can have
gone, and the readiness with which the lad opened his heart to him
leads to the notion that they had some previous acquaintance. His way
to Launceston would be over the common, on which stand three barrows,
to the road at Penfoot, where he would strike the road. When he
endeavoured to avoid the ghost he took the Under Horse Road between
Quarry Park and the Nursery. The Quarry is still visible with a pool
in it, and a stream flowing into it that rises on the moor where he
saw the ghost, and Under Horse Road still bears its name. The lad
endeavoured to take a short cut, though not as short as across the
Higher Brown Quartils, to reach the Launceston road without having to
go through South Petherwin village.
Parson Ruddle does not give the Christian name of the boy who saw the
ghost, and we are thrown into perplexity at once.
The "ancient gentleman" may have been Thomas Bligh of Botathan, Esq.,
but he was aged no more than fifty-three. Colonel Vivian's pedigree of
the Blighs in his _Visitation of Cornwall_ is most unsatisfactory.
Thomas Bligh was buried at South Petherwin, April 10th, 1692. There is
no entry in Vivian's pedigree of Walter Bligh, gentleman, who was
buried January 29th, 1667-8. Besides, there are many entries of an
Edmund Bligh and Katherine, his wife, and their children. Thomas Bligh
seems to have lived at one time at S. Martin's-by-Looe. Dr. Lee in his
_Glimpses of the Supernatural_ calls Dorothy Dingley, Dorothy Durant;
but on what authority I do not know. There is an entry in the South
Petherwin register of the burial of Dorothy Durant, widow, 1st May,
1677, but according to the story of the boy, Dorothy Dingley died in
or about 1657. Unfortunately the South Petherwin registers do not go
back beyond August, 1656, but there is no entry in them in 1656 or
1657 of the burial of Dorothy Dingley.
The Dingleys had been settled in Lezant and Linkinhorne from 1577, and
owned the place Hall in the latter parish; but they had connections in
Worcestershire; and Dorothy was the youngest daughter of Francis
Dingley, baptized at Cropthorne, in the latter county, in 1596. She
married Richard, son of George Durant, of Blockly, Worcestershire. As
no further trace of her can be found in the register there, it is not
unfair to suppose that having kinsfolk in Cornwall she may have
journeyed there, and both were buried at South Petherwin, Dorothy
Durant, as already stated, in 1677. She was then aged eighty-seven.
She cannot have been the ghost. But was the ghost that of her mother,
a Dorothy, who came to South Petherwin with her, and died there about
the year 1655? We cannot tell, as we do not know her mother's
Christian name. Dr. Lee clearly confused the Dorothy Durant with the
Dorothy Dingley, the ghost.