THE SUFFOLK CAPITAL.
The Orwell--The Sparrows--Ipswich notabilities--Gainsborough--Medical
men--Nonconformists.
Those who imagine Suffolk to be a flat and uninteresting county, with no
charms for the eye and no associations worth speaking of, are much
mistaken. There are few lovelier rivers in England than the Orwell, on
which Ipswich stands, up which river the fiery Danes used to sail to
plunder all the country round, and on the banks of which Gainsborough
learned to love Nature and draw her in all her charms. The town itself
stands in a valley, but it has gradually crept up the hills on each side,
so that almost everywhere you have a pleasing prospect and breathe a
bracing air. A few miles, or, rather, a short walk, brings you to
Henley, which has the reputation of being the highest land in Suffolk,
and on the other side there is a railway that connects Ipswich with
Felixstowe, just as the Crystal Palace is connected with the City.
Ipswich may claim to be the most prosperous and enterprising of all the
Suffolk towns. It goes with the times. Its citizens are active and
pushing men of business, and have enlightened ideas as well. They are
also Liberal in politics and practical in religion, and are never behind
in coming forward when there is a chance of benefiting themselves or
their fellow-creatures. And yet Ipswich has a history as long as the
dullest cathedral town. It was a place of note during the existence of
the Saxon Heptarchy. Twice it had the honour of publicly entertaining
King John; and there is a tradition that in the curious and
beautifully-ornamented house in the Butter Market--formerly the residence
of Mr. Sparrow, the Ipswich coroner, whose old family portraits,
including one of the Jameses, presented to an ancestor of the family,
filled me not a little with youthful wonder--Charles II. was secreted by
one of the Sparrows of that day, when he came to hide in Ipswich after
the battle of Worcester. 'The house is now a shop,' but, observes Mr.
Glyde, a far-famed local historian, 'a concealed room in the upper story
of the house, which was discovered during some alterations in 1801, is
well adapted for such a purpose.' And, at any rate, the gay and
graceless monarch, in search of a hiding-place, might have gone farther
and fared worse. Be that as it may, Ipswich can rejoice in the fact that
it was the birthplace of Cardinal Wolsey; and that he was one of the
first educational reformers of the day must be admitted, at any rate, in
Ipswich, of which, possibly, he would have made a second Cambridge.
Alas! of his efforts in that direction, the only outward and visible sign
is the old gateway in what is called College Street, which remains to
this day. Ipswich fared well in the Elizabethan days, when her Gracious
Majesty condescended to visit the place. Sir Christopher Hatton, the
dancing Lord Chancellor, who led the brawls, when
'The seals and maces danced before him,'
lived in a house near the Church of St. Mary-le-Tower. Sir Edward Coke
resided in a village not far off, and in 1597 the M.P. for Ipswich was no
other than the great Lord Bacon, who by birth and breeding was
emphatically a Suffolk man. From Windham's diary, it appears that at
Ipswich that distinguished statesman experienced a new sensation. In
1789 he writes: 'Left Ipswich not till near twelve. Saw Humphries there,
and was for the first time entertained with some sparring; felt much
amused with the whole of the business.'
In the early part of the present century Miss Berry, on returning from
one of her Continental trips, paid Ipswich a visit, having landed at
Southwold. 'Appearance of Ipswich very pretty in descending towards it,'
is the entry in her diary. About the same time Bishop Bathurst made his
visitation tour, and he writes to one of his lady correspondents: 'You
will be glad that, during the three weeks I passed in Suffolk, I did not
meet a single unpleasant man, nor experience a single unpleasant
accident.' With the name of the Suffolk hero Captain Broke, of the
_Shannon_. (I can well remember the Shannon coach--which ran from
Yoxford to London--the only day-coach we had at that time), Ipswich is
inseparably connected. He was born at Broke Hall, just by, and there
spent the later years of his life. Another of our naval heroes, Admiral
Vernon, the victor of Porto Bello, resided in the same vicinity. At one
time there seems to have been an attempt to connect Ipswich with the Iron
Duke. In the memoir of Admiral Broke we have more than one reference to
the Duke's shooting in that neighbourhood, and actually it appears that,
unknown to himself, he was nominated as a candidate to the office of High
Steward. Ipswich, however, preferred a neighbour, in the shape of Sir
Robert Harland. At a later day the office was filled by Mr. Charles
Austin, the distinguished writer on Jurisprudence.
One of the celebrated noblemen who lived in Ipswich was Lord Chedworth.
He wore top-boots, and wore them till they were not fit to be seen. When
new boots were sent home he was accustomed to set them on one side, and
get his manservant to wear them a short time to prepare them for his own
feet. Sometimes the man would tell his lordship that he thought the
boots were ready, but his lordship would generally reply, 'Never mind,
William; wear them another week.' While at Ipswich his lordship was
frequently consulted, owing to his legal attainments and well-known
generous disposition, by tradesmen and people in indigent circumstances.
The applicants were ushered into the library, where, surrounded by books,
they found his lordship. The chairs and furniture of the room, like his
lordship's clothes, had not merely seen their best days, but were
comparatively worthless, and the old red cloak which invariably enveloped
his shoulders made him look more like a gipsy boy than a peer of the
realm. His lordship's legacies to Ipswich ladies and others, especially
of the theatrical profession, were of the most liberal character.
Ipswich in its old days had its share of witches. One of the most
notorious of them was Mother Hatheland, who in due course was tried,
condemned and executed. From her confession in 1645 it appears 'the said
Mother Hatheland hath been a professor of religion, a constant hearer of
the Word for these many years, yet a witch, as she confessed, for the
space of nearly twenty years. The devil came to her first between
sleeping and waking, and spake to her in a hollow voice, telling her that
if she would serve him she would want nothing. After often solicitations
she consented to him. Then he stroke his claw (as she confessed) into
her hands, and with her blood wrote the covenant.' Now, as the writer
gravely remarks, the subtlety of Satan is to be observed in that he did
not press her to deny God and Christ, as he did others, because she was a
professor, and he might have lost all his hold by pressing her too far.
Satan appears to have provided her with three imps, in the shape of two
little dogs and a mole.
As the home of Gainsborough Ipswich has enduring claims on the English
nation and on lovers of art and artists everywhere. That must have been
a Suffolk man who passed the following criticism on Gainsborough's
celebrated picture of 'Girl and Pigs,' of which Sir Joshua Reynolds
became the purchaser at one hundred guineas, though the artist asked but
sixty: 'They be deadly like pigs; but who ever saw pigs feeding together,
but one on 'em had a foot in the trough?' Gainsborough had an
enthusiastic attachment to music. It was the favourite amusement of his
leisure hours, and his love for it induced him to give one or two
concerts to his most intimate acquaintances whilst living in Ipswich. He
was a member of a musical club, and painted some of the portraits of his
brother members in his picture of a choir. Once upon a time,
Gainsborough was examined as a witness on a trial respecting the
originality of a picture. The barrister on the other side said: 'I
observe you lay great stress on a painter's eye; what do you mean by that
expression?' 'A painter's eye,' replied Gainsborough, 'is to him what
the lawyer's eye is to you.' As a boy at the Grammar School of his
native town, it is to be feared he loved to play truant. One day he went
out to his usual sketching haunts to enjoy the nature which he loved
heartily, previously presenting to his uncle, who was master of the
school, the usual slip of paper, 'Give Tom a holiday,' in which his
father's handwriting was so exactly imitated that not the slightest
suspicion of the forgery ever entered the mind of the master. Alas!
however, the crime was detected, and his terrified parent exclaimed in
despair, 'Tom will one day be hanged.' When, however, he was informed
how the truant schoolboy had employed his truant hours, and the boy's
sketches were laid before him, forgetful of the consequences of forgeries
in a commercial society, he declared, with all the pride of a father,
'Tom will be a genius,' and he was right.
Worthy Mr. Pickwick seems to have known Ipswich about the same time as
myself. 'In the main street of Ipswich,' wrote the biographer of that
distinguished individual, 'on the left-hand side of the way, a short
distance after you have passed through the open space fronting the Town
Hall, stands an inn known far and wide by the appellation of the Great
White Horse, rendered the more conspicuous by a stone statue of some
rapacious animal, with flowing mane and tail, distantly resembling an
insane carthorse, which is elevated above the principal door. The Great
White Horse is famous in the neighbourhood in the same degree as a prize
ox, a county paper chronicled turnip, or unwieldy pig, for its enormous
size. Never were such labyrinths of uncarpeted passages, such clusters
of mouldy, ill-lighted rooms, such huge numbers of small dens for eating
or sleeping in, beneath any one roof as are collected together between
the four walls of the Great White Horse of Ipswich.' This was the great
hotel of the Ipswich of my youth. As regards hotels, Ipswich has not
improved, but in every other way it has much advanced. One of the old
inns has been turned into a fine public hall, admirably adapted for
concerts and public meetings. The new Town Hall, Corn Exchange, and
Post-office are a credit to the town. The same may be said of the new
Museum and the Grammar School and the Working Men's College and that
health resort, the Arboretum; while by means of the new dock ships of
fifteen hundred tons burden can load and unload. Nowadays everybody says
Ipswich is a rising town, and what everyone says must be right. The
Ipswich people, at any rate, have firmly got that idea into their heads.
Its fathers and founders built the streets narrow, evidently little
anticipating for Ipswich the future it has since achieved. The Ipswich
of to-day is laid out on quite a different scale. It has a tram road
service evidently much in excess of the present population, and as you
wander in the suburbs you come to a sign-post bearing the name of a
street in which not even the enterprise of the speculative builder has
been able at present to plant a single dwelling. When Ipswich has
climbed up its surrounding hills, and taken up all the building sites at
present in the market, it will be a goodly and gallant town, almost
fitted to invite the temporary residence of holiday-making Londoners who
are fond of the water. At all times it is a pretty sail to Harwich and
thence to Felixstowe, that quiet watering-place, a seaside residence that
has still a pleasant flavour of rusticity about it, with a fine crisp
sea-sand floor for a promenade.
When I was a boy Ipswich was resorted to by Londoners in the summer-time.
As an illustration, I give the case of Mr. Ewen, one of the deacons of
the Weigh House Chapel, when the Rev. John Clayton was the pastor. In
his memories of the Clayton family, the Rev. Dr. Aveling writes of Mr.
Ewen, that 'he was so sensitively conscientious in the discharge of his
official duties at the Weigh House, that he was never absent from town on
the days when the Lord's Supper was administered, and when he was
expected to assist in the administration of the elements. His London
residence was in Lincoln's Inn Fields, but having a house and property in
the town of Ipswich, he passed his summer months there. Yet so intent
was he upon duly filling his place in the sanctuary of God, that he
regularly travelled by post-chaise once in every month, and returned in
the same manner, that he might be present, together with his pastor and
the brethren, at the table of the Lord. The length and the expense of
the journey (and travelling was not then what it is now) did not deter
him from what he at least deemed to be a matter of Christian obligation.'
Dr. Aveling is quite right when he tells us travelling is not what it
was. It took almost a day to go from Ipswich to London when I was a boy,
and now the journey is done by means of the Great Eastern Railway in
about an hour and a half. It seems marvellous to one who, like myself,
remembers well the past, to leave Liverpool Street at 5.0 p.m. precisely,
and to find one's self landed safe and well in Ipswich soon after
half-past six. The present generation can have no conception of
travelling in England in the olden time.
There were some wonderful old Radicals in Ipswich, though it was, and is,
the county town of the most landlord-ridden district in England. Some of
them got the great Dan O'Connell to pay the town a visit, and some of
them nobly stood by old John Childs when he became famous all the world
over as the Church-rate martyr. The lawyers and the doctors were mostly
Tories, but the tradesmen and the merchants were not a little leavened
with the leaven of Dissent. Mr. Hammond was, however, a Liberal surgeon,
and as such flourished. His Whig principles, writes Mr. Glyde, brought
him many patients, and his skill and sound qualities retained them. Dr.
Garrord, the well-known London practitioner, was an apprentice of Mr.
Hammond's; and this reminds me that among the Ipswich men who have risen
is Mr. Sprigg, the Premier of Cape Colony when Sir Bartle Frere was at
the head of affairs there. The father of Mr. Sprigg was the respected
pastor of a Baptist chapel in the town. The only Ipswich minister whom I
can remember was the Rev. Mr. Notcutt, who preached in the leading
Independent chapel, now pulled down to make way for a much more
attractive building. All I can recollect about him is, that once, when a
lad, I fainted away when he was preaching. No sermon ever affected me so
since; and that effect was due, it must be confessed, not to the
preacher, who seemed to me rather aged and asthmatic, but to the heat of
the place, in consequence of the crowd attracted to the meeting-house on
some special occasion.
But to return to the doctors. Of one of them, who was famed for his love
of bleeding his patients, not metaphorically, but in the old-fashioned
way, with the lancet, it is recorded that on the occasion of his taking a
holiday two of his patients died. Lamenting the fact to a friend, the
following epigram was the result:
'B--- kills two patients while from home away--
A clever fellow this same B---, I wot;
If absent thus his patients he can slay,
How he must kill them when he's on the spot!'
Perhaps one of the noted physicians of my boyhood was Mr. Stebbing. 'He
was once,' writes Mr. Glyde, 'called in to see one of the Ipswich
Dissenting ministers, who had taken life very easily, and had grown
corpulent. After examining the patient and hearing his statement as to
bodily state, he replied: "You've no particular ailment; mind and keep
your eyes longer open, and your mouth longer shut, and you will do very
well in a short time."' On another occasion a raw and very poor-looking
young fellow called upon him for advice. The doctor told him to go home
and eat more pudding, adding, 'That's all you want; physic is a very good
thing for one to live by, but a precious bad thing for you to take.' One
of the Ipswich characters of my boyhood, of whom Mr. Glyde has preserved
an anecdote, was old Tuxford, the veterinary surgeon. He used to declare
that he never took more than one meal a day--a breakfast; but when asked
of what that consisted, he said, 'A pound of beefsteak, seven eggs, three
cups of tea, and a quartern of rum.' It may also be mentioned that
before Mrs. Garrett Anderson was born, Ipswich had a lady physician in
the person of Miss Stebbing, daughter of the doctor to whom I have
already referred. 'She was,' says one who knew her well, 'a woman of
general education, with more than ordinary tact and discernment, combined
with the true womanly power of analyzing and observing. She had good
physical powers, and, like her worthy father, was somewhat pungent in her
remarks and eccentric in her habits. She entered the ranks as a medical
practitioner during her father's life. The benefit of his advice so
aided her perceptive powers as to make her quite an expert in various
ways, and she continued to practise long after his decease, occasionally
attending males as well as females. Her knowledge of midwifery caused a
large number of ladies to engage her services.
Of the Radicals of Ipswich, the only one with whom I came into contact
was Mr. John King, the proprietor and editor of what was then, at any
rate, a far-famed journal--the _Suffolk Chronicle_. Astronomy was his
hobby, and he had ideas on the subject which, unfortunately, I failed to
catch. He had built himself an observatory, if I remember aright, at his
residence on Rose Hill, where he would sweep the heavens nightly, to see
what could be seen. He was a Radical of the old type, a tall, dark,
bilious-looking man, a little hard and dry, perhaps, who seemed to think
that it was no use to throw pearls before swine, and to serve up for the
chaw-bacons a too rich intellectual treat, and his policy was a
successful one. Priest-ridden as Suffolk was, the _Suffolk Chronicle_
was the leading paper of the county, and had a large circulation, and,
let me add, did good service in its day. Now I find Ipswich rejoices in
a well-conducted daily journal, the _East Anglian Times_, which I hear,
and am glad to hear, is a fine property, and I see all the leading towns
in Suffolk have a paper to themselves, even if they can't get up a decent
paragraph of local news--and some of them I know, from my experiences of
Suffolk life, are quite unequal to that--once a week. The plan is to
have some sheets already printed in London, at some great establishment,
whence perhaps a hundred little towns are supplied, and then the local
news and advertisements are added on, and Little Pedlington has its
_Observer_, and Eatanswill its _Gazette_. When I was a boy, such a thing
was out of the question, as to each paper a fourpenny-halfpenny stamp was
attached. As the stamps had to be paid for in advance, and as, besides,
there was an eighteen-penny duty on every advertisement, it was not quite
such an easy matter to run a paper then as it has since become. I fancy
the old-established journals suffered much by the change, which
completely revolutionized the newspaper trade; at any rate, so far as the
country was concerned. In this connection, let me add that it was to an
Ipswich journalist we owe the establishment of penny readings on anything
like a large and successful scale. They were originated by Mr. Sully, at
that time the proprietor and editor of the _Ipswich __Express_, a paper
intended to steer between the ferocious Toryism of the _Ipswich Journal_,
and the equally ferocious Radicalism of the _Suffolk Chronicle_. As was
to be expected, the attempt did not succeed. As in love and in war, so
in politics and theology, moderation is a thing hateful to gods and men.
The electioneering annals of Ipswich can testify to that fact. I have a
dim recollection of an election petition which ended in Sir Fitzroy
Kelly's admitting that he had stated what was not true, but he did it as
a lawyer, not as a gentleman, and in sending one of the finest old
gentlemen I ever knew to gaol, because he would not tell what he knew of
the matter. There was not much half-and-half work in the Ipswich
politics of my young days.
When people fight fiercely in politics, it is natural to expect an equal
earnestness in religious matters. It was so emphatically with respect to
the Ipswich of the past. 'The Reformed religion, after those fiery days
of persecution,' writes John Quick, 'was now revived, and flourished
again in the country, under the auspicious name of our English Deborah,
Queen Elizabeth; and Ipswich, the capital town of Suffolk, was not more
famous for its spacious sheds, large and beautiful buildings, rich and
great trade, and honourable merchants, both at home and abroad, than it
was for its learned and godly ministers and its religious intolerants.'
Of the godly ministers, one of the most famous was Samuel Ward, who was
buried in St. Mary-le-Tower Church. In 1666 he preached a sermon at St.
Paul's Cross. But he meddled with politics. For instance, in 1621 he
published a caricature picture, entitled 'Spayne and Rome Defeated.' It
is thus described: The Pope and his Council are represented in the centre
of the piece, and beneath, on one side the Armada, and on the other the
Gunpowder Treason. Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador, complained of it as
insulting to his master. Ward was placed in custody. Being
Puritanically inclined, he was, in addition, prosecuted in the Consistory
Court of Norwich by Bishop Harsnet for Nonconformity. Ten years later,
when 600 persons were contemplating a removal from Ipswich to New
England--as a place where they could worship God without fear of priest
or king--the blame was cast by Laud on Ward. Rushworth informs us that
the charges laid against him were that he preached against the common
bowing at the name of Jesus and against the King's 'Book of Sports,' and
further said that the Church of England was ready to ring changes in
England, and that the Gospel stood on tiptoe as ready to be gone; and for
this he was removed from his lectureship and sent to gaol. John Ward,
his brother, Rector of St. Clement's, was a member of the Assembly of
Divines, and was called to preach two sermons before the House of
Commons, for which he received the thanks of the House. At that time we
find a reference to Ipswich as a place which 'the Lord hath long made
famous and happy as a valley of Gospel vision.' Such places, alas! seem
to have been commoner formerly than they are now.
One of the Congregational churches of Ipswich, at any rate, has very
interesting historical associations. 'Salem Chapel,' writes the Rev.
John Browne, in his 'History of Congregationalism in Suffolk and
Norfolk,' 'stands in St. George's Lane, opposite the place where St.
George's Chapel formerly stood, where Bilney was apprehended when
preaching in favour of the Reformation, and where he so enraged the monks
that they twice plucked him out of the pulpit.' The last time I was at
Ipswich I saw bricklayers at work at the old Presbyterian church in St.
Nicholas Street, which it would be a pity to see modernized, being such a
fine illustration of the old-fashioned Dissenting Meeting-house, before
it became the fashion to have a taste and to build Gothic chapels in
which it is difficult to see or hear, and the only advantage of which is
that they are an exact copy of the steeple-houses against which at one
time Nonconformist England waged remorseless war. One of the pastors of
this congregation removed to Mill Hill Chapel, Leeds, where he succeeded
Dr. Priestley; another was the author of a 'History and Description of
Derbyshire'; while one of the supplies was the Rev. Robert Alderson,
afterwards of the Octagon Chapel, Norwich, who ultimately became a lawyer
and Recorder of Norwich. Perhaps one of the most singular scenes
connected with Dissenting chapels in Ipswich was that which took place in
the old chapel in Tackard, now Tacket, Street. In 1766 the minister
there was the Rev. Mr. Edwards, who, it appears, was sent for to the gaol
to see two men who had been found guilty of house-breaking, and who,
according to the law as it then stood, were to be hung. Mr. Edwards did
so, and stayed with them two hours. As the result of this visit they
were brought to a penitent state of mind. They had heard that Mr.
Edwards had prepared a sermon for them and desired them to attend. This
was a mistake, but notwithstanding they obtained permission to go to the
chapel, where Mr. Edwards was conducting a church meeting. A report of
the purpose got abroad, and many persons came to the meeting, upon which
it was thought most proper that the church business should be laid aside,
and that Mr. Edwards should go into the pulpit. This he did, and after
singing and prayer the prisoners came in with their shackles and fetters
on. Mr. Edwards, in describing the scene, says:
'Many were moved at the sight. As for myself, I was obliged for some
time to stop to give vent to tears. When I recovered I gave out part of
a hymn suitable to the occasion, then prayed. The subject of discourse
was, "This is a faithful saying," and the poor prisoners shed abundance
of tears while I was explaining the several parts of the text, and
especially when I turned and addressed myself immediately to them. The
house was thronged, and I suppose not a dry eye in the whole
place--nothing but weeping and sorrow; and the floods of tears which
gushed from the eyes of the two prisoners were very melting.'
The good man continues: 'When we had concluded I went and spoke some
encouraging words by way of supporting them under their sorrow. They
then desired I should see them in the evening, which I did, and called
upon Mr. Blindle on the way; the old gentleman went along with me to the
prison, and was one who prayed with them with much fervour and
enlargement of heart. We spent nearly two hours with them, and a crowd
of people were present.' On another occasion we find an American Indian
preaching in the pulpit--a novelty in 1767. He came over with a Dr.
Whitaker, of Norwich, in America, to collect money for the education and
conversion of Indians, and at Tackard Street the people raised the very
respectable sum of 80 pounds for the purpose. In 1561 Queen Elizabeth
paid Ipswich a visit. At that time the place was a little too Protestant
for her. Strype writes: 'Here Her Majesty took a great dislike to the
impudent behaviour of most of the ministers and readers, there being many
weak ones among them, and little or no order observed in the public
service, and few or none wearing the surplice, and the Bishop of Norwich
was thought remiss, and that he winked at schismatics. But more
particularly she was offended with the clergy's marriage, and that in
cathedrals and colleges there were so many wives and children and widows
seen, which, she said, was contrary to the intent of the founders, and so
much tending to the interruption of the studies of those who were placed
there. Therefore she issued an order to all dignitaries, dated August 9,
at Ipswich, to forbid all women to the lodgings of cathedrals or
colleges, and that upon pain of losing their ecclesiastical promotion.'
From this it is clear that when Elizabeth was Queen there was little
chance of the Women's Rights Question finding a favourable hearing. The
Queen was succeeded by monarchs after her own heart. In 1636 Prynne
published his 'Newes from Ipswich,' 'discovering certain late detestable
practices of some domineering Lordly Prelates to undermine the
established doctrine and discipline of our Church, extirpate all orthodox
sincere preachers and preaching of God's Word, usher in popery, idolatry
and superstition.' For this publication Prynne was sentenced to be fined
5,000 pounds to the King, to lose the remainder of his ears, to be
branded on both cheeks, and to be perpetually imprisoned in Carnarvon
Castle. At that time the Ipswich people were far too Liberal for the
powers existing. Ipswich news nowadays is little calculated to displease
anyone, and governments and kings are less prone to take offence at the
exercise of free thought and free speech.
Ipswich people make their way. Miss Reeve--who wrote the 'Old English
Baron,' a popular tale years ago--was the daughter of the Rev. William
Reeve of St. Nicholas Church. Another Ipswich lady, Mrs. Keeley, who
lives on in her grand old age, was certainly one of the most popular
performers of her day.
Two hundred years ago, no city man was better known than Thomas Firmin,
who was born at Ipswich, described in his biography as 'a very large and
populous town in the county of Suffolk,' in 1632. He was of Puritan
parentage, and bound apprentice in the city of London, and then began
business as a linen-draper on the modest capital of 100 pounds. In a
little while he married and was enabled to dispense a generous
hospitality, seeking all opportunities of becoming acquainted with
persons of worth, whether foreigners or his fellow-countrymen. Amongst
his special friends were Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, and Archbishop
Tillotson, at that time the afternoon lecturer at St. Lawrence's. During
the time of the plague he managed to secure work for the London poor, and
after the fire he erected a warehouse on the banks of the Thames, where
coal and corn were sold at cost price. In 1676 he built a great factory
in Little Britain, for the employment of the needy and industrious in the
linen manufacture; he also relieved poor debtors in prison. The great
work of his later years was in connection with the Blue Coat School. He
was also one of the Governors of St. Thomas's Hospital, which he did much
to rescue from the wretched condition in which he found it. When the
French refugees, in consequence of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
were driven over to this country, Firmin exerted himself powerfully on
their behalf, and sent some of them to Ipswich to engage in manufacturing
there. He also had a good deal to do with Ireland, when, as now, the
country was torn by contending factions. At a large expense he also
educated many boys and set them up in trade. He was also one of the
first of the avowed and ardent friends and advocates of a free thought,
of which there were few supporters in England at that day--even among the
countrymen of Milton and John Locke. Unitarians were rare in the days
when Firmin proclaimed himself one. Altogether he was one of the best
men of his age, and well deserved to be buried in Christchurch, Newgate,
among the Bluecoat School boys, to whom he had ever been such a friend,
and to have the memorial pillar erected in his honour by Lady Clayton in
Marden Park, Surrey. It is to be hoped that the memorial remains,
though, alas! the noble mansion at one time inhabited by Wilberforce, and
where the great philanthropist's celebrated son, the Bishop of Oxford was
born, and where I have spent more than one pleasant day when Sir John
Puleston lived there, has been since burnt down.