INDUSTRY AND THE PEERAGE.
“He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch,
To gain or lose it all.”—_Marquis of Montrose_.
“He hath put down the mighty from their seats; and exalted them of
low degree.”—_St. Luke_.
WE have already referred to some illustrious Commoners raised from humble
to elevated positions by the power of application and industry; and we
might point to even the Peerage itself as affording equally instructive
examples. One reason why the Peerage of England has succeeded so well in
holding its own, arises from the fact that, unlike the peerages of other
countries, it has been fed, from time to time, by the best industrial
blood of the country—the very “liver, heart, and brain of Britain.” Like
the fabled Antæus, it has been invigorated and refreshed by touching its
mother earth, and mingling with that most ancient order of nobility—the
working order.
The blood of all men flows from equally remote sources; and though some
are unable to trace their line directly beyond their grandfathers, all
are nevertheless justified in placing at the head of their pedigree the
great progenitors of the race, as Lord Chesterfield did when he wrote,
“ADAM _de Stanhope_—EVE _de Stanhope_.” No class is ever long
stationary. The mighty fall, and the humble are exalted. New families
take the place of the old, who disappear among the ranks of the common
people. Burke’s ‘Vicissitudes of Families’ strikingly exhibit this rise
and fall of families, and show that the misfortunes which overtake the
rich and noble are greater in proportion than those which overwhelm the
poor. This author points out that of the twenty-five barons selected to
enforce the observance of Magna Charta, there is not now in the House of
Peers a single male descendant. Civil wars and rebellions ruined many of
the old nobility and dispersed their families. Yet their descendants in
many cases survive, and are to be found among the ranks of the people.
Fuller wrote in his ‘Worthies,’ that “some who justly hold the surnames
of Bohuns, Mortimers, and Plantagenets, are hid in the heap of common
men.” Thus Burke shows that two of the lineal descendants of the Earl of
Kent, sixth son of Edward I., were discovered in a butcher and a
toll-gatherer; that the great grandson of Margaret Plantagenet, daughter
of the Duke of Clarance, sank to the condition of a cobbler at Newport,
in Shropshire; and that among the lineal descendants of the Duke of
Gloucester, son of Edward III., was the late sexton of St. George’s,
Hanover Square. It is understood that the lineal descendant of Simon de
Montfort, England’s premier baron, is a saddler in Tooley Street. One of
the descendants of the “Proud Percys,” a claimant of the title of Duke of
Northumberland, was a Dublin trunk-maker; and not many years since one of
the claimants for the title of Earl of Perth presented himself in the
person of a labourer in a Northumberland coal-pit. Hugh Miller, when
working as a stone-mason near Edinburgh, was served by a hodman, who was
one of the numerous claimants for the earldom of Crauford—all that was
wanted to establish his claim being a missing marriage certificate; and
while the work was going on, the cry resounded from the walls many times
in the day, of—“John, Yearl Crauford, bring us anither hod o’lime.” One
of Oliver Cromwell’s great grandsons was a grocer on Snow Hill, and
others of his descendants died in great poverty. Many barons of proud
names and titles have perished, like the sloth, upon their family tree,
after eating up all the leaves; while others have been overtaken by
adversities which they have been unable to retrieve, and sunk at last
into poverty and obscurity. Such are the mutabilities of rank and
fortune.
The great bulk of our peerage is comparatively modern, so far as the
titles go; but it is not the less noble that it has been recruited to so
large an extent from the ranks of honourable industry. In olden times,
the wealth and commerce of London, conducted as it was by energetic and
enterprising men, was a prolific source of peerages. Thus, the earldom
of Cornwallis was founded by Thomas Cornwallis, the Cheapside merchant;
that of Essex by William Capel, the draper; and that of Craven by William
Craven, the merchant tailor. The modern Earl of Warwick is not descended
from the “King-maker,” but from William Greville, the woolstapler; whilst
the modern dukes of Northumberland find their head, not in the Percies,
but in Hugh Smithson, a respectable London apothecary. The founders of
the families of Dartmouth, Radnor, Ducie, and Pomfret, were respectively
a skinner, a silk manufacturer, a merchant tailor, and a Calais merchant;
whilst the founders of the peerages of Tankerville, Dormer, and Coventry,
were mercers. The ancestors of Earl Romney, and Lord Dudley and Ward,
were goldsmiths and jewellers; and Lord Dacres was a banker in the reign
of Charles I., as Lord Overstone is in that of Queen Victoria. Edward
Osborne, the founder of the Dukedom of Leeds, was apprentice to William
Hewet, a rich clothworker on London Bridge, whose only daughter he
courageously rescued from drowning, by leaping into the Thames after her,
and eventually married. Among other peerages founded by trade are those
of Fitzwilliam, Leigh, Petre, Cowper, Darnley, Hill, and Carrington. The
founders of the houses of Foley and Normanby were remarkable men in many
respects, and, as furnishing striking examples of energy of character,
the story of their lives is worthy of preservation.
The father of Richard Foley, the founder of the family, was a small
yeoman living in the neighbourhood of Stourbridge in the time of Charles
I. That place was then the centre of the iron manufacture of the midland
districts, and Richard was brought up to work at one of the branches of
the trade—that of nail-making. He was thus a daily observer of the great
labour and loss of time caused by the clumsy process then adopted for
dividing the rods of iron in the manufacture of nails. It appeared that
the Stourbridge nailers were gradually losing their trade in consequence
of the importation of nails from Sweden, by which they were undersold in
the market. It became known that the Swedes were enabled to make their
nails so much cheaper, by the use of splitting mills and machinery, which
had completely superseded the laborious process of preparing the rods for
nail-making then practised in England.
Richard Foley, having ascertained this much, determined to make himself
master of the new process. He suddenly disappeared from the
neighbourhood of Stourbridge, and was not heard of for several years. No
one knew whither he had gone, not even his own family; for he had not
informed them of his intention, lest he should fail. He had little or no
money in his pocket, but contrived to get to Hull, where he engaged
himself on board a ship bound for a Swedish port, and worked his passage
there. The only article of property which he possessed was his fiddle,
and on landing in Sweden he begged and fiddled his way to the Dannemora
mines, near Upsala. He was a capital musician, as well as a pleasant
fellow, and soon ingratiated himself with the iron-workers. He was
received into the works, to every part of which he had access; and he
seized the opportunity thus afforded him of storing his mind with
observations, and mastering, as he thought, the mechanism of iron
splitting. After a continued stay for this purpose, he suddenly
disappeared from amongst his kind friends the miners—no one knew whither.
Returned to England, he communicated the results of his voyage to Mr.
Knight and another person at Stourbridge, who had sufficient confidence
in him to advance the requisite funds for the purpose of erecting
buildings and machinery for splitting iron by the new process. But when
set to work, to the great vexation and disappointment of all, and
especially of Richard Foley, it was found that the machinery would not
act—at all events it would not split the bars of iron. Again Foley
disappeared. It was thought that shame and mortification at his failure
had driven him away for ever. Not so! Foley had determined to master
this secret of iron-splitting, and he would yet do it. He had again set
out for Sweden, accompanied by his fiddle as before, and found his way to
the iron works, where he was joyfully welcomed by the miners; and, to
make sure of their fiddler, they this time lodged him in the very
splitting-mill itself. There was such an apparent absence of
intelligence about the man, except in fiddle-playing, that the miners
entertained no suspicions as to the object of their minstrel, whom they
thus enabled to attain the very end and aim of his life. He now
carefully examined the works, and soon discovered the cause of his
failure. He made drawings or tracings of the machinery as well as he
could, though this was a branch of art quite new to him; and after
remaining at the place long enough to enable him to verify his
observations, and to impress the mechanical arrangements clearly and
vividly on his mind, he again left the miners, reached a Swedish port,
and took ship for England. A man of such purpose could not but succeed.
Arrived amongst his surprised friends, he now completed his arrangements,
and the results were entirely successful. By his skill and his industry
he soon laid the foundations of a large fortune, at the same time that he
restored the business of an extensive district. He himself continued,
during his life, to carry on his trade, aiding and encouraging all works
of benevolence in his neighbourhood. He founded and endowed a school at
Stourbridge; and his son Thomas (a great benefactor of Kidderminster),
who was High Sheriff of Worcestershire in the time of “The Rump,” founded
and endowed an hospital, still in existence, for the free education of
children at Old Swinford. All the early Foleys were Puritans. Richard
Baxter seems to have been on familiar and intimate terms with various
members of the family, and makes frequent mention of them in his ‘Life
and Times.’ Thomas Foley, when appointed high sheriff of the county,
requested Baxter to preach the customary sermon before him; and Baxter in
his ‘Life’ speaks of him as “of so just and blameless dealing, that all
men he ever had to do with magnified his great integrity and honesty,
which were questioned by none.” The family was ennobled in the reign of
Charles the Second.
William Phipps, the founder of the Mulgrave or Normanby family, was a man
quite as remarkable in his way as Richard Foley. His father was a
gunsmith—a robust Englishman settled at Woolwich, in Maine, then forming
part of our English colonies in America. He was born in 1651, one of a
family of not fewer than twenty-six children (of whom twenty-one were
sons), whose only fortune lay in their stout hearts and strong arms.
William seems to have had a dash of the Danish-sea blood in his veins,
and did not take kindly to the quiet life of a shepherd in which he spent
his early years. By nature bold and adventurous, he longed to become a
sailor and roam through the world. He sought to join some ship; but not
being able to find one, he apprenticed himself to a shipbuilder, with
whom he thoroughly learnt his trade, acquiring the arts of reading and
writing during his leisure hours. Having completed his apprenticeship
and removed to Boston, he wooed and married a widow of some means, after
which he set up a little shipbuilding yard of his own, built a ship, and,
putting to sea in her, he engaged in the lumber trade, which he carried
on in a plodding and laborious way for the space of about ten years.
It happened that one day, whilst passing through the crooked streets of
old Boston, he overheard some sailors talking to each other of a wreck
which had just taken place off the Bahamas; that of a Spanish ship,
supposed to have much money on board. His adventurous spirit was at once
kindled, and getting together a likely crew without loss of time, he set
sail for the Bahamas. The wreck being well in-shore, he easily found it,
and succeeded in recovering a great deal of its cargo, but very little
money; and the result was, that he barely defrayed his expenses. His
success had been such, however, as to stimulate his enterprising spirit;
and when he was told of another and far more richly laden vessel which
had been wrecked near Port de la Plata more than half a century before,
he forthwith formed the resolution of raising the wreck, or at all events
of fishing up the treasure.
Being too poor, however, to undertake such an enterprise without powerful
help, he set sail for England in the hope that he might there obtain it.
The fame of his success in raising the wreck off the Bahamas had already
preceded him. He applied direct to the Government. By his urgent
enthusiasm, he succeeded in overcoming the usual inertia of official
minds; and Charles II. eventually placed at his disposal the “Rose
Algier,” a ship of eighteen guns and ninety-five men, appointing him to
the chief command.
Phipps then set sail to find the Spanish ship and fish up the treasure.
He reached the coast of Hispaniola in safety; but how to find the sunken
ship was the great difficulty. The fact of the wreck was more than fifty
years old; and Phipps had only the traditionary rumours of the event to
work upon. There was a wide coast to explore, and an outspread ocean
without any trace whatever of the argosy which lay somewhere at its
bottom. But the man was stout in heart and full of hope. He set his
seamen to work to drag along the coast, and for weeks they went on
fishing up sea-weed, shingle, and bits of rock. No occupation could be
more trying to seamen, and they began to grumble one to another, and to
whisper that the man in command had brought them on a fool’s errand.
At length the murmurers gained head, and the men broke into open mutiny.
A body of them rushed one day on to the quarter-deck, and demanded that
the voyage should be relinquished. Phipps, however, was not a man to be
intimidated; he seized the ringleaders, and sent the others back to their
duty. It became necessary to bring the ship to anchor close to a small
island for the purpose of repairs; and, to lighten her, the chief part of
the stores was landed. Discontent still increasing amongst the crew, a
new plot was laid amongst the men on shore to seize the ship, throw
Phipps overboard, and start on a piratical cruize against the Spaniards
in the South Seas. But it was necessary to secure the services of the
chief ship carpenter, who was consequently made privy to the pilot. This
man proved faithful, and at once told the captain of his danger.
Summoning about him those whom he knew to be loyal, Phipps had the ship’s
guns loaded which commanded the shore, and ordered the bridge
communicating with the vessel to be drawn up. When the mutineers made
their appearance, the captain hailed them, and told the men he would fire
upon them if they approached the stores (still on land),—when they drew
back; on which Phipps had the stores reshipped under cover of his guns.
The mutineers, fearful of being left upon the barren island, threw down
their arms and implored to be permitted to return to their duty. The
request was granted, and suitable precautions were taken against future
mischief. Phipps, however, took the first opportunity of landing the
mutinous part of the crew, and engaging other men in their places; but,
by the time that he could again proceed actively with his explorations,
he found it absolutely necessary to proceed to England for the purpose of
repairing the ship. He had now, however, gained more precise information
as to the spot where the Spanish treasure ship had sunk; and, though as
yet baffled, he was more confident than ever of the eventual success of
his enterprise.
Returned to London, Phipps reported the result of his voyage to the
Admiralty, who professed to be pleased with his exertions; but he had
been unsuccessful, and they would not entrust him with another king’s
ship. James II. was now on the throne, and the Government was in
trouble; so Phipps and his golden project appealed to them in vain. He
next tried to raise the requisite means by a public subscription. At
first he was laughed at; but his ceaseless importunity at length
prevailed, and after four years’ dinning of his project into the ears of
the great and influential—during which time he lived in poverty—he at
length succeeded. A company was formed in twenty shares, the Duke of
Albermarle, son of General Monk, taking the chief interest in it, and
subscribing the principal part of the necessary fund for the prosecution
of the enterprise.
Like Foley, Phipps proved more fortunate in his second voyage than in his
first. The ship arrived without accident at Port de la Plata, in the
neighbourhood of the reef of rocks supposed to have been the scene of the
wreck. His first object was to build a stout boat capable of carrying
eight or ten oars, in constructing which Phipps used the adze himself.
It is also said that he constructed a machine for the purpose of
exploring the bottom of the sea similar to what is now known as the
Diving Bell. Such a machine was found referred to in books, but Phipps
knew little of books, and may be said to have re-invented the apparatus
for his own use. He also engaged Indian divers, whose feats of diving
for pearls, and in submarine operations, were very remarkable. The
tender and boat having been taken to the reef, the men were set to work,
the diving bell was sunk, and the various modes of dragging the bottom of
the sea were employed continuously for many weeks, but without any
prospect of success. Phipps, however, held on valiantly, hoping almost
against hope. At length, one day, a sailor, looking over the boat’s side
down into the clear water, observed a curious sea-plant growing in what
appeared to be a crevice of the rock; and he called upon an Indian diver
to go down and fetch it for him. On the red man coming up with the weed,
he reported that a number of ships guns were lying in the same place.
The intelligence was at first received with incredulity, but on further
investigation it proved to be correct. Search was made, and presently a
diver came up with a solid bar of silver in his arms. When Phipps was
shown it, he exclaimed, “Thanks be to God! we are all made men.” Diving
bell and divers now went to work with a will, and in a few days, treasure
was brought up to the value of about £300,000, with which Phipps set sail
for England. On his arrival, it was urged upon the king that he should
seize the ship and its cargo, under the pretence that Phipps, when
soliciting his Majesty’s permission, had not given accurate information
respecting the business. But the king replied, that he knew Phipps to be
an honest man, and that he and his friends should divide the whole
treasure amongst them, even though he had returned with double the value.
Phipps’s share was about £20,000, and the king, to show his approval of
his energy and honesty in conducting the enterprise, conferred upon him
the honour of knighthood. He was also made High Sheriff of New England;
and during the time he held the office, he did valiant service for the
mother country and the colonists against the French, by expeditions
against Port Royal and Quebec. He also held the post of Governor of
Massachusetts, from which he returned to England, and died in London in
1695.
Phipps throughout the latter part of his career, was not ashamed to
allude to the lowness of his origin, and it was matter of honest pride to
him that he had risen from the condition of common ship carpenter to the
honours of knighthood and the government of a province. When perplexed
with public business, he would often declare that it would be easier for
him to go back to his broad axe again. He left behind him a character
for probity, honesty, patriotism, and courage, which is certainly not the
least noble inheritance of the house of Normanby.
William Petty, the founder of the house of Lansdowne, was a man of like
energy and public usefulness in his day. He was the son of a clothier in
humble circumstances, at Romsey, in Hampshire, where he was born in 1623.
In his boyhood he obtained a tolerable education at the grammar school of
his native town; after which he determined to improve himself by study at
the University of Caen, in Normandy. Whilst there he contrived to
support himself unassisted by his father, carrying on a sort of small
pedler’s trade with “a little stock of merchandise.” Returning to
England, he had himself bound apprentice to a sea captain, who “drubbed
him with a rope’s end” for the badness of his sight. He left the navy in
disgust, taking to the study of medicine. When at Paris he engaged in
dissection, during which time he also drew diagrams for Hobbes, who was
then writing his treatise on Optics. He was reduced to such poverty that
he subsisted for two or three weeks entirely on walnuts. But again he
began to trade in a small way, turning an honest penny, and he was
enabled shortly to return to England with money in his pocket. Being of
an ingenious mechanical turn, we find him taking out a patent for a
letter-copying machine. He began to write upon the arts and sciences,
and practised chemistry and physic with such success that his reputation
shortly became considerable. Associating with men of science, the
project of forming a Society for its prosecution was discussed, and the
first meetings of the infant Royal Society were held at his lodgings. At
Oxford he acted for a time as deputy to the anatomical professor there,
who had a great repugnance to dissection. In 1652 his industry was
rewarded by the appointment of physician to the army in Ireland, whither
he went; and whilst there he was the medical attendant of three
successive lords-lieutenant, Lambert, Fleetwood, and Henry Cromwell.
Large grants of forfeited land having been awarded to the Puritan
soldiery, Petty observed that the lands were very inaccurately measured;
and in the midst of his many avocations he undertook to do the work
himself. His appointments became so numerous and lucrative that he was
charged by the envious with corruption, and removed from them all; but he
was again taken into favour at the Restoration.
Petty was a most indefatigable contriver, inventor, and organizer of
industry. One of his inventions was a double-bottomed ship, to sail
against wind and tide. He published treatises on dyeing, on naval
philosophy, on woollen cloth manufacture, on political arithmetic, and
many other subjects. He founded iron works, opened lead mines, and
commenced a pilchard fishery and a timber trade; in the midst of which he
found time to take part in the discussions of the Royal Society, to which
he largely contributed. He left an ample fortune to his sons, the eldest
of whom was created Baron Shelburne. His will was a curious document,
singularly illustrative of his character; containing a detail of the
principal events of his life, and the gradual advancement of his fortune.
His sentiments on pauperism are characteristic: “As for legacies for the
poor,” said he, “I am at a stand; as for beggars by trade and election, I
give them nothing; as for impotents by the hand of God, the public ought
to maintain them; as for those who have been bred to no calling nor
estate, they should be put upon their kindred;” . . . “wherefore I am
contented that I have assisted all my poor relations, and put many into a
way of getting their own bread; have laboured in public works; and by
inventions have sought out real objects of charity; and I do hereby
conjure all who partake of my estate, from time to time, to do the same
at their peril. Nevertheless to answer custom, and to take the surer
side, I give 20_l._ to the most wanting of the parish wherein I die.” He
was interred in the fine old Norman church of Romsey—the town wherein he
was born a poor man’s son—and on the south side of the choir is still to
be seen a plain slab, with the inscription, cut by an illiterate workman,
“Here Layes Sir William Petty.”
Another family, ennobled by invention and trade in our own day, is that
of Strutt of Belper. Their patent of nobility was virtually secured by
Jedediah Strutt in 1758, when he invented his machine for making ribbed
stockings, and thereby laid the foundations of a fortune which the
subsequent bearers of the name have largely increased and nobly employed.
The father of Jedediah was a farmer and malster, who did but little for
the education of his children; yet they all prospered. Jedediah was the
second son, and when a boy assisted his father in the work of the farm.
At an early age he exhibited a taste for mechanics, and introduced
several improvements in the rude agricultural implements of the period.
On the death of his uncle he succeeded to a farm at Blackwall, near
Normanton, long in the tenancy of the family, and shortly after he
married Miss Wollatt, the daughter of a Derby hosier. Having learned
from his wife’s brother that various unsuccessful attempts had been made
to manufacture ribbed-stockings, he proceeded to study the subject with a
view to effect what others had failed in accomplishing. He accordingly
obtained a stocking-frame, and after mastering its construction and mode
of action, he proceeded to introduce new combinations, by means of which
he succeeded in effecting a variation in the plain looped-work of the
frame, and was thereby enabled to turn out “ribbed” hosiery. Having
secured a patent for the improved machine, he removed to Derby, and there
entered largely on the manufacture of ribbed-stockings, in which he was
very successful. He afterwards joined Arkwright, of the merits of whose
invention he fully satisfied himself, and found the means of securing his
patent, as well as erecting a large cotton-mill at Cranford, in
Derbyshire. After the expiry of the partnership with Arkwright, the
Strutts erected extensive cotton-mills at Milford, near Belper, which
worthily gives its title to the present head of the family. The sons of
the founder were, like their father, distinguished for their mechanical
ability. Thus William Strutt, the eldest, is said to have invented a
self-acting mule, the success of which was only prevented by the
mechanical skill of that day being unequal to its manufacture. Edward,
the son of William, was a man of eminent mechanical genius, having early
discovered the principle of suspension-wheels for carriages: he had a
wheelbarrow and two carts made on the principle, which were used on his
farm near Belper. It may be added that the Strutts have throughout been
distinguished for their noble employment of the wealth which their
industry and skill have brought them; that they have sought in all ways
to improve the moral and social condition of the work-people in their
employment; and that they have been liberal donors in every good cause—of
which the presentation, by Mr. Joseph Strutt, of the beautiful park or
Arboretum at Derby, as a gift to the townspeople for ever, affords only
one of many illustrations. The concluding words of the short address
which he delivered on presenting this valuable gift are worthy of being
quoted and remembered:—“As the sun has shone brightly on me through life,
it would be ungrateful in me not to employ a portion of the fortune I
possess in promoting the welfare of those amongst whom I live, and by
whose industry I have been aided in its organisation.”
No less industry and energy have been displayed by the many brave men,
both in present and past times, who have earned the peerage by their
valour on land and at sea. Not to mention the older feudal lords, whose
tenure depended upon military service, and who so often led the van of
the English armies in great national encounters, we may point to Nelson,
St. Vincent, and Lyons—to Wellington, Hill, Hardinge, Clyde, and many
more in recent times, who have nobly earned their rank by their
distinguished services. But plodding industry has far oftener worked its
way to the peerage by the honourable pursuit of the legal profession,
than by any other. No fewer than seventy British peerages, including two
dukedoms, have been founded by successful lawyers. Mansfield and Erskine
were, it is true, of noble family; but the latter used to thank God that
out of his own family he did not know a lord. {216} The others were, for
the most part, the sons of attorneys, grocers, clergymen, merchants, and
hardworking members of the middle class. Out of this profession have
sprung the peerages of Howard and Cavendish, the first peers of both
families having been judges; those of Aylesford, Ellenborough, Guildford,
Shaftesbury, Hardwicke, Cardigan, Clarendon, Camden, Ellesmere, Rosslyn;
and others nearer our own day, such as Tenterden, Eldon, Brougham,
Denman, Truro, Lyndhurst, St. Leonards, Cranworth, Campbell, and
Chelmsford.
Lord Lyndhurst’s father was a portrait painter, and that of St. Leonards
a perfumer and hairdresser in Burlington Street. Young Edward Sugden was
originally an errand-boy in the office of the late Mr. Groom, of
Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, a certificated conveyancer; and it
was there that the future Lord Chancellor of Ireland obtained his first
notions of law. The origin of the late Lord Tenterden was perhaps the
humblest of all, nor was he ashamed of it; for he felt that the industry,
study, and application, by means of which he achieved his eminent
position, were entirely due to himself. It is related of him, that on
one occasion he took his son Charles to a little shed, then standing
opposite the western front of Canterbury Cathedral, and pointing it out
to him, said, “Charles, you see this little shop; I have brought you here
on purpose to show it you. In that shop your grandfather used to shave
for a penny: that is the proudest reflection of my life.” When a boy,
Lord Tenterden was a singer in the Cathedral, and it is a curious
circumstance that his destination in life was changed by a
disappointment. When he and Mr. Justice Richards were going the Home
Circuit together, they went to service in the cathedral; and on Richards
commending the voice of a singing man in the choir, Lord Tenterden said,
“Ah! that is the only man I ever envied! When at school in this town, we
were candidates for a chorister’s place, and he obtained it.”
Not less remarkable was the rise to the same distinguished office of Lord
Chief Justice, of the rugged Kenyon and the robust Ellenborough; nor was
he a less notable man who recently held the same office—the astute Lord
Campbell, late Lord Chancellor of England, son of a parish minister in
Fifeshire. For many years he worked hard as a reporter for the press,
while diligently preparing himself for the practice of his profession.
It is said of him, that at the beginning of his career, he was accustomed
to walk from county town to county town when on circuit, being as yet too
poor to afford the luxury of posting. But step by step he rose slowly
but surely to that eminence and distinction which ever follow a career of
industry honourably and energetically pursued, in the legal, as in every
other profession.
There have been other illustrious instances of Lords Chancellors who have
plodded up the steep of fame and honour with equal energy and success.
The career of the late Lord Eldon is perhaps one of the most remarkable
examples. He was the son of a Newcastle coal-fitter; a mischievous
rather than a studious boy; a great scapegrace at school, and the subject
of many terrible thrashings,—for orchard-robbing was one of the favourite
exploits of the future Lord Chancellor. His father first thought of
putting him apprentice to a grocer, and afterwards had almost made up his
mind to bring him up to his own trade of a coal-fitter. But by this time
his eldest son William (afterwards Lord Stowell) who had gained a
scholarship at Oxford, wrote to his father, “Send Jack up to me, I can do
better for him.” John was sent up to Oxford accordingly, where, by his
brother’s influence and his own application, he succeeded in obtaining a
fellowship. But when at home during the vacation, he was so
unfortunate—or rather so fortunate, as the issue proved—as to fall in
love; and running across the Border with his eloped bride, he married,
and as his friends thought, ruined himself for life. He had neither
house nor home when he married, and had not yet earned a penny. He lost
his fellowship, and at the same time shut himself out from preferment in
the Church, for which he had been destined. He accordingly turned his
attention to the study of the law. To a friend he wrote, “I have married
rashly; but it is my determination to work hard to provide for the woman
I love.”
John Scott came up to London, and took a small house in Cursitor Lane,
where he settled down to the study of the law. He worked with great
diligence and resolution; rising at four every morning and studying till
late at night, binding a wet towel round his head to keep himself awake.
Too poor to study under a special pleader, he copied out three folio
volumes from a manuscript collection of precedents. Long after, when
Lord Chancellor, passing down Cursitor Lane one day, he said to his
secretary, “Here was my first perch: many a time do I recollect coming
down this street with sixpence in my hand to buy sprats for supper.”
When at length called to the bar, he waited long for employment. His
first year’s earnings amounted to only nine shillings. For four years he
assiduously attended the London Courts and the Northern Circuit, with
little better success. Even in his native town, he seldom had other than
pauper cases to defend. The results were indeed so discouraging, that he
had almost determined to relinquish his chance of London business, and
settle down in some provincial town as a country barrister. His brother
William wrote home, “Business is dull with poor Jack, very dull indeed!”
But as he had escaped being a grocer, a coal-fitter, and a country parson
so did he also escape being a country lawyer.
An opportunity at length occurred which enabled John Scott to exhibit the
large legal knowledge which he had so laboriously acquired. In a case in
which he was engaged, he urged a legal point against the wishes both of
the attorney and client who employed him. The Master of the Rolls
decided against him, but on an appeal to the House of Lords, Lord Thurlow
reversed the decision on the very point that Scott had urged. On leaving
the House that day, a solicitor tapped him on the shoulder and said,
“Young man, your bread and butter’s cut for life.” And the prophecy
proved a true one. Lord Mansfield used to say that he knew no interval
between no business and 3000_l._ a-year, and Scott might have told the
same story; for so rapid was his progress, that in 1783, when only
thirty-two, he was appointed King’s Counsel, was at the head of the
Northern Circuit, and sat in Parliament for the borough of Weobley. It
was in the dull but unflinching drudgery of the early part of his career
that he laid the foundation of his future success. He won his spurs by
perseverance, knowledge, and ability, diligently cultivated. He was
successively appointed to the offices of solicitor and attorney-general,
and rose steadily upwards to the highest office that the Crown had to
bestow—that of Lord Chancellor of England, which he held for a quarter of
a century.
Henry Bickersteth was the son of a surgeon at Kirkby Lonsdale, in
Westmoreland, and was himself educated to that profession. As a student
at Edinburgh, he distinguished himself by the steadiness with which he
worked, and the application which he devoted to the science of medicine.
Returned to Kirkby Lonsdale, he took an active part in his father’s
practice; but he had no liking for the profession, and grew discontented
with the obscurity of a country town. He went on, nevertheless,
diligently improving himself, and engaged on speculations in the higher
branches of physiology. In conformity with his own wish, his father
consented to send him to Cambridge, where it was his intention to take a
medical degree with the view of practising in the metropolis. Close
application to his studies, however, threw him out of health, and with a
view to re-establishing his strength he accepted the appointment of
travelling physician to Lord Oxford. While abroad he mastered Italian,
and acquired a great admiration for Italian literature, but no greater
liking for medicine than before. On the contrary, he determined to
abandon it; but returning to Cambridge, he took his degree; and that he
worked hard may be inferred from the fact that he was senior wrangler of
his year. Disappointed in his desire to enter the army, he turned to the
bar, and entered a student of the Inner Temple. He worked as hard at law
as he had done at medicine. Writing to his father, he said, “Everybody
says to me, ‘You are certain of success in the end—only persevere;’ and
though I don’t well understand how this is to happen, I try to believe it
as much as I can, and I shall not fail to do everything in my power.” At
twenty-eight he was called to the bar, and had every step in life yet to
make. His means were straitened, and he lived upon the contributions of
his friends. For years he studied and waited. Still no business came.
He stinted himself in recreation, in clothes, and even in the necessaries
of life; struggling on indefatigably through all. Writing home, he
“confessed that he hardly knew how he should be able to struggle on till
he had fair time and opportunity to establish himself.” After three
years’ waiting, still without success, he wrote to his friends that
rather than be a burden upon them longer, he was willing to give the
matter up and return to Cambridge, “where he was sure of support and some
profit.” The friends at home sent him another small remittance, and he
persevered. Business gradually came in. Acquitting himself creditably
in small matters, he was at length entrusted with cases of greater
importance. He was a man who never missed an opportunity, nor allowed a
legitimate chance of improvement to escape him. His unflinching industry
soon began to tell upon his fortunes; a few more years and he was not
only enabled to do without assistance from home, but he was in a position
to pay back with interest the debts which he had incurred. The clouds
had dispersed, and the after career of Henry Bickersteth was one of
honour, of emolument, and of distinguished fame. He ended his career as
Master of the Rolls, sitting in the House of Peers as Baron Langdale.
His life affords only another illustration of the power of patience,
perseverance, and conscientious working, in elevating the character of
the individual, and crowning his labours with the most complete success.
Such are a few of the distinguished men who have honourably worked their
way to the highest position, and won the richest rewards of their
profession, by the diligent exercise of qualities in many respects of an
ordinary character, but made potent by the force of application and
industry.