The
Life & Times of
Thomas
PERRY [1777-1847] & Elizabeth HARVEY [1784-1838]
* Thomas Perry and Elizabeth Harvey were the parents of Lucy Perry.
* Lucy Perry married James Puplett in 1840. and were the parents of Mary Louisa Puplett.
*
Mary Louisa Puplett married John Hinton Edmonds(1st) in 1874 and were the
parents of Ernest Harry Edmonds.
*
Ernest Harry Edmonds married Mabel Jane Haines in 1910, and were the parents of John
Hinton (‘Jack’) Edmonds.
Thomas
Perry was an avid countryside walker, a compulsive writer-downer, and had a
constant curiosity about both the tangible and the not-so-tangible world around
him. I guess it’s these things that have made him my “favourite” ancestor – if
it’s reasonable to say that about someone you’ve met only through his journals
and letters and the events of his life.
Elizabeth Harvey on the other hand is all
but a cipher, the invisible wife and help-meet who bore their children and ran
the home, and probably their family business as well during Thomas’s rambles
out into the landscape. I’ve scoured the available records but trust me, what I
have here is all there seems to be.
THE
TIMES
The
world of the mid-late 1700s that Thomas and Elizabeth were born into was
changing rapidly, due to the effects of industry, science, a refreshing dose of
free thinking, and the loosening grip of the established churches.
In
1777 George III was on the throne (but the flush toilet still hadn’t been invented),
the USA had just declared independence, Cook was off on his last (and fatal)
voyage of discovery, Wedgewood was on the move, Adam Smith had recently
published ‘The Wealth of Nations’, Hargreaves’ spinning jenny was only 7 years
old, Matthew Flinders was 3, and LBW had finally been introduced into the laws
of cricket. It was a busy time.
More
importantly, the ‘Quakers’ of England were by then looking far more relaxed.
THE
SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
This religion – its adherents commonly
referred to as Quakers – dominated these people’s lives. Thomas and Elizabeth,
their parents, their extended families, their forebears, their friends, and
their business associates, were all (well, most of them) good and pious Society
Members, and as such were expected to be devout, modest, scrupulously honest,
and diligent.
It
was a sect that had been heavily persecuted right from its formation in 1647,
and not only by The Establishment, but by Baptists, Episcopalians,
Presbyterians, and even the Puritans.
Mostly
this was because The Society of Friends made the grave mistake of being
radically different – in appearance, practice, and belief.
They
were pacifists, mostly refusing to bear arms during conflict, the men also
refused to doff their hats to those in authority or those considered
financially and socially their superior, because they believed all men were
equal and a man should only be obliged to take off his hat in the presence of
God. And they wouldn’t use the normal day and month names because they were
taken from pagan deities. Sunday was First Day through to Saturday Seventh Day,
and months were First Month (January) to Twelfth Month (December). And it
didn’t stop there. Their style of worship was odd.
They
had no clergy, no pulpit, no ceremony, and they didn’t worship in a church,
gathering instead in simple meeting-houses furnished with no more than rows of
benches. And no-one spoke unless moved to speak by God, then he or she stood up
and shared a message. believing that the spirit of God was speaking through
that person. After someone had spoken, it was generally considered good
etiquette to allow a few minutes of silence before the next speaker, but
sometimes a meeting would be entirely silent. And many meetings lasted for
several hours.
 |
| An early Quaker meeting |
So, they were different.
Not
to be phased, the Parliament of 1662 made it illegal to refuse to take the Oath
of Allegiance to the Crown – which Quakers believed was a superstitious oath so
they wouldn’t be in that either – and retribution was severe and swift.
Quakers
were gaoled frequently during the Society's first forty years, an estimated
15,000 being imprisoned, and if that wasn’t enough to deter them, they were
whipped publicly or had to endure tongue borings and brandings (the aristocracy
at times could be utterly charming people!) in the government's efforts to rid
England of this weird lot “for the common good”.
But,
with the coming of more enlightened times, in 1689 the Toleration Act was
passed, allowing “freedom of conscience”, making it illegal to disturb anyone
at their worship, and Quakers became at
least tolerated, although still not widely understood or accepted. So they
always tended to stick together and do it for themselves because they’d learnt
they had to.
This
meant they became keen “networkers” and energetic entrepreneurs, some families
amassing large business fortunes – Lloyd, Barclay, Backhouse, Gurney (banking
and insurance), Allen, Hanbury (pharmaceuticals), Cadbury, Terry. Fry, Rowntree
(confectionary), Huntley, Palmer (biscuits), Bryant, May (matches), Clark
(shoes) – and while all were fairly careful with a quid, many were quite
expansive benefactors.
But
they were strict with each other. If a member strayed into the realms of
bankruptcy, boozing, war-making, unwedded baby-making, or messing with other
religions, after much checking up and agonising and reporting back by
appointees, they were officially Disowned. Not permanently chucked out, but it
took a lot of good pious works (and paying back of any monies owed) to be
reinstated.
This then was the cultural environment
that Thomas Perry and Elizabeth Harvey were born into.
THEIR
BEGINNINGS
Elizabeth Harvey was born in 1784 in West
Ham, and area about 7 kms east of the City of London (actually in the SW corner
of Essex), just above the Isle of Dogs loop of the Thames. West Ham had been an
industrial village for centuries, the marshes by the River Lea being an ideal
space for paper-making, distilling, gunpowder manufacture and, in the 16th century,
textiles. Then about the 1670s calico-printing arrived and this soon became one
of the area’s main industries.
Elizabeth grew up in this area, one of at
least two daughters of John and Ann Harvey, but all I know of Elizabeth and her
family is that they were all Quakers, her sister’s name was Margaret and
married a John Maw of Gainsborough, and her father was a respected Calico
Printer of West Ham who died in January 1795 when Elizabeth was only eleven,
his popularity such it being said “...where the body of John Harvey was
brought... the house could not contain the people so as to get seats...”. And
that’s about it. I can’t even find her mother’s maiden name.
Thomas
Perry on the other hand is a genealogist’s dream.
His beginnings are in Whitechapel, an area
of the East End that was then a poor working-class neighbourhood always
“outside the City Walls”, and as such attracted the less fragrant activities,
particularly tanneries, breweries, foundries, and slaughter-houses, but better
known now from becoming Jack the Ripper territory.
Thomas’s dad Daniel Perry was a biscuit
baker, born nearby about 1750, and his mum was Elizabeth Heming, a girl from
Ipswich in Suffolk (daughter of a “Tinman”), and they married at a Quaker
Meeting in her home town in 1775, settled back in Whitechapel and set about
having a large family.
But
the crowded nature of the area, and the lack of sanitation, meant the East End
was particularly prone to diseases, and generally about one in five children
died before their second birthday, although this went as high as 75% of all
births whenever epidemics struck.
Sadly Daniel and Elizabeth Perry weren’t
immune from this, as their twin girls born in March 1776 died of “convulsions”
at one day old and five days old, which could have been anything, although
measles was rife.
THE
SHORT CHILDHOOD OF THOMAS PERRY
Thomas arrives less than a year after the
twins, but he fares much better. According to the Quaker records, he’s born on
the 19th of February (Second Month) in 1777 at “Road Side” in St Marys parish,
“Road Side” (then) being a short northern section of Mile End Rd, and while
this name stopped being used after about the 1870s, it’s between today’s Cephus
Ave and Globe Rd, pretty much in the heart of old Whitechapel [ ].
But Daniel and Elizabeth (and Thomas) see
no less than seven more boys and a girl born at a steady rate of one a year
between 1778 and 1786, none of them having a childhood, as four die soon after
birth, the other four living from three months to four years, taken by
“convulsions” and measles. This is survival of the fittest at its most grim.
During these difficult years Thomas often
visits relatives – they’re thick on the ground in the East End – and in old age
particularly recalls his grandfather Stephen Perry, as well as great-uncle
William Perry (Stephen’s “black sheep” brother).
Both of these brothers left their Perry
family beginnings around Chartham in Kent to try for something better in
London, grandfather Stephen in 1745 (age 30) to become a carpenter on the
Blackfriars Bridge for a while, before marrying and taking on a dairy in
Stepney Green. He and his wife Anne were good and steady Quakers, living “...
in high repute and estimation with the Society of Friends and all that knew
them...”
Great-uncle William on the other hand left
home in 1759 (age 40) in something of a midlife crisis, having been given his
marching orders by the Canterbury Meeting through –
“...
a paper of disownment ... although not without great grief and reluctance of his
friends ... for upwards of three years ... for great impropriety of conduct and
neglect of attendance of meetings, not withstanding the many loving and
affectionate invitations to forsake his past course of Sin & Folly...”
– causing great-uncle William to bunk off to
the Whitechapel Road and set up as a milkman and do okay enough. And be well
remembered by young Thomas.
In 1785 Thomas is eight, and from now on
will probably never live at home long-term with his parents again, as it’s time
for his education and getting prepared for the serious business of earning a
living.
So
he goes to see his grandfather Stephen Perry before heading off to boarding
school, the old man telling Thomas in parting that he would not live to see him
return, which turns out to be true, as the old man only lasts a few weeks after
that, the news surely not helping Thomas to settle in to his new life, so young
and so far from home.
Gildersome (a town on the A58 Leeds to
Halifax road) was set up by local Quakers in 1773 on fifty acres of farmland,
specifically for the education of the children of poor Friends, with an
emphasis on the practical, the cost being eight guineas a year “all found”,
providing the child laboured for them three hours each day.
This is probably not a fun time, but one
of the advantages of the school is its connections and reputation, as it’s
become the go-to place for Quaker masters seeking good apprentices, which
probably becomes the outcome for Thomas in time.
Back home at Road Side, in 1788 Thomas’s
first surviving sister Elizabeth is born (she will go on to a good age,
marrying a silversmith from Rochester in Kent) just before her parents Daniel
and Elizabeth move to Stepney Green in an effort to improve their struggling
biscuit business. But in the following year they lose their next baby at about
nine months, so clearly childhood is a very risky period for working-class
offspring in the East End.
But their next two do better. Hannah born
in 1791 (later marries a brewer from Dover), just before the family moves home
and business to Woodbridge in Suffolk, where they will see out there days. And
it’s here that Joseph, their last. is born in 1793 (more on Joseph later), by
which time big brother Thomas is about sixteen.
At
sixteen Thomas has surely been out of school for a while and deep into an
apprenticeship in the iron foundry trade, probably with Ransome’s factory in
Ipswich, where one of Thomas’s uncles works. In the culture of the day he would
by now be seen pretty much as a full adult and well able to make his own way.
COURTSHIP,
MARRIAGE, AND A (SHORT) PARTNERSHIP
There are no records that I can find that
tells how Thomas fills in his late teens and early (single) adult years, but my
guess is that he continues on at Ransomes for at least part of this time,
before spreading his wings.
Quaker
courtship for the diligent working (but wannabe middle) classes is often a
lengthy business, one rarely undertaken by the couple – nor sanctioned by the
girl’s parents – until the husband-to-be has himself “set up”, which means a
respectable position with prospects, and a reasonable income.
Let’s
say Thomas is now in his late twenties and has for some time had serious (and
honourable) intentions concerning mid-twenties Elizabeth Harvey of West Ham, so
by now he’s looking to get himself into business and settled down.
With
this in mind, if he isn’t already there, he moves to Southampton in Hampshire
and becomes a half partner with fellow Quaker Henry Pritchett in establishing
“Mill Place Foundry” in Mill Lane, at (the then) village of Millbrook, just
south-east of the city.
But in the March of 1809 Thomas's father
Daniel dies at home in Woodbridge aged 59, and is interred there in the Friends
Burial Ground. One of Daniel’s good friends (and a relative by marriage) James
Jenkins writes of “…my old friend Daniel Perry, of Woodbridge ... exercised
that (baking) trade during several years in London, but the want of sufficient
success caused him to remove into the country, where he became prosperous and
died in comfortable circumstances.”
I haven’t sighted Daniel’s will, but it’s
fairly safe to assume he passes most or all of his estate on to his widow to
ensure she sees out her latter years in Woodbridge in modest comfort.
But
the life and the business of the young are forever moving, and with all of the
many formal preliminaries finally attended to –
“...
on the twenty first day of the twelvth month one thousand eight hundred and
nine, Thomas Perry of Millbrook in the county of Hants, Iron Founder, son of
Daniel Perry late of Woodbridge in the county of Suffolk, Baker deceased, and
Elizabeth his wife surviving, and Elizabeth Harvey daughter of John Harvey late
of West Ham in the county of Essex, Calico Printer, deceased, and Ann his wife
surviving, took each other in marriage in a publick Assembly of the people
called Quakers and others in Barking in the county of Essex...”
The newlyweds set up house back in
Millbrook, and by mid 1810 Elizabeth is expecting, while at the foundry
Pritchett & Perry are doing well enough, putting out a line of single
furrow ploughs amongst other things.
But
soon after this the business is in trouble, and is finally forced into
insolvency, being taken over by C & H Tickell. (Who actually go on to do
fairly well).
In the September of 1810 the Perry’s first
child Alfred is born at Millbrook, but now the wheels come right off their
financial life (and probably more importantly their reputation), as soon after
both halves of Perry & Pritchett are being –
“...
reported as having absconded and not paid their just debts, and the Quaker
Monthly Meeting sent a deputation to interview them. Perry thereupon accused
Pritchett of having failed to pay in the additional capital he had promised,
but was himself charged with having taken a ‘considerable’ sum out of the
business for his own private use. And In the circumstances the Monthly Meeting
judged both equally culpable and disowned them."
No
idea how ‘considerable’ the sum is, or what he may have spent it on, as he
strikes me as being a naturally frugal man, but whatever the case, it seems
that, on this note, Thomas and Elizabeth (with their new baby) decide it’s best
to pull up stumps and decamp.
AWAY
TO THE CHANNEL ISLANDS
What
the whole story might have been probably depended on who you asked, but the
fact is that Thomas doesn’t hang around to placate his creditors – probably
mostly fellow Quakers – but maybe he just needs some breathing room to put his
financial life back together.
Not
being a true part of Britain, even back then there were probably good reasons
for people to sit out their money problems in The Channel Islands, away from
the reach of pesky money-worriers. But, whatever the reasons, they choose to
set up house in Grange Walk in St Mary Magdalene parish on Jersey, and here he
takes up a position as a Clerk.
Here
the family stays for a while, having their second son Edward on Jersey in
September 1812. But after about four years of exile, around mid 1814 they
move again, this time back to their old homeland in the East End, setting up
house in Bath St in St Matthew’s parish Bethnal Green, and by the birth of
their third son John Harvey Perry in 1814 (also in September) Thomas has
found a position as an “Accountant”.
HARD
TIMES IN THE EAST END
In 1814 Bethnal Green is pretty bad and
getting worse, it being reported that Bath Street was “...very dirty, and the
surface broken up and covered with all kinds of refuse and garbage…”. And also
about this time –
“...two
Churchwardens of St. Mathew, Bethnal-green (met with) the Secretary of State at
the Home-office (and) the magistrates of Worship-street Police-office, (to)
devise some measures to suppress the dreadful riots and outrages that take
place every night in the parish, by a lawless gang of thieves, consisting of
500 or 600, whose exploits have caused such alarming sensations in the minds of
the inhabitants, that they have actually found it necessary to shut up their
shops at an early hour, to protect their property from the ruffians.”
This suggests the family still doesn’t
have a lot of choices, but they stick it out for about four years again, and
it’s here in August 1817 that their first daughter Margaret Thresher Perry is
born.
More
on this later, but in August 1818 a friend writes a letter to Thomas, but
Thomas only keeps a piece of it. It’s a sketch of the layout of the Friends
Burial Ground at Woodbridge, showing which ones are his parents’ graves –
surely at Thomas’s request – as his mum died there in 1814 and was interred
beside his dad, and Friends didn’t hold with outward expressions of vanity,
which included (at that time) headstones of any kind. But there isn’t much else
showing on this scrap .
It’s around this time that Thomas’s
younger brother Joseph, now about 24 (Thomas would be about 40) becomes a
bigger part of their lives.
THE
PERRY BROS’ SHORT-LIVED VENTURE
In
Sept 1818 Joseph marries a Martha White in her home town of Winchester in
Hampshire, and moves to Reading in Berkshire. Thomas and Elizabeth are either
already there, or follow him, setting up house in a spot on the Kennett River
called “Seven Bridges” (now Bridge Street on the north side of today’s A3229),
where they have their fifth and last child Lucy in Sept 1819, and where the
family will live for the next twenty years, a place set to become forever
“home” in the minds of the children.
 |
| Reading Berkshire c. 1820 |
In
the 1801 census Reading had a population of just under 10,000, quite a
large-ish town even then. But about now a wave of industry is arriving. In 1807
John Sutton opens a large bulb, corn and seed business, Joseph Huntley sets up
a biscuit bakery (to later become Huntley and Palmer with more than five
thousand employees), and then brewing takes off as well, to the point where
Reading becomes known as the town of three Bs – Bulbs, Biscuits and Breweries.
Into
this mix comes the two Perry brothers, who form a part-nership in late 1818 and
set up a new foundry – “Reading Iron Works” – on the corner of Horn Street (now
River Road I think) and Katesgrove Lane, on the banks of the Kennett just south
of Thomas’s home,
Presumably
Joseph followed in his older brother’s footsteps and undertook a foundry
apprenticeship, and now, being in a (then) rural area, they specialise in
agricultural machinery, and are soon said to be “…the largest manufactory in
the town…”
But it looks as though they’ve gone in
under-capitalised, and within just two years are struggling financially, to the
point where in 1820 Thomas goes bankrupt for a second time and is forced to
pull out of the venture, leaving Joseph in the foundry on his own.
INTO
THE BISCUIT BUSINESS
Not to be deterred, Thomas and Elizabeth
quickly set up a small biscuit bakery with a shopfront in Market Place in
Reading [ ], possibly living over the shop or nearby, and also possibly under
Elizabeth’s name as Thomas is presumably now an undischarged bankrupt.
This choice of business isn’t really
surprising, bearing in mind that Thomas’s father was a biscuit baker his whole
life, and Thomas would’ve spent his early childhood well involved with his dad,
and obviously enough had rubbed off.
And
here they finally find their niche, as the business does well, and according to
Mary Russell Mitford (literary identity and friend of Elizabeth Browning) they
are –
“…a
Quaker couple, so alert, so intelligent, so accurately and delicately clean in
all their looks, and ways, and wares, that the very sight of their bright
counter, and its simple but tempting cakes, gave their customers an appetite.
They were the fashion, too... nothing could go down for luncheon in any family
of gentility but [the Quaker] biscuits.”
 |
| St Giles, Reading Berkshire 1823 |
But his brother Joseph in the meantime is
still struggling for capital, and in 1825 is forced to take in a George Barrett
as a partner, and Perry & Barrett “...begin to manufacture ploughs to meet
a growing demand from the farmers of Berkshire for better, more scientifically
designed ploughs...”, and in 1826, among the franchised voters for the Borough of Reading are the two
brothers – Thomas Perry of Market Place, a Biscuit Baker, and Joseph Perry of
Horn Street, an Ironfounder.
Then, coming up to turning 50, Thomas
seems to need some kind of intellectual change in his life. Biscuits are doing
well (even though back in 1822 Joseph Huntley had also set up a shop not far
away in London Street), the kids are aged 6 to 13 and doubtless helping out,
but bigger things seem to be playing on his mind. The world is changing. He
becomes restless. He needs to explore.
ROCKS
ROCKS ROCKS
Thomas’s interest in rocks seems to
manifest itself about early 1826 with the starting of his “geology notebook”,
and it occurred to me – as I sifted
through his life and his notes – like many others of the time, Thomas Perry
becomes caught between the old and the new ways of seeing the world and its
beginnings.
This
growing bipolarism is probably best represented in the OLD corner by James
Ussher (1581 – 1656) and in the NEW corner by William Smith (1769 – 1839).
James
Ussher was the Church of Ireland Archbishop who calculated – and in 1654
famously published his finding – that the time and date of God beginning all
Creation as being during nightfall preceding Sunday, 23 October 4004 BC (but
not 9am on the Monday morning as is often cited – I mean, let’s not get
ridiculous!).
Even
in a time of having long since embraced a round earth and a proper solar
system, Ussher’s view was still largely accepted by The Establishment, and
remained pretty much unquestioned for a century. But by the late 1700s serious
rumblings (in law still criminally heretical) started coming out of the salons
and drawing rooms of London, challenging not only the literal interpretation of
Genesis, but the very notion of there having been divine handiwork at all. Not
that anyone was presenting any hard evidence either way.
That
was until William Smith (and many others) stirred things up, by not only
studying rocks – and what was in them and their strata – with a passion and an
open mind, but making it downright fashionable to do so. And arguably providing
the setting for Charles Darwin to soon sensationally follow.
William Smith was an English canal builder
and ardent “geologist”, who really looked at what was right there in front of
him in every cut he made through the countryside, studying it and thinking hey,
this is all a tad older than 5,800-odd years. Then he drew a rough sketch in
1801, which would turn into "The Map that Changed the World" (an excellent book by Simon Winchester) in
1815, when he published the first true science-based geological landscape,
covering the whole of England and Wales and parts of Scotland. Complete with
epoch-driven strata. And fossils. And what they logically implied.
So,
the cat was halfway out of the bag, and it well and truly sunk its teeth into
Thomas Perry.
As
much as it seems a little out of context with what follows, my guess is that he
begins at the one where he glues in the bits of that letter he received back in
1818, showing the layout of the graves at Woodbridge where his parents are
buried, and on the adjacent page draws in his own diagram of it.
 |
| Old St Lawrence |
But
immediately under it is the date 24th Sept 1828 (that’s two whole years later)
and “Abury [surely he means Avebury, the stone circle], one stone 16 feet high,
16 feet wide, 5-6 in thick, computed to weigh 98 tons. Another 15 feet high, 11
do wide, 5-6in thick”. Again, nothing else.
 |
| Avebury stone circle Wiltshire |
So,
does he actually go for a late summer excursion at all? If he’s simply using
available data, why write it in with the very specific dates? And presumably
Elizabeth has to go on running the biscuit bakery and the shop if he’s away,
although the older kids by now would be at helping age.
Even
though these two bits are written up in isolation, personally I think he really
is out exploring, as there will be many more of these rambles to come. But,
whatever the case, he seems to take all this measuring seriously, as you can
still faintly see a heap of his pencilled maths diagonally across the page,
where he calculates the mass of the boulders at Avebury. But oddly these
numbers are under his next entry, which is some notes, presumably his own as he
doesn’t attribute them, being a couple of pages of rock-talk about “formations
in England” and “transition limestones” and coal seams and chalk beds. So far
he tends to give the impression of a man wanting to be yet another serious
amateur scientist. And at this time the woods (well, the quarries) are full of
them.
Next he transcribes a few pages of stuff,
but not in his best copperplate that he uses for the rest of the book, and with
bits crossed out, like he’s practising. It’s from “Bakewell’s Introduction to
Geology” – the 3rd edition of this popular guide had only just been published –
from which Thomas takes the question “...‘What advantage can be derived from
the study of Geology?’ and Bakewell’s answer to himself, that “...beside
supplying our physical wants, the external universe is destined to answer a
nobler purpose; its various objects appear intended to exite our curiosity, and
stimulate our intellectual powers to the discovery of those laws, by which the
successive events we observe in nature are governed; without this excitement
Man would for ever remain the creature of animal sensation, scarcely advanced
above the beasts of the forrest...”
Then he goes on to copy, but crosses out,
a section on the “...time when the surface of our Globe was agitated by
conflicting elements, or to the succeeding intervals of repose, when enormous
Saurian and Crocodilian animals scoured the surface of the deep or
dashed through the air for their prey ... and perished in the last grand
revolution that preceded the Creation of Man.”
But,
at the very end in the corner of this crossed out piece, he writes “Such
speculation”. Is Thomas already beginning to struggle with it all, as many
did? Scripture vs Science?
Thomas’s
feet still need to be moving, and about this time while visiting relatives
together in the East End, he and his eldest son Alfred – who would’ve been
about mid-late teens – set off for a 35 km walk from the West Ham area, one
that he reminisces about ten years later, as “...thou may probably remember
many years ago walking with me from Stratford to Chelmsford and going to
Brentwood Hill, (where) we talked with an old Soldier who had been encamped on
Wharley Common there…”, again presumably while Elizabeth held the fort with the
help of the four younger ones.
Such walking distances seem to be quite
ordinary to Thomas, and probably to most working people in that era just before
the arrival of serious railway mania, but there’s no hint as to why he wants to
go to the middle of Essex, although he does have many friends and relatives all
through East Anglia.
He then transcribes two long-ish papers
that had been read to The Geological Society in 1829, one in the May by The
Revd W D Conibeare “On the Hydrographical Basin of the River Thames”, and one
in June by Matthew Culley Esq about “...the power that running water exerts in
moving heavy objects.” These are then followed by a piece “From the Mirror” in
Jan 1830, about a recent flood on the River Don in Scotland and how it moved
massive stones. Going by later entries, it appears he’s looking for material
that at least supports The Great Flood of Genesis, even though he probably
hasn’t yet got his head around all of Creation not happening in six days.
Thomas is obviously being selective as to
what he transcribes, as there are gobs of this stuff available to him, as every
enthusiastic amateur is out walking the countryside with their hammers, banging
open rocks and writing about it, although not always well. William Smith has a
lot to answer for.
But
next he gets really serious, and copies in eight pages of the “Instructions for
a Collection of Geological Specimens – from a paper issued by the Geological
Society” (a popular reference work published in 1830), being a full set of
serious amateur collector DIY, complete with finely copied drawings of how to
present strata data and landscape cross-sections and fault lines and Bed
Dislocations and lava flows.
Next
comes a huge piece (nearly 40 notebook pages) taken from The British Review of
Nov 1825 – being “Remarks on Geological Antiquities”, and Thomas is now getting
into deep and dangerous philosophical territory. It begins –
“We
have often thought there is a morbid sensitiveness in some of our religious
friends, to the boldness of investigation which scientific men search the
volumn of Nature ... they seem to fear that something injurious to the
credit of Scriptures will be the result...”,
– and then goes on at length about having the courage to look at the discoveries with an open mind, reminding –
“...the same objection would apply to the
planetry system of Copernicus, for if the Sun be the centre of our planets,
round which they revolve, and by which they are kept in their situations, it is
inconceivable that the Earth should have been formed three days before the
Sun... (and) it would not be easy to find an educated believer in the Bible
now, who does not hold the Copernican system... whether or not he can reconcile
those theories with the statements of Moses.”
–
and the writer then suggests that some evidence may in the end support the
story of The Flood.
But it concludes –
But it concludes –
“...from an observation of nature certain
formidable objections are urged from the Records of Moses... the necessary
result of these discoveries is to induce a belief in a state of things prior to
the Mosaic history, during which first plants and afterwards animals... were
successively produced and destroyed... (and) it is thought to be at variance
with the statement of St Paul that Death came into the world by Sin, because if
there were whole races exterminated before the formation of Man, Death must
have existed in the world before.”
–
trying to say that in the end the truth is going to be the truth, that it
doesn’t have to preclude the general idea of Creation, but maybe just not quite
in the literal way that Moses wrote.
And
this really does represent the inner conflict mood of the day (outside of the
growing band of pragmatic “scientists”), where lay people brought up on the
Bible for generations, are starting to question what they’d been taught and
have generally held as true. And Thomas is caught up in it. Darwin is still yet
to come, but at least Thomas will never have to confront Natural Selection and
The Origin Of Species. (But I like to think he could’ve handled it).
THE
SAD DEATH OF JOSEPH
During this period of Thomas’s intense
interest in rocks and fossils and strata, and the growing philosophical dilemma
that comes with them, the day-to-day world of baking biscuits and making
ploughs plods on,
But
things aren’t going well for his young brother Joseph, as late in January 1830
– and still only 37 – Joseph is suffering from some kind of “mental malady”, to
the point where he even makes out his will, leaving everything to his wife.
Just
over a year later, in March 1831, Joseph is admitted to the recently opened
Radcliffe Asylum in Oxfordshire, where he dies just two months after
arrival.
This must be a difficult time for the
family, and it’s about here that Thomas’s interest in geology seems to lose
some momentum.
He finishes the first ‘half’ of his
notebook with five pages of material he doesn’t attribute to anyone, so you
have to assume they’re his own thoughts, but it’s mainly on general geology,
and nothing contemplative. Then he adds some on Peat Deposits around nearby
Newbury, noting what’s been found in them, including parts of ancient trees,
but also “...Bones of horses, Deer, Beaver, also the Red Deer or Stag equal to
the size of the Elk, Tusks of the Wild Boar, (and) the head and horns of an
enormous Ox.”
He
then turns the book around and comes in from the other ‘front’, starting with a
long table of his own titled “Synopsis of Geological Phenomena”, with “W. Smith
Oxford June 22 1832” (has to be the William Smith) at the bottom of the ninth
page.
The
four column headers are – “Sources of Evidence”, “Deductions”, “Results”, and
“Remarks”, but my guess is that only the first column is from Smith’s work, and
the other three are what Thomas chooses to deduct from it, as Thomas seems
intent on making all the evidence point to “The Deluge”, not prepared yet to
let go of the Mosaic version entirely, as he concludes with a summary section
titled “Illustrative effects of the Deluge.”
 |
| Tribolite fossil |
After
this Thomas makes no more entries of any kind in his ‘Geology’ book, but his
busy, enquiring mind (and his feet) soon find an outlet in other things.
MOVING
ON TO FAMILY HISTORY
In
Thomas’s own words –
“In
the Spring of 1835 I was at Dovor on a visit to my Sister Hannah and her
husband Jas. Poulter, Brewer, of Dovor, I accidentally met with the ancient
Book of Records of the Society of Friends, belonging to the Monthly Meeting for
the District of East Kent...“
– and , all inspired, he begins a family
history notebook that he titles -
“Some
Account of the families of John Sims of Canterbury and of Daniel Perry of
Chartham near Canterbury and of their posterity. Extracted from the Records of
East Kent Monthly Meeting from the year 1681”.
–
and he then sets about compiling a genealogist’s dream.
He
opens from 1681, and when he runs out of Kent data, “...I have continued the
account from my own knowledge...”, through to 1841, covering every ancestor he
could find (or remember), and their kids, and where they lived, who and where
everyone married, what they did for a living, where and when they died, and
where they were buried, along with many actual transcripts of their Quaker
proceedings.
Rarely
do you find such a record outside the aristocracy. It’s brilliant. And, like
his geology book, the original still exists.
Oddly, in the middle of his records
there’s a transcript of a long outpouring by one of his (and therefore our)
direct line ancestors, a John Sims (1689-??), a Brass Founder of Houndsditch.
In it John bears witness (and surely cleanses his soul) over the life he lived
– not always too purely as a young bloke! – giving an interesting insight into
the Quaker mind of the day, one getting ready in old age for the final
judgement.
It’s during the latter part of this
compilation of his family history – from about 1837 onwards – that life changes
again for Thomas and Elizabeth. They’re now 60 and 53 respectively and neither
are in good health, while Alfred is 27, Edward 25, John 23, Margaret 20, and
Lucy 18, and all still single, the boys working nearby, and the two girls
living home at No 8 London St Reading.[ ] (Meantime. in London, a young
Victoria has just acquired a throne and a whole new Era).
A
DEATH, AND THE BREAKUP OF THE FAMILY
By
the new year (and the depths of winter) of 1838 the Perry’s have been married
for nearly thirty years, have raised their five children well, given them an
education, and together battled through some tough times.
 |
| London St Reading in Thomas Perry's time |
It’s
this affection for the old place (and when they were all together as a family)
in the time that is now coming, that explains much of the deep regret they feel
over the fate it suffers at the hands of Thomas’s about to be son-in-law. But
more on that soon.
Elizabeth’s death seems to mark the end of
the time of the Perry’s as a family, as life after this quickly changes for
each of them. But then, maybe it’s simply the time anyway, for the kids to find
their own wings in a rapidly changing world.
The breakup begins in June 1839 when
Alfred their eldest is seduced by the siren call of colonialism and the promise
of opportunity, and he bundles up his few bits and – with not much more than
the proceeds of a whip-round in his pocket – boards the “Dumfries” and sails
for South Australia. His father will never see him again.
It’s
about now that Thomas, already suffering the chronic chest problems that will
dog these his last eight years, retires from the biscuit business, handing it
over to his youngest daughter Lucy and her young man James Puplett [ ] to run,
and for a while moves to 22 New North Street Finsbury [ ] where his son John
now lives and works in the North Green Saw Mills.
In
the January of 1840 Lucy marries James Puplett. This is at the Friends Meeting
in Reading, so it would seem that being an accepted member of Meeting was an
individual thing (and fair enough) and only Thomas seems to be on the outer (or
maybe chooses to be?), although it’s curious that before his departure for the
Antipodes, Alfred had, for some reason not clear, “...previously resigned his
membership to the Society”.
Also
in this watershed year, in the September Thomas’s second son Edward marries a Louisa
Bartlett at the Reading Meeting and moves to Finsbury, and in the December his
daughter Margaret marries a Charles Wickens, but for a while they remain in
Reading, with Thomas moving about among all of them, for this class of battler
the accepted Retirement Plan of the day.
Even
though the family members are now beginning to scatter, they remain closely
joined through a fascinating network of letter writing, but especially by
Thomas, as if his need to simply write stuff down now finds an outlet in long
newsy correspondence. A good deal (if not all) from him, and some from others,
to Alfred on his farm block in Morphett Vale survive, which allows us to
reconstruct most of what is going on at home and in SA.
Then,
around the close of 1840, the family seems to go through a period of financial
and domestic turmoil, with James Puplett at the centre of it. Best I can work
out James is ‘putting it about’, so Lucy is pregnant, another local girl is
pregnant too, this girl’s baby dies, ₤60 - ₤70 (say $25,000) is owed around
town, his name is mud, customers love their biscuits but hate him, and are now
conspicuous by their absence.
All
this results in James and Lucy having to walk away from the business and from
Reading, which means that sister Margaret and her husband Charlie Wickens feel
obliged to move out also. The whole family seems to be coming just a little
unglued.
MOVING
TO BIRMINGHAM
In
about June 1841 when the Wickens pack up and leave Reading, they settle in the
suburbs of Birmingham, taking Thomas – and the old family dog ‘Dash’ – with
them, but also Lucy for a while, as she is “very poorly” (and presumably not
overly enamoured of her feckless husband).
 |
| Edgbaston Birmingham c.1850 |
The Wickens’ rent premises in Broad St
near Five Ways in the Edgbaston area and with some financial help from stalwart
friends, set up their own biscuit business, getting into a “...good connection
among the wealthy families...”
The last three years have been traumatic
for all of them, but Thomas isn’t down, and he’s far from finished with rocks.
He takes seven loose sheets of paper (they’re about 22cm x 18cm and used front and back) and writes –
“Paper
read before the Geological Section of the Philosophical Society at Birmingham
June 21st 1841 – On the Gravel Beds of the Valey (sic) of the Thames as
compared with the Bagshott Heath Sand & Gravel & connected with the
Sarsen Stone of the Chalk Downs of Wiltshire and their parts – by Thos Perry.”
Why it’s loose-leaf I have no idea, as
there’s plenty of space still in his ‘geology notebook’, but surely this is
Thomas branching out and doing his own presentation at the local boffin’s club,
and probably feeling like he’s at last made it to some small public level of
scientific achievement.
But also, after his moment in the
scientific limelight, maybe Thomas now feels he needs a humility check, because
also some time in about mid 1841 he turns his ‘Family History’ notebook around
the other way, and transcribes into it two bits that he titles –
“The
relation of two remarkable Dreams copied from ‘The Irish Friend’ of the 6th and
7th months 1841” (which he describes as being) “On the danger of seeking the
praise of men rather than the Glory of God, and how applicable are the words of
our Saviour to the following remarkable instance ‘Woe unto you when all men shall
speak well of you!’ – Luke 6.26”
They’re
a bit heavy and wordy, but the essence is (“The Dream”) – a minister falls
asleep and dreams of a visit by a friend who tells him he’s just died, and the
time of his death, and says he’s damned because he wasn’t humble enough. On
going to church after waking the minister is informed that his friend has
actually just died, and it was the exact time told in the dream.
The
other is (“Remarkable Dream”) – two young “libertines” are sleeping, and one
has a vivid dream of Hell so they decide to improve their ways, which lasts a
year, but they relapse then die, and are condemned for eternity.
It’s the usual uncheery Hell‘n’Damnation
stuff of the day, but after so much delving into rocks and fossils and modern
(often ‘heretical’) writings. I guess it makes the point that for all his
dabbling in ‘science’, Thomas is still basically the conventional adherent of
the old-time religion. He still really believes. And he needs to remind himself
of one of the fundamentals of his belief – humility.
THE
BIRMINGHAM YEARS
It’s
about here that the letters begin circulating around the family, often passed
on and added to before final posting, initially hit-and-miss addressed to
“Alfred Perry, Late of Reading, To be left at the Post Office, City of
Adelaide, South Australia”, until Alfred settles on a block in the Southern
Vales.
But
it’s not this way just with the outgoing mail, as every letter from Alfred does
a major tour of the country, getting on-posted from sibling to relative to
friend. People seem insatiable for news from the colony.
In
September 1841 Thomas (now about 63) writes to Alfred from Birmingham and gives
him all the news of friends and family, how he had a good summer but is
apprehensive about the oncoming winter and his asthmatic bronchitis, but tells
how –
“...I
must say I have lived very comfortable & happy here with Charles &
Margaret, they are very kind to me, and I render what little assistance I can
for my board, giving them as little trouble as possible, I mend & wash my
own clothes except shirts, Margaret has enough to do with that, I mind shop,
write all their letters for them…” (and finishes) “...but now I must bid thee
farewell with all our united Dear Love which we assure we feel and often make
thee the theme of our conversation – remaining thy affectionate father - Thos
Perry.”
Thomas is by now in his latter years, but
mind and body are still pretty active, and so he starts to fill some of his
time by returning to his old love of rocks and rambling the countryside.
 |
| The Dudley Limestone Caverns |
In
the meantime, Lucy and James Puplett are sort of back together and trying to
make a fresh biscuit baking start in Rayne in Essex; Edward (always called
“Ned”) and his wife are in Swindon with the Great Western Railway but it
involves lots of transient work on the line; John (always called “Harvey”, his
middle name) is still working at the Finsbury sawmills as an accountant but
complains about the boss; while Alfred is struggling with uncooperative SA soil
and climate and markets and passing fits of farmer’s depression to the point
he’s had to take a fill-in job in Hindley St with Baker & Confectioner Mr
Stacy. Alfred’s not smiling at all. And he needs a decent plough and a good
wife and seemingly in that order.
But like the rest of England at this moment,
things are hard in Birmingham too, as Margaret writes separately to her brother
how trade is dreadful and there is general distress across the land, with
thousands starving or living on less than 1/- a week, and even suggests that
they’d join him in SA if it wasn’t for the set-up money they still owe.
Right
now there’s not a lot of happy members in the Perry-Puplett-Wickens clan.
A
SUMMER OF RAMBLING
They battle through a cold winter and, as
always, things look better with the arrival of some reliable sunshine, and
while Margaret is pleased she can provide for her dad in his old age, she says
how he looks after his own clothes, and is getting good at needlework to the
point where he even makes himself a pair of light trousers. And feeling
reasonably chipper, in July 1842 Thomas is on the move.
His summer begins with his son John
sending him the railway fare (the lines and crude rolling stock, some of the
first, are barely 4 years old) to London, and here he catches up with family
and relatives. He also spends time down at Clapham – about a 14 km
there-and-back walk – with family friend Henry Deane, (a chemist I think, and
good friend of “Dr Mantle the great Geologist”). Thomas and Henry sit about and
compare polished flints, Thomas gets to use his “excellent Microscope”, and has
the chance to talk serious rocks.
Then,
with a local cousin, it’s another 7 km each way walk down to Peckham to visit
another old friend, stays for dinner and tea, after which it’s back to John’s
at the Finsbury sawmills for a few days rest.
But, the summer sun is shining, Thomas’s
God is in His heaven, and Thomas has the urge to be on the go again, so one
morning he hops on the fledgling Eastern Counties Railway but gets off at
Brentwood, because there’s rock-stuff he wants to have a look at close up.
“The cutting … through the lower part of
that on the right of the Turnpike Road … wishing to see what the strata was, I
walked along the line to Chelmsford 12 miles, which I reached by tea & was
kindly received by Dan Puplett & his wife…” (James’s parents).
“The
next day James & Lucy came to dinner & took me (back) with them to
Rayne in the evening, (and I was) glad once more to get among the corn fields
& other rural scenes, which we see little or almost nothing of about
Birmingham."
“(James
& Lucy) have a pretty trade as Country Grocers … (and) … if they mind &
pay good attention every way it will bring them in a comfortable living. They
might also do considerable in biscuits if that part were pushed hard among
farmers & the people at Braintree."
“I
don’t want to send thee a list of faults of James, but thou well know, as we
all do, he was sadly deficient & neglectful at Reading - however he is very much mended, but not
quite so much alive & striving (as I) should like to see him … he does not
go about his work in a business-like manner, yet he has many good points …”
Damned with faint praise? This is not the
world’s most enthusiastic father-in-law.
The weather is still pleasant, they’ve
seen “a beautiful and abundant harvest”, and there’s some life in Thomas’s old
bones yet, so in the September he sets off on yet another long round of walking
visits in East Anglia.
James
and Lucy drop him off in their pony trap at Sudbury to visit a friend, and from
there he walks on to Ipswich (25 kms) to see his cousin Stephen Perry who is
with Ransome’s Ironworks, the company where Thomas himself surely did his
apprenticeship. Here Stephen kindly offers to organise him a horse to get him
back to Stephen’s cottage at Rushmere, but Thomas thanks him and says he’s
“afraid to ride”, so he walks it.
It’s
a fine warm evening and when Stephen gets home from work he sets the tea table
out on his lawn under the weeping willows, and there the two men kick back and
enjoy “…a joint of meat and a bottle of Cider, and here we sat and chatted
& enjoyed ourselves till dusk …”, and can’t you just see that, an image so
fresh it could’ve been yesterday.
Thomas
stays at his cousin’s place for about two weeks, during which Stephen twice
drives them down along the Suffolk Coast in his chaise and equipped with a
picnic lunch, where they “...picked up many curious pebbles (and)
cornelians...”, and he also rides with Stephen to work a few times, to visit
some old friends and have a look through Ransome’s Works, now “...employing
upwards of 400 hands, making ploughs, plough shares & Agricultural
implements, also at their lower works, cast iron in an immense amount for the
Dover Railway (and I) never saw work turned out better...”.
Wanting
to visit his parent’s graves at Woodbridge, one Sunday he walks there from
Stephen’s cottage, goes to Meeting, and after-wards walks around the
beautiful old church – (the Anglican parish church of St John’s ?) – a building he admits he has always admired,
then revisits many other parts of this town that he “...used to once frequent,
all with great pleasure.”
 |
| St Johns |
He
then gets an urge to check out the coast at Aldborough, so he walks there, has
a look around, and walks back home (a 50 km round trip) by dusk. This is a man
not averse to a long walk in the countryside.
 |
| The Orford coast on the North Sea |
Thomas
finally, reluctantly, takes his leave, and a little later he writes to Alfred
how “...I enjoyed myself in Suffolk, I had a great desire to see it one more
time, and it’s possible I may never more...”, and he travels back to Sudbury.
From
there he walks to Rayne where he stays with Lucy and James again for a while,
his busy walking holiday starting to catch up with him. But while he’s there he
still takes long walks, out looking at local gravel beds and collecting rocks
specimens.
Then,
about mid September “…I took my leave, not wishing to be out till the cold
weather set in, having much improved in my health from being so much in the
country air & the exercise of walking. I lodged one night at Chelmsford,
walked to Brentwood Station & reached John’s for tea 7th day evening…”
As
much as he’s surely looking for a bit of a spell by now, there’s little rest
for him, as a letter soon arrives from Margaret in Birmingham to say that
husband Charles is ill and could he please hurry home, so he hops the five
o’clock train and five hours later he’s back at the Broad Street shop, glad
to see them all again, and relieved to find Charles is much better, It’s been a
pretty full couple of months for Thomas, and winter is in the wings.
A
“VERY CONVENIENT WINDFALL”
Going into the winter of late 1842 “…the
weather changed to severe cold with snow driving (and) I took cold which
brought on Influenza & attacked my lungs with a violent Asthmatic Cough
& loss of appetite, which reduced me very weak & low & confined me
to my chamber near a week…”, but it gives Thomas time to write this long letter
to Alfred, telling him of his rambles, as well as all the family and national
news, and closes speculating on how the Australian climate would probably be so
much better for his condition. In the harshness of winter, seemingly everyone
is thinking of emigration, even Thomas.
Then, in about Feb 1843, he’s contacted by
some distant relatives in London, asking him to come down and wind up an estate
concerning “…the death of a friend named Sarah Perry who was the daughter of my
great Uncle William Perry formerly of Mile End Road London.
“She
lived the greater part of her life in Southwick, near 40 years of it as a
servant … but for the last 12 years lived in a room at Kensington on the little
property she had saved from time to time during servitude… she possessed a
little, (yielding) about £23 per annum invested in the Funds, on which she
lived."
“But
not knowing who were her nearest relations did not make a Will, and strange to
say neither myself, or my two Sisters or either of my Cousins at Ipswich ever
knew that we had any relation of (that) Perry family left, nor ever remember to
have heard any of our Parents speak of her, altho’ they must have known her in
early life."
“I
remember my Uncle William very well, also his wife Sarah, and have often been
at their house before I went to Gildersome school in the year 1785, but I do
not remember the daughter.”
LETTERS,
TREES, AND A PLOUGH AT LAST
Thomas is now 67, and life trundles along
for the family, SA and UK letters and newspapers flowing in both directions
fairly consistently, even though the round trip for a query and a reply is
still at best about a year. But in that summer of 1843, Thomas and son ‘Harvey’
(John) are finally able to organise the new plough from Ransomes that Alfred is
so desperate for, and they have it on a ship by the October. (No word on a wife
yet though).
Thomas then gets through another hard
winter, and in the spring of 1844 – after a couple of sad miscarriages and
still births by his daughters in the past two years – he at last gets the good
news that he’s been made a grandfather, by Edward and Louisa, who by now have
had to move to Bristol with the railways. And Thomas has a good summer too,
feeling better and stronger than he was back in Reading about the time
Elizabeth died, even though he admits he can’t take heavy manual labour any
more.
With the plough done, now it’s an axle set
for a heavy wagon that’s needed, and with the help of the others, they organise
it for shipment, and in his advice he adds how he’s very proud of Alfred’s
“...hard work and achievements in South Australia...(in his) …new occupation as
farmer in the Wilderness…”
In with the axle set the Pupletts pack
some cutlery, scissors and a pocket knife, the Wickens chip in with a scythe, a
hoe, a fork and a hammer, and ever on a tight budget, Thomas finds some things
he thinks might be “useful to a settler in an uncivilised country” – a book of
Eliza Cook poetry [ ], a blue pocket handkerchief, a box of steel pens and
holders, and some polished winkle shells. It’s a mixed bag but knowing how
things are in Adelaide in 1844, I’m sure Alfred appreciates anything he can
get.
But
Thomas also writes of how much they all “...miss him, and how they’ve found
that Birmingham is much colder than Reading, and Five Ways near where we live
is the highest and most exposed part of it, Charles & Margaret often wish
they were out with thee in Australia, and the time may come when they do, but
not while Charles’ mother lives...”
I know it’s not directly Thomas’s story,
but in the latter part of 1844 he does play a bit part in the saga of the
seedling shipment (insofar as he contributes some hop seeds, which he’s sure
will do well in SA. But he misses the shipment, he sends them off separately,
and they all go mouldy and die anyway – can’t win ‘em all).
At the front of this project is the Henry
Deane who Thomas compared polished flints with and who had the “excellent
Microscope”, one of the many “cousins” of the Perry kids, this one living in
Clapham in London,
Henry
is an curious bit of construction. As a chemist he’s always interested in new
medicinal herbs, and as an amateur scientist he’s into rocks, animal husbandry,
and fleas, telling Alfred “... we have an amazing number of Species, upwards of
forty are known, one Species I discovered myself as a parasite on the small
long-eared Batt...”, and goes on at length about fleas in general and could
Alfred please send him some that he “...finds so sociable in Adelaide”.
Henry
is also a good Quaker – y’know, pacifist, humanitarian, all that – but right
after he offers all sorts of advice on how to feed pigs, and on how Alfred will
need to “geld” his sheep and cattle for best fattening results, he asks
(apparently seriously) “...would it not be well to operate on some of the
natives? It would have the advantage of taming, at the same time that [vandith?]
of the human race would gradually be [extirpated?] without murdering them.”
Clearly
in a past letter from Alfred he’s touched on his concerns about resentful
members of the indigenous population, as cousin Henry then moves on to firearms
and the need to make sure that if Alfred has any he’ll need to keep them out of
the hands of “ill-disposed natives & runaway convicts”, and he’d best let
it be known that he’s prepared to shoot first and talk about it later! This is
one scary Quaker!
Anyway, cousin Henry has convinced Alfred
he can ship out fruit tree seedlings, from Loddiges of Hackney, a very large
and very famous nursery of the day. (Loddiges probably think hell, no risk to
them, and they may just be able to service a whole new market).
Not sure what Alfred is expecting, but
Henry gets them to pack no less than 20 each of apples, pears, plums, cherries,
and peaches, 10 each of apricots and nectarines, and 30 assorted walnuts,
filberts, medlars [ ], and quinces. That’s 150 seedlings that have to hang on
for three months at sea. He also packs seeds for spuds, peas, beans, cabbage,
broccoli, celery, radish, lettuce, onion, cauli, cucumber, carrot, parsley,
mignonette, parsnip, melon, and cress, plus some violets and erica and for good
measure, a packet of wheat, This is a serious bit of kit. Godknows what this
lot costs Alfred. And for a joke Henry puts in some baby teething powders and a
box of laxatives! With that much fruit & veg he’ll hardly need them surely!
But,
away in the distant “Wilderness” (of Willunga) in early 1845, we find Alfred
struggling with “short crops & low prices”, but he thanks them all for
their presents, although he claims the nursery packed the trees badly as quite
a few died (Loddiges actually expected a survival rate of just 10%). He also
reports he’s sorry to say he’s still single, the inland postage isn’t reliable,
the biscuits in the case (not sure who sent them) arrived okay but tasted a bit
of the pitch the axle crate was treated with, the heat is getting to him, and
he’s “quite a teetotaler by necessity having only had two glasses of beer for
some months”. But, as always, he wishes he was nearer to them all, the distance
made worse by there being such a long time between sending and receiving
letters.
In one reply he tells his dad no there
isn’t a pond or stream of water on his land, that all land that has any decent
water was long ago taken, in fact a stream or a pond is “a great curiosity and
are like Angels Visits”, but points out that he at least hits water at about 9
feet, which is better than most, as wells can be anything from 80 to 180 feet
deep.
Back in Birmingham, by mid 1845 Thomas is
a grandfather again, this time by the Wickens’, and he’s pretty pleased with
such a “sweet & lovely a little creature”, but by the close of the year
he’s writing of a cold winter in England, bad crops, and son-in-law James
Puplett in trouble again and out of work, having “...got into the sad practice
of going of an evening to Braintree and perhaps not returning home till 12 or 1
o’clk, leaving Lucy alone, when next morning he was not fit for work leaving
Lucy to struggle on as she could...”
Not
only is his son-in-law a total waste of space, but Thomas has another bad
winter, with a violent attack of Asthma, so bad that he’s ordered to bed and
the family gather around expecting the worst.
But
the old man’s made of tougher stuff, and he’s soon feeling “as though younger
again”, and he’s up and spending time helping in the shop and playing with his
granddaughter, now seven months old, “...my little Charlotte, and … her little
engaging ways, that I have seemed to live my time over again, & many many
incidents have been brought to my recollection that took place when thy Mother
had the care of her infant charge, but which had been obliterated from my
memory by time and many troubles, but now has returned again after many days
with peculiar sweetness and delight.”
THOMAS’S
END DAYS
It’s now 1846 and Thomas is in the last
year of his life. He’s 68 and he’s been a widower for seven years. He’s had a
full-ish life, helped raise five good kids, and worked hard if not always
successfully. He’s been true to his God, but he’s explored the unfolding
wonders of the New Science with an open-ish mind.
His wayward son-in-law has been, and still
is, a worry to him, and in the January Thomas writes to Alfred that Lucy &
James have had to quietly leave Rayne altogether, that Lucy’s health is bad
because of it, although “...many of the Puplett family seem willing to excuse
James and heap the blame on Lucy which is unfair...”
But,
on a brighter note, son ‘Harvey’ has been re-admitted to Meeting and has
married a pleasant young woman, and by mid 1846 things are also looking a bit
better for Alfred, now well into some kind of three year labouring commitment
and looking forward to getting back onto his own forty acre block full time,
where the surviving fruit trees are actually doing well.
And Thomas has a fairly good last summer,
taking it easy mostly, potters about and indulges his granddaughter. He’s sad
about Lucy of course, but he seems content enough with his family’s progress,
and he has his friends and relatives to keep in touch with. It’s had it’s ups
and downs, some good times and some not so good times, but all in all, not too
bad a life.
Contrary to his usual practice of staying
indoors and close to home during the cold months, some time late in 1846 Thomas
goes to visit Harvey and his new wife at the sawmills in Finsbury, but in the
depths of that hard winter he falls victim one last time to his old chest
problems and, “surrounded by his family”, on the 16th of January 1847 he passes
away quietly at Harvey’s, and a few days later is interred in the Friends
Burial Ground at nearby historic Bunhill.
 |
| Bunhill Burial Grounds today |
HERE LIES THOMAS PERRY
HE WAS A GOOD MAN
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AND
WHAT OF THE KIDS ?
It’s always interesting to see what became
of a couple’s offspring, as they can be seen as the real closing chapter of any
couple’s life – did they prosper? – did they find a life better than their
parents’?
Alfred Perry – he went on to do quite well
in the “Wilderness”, marrying Eleanor Clark the Noarlunga miller’s daughter in
1848, and by 1854 the Morphett Vale District Council rates assessment books
lists them as owning two 80 acre sections, with a “stone dwelling of 2 rooms”
(which he built himself), and they went on to have a brood of 6 sons and 4
daughters.
 |
| Alfred Perry |
Edward Perry – ‘Ned’ was the only one of
the Perry kids to not emigrate. He married Louisa Bartlett in 1840, and spent a
good deal of his working life with the burgeoning railway system in England,
and he died in 1874 while living “back home” in Reading.
John Harvey Perry – ‘Harvey’ married
Priscilla Browett in 1848, but soon after left the Finsbury sawmills,
emigrating to SA late that year on the ‘Marion’, but as with so many infants on
that long sea voyage out, their two month old baby died and was buried at sea a
few weeks before arrival.
They joined Alfred in the southern
districts for a while, before moving to the Mt Barker area about 1850, where
Harvey did some wood-cutting, but ...
SA
Register – 18 May 1853
FATAL ACCIDENT — On Friday the 6th inst., at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, as a
person named John Harvey Perry, of Mount Barker, was splitting in that
neighbour-hood, a log rolled over upon him. It appears that he had vainly
endeavoured to extricate himself, and lay until about 8 o'clock in the evening,
when two persons who had gone in search of him were attracted by the barking of
his dog to the spot where he lay. The unfortunate man was in a state of great
exhaustion and was carried to a neighbour's house, and thence to his own,
where, notwithstanding the unremitting and judicious attention of Dr. Chalmers,
who however had no hope of a favourable termination from the first, he died on
Wednesday last. At his own request a post mortem examination was made by Dr.
Chalmers who found the liver considerably bruised and one of the kidneys
ruptured. The unfortunate deceased was much respected, and has left a young
widow and one child to lament their loss.
John
Harvey is buried in the Mt Barker cemetery, but Priscilla later re-married and
moved to Victoria.
Margaret
Thresher Perry – After her dad’s death they sold up in Birmingham and tried the
biscuit business again back in Reading but without much success, and with their
three girls eventually emigrated in late 1854 with Lucy and James Puplett on
the “Duke of Wellington”.
The
Wickens spent some time in the southern districts, probably around Alfred, but
soon moved to Coromandel Valley in the Adelaide Hills, where Charles worked for
Murray’s Jam & Biscuit Factory for some years.
Margaret died in early 1861 in the district
and is buried in the local cemetery, and the Wickens name still has some
associations with the area.
Lucy
Perry – The life & times saga of Lucy and the hapless James Puplett has
been covered in detail in a previous set of notes, probably worth a re-read.
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