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On FMP the 1881 census image containing Ben Palmer and his ‘Mrs’ is very dark and they have transcribed the almost illegible address as ‘16, Terr Essex Street’. The image on Ancestry is much clearer, it’s 16, Bartholomew’s Terr[ace], Essex Street.
I wasn’t sure where Essex Street was initially, but I now believe it was a street running off the E end of Darling Row which subsequently became Buckhurst Street. So it was only a short distance from Wood’s Buildings where Palmer and his Peterborough-born ‘wife’ Alice were living in 1871.
The ‘Mrs Palmer’ of 1881 may well have been Alice, but I can’t be sure. That would then give her a year or two after splitting with Palmer to hook up with her blind concertina player before John McCormack arrived on the scene - assuming the concertina player even existed.
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I’m not sure if I, or anyone else, has suggested this before, but I wonder if the elusive blind concertina player might actually have been George Dixon.Comment
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I've heard of 'May Decemember romances,' but that would have put even Maria Lechmere to shame, wouldn't it? Wasn't Dixon born around 1878?Comment
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I was thinking of someone confusing her friendship with Dixon as something else. Not that there was any suggestion of anything improper, but just a Chinese whispers sort of thing linking Alice to a blind musician which somewhere down the line was misinterpreted as an adult relationship.
A bit like Arthur Harding claiming that Biddy the Chiver killed her husband and died in prison. Someone at sometime got the wrong end of the stick and Harding recorded the error for posterity.Comment
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A bit like, ‘Send reinforcements, we’re going to advance’ becoming ‘Send three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance’.Comment
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I’ve just reread this thread from the beginning. I’d forgotten half of what it contains.
I looked into Alice’s educational options a while back, but didn’t post the results. I think it’s most likely that she and her siblings attended the National Schools. I’ll revisit that and add my findings here.
Also, the Ashe poems have revealed a few interesting, if somewhat creepy, things. I’ll return to those too, although doing so always makes me feel rather grubby. There’s nothing explicit in them, but I do feel they occasionally cross the line between the ideal and the distasteful.Comment
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Something else that occurred to me was whether the descendants of Annie, the illegitimate child of Alice’s sister Jane, have established a DNA link to Percival Blackburn. If Percy wasn’t her dad, who might have been …?Comment
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Alice’s Education 1.
From The Lincolnshire Chronicle, And Northampton, Rutland and Nottingham Advertiser of May 17th, 1850:
The examination of the children of the Peterborough National school took place on Monday last, eleven o’clock in the forenoon, the Lord Bishop in the chair; the Ven. the Archdeacon was also present, as were also the Revs. Dr. James, M. Argles, E. Davys, vicar, and the curate, F.A.S. Marshall, Mrs Davys, Mrs Butler and many other ladies. The boys acquitted themselves in a very creditable manner, giving ready answers given to them in English and Bible history and mental arithmetic. The progress of the various classes, particularly in the boys school, elicited the approbation of the Bishop, the visitors and the examiners.
In 1850, it appears to have been a boys only affair. The girls’ National School was established some time after the boys’ and was considerably less well patronised initially, although that improved over time.
The Bishop of Peterborough, George Davys, his son, Edmund and his son-in-law, Marsham Argles were staunch supporters of the local schools, the Bishop being the chairman of the Peterborough National and Infant Schools Committees. These men and their families were the Pitts family’s near neighbours in the secluded Minster Precincts. As a footman Charles Pitts was almost certainly employed by the Bishop or Canon Argles. His subsequent employments as a gardener and a watchman were also very likely Diocesan appointments.
George Davys, you may remember, had been the young Princess Victoria’s preceptor (tutor).
… Revd George Davys became preceptor (a role seen as part tutor, part mentor) to the Princess Victoria in April 1823, shortly before her fourth birthday. It was a task he would share with her German governess, Baroness Lehzen, visiting Kensington Palace regularly to teach Victoria the basic skills of literacy and numeracy and give religious instruction – a subject dominated in education at that time by the writings of the evangelical moralist Sarah Trimmer.
As she grew older Davys also taught Victoria Greek, Latin, mathematics and literature. Despite the future she was facing as Britain’s Queen, Victoria wasn’t given the classical education experienced by boys of her class at that time, but even so she spent five hours a day, six days a week in formal lessons. Other subjects she studied included painting and drawing, dancing, music and singing, history, French, Italian and German.
Whilst English was always spoken in Kensington Palace, Revd Davys is said to have commented on the princess’s German accent and – an exceedingly good elocutionist himself – to have helped her to get rid of it.
Victoria is said to have been a ‘spoiled, self-willed little exhibitionist’ who was ‘out of her mother’s control’. However, the ‘reverend tutor’ was said to have ‘a quiet humour’ and enjoyed his pupil’s ‘clever repartees.’ She in turn, is said to have ‘constantly spoken of him as ‘my kind, good master.’ In correspondence in later years, however, Victoria is said to have described Revd Davys as ‘monotonous and soporific.’
A memorial work about ‘The beautiful life and illustrious reign of Queen Victoria’ published in the year of her death states that the Duchess of Kent thought very highly of her daughter’s tutor, who also served as domestic chaplain at Kensington Palace. ‘I like your sermons so much, Mr Dean,’ she is once said to have stated, adding as he bowed low, ‘because they are so short.’
Both Baroness Lehzen and Revd Davys claimed to have been the one who told Victoria she was next in line to the throne. In an often-told story, Baroness Lehzen is said to have placed a genealogical table into the twelve-year-old princess’ history book for her to find, on which Victoria is said to have commented, ‘I am nearer the throne than I thought.’
However, Revd Davys’ son, Canon Edmund Davys, claimed it was his father who informed the young princess, telling the following story:
‘My father had set her to make a chart of the kings and queens. She got as far as ‘Uncle William.’ Next day my father said to the princess, “But you have not put down the next heir to the throne.” She rather hesitated, and said, “I hardly like to put down myself.” My father mentioned the matter to the Duchess of Kent, who said she was so glad that the truth had come upon her daughter in this way, as it was time she became aware what responsibility was awaiting her.’
Victoria became queen in 1837 on the death of her uncle, William IV. She was eighteen. Revd Davys was appointed Bishop of Peterborough a short time afterwards in May 1839, a year before boundary changes saw Loughborough come under the Diocese of Peterborough.
From the LOUGHBOROUGH
History and Heritage Network
If we try hard enough, we may be able to claim that Alice ‘rubbed shoulders’ with Queen Vic. I seem to recall reading that on one occasion, en-route to Scotland, the Royal train stopped at Peterborough and Her Majesty alighted to take refreshment there. All the local dignitaries were present, there was a band … I can’t remember if the local school kids were given the day off to gawp at the Queen. I’ll check it out.
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Alice’s Education 2.
I can’t match Kate Eddowe’s visit to the Crystal Palace Great Exhibition while she was a pupil at the Dowgate and Bridge School, but the Peterborough kiddies had their own fun days.
Every year in August the children of the Peterborough National and Infant Schools enjoyed a summer festival or ‘treat’. The routine began with a church service where they were ‘feelingly addressed’ by a Reverend gentleman; afterwards they marched to the Minster Close where hymns were sung (a nod, no doubt, to the support of the Bishop); there then followed the consumption of cakes and lashings* of tea; and finally the children repaired to a local farmer’s field for sports and other high jinks.
In 1857, when Alice was 12, the activities in the field were curtailed by rain. The children were said to have been deeply disappointed by the cancellation of their long-anticipated fun and games. Poor Alice!
*Apologies for not prefacing this thread with a trigger warning about its graphically Blytonesque language.
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Last thing on Ashe.
Thomas Ashe’s Songs of a Year contains 150+ short poems. Having come across the ‘foul courts and fever-stricken alleys’ quote being used by Jack London in The People of the Abyss I was keen to see what else the London Lyrics contained. Evidence of Ashe indulging in a bit of East End slumming would have been very intriguing, but there’s nothing remotely like that in the London Lyrics. In fact there’s no evidence in them that he ever ventured any further east than the Strand. And neither, unfortunately, are there any obvious Peterborough references in the book.
His lifelong obsession with young girls is still in evidence, though. In one of the poems he confesses:
‘Tis now four years agone I laid
My snares to win a little maid,
Here on the sands, and charm’d in vain:
I had but little for my pain.
The ‘little’ maid was aged thirteen when he ‘laid his snares’.
In another poem he speaks of Ruth, the twelve-year-old who delivers his linen, lingering at his door. She makes a comment about how some children eat sweets on a Sunday - she’s obviously hoping for a penny or two to buy some - but Ashe misinterprets what she is waiting for and gives ‘the chit her kiss’
I can’t help but wonder whether Ashe had a malign influence on the Pitts family. Prior to his arrival in Peterborough in 1859 there had been four daughters in the Pitts family. When the 1861 census was taken there was only one, Jane, still living in the family home in the Minster Precincts, and she had an illegitimate daughter.
A literary man like Ashe must surely have kept a journal or a diary of some kind. I wonder what happened to that. Perhaps he hid it in a biscuit tin under the floorboards …Comment
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This guide was published in 1881 by the printer G. C. Caster whose premises were in the Peterborough Market Place, ‘adjoining the Minster Gateway’ (second photo).
At the end of the guide are several advertisements, one of which reads:
SAVIGAR'S ARITHMETICAL TABLES. For the use of Schools, with rules for mental accounts. Price Id.; or twelve copies, post free, 1/-
John Savigar was the headmaster of the Peterborough Boys National School, which was located in New Town. His Wife, Sarah, was the headmistress of the Girls National School. When John Sagar retired in 1858, some of his ex-pupils got up a collection and presented him with a gold watch. I don’t know yet when Sarah Savingar retired, but it seems likely that she was holding the position when Alice was a ‘scholar’.
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This advertisement of 1841 provides further evidence of the involvement of Edmund Davys, the Bishop’s son, in the running of the National and Infant Schools:Attached FilesComment
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I stumbled across this on the Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery website the other day:
Panel 8
Dealing with outrages
Peterborough's first police force was the Liberty of Peterborough Constabulary, formed in 1857. Twelve constables were sworn in on the first day. The rules of employment were tight: they could not carry on any other work, visit a pub, carry an umbrella or appear in public without their uniform. Of the twelve, only five lasted to the end of the year
On the other hand, the constables were not overstretched. They recorded crimes in a 'book of outrages' which, in the early days, contained between 20 and 30 entries a year.
The ‘panel’ referred to is part of a display in the Changing Lives Gallery. The impression I get is that the ‘book of outrages’ may still exist. I’ve encountered ‘outrage reports’ before, in an Irish context (the Enrights frequently appeared in them). I wonder if the ‘serious case’ Alice was involved in was considered sufficiently outrageous to be recorded as such. I’ll give the museum folk a call next week.
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It appears that the pausing of the Royal Train at Peterborough en-route to/from Balmoral was a biannual event (out and return). There was a change of engines there requiring a significant break in the journey. The bishop and all the other big-wigs of the city, dressed in their finery, assembled on the platform to greet Her Maj. and present her with flowers. Flags flew. Fog lights dazzled. On one occasion, dashing Prince Albert received the hand of the mayor’s wife. On at least one occasion the local school kids were given a half day holiday to witness the event.
So there you have it, Alice rubbed shoulders with Queen Vic und ihr Mann. ;-)Comment
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