In the Cleveland market town of Stokesley at the beginning of the 19th century, festivities were lively and raucous. As the decades went by, organised and decorous Victorian celebrations took their place. This is a story about Stokesley – but it will have been true of so many towns and villages!
As I explain in Radicalism in Stokesley in the 1820s, during the Napoleonic Wars the town was particularly outward looking and full of activity. There were nearly twenty inns and the Stokesley markets were the trading hub of a wide area. Handloom weaving was at its height and weavers were known for their independence of thought. The town was very much part of the coastal economy of Cleveland and was the home in the winter months of East India Company captains, merchant seamen, whalers and men of the Royal Navy – and there were plenty of places for them to drink and spend their wages.
When the Wars ended in 1815, a severe economic depression followed – but all the same, during the 1820s when George IV was on the throne, Stokesley was a Georgian town riven by fractious debate and with a raucous sense of humour.
A lasting reminder of one of the acrimonious debates is the collection of pamphlets produced in the Stokesley Paper Wars (1822-4). This was a war of the printed word between the radical watchmaker Robert Armstrong and the Methodist tradesman Thomas Mease (much more about his ventures here). It was a bitter and noisy debate between the supporters of radicalism, Freethought and atheism on the one hand and the supporters of religion and orthodoxy on the other.
That wasn't the only division – there was also ill-feeling between the various forms of Christianity. The injustice of the system of tithes lay behind this because it meant that the Methodists, Calvinists and other Nonconformists, who were already financing their own chapels, had to support the Church of England as well in the person of its local representative, Stokesley's very well-to-do rector. Thomas Mease was an active opponent of tithes and, according to his enemy Robert Armstrong, used to go to the parish church with his friend Robert Kneeshaw "for the purpose of laughing at the Parson".
The town's bawdy sense of humour can be seen in the newspaper report of an event that took place in the spring of 1825. The people gave themselves over to hours of fun to celebrate the moment when a 16 year old youth married a 55 year old woman. The church and factory bells rang, the town-crier made his announcement, the barber shaved the groom with a 30-inch razor, everyone followed the town band to the church and after the ceremony the band led the married pair, carried on chairs and followed by a crowd of people, around the town. "Rustic festivities followed", said the newspaper report, which can be found here in the account of the flax-spinning mill behind the High Street, where the bride and groom both worked.
By 1828 things were changing and Clarke's Topographical Dictionary described Stokesley as having rather an "air of retirement than business". But it was still a lively place – in the winter of 1832/1833, there was something like a riot when the Tory candidate Hon William Duncombe visited the town electioneering. Thomas Mease, who opposed Duncombe's politics, was said to have instigated it.
By the time of the young Queen Victoria's coronation on 28 June 1838, the respectable classes of the town had taken a grip. There would be no more unseemly processions, no more chaotic scenes of revelry. They formed a committee a fortnight ahead of time and the Revd Charles Cator was asked to chair it. They raised money – Lord Falkland and Sir William Foulis sent £5 each – and the considerable sum of £63 was raised. The Yorkshire Gazette on 7 July published a flowery account of the celebrations, written no doubt by one of the gentlemen of the town:
The Cleveland Hills have been roused from their still repose, and have uttered responsive echoes, to the loud plaudits poured from the enthusiastic lips of the whole assembled population of this little town.
They wanted to feed everyone but couldn't work out how to provide a public feast for 1,100 people. Instead, the committee sent 1½ lbs of meat and 1lb of bread to each individual so they could "enjoy themselves without restraint" in the bosom of their families. This must also have ensured that unseemly celebrations happened in and around the houses and not in the middle of the High Street.
At half past two in the afternnon, the "respectable inhabitants" and the various clubs and societies met at the school house and processed to church to hear Mr Cator preach. When they emerged, the men (not the women) formed an organised procession.
At the front were two men carrying flags. Behind them came the management committee, walking two by two, carrying white wands and wearing white rosettes and Victoria medals. (Quite a variety of medals were struck for Victoria's accession and coronation at a good range of prices to suit customers' pockets – tradesmen were told to be on their guard against people trying to pass off the gold-coloured ones as genuine sovereigns. This medal is particularly fine.)
After the management committee came a brass band, followed by the clergy in their robes, also with rosettes and medals. Then the churchwardens and parish overseers (more medals and rosettes) – then the parish clerk in his robes – then another flag – then the Odd Fellows society, two by two and "attired in their proper costume and bearing the various insignia of their orders". Next came another flag, and then the society of Ancient Foresters, two by two and dressed as archers with bows and arrows – then a flag – then the Benevolent Society of Flax Dressers, two by two. Then came the general committee, four by four, in "appropriate costumes".
The town's schools followed next, first the masters of the Preston school followed by the scholars, four by four. Then the Langbaurgh West school, with the mistress and the girls, four by four, in front and then came the master of the school. (The mistress and master of the National Schools in the 1840 Directory are Miss Price and John Thompson). A police officer followed, and then the boys, four by four. Another police officer came after them (to keep an eye on the boys?).
At the rear of the procession came "the rest of the inhabitants" – the report doesn't say whether these were only the "respectable" inhabitants who had been inside the church, or whether they had been joined by less respectable ones.
They processed to West Green and sang God save the Queen – then to East Green, and did the same – and then to the various lodges of the societies where they sang once more. As each society reached its lodge, it dispersed.
At 4 o'clock some 40 gentlemen (not women) sat down to an "excellent dinner" at the Swan, with Mr Cator as chairman. He gave a speech into which he managed to drag a reference to "the pernicious error of transubstantiation" (though he assured his readers he did not speak in hostility to "our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects") and finally after drinking many toasts they got up from the table after four hours of conviviality and went to prepare for the ball in the schoolroom. This went on until midnight when they had an "elegant supper".
Those who didn't qualify as gentlemen were not left out because there were "festivities at various places in the town, all of which were conducted with the greatest decorum".
(This orderly and decorous way of celebrating the days seems very much to have been the state of affairs generally. In Whitby, their celebrations were enlivened by the firing of cannon from Barricks' shipyards and the procession was a third of a mile long and included nearly 1,250 Sunday School children of all the denominations. Their Ancient Foresters performed an archery display on the Abbey plain and the fishwomen had a grand tea-drinking in the fish-house and a dance afterwards.)
Even when the Chartist agitator Mr Bussey came to Stokesley in March 1839, the welcome from the workpeople was orderly. They met him with a procession and a banner and took him to the Black Bull Inn in the Market Place so he could speak to the crowd from one of the front windows. They voted on resolutions, adopted the Chartist petition and pledged themselves to support the Chartist Convention.
Processions were obviously very much enjoyed by all classes. A few months before Frederick Cator's trunk was lost between the Tontine and Stokesley, the Yorkshire Gazette reported a swiftly organised and well-managed reception in Stokesley.
On 1 September 1840, the gentlemen and tradespeople decided to welcome the return to Ingleby Manor the next day of Sir William Foulis after an absence of six months. It seems likely that Sir William had been away for some sort of cataract operation because the article explains that his sight, after "sufferings", had been restored. Perhaps the operation was the ancient one known as "couching" or perhaps he was a very early patient for the more radical operation undergone by the Revd Patrick Brontë in 1846. See the Anne Brontë blog for the details – no anaesthetic, leeches, lying in a dark room for a month to recover.
Sir William, the gentlemen and tradespeople felt, was "one of the old baronets, and a good landlord ... with a kind heart and generous disposition" so he should be welcomed into Stokesley with a reception. On 2 September they formed a procession and made their way a short distance outside the town to Bense Bridge, which is where the road from the Tontine Inn (the Thirsk Road B1365) crosses the Eller Beck. There they waited to meet Sir William and his family on their way north.
The horses were taken from the carriage and it was drawn into the town behind the procession, a band and banners and amid a "vast concourse of people". They all stopped at the Black Swan Hotel – today's Methodist Church, opened in 1887, stands on the site now. There a deputation of gentlemen presented Sir William with an address of congratulation, which was read aloud by the Revd R K Pearson. The address explained that the procession would go no further as their "demonstrations of joy" were constrained out of respect for the rector and his family – Mrs Philadelphia Cator had died only a couple of days earlier. But they hoped that Sir William was convinced that they were glad to see him again. Sir William was indeed quite overcome by the enthusiasm of the crowd. He made a suitable and affectionate reply and gave £15 to be distributed among the populace – so the "vast concourse of people" must have felt that their efforts were well rewarded.
Nine years later, the Revd Charles Cator remarried. He was now 64 years old and his new wife was Miss Amelia Langford of Hyde Park Gardens, aged 63. They married on 1 March at St James's Church, Paddington.
Great celebrations for their arrival in Stokesley were planned by his congregation – the Yorkshire Gazette of 31 March 1849 has a lavishly flowery account entitled "Public Demonstration of Regard".
Tuesday last being fixed for the arrival of the Rev Charles Cator and his bride, at the Rectory, early in the morning at the east and west ends of the town, as well as in the market-place, were observed (as though they had sprung up like mushrooms during the night) large and splendid triumphal arches, formed of evergreens, flowers, and fruits, with appropriate mottoes over the central part of each, significant of the welcome reception their revered pastor and his lady would receive on their arrival. A large "Union Jack" silk flag waved on the steeple of the parish church, and by the hour of ten the bells range merrily.
It goes on to describe how flags with appropriate mottoes and an "instrumental band of music from an adjacent village" processed through the streets, while crowds poured in "from the villages and hamlets" and all was "hilarity and joy". At 2:30 pm there were "great numbers of individuals of all grades and sexes" on the south road looking for the approach of "their revered rector and his amiable partner". At last
A carriage, drawn by four horses, was seen at a distance passing rapidly through this lovely and wooded vale.
The horses were unharnessed and the "delighted parishioners" drew the carriage in themselves. Behind came a procession of "the gentlemen, tradesmen, and the children of the public schools, headed by several mottoed flags and the band". Under each triumphal arch of greenery, the procession stopped so that everyone could cheer while ladies waved "their white kerchiefs" from the windows and balconies. In "an orderly manner" it processed "through the avenue and coach road" to Levenside to the rectory (now The Old Rectory).
There, Mr Cator – "his fine manly forehead fanned by the breezes" – stood on the steps of the rectory, "overarched by magnificent patriarchal trees" and, with uplifted hands, thanked the crowd that had flocked into the courtyard and shrubbery and bestowed a blessing on them all.
No wonder they were cheering – "the poor people of the parish of every sect and party were plentifully supplied with beef, flour, tea, sugar, &c. at their own cottages".
And no wonder the newspaper account italicised the words "of every sect and party", when we think of past enmities in the town. The 1851 Ecclesiastical Census details of the local returns are here. They show that, besides the parish church of St Peter's, Stokesley had the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel on Back Lane (now North Road) at the end of what is now Brewery Yard; the Primitive Methodist Chapel, also on Back Lane; and the Bethel Chapel near the Packhorse Bridge. (Today's Methodist Church dates from 1887 and the Primitive Methodists built a new chapel in College Square in 1903)
Bonfires were lit in the evening to illuminate the river near the rectory and at 8 o'clock Mr Cator and about 50 of his friends and tradesmen sat down to a "sumptuous repast" provided by the Golden Lion Hotel (now Chapters) followed by many toasts to the Cator family and to every man of note in the area. "The utmost order prevailed throughout the day". Meanwhile, the new Mrs Cator must have been unpacking. We don't know if she had visited the Rectory before – perhaps she was meeting the servants and finding her way around – and perhaps getting to know her new stepdaughter better. Perhaps the ladies of the town joined the gentlemen to hear the speeches.
Charles and Amelia Cator were to enjoy fourteen years of married life. Amelia died at the age of 76 on 2 November 1863. Both of them were generous to the charities and poor.
The brief note of her death in the Yorkshire Gazette recorded that Amelia "was a liberal contributor to all the charities of the town" and when Charles died at the Rectory on 17 December 1872 at the age of 86, after 37 years at Stokesley, the York Herald reported
The lamented rector was extremely liberal to the poor of the parish; a tale of poverty and distress would ever readily loose his purse string, even to the last coin. He also took great interest in forwarding the education of any school boy or young person who showed any talent for learning or had a desire to improve himself, and was ever ready both with advice and with pecuniary aid. Many a poor family will miss his seasonable charities.
In her fourteen years in Stokesley, Amelia had brought a touch of vicarious celebrity to the town. The Yorkshire Gazette ends its notice with the words "She was aunt to General Cannon, the renowned of Silistria".
Postscript: General Cannon (Behram Pasha)
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| Robert Cannon (Behram Pasha) |
In fact, Amelia was the aunt of General Cannon's first wife, Isabella Langford.
General Cannon was one of those figures beloved by the Victorian press and public – the sort of man that George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman would probably have sought to avoid.
Robert Cannon (1811-1882) was born at Murroes, Forfarshire, the son of the Revd David Cannon. He joined the Madras Army of the Hon East India Company as a very young man and in 1834 had served in a short but bloody campaign against the Raja of Coorg, known as the Coorg War.
While he was in India, civil war had broken out in Spain in 1833 where the three-year-old Queen Isabella and her mother the Queen Regent (constitutional monarchists) were challenged by another claimant to the throne, Isabella's uncle Carlos (arch-conservative). The British government wouldn't send troops to support the two Queens, but in 1835 did send a volunteer corps of militia, the British Auxiliary Legion – its costs were paid by the Spanish government.
Robert Cannon, aged 23, raised 500 men in Devon for the legion. He began as a Major of the 6th Scotch Regiment and rose to Colonel of the 9th and 10th Royal Irish regiments, seeing a great deal of service and being at the forefront of the action several times. He was awarded the 1st, and the Cross of the 2nd, class of the National and Military Order of St Ferdinand and was made a knight of the number extraordinary of the Royal and Distinguished Order of Charles III for his services.
He went back to India and was appointed one of the commissioners for the government of the territories of Mysore, but after some years returned to Britain either on leave or because of ill-health, it isn't clear from the sources. So when the young Isabella Langford, daughter of Robert Langford of Highgate, met him, he must have appeared to her as an exotically decorated hero who had seen the world. They married on 28 July 1846 at St John's, Paddington.
In 1853, when the Crimean War broke out, he was lieutenant-colonel commandant of the West Middlesex Militia and he and Isabella had three little children.
The Turkish government asked him to take a command in their army. It seems that he must have intended to take Isabella and the children with him to Constantinople but his plans were interrupted by tragedy when Isabella died at home at 10 Kensington Gardens Terrace on 13 January 1854. She was buried at St Michael's, Highgate, a fortnight later on 27 January – the day after what should have been her 27th birthday. The clergyman who took the service was Charles Cator, Rector of Stokesley. Perhaps he and Amelia were in London to see her niece and the children before they started on their voyage into the Mediterranean.
With the nursemaids already assembled for the trip and everything ready, Colonel Cannon must have decided to take the children with him when he sailed, because it was in Constantinople in the middle of March 1854 that his middle child, little Amy Josette, died at the age of 3 years and 2 months. The burials register of St Michael's Highgate records that on 3 August 1855 her remains were interred there, "removed from Constantinople to the Family Vault in Old Chapel Yard" to be buried with her mother. Perhaps the other two children, Robert and Mary, were already back in Britain by then.
The bereaved Robert Cannon stuck to his original plan of serving with the Turks though, as E H Nolan's History of the War against Russia (1855) records, the officers who went out with him to Constantinople changed their minds.
Before he went to his posting, Cannon visited the HQ of Omar Pasha, the extremely able and effective Serbian military leader who had begun life as an Orthodox Christian and had converted to Islam after quitting Austrian lands hurriedly, fleeing from charges of embezzlement. Omar Pasha saw that Cannon could be of service to him, gave him the name Behram Pasha and appointed him to a brigade of his Army of the Danube. Cannon saw a good deal of action and was always remembered in the British press until the end of his days as Behram Pasha and for his part at the siege of Silistria (Silistra, on the Danube in Bulgaria).
He ended the war as a ferik or lieutenant-general in the Turkish Army and the Sultan awarded him the 2nd Class of the Order of the Medjidie . A couple of years later Queen Victoria gave him the honorary rank of Lieutenant-General in the British Army.
He married again and he and his wife Emma Beevor Ronald had a son and two daughters. He died in Folkestone in 1882, having spent his later years there. With him in the Cheriton Road Cemetery are commemorated his wife Emma (1831-88) and their son Ronald (1859-95) and his wife Georgina – and also Isabella and little Amy Josette, whose remains were moved there from Highgate.
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| The Cannon family memorial, courtesy of Rob & Carole Moody for Friends of Folkestone Cemetery. The memorial lists Robert Cannon's military service and the honours awarded to him |
Isabella and Robert's daughter Mary Isabella Georgiana Cannon married Louis-Virgile-Raoul du Saussay, a French politician. Their daughter Marguerite married Baron Henri de Saint-Geniès; they are both buried in Cambridge where they lived from the 1930s. Their son Marie Joseph Gonzague de Saint-Geniès (1917-44) must have had a good deal of his great-grandfather Robert Cannon in him.
Twenty-two years old when war broke out, he was an interpreter with the British Expeditionary Force and was taken prisoner on 28 May 1940. He managed after many difficulties to make his way back to Britain in June 1943 and used family connections to get recruited to the Special Operations Executive, the SOE. He was parachuted into France in March 1944 with Yvonne Baseden. Their group was caught in June and, because his identity was known to the Nazis, he killed himself by taking poison.
Gonzague de Saint-Geniès is commemorated in several places: at the Valençay SOE Memorial; on a plaque at the site of his death; and on the Mémorial de Lapeyrade to SOE Wheelwright, the réseau Hilaire-Buckmaster. He is buried in the British War Cemetery at Choloy near Nancy.
With many thanks to Rob & Carole Moody for the Friends of Folkestone Cemetery for their information.
Events in Boroughbridge to announce the young queen are described in Queen Victoria is proclaimed in Boroughbridge: 1837
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