Rev Robert Joseph Barlow invents a carriage spring, 1836

I came across this fascinating report quite by accident.  It turns out that the Rev Robert Joseph Barlow of Hutton Rudby (c1804-78) invented a safety spring to make travelling by carriage (and this seems to mean, above all, railway carriages) safer and more comfortable.

His invention was presented to the Whitby Lit & Phil by Dr George Merryweather of Whitby, who owned Linden Grove (now Linden Grange), the house in which Mr Barlow lived.  He was the inventor himself of the celebrated Tempest Prognosticator, a leech-powered barometer.  A model of it may be seen in Whitby Museum.

The Rev George Young referred to is the celebrated historian (a short biography can be found here here on the Whitby Museum website).

The surprising story of Robert Barlow's brother, James Barlow Hoy, and his rise to unexpected good fortune and a seat in the House of Commons can be found in my book Remarkable, but still True: the story of the Revd R J Barlow and Hutton Rudby in the time of the cholera.  His life history begins here at Chapter 7 and the account of his sudden death in an accident while shooting in the Pyrenees is here in Chapter 16.

The Whitby & Pickering Railway was one of the first railways in Yorkshire and George Stephenson was the engineer.  When it opened in 1836 – when it tried out Mr Barlow's spring – it was a single-track horse-worked railway.  Now it is the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and is not to be missed by any visitor to the moors who values heritage steam locomotives and diesel engines, beautiful scenery, nostalgic tearooms, etc, etc.

Hampshire Advertiser, 1 October 1836 

Newly Invented Safety Spring for Carriages 

We take from the Yorkshire Gazette, the following notice of a new Spring for Carriages, the invention of the Rev R J Barlow, brother of our town member, J Barlow Hoy, esq.:- 

A general meeting of the Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society was held at the Whitby Museum, on Monday, September 12, for the purpose of receiving a communication from the Rev R J Barlow, of Linden Grove near Stokesley, on his newly invented patent safety springs for carriages.   

A respectable company of ladies and gentlemen having assembled, John Frankland, esq. was called to the chair, and the object of the meeting was stated by the Rev George Young, A.M. one of the secretaries.  Dr Merryweather, through whom the communication was received, then addressed the company as follows:- 

Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I have the pleasure this day of bringing before your notice an original paper by the Rev Mr Barlow, communicating an invention which, when properly understood and duly appreciated, will, in my humble opinion, rank among the most beneficial and ingenious of modern times.  When I say ingenious, I particularly allude to the simplicity and beauty of the contrivance, and when I say beneficial, I mean not only to express my sense of the increased convenience and comfort of carriages, but also with the great comparative security of life and property, by which travelling will be accomplished when these springs shall have become universal ...

After an introduction full of praise for the invention and its usefulness for the future, Dr Merryweather read Mr Barlow's paper.  The company then examined the "ingenious models" he had provided and they "admired the simplicity and excellence of the invention."

The Revd Young concluded by praising the Spring, which would promote ease and convenience in travelling and "prevent accidents and preserve life"

The speed with which locomotive carriages are sometimes propelled on railroads is truly astonishing, and every practicable plan for rendering these and other carriages safe, as well as commodious, must be of incalculable value

The Spring had been tested by Mr Barlow himself and by the Directors of the Whitby and Pickering Railway, 

who have a coach constructed on the new principle, fully answering the expectations that were formed.  It must have cost the Rev Gentleman much study and many trials to bring his invention to this state of maturity

Mr Young concluded his speech of thanks by suggesting that Mr Barlow be elected an honorary member of the Society, and this was done.

More on the cholera and the Rev R J Barlow

This exchange of letters casts more light on the events of the Cholera Epidemic in Hutton Rudby in the autumn of 1832:  Mr Peacock uses Mr Barlow's activities during the epidemic to strike back at critics of the Established Church.  In his reply, Mr Barlow praises the doctors who came to the assistance of the stricken villagers:-

Yorkshire Gazette, 17 November 1832

To the Editor of the Yorkshire Gazette 

Sir, – It ought to be mentioned, to the praise of a humane and pious clergyman of the Church of England, the Rev. Barlow, vicar of Hutton-Rudby, in Cleveland; – and also as an example "to go and do likewise," – that during the prevalence of the cholera in that village, he never failed to visit every individual afflicted with that dreadful malady, especially the poor and needy; and to administer to their wants and comforts with a truly christian benevolence.  I may also add, that the funeral service was performed by him in the numerous instances of mortality, with a seriousness and solemnity befitting so awful a visitation. – He has indeed raised for himself, in the language of Horace –

"Monumentum aere perennius"

that will live in the grateful recollections of his parishioners. 

Yet such are the men whom it is too much the fashion of the present liberal age to depreciate and vilify!  But what greater injustice can there be, than to cast odious reflections upon the venerable Establishment, because, forsooth, a few of its members may possibly walk unworthily, and in some instances, neglect the duties of their sacred calling.  But let such examples as have been mentioned, have their due praise; – such conduct exhibits the traits of true christian heroism, as well as of humanity, – far more ennobling than the laurels of the warrior when "died in blood, and bedewed with the tears of the widow and the orphan." 

I am ever yours respectfully, 

G C Peacock

Sowerby Grange Academy, near Thirsk,

November 14, 1832

Yorkshire Gazette, 1 December 1832

To the Editor of the Yorkshire Gazette 

Sir. – Having accidentally seen in your Gazette of the 17th inst., a letter signed G C Peacock, of Sowerby Grange, near Thirsk, permit me, through the medium of your excellent and widely-circulated paper, to present unto Mr Peacock my most grateful thanks and acknowledgments for the very handsome and flattering manner in which he has introduced my name to public notice.  Deeply as I feel impressed with a sense of my own unworthiness, if, during the awful pestilence at Hutton Rudby, I have afforded spiritual or temporal comfort to the unhappy sufferers, I trust I may ever feel thankful to the Almighty God, who, in his mercy, not only spared my life, but gave me, as it were, new strength both of mind and body, proportioned to the duties I had to perform. 

Allow me to trespass for a moment longer upon your valuable time, to pay an humble, but just, tribute to the merits of Doctor Keenlyside, of Stockton, and James Allardice, Esq., of Stokesley, our medical assistants, who kindly gave up their own excellent practice, and, with a truly philanthropic spirit, came into the midst of the plague to alleviate the anguish of suffering humanity.  To a stranger nay, to the very people of the village unconnected with the seat of disease, it is unknown how much those gentlemen had to contend with, between prejudice on the one hand, and on the other from the want of an hospital, and all other conveniences which a well regulated town can command; but, to the honour of their names be it recollected, their unwearied attention and benevolence surmounted every difficulty, – for which I do feel myself personally much indebted to them, and for which the inhabitants of Hutton Rudby can never repay them without a grateful remembrance of their names, convinced as they ought to be, that to their assiduity and professional skill alone, under divine Providence, must be attributed the rapid disappearance of the alarming malady. 

I have the honour to remain, Sir, 

Your most obedient Servant.

R J Barlow, Clerk.

Linden Grove, Rudby, Nov. 29th

It does seem a pity that the doctors' names were not remembered – instead, a story grew up that the doctors came out from Northallerton only so far as Doctors Lane, and would not enter the village.

But, as I pointed out in my book, Doctors Lane was known by that name before the Asiatic cholera ever arrived in the British Isles.

Revd Barlow advertises for a farm manager, 1855

Even in this short advertisement, somehow Mr Barlow's distinctive voice can be heard:

York Herald, 7 April 1855

Wanted, at May-Day, a HIND, to take Charge of a FARM.  A Man and his Wife only, would be preferred.  No Stock but his Horses to attend to. - Apply, Pre-paid, to Rev R J Barlow, Rudby Vicarage, near Yarm

Revd R J Barlow & funerals in the 1840s and 1850s ...

Oh dear, Mr Barlow ...

Mr Barlow's carelessness in keeping records is evident from the parish registers and his eccentricities are known, as can be seen in my book, Remarkable, but still True.

But a search of the newspaper archives – more and more of them are available online – reveals that matters were rather worse and that some people were not happy at all:-

York Herald, 28 September 1850

Negligence of a Clergyman

To the Editor of the York Herald 

Sir,– On account of the negligence of Mr Barlow, rector of Hutton Rudby, where the corpse of my wife was interred, the funeral was detained two hours and a half, when a messenger was despatched, and he made his appearance, and the body was interred.  This is neither the first nor second time that he has kept funerals waiting until the evening.

Cannot the parishioners of Hutton Rudby have this amended?

I am, Sir, yours respectfully,

John Reed, 

Pickton*, Sept. 24

York Herald, 5 October 1850

To the Editor of the York Herald 

Sir,– Had Mr Reed confined himself to truth, I should have passed over the paragraph in your valuable journal as the result of the boiling indignation of a man too self-important and passionate to listen to reason.  That the funeral was kept waiting is true, and originated solely in a defect of memory, which is the more excusable as the person did not belong to my parish; but that I am in the habit of keeping funerals waiting, or that I ever did in the course of eighteen years keep one waiting, is perfectly false. 

Mr Reed at the conclusion of his letter puts a very silly question - "Cannot the people of Hutton Rudby have this amended?" 

The very interrogatory must prove to any sensible man that the parish do not suffer as Mr Reed would have the public to believe, or they would be unjust to the community to have such an habitual evil remedied.

But I would beg to inform Mr Reed that my parishioners are too sensible not to listen to reason, and have too much forbearance and good temper to fly into a passion without just cause.
I have the honor to remain,
Your obedient Servant,
R J Burton [sic]
Vicar of Hutton Rudby
Rudby Vicarage, October 2nd

York Herald, 12 October 1850

Negligence of a Clergyman

To the Editor of the York Herald 

Sir,– It probably would have been as wise had the Rev R J Barlow passed over my letter, which was inserted in your valuable columns of the 28th ult. The Rev Gentleman asserts, "that he has not, during the course of eighteen years been in the habit of keeping funerals waiting." The following proofs, will, I have no doubt, satisfy the public whose statement is the most correct.

"On the 10th of January, 1843, my son was interred at Hutton Rudby church. We were detained two hours at the church gates, by the non-attendance of the Rev R J Barlow, until it was dark. The coffin was then placed within the church to remain until the following morning, and the company were leaving when the Rev Gentleman arrived. Witness my hand, the 8th day of October, 1850.
Thomas Seamer,
Hutton Rudby"

"On the 30th of May, 1847, my mother's funeral took place at Hutton Rudby church, at which place we arrived at ten o'clock, A.M., and had to wait until twelve for the Rev R J Barlow to read the funeral service.
Witness my hand, this 7th day of October, 1850.
David Smith,
East Rounton"

I could mention more instances of similar inattention, my own grievance excepted, but trust the preceding proofs of Mr Barlow's negligence of the burial of the dead at the time appointed, will satisfy his insatiable thirst for truth, and be the means of a speedy amendment.

I am, Sir, yours respectfully,

John Reed, Pickton, Oct 9th, 1850

(Thomas Seymour or Seamer was a handloom linen weaver who lived in North End.)

York Herald, 19 October 1850

To the Editor of the York Herald 

Sir,– In reply to Mr Reed, who charged me with habitual neglect of funerals, I stated that so far from its being my habit to do so, I had not kept one waiting during eighteen years.

Mr Reed has attempted to falsify my statement by the production of two instances, bearing respectively the signatures of Smith and Seymour.  I beg, therefore, to analyse the statements of those people.  And first as to Smith.  On Sunday morning, May 30th, 1847, at his own desire, I agreed to bury his mother before church, but instead of the funeral being at the church at or before ten o'clock, it actually did not arrive till I had entered the reading desk, at half-past ten o'clock, to commence the morning service; therefore it was my duty to defer the funeral till after church, and not keep my congregation waiting.  Thus it appears that William Smith first commits a fault himself, and then very good-naturedly wishes to charge me with his own neglect in not being punctual. 

Now as the second case of Thos Seymour bearing date January 10th, 1843.  When I first came to this parish, now nearly nineteen years ago, no honest man in Hutton Rudby will attempt to deny that the people of Hutton Rudby were not only in the habit, but in the perpetual habit of keeping every funeral waiting from one to two hours or more, even when the death occurred in the village.  As this was a most unnecessary as well as disagreeable waste of my time, I found it absolutely requisite to set the matter right.  At first I calmly remonstrated, then gave them the choice of any hour from morning till night; in fact I tried all means, gentle and simple, and for years, but in vain.  At last I was most reluctantly compelled to adopt the following plan, namely, whenever they wilfully and without good cause kept me waiting, I kept them waiting exactly the same length of time; and this plan very speedily rectified the inexcusable evil. 

Now it happens that I very well remember, in those bygone days, that this very Thomas Seymour always growled most whenever I insisted upon punctuality; and therefore it is very probable that in the case of January 10th, 1843, I was constrained to keep this man waiting, as I had others in order that I might teach him punctuality, which he was so unwilling to learn. 

Thus again, in this second instance of Mr Reed's testified neglect of duty, the chastisement designed for me recoils upon the evidence.  It would be well, therefore, if Mr Reed would select better evidence in future, for verily he has this time leaned his whole weight upon a broken staff and truly it has wounded himself, and only proved his overweening desire to make a mountain out of nothing. 

I now thank you, Sir, for your good feeling in inserting my former letter in your valuable columns.  In my opinion it is a pity that your paper should be taken up by a base wrangle about nothing; for my part I have neither time nor inclination for such idle cavilling and disputation and therefore in future I shall leave Mr Reed and his coadjutors to themselves.

I have the honor to remain, Sir,

Yours much obliged,

R J Barlow

Rudby Vicarage, Occtober 12th, 1850

*now spelt Picton

Chapter 23. "The old vicar of Rudby has gone to his well-earned rest"

Life in the vicarage must have grown more lonely for Mr Barlow in the years following Nanny's death. 

His sister Mary Sophia was suffering from dementia and died aged 78 of "Senile Decay" on 17 September 1873.  She was followed six months later on 7 March 1874 by her sister Isabella, whose cause of death was registered as "General Debility" at the age of 74. 

As before, it was not Mr Barlow who registered their deaths.  Mary's was registered by Christopher Garbutt, the joiner and publican of the King's Head, and Isabella's by the joiner Alvey Kay – they had presumably supplied the coffins and were acting as undertakers. 

The sisters were buried in the family vault and a memorial tablet was placed on the church wall near the door.  Hector Vaughan possibly contributed to the cost of this, which gives full details of his father – it can be seen that Mr Barlow employed the Latin version of the degree of Master of Arts.  The lettering was apparently in gold, although no trace of this remains: 

IN A VAULT NEAR THIS LIE THE REMAINS OF NANNY VAUGHAN
WIDOW OF THE LATE REVD HECTOR FRANCIS VAUGHAN A.M.
RECTOR OF MYSHALL WHO DIED OCTOBER THE 26TH 1867
AGED 66 YEARS
ALSO OF MARY SOPHIA BARLOW WHO DIED SEPTR 7TH 1873
AGED 78 YEARS
ALSO OF ISABELLA CATHERINE BARLOW WHO DIED MARCH 7TH 1874
AGED 74 YEARS
THE NAMES OF THESE THREE DESERVEDLY BELOVED SISTERS
ARE HERE RECORDED BY THEIR AFFECTIONATE BROTHER
IN CHARACTERS OF GOLD AS A TESTIMONY OF THEIR WORTH

Now Robert was alone in the vicarage.  He had his friends and regular consultations with his curate George Sanger, and he was still active, as his notebook shows. 

Chapter 22. 'Remarkable, but still True'

The 1871 census found a diminished household at the vicarage – Robert, his sister Mary (here called Maria), whose age is now given as 75, and his sister Isabella (here for some reason called Jane), whose age is given as 72.  They had one maid of all work living in the house – 20-year-old Mary Chipchase, born in Appleton Wiske. 

New industries had come – there were now jet miners living in the village and working in Scugdale and a busy timber mill stood at the top of Sexhow Lane.  George Wilson's Sailcloth Mill employed 24 men and 9 women and was being converted from water to steam power, while over on the Rudby side of the river, the bleach house employed three men.

Mr Barlow was occupied with a new project.

Not for him the usual topics of the clergyman scholar – he was engaged in a lively volume of disguised autobiography and colourful anecdote, under the pen-name Walter Fitzallen.  It is interesting to note that nearly all the names he gives his characters were used by Sir Walter Scott – Graham, Clutterbuck, Barnard, Seymour and the name Fitzallen itself.  Perhaps, although he does not mention reading Scott, he was so fond of his works that he had absorbed the names without noticing.

The novel was printed for Mr Barlow in 1872 by Wyman & Sons of Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields – again, he had evidently no desire to use the local printers – and appeared as a small octavo volume (19cm tall) of 406 pages divided into 34 chapters.

Chapter 21. "My intense exertions"

In Mr Barlow's notebooks we can catch a glimpse of his interests and activities in the latter part of his life. 

In the Middleton Book in his early years in the village he had written out a "Catalogue of Books", which appears to be a record of his library.

It naturally included the classical authors and a range of religious works, such as Hebrew grammars, a Hebrew Psalter, sermons, commentaries, and Waldo on Liturgy [1], but also poetry and French authors such as Pascal, Racine and Mme de Sévigné, together with dictionaries.  There were also works by the Evangelical philanthropist Hannah More, who had sought to counter the arguments of Tom Paine (the author so admired by the radicals of Stokesley) with her Cheap Repository Tracts urging the poor to work hard, respect the gentry and trust in God – views echoed in Barlow's sermon of 1833.

However Mr Barlow, though classically educated, was not interested in the usual pursuits of the scholarly Victorian cleric.

He had little interest in theological debate, and the great questions of his day that had tormented so many – from the Tracts for the Times to Essays and Reviews – seem to have made little impression upon him.

Practical matters and technology fascinated him above all, and, as can be seen in the draft of a letter [2] entitled "Suggestions upon the construction and armour of ships of war", his preoccupations were not those normally expected of Victorian clergy.  The letter must date from the mid-1860s, as the Armstrong gun itself was only introduced in 1859:

My Lord Duke.  Having carefully studied the experiments lately made at Shoeburyness upon the Hercules target which resisted a 300lbs shot propelled by a 60lb charge target coated with 9in armour backed by wood and iron the bolt having merely penetrated the 9in plate … and finding that such target resisted a 300lb Armstrong gun with a charge of 60lbs of powder …
… bearing all this fully in mind I am of opinion that the plan I now submit to your Grace will in several respects be found superior to the Hercules target.  On the other side I give the sketch of a ships side from which it will be seen that my plan is to reduce the vital part of a ship to a minimum and to surround that portion with an impregnable belt …

Chapter 20. "A very queer chap"

While Robert Barlow contemplated the success of his pamphlet, the nation was horrified to hear of the uprising in India.

In late July 1857 Lieutenant Hector Vaughan sailed with his regiment from Portsmouth on the Champion of the Seas.  She was a clipper charted by the government as a troop transport, and she made the journey in only 101 days.  Lieutenant Vaughan's regiment was to be present at the capture of Lucknow in 1858, and he would later receive the Indian Mutiny Medal.  It was the beginning of Empire.  Meanwhile, the old way of life in Cleveland was rapidly changing. 

Middlesbrough, which had been a farm and a few cottages when Mr Barlow arrived in the area, was made a municipal borough in 1853; ironstone had been found in the Eston Hills.

Railways were spreading across the countryside – the line from Middlesbrough to Guisborough was built in 1853, and on 2 March 1857 the North Yorkshire & Cleveland Railway opened a line from Picton station to Stokesley.

It was an age of technological marvels, which Mr Barlow must surely have enjoyed – the first iron ship built on the Tees was launched at South Stockton in 1854, and in 1858 an iron steamer was built at Middlesbrough. 

Improvements of all kinds were being carried out.

In Osmotherley, the open drain in the middle of the main street was covered over at last in 1852.  By 1856 Yarm's trade as a port had almost entirely disappeared, but they had the railway and gas street lights.  Stokesley had gas lighting, paved streets and a new Town Hall.  The "odious unsightly shambles, situated in the centre of the main street" described by Ord in 1846 had finally been demolished, and neat new buildings erected in their place.  Mr Barlow himself was improving his glebe land, and his notebooks contain records of field drainage undertaken.

Chapter 19. 'The Queen, the Head of the Church'

Mr Barlow had now reached the age of fifty and the full implications of his situation had become unavoidable.

As a boy, he was

ambitious of distinction and learning … content with nothing if anything loftier stood forth for competition. 

As a man, he had an enormous interest in the outside world, and his leisure time was evidently spent in

the profitable perusal of scientific reasoning [1].  

One of his favourite books, referred to in his novel, was Alexander von Humboldt's Cosmos, on which he took copious notes:

The limit of perpetual snow depends not on the mean temperature of the year but of the summer which melts the snow … The Chinese had a waggon with a needle to direct them across the deserts 1000 years before Christ …

Humboldt was a traveller, explorer and mountaineer, father of the earth and life sciences we know today, who conceived of projects unimaginable in his time, such as the Panama Canal and a United Nations. 

Not far from Mr Barlow's own parish, men of enterprise were developing new industries.  People of his own acquaintance made epic journeys.

Chapter 18. The early 1850s

In 1851, some months after her marriage, Marian Digby Beste and her new family left the country.  They sailed for the United States in a large party consisting of eleven children (Beste's eldest son remained behind), several canary birds, a lapdog and a dormouse.  They hoped to find a better future for the boys in the new world. 

Back in Yorkshire, some of Mr Barlow's activities at this time can be traced in his notebooks, and particularly in the one that survived amongst the logbooks for the Hutton Rudby school.  In it he recorded
the beginning of what was to be a long-running boundary dispute with his neighbour, the tailor William Jackson, who lived in the cottage where Drumrauch Hall now stands:

The time when the hedge at the foot of Jackson paddock Jacque Barn was cut by my order and in my presence
after harvest    1850    by Ramshaw
after harvest    1851    by Thos Brown

Some jottings show his open-handedness in giving and lending money to his parishioners, as for example:

Teddy has paid towards his boots    0 – 6 – 7   Decr 27th 1851

Other entries include notes of the number of days worked for him by the Meynells, Hebron, "Joe" and Pat Cannon and details of the substantial sum of £309-19s he had made in 1854 on sales of crops grown on his glebe land.

The 1851 census found Robert Barlow and all his family together in the vicarage: his wife, his three sisters and his nephew Hector.

They had a very suitable complement of servants – cook, housemaid and groom – indicating a well-to-do middle-class household.  The cook and maid were two Hutton Rudby girls aged 20 and 17, Catherine and Elizabeth Bainbridge, and the groom was an Irish lad, John McLaughlin, aged 18.

Hector Vaughan was then 18 years old and must soon afterwards have begun his career in the army, entering the 1st Battalion 20th Foot (East Devonshire) Regiment [1].  At this time an army officer was generally expected to have a private income in addition to his pay.  Hector may have inherited money from his father's family, or possibly his mother passed on to him some of the income from his father's Will and her own marriage settlement.

For this census Mr Barlow gave his age as 47 and reduced his wife's age from nearly 70 to 45.  His two eldest sisters are described as aged 30 and 28 years old, while their younger sister Nanny has a mere fourteen years taken off her age, which is given as 36. 

Chapter 17. 1844 to 1851: Changing Times

The parsonage house once completed, Mr Barlow and his household could leave Linden Grove and establish themselves in their new home.

He seems to have been more than usually disorganised at this time.  His brother's death, the building work and the removals must have absorbed much of his attention; probably papers lost in the move contributed to his failure to make entries in the parish registers.  His household may also have been distracted by anxieties for the condition of Ireland, now in the dreadful grip of the Famine.

Possibly he was too preoccupied with these matters to pay sufficient attention to the village school.  However the 1845 report of an inspector visiting the village school may reflect something more seriously amiss in the original construction ten years earlier – he found the condition of the building and especially its roof to be "not good" [1]. 

In August 1846 Lord Falkland returned from Nova Scotia at the end of his term of office.  He and his wife were to spend less than two years in England, and much of this time will have been spent in London where he had been given the post of Captain of the Queen's Bodyguard of Yeomen of the Guard.  In the spring of 1848, he and his household left for India ,where his term as Governor of Bombay began on 1 May. 

Chapter 16. Melancholy Intelligence: the death of James Barlow Hoy

Local life at this period is brought vividly to life in the Stokesley press.

The Stokesley News & Cleveland Reporter was launched by the young George Markham Tweddell in 1842.  It was critical of government and an ardent supporter of the Anti-Corn Law League in a time of deepening recession.  Tweddell's employer William Braithwaite had printed the first two issues for him until Tweddell refused to tone down the political content.  The Cleveland Repertory & Stokesley Advertiser was Braithwaite's response – politically conservative and carrying far fewer political items, it was also a more enlivening read [1]. 

In their pages we find accounts of local events:  births, deaths and marriages, the Cleveland Cattle Show, the Cleveland Agricultural Society, balls at the Crown in Osmotherley and the Fox and Hounds at Carlton, cricket matches, lectures in favour of teetotalism and against slavery, meetings of the local branches of the Oddfellows Society, visiting circuses, agricultural accidents, the Stokesley and Redcar races, police reports and local and national politics.

Mr Barlow can be spotted at the fifth anniversary meeting of the Cleveland District Committee of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, held in the Great Room of the Mill, the Earl of Zetland presiding [2], and also conducting the funeral service of Jeremiah Raney, landlord of the Wheatsheaf.  As Mr Raney was a member of the Oddfellows, this was extensively reported by George Markham Tweddell, himself an officer of the Cleveland Lodge, and was well attended by members "wearing the usual funeral regalia of the Order" [3]. 

By 1843 Mr Barlow was ready to undertake a new major project in his parish. 

Chapter 14. Deaths, Changes & Recession: 1837 to 1842

On 20 June 1837 King William IV died.  It was a personal grief to his daughter Amelia, Lady Falkland, who had lost her sister Sophia in childbirth earlier in the year, but it was also a blow to her husband's career.

Lord Falkland had been made a Privy Councillor on 1 March, but a new reign brought a new Court and there was no hope of future favour.  His new mansion house at Skutterskelfe was nearly complete, but in the event he and his wife and son had only a short time in which to enjoy it before he left the country.  A career in public service was the answer to his financial problems, and on 30 September 1840 Lord Falkland took office as Governor of Nova Scotia, leaving a steward at Skutterskelfe Hall. 

It is not clear whether by 1840 George Brigham was still acting as Lord Falkland's agent.

His old friend John Lee of Pinchinthorpe Hall had died a few years earlier in 1836, and it is said that he shot himself.  Lee was unmarried but for some years before his death had been paying a considerable amount for the upkeep of an illegitimate child, and his estate was left heavily encumbered with debt [1].  Perhaps the personal and social difficulties arising from the Harker and Powell Chancery case also contributed to his unhappiness. 

In December 1841, George Brigham himself died at the age of fifty-one.  His brother-in-law James Dobbin registered the death, giving the cause as "general debility"; the registrar was Brigham's old enemy Thomas Harker.

George died without making a Will, as he had nothing to leave [2].  His eldest son George, who was only thirteen years old at the time, later became a clerk with Messrs Backhouse & Co, the Darlington bankers.  When asked in 1854 if he would act in the still-continuing Chancery case, in his capacity as his father's heir-at-law, he not surprisingly declined. 

The general depression in trade deepened after 1836, and while Whitby dwindled in importance as whaling declined, Middlesbrough grew ever larger.

Chapter 13. Agitation, Ambition & Education

Mr Barlow, now established in his parish, was eager to make improvements to the church in Rudby.  On 2 July 1833, the churchwardens' accounts record that

At a meeting held this day according to Publick Notice Sarah Hebbron was elected Sexton and to have £2-12 per year for doing the duty of a Sexton to attend to the fires and keep the church clean.  The Churchwardens to see about getting the stove in repair. 

It was signed by Mr Barlow, the Middleton farmer Thomas Righton, the doctor Thomas Harker and John Sidgwick the grocer.

Mr Barlow must have been very anxious to have the stoves in working order – the Primitive Methodist chapel, only ten years old and packed with an enthusiastic congregation, would be much warmer and more attractive in the winter.  Unfortunately the stove could not be repaired and had to be replaced at a cost of £18; the result of the ensuing work – including more than £5 to the stone mason – was an expenditure of nearly £65.

Whilat Henry Bainbridge was happy to assist the vicar with this – perhaps in part because Hutton Rudby Methodists still brought their babies to baptism in the otherwise unheated church – the people of Hilton were not so amenable.  For historical reasons Hilton still paid a levy towards the upkeep of Rudby church, and not surprisingly in 1833 they refused to pay [1].  It was not only Nonconformists who found church rates objectionable.

Stokesley may have become a much quieter town during the previous decade, but it was still very much agitated by political argument on the great issues of the day.

Chapter 12. The Aftermath of the Cholera

After a time, however, legends began to gather round the episode.  The combination of a clergyman and a pestilence naturally brought echoes of the well-known story of the plague-stricken Derbyshire village of Eyam, where the parishioners were persuaded by their vicar to shut the village off from the outside world, so as not to spread the infection to their neighbours. 

By the middle of the 20th century the cholera story had distinct overtones of Eyam.  In fact, by some the cholera mound was believed to be a plague mound, dating from many centuries earlier – which may have further confused the issue.

Doctors Lane was by then assumed to be the place where the medical officers coming out from Northallerton halted to discover the progress of the epidemic, coming no nearer for fear of infection.  In fact the name "Doctor Lane" is to be found in a deed of 15 September 1824 [1], and numerous doctors attended the sick, as can be seen from letters and reports – Mr Allardice of Stokesley, Mr Wisker of York, Dr Young of Yarm, Drs Keenlysides and Cock of Stockton, and the "junior aid" referred to by Mr Barlow, which included Dr Crummey. 

Chapter 11. 1832: The year of the Cholera

The year 1832 was one of great political and social upheaval.

The battle for the Reform Bill – witnessed close at hand by Lord Falkland, who was given a peerage of the United Kingdom by his father-in-law that May, and keenly followed by James Barlow Hoy in Hampshire – led to riots in many areas.

The citizens of York burnt the Archbishop in effigy outside his palace when, through a misunderstanding, he voted to defeat the Bill [1].  In the pocket borough of Northallerton there were lively scenes in support of reform, with a great open-air party at Brompton.

When the Bill was finally passed, the change in suffrage necessitated another general election, and in December 1832 James Barlow Hoy stood again as candidate for Southampton, this time successfully.

It was also the year that established Mr Barlow in the affections of his parishioners and made his reputation for posterity.  This was the year of the cholera.

Chapter 10. 1831: Mr Barlow's first year in Hutton Rudby

The area around his new home would have had much to interest Robert Barlow's lively mind.  He had a great interest in the physical world and delighted in technical and practical matters – as can be seen in his decision to design the village school himself, his appreciation of Humboldt's Cosmos, and in the surviving draft of his letter to the Lords of the Admiralty suggesting improvements in warship design.

He cannot but have been fascinated by the Mandale Cut, built in 1810 to take two miles from the distance between Stockton and the sea, and the Portrack Cut, opened only days after his arrival in the village.

He may have been less than impressed by the railway bridge over the Tees, which Isambard Kingdom Brunel described as a "wretched thing".

By the time of his arrival, ninety-five lots in the planned new town of Middlesbrough had been sold – the Revd Isaac Benson had bought two, and two men from Hutton Rudby, the builder Thomas Davison and the yeoman William Scales, had also been among the purchasers.

Mr Barlow's parishioners were people with a keen interest in matters beyond their village, and the arrival of Lord Falkland will have given them a gratifying feeling of being part of the new reign of his father-in-law King William IV.

Chapter 9. Mr Barlow & his Neighbourhood

Robert may have already visited his brother James in Hampshire, but it is possible that he had never set foot in England before his arrival in early 1831.

He was instituted vicar of Hutton Rudby on 3 January [1], and arrived in the parish a short while later [2], a young and energetic man dressed in the usual clothes of a gentleman – it was not then customary for clergymen to wear clerical dress. 

There was no parsonage house at Hutton Rudby.

Mr Grice had lived in Hutton and purchased property of his own in the parish, and Mr Shepherd seems to have rented Hutton House from Lady Amherst.  An earlier vicar, George Stainthorpe, had lived in Rudby "in a house which I farm of the Honourable Colonel", George Cary. 

Accompanied by his wife and possibly one of his spinster sisters to keep her company, Mr Barlow settled into a comfortable house a little way outside Enterpen.  This had previously been known as Suggitt's Grove, and had been the home of Benjamin David Suggitt, the gentlemanly yeoman farmer who had built the Primitive Methodists their chapel.  The planting of an avenue of lime trees had given rise to a new and more genteel name, Linden Grove, and it now belonged to Suggitt's nephew, Dr George Merryweather of Whitby.  Merryweather, who was the inventor of the  Tempest Prognosticator, a device using leeches in jars to forecast bad weather, let the property, with some additional farmland, to Mr Barlow.

Chapter 8. The Living of Rudby-in-Cleveland

The patronage of the living of Rudby-in-Cleveland went with the ownership of the manor of Rudby, but for a time in the early 19th century the advowson of Rudby was in other hands.

Lady Amherst had sold the rectorial rights of the parish to three gentlemen, Edward Wolley or Woolley of York, William Drinkrow of Great Driffield and Thomas Kendall of Gate Fulford [1].

Edward Wolley was an influential York solicitor, Undersheriff of York and Grand Master of the York Grand Lodge of Freemasons.  On coming into a family inheritance, he later changed his name to Copley.  By 1808 he had purchased the manor of Potto, which adjoins Hutton, and also the advowson for Rudby and East Rounton.  He predeceased Lady Amherst by some years, dying before 1819 [2] leaving a young son to inherit his property.

However, it appears that his estate had become the subject of a Chancery case [3], which delayed the grant of Probate for a considerable time.  By 1830 his son Edward Thomas Copley [4] was twenty-eight years old, and may by then have taken charge of his inheritance. 

The Revd Richard Shepherd had come to Hutton Rudby as curate to Mr Grice, and had evidently decided that he would like to stay.  A relation or friend would then have approached the owners of the advowson to buy the next presentation for him.

His sudden illness ten years later at the age of forty-two must have put young Mr Copley and his advisors in a delicate position, because to advertise the failing health of an incumbent was to invite an accusation of simony.

Chapter 7. Robert Barlow & his family

 Into this lively township came the young Irish clergyman, Robert Joseph Barlow.  He must have carried with him a slight aura of exoticism, coming as a prosperous outsider from across the Irish Sea into a small Yorkshire community, and he would naturally be the object of great curiosity.

It cannot have been long before his parishioners realised that this was indeed an unusual man from an unconventional background.

The only surviving photograph of him, taken in about 1865, shows an alert and humorous face with wildly curling dark hair and beard, and light-coloured eyes – so it seems he inherited from his father the black curly hair and blue eyes that he described in his lightly-fictionalised account of his family's history, written in old age [1] .

Robert Barlow was Anglo-Irish, born into the Protestant Ascendancy that had ruled Ireland for centuries.  Divided by religion and language from the native population, they also seemed half-foreign to their counterparts in England.

The novelist Anthony Trollope returned from his time in Ireland with a noisy, boisterous social manner that was often commented on [2], and Jane Austen once described an Anglo-Irish family as "bold, queer-looking people" [3].

Robert was born in Dublin in about 1804 [4], just after the great events that were to determine the course of Irish history in the 19th and 20th centuries – the Rebellion of the radical United Irishmen in 1798 and the passing of the Act of Union in 1800.  Parliament House in Dublin, which had been the first purpose-built parliament house in the world, had been sold to the Bank of Ireland, and Dublin would soon sink into the long decline that would last until 1922. 

Robert was the youngest child of John Barlow, gentleman, and his wife Ann.  He loved and admired his mother, and in his novel told her story with the greatest sympathy and affection.  She in turn was devoted to him – he "was a prime favourite" with her, "and used to be called her white-headed boy" [5].