ANCIENT DUDLEY SOUP KITCHEN.
In the earlier part of this book I have had occasion to refer to the commencement of the present Dudley Soup Kitchen, which I consider is well supported by the town, and does an immense amount of real good, in distributing such large quantities of excellent soup amongst the poor and indigent classes in bad winter weather; since that was printed I have been favoured with the following particulars of the old Soup Kitchen, established in 1799. The establishment of this Soup Kitchen and Relief to the poor commenced in November of that year, in consequence of much stagnation in the then local trades of the town, and great distress amongst the poor. A Subscription List was opened by a few leading individuals, resident in the town, which was heartily supported by all classes in the town from the peer to the peasant.
| £ s. d. | |
| Lord Dudley | 63 0 0 |
| Edward Dixon | 50 0 0 |
| Edward Hancox | 35 0 0 |
| D. and R. Parsons | 42 0 0 |
| J. and B. Hodgetts | 42 0 0 |
| Whitehouse, Moore, and Guest | 42 0 0 |
| James Cartwright | 21 0 0 |
| James Wainwright | 21 0 0 |
| James Bourne | 21 0 0 |
| Edward Cockshutt | 15 15 0 |
| Charles Roberts | 15 15 0 |
| Joseph Hill | 12 12 0 |
| Richard Parkes | 15 15 0 |
| Luke Booker | 10 10 0 |
| G. and B. Parker | 52 10 0 |
| Samuel and William Bennett | 42 0 0 |
| John Simpson | 31 10 0 |
| Jos. Amphlett | 25 0 0 |
| Exors Abiathar Hawkes | 25 0 0 |
| John Twamley | 10 10 0 |
| Thomas Wainwright | 10 10 0 |
| William Perry | 10 10 0 |
| William Penn | 10 10 0 |
| John Bolton | 10 10 0 |
| John Hateley | 10 10 0 |
| Leah Parkes | 10 10 0 |
| Southall & Co. | 10 10 0 |
| John and Edward Davies | 10 10 0 |
&c., &c.
This handsome commencement was quickly followed by 82 other subscribers of smaller amounts, making a grand total of £804 17s. raised by the good people of Dudley in those hard times, for the sustenance and relief of their poorer brethren.
On November 19th, 1800, the accounts were duly examined and audited, when the sum of £781 16s. 4d. had been expended during the year, amongst the poor and helpless in the parish.
Signed,
S. Bennitt,
Jos. Hateley,
Richard Moore,
B. Hughes,
B. Hodgetts.
Edward Dixon.
Edward Hancox.
J. Wainwright.
In January, 1813, it is recorded that this town and district was at this time visited with great depression in trade, and much sickness and distress prevailed amongst the working classes. A very handsome subscription was at once started, with most encouraging results, for the sum of £870 11s. 9d. was (before the end of March) raised for the relief of the Poor by 171 subscribers, giving another evidence of the good will and care of the rich for their poorer neighbours.
1816. This year was one of the most disastrous in our annals; an awful wet harvest followed close upon the war, which had just then successfully terminated, with the finances of the country in a very disordered state, casting a settled gloom and distrust all over the land.
The parish of Dudley unhappily shared in these hard times, for we find that on November 30th, 1816, a Public Meeting was held at the Public Office. Mr. Edward Guest occupied the chair. At this meeting a Committee was appointed to collect subscriptions for a Soup Kitchen and relief of the necessitous poor, when the appeal was equally successful, for the sum of £831 2s. 0d. was speedily subscribed by 162 contributors, and judiciously given amongst the poor.
July 29th, 1817. At a meeting of the subscribers to the Soup Charity held this day, it was resolved,—That the accounts produced by Mr. Guest appear so highly satisfactory that he be requested to accept our best thanks for his services. Resolved,—That the thanks of the Society be also voted to Mr. Gordon, for his kind and active services. Resolved,—That as a reward for Mrs. Stilyard’s particular attention in the management and superintending in the making of soup, the sum of two guineas be presented to her for the same. Resolved,—That the balance, after discharging the small debts, to remain in the hands of Messrs. Dixon, Dalton & Co., the Treasurers appointed.
Luke Booker,
Thos. Badger,
Timothy Hill,
Thomas Fehr.
Richd. Lakin.
Richd. Bond.
There are varied scenes near the neighbourhood of the town of Dudley, where antiquity and picturesque beauty, art, and nature present themselves in every wondrous form. The secrets and wonders of former worlds are to be found in our Limestone and Silurian formations, which are daily worked by the active miner; the very extensive employment of manufactures and commerce are well worth an inspection by the stranger who may visit our ancient town; for these mixed sources of contemplation are adequately fitted to engage the attention of the curious, and the searcher for scientific truth, and to fill the mind of the moralist, the poet, the politician, and the philanthropist with sentiments akin to reverence and thankfulness.
My labours being now ended, I trust that this memento of many humorous and stirring events, in the social and political life of this ancient borough, may prove a source of amusement and happy reflection to the aged, and lessons of instruction to the young, and the comparative strangers in our midst; bearing in mind that we now live and move under very altered conditions of both social and moral life, leading us to feel thankful that we are now living in the age of national progression.
I have studiously avoided commenting upon the various charities in this town, because an abler pen than mine has recently undertaken that most necessary illustration of the “Charities of Dudley,” which I feel assured could not be in safer hands than our highly esteemed Town Clerk of Dudley, Edward M. Warmington, Esq., Solicitor. Let us hope that these learned “Articles on the Charities of Dudley” may shortly be collected and printed in a volume for local preservation. I have, finally, greatly to thank many ladies and gentlemen, in and around Dudley, for their courtesy and kindness, in furnishing me with copies of many additional paragraphs which appear in this book.
C. F. G. C.
Finis.
DUDLEY CASTLE
FROM THE NORTH-EAST, 1810
[FOOTNOTES:]
[1] The Lecturer cannot sufficiently express the delight he experienced, when, at the termination of the lecture, he was informed, that the gentleman who first applied the principle here noticed to practical purposes was at that time in the lecture room. Under the management of our able and ingenious townsman, Mr. Richardson, “the Dudley Gas Works” consume in the furnaces this singular species of fuel; gas tar being used with the water to effect its decomposition; after three years’ experience Mr. Richardson bears testimony to the importance of the discovery.
[2] Formerly a banker, but at time of the Procession a bankrupt, on an extensive scale, in the neighbourhood.
“A low prelusive strain, to nature true.”
Southey.
“A sudden storm, with terrible ding dong,
Swept through the streets and wash’d the crowd along.”
Tom Thumb the Great.
Thus fear and interest will prevail with some;
For all have not the gift of martyrdom.
Dryden.
[6] An apt conjunction of lawn and black satin, we entitle a Bishop.
Tale of a Tub.
[7] He is a main scholard, Latins it hugely, and talks his own mother tongue as well as one of your varsity Doctors.
Don Quixote.
Video meliora, proboque.
Ovid.
Cantabit vacuus.
Juv.
Post ingentia facta Decorum in tomplum receptus.
Hor.
Raro antecedentem scelestum,
Deseruit pede, pœna, claudo.
Hor.
——The wind sallied forth,
And in anger or merriment, out of the north
From the peak of the crag blew his rev’rence away.
Wordsworth.
Such was the wight: th’ apparel on his back,
Tho’ coarse, was rev’rend; and tho’ bare was black.
Pope.
[14] The Poet glanceth at copper tokens, which these disinterested tradesmen had issued in great abundance, solely with an eye to the public good, and which by reason of their being, as was said, recently counterfeited, were in no very high repute at the time of the procession.
[15] He was once thought to be a great Presbyterian, if not worse.
[16] Hark ye, Sir, a word in your ear. You are a coxcomb by all the rules of physiogonomy. But let that be a secret between you and me.
Addison’s Drummer.
I know a lady in Venice would have walk’d barefoot to Palestine, for a touch of his nether lip.
Shakespeare.
He carries fate and physic in his eye.
Crabbe.
Good morrow, Benedick: why what’s the matter,
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm, and cloudiness?
Shaks.
Oh! I thought I should faint, when I saw him, dear mother,
Feel my pulse with one hand, with a watch in the other;
No token of death that is heard in the night
Could ever have put me so much in affright:
Thinks I—’tis all over—my sentence is past,
And now he is counting how long I may last.
New Bath Guide.
Procul discordibus armis.
Virg.
They were all of opinion ’tis proper to cheer,
The stomach and bowels as well as the ear.
New Bath Guide.
Vivitur ex rapto.
Ovid.
Thence from cups to civil broils.
Milton.
[25] The Vicar’s live stock is said to be of the starveling family, like the nags in the Epigram:
“Thy nags (the leanest things alive)
So very hard thou lov’st to drive;
I heard thy anxious coachman say,
It cost thee more in whips than hay.”
Intus et in cute novi.
Pers.
[27] Our author’s little anachronism, in wishing the ladies to be mothers first, and wives afterwards, it is hoped will be pardoned as an unavoidable sacrifice to the rhyme.
[28] Had not the pious Doctor given us his word that the Epigram was totally unnoticed by him till Monday morning, we might have been inclined to suspect that the following lines of Pope were descriptive of the manner in which he spent his Sunday evening hours.
“Swearing and supperless the hero sate
Then gnaw’d his pen, then dash’d it on the ground,
Thinking from thought to thought, a vast profound
Plung’d far his sense, but found no bottom there,
Yet wrote and flounder’d on in mere despair.”
[29] This vaunted concern for the glory of the church, we would charitably hope, is real, and not like that of Rebel, in the Comedy of the Committee-man curried by Sam. Sheppard. I laugh (says Rebel) to think when I counterfeit a whining passion, and talk of God and goodness, walk with a sad and mortified countenance, how I’m admired among the brethren, and styled a man of God.
And thus I cloke my naked villany
With old odd ends stolen forth of holy writ,
And seem a saint when most I play the Devil.
Shakspeare.
Like will to like,—says the Proverb.
A lizard’s body lean and long,
A fish’s head a serpent’s tongue.
Cameleon.
[31]Who more fit to unkennel the fox, than the honest terrier who is part of him.
Hickeringill.
Feliciter is sapit, qui periculo alieno sapit.
Plaut.
[33] Of these I am told that our respected fellow-townsman, Mr. Lester, retires owing to illness, but will continue to evince his interest and good wishes by nominating his late colleagues, with some others, for your approval.
[34] The Circular issued by the Vicar and Warden, dated August 20th.
[35] This note was received through the Post on Sunday morning in an unstamped envelope.
[36] This large increase in the number of electors arose from the fact that the Borough of Dudley was included in the Act of 1873, which gave a large increase of voters to many boroughs in the country, by embracing in their boundaries large adjacent populous villages.
[37] The reason why this account of the building of the Parish Church does not appear at the beginning of this Book, arose from the inability to obtain a copy of these documents until the work was nearly printed off.—Editor.
[38] We have seen this item in Dr. Booker’s handwriting.
Dud Dudley’s
Metallum Martis:
OR,
IRON
MADE WITH
Pit-coale,
Sea-coale,
&c.
And with the same Fuell to Melt and
Fine Imperfect Mettals, and Refine
perfect Mettals.
LONDON, Printed by T. M. for the Authour.
1665.
N.B.—This Work is an exact reprint from the original, and the errors in spelling and the peculiar Grammar of the Author have been faithfully followed.