1840.
Parliament was engaged for a great part of the session with the question of privilege arising out of the Stockdale and Hansard case. The Whigs continued to hold office on most precarious tenure, being defeated in their proposal to allow Prince Albert £50,000 a year. A want of confidence motion, however, proposed by Sir J. Yarde Buller, resulted in a majority of 21 in their favour. The happy marriage of the Queen with Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg and Gotha was celebrated on the 10th February. Consols averaged 91; wheat averaged 66s. 4d.
February 4—The Board of Guardians for the Pershore Union petitioned the House of Lords for the dismissal of the assistant poor law commissioners, as a useless and expensive body of men. The Rev. F. Best opposed the motion, but it was carried by 25 to 5. The Droitwich Guardians did the same.
February 10—Her Majesty’s marriage kept in Worcester as a general holiday—dinners given to operatives by their employers—and a ball in the evening at the Guildhall. Public dinners at Great Malvern, Droitwich, and Evesham; and at the latter place a subscription was entered into for the poor, which amounted to 100 guineas.
March 28—The Worcestershire Agricultural Society held a general meeting of members to petition against any alteration of the Corn Laws. Sir A. Lechmere, Bart., was in the chair; and the petition, which was proposed by Mr. John Williams and seconded by Mr. John Dent, was unanimously adopted.
April 18—A rule granted by the Court of Queen’s Bench, calling upon E. B. Penrice, Esq., Mayor of Droitwich, to show cause why a writ of quo warranto should not be issued against him for having held the office of Mayor of that borough for three successive years. This discreditable proceeding was taken under an obsolete statute of Queen Anne’s time. Though the proceedings were abandoned, Mr. Penrice resigned the office, and Mr. Alderman Tombs was elected in his stead.
May—The Prisoners’ Relief Society first established. This association, with very limited means, has done much good, and that of a very necessary kind, in assisting well behaved prisoners to go to their homes and escape from temptation on their release from confinement. The credit of suggesting it is wholly due to the Rev. Thomas Pearson.
May—The Paul Pry made its appearance in Worcester, filled with scurrilous lampoons upon individual character, and the agent in that city received a sound horsewhipping in his own back parlour from one of the parties libelled.
June 11—An excited church rate contest in the parish of St. Martin, Worcester; the numbers at the close of the poll being—for a rate of four-pence in the pound, 185; against it, 183. A similar contest took place in St. Peter’s parish a few days afterwards, which ended in a majority of 66 for the rate—185 votes for and 119 against it.
July 22—Great dinner of the operatives of Bromsgrove, in an immense tent on the bowling green of the Bell Inn. G. F. Iddins, Esq., filled the chair, and nearly 1,200 persons sat down at the tables. William Acton, Esq., Mr. Twamley, Rev. T. Ashwell, Mr. J. B. Crane, Mr. F. T. Elgie, and the Rev. Mr. Blakeman were the chief speakers, and the obnoxiousness of church rates (a subject of great agitation at Bromsgrove) the chief theme.
July 31—Silver bread basket and waiter, pair of snuffers and tray presented to Captain Rayer of Hillworth, by the tithepayers and titheowners of Castlemorton, for the upright manner in which he had acted as agent for the great tithes of that parish for twenty years.
August 7—The Beer House Bill, introduced by Mr. Pakington, received the royal assent.
August 10—The Worcester Bridge Trustees having determined to widen the bridge, and offered a premium of ten guineas for the best plan, awarded the same to Mr. E. L. Williams, in preference to the plans of Mr. Daukes and Mr. Varden, by a majority of five. The bridge has been widened in accordance with Mr. Williams’s plan, and the alteration proves to be both elegant and durable.
September 23—Several bodies of dead infants found in an old house at Droitwich, where Mary Hall, an aged crone of very eccentric habits, resided. Her husband had been sexton of the parish of St. Peter’s, Droitwich, and during his last illness the woman had pretended to see his duties properly performed. These bodies, however—instead of taking the trouble to have them buried—she had stowed away amidst a variety of remnants of food and other odds and ends. The whole house was in a state of most disgusting filth. Mr. Hughes held an inquest on the skeletons, and verdicts of “Died by the visitation of God” were returned. Mr. W. H. Ricketts protested against all such proceedings, as unnecessary, and said that at the Michaelmas Sessions he should move for the disallowance of the expenses.
November 10—The boiler of a new locomotive, which had been brought on the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway for trial, exploded while standing in a shed at the Bromsgrove Station, and two men in the Company’s employ, named Rutherford and Scaife, were killed. The boiler plates were supposed not to have been of sufficient thickness.
November 13—Lord Lyttelton became a candidate for the office of High Steward of Cambridge, in opposition to Lord Lyndhurst. Lord Lyndhurst had 973 votes, to 487 given for Lord Lyttelton.
Local Act—For the establishment of a Court of Requests for the parishes of Kingsnorton and Northfield.