1814. On January 14th, the deepest snow that had been known for 40 years began—was some days falling—and continued on the ground for five weeks, and in places drifts were 15 feet deep. The frost continued for 12 weeks, till March 20th. On the 8th of the month of January the frost was of almost unexampled severity. A fair was held on the Thames where a sheep was roasted. A card printed on the Thames during that strange winter fair is now in the Royston Institute Museum. Houses were in many cases snowed up, and the difficulties of traffic were enormous. Large gangs of labourers toiled at mountains of snow in order to open up the coaching routes. When the frost was 20 deg. below freezing point, Benjamin Dunham, seventy years of age, was found frozen to death between Barrington and Harlton.
The armed burglar was in evidence during the last and early years of the present century as a terror to householders, with this difference from the present system, that the offenders generally went in gangs. One notable event of this kind is connected with the residence of Squire Wortham (now Mr. J. E. Phillips) in Melbourn Street, Royston. The party, approaching from the Dog Kennel Lane in rear of the premises, disturbed the housekeeper, a Mrs. Cannon. She in her turn called out to Old Matt, the huntsman, but that worthy slept so soundly that she could not wake him; meanwhile the burglars seemed about to effect an entrance, when the redoubtable Mrs. Cannon secured a blunderbuss and, firing out of the window in the direction of the visitors, they made off. It was generally believed that the housekeeper shot one of the burglars, and years afterwards this was verified in a curious way by one of the party who, just before he died, made a confession to Mr. Stamford, then living at the Old Palace, to the effect that he was one of the party and that one of them was shot.
1826. On December 16th, a woman 61 years of age, "undertook for what the public of Royston chose to give her, to walk 92 miles in 24 consecutive hours—that is, starting from the White Lion in the High Street and walking through the town, half-a-mile in and half-a-mile out. She began her journey at 9 minutes after 4 on Friday afternoon (the weather unfavourable, the street excessively dirty and the boys rather troublesome) and completed her task at 3 minutes after 4 the next afternoon, having 6 minutes to spare."
1831. In 1831, with the uneasiness caused by the appearance of the cholera morbus at Sunderland and elsewhere, a great scare was occasioned in Royston, and the sanitary state of the town at last got an overhauling, when the result showed what a terrible state of things had prevailed in the town during the first decades of the century. Mr. E. K. Fordham, the veteran banker and reformer, was the first to set the ball rolling, and a regular scheme of house to house visitation was resorted to. A committee was appointed, and the town was divided into four parts, each committee to report to the Select Vestry. The state of things disclosed by that report now seems almost inconceivable. The Committee's work had a salutary effect, and this burst of zeal for the public health proceeded so far that a proposal was carried unanimously that a Board of Health be formed "for the more effectual removal of nuisances, and obtaining assistance from the Central Board should the cholera morbus unfortunately break out in this town." With the disappearance of all danger of the cholera morbus however the "Board of Health" fell through, but the effect of the enlightenment which it led to as to the condition of the town was not altogether lost. The cholera was then considered a new epidemic, and it broke out at Sunderland and carried off many thousand lives in the year. Hence the alarm spread to inland towns, the inhabitants of which, like Royston, had their eyes opened to things little thought of before, and that great principle of cause and effect took root in regard to public health, which led up to the Public Health Acts of the present day. It was on this visitation that Kingsley in his "Two Years Ago" gives such a graphic description of the terror caused by the appearance of the cholera, in the treatment of which he makes his hero Tom Thurnall take a notable part. Whether cholera actually appeared in the district I am unable to say, but I find an item for Royston, Cambs, "Cholera bills, &c., 14s. 3d." Probably this was part of the expense of the steps above described.
Some years after the above date, when vaccination had got established, a valiant Royston champion of the good old cause inoculated her family with small-pox. She was brought up at the Bull before the magistrates, who, evidently reluctant to punish her, asked if she would promise not to do the like again, to which she adroitly made answer that she could promise them this, that if she did do it again she would not tell anyone. This was not quite a recantation, and so the old lady had to go to Hertford gaol for seven days, and a crowd of people saw her off out of the town—one of the first victims of that law of compulsion of the individual for the public good which was to be a characteristic of the coming legislation.
1833. In this year the Royston Institute was founded under the name of the Royston Mechanics Institute. In 1855 the present building was erected partly on the site of the old turn-pike house, and it was opened in 1856.
1834. The lowering of Burleigh's, or Burloe's, Hill, Royston, by digging a cutting through, was begun about this time. The trustees of the Baldock and Bournbridge Turnpike Trust made a special contract by which the parish contracted to do the work for L250, the parish taking any risk of loss and any chance of profit on the transaction, and the work to extend over two years. Men who applied to the Overseer were set upon it, and there was a strike against 4d. per yard, the price fixed for the labour by Mr. Wm. Smith, the surveyor for one part of the work, and the Vestry stood by the Surveyor and decided that any men who refused to do it at that price should not be employed by the parish.
The labourers refused to work at it, and "as the magistrates sanctioned the offer of work at this hill as an answer to applicants for relief, the labourers who would have been relieved for want of employment have found work from private employers instead of living on compulsory relief from the parish. Labourers living out of the parish, and threatening to come home unless out-allowance was paid them, having been answered that there was two years' work provided for them, have altered their intention of coming home and have subsisted on their own resources." And so the Parochial Pharaohs, as the paupers regarded them, by practical common sense and a strong grip of the handle, managed to make the rough places plain, and the sturdy vagabonds—for many of the old paupers of these times deserved the name—with their threats to "come home to their parish," were kept at a safe distance on the horizon by the ring of picks and mattocks!
1835. In this year occurred the fire at Hatfield House in which the Marchioness of Salisbury was burnt to death; an event which created a great sensation in all parts of the county, the Marchioness having been quite a public character, and was, in fact, at one time mistress of the Hertfordshire Hounds, then called "Lady Salisbury's."
One of the strangest incidents connected with the old highway traffic of sixty years ago, was the mishap which occurred to an old stage wagon with three horses abreast, a team of eight, at Royston about 1835 or 1836, on a Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, in November. The incident was cleverly described by a versifier in the columns of the Herts. and Cambs. Reporter some years ago, but it is only necessary here to say that the wagon was travelling up to London, and reached Melbourn all right. Here, however, the sleepy teamster got his ponderous team too near a huge sign-post in the village, when