When George IV. came to the throne and divided the opinion of the country upon the subject of his treatment of Queen Caroline, the boys shared the prevailing differences of sentiment and became "Kingites" or "Queenites," and occasionally settled their differences in pitched battles after the manner of boys in all ages, in some cases actually wearing their colours—purple for the King and white for the Queen. The prevailing sentiment was, however, in Royston so much for the Queen, that "the first gentleman in Europe," notwithstanding his patronage of and comrades in the prize-fighting ring, could hardly find enough champions for a fight, even among the boys.
In later years Chartism reached Royston and caused a flutter in the breasts of those concerned with the status quo, for it appears that one Joseph Peat had "held forth" by permission of the landlord at the "Coach and Horses." The Magistrates had a meeting to prevent the spread of Chartism in consequence of this event, and the landlord was sent for and cautioned that if he allowed such a thing again he would lose his licence.
The beginning of all positive work set about by negative process is slow, and this, I suppose, would apply to keeping outside a public-house, for the Teetotal folk in Royston—handicapped, as in other places, by a name that has ever prejudiced and hampered a public movement—found out this to their cost.
They did not lack stimulants when they first began to hold meetings, for the opposition camp came to the meeting, took care to come provided, and, fortifying themselves with bottles of beer, raised so much clamour that the recently enrolled policeman had to try his hand at checking intemperance and some broken heads rewarded his exertions. The publicans generally attended the meetings in good force and between the rival parties, instead of applause there was sometimes breaking of windows if nothing worse. The British School was one of the first public rooms used for these meetings.
Of popular entertainments, as we now understand them, there were very few, not one where we now have a score, and until the erection of the British School no suitable building. It must not, however, be supposed that the town was entirely without the means of occasional recreation. The Assembly Room at the Red Lion was still a place of importance for public assemblies, and, for some years before Queen Victoria came to the throne, this room was the scene of some creditable displays of local talent. This talent took the thespian form, and the tradesmen of the town, banded together as the Royston Theatrical Amateur Society, were accustomed to draw the elite of the town and neighbourhood into 3s. and 2s. 6d. seats (nothing less!) while they placed on the boards a rattling good version of Bombastes Furioso and other pieces in popular favour at the time.
Reference has been made to the reluctance of the Parish Authorities—once bitten, twice shy—to let the Parish Room again as a School after the legal difficulty about getting rid of the tenant, but to their credit be it said they made an exception in favour of music—with a proviso. The late Mr. James Richardson, when a young man, it is on record, applied to the Parish Authorities "on behalf of several persons forming a Musical Band of this Town, that they may be allowed the use of the Vestry Room to meet and practise in." "Allowed providing they pay the constable to attend and see that everything is left secure and to prevent the boys annoying them or doing mischief to the premises."
Music, though confined to a few choice spirits beneath fustian and smock frocks in village as well as town, played a much more important part with our grandfathers than is commonly supposed. It may seem a rash statement to make that in some respects we may have degenerated. If we play or sing with better tune or finish it is because we have better appliances, not better brains nor more devoted hearts for music. I am afraid that some of our extensive cultivation of music is a sacrifice of fond parents on the altar of the proprieties, whereas our grandfathers had a soul in their work, and the man with his heart in his work—whether scraping a fiddle, ploughing a furrow, writing an epic, or fighting a battle—must, by all honest men, be awarded the palm. In this over-riding of music as a hobby there is a danger that the salt may lose its savour, for if there is any individual more to be pitied than another it is the so-called musician standing up to play according to the rules of art with no response from the inmost soul of him.
I do not think, at any rate, that those of our grandfathers who directed their attention to the fiddle, bass-viol, flute, clarionet, or trombone, could be fairly considered to lay under such reproach, for though their music may have been sometimes flat and sometimes sharp, it was always natural and congenial in the highest degree.