Amongst various parish or local matters, of which the bodily presence has, to a great degree, passed away, and the remembrance that at one time such things were has probably faded from most of the minds in which they ever held a place, are turnpike gates, with their adjoining toll-houses; also the parish stocks and the parish pound.
In parochial arrangements in my day two great improvements arose, one of which has now long been a regular part of parish work, but was new at least to us. This was a women’s clothing club. The other was the commencement of the plan of lending books to those who otherwise would rarely have seen them. It was introduced by my sister, Georgiana E. Ormerod, when little more than a girl, quite at her own expense. It was continued by her without any pecuniary assistance (unless may be sometimes some small co-operation from myself) to the end of her long life.
The clothing club was set on foot under some difficulties by the wife of one of the clergy resident in our parish, for the goods procurable at Chepstow, the nearest town, were by no means remarkable for their quality, and Mrs. Morgan thought herself bound to do the best in her power for her poor subscribers. So the matter was accommodated (not without a good deal of grumbling from Chepstow shopkeepers about money being taken out of their pockets) by part of the goods brought from Bristol (where excellent material was to be had) for the women to choose from, being sent previous to “club day” to Mr. Morgan’s large and commodious house. In those days, so far as I know, the plan of sending the women with tickets to the shops had not been adopted, and our method, though exceedingly laborious to the lady manager of the club, was good for the women, for it ensured that their choice was confined to the very best materials, all of a useful kind, and at the lowest possible prices.
When a growing up girl, perhaps about sixteen, my sister Georgiana thought it would be a pleasure to the children of our own cottagers to have some entertaining books, and she began by lending them from the small store which had gradually come down from the elders of our generation. She chose carefully what she thought would be of interest, and very soon the elder children took to reading, or sometimes the fathers would read aloud to their families. My sister always either read the books herself or knew the nature of the contents before lending them, and when done with they were brought back and exchanged. The borrowing rapidly spread beyond our own cottagers till it included our farmers and their friends at Gloucester and Bristol. The books were almost invariably treated with all reasonable care, and scarcely ever was one a-missing. Besides the entertainment, they acted as an antidote to the attractions of the public-house. It was a great delight to my sister when she had a request for a book, because Jack or Dick was home from his ship or on a holiday, and they wanted a book that would keep him from the “public.” I attribute much of my sister’s success to the care with which, even after her book-lending had extended to far-distant localities, she chose the books. On one occasion when she had made a donation of books of her own choosing to the Lending Library, Bethnal Green, London, she was greatly pleased to hear that the boys and girls had passed the word round amongst the factories of the entertaining books that had arrived. Those we found suited best (for I was in some degree her assistant) were accounts of real incidents made into narratives. Ballantyne’s earlier books with accounts of the fire brigade, post office, lighthouse and the like were great favourites, perhaps none the less for the conversations being at times a trifle vulgar; but when a writer took up some special view, as of teetotalism, high-churchism, or any other specialism, we dropped him. Stories of olden times, such as the Plague in London, or the Great Fire; risings in Henry the Eighth’s time; wars of the time of Charles the First and Cromwell; forest troubles of the time of William Rufus, and the like—told as stories, with the facts correct although the thread on which they were strung was imaginary—were always favourites. We seldom lent absolutely religious books unless they were asked for, and then we took care that they should be of a solid and interesting sort; but whether sacred or secular the number of books lent or given for lending in the course of the year was very great.
My sister was a highly accomplished woman, a good linguist and historian, and a careful scriptural student. As a scientific entomologist and a Fellow of the Entomological Society of London, she was a co-operator with me in my work. She devoted her artistic talent for many years to the execution of excellent diagrams, serviceable for agricultural purposes, of insects injurious to farm and orchard produce, some of which she made over to the Royal Agricultural Society, but the greater number she presented to friends interested in lessening the amount of loss through insect injury, and to Agricultural Colleges. From girlhood to old age she unceasingly carried on her chosen work of distribution of useful healthy literature. She asked no aid, nor made the considerable sums she expended, and the careful cordial thought she gave to this work, matter of public notoriety, but in her last moments it brought a smile to her face when I told her that I purposed to continue her work.
My father when living near Chester had the first news on a Sunday morning before church time, of the Duke of Wellington’s success, and that the battle of Waterloo had been fought and won. After service he mounted on a tombstone and announced the glorious news to the assembled congregation. In my early days in Gloucestershire, a neighbour, Captain Fenton, was at times thought to be tedious in his recurrence to the charge of the Scots Greys in which he had served, but it was a grand memory all the same.
In a much humbler sphere and at a different stage of the same great struggle an interesting part was played by a very decent woman—afterwards a servant in our family—at the burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna. She was proud to remember that she was one of those who held a lanthorn at the ceremony alluded to in Wolfe’s poem:—
“We buried him darkly at dead of night
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