It has always been a tradition in our family that the courtship between Rowland Hill and Caroline Pearson began when their united ages amounted to eleven years only, the boy being by twelve months the elder. The families on both sides lived at the time at Wolverhampton, and the first kiss is said to have been exchanged inside a large culvert which crossed beneath the Tettenhall Road in the neighbourhood of the Hills' house, and served to conduct a tiny rivulet, apt in wet weather to become a swollen stream, into its chosen channel on the other side the way. The boy delighted to creep within this shelter—often dry in summer—and listen to the rumbling overhead of the passing vehicles. Noisy, ponderous wains some of these were, with wheels of great width and strength, and other timbers in like proportion; but to the small listener the noisier the more enjoyable. These wains have long vanished from the roads they helped to wear out, the railway goods trains having superseded them, although of late years the heavy traction engines, often drawing large trucks after them, seem likely to occupy the place filled by their forgotten predecessors. Little Rowland naturally wished to share the enchanting treat with “Car,” as he generally called his new friend, and hand in hand the “wee things” set off one day to the Tettenhall Road. Many years later the elderly husband made a sentimental journey to the spot, and was amazed at the culvert's apparent shrinkage in size. Surely, a most prosaic spot for the beginning of a courtship!
The father of this little girl was Joseph Pearson, a man held in such high esteem by his fellow-citizens that after the passing of the great Reform Bill in 1832 he was asked to become one of Wolverhampton's first two members.[10] He was, however, too old for the wear and tear of Parliamentary life, though when the General Election came on he threw himself with all his accustomed zeal into the struggle, and was, as a consequence, presently laid up with a temporary ailment, which caused one of his political foes to declare that “If Mr Pearson's gout would only last three weeks longer we might get our man in.” These words coming to Mr Pearson's ears, he rose from his sick-bed, gout or no gout, and plunged afresh into the fray, with so much energy that “we” did not “get our man in,” but the other side did.
“He was,” once said a many years old friend, “conspicuous for his breadth of mind, kindness of heart, and public spirit.” He hated the cruel sports common in his time, and sought unceasingly to put them down. One day, while passing the local bull-ring, he saw a crowd of rough miners and others preparing to bait a bull. He at once strode into their midst, liberated the animal, pulled up or broke off the stake, and carried it away on his shoulder. Was it his pluck, or his widespread popularity that won the forbearance of the semi-savage by-standers? At any rate, not a hostile finger was laid upon him. Meanwhile, he remembered that if brutalising pastimes are put down, it is but right that better things should be set in their place. Thus the local Mechanics' Institute, British Schools, Dispensary, and other beneficent undertakings, including rational sports for every class, owed their origin chiefly to him; and, aided by his friend John Mander, and by the Rev. John Carter, a poor, hard-working Catholic priest, he founded the Wolverhampton Free Library.
Joseph Pearson was one of the most hospitable and genial of men, and, for his time, a person of some culture. He detested cliques and coteries, those paralysing products of small provincial towns, and would have naught to do with them. Men of great variety of views met round his dinner-table, and whenever it seemed necessary he would preface the repast with the request that theology and politics should be avoided. With his Catholic neighbours—Staffordshire was a stronghold of the “Old Religion” —the sturdy Nonconformist was on the happiest of terms, and to listen to the conversation of the often well-travelled, well-educated priests was to him a never-failing pleasure. For Catholic Emancipation he strove heartily and long. With all sects he was friendly, but chiefly his heart went out to those who in any way had suffered for their faith. One effect of this then not too common breadth of view was seen when, after his death, men of all denominations followed him to his grave, and the handsomest of the several journalistic tributes to his memory appeared in the columns of his inveterate political and theological opponent, the local Tory paper. A ward in the Hospital and a street were called after the whilom “king of Wolverhampton.”[11]
JOSEPH PEARSON.
From a Photograph by Messrs. Whiteley & Co.
The bust was the last work of Sir Francis Chantry.
He had three daughters, of whom my mother was the eldest. His wife died young, and before her sixteenth year Caroline became mistress of his house, and thus acquired the ease of manner and knowledge of social duties which made of her the charming hostess who, in later years, presided over her husband's London house. She will make a brief reappearance in other pages of this work.
Joseph Pearson's youngest daughter, Clara, was a beautiful girl, a frequent “toast” at social gatherings in the three counties of Stafford, Warwick, and Worcester—for toasts in honour of reigning belles were still drunk at festivities in provincial Assembly Rooms and elsewhere, what time the nineteenth century was in its teens. When very young she became engaged to her cousin, Lieutenant (afterwards Captain) Alexander Pearson, R.N., who at the time of Napoleon's sojourn at St Helena was stationed there, being attached to the man-of-war commanded by Admiral Plampin. One gift which Lieutenant Pearson gave my aunt she kept to the end of her life—a lock of Napoleon's hair. Lieutenant Pearson often saw the ex-Emperor, and, many years after, described him to us children—how, for instance, he would stand, silent and with folded arms, gazing long and fixedly seaward as though waiting for the rescue which never came. The lieutenant was one of the several young naval officers who worshipped at the shrine of the somewhat hoydenish Miss “Betsy” Balcombe, who comes into most stories of St. Helena of that time. Wholly unabashed by consideration of the illustrious captive's former greatness, she made of him a playmate—perhaps a willing one, for life must have been terribly dreary to one whose occupation, like that of Othello, was gone. Occasionally she shocked her hearers by addressing the ex-Emperor as “Boney,” though it is possible that the appellation so frequently heard in the mouths of his British enemies had no osseous association in his own ears, but was accepted as an endearing diminutive. One day, in the presence of several witnesses, our cousin being among them, she possessed herself of a sword, flourished it playfully before her, hemmed Napoleon into a corner, and, holding the blade above his head, laughingly exclaimed: “Maintenant j'ai vaincu le vanqueur du monde!” But there was no answering laugh; the superstitious Corsican turned pale, made some short, unintelligible reply, left the room, and was depressed and taciturn for the rest of the day. It was surmised that he took the somewhat tactless jest for an omen that a chief who had been beaten by a woman would never again lead an army of men.