On the 23rd of May, 1833, a special vestry was held for the purpose of nominating candidates and electing a person to fill the office. Mr. Hewett, who was backed by the most influential men of the select vestry, was nominated by two of the members of that body, amid many expressions of disapprobation. Other individuals were nominated by their respective friends; but they were but coldly received. At length Mr. Venables, a barrister of high standing and respectability, proposed John Shipp, with a glowing eulogium on his character and qualifications. The nomination was received with loud and reiterated cheers. Mr. Hall, also an eminent barrister, afterwards a magistrate at Bow Street, seconded the nomination. The show of hands being greatly in favour of Mr. and Mrs. Shipp, a poll was demanded on behalf of the other individuals nominated.
On the following morning, at ten o'clock, the polling commenced at the Sessions House, in Chapel Street. It was soon evident that Mr. Hewett, the candidate recommended by the select vestry, had not the slightest chance of success; and that gentleman accordingly resigned, an hour or two after the opening of the poll. A contest unparalleled in elections of this description followed between Mr. Shipp and Mr. Haram, who, with a certain class, was the favourite candidate, though the popular voice was for Mr. Shipp. The town was canvassed in every quarter, and placards covered the walls in all directions, as at a parliamentary election. At the close of the first day, Haram was upwards of 140 ahead of his opponent. On the second day, Shipp brought up his lee-way, and at the close of the poll on Monday he was upwards of 300 ahead. On Tuesday morning Haram resigned the contest; and thus the election terminated in favour of Mr. Shipp, whose majority was 352.
We now find Mr. Shipp in a position of comparative affluence, which unfortunately he did not live long to enjoy. He was installed in his new office of governor of the workhouse, at the end of May, 1833. Soon after this he published a work called "The Private Soldier," a volume which did equal honour to his head and heart, and evinced his ardent love for that profession in which he had spent the best years of his life. He was still pressed by embarrassments, to the increase of which his literary speculations had in no slight degree contributed. The emoluments of his new situation, had he survived, would have enabled him to fulfil all his engagements, and make some provision for his family; but he enjoyed the comforts of the competency which had been bestowed upon him only a few months. In the February of 1834, he was suddenly seized with an attack of pleurisy, which terminated his existence after a few days of excruciating agony. He died on Thursday, the 27th of February, at the age of fifty-two, and was interred on the following Tuesday, in the chapel of St. Mary's cemetery. His funeral was attended by a vast number of his friends, as well as by all the inmates of the workhouse.
As Mr. Shipp had been greatly esteemed in Liverpool during his life, much sympathy was excited on behalf of his widow; and, as soon as it was known that her husband had died insolvent, a subscription was thought of for her relief. The gentleman who promoted, with the greatest zeal, the benevolent intentions of the public on behalf of the sorrowing widow, was Mr. William Parlour, whose name occurs in a former part of this Memoir. Through his instrumentality a meeting of Mr. Shipp's friends was called, at which it was resolved that a subscription should be opened; and in a few days £600 were collected. In addition to this liberal amount, a gentleman who held a bill of sale, including the chattel property of the deceased, made the widow a present of all the furniture which had reverted to him—a gift then valued at £200. This timely generosity—a tribute to the high character of her late husband, and to her own exemplary conduct—sustained the widow and her fatherless family, until that Providence, which never deserts the deserving, placed her in a situation less profitable, but not dissimilar to her former avocation.
THE END
APPENDIX
NO. I.
Certificate of Major-General Gregory, attesting that Lieutenant Shipp led the Three Forlorn Hopes against Bhurtpore.