My school days at Worksop were happy days. We spent much time in studying the natural sciences; we became proficient in joinery and mechanics; and there was a nice gentlemanly tone in the school. My great friend was George Pim, of Brenanstown House, Kingstown, Ireland. We never lost sight of each other. He entered the office of Leech, Harrison and Forwood, and became a partner with us in Bombay, and afterwards in New York; he died there in 1877, at the age of 34. A fine, handsome, bright fellow; to me he was more than a brother, and his like I shall never see again. The friend of my boyhood, of my young manhood, my constant companion; he was a good fellow.
Richard Cobden's only son was at Worksop, a bright, handsome boy. His father doted upon him, and often came down to visit him, when he took some of the boys out to dine with him at the "Red Lion"; he was a very pleasant, genial man, fond of suggesting practical jokes, which we played off on our schoolmates on our return to school. Poor Dick Cobden was too full of animal spirits ever to settle down to serious school work. He had great talent, but no power of application. He died soon after leaving Worksop.
When at Worksop I distinguished myself in mathematics, and my master was very anxious I should proceed to Cambridge, but my father had other views, and thought a university training would spoil me for a business career. I have ever regretted it. Every young man who shows any aptitude should have the opportunity of proceeding to a university, but in those days the number of university graduates was small, and the advantage of an advanced education was not generally recognised. Life was more circumscribed and limited, and a level of education which suited our forefathers, and had made them prosperous men, was considered sufficient: more might be unsettling. The only thing to be aimed at and secured was the power and capacity to make a living; if other educational accomplishments followed, all well and good, but they were considered of very secondary importance.
Our home life was quiet and uninteresting, very happy in its way because we knew no other. Our greatest dissipations were evening parties, with a round game of cards; dinner parties were rare, and balls events which came only very occasionally. Sundays were sadly dull days; all newspapers were carefully put away, and as children we had to learn the collect and gospel. Our only dissipation was a short walk in the afternoon. Oh! those deadly dull Sundays; how they come up before me in all their depressing surroundings; but religion was then a gloomy business. Our parsons taught us Sunday after Sunday that God was a God of vengeance, wielding the most terrible punishment of everlasting fire, and only the few could be saved from his wrath. How all this is now happily changed! The God of my youth was endowed with all the attributes of awe-inspiring terror, which we to-day associate with the evil one. It is a wonder that people were as virtuous as they were: there was nothing to hope for, and men might reasonably have concluded to make the best of the present world, as heaven was impossible of attainment. In my own case, partaking of the Holy Communion was fraught, I was taught, with so much risk, that for years after I was confirmed I dare not partake of the Sacrament. What a revolution in feeling and sentiment! How much brighter and more reasonable views now obtain! God is to us the God of Love. We look around us and see that all nature proclaims His love, and the more fully we recognise that love is the governing principle of His universe, the nearer we realise and act up to the ideal of a Christian life. Love and sympathy have been brought back to the world, and we see their influence wrought out in the drawing together of the classes, in the wider and more generous distribution of the good things of life, and in the recognition that heaven is not so far from any of us. We see that as the tree falls so will it lie; that in this life we are moulding the life of our future, and that our heaven will be but the complement of our earthly life, made richer and fuller, freed from care and sin, and overarched by the eternal presence of God, whose love will permeate the whole eternal firmament.
Charles Kingsley was one of the apostles of this new revelation, which brought hope back to the world, and filled all men with vigour to work under the encouragement which the God of Love held out to us. It has broadened and deepened the channels of human sympathy and uplifted us to a higher level of life and duty.
During my school days I spent several of my summer holidays in Scotland with my mother, who was a patient of Professor Simpson in Edinburgh, and usually resided two or three months in that city. One summer holiday I stayed with old John Woods, at Greenock. He was the father of shipbuilding on the Clyde. He was then building a wooden steamer for my father to trade between Lisbon and Oporto. Another summer holiday I spent with Mr. Cox, shipbuilder, of Bideford, in Devon, who was building the sailing ship "Bucton Castle," of 1,100 tons, for my father's firm. The knowledge of shipbuilding I obtained during these visits has been of incalculable value to me in after life. Another of my summer vacations was occupied in obtaining signatures to a monster petition to the Liverpool corporation praying them to buy the land surrounding the Botanic Gardens, and lay it out as a public park. I stood at the Edge Lane gate of the Botanic Gardens with my petition for several weeks, and I obtained so many signatures that the petition was heavier than two men could carry.
I am glad to think it was successful, and the Wavertree Park has contributed greatly to the pleasure and enjoyment of the people of Liverpool, and has been the means of preserving to us the Botanic Gardens. I think it was one of the most useful things I ever accomplished.