Lives of Illustrious Shoemakers

by W. E. Winks

His reply to Paine’s “Age of Reason,” and his book on the “Immortality of the Soul,” both of which were written and issued from the press during his life as a shoemaker, brought him into notoriety, and obtained for him a name as an acute thinker and able controversialist. He afterward published several theological works of great merit, edited and wrote the chief portion of a history of Cornwall, and finally became an editor on the staff of the Caxton press in Liverpool and London. His contributions to the literature of his own religious denomination, the Wesleyan Methodists, were very numerous; and for many years he was a constant writer in the Eclectic Review. From the beginning to the close of his public life he was held in high esteem as a preacher in the “circuits” of Cornwall, Liverpool, and London. The two universities of Aberdeen and London paid him a valuable compliment; the one conferring on him the degree of A.M., and the other, through certain members of the council, requesting him to be put in competition for the Chair of Moral Philosophy.

But before all these things he was an earnest, high-souled, useful Christian man, who found his principal delight in diffusing around him the influence of a good example and a benevolent Christ-like spirit. His best memorials were inscribed on the hearts of the people among whom he spent his valuable life. His writings may now be but little read, and his name but little known outside the Christian community to which he was attached, yet he made a record as a faithful servant of God that will never perish, and obtained a memorial for his name that is safe against all the influence of time and change.

The subject of this sketch was born at St. Anstell, in Cornwall, on the 3d March, 1765. His parents were both members of families long resident in Cornwall. They were in but poor circumstances, the father being employed chiefly as a farm-laborer. Now and then he worked in connection with the tin mines of the neighborhood. Hard work, scant fare, and great economy were necessary to enable the parents to bring up their young family respectably. We may judge of their circumstances by the fact that the father found it not at all an easy thing to carry out a worthy determination he had formed to send his three children to school, where the fee for each scholar was only one penny per week. Little Sammy’s progress hardly compensated for this small outlay, for he was dull and careless and shockingly fond of playing truant. However, his school life did not last long. He was removed at the age of eight, as already stated, and put to work as a buddle-boy. The pits in which the tin-ore is washed after being broken up are called buddles, and it was the business of the buddle-boy to stir up the sediment of ore and metal at the bottom of the pit, in order that the stream of water which passed through it might carry off the sandy particles and leave the mineral behind. For this work Samuel was to receive three halfpence a week. But the poor little fellow was early taught the meaning of the terms “bad debt“ and ”failure in business.” His master kept the wages back, intending to pay them, as was customary, to the father. At the end of eight weeks the employer failed, and Samuel never received his first instalment of wages. When another man took the business, shortly after, the boys were paid twopence per week, and for the two years in which he continued at this work, the little buddle-boy never received more than this miserable pittance. It must be confessed that Samuel was a wilful, headstrong fellow. The circumstances which led to his removal from home were hardly to his credit. His own mother died when he was nine years old. She was a good woman, and took great pains to save her boy from the bad influence of low company at the tin-works. Samuel, though young and reckless, cherished a deep regard for his mother. About a year and a half after her death the father married again, and Samuel, not liking the idea of having a “new mother,” made himself as obnoxious to her as he could. This improper conduct could not be permitted, and it was especially wrong in this instance, as the “new mother” was very attentive and kind to the children.

“At the age of ten and a half,” says his biographer, Samuel “was apprenticed for nine years to a shoemaker, living in a sequestered hamlet about three miles from St. Austell. His father and family at this time were not far distant, but removing soon after to Polpea, in Tywardreath, the poor lad’s intercourse with his relatives was, in a great measure, suspended, and he felt the loneliness of his situation.”

Drew’s apprenticeship life was well-nigh as miserable and unprofitable as it could be. In an account of the hardships he endured at this time he himself says: “My new abode at St. Blazey and new engagements were far from being agreeable. To any of the comforts and conveniences of life I was an entire stranger, and by every member of the family was viewed as an underling, come thither to subserve their wishes, or obey their mandates. To his trade of shoemaker my master added that of farmer. He had a few acres of ground under his care, and was a sober, industrious man; but, unfortunately for me, nearly one half of my time was taken up in agricultural pursuits. On this account I made no proficiency in my business, and felt no solicitude to rise above the farmers’ boys with whom I daily associated. While in this place I suffered many hardships. When, after having been in the fields all day, I came home with cold feet, and damp and dirty stockings, I was permitted, if the oven had been heated during the day, to throw them into it, that they might dry against the following morning; but frequently have I had to put them on in precisely the same state in which I had left them the preceding evening. To mend my stockings I had no one, and frequently have I wept at the holes which I could not conceal; though, when fortunate enough to procure a needle and some worsted, I have drawn the outlines of the holes together, and made, what I thought, a tolerable job.”

“During my apprenticeship,” he continues, “many bickerings and unpleasant occurrences took place. Some of these preyed so much on my mind, that several times I had determined to run away and enlist on board a privateer or man-of-war.” He seems to have had little inclination for reading during these unhappy days; and if he had been disposed for study there were but few books within his reach. Accident put into his hands a few odd numbers of a publication circulated in the West of England called The Weekly Entertainer. He read and re-read the histories of “Paul Jones,” “The Serapis,” and “Bon Homme Richard,” until his imagination was inflamed with the thought of joining a pirate, and leading the jolly abandoned life of a sea-rover. Such reading as this did very little good for him. The only other book he seems to have met with during these days of servitude was “an odd number of the ‘History of England’ about the time of the Commonwealth.” But this spell of reading lasted only a short time. The odd volume of history, which charmed him at first, soon grew monotonous and wearisome, and was thrown aside. “With this,” he says, “I lost not only a disposition for reading, but almost the ability to read. The clamor of my companions and others engrossed nearly the whole of my attention, and, so far as my slender means would allow, carried me onward toward the vortex of dissipation.”

Much of his time was occupied with wild companions, among whom he was foremost in daring and mischief. Bird-nesting, orchard-robbing, and even poaching and smuggling were resorted to for amusement and profit. On one occasion he nearly lost his life by following sea-birds to their haunt on the edge of a lofty cliff overhanging the sea. At another time, in the dead of the night, when he and a number of men and boys were out on a poaching expedition, he and his companions were nearly scared out of their wits by some apparition, which confronted them with large fiery eyes, and suddenly disappeared.

Spite of these doubtful amusements his life at St. Blazey was becoming intolerable. He compares his position to that of “a toad under a harrow;” and declares that his master and mistress seemed bent on degrading him. At last, when he could brook his degradation no longer, he resolved to abscond, and accordingly, at the age of seventeen, after enduring six and a half years of bondage and cruelty, he ran off, intending to go to sea. But his plans were happily frustrated. On his way from St. Blazey to Plymouth he called at his old home, and as his father was absent his stepmother refused to give him money to assist him in his mad project. He then made off for Plymouth with only a few pence in his pocket. Passing through Liskeard he chanced to meet with a good-natured shoemaker, and entered into an engagement as a journeyman. In a short time he was discovered in his retreat, and persuaded to return to his father’s roof. He agreed on condition that he should not be sent back to his old master. This being arranged, a situation was found for Drew at Millbrook and afterward at Kingsand and Crafthole.

It was during his stay at the last place that the event occurred which led to the most important change in his life. He had often engaged in smuggling expeditions during the time of his apprenticeship, these unlawful practices not being regarded as disgraceful in out-of-the-way places on the coast a century ago. The rough villagers were rather disposed to make a boast of their success in evading the law; and few, if any, of their neighbors offered any opposition or remonstrance. One dark night in December, 1784, when Samuel Drew was about nineteen years of age, a vessel laden with contraband goods made signals to have her cargo fetched on shore; and the daring youth agreed to form one of the boat’s crew for this purpose. The night was so stormy and dark that the captain of the vessel had been obliged to stand off a considerable distance from the shore. The smugglers were two miles out at sea when one of their number, in attempting to catch his hat, upset the boat. Three men were immediately drowned; Drew, who was a first-rate swimmer, managed by dint of the most violent effort to reach the rocks, and was picked up by some of his companions ‘more dead than alive,’ and carried to a farm-house, whose occupants were compelled, much against their will, to allow the half-drowned youth to be brought in and laid before the kitchen fire. A keg of brandy from the vessel was opened, and a bowlful of its contents placed to his lips. He had sense enough not to drink much, though recklessly urged to swallow it all! After lying by the fire until circulation was pretty well restored, he was able, with the help of friendly arms, to crawl to his lodgings, a distance of two miles, the ground being covered with snow.

It was a mad adventure, and nearly cost him his life, but proved, instead, the occasion of opening the way to a new life, brighter and better and happier than the one he had spent in thoughtless and sinful amusement. “Alas! what will be the end of my poor unhappy boy?” said his father, on hearing of Samuel’s narrow escape. Very wisely it was resolved to have him removed from his sinful companions at Crafthole, and a good situation was found for him under a steady master at St. Austell.