Hans Christian Andersen was born in 1805, at Adense in Denmark, where his father worked as a shoemaker. While a mere boy he went to Copenhagen in the hope of getting his living as a singer and writer of plays, and eventually became known as the writer of incomparable fairy tales, the joy and wonder of children, young and old, all over the world.
The name of Dr. Isaac Watts, the hymnist, has sometimes been set down in this category, on the authority of a line in Dr. Johnson’s “Lives of the Poets.“ But Johnson speaks only of ”common report,” making the father of Isaac Watts a shoemaker. Johnson says he “kept a boarding-school for young gentlemen.” He may have done so and followed the gentle craft as well; there is no knowing to what occupation the shoemaker may aspire!
If we go far enough back, we may find a very striking example of ability displayed by a shoemaker’s son in military affairs. Iphicrates (4th cent. b.c.), one of the most capable and trusted Athenian generals, rose from this humble position to the highest offices of command and trust in the armies of Greece. His reforms in the arms, dress, and tactics of the soldiers, formed an “epoch in the Grecian art of war.” He distinguished himself in battles fought against the Thracians and Spartans, and in the service of the King of Persia in his Egyptian campaign.
[GREAT BRITAIN.]
“YE COCKE OF WESTMINSTER.”
Coming now to Great Britain, we are able to select from the records of history and biography illustrations for our purpose which represent pretty nearly all the varieties of English life. Practical philanthropy all men will allow to be one of the most prominent and honorable features of the national character, and to this shoemakers have contributed a good share. Our readers will remember the good work done by Drs. Carey and Morrison, the pioneer missionaries to India and China, and noble old John Pounds, one of the founders of ragged schools in this country. Two examples, in a different field, may be given here. One can easily understand how shoemaking would pay better before the invention of machinery than it does now, yet it appears strange to us to read of men making anything like a fortune by so humble a craft. So it was, however, after a certain modest fashion; and shoemakers, like men whose fortune has been made on a larger scale, have shown themselves veritable philanthropists in the use they have made of their money. The two instances we refer to are wide apart as to time, but closely related as regards the benevolent spirit they exhibit. Holinshed has very properly thought it worth his while to chronicle the good deed of a benevolent old shoemaker who lived in Westminster in the reign of Edward VI. This true son and follower of Crispin bore the name of Richard Castell, but was still better known, in his own day, by the sobriquet, Ye Cocke of Westminster, not only “because he was so famous with the faculty of his hands,” but on account of his early rising; for every morning, all the year round, saw him sitting down to his work “at four of the clock.” His skill and diligence in the craft brought him in a considerable sum of money, which he invested in lands and tenements in the neighborhood of Westminster, yielding a yearly rental of £42—not at all a poor living for a retired shoemaker three hundred years ago. It appears that Castell greatly admired the generosity of his monarch, Edward VI., who had recently endowed Christ’s Hospital, and the shoemaker having no family to whom he could bequeath his property, and being blessed, moreover, with a wife as generously disposed as himself, resolved to leave his property to the endowment fund of this public charity. It is much more than probable that the fame of the kingly founder of the hospital has totally eclipsed that of his humble subject, and for this reason it seems right for us to find a place in our list of illustrious shoemakers for a worthy man whose industry and benevolence are bearing good fruit to this day, and who once, it may be, was not a little proud of the honorable nickname of Ye Cocke of Westminster.[98]