Part 16 (1/2)

It was for a lath and plaster structure without galleries, and was opened apparently in 1792.

The Old and New Independents continued to work side by side, the new overtaking the old, till 1841, when a serious fire happening on the premises of Mr. Warren, builder, near the site of the present John Street Chapel, advantage was taken of the opening thus made, and the site was purchased for a new Chapel from Mr. John Phillips, who, at the same time, by pulling down part of the premises facing High Street, threw open the present thoroughfare, which henceforth obtained the name of John Street, after Mr. Phillips. The new Chapel, erected on the north side, was built by Mr. Warren, at a cost of between three and four thousand pounds, and re-placed the old chapel in Kneesworth Street, which afterwards became converted into dwelling-houses (Mr.

Higgins' shop and houses adjoining). The new Chapel, opened in {126} 1843 by the Rev. Dr. Binney, as preacher on the first Sunday, and Edward Miall, who afterwards became the Liberationist M.P., on the next, has an imposing front elevation which it may be of interest to state is taken from the celebrated Ionic Temple on the south bank of the Ilissus at Athens.

The last meeting house of the Society of Friends in Royston was in Royston, Cambs., on the East side of Kneesworth Street, the burial ground of which still remains, with tombstones to the memory of Quaker families of former days. The old meeting house stood back from the street, reached by a narrow pa.s.sage between the cottages, with the small burial ground and a row of lime trees in front.

During the first quarter of the century a house in the yard behind Mr.

Hinkins' shop was registered ”for preaching in the Calvinistic persuasion of Dissenters in Royston, Hertfords.h.i.+re”; for so runs the written application to the magistrates for the place to be registered as a preaching place.

Something of the old Puritanic feeling still prevailed in the town among the Dissenters against amus.e.m.e.nts as late as the end of the first quarter of the present century. Whether it was from the recollection of what popular amus.e.m.e.nts had been, or against worldliness in general, I know not, but there is a curious instance on record, where, in 1825, a townsman named Johnson, had his members.h.i.+p at the New Meeting called in question for having joined a cricket club in the town! The offending member defended himself from what he considered the injustice of expulsion, by stating that he saw no evil in cricket, and that the members of the club were ”moral men,” and that ministers and others had been known to join cricket clubs. The general body of members in meeting a.s.sembled, however, refused to relax their view of it, and decided upon his expulsion, but afterwards relented so far as to allow Brother Johnson to resign, which he did.

Political meetings belonged more to large centres than they do now--chiefly to the county town--but lest there should be any doubt about what was the prevailing political bias in the town during the first quarter of the century, it has been placed on record that Royston was called ”Radical Royston.” This soubriquet was probably earned by the large amount of ”reforming” spirit which we have seen was thrown into the discussion of abstract questions by Roystonians of the time.

They probably earned it by their protests rather than by their policy.

Politics in public meeting were in fact in a bad way at the end of the reign of George III., when it was made unlawful for anyone to call a public meeting exceeding fifty persons, for the purpose of deliberating upon any public question excepting such meetings were called by the Lord Lieutenant, Sheriff, Mayor, or other officials responsible for good order.

{127}

When George IV. came to the throne and divided the opinion of the country upon the subject of his treatment of Queen Caroline, the boys shared the prevailing differences of sentiment and became ”Kingites” or ”Queenites,” and occasionally settled their differences in pitched battles after the manner of boys in all ages, in some cases actually wearing their colours--purple for the King and white for the Queen.

The prevailing sentiment was, however, in Royston so much for the Queen, that ”the first gentleman in Europe,” notwithstanding his patronage of and comrades in the prize-fighting ring, could hardly find enough champions for a fight, even among the boys.

In later years Chartism reached Royston and caused a flutter in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of those concerned with the _status quo_, for it appears that one Joseph Peat had ”held forth” by permission of the landlord at the ”Coach and Horses.” The Magistrates had a meeting to prevent the spread of Chartism in consequence of this event, and the landlord was sent for and cautioned that if he allowed such a thing again he would lose his licence.

The beginning of all positive work set about by negative process is slow, and this, I suppose, would apply to keeping outside a public-house, for the Teetotal folk in Royston--handicapped, as in other places, by a name that has ever prejudiced and hampered a public movement--found out this to their cost.

They did not lack stimulants when they first began to hold meetings, for the opposition camp came to the meeting, took care to come provided, and, fortifying themselves with bottles of beer, raised so much clamour that the recently enrolled policeman had to try his hand at checking intemperance and some broken heads rewarded his exertions.

The publicans generally attended the meetings in good force and between the rival parties, instead of applause there was sometimes breaking of windows if nothing worse. The British School was one of the first public rooms used for these meetings.

Of popular entertainments, as we now understand them, there were very few, not one where we now have a score, and until the erection of the British School no suitable building. It must not, however, be supposed that the town was entirely without the means of occasional recreation.

The a.s.sembly Room at the Red Lion was still a place of importance for public a.s.semblies, and, for some years before Queen Victoria came to the throne, this room was the scene of some creditable displays of local talent. This talent took the thespian form, and the tradesmen of the town, banded together as the Royston Theatrical Amateur Society, were accustomed to draw the _elite_ of the town and neighbourhood into 3s. and 2s. 6d. seats (nothing less!) while they placed on the boards a rattling good version of _Bombastes Furioso_ and other pieces in popular favour at the time.

{128}

Reference has been made to the reluctance of the Parish Authorities--once bitten, twice shy--to let the Parish Room again as a School after the legal difficulty about getting rid of the tenant, but to their credit be it said they made an exception in favour of music--with a proviso. The late Mr. James Richardson, when a young man, it is on record, applied to the Parish Authorities ”on behalf of several persons forming a Musical Band of this Town, that they may be allowed the use of the Vestry Room to meet and practise in.” ”Allowed providing they pay the constable to attend and see that everything is left secure and to prevent the boys annoying them or doing mischief to the premises.”

Music, though confined to a few choice spirits beneath fustian and smock frocks in village as well as town, played a much more important part with our grandfathers than is commonly supposed. It may seem a rash statement to make that in some respects we may have degenerated.

If we play or sing with better tune or finish it is because we have better appliances, not better brains nor more devoted hearts for music.

I am afraid that some of our extensive cultivation of music is a sacrifice of fond parents on the altar of the proprieties, whereas our grandfathers had a soul in their work, and the man with his heart in his work--whether sc.r.a.ping a fiddle, ploughing a furrow, writing an epic, or fighting a battle--must, by all honest men, be awarded the palm. In this over-riding of music as a hobby there is a danger that the salt may lose its savour, for if there is any individual more to be pitied than another it is the so-called musician standing up to play according to the rules of art with no response from the inmost soul of him.

I do not think, at any rate, that those of our grandfathers who directed their attention to the fiddle, ba.s.s-viol, flute, clarionet, or trombone, could be fairly considered to lay under such reproach, for though their music may have been sometimes flat and sometimes sharp, it was always natural and congenial in the highest degree.

These old fellows took down such instruments as they had, not as so many do now, because it was ”the thing” to learn music, but because music had found them out for having a love of it, and of the pleasure derived from meeting in a homely circle of kindred spirits. Their instruments were often most dissimilar, but their spirit was one!

There was a good deal of free masonry and companionable relations existing between these old handlers of musical instruments, and as we hear them in imagination, rattling away round the old spirited fugues which had been carefully ”picked out” with quill pen and ink into their old cheque-book shaped ”tune books”; or, as we see the picturesque group, now with countenances beaming with delight over some well turned corner which brought up the rear, now mopping their {129} brows with a bright red handkerchief, or touching up the old fiddle, after a smart finish, as a man pats a favourite horse, it is not difficult to discover how it was that here and there, and in many places, music took care of itself so well when other things were at a low ebb!

Saxhorn, trombone, flute, cornopean, clarionet, ba.s.soon, fiddle, ba.s.s-viol, and others as various as the dress, trades, and characters of the individuals, made up the old chords of long ago; so well hit off by a writer (J. W. Riley) in the _Century Magazine_:--