My old friend Willie Haswell has sent me a copy of his memoirs published under the auspices of the Living Memories Association.  Willie is now in his 90th year.

The Canongate is in Edinburgh and of course has nothing at all to do with Bristol Family History – except that over a quarter of a century ago I traced Willie’s ancestors. Although he and his parents and grandparents are and were Scots, the Haswells originally came from in Wiltshire and until recently some strands of the family remained in the Bath area.

My endeavours came to a halt with Daniel Haswell. He was born about 1775, reputedly at Bradford on Avon, a weaver by trade, who joined the army in Jersey in 1806, at the late age of 31, married a wife called Isabella and begat of long line of soldiers who served in various regiments of the British Army, becoming Scots somewhere along the way. If anybody can find Daniel’s baptism, Isabella’s maiden name or a record of their marriage, Willie and I will be your friends for life.   

If your immediate ancestors were poor and grew up in the Canongate, then Willie Haswell’s book is for you. I cannot recommend it too highly.

Hardy’s classic novel The Mayor of Casterbridge opens when Michael Henchard, in later years the eponymous mayor, but then a poor hay trusser, sells his wife in the public market with tragic consequences. Though by no means usual, in the absence of divorce, (except for the very rich), such proceedings were far from unique and local papers of the 18th and 19th centuries report a steady stream of these events often in lurid detail.

The “Bristol Mercury” of 17th August 1833 records that a man called James Stradling offered his wife for sale at Lansdown Fair before a large concourse of rowdy spectators. She was brought forth “dashingly attired” and with a halter round her neck covered in silk. Before the sale could be concluded however, Stradling was arrested for causing a disturbance and conveyed to the Bath lock up. The following Monday, he was discharged by the magistrates with a reprimand.

It appears that the happy couple returned to the marital home, where at the very least, relations must have been strained. There seems to have been another attempt at a sale, followed by imprisonment of the husband, but even worse was to follow.

On the 4th October there is a report under the heading “Horrid Attempt at Murder”.

“On Friday, Louisa Stradling gave information at the Guildhall, Bath of a most nefarious premeditated attempt made by her husband, James Stradling, shoe maker of Campden Street in this City to take away her life, the previous night. Our readers may remember that that this man who had about twelve months since sold his wife for five shillings at Lansdown Fair again exhibited her for sale in our public market place.  A warrant was issued against him for a breach of the peace and he was committed to prison for six months. Since that period, the parties have lived together only six weeks.

“On Thursday last, Stradling, with apparent kindness proposed to his wife to take a walk with her along the banks of the canal adding that he intended to catch some eels. She consented and they proceeded to the canal at the back of Sydney Parade when he placed Mrs Stadling between the lock gates and desired her to throw the hook and line into the water while he sought for a worm. After a short while, he returned and the inhuman villain pushed her into the water, a fall of about twelve feet and then ran off, leaving her in this perilous position, no doubt expecting she would soon be a corpse.

In falling however, the woman’s clothes became inflated and she was buoyed up in the water for upwards of ten minutes and her cries attracted the attention of some persons, and a station of the humane society being nearby, a pole and rope were procured to save her from a watery grave. Because of her exhaustion and failure to hang on because of the weight on her wet clothes, one of the persons, a strong swimmer, was let down by a rope which he placed about her waist and was able to extricate her.

“She was conveyed to the White Hart at Widcombe in a senseless state but was shortly restored.

“Stradling was apprehended next day and the above facts sworn, He was fully committed for trial at the next Somerset Assizes.”

And then, at the Assizes…………… reported 11th April 1835:

“James Stradling, indicted for maliciously attempting to drown his wife. According to the prosecutrix, she and her husband had been drinking at a public house and they went to the canal to fish and she fell in. But in her examination before Magistrates she had said that her husband pushed her in. This she now denied and said she knew not what she was talking about at the time, she was so much agitated.

“Mr Justice Patterson told the Jury there was not sufficient evidence to commit the prisoner and ordered his acquittal, at the same time addressing the prisoner, telling him there was no doubt his wife committed wilful perjury in order to save his life.”

(Even in those days, an example of the Police frustrated in their attempts to bring a case in a “domestic”. )

a cartoon of a wife sale

In 1841 at Beaufort Square in Walcot, a James Stradling aged 55 is listed along with an Elizabeth Stradling aged 60. Their names are separated by two men called Targett, as though Mr and Mrs lived in separate parts of the house.

I assume Louisa died and the “inhuman” James took up with Elizabeth (unless they are one and the same woman). So far I can find no death for Louisa and no remarriage for James. (He is not the James Stradling who married Jane Jenkings (sic) at St Michael’s, Bath in 1837 who was a baker and lived in Wellington.)

In 1851, at 4 Skines Place, Walcot, the couple are shown in the more usual way. James,  a cordwinder, (shoemaker) is 67 and his wife, 71. Their granddaughter, Elizabeth Arthur, who had been in the house in 1841,  aged 8 is still with them, but is now young woman of 18.

Priscilla Lydia Sellon, 1821-76, was a Anglican nun who played a part in the English Catholic Revivalist movement of the 19th century and founded an Order called the Sisters of Mercy. Devoutly religious, she had intended going abroad as a missionary but instead was “called” to work amongst the poor naval families at Devonport, being particularly active during the cholera year of 1849. She was suspected of being a convert to Rome which aroused much controversy, even bigotry. It was stated with ill-concealed satisfaction that a mob had pelted her house in Plymouth, threatening to raze it to the ground. It appears however that male churchmen, who never went into the slums themselves were active in stirring up such events. Rev Hobart Seymour denounced Miss Sellon from the pulpit in Bath, calling her “unladylike” “a petty despot” and likened her to a crafty old owl who caught her Sisters “poor little mice” in her claws. Another clergyman said “God forbid we stop the flow of Christian Charity but we much protest against the system of drawing young ladies from their homes.” As well as feeling threatened by Miss Sellon’s alleged Roman Catholicism it appears to me that newspapermen and clerics alike were even more outraged because she was a woman.

The papers were delighted when things went wrong, as when a Miss Bowring “daughter of Dr Bowring, now in China” had left the Order and returned to her mother in Exeter. It was said she had “been unhappy in the home of her adoption and is now seriously ill.”

Miss Sellon opened several houses in Bristol, at 7 Park Row (unlisted in 1851) and 14 College Green (lodging houses in 1851) when an Irish woman, Catherine Callahan, a Roman Catholic, who seems to have been taken on as a maid of all work described at length and in lurid detail, certain practices supposed to prove that the “Lady Superior” now adhered to Rome but the “evidence” becomes somewhat suspect when it later transpired that Callahan was suing the Sisters for wages which she said were owed to her. A court at Stroud awarded her £1. 5 shillings, which the Sisters appealed, saying she was and always had been aware that they did not pay wages!

In July 1854, the Bristol Mercury reported pompously “Miss Sellon, whose migrations from house to house in Bristol have been so exceedingly numerous that she must have over and over again experienced the truth of the adage that ‘two removes are as bad as one fire’ has made another change of residence and taken the large house in The Fort on St Michael’s Hill which has long been untenanted.”

For the decade 1850-60, Miss Sellon was a celebrity, as well known as Florence Nightingale. She declined to go to the Crimea with Miss Nightingale as she felt to do so might lead to a division of authority, however, the party which left for the war in October 1854 included “a number of recruits from Miss Sellon’s establishment”. 

After 1856 when there was another reported move to The Priory in Bath, Miss Sellon dropped out of the limelight.  It was said that her experiences during the cholera epidemic of 1849 had weakened her and subsequently she could only sit for short periods at a time. She often took her meals in a reclining position, eventually becoming paralytic. It is not possible to say whether this affliction was hysterical but it does seem to compare with the experience of other Victorian lady “invalids” like Harriet Martineau and   Florence Nightingale herself. Miss Sellon died at Malvern in 1876 aged 55.

Miss Sellon should have made appearances in the censuses 1841-71 but I have failed to find her. Her father, William R.B. Sellon, a retired Commander RN and a Magistrate who had changed his name from Smith because of an inheritance can be found under neither name in 1841. In 1851 he was at Gravesend, Kent, aged  60, with his second wife Martha, 43, children Anna, 33, Frederick, 16. John, 14, Gertrude, 8, Elizabeth, 7 and Melville, 4. Another daughter, Caroline aged 10, was living at the Orphans’ Home, Wyndham Place, Plymouth where Catherine Chambers, an associate of Miss Sellon was Matron. Despite her tender years, Caroline is tellingly described “Sister”. Of Miss Sellon herself, there is no sign. It seems she was determined not to be counted. The Plymouth Journal describes the woes of the enumerator who called at her establishment and was greeted by a nun, all in black, who told him Miss Sellon was away and had taken the papers with her. He called again with two forms to be completed but the same nun again refused, “determined to brave the law rather than disclose the secrets of the prison house”, he added, “there is a great mystery as to who is who in the Eldad Nunnery.”

I had not heard of Miss Sellon before I discovered that she had considered taking a house in Brislington which is one of my principal local interests. Nothing seems to have come of it, but I cannot but wonder if it was the forerunner of the Convent at Arno’s Court which became a reformatory for Catholic girls in the late Victorian era.   I think that Miss Sellon, despite the topic being unfashionable nowadays would make a good subject for someone’s dissertation!