There have been a number of Bristol Riots, the most recent being in 1980, but the most notorious took place between 26 & 31 October 1831, ostensibly in favour of “Reform” – to extend the right to vote. The skies of Bristol glowed blood red from the fires lit by the mob, the Bridewell and Gaol were torched and the prisoners freed. There were 250 casualties, killed and wounded. Five men were executed, Christopher DAVIS, John KEYES, Richard VINES, Thomas GREGORY and William CLARKE.

The following is a list of the more fortunate smaller fry with, where possible, the punishments they received. It will be seen that a number of them have “death recorded” against their names. In these cases the sentences were commuted to transportation for life. It is stated that when these individuals “were given to believe that their lives would spared, a few seemed to care little, being heard to say, “Thank you, My Lord.” Patrick Kearney was more voluble, and cried “Thank Ye, My Lord. My life’s spared till Ireland’s free. Sweet Ireland For Ever!” It seems to me that a disproportionate number, from their surnames, were “Bristol Irish.”

· In my booklet “Brislington Bulletins, no. 7, 1825-40” I stated that no Brislington parishioner was involved, then lo and behold along came John Jellamy who, in 1827, lodged with my distant kinfolk William and Harriet PILLINGER.

· This article was prompted by an email from Peter & Roslyn Dunning from Australia peteandros@westnet.com.au who are descendants of the cheeky chappie Aaron Martin. It is great to know that he survived down under. If anybody knows his parentage – he lived at Lewin’s Mead and his father was a farmer, please contact Peter and Ros.

· The above information with much more detail can be found in Bristol Mercury 3 January & 17 January, 1832. It is interesting to note that this newspaper was against capital punishment and argued forcibly, sadly without success, for the reprieve of the five men who were hanged and made much of the discrepancies of the sentences between them and a number of the others.

A future article will list the casualties.

I have to say I had never heard of Messrs John Hare & Co of Temple Gate until I saw a news item in the Bristol Evening Post of 30 August which refers to a Penny Black stamp on an envelope addressed to the Bristol firm of linoleum and floor cloth makers. The envelope was posted in Sherborne. Dorset on June 11, 1841 and 170 years later was due to go under the hammer at the Spink Stamps and Postal History sale in London on September 9.

Prior to the reform  of the postal service letters had to be paid for by the recipient and were left at poste restantes awaiting collection and payment. The Penny Black, Britain’s 1st adhesive postage stamp was introduced on May 6 1840. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black

The firm seems to have been an early fan of the new country wide system for on June 15, 1844 when the Bristol Mercury published a subscription list under the heading “Penny Postage – National Testament to Sir Rowland Hill”, the second name in the list of subscribers, after the Dean of Bristol is John Hare & Co. Like the Dean, the firm contributed 2 guineas to the fund.

John Hare & Co had been in the news before on October 30, 1841 when they were publicly thanked by Mr Jasper Westcott, a brass founder,  for the speedy deployment of their engine when fire broke out at his premises in Redcliffe Street. Like the Penny Post, the Fire Service was a Victorian invention http://www.fireservice.co.uk/history/ and along with Hare & Co’s contraption, fire engines were sent out by various insurance companies and the police. Thanks to their combined efforts the fire at Mr Westcott’s was contained and his stock and patterns were undamaged so that he was able to continue work with little interruption.

At the time of the letter John Hare and his brother Sholto Vere Hare along with other members of the Hare family were running the company which had been started by their grandfather, John Hare. The younger John Hare became Mayor of Bristol in 1861 and was in the van at the mourning procession which took place following the death of the Prince Consort that year. His brother Sholto followed him as Mayor in 1862. Sholto took a great interest in the church of St Mary Redcliffe and endowed a stained glass window as well as erecting at his own expense, the statue of the boy poet Chatterton in the churchyard.

A full administrative history of the company together with genealogical and family information 1799-1994 may be found at Bristol Record Office under reference 40785.

In November 1842 at the British Embassy in Naples, John Hare married Jane, the daughter of the late Edward Strachey, esquire, of the Bengal Civil Service. Jane was the niece of Sir Henry Strachey, baronet, of Sutton Court in Somerset. In 1841, Sir Henry lived in London at a rather grand address, St George, Hanover Square. Sadly, John and Jane’s first child, a daughter, was stillborn in October 1843, but by the time of the 1851 census the couple were living at “Rosemont” in Clifton Park with two more children, sons John and Charles aged five and one. There were four servants, a nurse, a cook, a housemaid, and a seventeen year old “page”. John Strachey, aged 27, of the East India Company’s Civil Service was a visitor. Perhaps he was a brother or cousin of Mrs Hare.  Another son, Sholto, named after his uncle, was born in 1852.

Towards the end of their civic year in October 1862, John and Jane Hare attended the wedding of Jane’s niece Miss Olivia Strachey at Clifton Parish Church. Olivia was the daughter of the late Richard Strachey of Ashwick Grove, Shepton Mallet, cousin of Sir Edward Strachey, baronet. The groom, Captain George Law of the Madras service, arrived in the full dress uniform of his regiment. The bride wore a white moiré antique dress, carried orange blossom, clematis and white roses and from her “elegant coiffeur” fell a lace train. The bridesmaids were her four sisters, the Misses Minnie, Charlotte, Kate and Isabel Strachey, friends Miss Kate Doveton, Miss Symonds, Miss Williams, and Misses Charlotte, Ada and Sydney Law, relatives of the groom. All wore dresses of white tarlatan with sashes of scarlet silk, and on their heads wreaths of mountain ash berries and leaves. The outfit of Jane Hare, the Mayoress, was also described:  a gown of moiré antique silk in a shade of lavender with black lace flounces, a white muslin shawl edged with black and the piece de resistance, a bonnet of Terry Velvet trimmed with pink roses. (a little OTT perhaps?)  No fewer than 14 carriages, including the Mayor’s state coach carried the assorted guests to the reception at the residence of the bride in the Mall, Clifton.

The following month Mrs Hare attended the wedding of George Strachey to Miss Kate Doveton, both of whom had attended the previous nuptials, Kate as a bridesmaid. George was a secretary of Her Majesty’s legation at The Hague. “Light tripped the party, gay as gay could be” warbled Bristol Mercury’s scribe, despite the intense November cold. In December 1862, Mr & Mrs Hare were guests when Miss Kate Strachey married Lieut J.F.M Winterscale of the 3rd Battalion Prince of Wales’ Own Rifle Brigade. He and his best man, Willoughby Wallace of the 60th Rifles came in full regalia as did a host of other military gents. The Hares also went to the wedding in August 1863 of Miss Mary Strachey to Charles Elton. And in January 1864, at Farleigh Hungerford, they attended the wedding of Miss Annie Stancomb, daughter of the Lord of the Manor of Trowbridge to Mr George Lawrence Keir, an officer in the Indian Army. Although all these  fashionable events are described in lavish terms which equal the first, Mrs Hare’s ensemble, regrettably, is not.

Strangely enough, when John and Jane’s eldest son John married Annie Bell Ford, the second daughter of H.B. Ford, I could only find a simple announcement. (on August 21, 1869.)

In February 1874, a Mr & Mrs John Hare attended the wedding of Miss Catherine Dorinda Ludlow and Mr Francis Rhode Carbonell of Usk, but it is not clear whether this is the senior or junior couple of this name. In a turn which would put the wind up most people, a long list of the wedding presents given is printed with the names of their donors. Aspiring TV producers of Victorian plays could do worse than consult Bristol Mercury of 14.2.1874 and then furnish their set. It is like stepping into “Cranford”.  Mr & Mrs John Hare, somewhat dull,  gave a drawing room clock. 

Jane Hare died aged 72 in 1886 and John aged 84 in 1897. An obituary of Sholto Vere Hare appeared in Bristol Mercury on 24.3.1900.

When conducting this experiment to see how far a little information on an envelope would take me, I came across the names of the following long serving employees of the company whose obituaries appeared on the dates mentioned. 

Charles Cook, 55, Feb. 1, at East Redcliff Crescent, upwards of 40 years in the employ of John Hare & Co (4.2.1860)

Daniel Thatcher, 67, Apr. 19, at his son’s house, White Hart in Lower Maudlin Street, nearly 40 years in the employ of J.H & Co as engineer (14.4.1860)

Charles Colville Watkins, 71st year, Mar. 1, at Langton Street, for 57 years the confidential servant of J.H & Co of Temple Gate. (4.3.1865)

James Franklin, Dec. 4, at Frogmore Street, after a long illness, upwards of 50 years in the employ of J.H & Co. (9.12.1865)

Joseph Richards, 84th year, Nov. 29 at Hebron Terrace, Bedminster, formerly Bath Parade, upwards of 60 years in the employ of J.H. & Co. (6.12.1873)

John Prowse, 74, Jan. 21, at 5 Guinea Street, 54 years in the employ of J.H. & Co. (23.1.1875)

Michael Cope kindly sent me a picture of the above in response to my post regarding the Hatters Walk round Winterbourne/Frampton Cotterell of early 2009.

Mr Cope told me that the Old Oak House in Westerleigh was a centre of the local Felt Hat making industry. His 4 x times great Grandfather was

“William Cope, a Hatter in Frampton Cotterell who died quite young (1735 - 1778) leaving a family of 7 to be looked after by the eldest of his children (my 3 x great Grandfather Hart Cope) aged nearly 16 as his wife had pre-deceased him by 2 years.

“Hart was also a Hatter for a while in Westerleigh but eventually moved to Berkeley.  They fell on hard times again and the parishioners took out a Settlement Order returning him, his wife and young family to Westerleigh.   Somehow he got back to Berkeley and obviously gained a reasonable reputation because at a dinner in 1812 attended by the well-known Dr. Edward Jenner, the Mayor of Berkeley and other dignitaries, he was made Borough Ale-Taster!”

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.