St Helena in 1812: Cattle Wormers and The Pillory

Spencer Perceval, British Prime Minister, assassinated May 1812

By any standards 1812 was a significant year. It saw the only assassination of a British Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, who was followed by Britain's longest serving Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool (1812-1827). As a reminder of the already troubled state of the Kingdom, it also saw Lord Byron's defence of the Luddites in his maiden speech in the House of Lords.

In Spain British success in the Peninsular War was capped in August by the entry of Wellington and his Portugues allies into Madrid. By that time Britain was involved in another conflict, against the young United States of America, which declared war in June and invaded Canada. This war, which was to see Britain burn the White House, was to end in British defeat at New Orleans in 1815, after the peace treaty had been signed. Perhaps its most significant result was the safeguarding of Canada from the expansionist republic to its south.

Most momentous of all though was Napoleon's invasion of Russia, his occupation of Moscow and the disastrous retreat which marked the beginning of the end of his rule and of French hegemony on the European continent. Earlier in the year though Napoleon had authorised usage of mesures usuelles, which marked the beginning of the metric system.

St. Helena 1812

Far away in the South Atlantic, the St Helena Governor Alexander Beatson had a far less troubled year than in 1811, the year of the mutiny.

The Judicial Records reveal that only three cases were tried - John Antonio was acquitted of stealing £20 from Frederick Schindler.

Thomas Bates was acquitted of stealing two bags of rice valued at £2 from Thomas O"Connor.

The only man found guilty was James Bicknell, for trying to defraud James Williams, "an illiterate person", by altering or causing to be altered the figures on an account. The Bench took this matter very seriously, telling the prisoner that his offence bordered on forgery, for which the penalty was death. James Bicknell was therefore jailed for four days, or until such time as he had repaid his debt. On the day of his projected release he was ordered to stand in the pillory, for two hours, in different parts of Jamestown. This appears to have been an unusual punishment at this time, although use of the pillory remained legal in the UK until 1837.

I have looked in vain for an appropriate image of a portable pillory, which this must have been. To my surprise, having led a sheltered life, I found you can now buy such items on ebay, suitable apparently for taking to adult parties.

Cattle Wormers and other matters

I have in an early post commented on the work of these unknown people who every quarter made their returns to the court. I am intrigued as to how they went about their business, presumably by examining animal excreta. Perhaps since they were called "extractors" they fed the animals with some substance to kill worms? The usually reliable google offers me no assistance.

Apparently the island was divided into three divisions, South, West and East. No worms were reported to have been extracted in the West Division in 1812. I was somewhat surprised to find that in January 1812 the Wormers reported that they had extracted a total of 631 worms, but only six in April and none in July. In October the figure was up to a more respectable 290.

Was the extraction of worms a seasonal matter I wonder, or was it a sign that sometimes the Wormers were otherwise engaged or simply could not be bothered? In the final session of the Court it was resolved that in future landowners would pay the court three pence for each worm found. The money received would be distributed to the Inspectors, "at the pleasure of the bench." I shall with added interest examine the returns of the Wormers in subsequent years to see whether the application of the principles of Adam Smith had any effect on their performance.

The Court also heard on another occasion that some 50 unlicensed dogs had been found on the island. It was resolved to fine owners of such dogs two guineas and to put down the unfortunate animals. It was also reported that the laws about dogs destroying sheep and goats would be enforced: owners would pay a five pound fine and double the value of the animal killed to the owner.

Also throughout the year the Coroner reported seven cases of accidental death, two of whom were identified as slaves. In the case of a third slave, Philip, it was reported that "he hanged himself, but that at the time of his death he was a Lunatic."

Such was life on St. Helena two hundred years ago.

St Helena Airport and the Crisis in the Tourist Industry

Image of St Helena's planned new airport bulding

Since the appearance of Simon Pipes' very active blog, St Helena Online, I have felt less need to comment on current events on St Helena. I felt though that I should cover the latest news about the airport project, a long running saga that is now no longer a mirage, if I may be allowed to mix my metaphors!

This very day the island's Council has approved the design of the new airport building.

Less prominent in the news, I notice from the St Helena Independent that the revised completion date for the airport is now 25th February 2016, thereby missing the 200th anniversary of Waterloo and the arrival of Napoleon!

It will be a surprise to me if there is not further slippage on a project of this size at such a remote location.

Initially at least the airport will be restricted to Boeing 737-700 and Airbus A319, which carry around 120 passengers. (1)

Apparently the plans for the runway have been amended at no extra cost. The original contract was for a runway of 1550 metres, with an Engineered Material Arresting System (EMAS) at the end. It has now been decided pro tem to dispense with the EMAS, and to build a full 250 metre Runway End Safety Area (RESA). This will make it easier at a later date to upgrade the airport so that larger aircraft carrying 160 passengers, such as the Boeing 737-800 or Airbus 320 can land. All that would be needed apparently would to construct an EMAS and make the existing RESA part of the runway.

Crisis in the St. Helena Tourist Industry

Elsewhere I note the concerns expressed by the owners of the two hotels on St Helena, the Consulate and Farm Lodge, about the dire straits of the tourist industry.

Farm Lodge Hotel, St. Helena

This presumably is partly a global problem, but has in their view been exacerbated by management of the RMS St Helena which has been marketed more as a cruise ship than as a mail boat carrying passengers to the island. Encouraging passengers to stay on board whilst paying short visits to the island and including a trip to Tristan da Cunha in its schedules has undoubtedly reduced the number of tourists needing accommodation. A number of RMS berths have also been taken up by employees of the airport contractor, but the demand from them for hotel accommodation has apparently not materialised.

The owner of the Consulate has announced that she will have to lay off staff and close the accomodation part of the hotel after Christmas because of a lack of bookings.

The Consulate Hotel, Jamestown, St. Helena

So can I urge anyone who is thinking of making a trip to the island to do so. I for one have made my own plans, wishing to visit the island again before the airport changes it forever. My wife and I can hardly wait.

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1. I notice that there is an option for the Airbus A319 to carry over 150 passengers. I have no idea whether this version requires a longer runway, but I imagine it does. I understand that planes to Cape Town and Johannesburg will not be able to carry a full load because of the extra fuel needed. A short hop to Ascension, not yet approved by the US, would be less of a problem. I suspect that the rocky terrain, the steep approaches and the high altitude, not to mention the high winds and changeable weather, will provide challenging conditions for pilots. I am sure that the authorities on St Helena and in London have already thought all these things through!

The Whigs and Napoleon

Charles James Fox (1749-1806) ,Whig leader. He had three interviews with Napoleon after the Treaty of Amiens(1802). They disagreed about freedom of the press and conscription, but Fox was convinced that Napoleon wanted peace with England.
The Whigs have made regular appearances in this blog, most notably in the posts on Lady Holland and on the Canovas at Chatsworth House.

From their fine palaces the great Whig families could look down on the detested Hanoverian Monarchy,

Chatsworth House
their placemen who swelled the ranks and costs of Government,

Holland House in London, where Lady Holland presided over England's only real political salon
and on the Tories, "the stupid party", who had led the country into costly wars against France and America that the Whigs considered unnecessary.

For their part the Whigs had a not unjustified reputation among their Tory opponents as being great admirers of Napoleon.

Napoleon was "the most extraordinary man of his age" (Caroline Fox), "certainly has surpassed .. Alexander and Caesar" (Charles James Fox) and was "the greatest man that ever liv'd" (Lady Bessborough)

Woburn Abbey, seat of the Duke of Bedford

".. everything I hear of this most extraordinary man, increases my desire to see him, Rely on it, he will again be numbered on the great scene of history" - Duke of Bedford (1814)

Lord John Russell (1792-1878), younger son of the Duke of Bedford, Whig later Liberal leader, twice Prime Minster (1846-52, 1865-6), met Napoleon on Elba in 1814, voted in Parliament against the declaration of war when Napoleon fled from Elba in 1815.

So Who were the Whigs and What did they Stand For? (1)

The Whigs were socially exclusive wealthy aristocrats, proud descendants of those who had resisted the absolutist tendencies of the Stuart Kings in the C17, had engineered the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and had in 1714 put the Hanoverians on the throne. For most of the period 1760-1830 they were out of office.

Supporters of the French Revolution in its early stages, the Foxite Whigs adopted the buff and blue of George Washington's army for their political colours.

Unlike the Tories,who feared any sign of weakness on the part of the rulers would lead to revolution in England, the Whigs believed in the inevitability of change and of social progress. They saw the greatest threat to the British constitution as coming not from the lower orders but from the Monarchy.

In his L'Esprit des lois (1748) Montesquieu described England as “a nation that may be justly called a republic, disguised under the form of a monarchy”. This corresponded closely to the view of the Whigs, who saw the King as the servant of the people.

The Hanoverians, and George III in particular, had other ideas. Lord John Russell,reflecting exasperation with them, was quoted in the 1820's as saying, "we must come to American institutions, that will be the end of it." (2)

Advocates of parliamentary reform as a counter to the perceived threat from the monarchy, and above all strong believers in the rights of property, the Whigs resisted any idea that those who had no property should be allowed to vote. They believed that all should be equal before the law, but not that reform would inevitably end in democracy. They had perhaps much in common with the creators of the American Constitution, who believed that rule should be kept in the hands of "the better sort of people."

Admirers of French culture and mores,"the bedroom and the dining room were French", adherents of classical architecture and of Augustan poetry, they had no time for the Gothic, the Romantic, the Medieval, or the works of Sir Walter Scott.(3)

Intellectually they were devotees of the Scottish Enlightenment, of David Hume and Adam Smith, of the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, and of the quarterly Edinburgh Review .

Secularists, there were few Whig clergy, they rarely attended church and had little expectation of life after death. Supporters of religious tolerance, they were scathing about Catholicism and Methodism: "superstition" and "enthusiasm".

Believers in the importance of extending education, they were sceptical of the fashion for physical games which characterized English public schools in the early nineteenth century.

The Whigs and Napoleon

As already indicated, the Whigs had a reputation for admiring Napoleon. Certainly they did not join in the deprecation and belittling of him as "Boney" or "the "Corsican Ogre", common in other circles and in the Tory press, which has since become a staple of the English memory of Napoleon.

But, as Leslie Mitchell points out, the Whigs had a rather more nuanced view than their political opponents appeared to believe. They admired some of Napoleon's achievements, in education, religious and administrative reform for example, but they deplored the extinquishing of representative government, his apparent liking for titles and flattery, his suppression of press freedom and his persecution of his critics.

Lord Holland in 1815 drew up a balance sheet:

pro - freedom of worship, financial probity in public life, magnificence of public works, openness to office based on merit alone

con - "enormous evil" of conscription, persecution of critics and curtailment of personal liberties. (4)

On balance Holland felt that the people of France had benefited from the Revolutionary and Napoleonic period, and in addition no Whig could countenance replacing Bonaparte by the Bourbons.

In the period after Waterloo many Whigs were involved in campaigns to save Marshall Ney and General Lavalette from execution, in lobbies for passports, and in unremitting efforts, particularly from Holland House, to make Napolon's stay on St. Helena a little less uncomfortable.(5)

Above all, like the Radicals, the Whigs detested the Bourbons, who resembled the hated Stuarts whom the Whigs' ancestors had defeated in the seventeenth century. In a letter in 1814 in which he expressed strong criticism of Napoleon Lord Holland said

"I am not sure if he were to fall that the legitimate sovereign would not be restored and that in my mind is the last of misfortunes = bad for France, for liberty and for Mankind and in a narrow view bad for England" (6)

For all his faults then they preferred Napoleon to the Bourbons, and they were particularly opposed to the restoration of the Bourbons by foreign arms, against the wishes of a sizeable portion of the French people. Such a move ran counter to their view of historical progress, and would therefore inevitably meet with disaster. They felt vindicated when Charles X was removed by revolution in 1830.

The arrival of the Orléanist monarchy at last gave France a regime in which the Whigs could believe and unequivocally support: Louis Philippe had dined at Holland House as early as 1802, and was as near as you could get to a French Whig!

Postscript: The Fate of Holland House

The great Whig Mansions at Chatsworth, Woburn and elsewhere remain, stuffed with treasures which attest to the wealth and cosmpopolitan tastes of the great Whig families, but Holland House, the seat of Lord Holland, nephew of Charles James Fox, and the centre of Whig politics for much of the early nineteenth century, was irreparably damaged

Destroyed by The Luftwaffe: Holland House Library in 1940
in the blitz, in a world in which it was hard to believe in the progress which the Scottish Enlightenment and the Whigs had so confidently espoused a century earlier.

Like the Whigs themselves, little of the original house now remains.

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1. The best source I have come across is a delightful, slim, witty, perhaps slightly tongue in cheek volume, "The Whig World" by Leslie Mitchell,useful for anyone interested in what the Annales school refer to as the mentalités.

2. p. 163, Leslie Mitchell, The Whig World (London, paperback edition 2007)

3. Quotation from Mitchell p. 96.

4. Mitchell pp 89-90.

5. Lord Spencer and Thomas Grenville begged Louis XVIII to spare the life of Marshall Ney, and when he refused to do so expressed the wish that the King himself would be hanged. Mitchell p. 93

6. Lord Holland to Caroline Fox, April 1814, Mitchell p. 90.

Royal Visit to Emperor Napoleon's Last Home

Royal Family Arrving at Longwood House, 29 April 1947

At a time when the United Kingdom is celebrating the 60 year reign of Elizabeth II, Michel Martineau has published some little known photos of the Royal Family's visit to St Helena in 1947.

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were accompanied by their two daughters, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret.

Having looked round a dilapidated Longwood House almost destroyed by termites, the King signed the visitors book and expressed his concern at its perilous state and his hope that the French Government would take the necessary steps to restore the historic house.

On his return to England the King called in the French Ambassador and again expressed his hope that the French Government would urgently begin restoration of the house.

The St Helena Independent Makes a Lazarus Like Recovery

Somewhat old news now, but for completeness I really should report the resurrection of the St Helena Independent at the end of April, barely a month after the demise that was solemnly reported here and elsewhere.

The latest issue (May 25th) has a front page editorial about the need for sea links after the airport, and wonders why no consideration has been given to this before. I have to say that I have been wondering about this for some time. Doubtless all will be revealed eventually, but I am not convinced that anybody has got any answers at present. I will be very happy to be proved wrong.

The editorial also notes that current thinking is that Rupert's Bay should be the cargo terminal, and points out that EU money has been spent demolishing Jamestown's historic wharf buildings.

The raising of the roofs of the low stores at the wharf has taken away a lot of the original char acter and obviously, the new cargo and passenger terminals are in the wrong valley if the sea access point to the Island is in Rupert’s. The changes/improvements to the Jamestown Wharf would obviously have looked different if the new DfID schemes had been known a few years ago. Then, we could have developed the Wharf as a tourism destination and not so much as a cargo terminal. With this background, we could say that we have wasted much of the EU money put into the wharf development.

On a less solemn note, the following rather unusual advertisement from today's issue caught my eye.

I don't think I should offer any comment!