Mercuriosities

Three further articles in our occasional series on the UK custom of wife-selling during the 18th and 19th centuries.

“On Tuesday se’nnight a fellow at Clipsham, in Rutland, publicly sold his wife, and a child about 7 months old, to a person living at Clipsham Quarries, for the sum of 10l. 5s.–The money was paid down, and the woman delivered to the purchaser in a halter.–It was the general opinion of the lookers on, that halters for two other persons were wanted, to make the bargain as binding as it should be.”

Stamford Mercury, 9 October 1818.

“Last Tuesday a Staymaker in Little Moorfields sold his wife, to whom he had been married several Years, to a Winedrawer near the said Place, and the same Day was married to a young Woman in the Neighbourhood.”

Stamford Mercury, 29th May, 1746.

“On Saturday morning last, one of the labouring bankers employed near Boston went to the market accompanied by his wife, for the purpose of disposing of her to the best bidder. According to the usual custom, he purchased a new halter, for which he gave 6d., and having tied it round his wife’s neck, he paraded her along the street, the impudent hussey being nothing loth to this public display of her attractions. A purchaser soon appeared, who bid eighteen-pence ! for the woman and the rope, and he and her husband soon came to terms. A bargain was struck, and the shameless parties retired, amid the jeers of the assembled crowd, to a public-house, where the money was spent, and the former owner of the woman drank to the luck of the purchaser, and the jade declared she was quite satisfied with the transfer, for she had ‘got the lad she loved !'”

Stamford Mercury, 26th June 1829.

In the late 16th century, children from poor families were assigned as apprentice chimney-sweepers to help cure large numbers of unemployment in the city. However, the article below details one of many instances where children were kidnapped from their families in order to climb and clean complicated chimney flues. Not only did these children have to overcome the suffocating, pitch-black, claustrophobic conditions of the flue, but some were forced to work more quickly by their master lighting a fire at the bottom of the chimney!

“A chimney-sweeper, named James Wilkes, travelled down from Lincoln in one of the steam-packets to Boston on Thursday the 18th inst., accompanied by an interesting-looking boy, about six years old. This child he took care should be in his sight as much as possible during the voyage; but, notwithstanding his caution, the boy availed himself of an opportunity to communicate something to one of the passengers, which induced that person to watch where the fellow took the child, and afterwards having procured the aid of a police-officer, they searched the premises, and rescued the unfortunate boy from the clutches of Wilkes, whose obvious intention was to make him labour in climbing chimneys. It is supposed that the parents reside in Yorkshire, and it may be imagined how intense must have been the agony they have endured since their child was missed. On Friday, Wilkes was examined before the Magistrates of Boston, and remanded for further examination, to give time for due enquiry into the circumstances of the case.”

Stamford Mercury, 26 June 1829.

You use your arms everyday. For brushing your teeth, combing your hair, getting dressed – but what if you were born without them? In nineteenth century Somerset, there lived an extraordinary man who not only made a living as a farmer, but also walked away victorious in a fight – without arms or shoulders!

PHENOMENON.- A London Paper says, “The following account of a most extraordinary phenomenon of Nature may be depended on for its authenticity :- In the village of Dicheat, four miles from Shepton Mallet, in Somersetshire, in the year 1765, a woman, of the name of Kingston, was delivered of a stout boy, without arms or shoulders. This singular man is probably still alive; he was living, to the writer’s knowledge, six years ago. He possesses, without the usual appendages of arms, all the strength, power and dexterity, of the ablest and most regular-made men, and exercises every function of life. He feeds, dresses, and undresses himself, combs his own hair, shaves his beard with the razor in his toes, cleans his shoes, lights his fire, writes out his own bills and accounts, and does almost every other domestic business. Being a farmer by occupation, he performs the usual business of the field, fodders his cattle, makes his ricks, cuts his hay, catches his horse, and saddles and bridles him with his feet and toes. He can lift ten pecks of beans with his teeth; with his feet he throws a large sledge hammer farther than any other man can with his arms; and he has fought a stout battle, and come off victorious. These facts are notorious in most parts of Somersetshire.”

Stamford Mercury, 3 September, 1819.

While some men resorted to selling their unwanted wives, as reported in previous Mercuriosities posts, one man turned to a somewhat more gruesome, if unsuccessful, method of separation.

“SCOTLAND

Edinburgh, Sept. 2.  In a town at some distance from this city a few days ago, a man who had been many years married, it should appear, had conceived some dislike at his wife, and had planned the design of getting rid of her.  The method he took was uncommon :  While asleep, he put a noose over her neck, and pulled her up to the ceiling, where he kept her hanging for a long time, that he made no doubt of her death.  He then put her into the bed where she had been before, left her, and went to alarm the neighbourhood with the story of his wife’s being in a fit, and expiring.  The neighbours immediately came to his assistance ; but to his amazement and mortification, in place of finding his wife dead, he found her alive, and able to tell distinctly, to all around, the story of his wickedness.  The man was committed to prison.”

Stamford Mercury, 12th September 1765.

In 1818 a replacement toll bridge was opened over the River Liffey in Dublin.  A couple of years earlier while the new bridge was under construction, tolls were still collected for use of the temporary bridge.  A halfpenny was well beyond the means of one traveller.

“AN EMBARRASSMENT REMOVED.–A Dublin paper says–‘A few days ago, a poor man expressed a wish that he had one halfpenny to pay the toll for passing the temporary foot bridge, opposite Church-street.  A young lad (who appeared about 16 or 17 years of age) hearing the poor man’s lamentation, and having but one halfpenny to pay for himself, enquired of the toll collector if a person carrying a load over the bridge paid no more than if he had none.  He was answered in the negative.  The boy then took the poor man on his back and passed over the bridge, to the great admiration of all who witnessed the transaction.'”

Stamford Mercury, 30 August 1816.