Bishop’s Castle

From The Grave Of The Good Burgess ~ Speaking Truth To Power

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My last post featured a recent visit to Bishop’s Castle’s parish churchyard and the mystery surrounding the grave of an unnamed African who died in the town in September 1801. This week I returned to the visit another intriguing grave. It stands in sight of the great Norman tower of 1291, and marks a death that occurred in May 1802, a few months after I.D.’s burial, and also the year of a general election.

And what an epitaph it is. What a swingeing ticking off of the town’s ‘worthies’; very much in the vein of ‘you know who you are’.  (And doubtless everyone else in the town knew too).

Here’s what the headstone says:

To the memory of Matthew Marston. He departed this life May 29th 1802 aged 81, the oldest Burgess of the Borough.

His steady and uncorrupt conduct presents an examples to his brother Burgesses for perpetual imitation and a useful lesson to the Parliamentary Representatives of the Borough that Opulence and Power cannot alone secure universal suffrage.

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And to what particular corrupt practice is the Marston stone referring?

Bribes for votes, that’s what, and the fact the town’s burgesses controlled the electoral roll. Only they could vote in elections, and only they had the power to admit new burgesses to the roll. And these were the men who managed all aspects of the town’s affairs, from market trading to judicial and coroner’s courts.

In 1802, when there were around 170 burgesses on the roll, the going rate for a vote was 25 guineas – well over a thousand pounds by today’s values, and enough then to buy 2 horses or 5 cows or employ a skilled tradesman for 173 days (National Archives currency converter).

For a small rural town, Bishop’s Castle seems to have earned itself a big reputation for shady political dealings: a ‘rotten borough’ from 1690-1763, and a ‘pocket borough’ from 1763 – 1832. During these years the town returned two parliamentary representatives, all members of the landowning class, or in the case of the pocket borough, all relatives or favoured associates of Robert Clive. (He had returned from India, where he had risen from lowly agent in the East India Company to Governor of the Bengal Presidency, amassing a fortune equivalent to 48 million pounds). Only with the Reform Act of 1832, did the parliamentary borough of Bishop’s Castle meet its end. We now have 5 regional county representatives.

During the rotten and pocket eras, parliamentary representatives were obviously intent only on furthering their own and sponsors’ interests and causes. This situation was compounded by the fact that several times the entire manor of Bishop’s Castle changed hands with the new owners seeking to secure a seat for their own man. In 1683 it featured in a marriage settlement between one Anne Mason and the Earl of Macclesfield. It was Anne’s ne’er-do-well cousin Richard Mason, seemingly the Earl’s ‘placeman’, who then bribed and bullied his way to Parliament, standing as M.P. for 30 years.

In 1718 the new Bishop’s Castle owners, the Harleys, appalled that their own candidate had failed to win a seat, roundly condemned the town’s burgesses (‘profligate wretches’) for their ‘villainous roguery’ and ‘perfidy’ in voting for Mason. They sold the manor on to the Earl of Carnarvon (Duke of Chandos)  who then, after considerable expense, secured his own placeman at the next by-election. His purposes doubtless served, he then sold the manor to his nephew, local landowner, John Walcot of Walcot Hall, who then found the means to further his interests through favoured candidates.  And so it went on. On and on.

But what of Bishop‘s Castle’s ordinary folk? Over all these centuries of political vested-interest, one might well wonder how did life go for the ploughman, dairymaid, tavern keeper, clerk, cowhand and stonemason, or for the cooper, brewer, carpenter, apothecary, farmwife, cook, curate and chamber maid? How indeed?

You can well see that the Marston family had a point when they erected this headstone to their kinsman, the good burgess: a lone voice of integrity?

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previous post The Man from Africa: I.D. unknown

source: The Story of Bishop’s Castle eds David Preshous, George Baugh, John Leonard, Gavin Watson, Andrew Wigley  2018 Logaston Press

 

The Man From Africa ~ I.D. Unknown

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Last week I went to pay my respects to I.D. He is one of Bishop’s Castle’s mysteries – the man from Africa, who was laid to rest in the parish churchyard of St John the Baptist on the 9th September 1801. Origins and life story unknown.

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Here lieth the Body of I.D.

A Native of Africa who died in this Town Sept 9th 1801

God hath made of one Blood all nations of Men  Acts 17 verse 26

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I’ve written about him before, but the mystery continues to niggle, and especially now that I’ve come to live in the town. Who was this man? Where did he come from, and how had he arrived in the isolated small farming town of Bishop’s Castle? What led to his death? Was he slave, originally from West Africa or the Congo, and a possession of some Shropshire plantation-owning grandee. Or was he a free man; or employed as a servant?

The headstone, if sparse in details, is a fine one; it suggests a certain status; someone must have paid for it. There’s also a presumption that the deceased was a baptised Christian since the grave is sited in a prominent spot beside a well used path.

If the man had been a well regarded servant, then one might expect more personal details; a name at least; the years of his service and the name of his employer. (Slaves were usually given their owner’s names.) If he were merely a passing traveller who happened to die in the town, then who took it upon themselves to give him a decent burial? The parish records throw no light on the matter, and only repeat the text on the stone.

But there is a clue in the biblical quotation: God hath made of one blood all nations of men. This was a trademark text used by campaigners for the abolition of slavery.

At the time, Shropshire had its own fierce anti-slavery movement, driven by the dogged determination of one Archdeacon Joseph Plymley who lived not far away at Longnor. From 1791 until abolition in 1807 he worked tirelessly, alongside his sister, Katherine Plymley, travelling the county, raising petitions, urging Salopians to boycott sugar. So perhaps a local abolitionist sympathiser paid for the funeral. And perhaps, too, that well-wisher had the sensibility not to bury the man with his full slave name, but not knowing his birth name, chose to identify him solely by the initials I.D.

So many questions about a man, identity unknown, cut off from family, culture and community, lying in this quiet, but alien burial ground at the foot of the town, late summer cyclamen under the trees, the drift of cool air in from the hills and fields. Africa far far away.

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Bishop’s Castle Here We Come

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The flags were flying yesterday in Bishop’s Castle, though not for us. They were marking a recent festival, celebrating the town’s 450 years of self-rule, granted in a royal charter by Elizabeth 1 in July 1573. This fabulous document, bearing the queen’s portrait, freed the town from the bishops’ control and instead gave executive authority to a Bailiff and fifteen Capital Burgesses to administer the community’s affairs; a first bold step towards democracy then.

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Photo: Bishop’s Castle Town Council

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But if the flags weren’t for us, it felt as if they were. Yesterday we at last picked up the keys to our new home: a small red-bricked villa built by one George Nicholas in 1922 on a corner of land bought back then from a local brewery. The house sits above a narrow lane running parallel to the High Street, and is in walking distance of pretty much everything in the town.

And so begins the next stage: preparing for the actual move, hopefully in the next couple of weeks. Phew and double phew. I think the nerves are holding up – just.

So watch this space for some new tales from another ancient Shropshire town.

In the meantime here’s a couple of photos also taken yesterday. As  you can see- not the best of days, but proof that our cool and lacklustre July continues. And yes, that is an elephant you see performing on a vacant wall near the Town Hall.

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And this is the Town Hall. We can hear the graceful chimes of its clock in our new garden. Yesterday it was hosting a wedding as we walked by. It also provides a regular venue for farmers’ markets and craft fairs, and of course council meetings are also held in its very handsome chamber on the upper floor.

To be continued…