John was insistent that their inheritance be turned over to him as soon as the first tranche became available, so that he could pay off his debts and finance another voyage. William and Dorothy were understandably hesitant this time but the finance was arranged and John set off again on 20 June 1803. During the return voyage, the Earl of Abergavenny was involved in a skirmish with the French fleet off the coast of Malaysia, and Captain Wordsworth was rewarded with an additional £500 for his services.

This trip was clearly a success, and John Wordsworth started planning for a lucrative third voyage that, if everything went to plan, would make his fortune and allow him to retire (aged 34) with his siblings in his beloved Lake District.

The Earl of Abergavenny set off from Portsmouth on 1 February 1805 at the head of a convoy of East India Company vessels bound for Bengal (to pick up a cargo of opium) and then on to China. On 5 February, the ship ran aground off the Isle of Portland and eventually sank in Weymouth Bay. Of the 402 people on board, 263, including the captain, were drowned. The value of the cargo of silver bullion and porcelain was estimated at £20,000.

The Loss of the Abergaveny East India Man off The Isle of Portland. Monochrome print from an engraving by Richard Corbould. Courtesy the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.

It did not take long for the finger of blame to be pointed at John Wordsworth, further distressing his devastated family. It seems that it was actually the pilot who was responsible for the grounding and that Captain Wordsworth heroically went down with the ship, clinging to the mast, having refused rescue.

There are so many questions raised by the tragedy of John Wordsworth, it is difficult to know where to begin. So, let’s begin with the opium trade. Much like the African slave trade, opium was a fundamental driver of the British empire in the 18^th and early 19^th centuries, leading to the establishment of Hong Kong as a key British colony. The East India Company financed its trade with China primarily by selling opium grown in India in exchange for tea and other commodities increasingly in demand in Britain. Needless to say, the Qing were not thrilled about this, and, in 1799, the newly enthroned Jiaqing Emperor (keen to make a name for himself after succeeding his much-vaunted father, the Qianlong Emperor) issued a decree banning the import of the drug outright.

The East India Company carried on regardless and even offered its ships’ captains a side-hustle, selling opium privately for their own profit. If they played their cards right, captains could earn up to £30,000 on one voyage. But it was a high-risk-high-reward proposition.  The entire voyage lasted more than one year, and was fraught with danger from pirates, the tides and the weather, and dangerously fluctuating markets.

This is where John Wordsworth enters the picture. He got his start in the East India Company right after leaving school through his family connections (who included the anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce), and in 1801, he inherited the captaincy of the Abergavenny from his cousin, John Wordsworth Sr.

The younger John Wordsworth was not the archetypal ship’s captain. He was somewhat shy and introverted, known by his shipmates as “the philosopher,” he could often be seen pacing the deck absorbed in poetry. Nevertheless, he was a stern disciplinarian, handing out floggings to men under his command who violated discipline. It is said, he also wished to flog the men who on one occasion cut down trees in Grasmere, making him something of an eco-warrior before his famous elder brother got in on the act.

So, why was he willing to take such extraordinary risks for his own and his family’s enrichment?  The Wordsworth children were orphaned at early age and tossed around between extended family members and surrogate parents until adulthood when they had to rely on themselves. The oldest brother Richard (again through family connections) embarked on a career as a lawyer, John joined the East India Company, and the youngest brother Christopher entered the church: all professions suitable for a gentleman.

But William was an artist. He couldn’t be bothered with minor things like where the next pay cheque was coming from. He never studied seriously at Cambridge and swanned off to France at the height of the revolution to better appreciate liberty and freedom. He had a brief affair with an older woman there, fathered a child and promptly abandoned mother and daughter.

Richard managed to keep his wayward sibling afloat the best he could but he was clearly exasperated at William’s indolence and self-absorption. Dorothy was a sycophantic enabler, and John it seems was equally spell-bound by his poet brother’s genius. In 1799, he offered William and Dorothy £40 for the purchase of land and a home in Grasmere but later decided that William’s generational talent was worth an even greater reward.

William clearly appreciated his brother’s devotion and kind nature. He wrote soon after John’s death: “Of all human beings whom I ever knew [John], was the man of the most rational desires, the most sedate habits, and the most perfect self-command.”

Without his brother’s promised riches, and a young family to support, Wordsworth should have knuckled down and focused on earning a living but he failed to secure any real income apart from his dwindling inheritance. He routinely refused to publish his work because it was not yet perfect or because publishers and critics did not properly appreciate its genius. And by 1808, even his number one fan, Dorothy was getting frustrated:

Do, dearest William! Do pluck up your Courage – overcome your disgust to publishing – It is but a little trouble, and all will be over, and we shall be wealthy, and at our ease for one year, at least.

In many ways, Dorothy’s life was just as tragic as John’s. We know from her journals and letters that Dorothy was a talented writer herself and that her literary observations clearly inspired William. If her talent had been nurtured in the same way that William’s had, Dorothy might have produced work on a par with her contemporary Mary Shelly, but Dorothy was devoted to her brother and subjugated all her ambition to his. She never married, and was his chief cheerleader and dedicated companion, even after his marriage to their childhood friend Mary Hutchinson.

In middle-age, Dorothy’ self-sacrifice finally caught up with her. She fell dangerously ill, was in constant pain, and addicted to opium. She remained at home for the next two decades, suffering from debilitating pain, eating disorders, and early onset dementia, which at times led to violent outbursts that would “terrify strangers to death.”

It was only in 1813, that William Wordsworth – aged 43 – in dire financial straits, with a wife, sister and three children to support (two of his young children had died the previous year), finally landed a “proper job.” Lord Lonsdale, the son of the man who had withheld his inheritance for so long, took pity on Lakeland’s resident poet and offered him a sinecure as Distributor of Stamps for the Westmorland and the Penrith area of Cumberland.

This gift, at last, provided Wordsworth and his family with some financial stability. This included Caroline, his long-neglected daughter in France who was about to be married. Wordsworth, at the insistence of his wife Mary, gave Caroline a generous annuity of £30 a year.

Wordsworth continued to write periodically, and gradually his audience grew beyond a tiny circle of die-hard fans, to win national and international acclaim as the Poet of the Lakes. He was still a grumpy old recluse but he did increasingly enjoy his celebrity status in fashionable society. However, his resistance to the publication of his most important work The Prelude continued, and it only appeared after his death, published by his widow in 1850, thus providing her with some financial security in her old age.

Recommended reading

Stephen Gill, William Wordsworth: A life, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989.

Althea Hayter, The Wreck of the Abergavenny, Macmillan, 2002.

The Odeon in the immediate aftermath of the fire

While the fires might look suspicious, more interesting, I think, is what the conflagrations tell us about the sweeping changes to the urban landscape in England, and in particular the decline of the traditional high street.

The Regal Cinema opened in 1933 when movies were by far the most important source of mass entertainment. The imposing brick structure contained a multi-level auditorium with a remarkable 1,750 seating capacity, and a powerful organ to provide the movie soundtrack. Cinema attendance across the United Kingdom averaged around one billion each year during 1930s and reached a peak of 1.6 billion in 1946.

Attendance levels declined steadily thereafter and dropped off dramatically in the 1960s as television ownership expanded. The cinema in Canterbury responded by dividing the complex into two auditoria, with one dedicated to bingo, but even that was not enough. The introduction of home video rentals saw cinema attendance decline further, reaching an all-time low (excluding pandemic levels) of 54 million in 1984.

It was only after the industry switched to a multiplex model, with several much smaller screens giving operators more options and less risk, that attendance figures recovered to around 150 million a year. According to the Independent Cinema Office, the optimal configuration currently is one main screen of 150-250 seats and smaller, premium screens of 70-100 seats. The two new Curzon cinemas in Canterbury both have both adopted this approach with large, comfortable seats, and a food and beverage service. At a price, of course. Tickets are around £10, about one hundred times higher than in the 1950s when the average ticket price was two shillings.

The great British department store has followed a similar trajectory. The first department store opened in London in the late 18^th century and by the late Victorian era, when the growing middle-class could sample an ever-expanding range of consumer goods, it had become an established feature of the urban landscape.

It was around this time that William Lefevre, the son of a Canterbury grocer, began developing his retail business empire. After serving an apprenticeship in London, William purchased a drapery shop adjacent to Canterbury cathedral on Sun Street in 1875. He then purchased several adjoining properties and by the time his son Charles took over the family business in the early 20^th century, there was a clear economic imperative to combine their assets and create one big shopping paradise.

The abandoned Debenhams store on Guildhall Street

The concept of destination shopping was first devised by Selfridges in 1909, and the idea was soon taken up by other companies across England who built grand modernist and art-deco buildings that combined an array of retail outlets with dining and entertainment venues. In 1925, Charles Lefevre embarked on massive and controversial project to merge their Guildhall Street store with the adjacent Philosophical and Literary Institution and Museum, the Theatre Royal and the Guildhall Tavern. The resulting three-storey building occupied just about the entire length of Guildhall Street, with its main entrance on the High Street. Almost as soon as the store opened, the Lefevre family sold out to new investors, and the business was then acquired by Debenhams in 1927. The store was only rebranded as Debenhams in 1973.

There was one major drawback of the Guildhall Street complex that would only become apparent later in the 20^th century. The lack of any car parking spaces was not a problem when public transport could effectively ferry customers to and from their destination but with the decline of the rail and bus networks and the rise of the car, customers looked for more vehicle-friendly options. The development of out-of-town shopping malls, that often-included multiplex cinemas, meant that the traditional department store’s days were numbered.

Debenhams closed its Canterbury store in 2020, and the company only exists today as an online shadow of its former self. Another family owned department store on the High Street, Nasons, closed in 2018, and there is just one purpose built department store left, Fenwicks, at the top of the High Street. Fenwicks opened in 2005 as part of the extensive new Whitefriars development. It was designed – much as new multiplex cinemas – with a wide variety of small-scale, branded outlets to diversify risk and maximise profit. So far, it has survived the rise of online shopping by moving up market and catering almost exclusively to the wealthier, elderly residents of the city.

There were plans to redevelop both Nasons and Debenhams into mixed-use residential and retail complexes. However, since 2020, all new developments that impact the River Stour, which runs through the centre of Canterbury, are being blocked by the government environmental agency Natural England, which is seeking to protect the nature reserve downstream in Stodmarsh. The reserve currently has excessively high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus from waste water discharge, and, so far, no one has come up with a suitable (affordable) water treatment scheme to mitigate the problem.

As a result, Canterbury High Street remains haunted by ghosts of entertainment and retail past. And the chances of another sudden conflagration cannot be ruled out.

“Safeguarding” here refers to the duty of institutions such as schools, hospitals, charities etc., to protect and empower vulnerable members of the community. And a glance at the Church of England’s official website (its face to the outside world) tells you that it takes safeguarding very seriously.

The image of a lighthouse prominently displayed at the top of the church website’s safeguarding page is intended to project an image of concern, responsibility and compassion to all.

In England, lighthouses ring the coastline warning sailors of hazards at sea by shining a light on danger but also acting as a beacon of hope, a refuge during a storm. In the Christian tradition, Jesus declares: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

The light from the lighthouse illuminates the dark and welcomes the flock into its sanctuary. As a finishing touch, the lighthouse is shown in red and white, the colours of the English flag.

The imagery is quite potent but does safeguarding actually make the church a safer place? If it helps uncover or, better still, prevent predatory behaviour and abuse, then of course, it should be welcomed. But, clearly, abuse still occurs even after vigorous guardrails have been put in place. On 6 February, just a week after Dame Sarah was appointed, a Christian summer camp leader, Jon Ruben, was convicted of sexually abusing numerous boys, several younger than 13-years-old, over a period of two decades. The judge in the case told Ruben it was the “supreme irony, [that] you were the safeguarding lead.”

Following the conviction, the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, whose diocese Ruben was an active member of, issued the following statement:

I am profoundly shocked by the terrible abuse of children admitted by Jon Ruben… The abuse of trust and harm to the vulnerable is horrific in any setting, but it is especially shocking when it happens in a context that should have been safe and nurturing.

This is not just a problem for the Church of England, any institution, large or small, that is tasked with policing its own behaviour can be compromised. When concern for the welfare of vulnerable becomes institutionalized, it is the institution and the structures built around it that can take precedence. An institution’s first priority is to protect itself, and it will seek to prevent individuals within its remit from taking any action that could harm its image or reputation.

For example, carers looking after the elderly or vulnerable at home are often told not to attempt any medical procedure, even something as minor as cleaning a wound or applying a band aid, but rather report the incident and wait for a “professional” to arrive. Many carers have first aid training but even so, they have to follow set procedures.

Every time you sit down for a meal at a restaurant here, you are immediately asked by the staff if you have any food allergies or dietary restrictions. Is this really out of concern for the customers or is it merely a precaution to safeguard the business? And shouldn’t it also be the responsibility of the customer to alert staff to any issues?

Safeguarding, which only became established and enshrined in government policy in the mid-2000s, is all-pervasive now. Every institution or organization however small feels obligated to devise their own safeguarding policy. It is easily done, as there are numerous templates for all types of organization to choose from online.

If an organization such as a charity working with vulnerable people does not have a strict safeguarding policy it can see its funding dry up pretty quickly as foundations will be unwilling risk association with it.

Because of its institutional basis, safeguarding can become an administrative, box-ticking, exercise, a procedure to demonstrate care and concern for the vulnerable that reduces human action to mere statistics.

The Church of England boasts, for example, that over the last two years, it has;

Worked with 166 victims and survivors who participated in policy design, communications, training improvements… Rolled out two Codes of Practice… Designed and developed the National Redress Scheme, with victims and survivors involved in over 160 policy decisions… Over 68,000 individuals completed our Basic Safeguarding Training, and over 35,000 individuals completed our Domestic Abuse Awareness training in 2025 alone.

If safeguarding becomes even more institutionalized, there is a risk that the original intent of the initiative, to protect and uplift to the disadvantaged, will vanish into a bureaucratic labyrinth.

When everyone has mandatory training and a clearly defined set of procedures to follow, the compassion and simple good judgement of individuals can be side-lined. Certainly, training can raise people’s awareness of the needs of the disadvantaged but it can also foster resentment at being told how to think and act.

Rather than simply developing guidelines and protocols, it is far more important to instil a sense of empathy, understanding and kindness in the wider community. I don’t have the answer to how this can be done in these politically-charged and divisive times but I hope we can start by gradually moving away reliance on impersonal organizational structures and get back to positive individual human connectivity.

At the request of those who missed it, here is a transcript and a few selected images from the presentation. I have added links to individual player profiles.

A view of Bourne House and grounds from the lake. Photograph by Amanda Hills.

Attend all ye muses and join to rehearse

An old English Sport never praised yet in verse,

Tis Cricket I sing of illustrious fame,

No nation e’er boasted so noble a game.

This is the opening verse of The Noble Game of Cricket, which was written to celebrate a match between England and Hampshire that took place just down the road at Bourne Park in August 1772.

And the match was certainly worthy of celebration. An estimated 20,000 spectators from all over Kent, and beyond, crammed into Bourne Park to see the biggest names in the sport, including the bulk of the famous Hambledon Club, battle it out over two days.

The scorecard (one of the first to record individual batters’ scores) shows that England won by two wickets in a low scoring thriller that had everyone, especially those with a bet on the outcome, on the edge of their seats.

The key to England’s victory was this remarkable individual, Edward “Lumpy” Stevens.

Photo courtesy Marylebone Cricket Club

Lumpy was the best fast bowler in England at the time and, legend has it, so accurate that he was responsible for the introduction of a third (middle) stump after he repeatedly clean bowled batters through the original two without disturbing the wicket. During the match at Bourne Park, Lumpy caused astonishment by bowling Hampshire’s best batter, John Small, a feat, which according to the Kentish Gazette “had not been done for some years.”

The Noble Game of Cricket is far too long and excessively florid to quote in full here but it is worth looking at in some detail because of what it reveals about the state of cricket in late 18^th century society.

The opening verse tells us two things right off the bat. First, the sport had been firmly embraced by the aristocracy and secondly it was a source of national pride. Indeed, we are told that cricket surpassed even the treasures of ancient Greece that these noble gentlemen had undoubtedly witnessed during their Grand Tour of Europe. The game, we learn, provided exhilarating entertainment for spectators, and in particular, the female audience.

Here’s guarding and catching and throwing and tossing

And bowling and striking and running and crossing,

Each mate must excel in some principal part,

The Pentathlon of Greece could not show so much art.

 The parties are met, and array’d all in white,

Fam’d Elis ne’er boasted so pleasing a sight,

Each nymph looks askew at her favourite swain,

And views him half stripped both with pleasure and pain.

 The poem goes on to take us through the various stages of the match with one verse devoted to each of the three disciplines of batting, bowling and fielding, perhaps serving as an introduction to the game for new fans. And it concludes with a salute to the two men responsible for staging this wondrous event.

With heroes like these even Hampshire we’ll drub,

And bring down the pride of the Hambledown club

The Duke, with Sir Horace, are men of true merit,

And nobly support such brave fellows with spirit.

 The Duke and Sir Horace were John Sackville, the third Duke of Dorset, and Sir Horatio Mann, the host of this particular match who had moved into Bourne Park House seven years earlier. He was in his early twenties, he’d inherited a vast fortune from his father, and just married the daughter of the Earl of Gainsborough. His uncle Horace was the long-standing British representative to the court of Tuscany, and a close friend and confident of Horace Walpole.

Portrait of Sir Horace Mann, courtesy Marylebone Cricket Club

The young Sir Horace spent a lot of time travelling between his various properties in England and Italy but Bourne Park (which he rented rather than owned outright), clearly held a special attraction for him, and he soon set about transforming it into an unrivalled cultural, sporting, and entertainment venue.

After hosting the Mozart family on their grand tour of Europe in 1765, Sir Horace had a pristine cricket ground laid out, offset to front of the house, on the gentle slope down to the Nailbourne. The lake that we see today was only created in 1840s, after the house was purchased by Matthew Bell, so during Sir Horace’s time, we can assume there was far more open space for both players and spectators.

The grounds, which Sir Horace named Bourne Paddock, were described by the cricket writer John Burnby as having “smooth grass… laid complete… a sweet lawn, with shady trees encompassed ‘round.”

But Sir Horace was not content with just a pretty cricket ground, he was bent on creating a team that could take on and defeat the best in the land. In this regard, he was not unlike the oligarchs who own the Indian Premier League teams of today, or indeed the owners of any sporting franchise around the world, who scour the globe buying up talent wherever they can find it. Along with the Duke of Dorset and the Earl of Tankerville, Sir Horace would become one of the three most important patrons of the game in the late 18^th century.

One of his earliest acquisitions to Bourne Paddock was Richard Miller, a game keeper allegedly poached by Sir Horace from his rivals. It was Miller who scored the winning runs in that famous game praised in The Noble Game of Cricket. In all, he played in 54 matches, and held the Kent record for the highest individual score for nearly 50 years. He was described by John Nyren, the best-known chronicler of cricket at the time as “a beautiful player, always to be depended upon; there was no flash – no cock-a-whoop about him, but firm he was, and steady as the Pyramids.”

John Ring was another team stalwart. He was born and lived near Dartford until the age of 21, when Sir Horace installed him in Bridge as his head huntsman. Short and thickset, Ring was a formidable batter and notorious for using his squat frame to block the ball from hitting the stumps. This technique ultimately led to his downfall when, during batting practice, a ball bowled by his brother George reared up and broke his nose. While recuperating at home the village, he caught a fever and died on the 25^th of October 1800, aged 42.

Cricket was undoubtedly a dangerous profession at the time. There was another near fatality at Bourne Paddock in 1789 when George Louch, fielding close to the wicket, was struck by a ball so hard that lodged deep in his belly. Once the ball was located and it was ascertained that George was still breathing, a heated debate ensued over whether or not using one’s belly to catch the ball rather than one’s hands was a fair dismissal.

George made his first-class debut for Sir Horace in 1773, and played in numerous matches for Kent with Sir Horace’s greatest acquisition, James Aylward.

Aylward was the son of a Hampshire farmer who held the record for highest score of any individual batter, a monumental 167, amassed over three days. This epic achievement took place during the match illustrated below between Hampshire and England at the Duke of Dorset’s ground at Sevenoaks Vine in June 1777. England batted first and made a respectable 166 all out. James Aylward opened the batting for Hampshire about 5.00.pm on the first day, stoutly defending all three stumps against the bowling of none other than Lumpy Stevens. Aylward was the Geoffrey Boycott of his day. He was determined to defend at all costs and only run when it was safe for him to do so.

Legend has it that a wagoner from Farnham was passing by that evening and stopped a while to watch proceedings. He returned two days later to see Aylward still at the crease. He assumed that this was the start of Hampshire’s second innings and was astonished to learn that Aylward had batted for the entire second day and was still going strong. Hampshire were eventually dismissed for 403 and a demoralised England were bowled out for 69 in their second innings.

Sir Horace was determined to recruit Aylward to Bourne Paddock but it proved difficult at first because Aylward was understandably reluctant to leave his home county and the famed Hambledon club. But in August 1779, he finally moved to Bishopsbourne and took up a job as Sir Horace’s bailiff. He played cricket here for the next 14 years, regularly captaining Kent and England, and according to the official History of Kent CCC, became the first player in the county to score over a thousand first class runs.

Aylward was less effective as a bailiff, however, and in 1784, he took over the far more enjoyable and lucrative role as landlord of the White Horse in Bridge, where he remained for the next ten years. During his tenure at the pub, Aylward was granted exclusive catering rights to matches at Bourne Paddock, from which he evidently profited. Aylward is now a legend of the game, and his leather beer mug from the White Horse, embossed with a cricket bat and the initials JA, is one of the holy relics on display at the MCC museum in Lords.

Photo courtesy Marylebone Cricket Club

It is important to stress that not all of Sir Horace’s team were imports. There was plenty of local talent as well, such as John Pilcher, a shoemaker from Littlebourne, and Henry Crosoer, who was born in Bridge in 1766, and played for Kent on at least eight occasions as a young man, including three matches at Bourne Paddock. Henry owned and lived in 83 The High Street in Bridge before he was involved in a series of reckless real estate ventures, and had to make a hurried departure from the village.

Like his fellow patrons of the game, Sir Horace did occasionally play in his own team at least until his libertine lifestyle and gout took its toll. By all accounts, he exhibited more enthusiasm than skill. For example, in July 1773, he took part in a Kent versus Surrey game at Bourne Paddock that was immortalised in another poem, entitled Surrey Triumphant.

At last, Sir Horace took the field,

A batter of great might,

Mov’d like a lion, he awhile

Put Surrey in a fright.

He swung, ’till both his arms did ache,

His bat of season’d wood,

‘Till down his azure sleeves the sweat

Ran trickling like a flood.

As the poem’s title suggests, Surrey won easily by 153 runs and Sir Horace scored just 3 and 22.

Sir Horace’s all-consuming passion for cricket alarmed many, including his uncle, who wrote to Walpole after this particular match, “I see by the newspapers that my nephew is ruining himself at cricket.” It probably wasn’t Sir Horace’s poor performance with the bat that concerned his uncle, rather the vast sums of money he was betting on the outcome.

As recalled by the distinguished Hambledon player, William “Silver Billy” Beldham, during a match that Kent looked like losing, Sir Horace promised John Ring, who was batting at the time, £10 a year for life if he could win the match. As Ring’s innings progressed, Sir Horace could be seen on the boundary edge: “cutting about with his stick, and cheering every run [as if] his whole fortune was staked on the game.”

Ring was eventually out for 57 with just two runs still needed. It was left to James Aylward to grind out the winning runs. It is not known if Sir Horace kept his promise to Ring and paid his annuity.

Sir Horace was at best a mediocre cricketer and a degenerate gambler. His only real talent was in organizing lavish post-game entertainments for his VIP guests. During the 1780s, Bourne Park became The Destination for the great and good of Kent society.

In July 1882, Lady Hales at Howletts House wrote admiringly to a friend:

Tomorrow Sir Horace Mann begins his fetes by a great cricket match between his Grace of Dorset and himself, to which all this part of the world will be assembled… He gives a very magnificent Ball and Supper on Friday, it would not be polite to attend that – without paying a compliment to his favourite amusement.

Four years later, in August 1786, the Kentish Gazette reported that following a Kent and All-England game:

The very generous and liberal hospitality so conspicuous at Bourne House, does infinite honour to the very respectable and benevolent owner who, whilst he is patronising in the field the manly sport of cricket, is endeavouring to entertain his numerous guests with the most splendid entertainment in his house.

The obsequious reporter was probably unaware that Walpole had recently written to Sir Horace urging him to visit his terminally-ill uncle in Florence as soon as possible. But it was only after the entertainments had subsided, that Sir Horace wrote back from Bourne House on the 20^th of August, explaining that: “Powerful and almost superior duties have hitherto detained me, those being now accomplished, my thoughts are directed to Florence.”

It has been suggested, by John Major among others, that Sir Horace’s hedonistic extravagances were in some way compensation for the death of his young wife in 1778; a determination to live life to the full surrounded by beautiful people. Whatever the reason, it is clear that by the late 18^th century, cricket and high society revelry were inextricably linked.

So how is it that a game that originated in the Weald of Kent in the 16^th century as an entertainment for poor farm labourers, played on common land during festival days, ended up in the hands of a small group of aristocrats?

We know that cricket was already a popular pastime across Kent and Sussex in the early 17^th century. So much so, that many killjoy Puritans were determined to put a stop to it, especially if games occurred on a Sunday or on religious holidays.

The Rev. Thomas Wilson of Maidstone decried cricket as “undesirable at all times but damnable on the Sabbath.” Maidstone, at the time, was said to be a very low and profane place where quote: “Morrice dancing, Cudgel playing, Stool ball, Crickets, and many other sports [were seen] openly and publickly on the Lord’s day.”

In 1629, the curate of Ruckinge, Henry Cuffin, was summoned to the Archdeacon’s court to face charges that on:

Many Sundays and Sabbath days last summer, after he had read divine service at Evening Prayer, in the afternoon did immediately go and play at Cricketts, in a very unseemly manner with boys, and other mean and base persons of our parish, to the great scandal of his ministrie and the offence of such as saw him play at the same game.

There is a field directly behind the church, on the fringes of Romney Marsh, which I believe is the scene of the crime.

Henry claimed in his defence that his fellow cricketers were actually quite respectable fellows. It is difficult to make a judgement here but by the time we get to the early 18^th century, cricket had certainly attained a level of respectability and had been taken up by broad cross-section of society.

There was a wide network of teams from villages and towns across Kent and Sussex that included players from all walks of life. We know from the diaries of the Sussex shopkeeper and cricket fanatic, Thomas Turner, that there were at least half a dozen village teams within a ten-mile radius of his home in East Hoathly.

One of the best Kentish teams in the first half of the century was the Dartford Cricket Club, established in 1727 (and still going strong), which featured an array of working class and middle class players. In one season, mid-century, the team featured farmers, a brewery owner, his two draymen and a clerk, shopkeepers, a shoemaker and a tanner, and Thomas Brandon who was both a constable and the church warden in the town.

As cricket expanded both socially and geographically, it was taken up enthusiastically by many in the aristocracy who thought it fine entertainment. One of earliest devotees of the game was the Duke of Richmond at Goodwood who sponsored a match as early as 1702. He was soon followed by the Sackvilles at Knole, who established the Sevenoaks Vine ground in 1734.

Knole House, Sevenoaks, Kent

The next generation of nobles played cricket at their elite schools, and many like Sir Horace were determined to promote the game by recruiting the best players from across the social spectrum. They could do this because the class divisions that would coalesce in the 19^th century into the ranks of gentlemen and players where not so evident in the 18^th. The aristocracy was not a completely isolated or insular institution, and there were some opportunities for self-advancement. Sir Horace’s father, for example, made his fortune selling cloth to the military for uniforms.

There was also a growing sense of national identity in this now United Kingdom boosted by military and imperial conquest, and this nascent patriotism I think helped paper over many of the social tensions that existed at the time.

So, while the aristocracy never considered the farmers and blacksmiths on their teams to be their equal, they were at least willing play on the same team, play by the same rules and work together for a win. And for everyone else, the patronage of the aristocracy at least gave them the chance to earn a decent living.

Another key factor in the popularisation and spread of cricket in England was the gravitational pull of London and its emergence as an international centre of finance, trade and commerce. Hundreds of thousands of young labourers from the surrounding counties moved to the capital in search of their fortune. These young men and women continued to play their favourite summer pastime on common land on the outskirts of the capital. As such, cricket soon came into the orbit of London’s middle classes, many of whom saw business opportunities around the game. Leisure activities were becoming increasingly commercialised in the capital, exemplified by the popularity of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, in fact, just about the only free amusements left by the mid-18^th century were the public executions at Tyburn (seen below in William Hogarth’s illustration from 1747).

It was only a matter of time before cricket too became a lucrative commercial enterprise. One of the first organizations to cash in was the Honourable Artillery Company, a rather indolent bunch soldiers who were so much in debt, they were forced to rent out their parade ground for private hire. It just so happened that the ground between Finsbury Circus and Bunhill Cemetery, was the ideal size and location for cricket matches. So much so, that it is still there and for hire today.

There are records of cricket being played here as early as 1725 but the game really took off in the 1740s, when, George Smith, the landlord of the neighbouring Pied Horse pub, organized some of the biggest matches of the day.  Smith only charged tuppence for admission and regularly attracted crowds of seven to eight thousand. As you can imagine cramming several thousand rowdy spectators into this confined space was asking for trouble and, on the 18^th of June 1744, there was a crowd invasion during a match between Kent and England which Smith reportedly dealt with by cracking a bull whip on the boundary edge.

In addition to popularizing the game among commoners, George Smith worked closely with the aristocracy who were increasingly drawn by political, social and cultural forces towards the capital. In addition to staging matches at their country estates, the nobility were keen to promote the game in and around London, as seen in this illustration by Francis Hayman from 1748 of a cricket match in Marylebone.

Courtesy Marylebone Cricket Club

Congregating in London allowed these gentlemen to mould what had been a fairly anarchic game into a codified sport that they could control. Their favourite meeting place was the Star & Garter Club in Pall Mall. It was here that the Jockey Club was created in 1750, and first laws of cricket (then little more than a basic set of instructions on how to stage a game) were devised in 1744.

Sir Horace Mann was an active member of the Star & Garter Club and he was instrumental in drawing up the revised laws of the game in 1774, which are generally considered to be the first definitive written code, and the basis of all subsequent revisions.

Courtesy Marylebone Cricket Club

Sir Horace is immortalised here, in the top right-hand corner, as a key member of the committee of Noblemen and Gentlemen who set down the laws, which are etched around the border.

The match depicted here took place on a windswept hilltop in Islington, which was then home to the White Conduit Club. Sadly, the only trace the venue today is a short cul-de-sac off Chapel Market. The club was formed by the gentlemen of the Star & Garter around 1780 largely for their own entertainment but also to stage high-stakes matches in which the best professional players of the day were recruited to the cause. When Sir Horace hosted a game between Kent and the White Conduit Club at Bourne Paddock in 1786, two White Conduit players (Tom Walker and Thomas Taylor, both on loan from the Hambledon Club) scored centuries, and Kent lost by mammoth 164 runs.

The following year, the White Conduit Club commissioned Yorkshireman, Thomas Lord, to develop a new purpose-built ground in Marylebone to replace their open playing field in Islington, and to keep the riff-raff at bay. He selected a site in what is now Dorset Square, and Lord’s cricket ground opened for business in May 1787.

One of the first cricketers to play at the Dorset Square ground was the landlord of the White Horse in Bridge. In a match between the White Conduit Club and England, James Aylward scored 94 and 15, and his 94 remained the highest individual score at Lords for the next five years. Soon after Lords was established, the White Conduit Club reinvented itself as the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), and before long it was firmly established at the centre of all cricket in England.

London, at this time, had a population of around one million, about six percent of the entire population, and was by far the largest and most important city in Europe. It was clear to everyone by then that isolated little grounds like Bourne Paddock could not possibly rival London and Lords in particular as a sporting venue. James Aylward, for example, gave up his lucrative licence at the White Horse, and moved to St Johns Wood, where the current Lord’s ground is located.

Sir Horace meanwhile was burdened by crippling debts. He complained incessantly to Walpole about the cost of maintaining his deceased uncle’s office and household in Florence. He noted in a letter in December 1786 that “I never have made vows, or at least never kept them when made, to the goddess Prudence.” Three years later, he was forced to give up his beloved Bourne Paddock. It was not too long after that he was finally declared bankrupt.

The cricket ground at Bourne Paddock vanished into the new landscaped gardens around the house but its fame lingered on in the collective memory of Kent cricketers. And in the early 20^th century, the cricket-obsessed Sackville family briefly returned to Bourne Park when Maud Bell (the granddaughter of Matthew Bell) married Major-Gen. Sir Charles John Sackville-West (the great grandson of Sir Horace’s sporting rival, the Duke of Dorset). Their son, Edward, the 5^th Lord Sackville spent much of his youth there before relocating to the ancestral home of Knole.

In 1927, the property was acquired by Sir John Prestige who set about trying recreate the halcyon days of Bourne Paddock by restoring the grounds to their former glory. But, by then, the centre of Kent cricket was firmly established in Canterbury, with an extensive network of county grounds in Maidstone, Tonbridge Wells, Blackheath, Dover, and Folkestone, so there was no way this quaint little ground could attract even half-decent professionals, let alone the best players in the game. Another major drawback, as anyone who has played there will tell you, is that the bounce is very slow and low, which was no problem in the 18^th century when bowling was underarm but was less than ideal for the modern game where short-pitched bowling was already in vogue.

As a result, cricket matches at Bourne Park were limited to Sir John’s friends such as Alec Waugh (brother of Evelyn), who was so taken with the grounds that, in 1932, he moved to Bishopsbourne and took up residence at the Oswalds, the substantial property on the edge of the estate, previously occupied by the village’s most famous literary resident, Joseph Conrad.

The memorial to Joseph Conrad above the entrance to Bishopsbourne village hall

The Polish novelist was on occasion forced by his agent to watch cricket matches in Canterbury but he was clearly not a fan of the game, observing:

I am totally unable to comprehend why a man hitting a ball with a piece of wood can produce a state of near lunacy in people who one would assume were otherwise apparently sane.

Sir John Prestige eventually lost interest in the sport and, in the 1950s, he sought to demolish Bourne House entirely. When that failed, he tried to sell it to Kent County Council as a site for the new University Kent.

But cricket survived Sir John, who died in 1962, and continued to be played at Bourne Park well into late into the 20^th century. Local cricket was also played on the recreation ground in Bridge and at Charlton Park, where Kent and England batter Joe Denly played for Bishopsbourne as a teenager. Sadly, both those grounds have now fallen into disuse and all that remains of the pitch at Bourne Park is a tiny wooden pavilion and a rusting iron roller beside it.

Photo by Amanda Hills

I am not sure cricket will return to Bourne Park anytime soon but thankfully we still have the St Lawrence and Highland Court Club whose first XI is in the premier division of the Kent Cricket League and has two excellent grounds on Bridge Hill. So, we can say with some confidence that cricket is still alive and well in the village.

They were led by Thomas Cheyne, known as “the Hermit Bluebeard,” who marshalled his forces in the village of Eastry, south of Sandwich. Here they drew up a list of “traitors” in the government that they wished to see beheaded, chief among them the Duke of Suffolk, William de la Pole, who was widely despised as the power behind the throne in England.

It is thought they initially tried to capture Dover Castle but when that failed they turned their attention to sacking local religious houses. Chenye was a Lollard, or at least sympathetic to that anti-clerical sect founded by John Wycliffe, and doubtless keen to get some measure of payback from the bishops.

On 31 January, they reached Canterbury, the first city on the road to London, and made their way to St. Radigund’s abbey hospice (the townhouse for the abbot, and a waystation for pilgrims) on the northern edge of the city wall.

The remains of the city wall on St. Radigund’s Street, Canterbury

Site of the former abbey hospice on the adjacent Duck Lane

St. Radigund’s abbey itself was located in the hills above Dover and would have been a familiar (and hated) landmark for many of the villagers from nearby Temple Ewell and River who made up a large section of the uprising.

The ruins of St. Radigund’s Abbey, set in a suitably austere landscape for the famously ascetic saint

During the assault on the hospice, Cheyne was captured by the citizenry of Canterbury and swiftly brought to trial in Westminster. Inevitably, he was found guilty of treason and taken to Tyburn where he was hanged, drawn and quartered. His head was placed on a spike on London Bridge and his quartered body distributed as warning to people in London, Norwich and two of the Cinque ports.

That might have been the end of that but the people of southern England were just getting started. Earlier that month, a mob in Portsmouth had murdered the bishop of Chichester Adam Moleyns, and, concurrent with Cheyne’s uprising, a yeoman from Westminster named Nicholas Jakes was found guilty of plotting the murder the bishop of Salisbury and the abbot of Gloucester, among others.

The execution of Cheyne and other traitors was supposed to stifle dissent but it wasn’t long before there were more anti-government stirrings. Then, in the summer of 1450, there was a full-fledged uprising, known as Jack Cade’s rebellion, which would become the most important popular movement in England since the great peasants’ revolt of 1381.

The trigger for this uprising was the murder on 2 May of William de la Pole off the coast of Dover. The Duke had finally been sent into exile by the King Henry VI, as a gesture of appeasement to his critics, but Suffolk’s vessel was intercepted on its way to France by the Nicholas of the Tower. The ship’s captain, almost certainly aligned with Suffolk’s enemies, staged a mock trial and executed his prisoner.

The beach below Shakespeare Cliff, near Dover

After Suffolk’s headless body washed up on the shores of Dover, word quickly spread that the king would take revenge by turning Kent into a wasteland. Within a month, an army of several thousand men, headed by the charismatic Jack Cade, was on the march to London for a showdown with the authorities.

They arrived on the outskirts of London on 11 June and, following the precedent of the 1381 uprising, which also originated in Kent, made their camp on Blackheath overlooking the city. They were met by a high-ranking delegation from the king, which accepted a petition from Cade with an extensive list of demands for reform, all couched in language that professed loyalty to the monarch.

The response of the king was, on 18 June, to attack the rebels on the heath but they had gotten wind of his plan and dispersed. Henry then decided it would be prudent to leave London for a while.

The rebels reassembled south of the river and, and with reinforcements arriving from Essex, they managed to besiege London at the end of June. They entered the city on 1 July and set about killing their perceived enemies and looting property before the Londoners managed to push them out during a pitched battle on London Bridge on the evening of 5 July.

Negotiations led by the Archbishop of Canterbury then ensued and Cade and his followers were offered a pardon if they dispersed and returned to their homes. They reluctantly agreed, probably knowing full well the pardon was not worth the paper it was inscribed upon.

Indeed, the rebels were pursued as they dispersed and Cade himself was eventually captured on 12 July in a battle in the High Weald near Heathfield, Sussex. He died of his injuries before he could be brought back to London for trial.

But, once again, that was not the end of the rebellion. For the next few years, there were intermittent risings across of the southeast of England, many led by veterans of Cade’s army and some by men claiming to be Cade himself. Their demands for fairer government, and their tacit support for the king’s rival, Richard Duke of York, remained unchanged but Henry refused to budge. As a result, in 1455, England was plunged into a three-decade dynastic conflict between the houses of York and Lancaster, known today as the War of the Roses.

Back at St. Radigund’s Street, there is a small garden with a noticeboard detailing the historical development of the area. It notes the location of abbot’s hospice in medieval times but there is sadly no mention of the Hermit Bluebeard and his uprising there.

Recommended reading

I.M.W. Harvey, Jack Cade’s Rebellion of 1450, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991.

June 1976 Hector Petersen. Photograph by Sam Nzima/South Photographs.

The protests rapidly spread across the township, Johannesburg and other cities, and, over the next week, led to hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries at the hands of the police. The killings sparked global outrage. The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 392, which condemned the South African government in the strongest possible terms for its “callous shooting” of school children.

The Uprising was a major turning point in the history of South Africa, and marked the beginning of the end for apartheid. It was also my first real exposure – on the television news – to events in South Africa.  Although, I have to admit that I was initially more concerned with the England West Indies cricket test series that was being played that summer. There was, however, a profound connection between that cricket match and the political oppression of black South Africans. The England cricket captain, Tony Greig, was a white South African who had proclaimed prior to the series that he intended to make the West Indies – a team descended from enslaved people – “grovel.”

As shown in the inspiring documentary Fire in Babylon, that comment was all the West Indies’ players needed for motivation. By the end of the final test at The Oval, England had been battered into submission, losing the series 3-0.

Both the West Indies’ victory and the Soweto uprising were formative events in my political awakening that year. Soon, I was at the forefront of efforts to prevent the far right National Front from recruiting at my high school. And my commitment to the struggle in South Africa was reinforced during my university years. Kings College, London, was just down the road from the South African embassy on Trafalgar Square, and, coincidentally, claimed Desmond Tutu as an alumnus. I routinely attended the protests outside the embassy and campaigned against British companies still investing in and supporting the apartheid regime.

I refused to visit South Africa until the formal end of apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994. And when I did finally visit in 1999, one of the first places I went to was Soweto. I immediately felt at home. If I mentioned my birthdate, which I often did, I was always greeted with a broad smile and on more than one occasion, a free drink in the local shabeen.

The Soweto Uprising is celebrated in South Africa as Youth Day. It is an important reminder that it is the younger generation who will continue the struggle for social justice, no matter where in the world they are or what obstacles they face. It was students about the same age as those in Soweto who led the months-long anti-government protests in Hong Kong in 2019. It is students who are leading the fight against the fossil fuel industry and their lackeys in government. And in the brilliant new Paul Thomas Anderson movie, One Battle After Another, it is sixteen-year-old Willa (played by Chase Infiniti) who will inherit the baton from her failed revolutionary, stoner dad (Leonardo DiCaprio).

We may disagree with their tactics or get frustrated with their absurd discourse, but if we still believe in social justice, it is the responsibility of the older generation to support our youth in their struggle, stay out of the way when not needed but offer help when it is required, just as Benicio del Toro’s character Sensei does in One Battle After Another. For me, Sensei, calm, resourceful and caring, is the perfect role model for the older generation.

The South African gold mines were in desperate need of labour to restart production after the devastating Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) during which the British used scorched earth tactics and rounded up more than 100,000 civilians in concentration camps in a bid to subdue the Afrikaner resistance. Lord Harris served briefly as an Assistant Adjutant-General for the Imperial Yeomanry during that conflict.

The mine owners decided that recruiting unskilled white labourers to work underground would be far too expensive, and black African labour was in short supply, so in early 1903, they devised an elaborate scheme, of which Lord Harris was a vocal supporter, to import impoverished labourers from northern China. It proved more difficult than expected but on 18 June 1904, the SS Tweeddale landed in Durban from Hong Kong with the first consignment of 1,049 Chinese men on board. After processing, they were locked in third-class train carriages and transported straight to Johannesburg. Over the next three years, a total of 63,000 indentured workers would arrive from China.

In an attempt to minimize the certain protests from local white workers, the mine owners restricted the Chinese labourers to back-breaking unskilled jobs at the rock face. Their contracts would last a maximum of three years after which they would be repatriated back to China. Whilst in South Africa, they were housed in specially constructed on-site compounds, and denied the right to own property, engage in trade, exercise free assembly or vote.

The mine owners recruited former soldiers from China to act as compound police. These “policemen” eagerly took advantage of their position of power to exploit and abuse the workforce. Corporal punishment was meted out by white supervisors and the Chinese police alike. Working conditions underground were appalling, the food served in the workers’ compounds was of poor quality, and the workers were routinely cheated out of their wages.

The Chinese workers did not passively accept this abuse, as management hoped. They fought back, staging protests, riots and sometimes attacking white workers’ dormitories. In April 1905, the nearly 2,000 workers at the North Randfontein mine took collective action when management reneged on a promise to increase pay rates after six months. For the first six months of their contract, the labourers were forced to accept a lower rate of pay in order to compensate the mine owners for their recruitment and transportation costs. When the new rate wasn’t paid, the workers staged a carefully calibrated work to rule, drilling only the minimum amount of rock specified in their contracts and no more. If they had refused to work at all, they all could have been arrested but this way they were still technically abiding by their contracts. The management tried to divide the workers by offering their leaders a separate deal but they maintained solidarity and eventually secured a pay increase for everyone. However, the leaders were later rounded up and sentenced to nine months’ hard labour on trumped up charges.

During their three-year tenure in the mines, more than 3,000 Chinese labourers (about five percent of the total workforce) died, either in work accidents or from disease and malnutrition. Thousands more deserted, but with nowhere to go, many resorted to scavenging and banditry, further inflaming the anger of white settlers, and Afrikaner farmers in particular. Eventually, the colonial government empowered local citizens to arrest any Chinese they encountered outside the compounds.

Many clergymen and other moralists, decried the use of Chinese labour as a form of slavery, re-established in the gold mines 80 years after the righteous British empire had abolished the practice. More quietly, they also voiced concern that segregating these heathens in all-male compounds would ferment unspeakable acts of depravity.

The broad-based opposition to the scheme was seized upon by the Liberal Party in Britain during its 1906 general election campaign that led to a landslide victory after 20 years of Conservative and Unionist Party rule. While in the Transvaal, the 1907 elections there were won by the Afrikaner-nationalist Het Volk party, which immediately terminated the Chinese labour experiment.

Just about the only people in favour of importing Chinese labour were the mine owners. In a speech to the House of Lords on 26 February 1906, Lord Harris sought to justify the use of indentured foreign labour on the grounds that it was in the interests of the thousands of “poor” investors in his company, as well as the greater good of the British empire.

Consolidated Gold Fields was the largest employer of Chinese in the Transvaal (4,200 labourers in total at its Simmer and Jack mine), and his lordship feigned outrage at the suggestion that there was the “taint of slavery” in the working conditions there. He argued that the Chinese labourers had all knowingly and voluntarily entered into a mutually beneficial contract with the mine owners.

He dismissed accounts of workers in shackles as sensationalist propaganda, and identified the main opponents of the scheme as disgruntled former British mine employees or administrators with a grudge to bear. He was doubtless unaware of a report in the Shandong Daily, written by an interpreter on the transport ships from northeast China:

The men are treated with the greatest brutality. Whilst in Yantai the headmen at the emigration office are constantly beating them… [In South Africa] some die from disease and some are foully murdered… Truly they are living in a hell upon earth; the foreigners are fierce and evil as the Devil himself.

Lord Harris’ speech may have been self-serving and disingenuous but he was not alone in spinning a political fairytale. The Liberal Party activists who pushed the “Chinese slavery” agenda in the 1906 election did not really care what happened to the Chinese workers, it was simply another issue they could use to attack the unpopular incumbent government.

Liberal Party election poster

Just eight years later, after the outbreak of World War One, those very same Liberal politicians recruited 94,000 Chinese labourers to dig trenches, repair machinery and transport links, retrieve ammunition and carcasses from the battlefield and bury the dead on the frontlines of Europe. Their conditions of employment as members of the Chinese Labour Corps were just as bad, often worse, than for those dispatched to the South African mines by Lord Harris and his friends.

We should note here that Lord Harris was not just the boss of gold mining company, if anything his position there was little more than a retirement sinecure. He only became involved in the business when the founder of Consolidated Gold Fields, Cecil Rhodes, was forced to resign in the wake of the Jameson Raid, a disastrous incursion into the Transvaal instigated by the company in 1895. Consolidated Gold Fields needed a safe, politically neutral, figure head, and Lord Harris fitted the bill nicely.

His lordship was best known at the time as a cricketer who captained Kent and England in some of the earliest test matches against Australia. He was also, like his father before him, a colonial official, serving as Governor of the Presidency of Bombay from 1890 to 1895, during which he spent most of his time playing cricket and ignoring the plight of his subjects. He was described by some there as the most unpopular governor in more than a century.

Belmont House is packed with treasures from the colonies but there is little reflection by the local guides there on the process of their acquisition, merely a delight in their grandeur. But you only need to scratch surface of all the glitter and luxury to reveal the true face of the British empire. Apart from the thank you gift from the gold miners in the library, there is one particularly telling exhibit. The armoury, a room at the rear of the property, is devoted to the hundreds of firearms, swords and daggers collected by their lordships during their colonial adventures. Several artefacts were looted from the armouries of Mysore, southwest India, by the first Lord Harris who led the attack that finally ended the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1799.

And it was the proceeds of that conflict that allowed the first Lord Harris to purchase Belmont House in 1801, just as the dividend of the Anglo-Boer War benefited his great grandson, one hundred years later.

Recommended reading

Paul Johnson, Gold Fields: A centenary portrait, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987.

Mae Ngai, The Chinese Question: The gold rushes, Chinese migration, and global politics, W.W. Norton & co. 2021.

Mark O’Neill, The Chinese Labour Corps: The forgotten Chinese labourers of the First World War, Penguin, 2014.

Nigel Worden, The Making of Modern South Africa, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.

“I remember my father pointing to him and saying, ‘You know, that guy has US$8 billion more than me,’ because he was in such extreme debt at that point.”

Some like to use that anecdote to illustrate just how bad a deal maker and businessman Trump was before he became president of the United States but surely that is redundant. For me, it is more telling to see how that same relentless self-absorption and complete lack of empathy or compassion allows the now President Trump, seemingly on a whim, to order the removal of all homeless people from Washington, D.C. in an effort to “beautify” the city.

The operation was carried out mid-August with a callous disregard for the well-being of the city’s estimated 900 rough sleepers, many of whom had lived there quietly for decades without causing a nuisance or posing a threat to anyone.

The New York Times talked to David Brown, who had lived for 15 years in a small encampment on Washington Circle, and saw his home destroyed when police threw his tent, clothing and other possessions into a dumpster.

“Why is he doing this, for no reason?” Mr Brown asked after moving with his canine friend and what was left of his possessions about block away to the entrance of the Foggy Bottom subway station.

The White House has claimed that provision will be made for those forcibly removed but advocates for the homeless in Washington, D.C. say that, so far, no federal aid has been forthcoming. Those non-profits that do provide help have described the impact of the removals as “frantic and traumatic,” creating a crisis unseen for more than a decade.

So why is Trump doing this? Clearly, he has no interest in helping the most vulnerable members of society find a better life, he just doesn’t want to look at them when his motorcade passes through the city streets en route to his golf course. Or perhaps, he still holds a grudge against that “wealthy” homeless guy sitting outside Trump Tower all those years ago.

While Trump’s comic-book-villain attitude to the homeless is extreme, I wonder, from a moral standpoint, is it really any worse than politicians like Britain’s Sir Kier Starmer, who made a pledge in the Big Issue Christmas special “to make sure no one faces homelessness.” He then largely ignored the problem until his own “homelessness minister” was forced to resign after it was revealed she had evicted four tenants from a property she owned in London and then relisted it with the rent increased from £3,300 per month to £4,000 per month.

The government claims it is committed to increasing the supply of social and affordable housing, and is investing impressive sounding numbers to tackle rough sleeping. But its main priority is boosting economic growth and cutting government spending. As Starmer himself said in July 2023:

Frankly, the left has to start caring a lot more about growth, about creating wealth, attracting inward investment and kick-starting a spirit of enterprise… It is the only show in town for those who dream of a brighter future.

It is difficult see how this approach will help tackle the complex root causes of homelessness. Indeed, the government’s increase in National Insurance payments for employers last year has already put a huge strain on many charities and non-profit organizations working with the disadvantaged.

The centre for the homeless that I volunteer at in Canterbury is just about managing to get by. Every day, two to three dozen people show up for a hot meal and to use the laundry or showers. There are always new faces and some regulars who for whatever reason cannot find a stable home. If numbers increase, it will be a real struggle to cope.

Crisis at Christmas Annual Report 1984

Looking back, I have seen very little improvement in the homeless situation in England since I volunteered at Crisis at Christmas in London more than 40 years ago, about the same time that Margaret Thatcher’s 1980 Housing Act gave council house tenants the right to buy, thereby decimating the country’s social housing stock.

The only country that I am aware of that has really made an effort to end homelessness is Iceland. Following the global economic crisis of 2008 that hit Iceland particularly hard, the government ensured that the capital Reykjavik has three emergency shelters across the city that are open every day from 5.00.pm to 10.00.am because you do not want to be sleeping rough in Iceland any day of the year. The city also provides low cost housing and a wide range of mental health and drug addiction services for people struggling to get their lives together.

For most western democratic governments however, the approach to homelessness and rough sleeping in particular is merely a diluted version of Trump’s “move them out and move them on.”

Strong wind destroy our home

Many dead, tonight it could be you

Strong wind, strong wind

Many dead, tonight it could be you

 

*  © 1986 Words and Music by Paul Simon and Joseph Shabalala.

The pub is on the corner of Muscovy Street, a minor roadway created in the early 20^th century during the construction of the ornate Port of London Authority building on Trinity Square. Some say the name is a reference to the Tsar of Muscovy tavern, which used to stand on Great Tower Street, and was allegedly frequented by Peter the Great while he was staying in Deptford on his grand tour of Europe, studying new techniques of ship-building, navigation and warfare. More likely, the name derives from the Muscovy Company, an early shipping concern founded in 1555 and originally headquartered here. It played a key role in opening up new trade routes to the northeast for English merchants and held a monopoly on Anglo-Russian trade for more than a century.

Muscovy Street runs westward for less than 50 metres before it ends at Seething Lane, a narrow road whose name derives from the Old English word for chaff, there once being a threshing ground adjacent to it. However, around 1380, the wife of prominent citizen, Sir Robert Knolles, purchased the threshing ground opposite their house and turned it into a private rose garden. She then built a footbridge over the lane to directly access the garden. In response, the mayor of London imposed a fine on the family of one red rose to be presented to the mayor each year on the Feast of John the Baptist. This ceremony, presided over by the Company of Watermen and Lightermen, is still carried out today.

The area around Seething Lane today. Taken from OpenStreetMaps

Seething Lane is best known as the residence and workplace of the famous diarist Samuel Pepys, whose day job was as a senior administrator at the Navy Office complex constructed on Seething Lane in 1656. The Navy Office was founded not long after the Muscovy Company to oversee the development of English sea power. It was originally located in Deptford before it moved to Tower Hill in the early 17^th century. Pepys’ role in the Navy Office should not be underestimated: he is often referred to as “the father of the modern Royal Navy,” and is credited with turning a corrupt and inefficient institution into a powerful fighting force.

Pepys and his wife Elisabeth are buried in St Olave’s church at the northern end of Seething Lane. Directly across from the churchyard gate is Pepys Street, created at the same time as Muscovy Street and running parallel to it. Linking Muscovy and Pepys Street along the side of Seething Lane (probably the site of the old threshing ground) is Seething Gardens, which contains a bust of Pepys, and is where the Knolles tribute rose is plucked from each year.

The entrance to St Olafe’s churchyard on Seething Lane. The Latin inscription reads “For Christ to live, death is my reward.”

While Pepys is ever present on Seething Lane today, the street was also home to a much more shadowy figure, Queen Elizabeth I’s secretary of state, and notorious spy master, Sir Francis Walsingham, who lived and worked here from 1580 until his unpleasant death, possibly from testicular cancer, in 1590.

Like Pepys, Walsingham’s principal job was to promote English national interests globally but also defend the country from the numerous threats emanating from Catholic Europe and within. He was coincidentally a significant investor in and a supporter of the Muscovy Company in its expansionist activities.

Today, there is an office building called Walsingham House (see photo above) at the northern end of Seething Lane at the junction with Crutched Friars. The juxtaposition of the name Walsingham with the Crutched Friars, a medieval Roman Catholic order that settled in this area during the mid-13^th century, is interesting given the puritanical Walsingham’s lifelong battle against Rome and the agents of the church in England. It was Walsingham who famously uncovered (or more accurately encouraged) the 1586 Babington plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and install her cousin Mary Queen of Scots as queen of England.

A key player in the Babington plot was John Savage, a Catholic fanatic who had pledged to personally kill the queen. He was arrested, hung, drawn and quartered in 1586. There is a street running due south from Crutched Friars, across Pepys Street to Trinity Square called Savage Gardens. The street is named after Sir Thomas Savage who lived there in the 17^th century. It is possible, but not for sure, that the two men were related.

Queen Elizabeth, as depicted in a large stained-glass window in St Olave’s east wall flanking the Virgin Mary, together with that other virgin martyr St Catherine and her wheel

It was about the time of the Babington plot, that a young scholar at Cambridge University, Christopher Marlowe, first entered Walsingham’s newly established secret service. Marlowe would go on to become a critically acclaimed poet and the most popular playwright of his day but it was his undercover work for queen and country that helped pay the bills. Marlowe was an ideal recruit; he was smart, articulate and skilled in concocting stories to suit his own and his paymaster’s ends. He was also, well-connected and could be used to infiltrate the realm of angry young Catholics and malcontents who attended Cambridge at the time.

In many ways, the dark world Marlowe operated in foreshadows that of the Cambridge spies recruited by the Soviet secret service 350 years later. As Charles Nicholl notes in The Reckoning, his exhaustive investigation into Marlowe’s death:

“the pull towards Catholicism in the 1580s is similar to the flirtations with Communism in the 1920s and 30s. It was a gesture of anti-orthodoxy, of going over to the enemy. At its outer reaches lay a career of treason, but for most it was just a dilettante game.”

Marlowe himself was accused of being a Catholic sympathiser and an atheist, which suggests he either played his role too well or he actually did side with the enemy. As suspicions about Marlowe’s true affiliation grew, he was invited by three underworld associates to a house in Deptford on 30 May, 1593. He did not survive the night. He was killed by dagger blow to the eye allegedly during a dispute over the dinner bill. At least that is the official version as recorded in the coroners’ report.

Marlowe was hastily buried in an unmarked grave in nearby St Nicholas’ Church (see above). He was just 29-years-old. His self-penned epitaph reads: “Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight.”

Deptford, as we have seen, crops up regularly in this story. It was the kernel of England’s maritime industry and imperial expansion, and it is no accident that the National Maritime Museum is now located just across the creek in Greenwich.

As England’s global influence grew, the base of naval operations shifted to the more central Tower Hill location, and that small corner of London has been synonymous with maritime administration ever since, its latest manifestation being the magnificent, over-the-top Port of London Authority headquarters constructed in the 1920s.

The Port of London Authority building – now a Four Seasons Hotel

And so, finally we return, via a rather convoluted route, to the Traitors Gate pub located on Muscovy Street, across the road from the Port of London Authority building. The street name was coined just about the time Moscow was recruiting its cabal of spies at Cambridge University, and so while there is no literal connection between Muscovy Street and Cold War treachery, I like to think there is at least a poetic or even, I daresay, a dramatic one.

In Season Four, Episode Four, Favourites, a heavily pregnant Princess Diana lies in bed at Highgrove House, locking herself away from her abusive husband who is banging at the door, demanding that she come downstairs to meet his mother. She turns to the television, increases the volume on her remote, and settles back to watch Bagpuss and The Frog Princess.

We hear Madeleine the rag doll say that she will sing a song about a “beautiful water princess wearing a tiny silver crown,” and she asks Bagpuss to imagine the scene. We don’t get to hear the rest of the story because there is a cut to outside Highgrove house where the queen is about to arrive. However, Peter Morgan, the show’s creator and writer of that episode, must have known how the story goes and the subversive fairytale plot twist at the end. It gives us a not so subtle hint about Diana’s state of mind.

The water princess, Madeleine tells us, was continually harassed by water lords who wanted to marry her. In order to get rid of all this unwanted attention, she told the water lords that she would throw her crown up into the sky and promised to marry who ever returned it. The water lords all flew up into the air in a vain search for the crown. And, as Madeleine says, you can still see them sometimes, appearing as dragon flies hovering above the water.

Bagpuss thought that could not possibly be the end of the story, so Gabriel, the banjo playing toad, continued the narrative. He explained that the crown was actually swallowed by a frog sitting on a lily pad. Not being the juicy fly he was hoping for, the frog spat it out on to the lily pad. He immediately recognised the crown and dived down to the bottom of the pond to return it to the water princess. She was not pleased to see him because she thought she would now have to marry a frog. But she suddenly remembered that she could transform the frog into a handsome prince with a magic kiss, and proposed. The frog demurred. He was happy being a frog, he said, but offered to kiss the princess instead. She agreed, and became a frog herself. They were married and lived happily ever after.

Diana clearly regretted marrying her prince and probably thought that a common or garden frog might be preferable. Indeed, Diana would go on to kiss quite a few frogs during the disintegration of her marriage.

For those unfamiliar with Bagpuss, the show was created by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin at the Smallfilms Animation Studio located in a cowshed just outside Canterbury. For three decades, Smallfilms produced some of British television’s best loved children’s classics, including The Clangers, Ivor the Engine, and Noggin the Nog, but it is Bagpuss, who still holds a special place in our hearts, even 50 years after his first appearance.

There were only 13 short episodes (originally shown between February and May 1974 but regularly repeated) in which Bagpuss and his friends discussed the various objects discovered by Emily (Peter Firmin’s daughter), and created stories about them.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a little girl and her name was Emily, and she had a shop…. It was rather an unusual shop because it didn’t sell anything. You see, everything in that shop window was a thing that somebody had once lost, and Emily had found, and brought home to Bagpuss.

We hear these famous lines, narrated by Oliver Postgate, in Season Four Episode Three of The Crown, entitled Fairytale. Diana, sad and bored, sits alone in her room in Buckingham Palace, sapphire engagement ring prominently displayed on her finger, wistfully watching the opening credits of the show. Three servants march into the room, delivering boxes of correspondence from complete strangers, and ignoring the young woman in the corner.

Diana is shown as a fragile, childlike figure, utterly lost in the cold, hostile world of the royal family. She roller-skates around the empty hallways listening to her Walkman, she binges on food from the pantry and then immediately purges. The one letter from thousands that she chooses to respond to is from a seven-year-old girl.

Like all British children of our generation*, Diana grew up with Bagpuss and understood the magic of that saggy, old, pink and white striped cloth cat. He was gentle and wise, and helped us make sense of a confusing world. It is perfectly understandable then that the 19-year-old Diana (or at least the character version of her) would turn to him for comfort in her hour of need.

If you would like to visit Bagpuss and his friends, they currently reside at the Beaney House of Art and Knowledge in the centre of Canterbury. See photo above. The museum has a permanent exhibition on the upper level dedicated to the history of Smallfilms and all the delightful characters it created.

* Diana Spencer and I were born two weeks apart.