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Beeston: then and now (8)

MEN AND WOMEN.

WE do well to recognise departed worth, and to honour the memories of the good and useful men and women who have sought to benefit their fellows in the development of industries, the public health, good local administration, education, philanthropy, religion, or otherwise. In every schoolroom or vestry their portraits should be framed, with a statement of what they have done.

Charities. The donors of the charities to the poor of Beeston must have a first place, for their good works were done before the law recognised parochial obligations as now. Twelve donors are mentioned in an old Charity Commissioners' report, apparently copied from a board in the old church, dated 1724. Two of them would not have their right hand know what their left hand did. It sufficed that God knew. Henry Hanley, John Kirkby, Hannah Garton, Thomas Hallam, Ann Lacey, William Mackerill, Dorothy Strey, Elizabeth and Mary Charlton, all made donations, and in 1727 Hassock Close was purchased with the moneys left. New trustees were appointed in 1877. The Hassock Close of 5a. 2r. 32p. is let by the trustees to the Urban District Council for £15 a year. The other lands were sold and the proceeds, £475 1s. 2d., invested by the Charity Commissioners in Consols, producing £14 9s. 0d. per annum. The income, £35 a year, includes Hanley's rent charge £1, and the whole is distributed yearly by the trustees among the poor.

GEORGE SIMMONS ought to be mentioned, for in 1622 he left to the Churchwardens and Overseers a legacy of £5, for the benefit of "those that live in the greatest miserie and necessitie, beseeching them that the(y) will have reasonable eare in distributing the same to the poorest sorte, etc."

JOHN BALL MASON, whose tomb is in the churchyard, was Sheriff of Nottingham in the year when the General Hospital was founded, and the Mayor and Sheriff, instead of the usual Michaelmas feast, gave £180 towards building the Hospital—a good example of diverting luxury to works of mercy.

The Rev. THOMAS ROGERS may be regarded as the founder of the Baptist cause in Beeston, he having in 1803 removed from Nottingham, started a boarding school, and fitted up the school room so that it could be used also for religious services, and he ministered here and at Chilwell until 1814, when he removed to Fleet in Lincolnshire, and there continued—as is recorded on a tablet in the chapel there—"with great acceptance and usefulness" until his death in 1839. His portrait (he being the eldest of seventeen children, and that of his father, who was the eldest of twenty-four children) may be seen, with particulars of the family, in the "History of Friar Lane Baptist Church," p. 213. The Rogers family, still in Nottingham, claim to be descended from the Rev. John Rogers, Prebendary of St. Paul's, who as a martyr was burnt at Smithfield in 1555.

HENRY KIRKLAND, lace manufacturer, and his wife, were pillars in the Methodist cause in Beeston. He filled every office that the system of his church government had to offer. He is described as a man of great benevolence and active influence, often visiting the homes of the people, highly respected by his work people, and respect ripening into veneration. His wife was a mother in Israel, having two large classes of members which she conducted. She was very hospitable, and one testimony of her was that she for many years lived next door to heaven. She died in 1851, and he in 1853. A tablet in the vestibule of the Wesleyan church says "They were under God's blessing the founders of the Wesleyan Methodist Society in Beeston, and after spending their lives in the service of their Redeemer, entered into the rest which remaineth to the people of God."

WILLIAM MALTBY removed from Gotham to Beeston in 1805, and there being then in Beeston no Wesleyan Methodist cause he invited the preachers and formed a class. He was very zealous as a tract distributor and sick visitor, in which work he excelled. When the total abstinence movement was introduced, about 1838, he adopted the habit, and so continued throughout life. He removed to Long Eaton after 33 years' work in Beeston, and died in 1858, in his 83rd year.

JOHN WATSON was manager of the bank of I. & I. G. Wright & Co., and became partner with Mr. P. B. Gill in the Silk Mill business, and afterwards sole proprietor. The west window of the church was placed there as a memorial of him. A brass tablet tells that he was many years a liberal benefactor of the church and parish, and in recognition of his worth the two bells of the church were added by the inhabitants in 1887. He died in 1876, aged 80. His daughter, Miss Watson, was a very useful and active worker and visitor, and was very kind and generous.

The Rev. JOHN F. T. WOLLEY was Vicar for many years, and lived in the old hall. He was son of Francis Hurt, Esq., and in 1822 married Mary, daughter of Adam Wolley, Esq., of Matlock, whose surname and arms he afterwards assumed. He rebuilt the parish church, and obtained—some say gave— the bulk of the money to pay for it. He also built the National Schools. He had five sons and two daughters, and passed through much trouble, but was greatly esteemed. He died in 1877, aged 81. Mrs. Wolley laid the first stone of the new church, but died before it was opened. Her influence and services were instrumental in promoting good works, and she was very kind to the poor. There is a brass plate to her memory, and a window to Mr. Wolley, subscribed for by parishioners and old friends.

THOMAS ADAMS, lace manufacturer, resided some years at the Towers, before his removal to Lenton Firs. The warehouse in Stoney Street is the finest in the city. He was a man of unassuming manners, earnest piety, and unbounded benevolence in the support of schools and churches, and took unusual interest in the welfare of his workpeople. There is a window in St. Mary's, Nottingham, to his memory. See Old Nottingham Suburbs, page 22. He died in 1878.

EDMUND PRATT was a lace manufacturer, and lived in the house which Dr. Rothera now has. He was an active church-worker and donor; was churchwarden, and for several years superintendent of the Church Sunday School. He died at Ruddington, where and while he was churchwarden in conjunction with Mr. Philo Mills, 1905, aged 77.

ROBERT FOSTER introduced the building of horticultural houses, and was for some years active on the Local Board of Health, of which, in 1876, he was chairman. He died in 1899.

Bendigo.

"BENDIGO" was too prominent not to be noticed. WILLIAM THOMPSON was one of triplets born in 1811, and the youngest of a family of twenty-one, and his father, who was a skilled mechanic, died when "Bendigo" was about fifteen. He was a wild youth, whom his father had frequently to go after, and when the other boys saw the father coming they would say "Bendy, go, your father is coming," and this was repeated so often that, instead of Bendy, being his nickname, it became "Bendigo." He was skilled in all kinds of sport, and is said to have, at Trent Bridge, thrown with his left hand, half a brick seventy yards. He was particularly fond of fishing. He became a boxer of note, and when twenty-one commenced his career as a prize-fighter. In 1885 he defeated Ben Caunt, after which he went to keep a public-house at Sheffield, where he fought and beat Langan, and at Liverpool he defeated "Deaf Burke," and was deemed "the Champion of England." A second time Ben Gaunt, and afterwards Tom Paddock, were overcome. In his thirty-ninth year he retired from prizefighting, for he had formed the habit of drinking excessively, and gradually he went down, down, down, until he had been twenty-eight times in jail for being drunk and disorderly, or on other like charge, and thus as a Nottingham Lamb he continued for twenty years. Hearing that Richard Weaver, the "Converted Collier," was holding meetings in the Mechanics' Hall, Bendigo went, saw his folly, and what was better, saw a ray of hope. Weaver, learning who he was, invited him on to the platform—"and, thank God, I did. I gave my heart to God, and have been a changed man ever since. I have fought and sinned for the devil for nearly sixty-two years, but now I am determined, by the grace of God, to serve Him the rest part of my days, and to win a crown in heaven." From this time forth he continued under the care of Richard Weaver and Jemmy Dupe, the street preacher and pork butcher It was a hard struggle to uproot old habits and associations, but he overcame. It was thought desirable he should live in Beeston, to be out of the way of his old associates. At Liverpool, Sheffield, and other large towns, thousands of persons congregated to hear Bendigo give his testimony, lie could not make a speech, but he could tell what he had felt and seen. At Wolverhampton the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon was preaching, and was told there was a counter attraction, "for the tag-rag and bobtail were gone to hear Bendigo." The great preacher paused in the midst of a powerful discourse, and alluding to the gratifying results attending Bendigo's Mission, dramatically exclaimed to a spell-bound audience, "Go it, rag! go it, tag!! go it, bobtail!!! Jemmy Dupe could have netted £1,000 if he would have taken Bendigo touring through America, but Jemmy wisely said "No." In 1880, descending from his bedroom, he fell, broke his ribs, and died shortly afterwards. There was a great procession from Beeston to St. Mary's Cemetery, where according to his request, he was buried in his mother's grave, and a life-sized recumbent lion, carved in stone, rests above, bearing the inscription—

"In life always brave, fighting like a lion;
In death like a lamb, tranquil in Zion."

In the State of Victoria, Australia, is a county and city which the Government named Sandhurst, after a governor, but the people insisted on and succeeded in calling it Bendigo, after the Beeston hero. It has a creek and a county of some fifty miles by forty. The county town has a population of 40,000, with fine churches, banks, and public buildings. See "Lions of Lambkinville," by Mr. C. Bonnell.

WILLIAM VICKERS had lace machines in a small factory in Beeston, and lived where the Constitutional Club now is. In 1835 he was elected to the Nottingham Town Coucil, was Mayor in 1843, when Queen Victoria passed through Nottingham and opened Queen's Road. He was chairman of the Board of Guardians when York Street Workhouse was built, was on the Committee for forming the Arboretum, was chairman of the Charitable Trustees when the High School was removed, was on the Committee for building Trent Bridge, was superintendent of George Street Boys' Sunday School, an active Magistrate. He died in 1882. Captain Vickers, V.C., is great-grandson of the above.

Rev. T.J. Oldrini.

The Rev. T. J. OLDRINI, M.A., was Vicar of Beeston from 1854 to 1885, when he died, aged 60. During that time the present vicarage was built, Day Schools were enlarged, the organ chamber was added to the chancel, and the organ and choir brought down from a gallery at the end, a peal of eight bells in the place of three was fixed in the belfry, and at the time of his death he was collecting funds to build another church in the parish which was growing so fast. In 1873 he did a very useful work in publishing what he had long been collecting, local information as to the parish, "Gleanings, or something about Beeston in the Olden Times," and he thereby preserved reminiscences of persons and places that would otherwise have been lost. During the next twelve years he had learned much more about the history of the parish, and therefore he announced for issue "The History of Beeston, Old and New," but death prevented the issue. He was an active broad-minded man. His daily work was visiting his parishioners, not only church people, but the whole of them he called on once a year, and the sick he visited regardless of denomination, and having a kind and affable manner he was much beloved. During his later years there appeared a closer walk with God, a deeper earnestness in preaching, a spiritual growth, a ripening that was not only pleasing but helpful to the people. The funeral was a remarkable demonstration of the affection with which he was regarded, for in the presence of 8,000 people the body was laid to rest. There was a great procession, not only of the family but of clergy, office bearers, girls' school, etc., including deputations from every Nonconformist denomination, the girls' school, etc. The last sermon he prepared he could not preach; it was preached by his curate, the Rev. F. S. P. Pyemont, on the Sunday after the funeral, and the text was prophetic: ''We know that we have passed from death unto life."

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