Gerard Rawes: A Family Series, #2

By Kev Richardson

A true tale of man's rags to riches life—not in the traditionally inferred 'Cinderella' sense, yet maybe not too far from it.

Gerard discovers how life can pluck a man from one situation and dropped into another—as if sucked up by a tsunami and tossed on to the beach of a new world.

 

In England's mid-eighteenth century, the emerging industrial revolution catapults a man out of a

world of serfdom into social London. Archival records cannot lie.

 

Once again multi-published historical writer, Kev Richardson, brings us living history; he has a way of making history come alive, touches of wit woven into the personal accounts of his characters. If you enjoy reading real history, this author is a 'must read'.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781597054928

Book preview

One

Westmorland, England , 1777

Da says we’re moving to Raweshead.

Just you and him?

No, you stupid boy. All the family...

The five brothers had taken to the hills. With their tutor laid low with a cough, they were checking fox-traps they’d set last Sunday. It was March, still more than a little chilly, but when opportunity to skip lessons arose, the boys still preferred the outdoors.

...We’re moving back to High House.

Gerard was in the centre of the queue, a queue because at that particular spot the track narrowed, and so steep that all were climbing in single file. It invariably happened, by chance rather than design, that onlookers would note how John the eldest, would take the lead when a queue formed, brothers falling into line according to age. It had become the pattern when on most Sundays their pa, or ‘Da’ as he was popularly called, took them hiking.

Gerard was thirteen, following John and Richard, four and three years his senior; behind were William and Robert, three and five years younger. He had two sisters at home: Isabell, five, and little Lisbet still learning to walk—neither worth considering, as yet, as of any use whatever, to his interests.

High House had been the Rawes family seat for generations. Gerard had been told that his ma and da lived there when John and Richard were born, but moved to nearby Talebert, where Gerard was born. He must have been about five, he reckoned, when the family then moved to Swindale.

Now it seems, he mused, we’re to move back to Raweshead...

Why? he asked of John.

Ye know Uncle Lancelot be manager o’the Talebert mine?

Of course.

Well, Uncle John be now coming to manage Swindale. Gramps be retiring, so Da is to be manager over all the mines.

Gerard smiled. He gloried in being Gramp’s favourite among Rawes grandsons.

And not just because I was given his name. All Da’s brothers gave it to a son. Family tradition, it is, to name a son after his gramps. There be many o’ that name in the churchyard. He likes me in particular because I tease him.

How many of the mounds in St. Michael’s churchyard covered Rawes skeletons, nobody knew. Not only were so many of the crooked gravestones so old that etchings were illegible, but many mounds had nowt by way of information on who lay under it. Wooden crosses rotted away in less than a hundred years, Mr. Lord had said.

So we are to live with Gramps?

Aye.

Gerard smiled. He would like that.

Mister Lord, the boys’ tutor who came in four days a week, had mounted two scrolls on the sitting-room wall of the Swindale cottage. One depicted the entire country and the other a larger scale map of Westmorland County. Gerard, however, couldn’t yet quite relate the map to familiar terrain. Their little parish was part of countless hills, valleys, and crags, and he again wondered on reaching the crag where their trap was set if the furthest he could see might still be Westmorland. The far distance where the skyline merged with clouds was further than he’d ever travelled.

It mayn’t even be England, he said to young William. Mr. Lord also says Scotland be not too far north—so yonder, there, could well be the land o’the Picts.

Gerard had his local history down pat, even if not its geography. He was Mr. Lord’s most rapt student when the telling touched on the raids the Picts had made down the Eden Valley over generations. Before the Picts, it had been the Vikings. Throughout his boyhood the tales had conjured up the most lurid of mind pictures on life in early Shap.

But today’s journey proved wasted. There was nowt in the trap. The bait was still there, yet rancid. John said they should leave it anyway.

We’ll check it again next week. We’ll go home by the stream. If we can net an eel, Ma can turn it into soup.

AT THE SWINDALE COTTAGE...

The boys won’t recall Raweshead, Mother. When we left, they was too young to know aught.

Oh go on with’ee, man? Mary responded. "Every soul in Shap knows High House. It be quite the landmark. It be many a Sunday after church that we visit the old man."

He bared his teeth in exasperation.

I don’t mean they not be aware of it, woman. I mean they no be rememberin’ livin’ in it. Be it any wonder ye ne’er talk sense when’ee canna gist what a man says after all our together years.

Richard Rawes and his Mary always talked after supper. Evening was the only time they had together. Richard had had, for all their years married, a ten-hour day at the mines. Managing slate mines occupied his mind whether on the site or at home. Sunday was the only day he had away from the pressures, and he then liked to spend as much of it as he could with his boys. When weather permitted, they’d spend the time after church hiking or climbing crags or fishing for trout.

It be my time for fatherin’, he would tell Mary.

It was a happy family, and while he ‘spoke rough’ to his Mary at times, even she knew it was nothing personal against her. It was his way. It was how he spoke to the miners and his boys and his father and everyone else. He had a frustrating job. Miners were mostly illiterate locals who had never strayed further from home than Sunday afternoon hikes. There were few roads around the district, only wheelbarrow tracks because the terrain was too rugged for horse-wagons to negotiate. The Lakes Country was what outsiders called it because so many lakes were cradled in its valleys—cradled because the water could find no way out, the locals would insist. There was nowt for illiterate locals to work at in the district than to mine slate. The little arable land was already taken up.

And who be wantin’ to farm anyway, most would insist, when ’tis mostly mud a man be tryin’ to plough, and when he must spend half his every day haulin’ cattle that have sunk to their haunches in the mire, out o’their dam walls. Miners believed they were far better off spending winters in the shelter of a mine...

...or be tendin’ their stills instead of seekin’ honest work, others would quip when in the King’s Arms.

But it be from the stills they buy their whisky, the publican would complain. They buy it from me only when wantin’ ter sit and joke amongst their-selves when off shift.

Richard Rawes sometimes spent the cost of a round to drink with them. He knew a free round was the tastiest of all.

They respond, however, when asked for extra effort at the mine.

But what they talk about is seldom meaty, he would tell his boys. When a man cannot read or write, and nor can his woman or his bairns, none of them travelled more than five miles beyond Shap, nor ever will, and who has no more skills than knowin’ how to swing a twenty-pound hammer into walls of rock, then what be there for’im at home? Gossipin’ and retellin’ stale jokes in the King’s Arms is all a man can look to. That be why I keep askin’ Archibald Lord if’ee keep ears and eyes on what he be tellin’ee.

He be a good father, Mary would tell the daughters of neighbours who came in to help with housework, laundry, and cooking. To call me Mother is his wont, ever since I giv’im John. ‘Yer keep havin’ boys, Mother,’ he’d tell me with a smile at every birth. And I did, too, the first four times. ‘Now it be my turn,’ I now tell’im. So I give meself two daughters just to let him see I’ll no be ground down.

...so the move will be good for us all, Richard was saying as her reveries switched off and her mind returned to the moment.

Yes, she answered, not sure what it was, with her mind so adrift, that she was agreeing with.

And so long as the old man be livin’ with us, lass, there’ll be live-in help for’ee. And the mangler-woman will come as’ee need her, and the old man’s two maids will stay on. And a yard boy be there to tend the creatures—the goats and the cow, and the hogs and chickens. Use’im to tend yer kitchen garden, too, lass. Give’ee more time ter knit fer the boys, what with’em springin’ up so quick. And for makin’ and mendin’ their breeches.

Mary smiled. She would as well have a woman come in to help with cooking. She’d already arranged it. Living in the town meant more help was available. And with John and young Richard both now working in the mines, there was more laundry...

And they be growin’ so fast that already they be eatin’ more than their pa or me together. And two more dinners to pack early mornin’s—bread, cheese, and smoked eel. And the old man still wants his vittles. But extra help will gi’ me more time to help the girls grow right.

She smiled. Isabell’s hair. More’n an hour I spend brushin’ it ever-day. Da says I should cut it, but it suits’er. And she be likin’ it. I be happy to make the time.

Shap’s population seemed steady at around the four hundred mark. Until a century back, it had fluctuated for there had ever been raiders surging down the valley. More than half the young men would lose their lives in the fighting. Things stabilized once England and Scotland struck a treaty, and the main road for transport and trade now ran through Shap. Passing trade was no longer hostile—people paid instead of pillaged. Inns and shopkeepers now flourished.

Local slate was the purest in the entire kingdom, and demand rocketed when, after the Great Fire of London, many tons were shipped south to adorn new buildings and monuments. Most mines were small, and various branches of the Rawes family owned several. Slate had put dinners on many a Rawes family table over centuries.

The little St. Michaels church dated back to the eleventh century, and much slate had been used in its structure, making it clear that slate had been the local industry even then.

Likely all the way back to Roman times, Mr Lord told the boys.

Coinciding with the family move, Richard transferred John and young Richard from the Swindale to the Shap mine, where he could keep watch on’em.

But my Gerard be not for slate, Richard told the old man. Archibald Lord speaks well o’the lad, says he be quick to learn’, that I should steer him into commerce.

What commerce? asked the patriarch Gerard. There be nowt but slate.

In Carlisle there be commerce aplenty.

Mary was present and perked up at that.

Carlisle? Who ever went so far? He be too young to leave home.

In a few years, woman!

Her husband’s exasperation with her was sparked off yet again. I be keepin’ watch on the lad. I won’t be sendin’ him off until I know he can cope.

Mary didn’t argue. She knew it her place to concede.

But I be keepin’ careful watch too!

Richard smiled inside.

And she be knowin’ that I realise she be keepin’ watch anyway.

Two

James Hossack didn’t rule his house. He would have been shocked, however, should anyone else say so. Yet he was the most effervescent member of the family, despite his five-year-old Mary was developing into a serious contender.

He was a corpulent man of considerable means. ‘Gentlemen’s Outfitter and Tailor to London’s Gentry’, the lettering on his salon’s street-front window claimed. And he was wont to express his opinions on any affair with as considerable gusto.

In his salubrious Savile Row office and showroom, however, behind which a dozen pairs of hands laboured over cutting tables and stitching benches, he exercised careful rein on his topics of conversation in respect of both the who and what of any subject. Propriety, he had learned, was paramount to one’s success in a business dependant on those in positions of either recommending or damning his attitudes. He held a fine grasp of control in that circumstance. However, in his home, released from such restriction, he considered himself lord and master on every subject—entitled to give full vent to satisfying an ego as robust as his girth.

Mrs. Hossack really ruled the house. She had cleverly developed the fine art of secreting the fact from her ebullient husband, simply by never letting it show.

He is London-born, she would explain, and not of ‘old money’ I tend to hazard. I am of neither ‘old’ nor ‘new’ so can safely tread a middle path.

She considered herself ‘middle-class’, divorced from speculation in respect of wealth, a Raws, a London family that some generations back, she had been told, stemmed from the little-visited northern county of Westmorland.

Many branches of the family, my father has always insisted, she had explained to James when courting, spell the name with an ‘e’, and many don’t. But then, she would add whenever questioned by others on the difference, does it really matter?

They lived on London’s Aldwych, the significant ‘arch’ of a street that left The Strand ‘here’, to re-enter it ‘there’—what James Hossack referred to as a delightful example of what, after the Great Fire left a century past, Christopher Wren designed in the rebuilding.

Aldwych houses were large and prized. The Hossacks lived comfortably indeed.

If only little Mary were of a better disposition, life for me would also be comfortable indeed, Mary Hossack would muse. But when, on occasions she would make such a point to her husband, he would respond, Good heavens, madam! She is a normal child. I consider her spirit a blessing. It is the Hossack in her, I do declare. I find her manner delightfully satisfying.

You see her only for ten minutes on arriving home each evening, by which time both Nanny and I have been living through a day of trauma, she would muse, but would never dare declare. She would instead respond patronisingly, She sees so little of you, my dear, that she is simply anxious to please with kisses and cuddles. You do not experience her vexing moods. I do wish I could fall again. It would do her a world of good to have a brother or sister to distract her mind from her own desires.

"Gad, madam! After five years I’m beginning to think the physicians must be right, that we should not look forward to any such event. I feel both you and Nanny must content yourselves with that outlook—concentrate more on accepting the status-quo."

GEORGE WAGSTAFF AND his Susannah had married at London’s fashionable Saint Katherine by the Tower. Both were highly educated.

George, apprenticed at an early age to a master silk-weaver and currently considered one of London’s finest in that exalted industry, had established his business on the Spitalfields corner of Brick and Brown’s Lanes, where three-storied buildings provided not only ample-sized residences above shop-fronts but were topped in turn with studio apartments with floor-to-ceiling sloped windows. These encouraged maximum daylight to enter for the exacting purpose of cloth-weaving. The corner property was large, providing the particular advantage of having its windows face both east and south.

The times were such that what we today loosely refer to as The Novel was a new innovation in the realm of the printed word. Britain simply borrowed the French Nouvelle to express it. Storytelling in print was no longer ‘new’ of course. Tales had been told since the days of Chaucer and put to ‘print’ for those who could read by monks skilled in calligraphy. The advent of the printing press encouraged storytellers and wordsmiths to compose tales in a form less restrictive than demanded by traditional verse—and almost overnight, novels by Edmund Spencer, Anthony Trollope, Henry Fielding, and Samuel Richardson became sought-after publications.

I would like your opinion of an idea, the modern-thinking George posed to Susannah one Sunday.

They were, by habit, sharing morning tea in the next-door tea shop.

Whilst the neighbouring weaver saw to his trade upstairs, his wife had established a tea room in their shop-front.

Susannah raised her eyebrows, a signal that he had her ear.

With taxes so high with our never-ending wars with France and now with discontent strengthening in the Americas, why don’t we follow our neighbour’s example of adding a second string to our income bow? We could open a second business in our shop-front.

Susannah looked askance. Another tea shop? Right alongside one already seeming to satisfy the locals?

She this time raised only her right eyebrow. She knew it disconcerted him that she could do that. It was her signal that she adversely questioned what he proposed.

Yet George remained unflustered.

We could take advantage of the current surge of interest in The Novel, my dear. We don’t need our entire shop-front for silk. I see added profit in some sideline suited to our silk clientele.

Mmmm... she mused. Certainly, George, our customers buy books somewhere. Many have confided having taken to reading.

If we properly promote that we are retailing novels, my dear, a pastime to which an increasing number in the community seem to be turning, as you say, we expand our number of customers. With dual attraction, whichever reason they come to buy, they may likely also buy the other.

The logic became the more apparent, the deeper they discussed it.

I entirely agree, George, that the reading of novels is no surge likely to dissipate. The number of new authors emerging certainly indicates the trend can only escalate...

A highly desirable factor, my dear, when silk trading grows but slowly.

Their new resolve added impetus upon impetus as fresh ideas sprang from old, and very quickly, the world of books and reading began to blossom on the corner of Brick and Brown’s Lanes—so quickly that within a year, George took further advantage of being on a busy corner of a popular shopping area.

‘The Newspaper’, as news-tracts were beginning to be called, was becoming particularly popular as the British were at last beginning to rout the French on all fronts in the Americas. The discontent there had escalated into full-scale war.

George set up a convenient table for the local news vendor in his shop doorway.

Every newspaper customer is an educated reader, he insisted to Susannah, another prime prospect for a budding bookshop.

Have you noticed how even young George has taken well to reading?

Yes, my dear, answered the proud father. "He