Born:
William Stukeley,
antiquarian, 1687, Holbeach, Lincolnshire; Leopold
Frederick, Count Stolberg, miscellaneous writer, 1750,
Bramstedt, Holstein.
Died: Caius Cilnius
Maecenas, patron of literature and art, 8
B.C.; Sir
Martin Frobisher, naval explorer, 1594
A.D., Plymouth; Gaspar Tagliacozzi, celebrated surgeon, 1599, Bologna;
John Kyrie, 'The Man of Ross,' 1724; Jean Andre Deluc,
geologist and natural philosopher, 1817, Windsor; Karl
Gottlieb Reissiger, composer (Weber's Last Waltz),
1859, Dresden.
Feast Day: St.
Prosdecimus, first bishop of Padua, confessor, 2nd
century. St. Werenfrid, priest and confessor. St.
Willibrord, confessor, first bishop of Utrecht, 738.
JOHN KYRIE, 'THE MAN OF
ROSS'
John Kyrie, an active and
benevolent man, whose good deeds ought to win the
admiration of all, irrespective of fame derived from
other sources, has become notable because Pope called
him 'The Man of Ross', and wrote a poem in his praise.
Few who visit the pleasant town of Ross, in
Hereford-shire, fail to inquire about John Kyrie; and
their interest in his kind doings mingles with the
delight which that beautiful neighbourhood always
imparts to strangers. The picturesque church, with the
pew in which the good man sat for so many years; the
bust and the monumental inscription within the church;
the beautiful avenue of trees, called the Prospect, or
the Man of Ross's Walk, in the rear of the church; the
house which he built for him-self; his arm-chair in
the club-room of the little inn�all remain objects of
interest to the present day.
John Kyrie was a gentleman of
limited means, possessing a small estate in and near
Ross, in the latter half of the seventeenth century. A
friend from another county once called him 'The Man of
Ross;' and Kyrie liked the name, because it conveyed a
notion of plain, honest dealing and unaffected
hospitality.' He formed a terrace, or pleasant walk
between a field of his and the river Wye, and planted
it with trees. He was always ready to plan walks and
improvements for his friends, who were glad to avail
themselves of his skill in such matters. Expensive
undertakings he could not indulge in, for his income
was limited to �500 a year. The town being
insufficiently supplied with water, Kyrie dug an oval
basin of considerable extent in his field, lined it
with brick, paved it with stone, and caused the water
from the river to be forced into it by an engine, and
conveyed by underground pipes to fountains in the
streets.
This was the work noticed by
Pope
in the lines:
'From the dry rock, who bade
the waters flow?
Not to the skies, in useless columns tost,
Or in proud falls magnificently lost;
But clear and artless, pouring
through the plain,
Health to the sick, and solace to
the swain.'
Kyrie next headed a
subscription for making a causeway along the low
ground between the town and the bridge. It was so well
planned that the county authorities afterwards adopted
and extended it as part of the high-road to Hereford
and Monmouth. The beautiful spire of the church being
in an insecure state, Kyrie devised a mode of
strengthening it, procured an assessment to pay for
the repairs, contributed himself beyond his share of
the assessment, and superintended the execution of the
work. Pope was wrong in attributing to him the actual
building of the spire:
'Who taught that
heaven-directed spire to rise;'
and even of the church itself:
'Who builds a church to
God, and not to fame.'
To the renovated church Kyrie
presented a great bell, which was cast in his presence
at Gloucester; he threw into the crucible his own
large silver tankard, having first drunk his favourite
toast of 'Church and King!' There was at Ross a grant,
renewed by successive lords of the manor, of certain
tolls on all corn brought to market; the grant was
bestowed as a weekly donation of bread to the poor.
Kyrie acted as the almoner to the lords of the manor,
and won golden opinions by his manner of fulfilling
the duties of that office:
Behold the market-house, with
poor o'erspread;
The Man of Ross divides the weekly
bread.'
A multitude of other kindly
actions endeared him to his townsmen; and when he died
(November 7th, 1724), the inhabitants felt that they had
indeed lost a friend. It is wonderful what he did with
his �500 a year, aided by the liberality which he was
the means of developing in other persons.
Many pleasant anecdotes are
told of the Man of Ross. When he was planting the
elm-walk, it was his wont to sally forth with a spade
on one shoulder, and a wooden bottle of liquor for a
labourer and himself. On one occasion, this labourer,
drinking out of the bottle, did not cease till he had
emptied it. Kyrie said to him: 'John, why did not you
stop when I called to you?" Why, sir,' said the man,
'don't you know that people can never hear when they
are drinking?' The next time Mr. Kyrie applied himself
to the bottle, the man placed himself opposite to
him, and opened his mouth as if bawling aloud, till Kyrie had finished. The
draught ended, Kyrie asked: 'Well, John, what did you say?' 'Ah, you see, sir,'
said the man, 'I was right; nobody can hear when he is
drinking!'
The Man of Ross lived and died a bachelor,
under the housekeeping care of a maiden cousin�Miss Bubb. He disliked crowds and
assemblies; but was very
fond of snug social parties, and of entertaining his
friends on market-days and fair-days. His dishes were
plain and according to the season. He liked a goose on
his table, liked to carve it, and liked to repeat the
well-worn old joke about 'cooking one's goose,' and so
forth. Roast-beef he always reserved for
Christmas-day. Maltliquor and Herefordshire cider were
his only beverages. His 'invitation dinners' comprised
nine, eleven, or thirteen persons, including Miss Bubb
and himself; and he did not seem satisfied unless the
guests mustered one of these aggregates.
At his
kitchen-fire there was a large block of wood, in lieu
of a bench, for poor people to sit upon; and a piece
of boiled beef, with three pecks of flour made into
loaves, was given to the poor every Sunday. He loved a
long evening, enjoyed a merry tale, and always
appeared discomposed when it was time to separate. At
his death, at the age of eighty-four, he had neither
debts nor money, so closely did his income and his
expenditure always agree. He left �40 to the Blue Coat
School of Ross, and small legacies to the old workmen
who had assisted him in his numerous useful works.
About a year after John Kyrle's death, a tradesman of
the town came to his executor, and said privately to
him: 'Sir, I am come to pay you some money that I owed
to the late Mr. Kyrie.' The executor declared that he
could find no entry of it in the accounts.' Well,
sir,' said the tradesman, 'that I am aware of. Mr. Kyrie said to me, when he
lent me the money, that he
did not think I should be able to repay it in his
lifetime, and that it was likely you might want it
before I could make it up; and so, said he, I wont
have any memorandum of it, besides what I write and
give you with it; and do you pay my kinsman when you
can; and when you show him this paper, he will see
that the money is right, and that he is not to take
interest.'
TYBURN
This celebrated place of
execution, which figures so prominently in the records
of crime, is said to have been first established in
the reign of Henry IV, previous to which 'The Elms'
at Smithfield seems to have been the favourite
locality for the punishment of malefactors. The name
is derived from a brook called Tyburn, which flowed
down from Hampstead into the Thames, supplying in its
way a large pond in the Green Park, and also the
celebrated Rosamond's Pond in St. James's Park. Oxford
Street was, at an earlier period, known as Tyburn
Road, and the now aristocratic locality of Park Lane,
bore formerly the name of Tyburn Lane, whilst an iron
tablet attached to the railings of Hyde Park, opposite
the entrance of the Edgeware Road, informs the
passer-by that here stood Tyburn turnpike-gate, so
well known in old times as a landmark by travellers to
and from London.
The gallows at Tyburn was of a
triangular form, resting on three supports, and hence
is often spoken of as 'Tyburn's triple tree.' It
appears to have been a permanent erection, and there
also stood near it wooden galleries for the
accommodation of parties who came to witness the
infliction of the last penalty of the law, such
exhibitions, it is needless to state, being generally
regarded by our ancestors as interesting and
instructive spectacles. Consider-able disputation has
prevailed as to the real site of the gallows, but it
now appears to be pretty satisfactorily ascertained
that it stood at the east end of Connaught Place,
where the latter joins the Edgware Road, and nearly
opposite the entrance to Upper Seymour Street. A lane
led from the Uxbridge Road to the place of execution,
in the vicinity of which, whilst excavating the ground
for buildings, numerous remains were discovered of the
criminals who had been buried there after undergoing
their sentence.
Among remarkable individuals
who suffered death at Tyburn, were the Holy Maid of
Kent, in Henry VIII's reign; Mrs. Turner, notorious as
a poisoner, and celebrated as the inventress of yellow
starch; John Felton, the assassin of the Duke of
Buckingham; the renowned burglar Jack Sheppard, and
the thief-taker Jonathan Wild; Mrs. Brownrigg,
rendered proverbial by her cruel usage of apprentices;
and the elegant and courtly Dr. Dodd, whom
pecuniary
embarrassments � the result of a life of extravagance
and immorality�hurried into crime.
The last malefactor
executed here was John Austin, on 7th November 1783,
for robbery with violence. At that period the place of
execution for criminals convicted in the county of
Middlesex, was transferred from Tyburn to Newgate,
where, on the 9th of December following the date just
mentioned, the first capital sentence, under the new
arrangements, was carried into effect. We are informed
that some opposition was made by persons residing
around the Old Bailey to this abandonment of the old
locality at Tyburn, but the answer returned by the
authorities to their petition was, that ' the plan had
been well considered; and would be persevered in.' Our
readers do not require to be informed that the place
thus appointed is still the scene of public
executions, now happily of much less frequent
occurrence than formerly.
Those curious documents,
called Tyburn Tickets, were certificates conferred
under an act passed in the reign of William III, on
the prosecutors who had succeeded in obtaining the
capital conviction of a criminal. The object of the
enactment was to stimulate individuals in the bringing
of offenders to justice; and in virtue of the
privilege thus bestowed, the holder of such a document
was exempted 'from all manner of parish and ward
offices within the parish wherein such felony was
committed; which certificate shall be enrolled with
the clerk of the peace of the county on payment of 1s.
and no more.' These tickets were transferable, and
sold like other descriptions of property. The act by
which they were established was repealed in 1818, but
an instance is related by a contributor to Notes and
Queries of a claim for exemption from serving on a
jury being made as late as 1856 by the holder of a Tyburn ticket.
The conveyance of the
criminals from Newgate to Tyburn by Holborn Hill and
the Oxford Road, afforded, by the distance of space
traversed, an ample opportunity to all lovers of such
sights for obtaining a view of the ghastly procession.
A court on the south side of the High Street, St.
Giles's, is said to derive its name of Bowl Yard, from
the circumstance of criminals in ancient times on
their way to execution at Tyburn, being presented at
the hospital of St. Giles's with a large bowl of ale,
as the last refreshment which they were to partake of
on this side of the grave. Different maxims came
ultimately to prevail in reference to this matter, and
we are told that Lord Ferrers, when on his way to
execution in 1760, for the murder of his land-steward,
was denied his request for some wine and water, the
sheriff stating that he was sorry to be obliged to
refuse his lordship, but that by recent regulations
they were enjoined not to let prisoners drink when
going to execution, as great indecencies had been
frequently committed in these cases, through the
criminals becoming intoxicated.
One of the most vigorous
drawings by
Hogarth represents the execution of the
Idle Apprentice at Tyburn�a fitting termination to his
disreputable career. Referring to this print, and the
remarkable change which has taken place in a locality
formerly associated only with the most repulsive
ideas, Mr. Thackeray makes the following observation
in his English Humorists: 'How the times have changed
...
On the spot where Tom Idle
(for whom I have an unaffected pity) made his exit
from this wicked world, and where you see the hangman
smoking his pipe as he reclines on the gibbet, and
views the hills of Harrow or Hampstead beyond�a
splendid marble arch, a vast and modem city�clean,
airy, painted drab, populous with nursery-maids and
children, the abodes of wealth and comfort, the
elegant, the prosperous, the polite Tyburnia rises,
the most respectable district in the habitable globe!'