by Sylvia Kent
The Great Edward Bright
Maldon claims the fattest man in eighteenth-century Essex. This was Edward Bright, who, when he died in 1750 at the age of twenty-nine, weighed 44 stones. Bright was once a post boy and rode regularly to Chelmsford and back. He lived at the Church House near St Peter’s in the High Street, where he later kept a shop. When he died, a hole had to be cut into the wall of his house and an improvised crane employed to lower his coffin. Six strong men carried him out of the front gate and placed him on the hearse. He was buried at All Saints church, Maldon.
Following Bright’s death, a wager was made between Mr Hance and Mr Codd of Maldon. Was it possible to fit 700 men inside the waistcoat of their recently deceased friend? The answer was yes, as the person proposing the bet had meant ‘seven Hundred men’, i.e. seven men from Dengie Hundred (the district in which Maldon lay).
Edward Bright Junior, also a sturdy lad but never more than half his father’s weight, left nine children and the name of Bright is still a great one in Maldon, but thankfully none of his descendants have been of extraordinary size.
Edward Bright of Maldon.
Essex Marsh Wives
In his A Tour Through Great Britain, published in 1724, Daniel Defoe had much to say about the marshlands of Essex:
I have one remark more before I leave this damp part of the world, and which I cannot omit on the women’s account: namely, that I took notice of a strange decay of the sex here; inasmuch, that all along this county it was very frequent to meet with men that had had from five or six to fourteen or fifteen wives; nay, and some more; and I was inform’d that in the marshes on the other side of the river over against Candy Island, there was a farmer, who was then living with the five and twentieth wife, and that his son who was but about thirty-five years old, had already had about fourteen; indeed this part of the story I only had by report, tho’ from good hands too; but the other is well known and easie to be inquired into, about Fobbing, Corringham, Thundersley, Benfleet, Prittlewell, Wakering, Great Stambridge, Cricksea, Burnham, Dengy and other towns of the like situation.
The reason as a merry fellow told me, who said he had had about a dozen and a half of wives (tho’ I found out afterwards he fibbed a little) was this: That they being bred in the marshes themselves, and season’d to the place, did pretty well with it; but that they always went up into the hilly country, or, to speak their own language, into the uplands for a wife. That when they took the young lasses out of the wholesome and fresh air, they were healthy, fresh and clear and well; but when they came out of their native air into the marshes among the fogs and damps, there they presently chang’d their complexion, got an ague or two, and seldom held it above half a year, or a year at most; and then, said he, we go to the uplands again and fetch another; so that marrying of wives was reckon’d a kind of good farm to them. It is true, the fellow told this in a kind of drollery, and mirth; but the fact, for all that, is certainly true; and that they have abundance of wives by that very means.
Smuggling Days
The wild days of smuggling in the Essex marshes are kept alive by old legends and chance discoveries. When the Peter Boat Inn at Leigh-on-Sea was reconstructed a century ago, a warren of secret storage cellars was discovered beneath the building. In Manningtree at one time, all the upper lofts in the village were linked together so that smugglers could make their escape. In the days when smuggling was a profitable business, the Colne, Blackwater and Crouch, and the north bank of the Thames, with their numerous tributaries, all protected by sea walls, gave every facility and protection for running cargoes.
Smuggling was widespread for centuries, although there is a general impression that it only started in Napoleon’s day. Dr Samuel Johnson, famous for the dictionary he compiled, which was first published in 1755, defined a smuggler as ‘a wretch who, in defiance of justice and the laws, imports or export goods without contraband or without payment of the customs’. And yet Johnson had no compunction in being ‘a hardened and shameless tea drinker ... whose kettle has scarcely time to cool’. It was very probable that his housekeeper may have known of a smuggler’s agent who could get his tea a little cheaper.
There is clear evidence of smuggling in Essex more than 600 years ago, to evade the tax on the export of wool. The tax was imposed during the reign of Edward I and it was he who introduced the impressive King’s Beams, huge scales for weighing the wool which were set up at every Custom House in the country. The address of the headquarters of HM Customs & Excise is still shown as King’s Beam House in the City of London.
The illegal export of wool reached such huge proportions that, in 1698, 300 Riding Officers were appointed by the Government to patrol, on horseback, the long coastal areas. Each one was responsible for a 10-mile stretch. It was an impossible task. The intention was to deter and catch the smugglers landing contraband along the lonely and isolated coastline. By 1713, the Riding Officers were receiving support from garrisons of troops encamped at strategic points from which they could quickly give assistance to any place along the Essex coast. They were fighting a losing battle and some also lost their lives in the process.
The Essex coastline was ideal for smuggling. Low-lying, bleak and lonely, it made a perfect landfall for a swift ship loaded with a cargo of contraband. The Revenue Service was poorly staffed and financed and its cutters were easily eluded by local seamen, who knew how to pick their way through the maze of tidal creeks and channels in the broad estuaries.
During its heyday, smuggling embraced a huge range of luxuries on which a duty should have been paid, including lace, silks, coffee and playing cards, as well as less orthodox cargo such as golden guineas. It was huge industry, employing thousands of people, and was said to account for a quarter of all England’s overseas trade. The sea walls hid the land operations of the smugglers from the revenue cutter patrolling the rivers or possibly chasing a smuggling craft, while the Riding Officer on the land could see nothing of what was happening on the water unless he was actually on the wall or on the waterside. There was reluctance to take such a vantage point as the officer would be a good target.
Whole communities were involved in this black economy – young and old, rich and poor, labourers and landowners. Along the Essex coast, it was not uncommon to see 100 carts and as many horses gathered on the beach to await a large landing of contraband, which was soon efficiently spirited away for distribution to the waiting markets of Colchester, Chelmsford and London. Country gentlemen, farmers and even parsons were all more or less in league with the smugglers, and those that did not take a physical part in the proceedings turned a blind eye. No marshland farmer worried when he found his horse had been borrowed during the night, as he knew that he would find a keg or two lurking in his stable in the morning.
At Hadleigh Castle, phantoms known as the White Lady and the Black Man often made dramatic appearances but oddly enough only before the arrival of a shipment of illicit liquor. The castle’s gaunt ruins, which still look out grimly over Hadleigh Bay, Canvey and Leigh, were said to have been a favourite hiding place, while several churches are also credited with having been storage places for smuggled wares. Rochford church and Canvey church were sometimes used as hiding places for contraband, the latter being particularly convenient when there had been a run via Hole Haven, across the island to the mainland. Around 1800, it was said that the entire population of Paglesham was engaged in this ‘free trade’. In one year, they smuggled in more than 13,000 gallons of Geneva (gin) and brandy and £200 worth of silk at a time was hidden in the hollow elms at East Hall.
Tales of ghostly spectres were cleverly exploited by local smugglers to cloak their operations. Tiptree Heath was a favourite place used as a distribution area, while a favourite landing place for contraband was Brandy Hole Creek on the Crouch. From there, tubs of brandy were conveyed in shrimp carts across Daws Heath, near Rayleigh, to their final destination in London. Brandy smugglers working along the Crouch would use a ‘ghost cart’ – a cart was
hed with luminous paint and with muffled wheels – to frighten unwanted visitors away.
The lonely creeks witnessed bloody and desperate fights, with no mercy on either side. A whole boatload of Excise men with their throats cut was found on Sunken Island near Mersea in the early 1800s. They now lie buried beneath their upturned boat in Virley churchyard.
Hadleigh Castle ruins.
Three Wives in Seven Weeks
Quoted in The Chelmsford and Colchester Chronicle on 21 October 1768 was the story of the farmer at Halstead who buried a wife on l September and married a second on 8 September. She died on 4 October and he ‘took a third partner to his arms on Wednesday last’.
The Bigamist of Thorpe-le-Soken
In the Evening Post of 15 August 1752, a story was published concerning a gentleman who had disembarked on the Colne river with a large box which, when opened, was seen to contain the embalmed body of a beautiful young women. After interrogation, he was allowed to travel to Thorpe-le-Soken with his strange burden and called upon the Revd Alexander Gough, the vicar of the parish. He asked him to fulfil the last wish of the dead woman, which was that she should be buried in the churchyard there.
The vicar was surprised but was infinitely astonished when he recognised the lifeless face of his own wife, who had deserted him three years earlier. The gentleman declared himself to be Lord Dalmeny, eldest son of Lord Rosebery, who had been born in Italy and had met and married Catherine Canham in Verona. On her deathbed, Catherine had confessed her bigamy. She desperately wanted to be buried back in the churchyard at Thorpe. With her two husbands accompanying the casket, no stranger funeral had ever been witnessed at Thorpe-le-Soken.
A Farmer’s Funeral
From the Lincoln Mercury of 18 February 1785:
A few days since died at Upper Yeldham Hall in Essex, Mr Hurrell farmer and maltster, aged 95. He ordered in his will that his body should be interred in one of his woods, be covered with one of his hair cloths he used to dry his malt on; and that six hedgers and ditchers should carry his corpse, six others be pall bearers and six more follow as mourners, all with their bills and hedging gloves; and likewise ordered a hogshead of old beer to be drunk.
The Georgian Age
In September 1714, young Richard Barrett wrote home to his father at Belhus, Aveley, describing how he had watched the ship bearing the first of the Georges pass between Tilbury and Gravesend and had then gone to Greenwich, where the King landed at dusk by torchlight. Later that night, he was presented to the King and the Prince of Wales. He had witnessed the beginning of the Georgian Age.
Fiddler Dring
The coming of the railway to Essex brought prosperity to the Great Eastern Railway directors but put many of the coaches, carriers and carters out of business. For fifty years, Fiddler Dring, the coachman of the Yarmouth Star, had made the journey from London to Norwich, sleeping in the City of London one night and Norwich the next. On the morning of his last journey in 1843, while driving his coach down Crown Street to the railway station, the coach wheels ran on to the fence of the field, making ‘such a clatter on the fence’ that it frightened the four horses and they bolted. In turning the corner down the first hill, where it joins Queen’s Road, over went the coach, the driver and all the passengers into the field. Strange to say, no one was hurt, except poor old Fiddler Dring, who was killed on the spot.
Essex Divinations
Marriage was considered the most important event of a girl’s life in times past. Across the county, the snail, known locally as hodmedod or dodman, was often called on by superstitious girls when they wanted to learn about their future husbands. Anxious to discover the initials of her true love, a girl placed a poor old snail on a saucer or piece of slate and left it overnight. By morning, the initials of the gentleman would be there in a trail of slime.
There were many other rituals used by lovelorn maidens to discover who their future spouse might be. The well-known chants ‘He loves me, he loves me not’ and ‘Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor’ when counting cherry or prune stones or plucking petals from a daisy are familiar even today. In Colchester at the beginning of the last century, Kathleen Curtis’s sisters would peel a cooking apple so that the skin stayed in one piece, stand on a chair and drop the skin to the floor. In this way, they might determine the initial of their new love.
From Saffron Walden, the superstition concerning ladybirds is also well known. On finding a ladybird, a girl would place it on the back of her hand and gently blow it away after reciting the rhyme:
Bishy, bishy Barnabee
Tell me when my wedding will be,
If it be tomorrow day,
Take your wings and fly away,
Fly to the East, fly to the West
Fly to him I love the best.
A Pirate in Essex
A tale that has entered the realms of modern folklore is that of Radio Caroline, the first pirate radio station to broadcast pop music from an old Dutch coaster, the Mi Amigo, anchored off the Essex coast. The station, which illegally operated without a broadcasting licence, was named after the late President Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline, and was an immediate success with young people. It was an important part of the ‘swinging sixties’.
On 19 January 1966, a vicious snow-laden wind hit the Mi Amigo so hard that it broke from its moorings and blew ashore at Great Holland. The Walton lifeboatmen had enormous difficulties in launching a rescue attempt. At last, the pirate had been silenced, but not for long. The Mi Amigo was repaired and Radio Caroline was back in action just 13 miles off the Essex coast at Southend – just outside UK territorial waters. On 20 March 1980, Radio Caroline again met storms that blew the ship, anchor and equipment off its mooring and into the graveyard of so many boats. The Sheerness lifeboat rescuers pulled the four men to safety and the Mi Amigo sank into the sands. Where the Government had failed, the elements succeeded. By 1983, Caroline was back on air transmitting from the Revenge, a converted trawler in the harsh waters of the North Sea. In all, Radio Caroline had been in and out of the news for more than twenty-five years.
A Pearly Tale
Benfleet is the home of Mr and Mrs Christopher Friend, who continue the Pearly King and Queen tradition in Essex, raising money for many charities. The custom started in London in1875. That year, thirteen-year-old Henry Croft left his orphanage to seek work, finding a job as a roadsweeper and ratcatcher in Somers Town market, St Pancras. The lad enjoyed the company of the costermongers, who sold fruit and vegetables, and was intrigued with the way the ‘costers’ sewed a row of pearl buttons along their trouser seams. He also loved their friendliness and the way they helped each other in times of sickness. Henry collected mother-of-pearl buttons from the ‘sweat shops’ around the market and sewed them on to his jacket, continuing until his entire suit was covered. This started the tradition. The Pearly Kings create intricate designs and sew on thousands of buttons, sometimes as many as 40,000, making their clothes very heavy.
Henry’s charitable work began in hospitals and workhouses. His costermonger friends helped and became the first Pearly families. When he died in 1930, he had raised over £5,000, approximately £½ million pounds in today’s money. His funeral was a spectacular affair, filmed by Pathe News. More than 400 Pearlies followed his coffin. Henry’s descendants still carry on the Pearly tradition and there are several other Pearlies in Essex towns.
Mr and Mrs Christopher Friend, Pearly King and Queen living in Benfleet.
Emergency Call
The free 999 telephone emergency system was introduced in May 1928 because of serious delays in police response following the murder of one of their constables in Essex. Alec Ward, a mail van driver, was first on the scene of the brutal murder of PC George Gutteridge on 27 September 1927 on the lonely Stapleford Abbots road. The policeman had been shot four times in the head, including a bullet through each eye. Desperately needing police help, Ward drove immediately to Stapleford Tawney post office and tried to ring the Romford police station b
ut his call was refused, as they said that PC Gutteridge was not stationed there. They suggested Ward should ring Ongar police. When the telephone operator demanded payment for the call, the postmistress had to intervene in the ensuing argument. So much time had elapsed following the discovery of the policeman’s body that the hunt for the murderers was seriously delayed. Eventually, the killers, Frederick Browne and William Kennedy, were arrested, convicted at the Old Bailey and hanged in 1928. It seems that they shot the policeman through each eye as they believed the superstition that the eye of a dead person reflects the image of the last person seen.
As a result, the following notice appeared in the Daily Mail on 8 May 1928:
Notices that fire, police and ambulance emergency calls may be made free are being affixed to public telephone call boxes in London. Later they will be put up throughout the country. Telephone operators have now received strict instructions to put through without delay all such calls. In the Automatic telephone boxes the twopence used to secure a reply from the exchange will be returned after the call has been made.
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