Chapter 33

Sidetrack (iv)  -  A Day In The Life   - 1859

We’re living in a society that has become accustomed to ‘progress’.  We assume that every few years there’ll be something new in our homes; things will be faster, quieter, and cleverer.  We’re also aware that lurking just around the corner will be another invention that will completely change our lives and acknowledge that it probably hasn’t even been thought of yet.

We know this, we expect it, and we can even speculate about it.  Experience tells us that there’s probably a technical solution out there for most of the things we can imagine and that we’ll get there eventually as soon as some smart person somewhere figures out what method is required to achieve it.  Maybe in the next few years, maybe by the time our kids have grown up.

It’s not just the practical inventions.  The same can be said of scientific discoveries, medical developments, the evolution taking place in the crazy micro world of chips and A.I. that none of us remotely understand, the mind-blowing revelations about the universe and so on.  All rushing ahead, all largely beyond most of our intellects, all filling us with an uneasy sense of awe.  Rarely these days does any of it generate genuine surprise.  We know this accelerated rate of progress is a feature of the last few hundred years.  Education, enlightenment, and entrepreneurship all feeding off each other to drive things forward.

It’s been a similar story in the world of exploration and geographical discoveries.  Here the acceleration came in the 18th and 19th centuries, as a host of nations dispatched expeditions and adventurers to the distant corners of the globe, usually driven by the prospect of economic or strategic gains.  Jungles, mountains, deserts, oceans and rivers were all fair game.  The pace has now eased and those far-flung exotic lands have now become package holiday locations. We no longer have any expectation of any big surprises: we think we know it all, or at least the parts we might be interested in.

But let’s go back just one or two hundred years.  Britain was a society where thinking and imagination were constrained by the Church, where education was largely limited to classics, theology and literature for the small fortunate few, and where the economic drive was championed mainly by the landowners and the Government’s need to fuel its militaristic and imperialistic ambitions.  If we lived then it would have been a bewildering, unnerving, yet exciting time with the rapid changes impacting, in one way or another, on everybody.

Almost every day we would have learnt about something new.  What would it have been like?

Let’s ask the Time Machine to take us back to visit Bristol in 1859, only 100 years before I was born, and spend a day or two with one of my imaginary ancestors. Maybe it’s possible to spot some traces of my genetic characteristics that can be identified a century, just five generations, ago?

What would he be doing and what would he have been like?  Probably not in the military as the family wasn’t rich enough to buy him a commission and he didn’t particularly like someone giving him orders or finding himself in a fight.  Neither would he be a scientist or engineer; he just wasn’t clever enough. Maybe an aspiring businessman, making his way in the family manufacturing enterprise?  Maybe an explorer?

He’s a chap in his twenties who’s benefited from his aspiring parents’ desire to provide a solid, principled foundation for their educated children. The family’s successful leather business has been taking advantage of increased mechanisation which has slowly helped to haul them up through the ranks of society, so that they now consider themselves to be part of the new, comfortable middle-class.  He’s fortunate that he can work as the ‘factory manager’ at the leather works in the city but also has the opportunity to pursue his leisure and travel interests.

Married last year to Susan, a girl from a respectable family from south of the river, they have recently purchased a new house in Frenchay, at the top of the hill and adjacent to a few fields owned by his parents.

Diary Entry  15th September 1859.

Cook had left breakfast on the kitchen table so, gulping down the cup of milk, I grabbed the apple and hunk of bread and squeezed them into my shoulder bag. Susan was already dressed and readying herself for another day teaching at the village school: the children would be arriving by 9 ‘o’clock and she needed to prepare.  Wishing her a pleasant day with a kiss, I found a suitable hat from the stand in the hall and left in a bit of a rush.

I couldn’t afford to be late.  It would take me an hour to walk into town and I had a busy day in prospect.  As always there were a multitude of things to attend to at the Works so I would need to spend most of the day checking the machinery was running well, the workers were content, the leather supplies were arriving, and the customer orders were being dispatched.  Fortunately, we’d employed a handful of very competent men to oversee the day to day activities and, through a mix of encouragement, training and reward, I’m increasingly able to delegate the operational aspects to them, leaving me more time to think of the broader business issues and opportunities.

Today though there was the much more exciting prospect that required me to be at the dockside in time for the arrival of the HMS Furious after its six-week return voyage from Zanzibar.  A message from the Royal Geographical Society had arrived only two days earlier requesting me, as a member resident in Bristol, to ensure that a certain passenger was met and offered ‘every assistance’ in his onward travels to London.  His name was John Henning Speke and rumours were circulating that the expedition he’d helped lead had finally discovered the source of the mighty River Nile.

Strolling quickly down the hill, crossing the bridge and following the track alongside the Frome, it was thrilling to think I might be one of the first person in England to hear of his adventures and whether he and his fellow explorers had laid claim to any new territories in the land we all intriguingly referred to as the ‘Dark Continent.’  The river’s burbling was temporarily halted as I passed the weir at the Snuff Mill and, continuing with a long stride, it wasn’t long before I noticed the elegant spire of the newly-constructed Holy Trinity church in Stapleton.  I’d heard it had been paid for personally by the Bishop of Bristol and Gloucester, the rather pompous Bishop Monk, but I suspect he’d not dipped into his own very deep pockets and had more likely found a clever way to allocate a portion of the vast wealth I strongly suspected the Church were sitting on.

Stretching up from the river, across the extensive grounds owned by the Diocese, it was impossible to miss his huge house known to all as the Bishop’s Palace. I’d never have guessed that in just a few years the next bishop would choose to live elsewhere and the grand house and gardens would be sold to the Colstons School for the education of an enlightened mix of fee-paying and charitably-supported boys. (Although it wasn’t that enlightened, as the founding father had written into the charter that all boys must be Anglicans.)

Making good time I passed the open scrub land on my left, owned, like much of Bristol’s open spaces by the Greville-Smyths.  I’d heard from some of the chaps at my Club that the City Fathers were in discussion with John Henry, the current Baronet, about bequeathing this land to enable the creation of one of the new parks currently springing up in cities around the country and championed by the visionary Prince Albert. It was a sore point with me that the well-to-dos up in Clifton and Redland had been enjoying their public gardens, parks and open spaces for several years now and yet those of us on the less fashionable side of the city were still waiting.  (It would take another 30 years before Eastville Park would open, finally providing a municipal facility for the eastern inhabitants of the city).

I didn’t dally in the bustling Old Market area with its myriad of little streets, hiding all sorts of artisans, shop-keepers and coffee houses, and hurried past the Stag and Hounds public house, renowned throughout the city and frequented by myself on occasion for an ale on my way home.  One of our competitors in the leather business had joined a number of the new manufacturing ventures opening near the old ruined castle, their factory squeezed in between a cluster of house and the St Peter’s Hospital.  The Hospital was now reputed to be able to care for over 300 patients, although I knew they’d moved those suffering from the latest cholera outbreak out to the Blackberry Hill Hospital.  Clearly it was acceptable to pass the problem out to the eastern edge of the city rather than risk the disease spreading amongst the families and workers of the merchant venturers and other notables.

Word of the arrival of the Furious had spread. I’d been joined by a throng of people and carriages traversing the Bristol Bridge and so took a short-cut across Queen Square with its restored Mansion House and bordered on three sides by other smart houses. The original owners had moved up the hill to Clifton, deciding they didn’t fancy risking a repeat of the riots and, unhappy with the Corporation’s failure to address the increasingly noxious smells that accompanied the sewage that would accumulate in the adjacent Floating Harbour, or the fumes that would drift across from the metal works in Bedminster if the wind was from the south.  Finally after reaching the dockside I’m allowed to join the reception committee inside a hastily-arranged roped area.  It was with some relief that I could clearly see the impressive frigate, driven by its paddle-wheels, steadily approaching but still a few minutes away from its mooring.  HMS Furious had sailed up the Avon Gorge on the incoming tide, beneath the mothballed towers of the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Would they ever sort out the financing to finish Brunel’s dream design or would the city be left with an embarrassing pair of white elephants?

The local band struck up and the crowd cheered.  Word had spread that the Port Authority had received a telegraph message about an unusual cargo and already visible on the deck were a number of large cages.  It seemed that Speke was returning with some new wild animals for the Zoological Gardens, opened just a few years ago up in Clifton (where else?).  Although I’d only seen magazine drawings, I was excited to be able to clearly identify a giraffe, zebra and gazelle, and wondered if anything else might be contained below deck?  Before long, Speke was down the gangplank and shaking hands. He was only 32 years old, but looked older, hardly surprising after ten years of exploration during which he had suffered spear wounds, jungle fever and temporary blindness.  I eventually extricated him from the crowd and guided him to the hansom cab which was waiting. Giving instructions to his man about the luggage which was to follow, we set off towards Temple Meads.

To be honest he didn’t reveal much on the short trip to the Station Hotel.  He hinted only that the talk he was to give at the Royal Geographical Society next week would contain some startling new revelations and that Her Majesty Queen Victoria had now acquired a huge inland sea which he’d named in her honour.  He wasn’t particularly interested when I tried briefly to tell of my own recent adventures in the Alps and seemed a little preoccupied, asking if there was any news of Stanley’s return from Africa.  I sensed all had not been harmonious on their explorations together.  On the plus side he scribbled me a note that would give me an entry to the lecture and I left him with details of his train journey in a couple of days’ time.

Half an hour later I was back talking with the foreman at the Works in Victoria Street. The new steam leather-cutting machines were running well and, with our recent addition of 30 stitchers, we were now capable of massively increasing output. Satchels and bags were being produced in hundreds rather than dozens and a new product, drive belts for the ever increasing mechanisation of presses, cotton frames and steam engines, were taking our profits in the right direction. We’d had no accidents for several weeks and were proud of our plans to take the workers on a day’s excursion to Weston-Super-Mare later in the summer.  There was plenty of correspondence awaiting signature and the accounts clerk was keen to show me the latest sales numbers so I spent the next few hours in my small office. I’d decided not to eat out for lunch so had sent one of the boys to get me a meat pie which I devoured trying not to leave crumbs and greasy fingerprints on the ledgers.

By 3pm I’d completed my tasks for the day and decided there was time for a short visit to the new Gymnasium in Welsh Back. I’ve become a convert to the benefits of physical exercise training and was sure it was a help to my fitness. When the Gym’ opened I was an enthusiastic visitor and had been keen to have a go at the latest craze introduced from America.  Calisthenics was ‘guaranteed’ to increase fitness and strength using a variety of ropes, bars, weights and special resistance exercises: perfect for any enthusiastic mountaineer!  An hour was more than enough and feeling suitably energised I headed for my Club on Vine Street where the thought of a cup of the latest Assam tea, a chat with my fellows, and a read of the paper (assuming the London Times had arrived) would wrap up a busy day in town.  There were quite a few of the chaps already there but the atmosphere was strangely quiet and sombre.

As I settled into my favourite leather armchair the reason became clear.  Brunel, the great and visionary engineer, his achievements celebrated the world over and adopted like a favourite son by the City of Bristol, had passed away.  We’d heard he was ill a few days ago but were all stunned at the news.  What an impact he’d made on the face of our landscape with his ground-breaking designs, innovative ideas and ingenious constructions!  His dockyards, tunnels, steamships, bridges, hospitals, railways and stations had been revolutionising our nation and its public transport for the last three decades.  We speculated for a while whether the Clifton Bridge would now ever be completed but eventually the conversation drifted back to the usual topic.

Politically I was a big supporter of Lord Palmerston and his reforming Liberal party and had been delighted when the Tories under Lord Derby (with Wellington always prompting in the background) had been finally defeated after years of muddling along, desperately trying to resist and dilute the passage of the Reform Bills.  At last we now had an electoral arrangement that addressed the country-town imbalance of MPs and gave men the vote based on their worth, rather than favour or inheritance.  Given the franchise, my father and I had enthusiastically voted for the newly formed Liberals, anticipating that under Palmerston’s renowned skills in matters foreign, that Britain would continue to grow and control markets across the world. With peace now restored in the Crimea and the squashing of the Ying Dynasty’s attempt to influence trade in China, it felt like that there were now few boundaries to further expansion of our Empire.

At home, despite the misgivings of many of my fellow members, I had been delighted with the rapid social progress being achieved through measures such as the series of Factory Acts (limiting working hours and other Health & Safety measures), the Truck Acts (banning the practice of paying workers in goods), the Smoke Act (controlling emissions from factories) and the Vaccination Act (compulsory smallpox vaccines for children).

In an effort to lighten the mood, one of the chaps pointed to an article in The Times which reported that the Headmaster of Harrow School had just resigned having been exposed as having had an affair with a pupil!  You can imagine that, as most of us had suffered (at some point) from a beating from one or another sadistic headmaster up and down the country, we weren’t a particularly sympathetic group. Provoking a more controversial reaction on another subject, I ventured to suggest that the report of the first appointment of a female doctor to the General Medical Council was a welcome step in the right direction, particularly as the traditional approach to nursing and hospitals was being successfully challenged by women such as Florence Nightingale.  Having stoked the debating fires, I then ducked out to start my journey home.

Cutting it fine as usual, I found myself having to run along Victoria Street and up the road to the wonderfully ornate, castle-like buildings and welcoming façade of Brunel’s Temple Mead Station.

‘Mangotsfield single, first class please,’ and I handed over the 3d fare.  'Platform 2, Midland Railway 4.45pm to Birmingham,' was the response from the ticket office.

Right on time the engine, one of the latest 'Iron Dukes' made in Swindon, emitted a loud whistle and a huge cloud of steam and we clanked out of the station. I loved the experience of riding in a train carriage and had a totally different view of the roads and buildings as we hauled our way north-eastwards through the new developments of Fishponds and Staple Hill.  My companions in our first class carriage smiled knowingly as we plunged into the Staple Hill tunnel.  The open carriages to the rear would be engulfed by the smoke before they emerged spluttering into the cutting that led to Mangotsfield station.  Amazing.  Just 25 minutes from the centre of town!  And already there is talk of faster locomotives arriving next year and an expansion of a branch line through Bitton and Keynsham and onward to Bath.

Needing to detour through Downend on my way home I took a shortcut across Siston Common and headed for the Doctor’s house in the village.  My next expedition to the Alps was only a few weeks away and I needed to collect some medicines for the trip.  Henry Grace, the doctor. his wife and nine children were family friends.  However on arrival at their cottage I was greeted with a note on the door. ‘Meet at the cricket ground’.

I have to say this wasn’t a total surprise. The whole family was cricket-mad and would be found on most summer evenings just along the road at the little ground by the church.  I too loved the game though I have to say my enthusiasm was not always matched by my abilities.  Even so the prospect of half an hour spectating and a pint of ale was quite appealing.  I arrived just in time to see the youngest son, William Gilbert, reach his fifty.  Aged only 11, he was already quite a prodigy and quite capable of making runs against some of the best men bowlers from the local villages.

Not wanting to be late for dinner I collected my package of medicines and dragged myself away from the cricket, dropped down Croomes Hill to the river and arrived back home in Frenchay with time to spare.  Susan was in the drawing room relaxing after her day at the school and reading ‘All Year Round,’ the latest magazine to arrive in the post from London.  Published by Charles Dickens, it was serialising his latest novel, ‘A Tale of Two Cities,’ and she’d just finished the first instalment.  I passed her The Times newspaper, which I’d collected from the Club, and described my rather eventful day, including the untimely demise of IKB.

Over dinner of fish pie, one of cook’s specialities using a fresh catch from the lake by the Common and accompanied by potatoes and cabbage, I listened to Susan’s amusing, if somewhat frustrated, account of the debate there had been over lunch between some of the staff and the vicar from the adjacent parish church. It was hardly surprising that opinion was split on this particular topic, the recent publication by the naturalists Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace.  To us Darwin’s theory of evolution, described in considerable detail in his ‘Origin of the Species’, made a lot of sense and it was easy to see why many in the Royal Society had endorsed these views.  On the other hand it had caused a storm in more conservative parts of society.  You can imagine the reaction of the Church to the idea that we’ve all come from common ancestors!

It was yet another breach of the fortified wall of stories that our religion was sheltering behind. From astronomy to chemistry, geology to biology, our ever expanding scientific knowledge was leaving only ‘faith' as a credible defence.  Who knows what would remain of our nation's religions in another hundred years?

After an apple pie dessert we retired again to the drawing room to take coffee where Susan picked through the more popular pages of the newspaper:

‘Fancy that - there’s the first ever dog show being held next month in Newcastle.’

‘How awful!  They say that 133 ships were lost in last week’s storm and that the Royal Charter went down off Anglesey with 459 lives!’

‘We must visit the National Portrait Gallery that’s just opened next time we go to London.’

It was the opportunity I was looking for.

‘Well, it just so happens that the Alpine Club have asked me to give a talk about my first ascent of the Aletschhorn in Switzerland last month and they’ll pay our train fare and hotel.  It’s scheduled for next Saturday so we can travel on Friday afternoon with Great Western.’

I needed to work on my speech, so before retiring I found my expedition diaries.  I shivered, remembering the conditions when I read the paragraph I'd written about taking scientific measurements as we stood on the summit.

‘The wind of such violence as almost to carry off one's legs, driving snow, and twenty degrees Fahrenheit of frost, are not quite the companions one would select for examination of so vast a landscape . . . but . . . I unhesitatingly maintain that there is a joy in these measuring's of the strength of nature in her wildest moods, a quiet sense of work done, in the teeth of the opposition.’

It had been a thrilling adventure and the opportunity to return to climb, scramble and wander throughout the seemingly endless ranges of France, Switzerland and Italy in the years to come filled me with eager anticipation.  Fortunately Susan also enjoyed the mountain scenery and fresh alpine air.  She was quite capable of climbing on the glaciers and ridges and impressed many of my companions with her determination.  Her talent as a sketch artist, and the travelogues she wrote in her journal were eagerly awaited by our little social circle and a travel magazine was due to publish some of her work later in the year.

I’d also decided to take the chance to show the Society my latest idea for expeditions. It was a bag for sleeping in which consisted of blanket material with rubber-coated fabric on the underside. Along with the rucksack and the axe with a shaped adze, I was quite proud of my growing reputation as an innovator of useful equipment for exploration.

And so, with a mind dreaming of deep blue mountain skies and unclimbed peaks, we finished our mugs of hot milk and retired to bed.

Events described all happened within a few months in 1859.  Any similarities with the life of Francis Fox Tuckett  (1834 -1913) are purely coincidental.

Note: The pioneering mountaineer Francis Fox Tuckett was born at The Old House, Frenchay Common, Gloucestershire, on 10 February 1834, the son of Francis Tuckett and Marianna née Fox.  He acquired his love of the mountains on a visit to the Alps with his father in 1842, and for much of his adult life he devoted two to three months of each year to climbing. He became famous for his pioneering Alpine work (1856-1874), capturing 376 peaks (60 of them previously unconquered).  His stamina, strength and skill became a legend.

Tuckett was one of the main figures of the Golden age of Alpinism, In ‘Scrambles amongst the Alps’  Edward Whymper called Tuckett ‘that mighty mountaineer, whose name is known throughout the length and breadth of the Alps.’

In 1865 the King of Italy created him a Knight of the Order of St Lazarus, in recognition of the services he had rendered to Italy by his ‘geographical and scientific research in the Italian alps.’ His diaries and letters show his appreciation of mountain scenery, his insatiable curiosity and the great joy he derived from extending himself to the limit, both physically and mentally.  In the city of Trentino Tuckett is remembered with street names and the Rifugio Tuckett above Madonna di Campiglio,  situated at an altitude of 2,272 metres in the Brenta Dolomites, is named after him, as is the Bocca del Tuckett (2,648 m), a pass between two steep, rocky peaks that may be seen from the hut

His sister Charlotte wrote that 'He kept himself in good training for his beloved pursuit of mountaineering by his daily walks to and from Bristol, five miles each way.  He used to get home for six, and for more years than I can say, the institution existed of an apple tart served with his tea.’

It was actually his sister Elizabeth who was a traveller, writer and artist.  She illustrated her Alpine Journal with sketches and her book ‘How we spent the summer: Or a voyage en zigzag, in Switzerland and Tyrol, with some members of the Alpine Club’ is currently studied as part of the International Baccalaureate in a number of European countries and can still be ordered from Waterstones or Amazon.

In later life Tuckett travelled extensively with a particular interest in Egypt and twice visited New Zealand where he met his wife Alice.  She was instrumental in the running of the Frenchay village school and was a driving force behind the establishment of Frenchay Hospital in 1921.

The family later bequeathed the fields they owned to the village which is now Frenchay Common.

Tuckett died on 20 June 1913 at The Old House, Frenchay, and was buried in the graveyard of the Friends’ Meeting House, Frenchay. 

Image removed: HMS Furious 1845  Image removed ; Gymnasiun  Wikimedia

 Image removed :Iron Duke locomotive       Image removed : Aletschhorn

 Francis Tuckett: Frenchay Museum photo taken on 13 June 1862 by Camille Silvy of London.  Alice Tuckett: Frenchay Museum