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- Herausgeber: The History Press
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Taking you through the year day by day, The Colchester Book of Days contains quirky, eccentric, amusing and important events and facts from different periods in the history of Britain's oldest recorded town. Ideal for dipping into, this addictive little book will keep you entertained and informed. Featuring hundreds of snippets of information gleaned from the vaults of Colchester's archives, it will delight residents and visitors alike.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
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THE
COLCHESTER
BOOK
OF
DAYS
SIMON WEBB
First published in 2013
The History Press The Mill, Brimscombe Port Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QGwww.thehistorypress.co.uk
This ebook edition first published in 2013
All rights reserved © Simon Webb, 2013
The right of Simon Webb, to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 8908 7MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 8907 0
Original typesetting by The History Press
CONTENTS
January
January 1st
January 2nd
January 3rd
January 4th
January 5th
January 6th
January 7th
January 8th
January 9th
January 10th
January 11th
January 12th
January 13th
January 14th
January 15th
January 16th
January 17th
January 18th
January 19th
January 20th
January 21st
January 22nd
January 23rd
January 24th
January 25th
January 26th
January 27th
January 28th
January 29th
January 30th
January 31st
February
February 1st
February 2nd
February 3rd
February 4th
February 5th
February 6th
February 7th
February 8th
February 9th
February 10th
February 11th
February 12th
February 13th
February 14th
February 15th
February 16th
February 17th
February 18th
February 19th
February 20th
February 21st
February 22nd
February 23rd
February 24th
February 25th
February 26th
February 27th
February 28th
March
March 1st
March 2nd
March 3rd
March 4th
March 5th
March 6th
March 7th
March 8th
March 9th
March 10th
March 11th
March 12th
March 13th
March 14th
March 15th
March 16th
March 17th
March 18th
March 19th
March 20th
March 21st
March 22nd
March 23rd
March 24th
March 25th
March 26th
March 27th
March 28th
March 29th
March 30th
March 31st
April
April 1st
April 2nd
April 3rd
April 4th
April 5th
April 6th
April 7th
April 8th
April 9th
April 10th
April 11th
April 12th
April 13th
April 14th
April 15th
April 16th
April 17th
April 18th
April 19th
April 20th
April 21st
April 22nd
April 23rd
April 24th
April 25th
April 26th
April 27th
April 28th
April 29th
April 30th
May
May 1st
May 2nd
May 3rd
May 4th
May 5th
May 6th
May 7th
May 8th
May 9th
May 10th
May 11th
May 12th
May 13th
May 14th
May 15th
May 16th
May 17th
May 18th
May 19th
May 20th
May 21st
May 22nd
May 23rd
May 24th
May 25th
May 26th
May 27th
May 28th
May 29th
May 30th
May 31st
June
June 1st
June 2nd
June 3rd
June 4th
June 5th
June 6th
June 7th
June 8th
June 9th
June 10th
June 11th
June 12th
June 13th
June 14th
June 15th
June 16th
June 17th
June 18th
June 19th
June 20th
June 21st
June 22nd
June 23rd
June 24th
June 25th
June 26th
June 27th
June 28th
June 29th
June 30th
July
July 1st
July 2nd
July 3rd
July 4th
July 5th
July 6th
July 7th
July 8th
July 9th
July 10th
July 11th
July 12th
July 13th
July 14th
July 15th
July 16th
July 17th
July 18th
July 19th
July 20th
July 21st
July 22nd
July 23rd
July 24th
July 25th
July 26th
July 27th
July 28th
July 29th
July 30th
July 31st
August
August 1st
August 2nd
August 3rd
August 4th
August 5th
August 6th
August 7th
August 8th
August 9th
August 10th
August 11th
August 12th
August 13th
August 14th
August 15th
August 16th
August 17th
August 18th
August 19th
August 20th
August 21st
August 22nd
August 23rd
August 24th
August 25th
August 26th
August 27th
August 28th
August 29th
August 30th
August 31st
September
September 1st
September 2nd
September 3rd
September 4th
September 5th
September 6th
September 7th
September 8th
September 9th
September 10th
September 11th
September 12th
September 13th
September 14th
September 15th
September 16th
September 17th
September 18th
September 19th
September 20th
September 21st
September 22nd
September 23rd
September 24th
September 25th
September 26th
September 27th
September 28th
September 29th
September 30th
October
October 1st
October 2nd
October 3rd
October 4th
October 5th
October 6th
October 7th
October 8th
October 9th
October 10th
October 11th
October 12th
October 13th
October 14th
October 15th
October 16th
October 17th
October 18th
October 19th
October 20th
October 21st
October 22nd
October 23rd
October 24th
October 25th
October 26th
October 27th
October 28th
October 29th
October 30th
October 31st
November
November 1st
November 2nd
November 3rd
November 4th
November 5th
November 6th
November 7th
November 8th
November 9th
November 10th
November 11th
November 12th
November 13th
November 14th
November 15th
November 16th
November 17th
November 18th
November 19th
November 20th
November 21st
November 22nd
November 23rd
November 24th
November 25th
November 26th
November 27th
November 28th
November 29th
November 30th
December
December 1st
December 2nd
December 3rd
December 4th
December 5th
December 6th
December 7th
December 8th
December 9th
December 10th
December 11th
December 12th
December 13th
December 14th
December 15th
December 16th
December 17th
December 18th
December 19th
December 20th
December 21st
December 22nd
December 23rd
December 24th
December 25th
December 26th
December 27th
December 28th
December 29th
December 30th
December 31st
JANUARY 1ST
2012: The Colchester Royal Grammar School became an academy on this day. This means that rather than being controlled and financed by the local authority, the school will be funded directly by the government in Westminster and also free to seek funding from private sponsors.
The origins of Colchester Royal Grammar School date back to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The school has had a sound academic reputation for many years. Since the end of the Second World War, it has faced two serious threats to its existence. The first was in 1966, when Colchester Council tried to force the grammar school to become a comprehensive. Essex County Council rejected the plans and for the next decade, things went on as before. Then, in the late 1970s, the then Education Secretary, Shirley Williams, drew up plans for the abolition of all the remaining selective schools in Britain. Pupils from Colchester Royal Grammar School marched through the town in protest. As it turned out, the Labour government fell in 1979 and the plans for doing away with grammar schools were abandoned by the incoming Conservative administration. The school has come first in the A level league tables every year since 2006. In 2004, the BBC named it as being the top state school in the entire country.
JANUARY 2ND
1892: On this day George Biddel Airy, who held the post of Astronomer Royal for an incredible forty-six years, died. He was born in Northumberland in 1801, but his family later moved south and young George attended the Royal Colchester Grammar School. He was an enormously popular pupil there, chiefly because he had a technical bent which enabled him to make extraordinarily effective peashooters!
One of Airy’s greatest achievements was the establishment of the Prime Meridian at Greenwich in 1851. A few years after his retirement, he had the satisfaction of seeing this adopted as the international basis for timekeeping and navigation; a position which the Greenwich Meridian still holds to this day.
It was not only in astronomy that George Airy excelled. Years before he became Astronomer Royal, he devised a method of calculating the Earth’s density. His first attempt to do this – at the age of 25 – failed, but he later managed to experiment with two pendulums, one deep within a mineshaft and one on the surface. By discovering that gravity at the bottom of the shaft exceeded that on the surface by 1/19286, he was able to show that the specific density of the Earth was 6.566.
JANUARY 3RD
1837: This is the day that William Westwood, aged 16, appeared at the Essex Quarter Sessions in Colchester, accused of stealing a coat. He was convicted and sentenced to an unbelievable fourteen years’ transportation to Australia. Once there, he became a bushranger, more or less a highwayman; one of the most famous in Australia. His nickname was Jackey Jackey and one of his peculiarities was that he never harmed his victims. Some called him ‘The Gentleman Bushranger’, partly because of his courteous manner when dealing with his victims and partly because of his habit of carrying out his robberies dressed in a smart suit.
Jackey Jackey became a legend. He was captured several times, but always managed to escape. In 1845, at the age of 25, he was caught and brought to court, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment in the notorious penal settlement on Norfolk Island. The following year, he led an attempted breakout, in the course of which three police officers were killed. On October 13th 1846, William Westwood was hanged.
JANUARY 4TH
2005: The Evening Gazette reported on this day the finding of the only chariot circus ever unearthed in this country. The discovery, in Colchester’s Abbey Fields district, led to demands that the town should apply for World Heritage status.
Most people are familiar enough with Hollywood epics such as Ben Hur to know what a Roman circus would have looked like; an elongated oval track where chariots would race round, while the crowd placed bets on the outcome. The excavation revealed some of the most important parts of Colchester’s circus, for instance the starting gates and obelisks which marked the turning points at either end of the track. Calculations showed that the stadium contained seating for an astonishing 8,000 spectators – probably the entire population of Colchester during the third century AD. In other words, there was room for every adult in the whole city to attend the races!
The future of these unique remains was to be buried beneath a huge new development, although, at the time of writing, the Colchester Archaeological Trust have moved into a building on the site and hope to open it to the public soon.
JANUARY 5TH
1958: On this Sunday evening, a Dutch au pair called Mary Kriek disappeared. She got off a bus only 100 yards from the farmhouse at Eight Ash Green, Colchester where she was living and working, but never arrived home. The next day, her body was found ten miles away. She had been beaten to death and her killer was never caught.
The murder of Mary Kriek provides an early case of press intrusion. Complaints were made to the Press Council that reporters from British newspapers besieged the home of Mary’s parents in Holland, pestering them for their reaction to the violent death of their daughter. Letters appeared in The Times about this case, most people being deeply critical of the behaviour of the press. The Daily Mirror, which had refused to print photographs of the grieving parents, published an editorial in which they denounced the intrusion into private grief which was becoming so common in the 1950s. One cameraman from a British newspaper had even tried to arrange for a photograph of Mary Kriek’s parents as they left the mortuary after viewing their daughter’s body.
JANUARY 6TH
1850: This was the day that Charles Haddon Spurgeon, probably the most famous preacher Britain has ever known, converted to Christianity. Sixteen-year-old Charles, who was born in the Essex town of Kelvedon, was on the way to an appointment when a snowstorm caused him to take shelter in the Methodist chapel in Colchester’s Artillery Street. In his own words, ‘God opened my heart to the salvation message’. He was received into the Church three months later and baptized on May 3rd 1850.
By the time he was in his mid twenties, Spurgeon had become the most popular preacher in England. At times, he preached to 10,000 people at a time, hiring music halls for the purpose of teaching people about the Bible’s message. So popular was he, that an enormous Baptist church was built in south London, of which he became the pastor. The Metropolitan Tabernacle is still standing and has room for 5,000 worshippers at a time. His sermons were printed and circulated like newspapers. When Dr Livingstone died in Africa, it was discovered that one of his few possessions was a copy of one of Spurgeon’s sermons.
Charles Spurgeon continued to preach regularly, despite his increasing ill health. He died in 1892, at the age of 57.
JANUARY 7TH
1831: The local newspaper, the Essex County Standard, was launched upon this day. The first local newspaper to cover events in Colchester was The Essex Mercury or Colchester Weekly Journal, which began in 1733. It was published by John Pilborough, a bookseller with a shop in Colchester High Street. It was popularly known as ‘Pilborough’s Journal’ in order to distinguish it from the Ipswich Journal, which also carried news of Essex at that time. The Essex Mercury folded in 1747. After that time, the Ipswich Journal, which ran until 1771, had a column of news from Colchester and the surrounding districts.
Colchester’s next local paper was the Colchester Gazette and General Advertiser for Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Herts, which began publication in 1814. It was initially published by Swinborne & Co. in the High Street, but changed hands three times in nine years, absorbing the Colchester Courier in the process. Various other newspapers based in Colchester were started at this time.
When the Essex County Standard began in 1831, it was described by the publishers as, ‘a standard around which the loyal, the religious and the well-affected of our County may rally’. It is the only local paper which has lasted and is still being published today.
JANUARY 8TH
1735: Thomas Twining was born on this day. His father, Daniel, was a famous tea merchant in London – Twining’s Tea is famous to this day – but Thomas found no pleasure in the world of commerce. He preferred academic study to buying and selling tea, and so ended up at Cambridge University. He took Holy Orders at the age of 29 and a few years later married Elizabeth Smythies, daughter of one of his teachers at Colchester Grammar School.
After his marriage, Twining became vicar at Fordham, a small village near Colchester. He remained the vicar there for the rest of his life, although in later years he was also the vicar of White Notley and, from 1788, the Rector of St Mary’s in Colchester. He moved to Colchester from Fordham in 1790.
In addition to being a priest, Thomas Twining was a noted musician and classical scholar. He assisted Charles Burney in the writing of his History of Music. Burney’s daughter, Fanny, said that Twining was, ‘besides being deep in musical knowledge, a man of great humour and drollery’.
JANUARY 9TH
2007: Peter Pearson saw a hummingbird hawk moth feeding – or, to use the correct technical term, nectaring – on Viburnam flowers in the garden of his house in Chalfont Road, Colchester on this day.
So important was the hummingbird hawk moth’s appearance in Chalfont Road at this time of the year that the news was headed ‘Stop Press’ on the website of the Colchester Natural History Society. We learn that this is without doubt the earliest sighting of this moth in not just Colchester, but the whole of Essex! It was seemingly an over-wintering specimen, at least according to the improbably named Joe Firmin, who has been keeping an eye on such things since 1952.
JANUARY 10TH
1986: The first ever episode of the popular television series Lovejoy was broadcast on this day. Jonathon Gash, the author of the Lovejoy stories, lives in West Bergholt, just outside Colchester. Jonathon Gash, whose real name is John Grant, set the stories of the lovable rogue of an antiques dealer in Essex and much of the filming for the television series was in North Essex. Some scenes were filmed in Colchester itself, for example at the town’s railway station.
The Lovejoy television series turned parts of Essex into tourist attractions. Coaches came to villages and towns like Coggeshall and Finchingfield, just to see the places where filming had been done. Jonathon Gash is still writing Lovejoy books; the most recent, Faces in the Pool, being published in 2010. The possibility of remaking the television series surfaces regularly. It would hardly be possible to use the original star of the programme; Ian McShane is now 70. David Hassellhoff, the American actor who starred in the 1980s series Knightrider, has expressed interest in taking on the role, although the author of the original books is said to be a little dubious about the idea.
JANUARY 11TH
1965: This is the day that the Queen approved the grant of a charter to the University of Essex. Essex was for a time in the sixties the archetypal ‘Plate glass university’. At one time, universities in industrial cities such as Manchester were termed, in a slightly disparaging way, ‘Red brick universities’. In 1968 Michael Beloff coined the expression ‘Plate glass universities’ to describe some of the newer institutions which had sprung up in the 1960s. Chief among those which he singled out for mention were the University of Kent, University of East Anglia and of course the University of Essex. Beloff called them by this term because they seemed to him to consist of little more than expanses of concrete and plate glass.
Actually, there is something of an irony about this particular designation for the University of Essex. Far from being built only of concrete and glass, the residential blocks for students on the Colchester campus were the tallest load-bearing brick structures in the world when they were opened in the 1960s! None of the so-called red-brick universities have been able to match this brick-related feat.
JANUARY 12TH
1969: On this day, the first meeting of the Colchester Hammond Organ Society took place above a shop selling pianos and Hammond Organs in St Botolph’s Street in Colchester. George Fulcher, ‘a classically trained church organist with an interest in the electronic organ’, had been appointed manager of the shop on November 5th 1968 and was raring to start a Hammond Organ society as soon as he could identify and locate enough fellow enthusiasts.
The inaugural meeting attracted twenty prospective members for the projected club and has never looked back.
Apparently, interest grew so rapidly that the room above the shop in St Botolph’s Street was soon too small to accommodate all those Hammond Organ players and it was found necessary to move round the corner to Priory Street, where a handy church hall was to be found. According to the society, ‘many famous organists played for us there’, which included Keith Beckingham, Len Rawle and Ena Baga. The Colchester Organ Society is still going strong, over forty years later, although they dropped the ‘Hammond’ from their title some time ago.
JANUARY 13TH
1338: From this date, Colchester Borough was obliged to hold courts three times a year. Before this, the administration of justice in the town was apt to be somewhat haphazard and irregular. From 1338 though, courts began to be held at Michaelmas (September 29th), the Feast of St Hilary (January 13th) and on the second Tuesday after Easter.
In addition to these regular court days, bailiffs were appointed who could hold ‘inquests’ at other times. Today, we tend to think of an inquest as being only concerned with an unexpected or suspicious death, but the early inquests of the sort held in Colchester were interested in minor matters of law; they were really the forerunners of our magistrates’ courts. William le Salter and Ida Hotfot, for example, were caught buying eight mullets before the fish market had officially opened; an offence against the trading laws of the time. The bailiff had them arrested and held an inquest on the matter that very morning. The penalty was that they should lose both the mullets and the money which they paid for them; which amounted to 1s 9d. They were also warned that if they were caught breaking the law in this way in the future, then they would both be liable to be set in the pillory.
JANUARY 14TH
2012: On this day, a lively discussion began on the 28DL website about the proposed demolition of the old Odeon cinema in Crouch Street, Colchester. The Odeon, which opened in 1931, closed down as a cinema in 2002. A planning application was made in 2008 to convert it into a nightclub, but this was rejected by Colchester Council. The Odeon is not a listed building, although it is regarded by Colchester Council as being notable. Steve Peri, who owns the Art Deco building, said that he had given up on the idea of converting the all but derelict Odeon into a nightclub and was now thinking in terms of knocking it down and developing the site as shops.
Members of the 28DL site – the title references the film 28 Days Later, a post-apocalyptic British zombie film – are what are known as urban explorers. They have any interest in entering, absorbing the atmosphere of and photographing derelict old buildings; the creepier the better. At least one of those commenting on the proposed demolition of the Odeon had evidently been into the place since it had closed down. He reported that the interior was still very impressive, although now coated with pigeon droppings. The suspicion was expressed that the disused cinema had been allowed to deteriorate in order to encourage the council to permit its demolition.
JANUARY 15TH
1681: Lady Thamar Shaw, daughter of Samuel Lewis of Royden in Suffolk, died on this day. Lady Shaw’s connection with Colchester is an interesting one. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was the custom that when an important person died, his or her coat of arms was painted in oils and hung over the doorway of the house for a year, during the official period of mourning. After that, it would be given to the church where the person had worshipped, in order to be hung there. These paintings were known as hatchments and were usually in a lozenge-shaped frame.
Holy Trinity Church in Colchester contains five hatchments, one of which is that of Lady Thamar Shaw. The arms were constructed in a rigid and formal way, which enable many deductions to be made about the circumstances of the deceased. For instance, in Lady Shaw’s hatchment the background of the Shaw side of the arms was white, indicating that her husband was still alive when she died. We know this to be true in any case, because, opposite Lady Shaw’s hatchment, is that of her husband, Sir John Shaw, Recorder of Colchester and MP from 1659-1661. His date of death is recorded as being in 1690; almost a decade after that of his wife.
JANUARY 16TH
2011: On this day, Malcolm Mitchell made a Freedom of Information request to Essex County Council about the number of automatic cycle counters in Colchester. One of the great pleasures of Freedom of Information requests is that they let us know just how little we do know about the affairs of our town. The average person was probably not even aware that there were such things as automatic cycle counters, let alone that there might be enough of the things to warrant a Freedom of Information request to identify them.
There is something faintly Orwellian about the idea of machines counting every bicycle which passes down a street. Why would anybody want to know this information? There are nevertheless dozens of the things all over Colchester; each one busily engaged in automatically counting each passing bike and tallying up the scores so that they can be forwarded to the council. While they were counting cycles, they were also keeping track of mobility scooters, pushchairs and any other wheeled contraption which was not powered by an engine.
JANUARY 17TH
1722: John Smorthwaite married for the second time on this day. Although born in Westmoreland, John Smorthwaite did his best work in Colchester, where he arrived in 1712. He was a fully trained and proficient clockmaker and spent the next twenty-five years or so making clocks in Colchester.
It is not widely known that Colchester once had quite a tradition of clock making; a tradition for which Smorthwaite provided much of the impetus. One of his apprentices, Nathaniel Hedge, went on to become a well-known clockmaker in his own right. This was after he had made Smorthwaite’s daughter Sarah pregnant; an action which led to both Hedge and Sarah being thrown out of John Smorthwaite’s house and left out of his will.
Today, Smorthwaite’s clocks and also those made by Nathaniel Hedge are eagerly sought after by collectors. Smorthwaite was quite a wealthy man when he died in 1739. In addition to a fine house in Magadalen Street, which he left to John Smorthwaite, a relative of his in London, he also bequeathed some oyster beds to his niece. It is said that over 300 fine clocks are still in existence which were produced in Colchester during the eighteenth century.
JANUARY 18TH
2010: A witness to strange phenomena in the sky over Lexden, Colchester, posted an account of his experiences on the UK UFO Sightings website on this day. The man, who gave his name only as Ben, had seen six orange lights moving across the sky. These had also been observed by a couple of his colleagues. A little later, five or six aeroplanes appeared from different points in the sky and seemingly all headed south-west, in the direction taken by the mysterious orange lights. According to Ben, the lights had been travelling approximately three times as fast as the planes, which he supposed had set off in pursuit. The point was made that the lights were completely silent.
There is probably nothing really inexplicable about this sighting. It was made at night, which makes judging relative heights and distances difficult, even for those who are experienced in such matters. In other words, it would have been impossible to gauge accurately whether the lights were 3 feet wide and at an altitude of 200 feet, or if they were 300 feet wide and at an altitude of three or four miles. The former guess is most likely the case: almost certainly these were Chinese lanterns; miniature hot air balloons, which, when released, float across the sky until the candle burns out. They are generally orange and move with the wind.
JANUARY 19TH
1963: On this day, John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons since June 2009, was born. After attending a large comprehensive school in Finchley, Bercow decided that his ambitions lay in politics. Before this, he was the top junior tennis player in Britain. A severe bout of glandular fever put an end to his sporting career. After leaving school, Bercow decided to study Government at the University of Essex near Colchester. This university has a reputation for political activism dating back decades, and in the 1960s was at the forefront of the so-called Student Power movement. Demonstrations against the war in Vietnam, sit-ins to protest about Britain’s work on chemical weapons; some people were heard to express surprise that the students at this university found any time at all for studying amidst all their political activity. This fiercely left-wing reputation made it a strange choice for the teenage Bercow, as he was even then an avowed Conservative. Nevertheless, he stayed at Essex for three years, graduating with a First Class Honours degree in Government in 1985. Professor Anthony King described him as an outstanding student, although ‘very right wing and pretty stroppy’.
JANUARY 20TH
1680: Jacob Ringer, bays maker, died on this day. He was buried in St Martin’s churchyard in Colchester.
At one time, Colchester was one of the most important towns in Britain for the manufacture of cloth from wool. This work was principally carried out by Flemish weavers who settled in the town in the fifteenth century. They lived mainly in that part of modern Colchester known as the Dutch Quarter.
Readers are probably puzzled as to where ‘bays’ comes into this? In fact this is the old spelling for the material we know today as baize; the soft felt which is used to cover snooker tables. The Colchester weavers did not work in factories, but in their own homes. Some of the older houses in the Dutch Quarter have very large windows at the front to allow a lot of light in. In the days before electric lighting, a plentiful supply of natural light was essential for those carrying out fiddly work at their looms. In the late eighteenth century, things changed with the mechanisation of weaving and it died out as a cottage industry.
JANUARY 21ST
2012: On this day, a ghost hunt was held at the Red Lion pub in Colchester. People paid £40 a head for the chance to track down spectres and the spirits of the dead. They could hardly have chosen a better location than the Red Lion for this purpose, for it has a long history of haunting. Built in 1465, it is supposedly home to several ghosts.
In 1638, Alice Katherine Millar was murdered at the Red Lion. Her ghost became such a nuisance that in the early eighteenth century, the then owner of the inn had the doorway to her old room bricked up to stop her passing in and out. It was a fruitless effort; she now simply passes through the solid brickwork! Another well-known phantom is that of a small boy who apparently haunts the Parliament Room of the Red Lion. He is especially likely to be seen by children and has allegedly appeared in a number of photographs taken in the pub.
For the last century or so, there has been a standing rule at the Red Lion that any staff claiming to have seen ghosts, or who even talk about the subject, will be liable to instant dismissal. In recent years though, this strict regime seems to have been relaxed and the management are now only too happy to welcome those who wish to search for the long dead residents of this old inn.
JANUARY 22ND
2009: A review of the book Rude Britain appeared in The New York Times on this day. What has this to do with Colchester? Only that one of the nearby villages which make up the borough of Colchester features in the book. The community of Fingringhoe lies about five miles from the centre of Colchester. Although nobody can quite place their finger upon it, the name does sound vaguely obscene, which is why it is listed in Rude Britain as being one of the twenty rudest place names in the country.
Writing her review of the book for The New York Times, Sarah Lyall expresses her amazement at the endless willingness of the British to giggle at their more unusually named towns, villages and streets. Mind you, in some ways the inhabitants of Fingringhoe have got off lightly. Another village in Essex must take first prize as far as embarrassing names are concerned. The village of Ugley, not far from Epping, has caused many red faces. The Women’s Institute uniquely gave the branch of their association in this village permission to call itself ‘The Women’s Institute of Ugley’. The general rule is that the name of the place precedes the words ‘Women’s Institute’. It was felt that few women in the village would have wished to be members of the ‘Ugley Women’s Institute’!
JANUARY 23RD
2012: The Harwich and Manningtree Standard reported on this day that paratroopers from Colchester were receiving training to deal with rioters, in case they were called upon to help police in the future. During the rioting which swept the country in August 2011, there were calls to deploy the army on the streets of England’s cities, but the government chose not to do so.
Members of the 3rd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment spent two days in a special training centre in Kent during January. While there, they were pelted with bottles, rocks and petrol bombs; practicing tactics to restore order. Despite speculation in the national press that this training could be put into effect if there was a repetition of the 2011 riots, officers from the Parachute Regiment remained vague about the purpose of their visit to Kent. The officer commanding A Company said, ‘As the Airborne Task Force, we are on standby to go on operations anywhere in the world at short notice. As well as conventional war fighting, we could be involved in disaster relief or civil disturbances, and that might require dealing with hostile crowds.’
JANUARY 24TH
1577: On this date a terrible murder was committed at New Hythe in Colchester. It has become a case which is often used to demonstrate the rule of law in Elizabethan England.
Alice Neate lived with her husband, daughter Abigail and her husband’s sister, whom she hated. On the night of January 24th 1577, Alice crept into her sister-in-law’s bedroom and cut her throat. She then wrapped the body in a red blanket and dragged it out of the house and hid it in the woodyard. Her trial was a model of judicial fairness. The alibis of various visitors to the house that day were carefully examined, as was testimony from Alice Neate’s husband and daughter. It was her daughter’s evidence which clinched the case. At first she steadfastly declared her mother’s innocence, but eventually broke down under cross-examination. Young Abigail shared a bedroom with her aunt and had been awake during the murder. The case against Alice Neate could hardly have been clearer and it is little wonder that she was convicted of murder and later hanged. Her trial shows that all the main features of modern justice were already established by the time of the Tudors.
JANUARY 25TH
1915: On this day, British forces landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey. Among the soldiers was the vicar of the Essex island of Mersea. The padre of the 5th Essex Infantry Brigade was the Reverend Charles Pierrepont Edwards, who had been appointed the vicar of Mersea in 1898.
Reverend Pierrepont had for a time been a curate in an East End district not noted for its respectful attitude to the clergy. He started a boxing hall and was happy to get in the ring with the roughest young men. This earned him the nickname of ‘The Fighting Parson’. Although as a vicar he was not liable to be called up during the First World War, he volunteered almost as soon as war was declared. So unusual was this, that the King himself asked to be presented to ‘The Fighting Parson’.
After winning the Military Cross at Gallipoli for rescuing injured men under fire, Revd Pierrepont returned to his duties in Mersea. He continued in the post of vicar there for an amazing forty-eight years. It was not until he had witnessed a second World War that he finally ended his career as Mersea’s vicar. Even then he did not retire, his long service being ended only by his death in 1946.
JANUARY 26TH
1560: The earliest record of the surname Cordy is to be found in Colchester on this day. Cordy is an unusual name and is probably related to the Norman French Lecordier; a maker of cords or string. For some reason, possibly connected with the weavers who lived in Colchester from the medieval period onwards, this name seems to be more common in Essex and Suffolk than it is in the rest of the country. Variant forms are Corday, Cord, Cordee and Cordie. The very first written record of the Cordy form of this name is when Mary Cordy, daughter of Jonas Cordy, was baptised in St Botolph’s Church on this date.
The earliest mention of any variation of the Cordy or Corder name in Britain also occurs in East Anglia. In 1182, a William Cord is found in the records of Abbot Sampson at Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. Perhaps the most famous Corder from this part of the country was William Corder, the murderer in the notorious Red Barn case of 1828. Corder, whose nickname at school was ‘Foxey’, was born and bred in Suffolk. He murdered his mistress rather than marry her and was eventually hanged at Bury St Edmunds on August 11th 1828.
