February 2006
Forthcoming meetings and other events
Tadley and District History Society (Meetings are at 8.00 pm in St Paul's Church Hall, The Green, Tadley, on the third Wednesday of each month).
15 March 2006 - "Middle East Dance, History and Practice" by Sue Ealding
19 April 2006 - "Eye Surgery, afloat in Bangladesh" by Dr Lynette Moss & Dr David Moss.
17 May 2006 - "It's a Monk's Life" by Brother John of the Hospital of St. Cross, Winchester.
21 June 2006 - "Filming Pride and Prejudice at Basildon Park" by John Simmons, National Trust House Manager.
19 July 2006 - "Tidgrove Warren Excavations" by Mark Leah of Kingsclere Heritage Association.
August 2006 - No meeting. Holiday Break.
20 September 2006 - "Felons and Fingerprints" by Michael Carrigan, ex Metropolitan Police.
18 October 2006 - "Researching the History of Local Villages" by Gordon Timmins, an independent historian.
15 November 2006 - "The History of England from Pub Signs" by Greg Gregory, Andover Historian.
20 December 2006 - AGM and Social Evening
Basingstoke Archaeological and Historical Society. (Meetings are at 7:30 pm in Church Cottage, Church Square, Basingstoke on the second Thursday of each month).
9 March 2006 - Life and death abroad the Mary Rose
Milestones Museum
On Your Bike - a special collection showing the development of the bicycle from the hobby horse to the modern day.
The Faces of Thornycroft (from 1 January) - The life and times of the company's Basingstoke workforce in a new photographic exhibition.
Riveting Stories (from 1 January) - An exhibition capturing memories of Vosper Thornycroft shipbuilders from Woolston, Southampton.
The Afternoon Lecture (28 February 2pm) - Clocks and Watches of the Museum.
Willis Museum Open Mon to Fri 10am to 5pm, Sat 10am to 4pm.
The Medieval gold and sapphire finger ring, partly financed by TADS, is now on show at the museum.
Friends of the Willis Museum Meetings at 7.30pm in the museum.
16 March - The work of Lord Mayor Treloar Trust.
Hampshire Record Office (Sussex Street, Winchester, Hampshire SO23 8TH Tel 01962 846154) Last Thursday Lectures 1.15 - 1.45 pm - Admission free, but donations welcome.
30 March 2006 - "Following the Seagull" - the Southern Television Years - extracts from programmes by Wessex Film and Sound Archive by David Lee.
Last Month's TADS Meeting January 2006
William Cobbett 1763 - 1835 by Chris. Hellier, Deputy Curator of Farnham Museum
More than 55 TADS members opened the new season with Chris Hellier's talk on William Cobbett, perhaps programmed into thinking than Cobbett rode peacefully round rural England in the eighteenth century.
Not a bit of it! Cobbett was quite a lad with loads of energy and ideas from his bird-scaring days as a 3 year old, guarding his Dad's peas, to beginning his famous rural rides as a 56 year-old in 1821. Actually his famous rides were to keep an eye on any Government changes, and not solely to admire our green and pleasant lands as a patriot.
In the 21st Century he would probably be regarded as a hyperactive over-confident egoist who seems to have driven his lady wife, Anne, to a near nervous breakdown. He was His Own Man, but an awkward one at that, demanding much of others while sometimes kicking over the traces himself. (He didn't like smokers but smoked himself!)
Cobbett's eventful life began with rural roots in Farnham, Surrey, at the Jolly Farmer Inn (now the William Cobbett Inn) where his Dad, George, was the publican plus farmer and surveyor. William and his 3 brothers helped to hoe, sow and reap and become strong and self-sufficient.
However, schooling didn't feature large in William's life and he apparently lived predominantly off 'native wit' throughout his life's journey as a journalist, publisher, politician (Tory MP for Oldham, Lancs. at the age of 69 years), farmer, huntsman, hare-courser, bare-knuckle fighter, single stick fighter (no blood to win!), advocate, prisoner, bankrupt, historian, husband, father, foreign traveller, Radical and sympathiser of the poor - and probably much, much more….
Every mother’s nightmare must be to send the kids out to work in the garden and have one, albeit 14 year old -- William decide suddenly to catch a passing stage-coach to Kew Gardens. Here he landed on his feet with a gardening job and lodgings. Sadly his green smock and red garters aroused the amusement and scorn of George III’s princelings, one of whom was the future George IV, George IV’s princelings and because of this William had a bigoted likelong grudge against the monarchy said King.
William lived in politically lively times in the 18th Century when the world turmoil involved the French revolution, the American War of Independence, the Industrial Revolution and agricultural changes.
Unbelievably he had some involvement in ALL of these events by trying and failing to join the Royal Navy in Portsmouth (1782), by mistakenly joining a marching regiment at Chatham and being posted to near the Canadian/American border area in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Here he thought his superiors were fools, charlatans and embezzlers. However William’s forte was as a Tracker, ferreting out Army deserters from Elusive places. While in the army in Halifax, always a man of superlatives, he saw the most beautiful girl whom he knew would make the best wife - and he trustingly gave her 150 guineas (£8000) to save for him. Luckily the girl was as honest as she was lovely, and she saved William’s money - so he married the perfect Anne but seems to have led her a merry dance in many places in Canada and USA as well as on farms in England.
During his life, so outspoken was William Cobbett that en route he fell foul of President George Washington, Chief Justice McKean, a Dr Rush (whom he accused of killing his patients) and Napolean Bonaparte, not to mention numerous influential people back in England, like William Pitt, Canning etc.
His prickly newspaper, 'Peter Porcupine's Gazette' punctured his enemies' egos with its witty writing. In 1803 aged 40 years he annoyed the British Government.
In between bankruptcy and prison sentences in Newgate Prison (1810 - 1812) William was an influential, much loved and admired farmer in Botley (Hants) and Ash (Surrey). In 1821 he was the self-appointed champion and advisor to Queen Caroline the wife of his old adversary George IV. Gilbert White in horseback he was not. Between 1821 and 1830 he did some of his rural rides to check on England’s inadequate government of Rotten Boroughs and absentee clergy etc. etc. etc.
That William Cobbett was a man of paradox and immense energy is unquestionable. He certainly survived all that life threw at him and even at death's door in 1835, was pushed round his Ash farm in a wheelbarrow to check on everything. His passing was much mourned (1835) and even today we remember what we think of as his halcyon days riding round rural England.
Thank you, Chris for your fact-packed talk.
Rosemary Bond
Updating of TADS Walks
The Project Committee would like as many members and friends as possible to actually complete ìTADS walk number 5" prior to publication in a future projectnews. Please pass any comments etc to Carol or Ian. Copies of the walk will be available at the next meeting.
History in the Making
Tadley, 30 November 2005
Thieves made an early morning raid on Lloyds Bank using a digger stolen from Stacey's Yard at Whitehouse Farm, Silchester Road. They did considerable damage to the building and stole two cash dispersers (ATMs) containing many thousands of pounds.
TADS - some definitions thrown up by an internet search engine
Text Adventure Development System.
Target Acquisition Designation Site.
Treatment for Adolescents with Depression Study.