Fragments of Two Centuries: Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King. Alfred Kingston
form of sport was that of throwing at cocks on Shrove Tuesday. Badger-baiting continued in Royston occasionally till the first decade of the present century, and was sometimes a popular sport at the smaller public-houses on the Market Hill.
Wrestling was emphatically the most generally practised recreation, and the charming sketches in the Spectator of young men wrestling on the village green was no mere picture from the realms of fancy. Such scenes have been frequently witnessed on Royston Heath where the active swain threw his opponent for a bever hat, or coloured waistcoat offered by the Squire, and for the smiles of his lady-love. Wrestling matches were very common events between the villages of Bassingbourn (a good wrestling centre), the Mordens, Whaddon, Melbourn and Meldreth, but when these events came off there was generally something else looked for besides the prize-winning. Sports in 1780 to 1800 were not so refined and civil as those of to-day, and it was pretty well understood that every match would end in a general fight between the two contending villages; indeed, without this the spectators would have come home greatly disappointed, and feeling that they had been "sold."
A favourite spot for such meetings was in a Bassingbourn field known as the Red Marsh, on the left of the Old North Road beyond Kneesworth, nearly opposite the footpath to Whaddon, where the Bassingbourn men—who, when a bonâ fide contest did come off, could furnish some of the most expert wrestlers in the district—frequently met those of the Mordens and other villages, and many a stubborn set-to has been witnessed there by hundreds of spectators from the surrounding districts.
During the whole of the last half of the 18th century, bowling greens did for the past what lawn tennis does for the present, always excepting that the ladies were not thought of as they are now in regard to physical recreation. There was an excellent bowling green at the "Green Man," smooth and level as a billiard table. Earlier in the century another bowling green was situate in Royston, Cambs., for which Daniel Docwra was rated. The gentry had private bowling greens on their lawns.
As to other kinds of out-door sport of a more individual kind, shooting parties were not quite so select as at the present day, and the farmers had good reason to complain of the young sportsmen from Cambridge. Foulmire Mere, as it was sometimes called during the last century, was a favourite spot for this kind of thing.
It seems that about this time the undergraduates were in the habit of freely indulging in sport to the prejudice of the farmers, for in 1787 a petition, almost ironical in its simplicity, was advertised in the Cambridge Chronicle of that date, commencing—
"We poor farmers do most humbly beg the favour of the Cambridge gunners, coursers and poachers (whether gentleman barbers or gyps of colleges), to let us get home our crops, &c." In those days, and for many years after, during the present century, there appears to have been very little of what we now know as "shooting rights," over any given lands, and the man or boy who could get behind an old flint-lock with a shooting certificate went wherever he felt inclined in pursuit of game.
The foregoing were some of the ways in which the people of Royston and the neighbourhood took the pleasures of life, how they sought to amuse themselves, and under what conditions. If the glimpses afforded seem to suggest that they allowed themselves a good deal of latitude it must not be supposed that our great grandfathers had no care whatever for public decency, or no means of defining what was allowable in public morals. In place of modern educating influences they could only trust for moral restraints to proclamations and the parish beadle. Perhaps one of the best instances of this kind of machinery for raising public morals is afforded by the Royston parish books, and I cannot do better than let the old chronicler speak for himself. The entries refer to the proceedings of a joint Committee which practically governed the town of Royston, and was elected by the parishes of Royston Herts. and Cambs., which, as we shall see hereafter, were united for many years for the purposes of local government.
"An Extraordinary Meeting of the Committee was held on 31st October, 1787, for the purpose of taking into consideration the Proclamation for preventing and punishing profaneness, vice, and immorality, by order of the Rev. Mr. Weston, present:—Daniel Lewer, Wm. Stamford, Jos. Beldam, Wm. Nash, Wm. Seaby, Thomas Watson, Michael Phillips, Wm. Butler, and Robt. Bunyan (chief constable).
"Words of the Act—No drover, horse courier, waggoner, butcher, higlar, or their servants shall travel on a Sunday.
"Ordered that the above be prevented so far as relates to Carriages—Punishments 21s., and for default stocks 2 hours.
"No fruit, herbs or goods of any kind shall be cried or exposed to sale on a Sunday. N.B.—Goods forfeited.
"No shoemaker shall expose to sale upon a Sunday any boots, shoes or slippers—3s, 4d. per pair and the value forfeited.
"Any persons offending against these Laws are to be prosecuted, except butchers, who may sell meat till nine o'clock in the morning, at which time all barbers' shops are to be shut up and no business to be done after that time.
"No person without a reasonable excuse shall be absent from some place of Divine Worship on a Sunday—1s. to the poor.
"The Constables to go about the town, and particularly the Cross, to see that this is complied with, and if they find any number of people assembled together, to take down their names and return them to the Committee that they may be prosecuted.
"No inn-keeper or alehouse-keeper shall suffer anyone to continue drinking or tippling in his house—Forfeit 10s. and disabled for 3 years.
"Ordered that the Constables go to the public-houses to see that no tippling or drinking is done during Divine Service—and to prevent drunkenness, &c., any time of the day.
"Persons who sell by fake weights and measures in market towns, 6s. 8d. first offence; 13s. 4d. second offence; 20s. third, and pillory.
"Order'd that the Constables see that the weights and measures are good and lawful."
A few years after the above bye-laws were adopted the Cambridge Mayor and Corporation were considering the same question, and issued notices warning persons against exposing to sale any article whatever or keeping open their shops after 10 o'clock in the morning on Sunday.
Secular life was not so low but that it had its bright spots. Bands of music were not so well organized or so numerous as they are to-day, but there was much more of what may be styled chamber music in those days than is imagined. Fiddles, bass viols, clarinets, bassoons, &c., were used on all public occasions, and in 1786 we find that the Royston "Musick Club" altered its night of meeting to Wednesday. That is all there is recorded of it, but it is sufficient to show us a working institution with its regular meetings.
The effect of the French Revolution even in remote districts in England has been referred to, and it may be added that a good deal of the "dangerous" sentiment of the times was associated with the name of Paine, the "Arch-traitor" as he was called, and as an instance of how these sentiments were sometimes received even in rural districts we learn that in the year 1793 Paine's effigy was "drawn through the village of Hinxton, attended by nearly all the inhabitants of the place singing 'God Save the Queen,' 'Rule Britannia,' &c., accompanied with a band of music. He was then hung on a gallows, shot at, and blown to pieces with gunpowder, and burnt to ashes, and the company afterwards spent the evening with every demonstration of loyalty." At such a time it was easy for even some of our local men of a reforming spirit to be misunderstood, and the name of "Jacobin" was attached to very worthy persons in Royston who happened to entertain a little freedom of opinion.
With the waning of the old Royston Club, another institution had sprung up which at this time reflected the life of the place in a manner which, while it was highly creditable to the intellectual life of the townspeople, was, on the other hand, open to the suspicion of representing what were called "dangerous principles" in the estimation of those belonging to the old order. This was the Royston Dissenting Book Club, which played an important part as a centre of mental activity during the last quarter of the 18th and the first quarter of the 19th centuries. The Club was an institution, the influence and