The Bristol Riots of 1831 - two very different novels (1)

I have just finished reading two novels which lead up to the Bristol Riots, which occurred in the Autumn of 1831. Both deal, in some detail, with the violent events which broke out in reaction to the news that the Reform Bill, sweeping away most of the corrupt/'rotten' boroughs, had been  turned down by the House of Lords; both have a young, beautiful girl as a 'heroine' who is pursued by an upstanding youngish man.  Yet the novels are very different in approach and purpose.

    

                                     1st edition - 1886                  Emma Marshall (1830-1899)

Emma Marshall was a prolific writer of stories; between 1861 and her death she had written over two hundred. Born near Cromer, daughter of a banker and a Quakeress, she was educated at a private school until the age of sixteen. In 1849, she left Norwich with her mother to live at Clifton, Bristol. She married Hugh Marshall in 1854 and had nine children, all girls! She took in schoolchildren as boarders. The collapse of her husband's bank in 1879 saddled the family with huge debts. Rather like Sir Walter Scott, she wrote to pay these off.  Apparently, during her lifetime she had more fiction titles on the shelves of Mudie's subscription library than any of her contemporaries, including popular writers for boys and Charlotte Yonge herself.

Her Quaker background and her increasing attachment to the Anglican Church (a member since 1852) shone through in her dedication to a life of energetic activity, public service and charity, personal responsibility and morality, education and peace. It shines through in Under the Mendips, the only one of her books I have read. I bought it, thinking to link it with Walter Raymond's Two Men o' Mendip (Longmans, Green, 1899) and Under Cheddar Cliffs (Seeley, 1903) by Edith Seeley, which I read and blogged about recently. The book commences in 1824 and covers the years until 1832. The scenes switch between Fair Acres Manor, a family home lying between Wells and Cheddar; Wells itself, including the cathedral, Vicar's Close and the Bishop's Palace, with an avuncular bishop who, however, opposed the 1831 Reform bill; and Bristol. Also playing a prominent part is the aging Hannah More, who greatly influences Joyce Falconer, the 17-year-old heroine. The former's home at Barley Wood is the scene of much hero[ine] worship by the author. The rough Mendip folk are also introduced - there's a deal of ill-blood in them parts... Even the hero, Arundel, says they look little better than savages, and would knock any one on the head for a trifle. As Joyce herself remarks, there are a great many discontented folks, who seem to think the gentry are their natural enemies. Mrs Falconer has no time for their rough and evil ways. In fact, one is responsible for Joyce's father's death. Her father, Arthur Falconer, sat in judgement on him at the Wells court and pays for it on the Mendip moors some time later. Even Mrs More has to admit, the Mendip miners give me the most uneasiness; they are so rough, and wild, and lawless.

The mother has no time either for Mrs More's platitudes and ideas of educating the common herd: she liked things as they were, and was averse to change, lest that change should be for the worse... teaching lads and lasses to read and write was, in the opinion of Mrs. Falconer, a crying evil.

Joyce's eldest brother, 23-year-old Melville, is a weak cad, spoiled by his parents and, back from Oxford University, petulant, sneering and almost entirely forgetful of the interests or tastes of anyone but himself, and he had never given up his own wishes for the sake of another in his life. It's not all bad: Piers, a younger brother (cruelly injured aged eight through his father's thoughtlessness and now having to use crutches) was the most cheerful and most uncomplaining member of the squire's household...every bird and insect had a charm for him...  and who adores his sister: while I have you, Joy, I can bear anything. Another brother, Ralph, takes over the running of the estate on his father's untimely demise. There is a cousin, Charlotte, who lives with her spinster aunt in Vicar's Close and was somewhat given to sentiment and languishing, complained of being fatigued, of headaches, and low spirits. Then there is Mr. Gilbert Arundel, lover and then husband to Joyce, who becomes a hero during the Bristol Riots. Also an inevitable 'baddie', Lord Maythorne, who is not only responsible for Melville's misdemeanours, but attempts to influence Joyce in a malign way.

The gift of a Bible to Joyce from Mrs More is a central point of the story's message. It contained many pencil markings by the old woman; but Joyce has to hide it from her mother - she did not give you any tracts, I hope...I won't have any cant, and rank Methodism here. The novel is suffused with pious thoughts and sentences and, occasionally, they grate on a 21st century mind. It can descend to a cloying level:  Joyce's features were regular, and her complexion rosy and healthy. Indeed, everything about her seemed to tell of youth and the full enjoyment of the gifts which God had given her. When Joyce and Arundel are lost on the Mendips in the dark, the latter says, fervently: I am not afraid for God is with us. The death-bed scene of Mr Falconer, is worthy of the treacle of the stage version of East Lynne's Gone, and never called me mother! There are too many of these purple passages. However, one must remember not only Marshall's piety, but that she is writing in 1886 not 2020. She is not as didactic as, say, Emily S. Holt but charts a similar course to Charlotte Yonge, Frances M. Peard and others. 

Emma Marshall's evangelical message ensures that the uncouth Mendip miner has a 'good', recanting end; his daughter ends up as a 'good' servant to Joyce in Bristol; the two extremes represented in the Bristol Riots are frowned upon; and even Melville 'improves' to a certain extent. Marshall is also effective at describing the environs of Wells, with one scene of bull-baiting in the Market Square (which only ceased in 1839), and (particularly) Clifton of the early 19th century; moreover, the chapters dealing with the Riots in Bristol in October 1831 (with  such chapter headings - The Storm Bursts, Tumult, "Fire seven times heated") are well done. She quotes, to good effect, the boy Charles Kingsley's reminiscence of the event (this boy, who was one day, to be the foremost in the ranks of those who carried the standard of truth, and justice, and charity into the very thick of the conflict with the powers of darkness).

As a final aside: Mrs Marshall does comment on the positive changes between the 1820s/1830s and her time of writing, the 1880s, but she also has criticisms. I think this self-sufficient, dogmatic criticism is very much on the increase, and that the little jealousies and rivalries amongst men and women who follow the same profession in art or literature grow more frequent. Tongue and pen are often both too sharp; and the superficial chatter about books and authors, pictures and music - both English and foreign - is too often passed as the real coin of the great realm of literature, when it is but a base imitation, stamped, it may be, on a showy surface with the same token, but utterly worthless when the first brilliancy is worn off. So there!

Perhaps it's best not to draw attention to Mrs Marshall's comment about the great Edward Colston [who] first proposed to begin the good work of education in Bristol... How times change, and not necessarily for the better!