Sir Gideon Sydney Stafford Smythe

Research into my favourite era of British history - 1750-1850 - often reveals that especially in the earlier part of those 100 years, the Georgians and Regency periods, society had fun. Louch, wild and abandoned fun. So much so the Victorians had to clean up the Empires act (or at least close the shutters to what went on and write about morality).

It was with this in mind, that I had a notion to have some fun myself and for a friend's birthday recently I had a go at writing a pamphlet. Pamphlets were common during this time, with little regulation or curbing of reach, style and topic. A deregulation and disruption which is very much repeated today through podcasts and social media; nothing really changes throughout history. 

The pressing thought of mine was of which topic to chose for my pamphlet? Well I decided on a much overlooked genera of writing - nature-watching-non-fiction-comic genera reveal of the 1800's. I'm not sure it will be a best seller, but I enjoyed the quite frankly bizarre challenge of learning about basket weaving terminology. Over three days I toiled in my garret and here it is for you dear reader to enjoy, or simply stand back in amazement. I know that was the emotion of the recipient.

Series published under the sanction of the National  Narrative and Wheelwright Company, Pall Mall, Regent Street and Somerset, for the genteel refinement and education of Women of all classes irrespective of age or infirmity or religious tenacity.

 

 

The

Epistolary Case

 

Of

 

Sir Gideon Sydney Stafford Smythe

 

Baron of His Majesty’s Court of Exchequer, Wig Adventurer, Investigator of the Mysterious Basket Weaver, valued True and Loyal Purveyor of Emotional Encounters with Avifauna.

 

 

 

Taken in Short-Hand from Original Court Testimony

 

 

By

Fitzrovia Clutterbuck

Hon. Clerk of the Assizes; as Keeper of the King's Conscience

 

 

Published by permission of the Court of Chancery

 

 

In the Year of our Lord

1789

[ Price Six-pence]

The Man: Prologue

It is easy to think of Sir Gideon Sydney Stafford Smythe [who we shall hereafter refer to only as Sir Gideon] as some sort of metaphysical abstraction. Yet he is the son of a south country molecatcher, he is wary of cities and throughout his formative years he could be found gardening, botanizing, taking long walks, sea bathing, spotting birds and creating works of astonishing dexterity in willow. In short the outdoor world was vital to him.

Horace Walpole, writing in his most notable pastoral work of 1753 Taking Tea With His Manchurian Eel Catcher, recalls meeting the young Sir Gideon, outside a lowly Norwich costermongers, laden with “magnifying glasses and special coloured filters for to see better the insects and plants he thus came upon within his travels.”

So who was Sir Gideon? He was born in 1745 in a small damp cottage a little too close to the River Wensum in Norfolk. His father was a Catholic fish purveyor, his mother a well-respected Anglican agricultural pest controller. Today few contemporary records exist of his life, however in the Humberside County Archives, they hold his birthing cap and night slippers from the time of his arrival. Schooling was the great university of rural life. Young Gideon as he was then [the knighthood came later] roamed wild and free along the chalk streams of East Anglia, often damp, often accompanying his father, often a long rod in hand. 

It was on one such adventure that Sir Gideon fell in love with willow basketry. How or even why this happened is lost to time, yet within a few years he had moved to London and risen to the ranks of Captain Adjutant of the Worshipful Company of  Coiling, Plaiting and Twining.  Fame and adulation followed where after holding a solo exhibition of decorative outdoor basket-ware at Hampton Court, he came to the notice of George the Third who noticed his spectacular Nob-Holder made from stripped honeysuckle. The King granted Sir Gideon firstly a Royal Warrant and later a Knighthood for services to the Hanoverian Domestic Household. 

Sir Gideon, as rich and famous as he was, with hands like shovels, wasn’t happy. His love, the great outdoors, gnawed at his metaphysical need and in the third decade of life he moved back to his beloved Norfolk, walking the entire way one summer, stopping at lesser known bird watching sites en route. For the rest of his life he maintained a quiet existence around Whissonsett. It was here that Sir Gideon began writing, including his seminal memoir-cum-nature trilogy, A Damp House [January 1788], followed by The Imperial Closet [April 1788], and arguably his greatest work, Upright Skeining in Hanoverian England  [December 1788].

It is from this last remarkable work, possibly a defining work of that Georgian era, that the following extract, originally published in pamphlet form through his Crown Court Testimony, is here republished for the first time in over two Centuries. Sir Gideon’s prolific output brought him to the Court of St James in 1789 to defend a libel case from Lord Ullswater, who felt his descriptions of the simplicity of willow production, brought the mystique of the Hanoverian household into disrepute. The case was dismissed by the Attorney General as a defamation error on behalf of the Royal Household and Sir Gideon was awarded damages of one shilling.

He never married.

 

The Epistolary Case

 

Thursday:

My Lord, I am enthralled. Much maligned for their consumption of willow, I believe in all God’s creatures being allowed free rein. I am in repose upon the vegetative banks of the river, where during an observational moment with a heron, a gentle plop down-stream alerts my senses. Water voles. My mother would dance the dance of the Phaedrus should any-thing small and furry cross her path, which astonished my father many a time after dusk.

Given my dancing days are well past, I quietly released the grip on my rod and crawl slowly towards the sound emanating from a lowly shrubbery. In my excitement I failed to notice that my heavily embroidered cravat had become entangled in a briar. Forward motion became impossible, and in trying to extricate myself up-stream, a left pantalooned leg caught the attention of a passing coot. The resulting commotion not only dispersed any water voles from the river, but provided an amorous encounter with wildlife I’d not expected while at my breakfast table at 10. During the ensuing tussle although I suffered many bruises, blood was not spilt that day. I retired, and abandoning my aquatic mammalling returned to the pleasure at hand, hard by the river.

 

Monday:

Before dawn, my good friend and companion William Fitzgerald-Fitzwilliam called on the pretext of a few hours watching birds from a high vantage point nearby. Alerting Edwin my servant companion to bring round the barouche we quickly arrived at The Quill and Feather where a hearty breakfast of cold salmon, mutton kedgeree, a wagtail pie, some pomegranate seeds, along with home produced gooseberry ale restored our vigour most heartily for the excursion. Requiring little more than an hour’s rest post-breakfast, including a most enjoyable game of faro, we set out once again into the clement day. Expectations were high when we rolled into the Mayfly and Bullhead, to change the horses and partake of luncheon as both myself and William were at risk of succumbing to the fatigues of the journey. The Mayfly and Bullhead produced fine victuals of jellied kipper, a roast burbot, some veal pancakes, a raspberry compote, a tray of fig and fruits of the season and a most acceptable dahlia wine. Other company at the Inn was merry and we chatted for a good while with fellow travellers, warming ourselves in the saloon by an industrious fire. The mead and oxlip cup provisioned as a bon-voyage  to the departing travellers was most acceptable.

Alighting once more into the barouche, space was in limited supply and we failed to get comfortable due in part to the most generous basket by the Mayfly and Bullhead landlord. In it he had provisioned cold cuts, boiled potatoes and some potted meats for our travels with jugs of wine to maintain the outdoor activity. The extra weight slowed the barouche’s normally rapid motion, but we wheeled to a halt with just enough light to become transfixed by the sun setting over the wetlands of the valley before us. Edwin my manservant had provided a rug and the best silver table-wear allowing a pleasant hour, with our Inn-supplied victuals, birdwatching across the waters of the Norfolk fens. Birds seen – dabchick, drake mallard, hedge accentor. Distantly was heard the most mellifluous golden oriole, and the call of what we believed to be the rare migrant, a perplexing scrubwren. Truly a most pleasant of days. Distance travelled 3 miles and seven furlongs.

 

Friday:

To town on business. I’ve longed for an instrument to aid my passion for watching birds. Currently my days in the field are formed by the use and perambulation of a magic spyglass handed down to me by the female ancestry. It is a wondrous object from the reign of William and Mary, though somewhat cumbersome in use and form. Operation requires the hiring of three stout fellows to transport portmantua containing legs, stand, magnification and correction apparatus, the highly polished prism, bellows and glass cloth and gin. Yet with judicious planning and through most excellent experience I am now able to have the whole operating within a single hour, or two if gin is needed to steady the nerves during the bellows finishing procedure. Once in position, I then bring into use my recently adapted Whitstable bathing hut upon which the whole magnificent apparatus is attached to the lower deck allowing me to rest a while before keen observation occurs.

Once my bathing hut failed spectacularly, when a wheel brake failed causing a sprocket flange to buckle and I found myself rolling down a hillside at a remarkable speed, my jerking movement impeding somewhat the clarity of image through the magic spyglass. I also spilt a rather exceptional brandy I’d been saving for the day when I saw a spotted crake.

Therefore with excitement I recently came into the understanding and knowledge of an instrument of optical magnification, which I learn from the surgical purveyors is called a tri-oculus and uses the newly invented achromatic doublet principle to bring clarity in the field. I am reliably informed this elicits a marked improvement on the flawed Fraunhofer doublet mechanism.

I’m keen to try it and therefore found myself in London at the shop of Messrs. Shillingbone and Cutlass, fine purveyors of Spectacle, Doublet, Precision Aspheric and Parabolic Apparatus to the Court of Saint Lucia, in  Bond Street. The principle of operation is both simple and technically brilliant. Through the use of three triangulation points, a compass and theodolite placed at a furlong distant, this most compact of scientific manufacture can be carried by only one servant.

It is a wondrous thing to behold. Shimmering brass-wear surmounted atop virginal teak, inlaid with exquisite rosewood leg-decoration. A precision screw mechanism allows upwards, downwards and forward motion of the principle prism. Hanging below, a basket-wear knickknack holder, suspended as if a balloon ride is taking place. Once set up, which can take but a few tens of minutes, viewed imagery is clear and bright. I believe its use in the field will transform the scientific understanding of our great British avifauna. Little though can I understand the logic to having to be suspended upside down to view the image the correct way up. This is achieved by a vestigial herring-bone strap-wear set up which allows comfortable rotation of the viewer from the normal perpendicular, though it did offer me a pulsation of the vapours as the blood proceeded to move at an alarming rate. Price £45-15s-3d.

Messrs. Shillingbone and Cutlass did show me a second new scientific invention of theirs they are developing for the Rutland Yeomanry and Coppersmiths. Smaller, lighter, they have invented a new name of bi-noculus. It is designed to be held in the hand and although scientifically robust,  I suggest dear reader this is unlikely to become a fashionable accessory any time soon.

 

Tuesday:

Edwin provisioned hot buttered crumpets for tea.

Sunday:

My great friend Captain D’ Winter Escapade has been most attentive since my return to Norfolk and industriously proffered a fitting memento of our friendship.

Having walked many miles in his company, in his honour I stumbled across the notion of a well fashioned basket-wear herbal knapsack for him to carry the tools of his trade and to remember me by. Yet doubt prevails in my bosom. Though I am keen to supply such a dear friend with the creation of my own hand, self-doubt and worry have gripped me as Captain Escapade, though a resolute and valiant fellow and one whose love I esteem greater than any other apothecary, is seen as somewhat of a Quacksalver, when it comes to his accomplishments in the Parish and beyond.

I prithee God gives me guidance in my endeavour.

 

Saturday:

My cousin Eliza Egremont called today.

Edwin produced the best porcelain and we facilitated cordial dialogue over tea on the lawn. The under-standing that once laboured sweet cupid’s arrow between us was somewhat fatally dashed during the now regretful incident involving a shoulder-length full-bottomed wig and a large gammon. Neither cousins are desirous to repeat this episode and today talk of that moment was not mentioned.

Eliza however informs me she is eager to learn, from me, the technique of willow and hogweed Skeining. Her mind is attentive, of a lively disposition and cosmopolitan in nature. Yet I am faithfully satisfied that a lady of such refined character may find a loose split-willow session too much for her to handle? Eliza would most advantageously benefit from a refresher of the three rod wale method I feel,  as this would allow her to dexterously craft a basket-wear without the cumbersome need to learn Skeining. 

Discussions continued while Eliza and I walked the course of the Wensum. I find her company stimulating as her knowledge of pool frogs is most enlightening. Little did I know they mate for life and can sing almost to a soprano pitch during the full moon period of May. Eliza’s agreeable countenance provided an afternoon of enlightenment on an otherwise inclement day. Our constitutional made play with other wildlife along the river. A dace briefly flirted with the open air providing much squeals of delight, which Eliza found a little off-putting.  That moment passed by and brought me into a reverie, and thoughts of moments where, abandoning my dyspepsia, would that I had time enough to contemplate the landscape, my offering of poetic couplets to Eliza by a gushing chalk stream would provision  actions of most decorous benefit to man and beast alike.

 

Wednesday:

Today I began work on Captain D’ Winter Escapade’s knapsack. A challenging design which I shall endeavour to complete using a hexagonal slewing pattern. Since my days as Captain Adjutant my interest in scientific advancement in the world of ornis-observation has lately only been matched by my wish to create objects of astonishing complexity from supple wood. Choosing a stained triadic reed as adornment, this knapsack shall be no less the production of my own mind as that of a pattern I once saw in the back passageway of His Majesty’s floral marquee.

Summer has arrived lately allowing swallows and longwing’s free rein in the air. As I worked a stumpy-toddy let forth the most industrious call imaginable from a bird so small. So loud was his call, a family of hedge-mumruffin ceased to forage in the trees over-head and fled downstream like an acrobatic cloud of pom-pom. 

My Lord, this is my testimony and as such, those days of later life by the river are how I would like to be remembered. My hands busy, my mind contemplating the metaphysical aspects of the rudd or the minnow, with a jugged hare warming by the fire for supper.

 

This is my most true and honest account of the summer of 1788.

I am Sir, your most humble servant

Sir Gideon Sydney Stafford Smythe, 1st Baronet

July 17th 1789