Deptford

“ When the average person thinks of Deptford, historically, it is not to Queen Elizabeth’s visits his mind reverts, nor even to Mr. Secretary to the Admiralty Pepys, but rather to John Evelyn, to Sayes Court, and Peter the Great. John Evelyn, later of Wotton, settled at Deptford in 1651, at the mansion of Sayes Court, which had been originally the manor-house of West Greenwich. Here he made gardens and planted trees, the chief delight of his life. ”

“ Deptford, This Town was formerly reckoned at least Two Miles off from Redriff, and that over the Marshes too, a Place unlikely ever to be inhabited; and yet now, by the Encrease of Buildings in that Town itself, and by the Docks and Buildings-Yard on the River Side, which stand between both the Town of Deptford, and the Streets of Redriff (or Rotherhith as they write it) are effectually joyn'd, and the Buildings daily increasing; so that Deptford is no more a separated Town, but is become a Part of the great Mass, and infinitely full of People also ”

“ A workhouse stands where Sayes Court afforded shelter under its roof, and amusement in its gardens, for the Czar; the Trinity House of Deptford Strond has been removed to Tower Hill; and perhaps the most remarkable thing in modern Deptford is the Foreign Cattle Market. And yet here Elizabeth knighted Francis Drake, in 1581, on that good ship the Golden Hind, in which he had “compassed the world”; and here, on a site now occupied by cattle and by business premises, was the greatest dockyard in England at the most interesting period of English naval history. ”

“ So to Deptford, did some business there; but, Lord! to see how in both places the King's business, if ever it should come to a warr, is likely to be done, there not being a man that looks or speaks like a man that will take pains, or use any forecast to serve the King, at which I am heartily troubled. So home, it raining terribly, but we still dry, and at the office late discoursing with Sir J. Minnes and Sir W. Batten, who like a couple of sots receive all I say but to little purpose. So late home to supper and to bed. ”

“ For the "Blacksmith" was here, who, every time he saw me preparing to go out, thought I must be on a begging expedition, and he trusted that I would find the ladies kindly disposed. On thanking him for this kind wish, he confided his intention of visiting Deptford, saying that he had given that part of the city a long rest. ”

“ After a quarter before three o'clock on Saturday, May the 12th, a new Yacht, built on purpose for his Majesty, was launched from the King's dock yard at Deptford. She is a very neat but small ship. In her present trim she draws about nine feet forward and ten abaft. ”

“ It is in this reign that we meet with the first official document relating to the establishment at Deptford Strond. A royal charter of incorporation was granted in the sixth year of the reign, wherein Henry grants license to [16] his beloved people and subjects, the shipmen and mariners of England, to new begin, erect, create, ordain, found, unite, and establish a certain guild or perpetual fraternity of themselves and other persons, as well men as women, in the parish-church of Deptford Strond, in the county of Kent. ”

“ The site of its gardens is occupied by Deptford Park of 11 acres. Another open space is Telegraph Hill (91⁄2 acres) . The parliamentary borough of Deptford returns one member. The borough council consists of a mayor, 6 aldermen, and 36 councillors. Area, 1562.7 acres.
DEPUTY (through the Fr. from a Late Lat. use of deputare, to cut off, allot; putare having the original sense of to trim, prune) , one appointed to act or govern instead of another; one who exercises an office in another man’s right, a substitute; in representative government a member of an elected chamber. ”

“ What Devon hath kept
Devon shall keep on tide or main;
Call to the storm and drive them flying,
Devon, O Devon, in wind and rain!"
Valour of England gaunt and whitening,
Far in a South land brought to bay,
Locked in a death-grip all day tightening,
Waited the end in twilight gray.
Battle and storm and the sea-dog's way!
Drake from his long rest turned again,
Victory lit thy steel with lightning,
Devon, o Devon, in wind and rain!
The Volunteer
"He leapt to arms unbidden,
Unneeded, over-bold;
His face by earth is hidden,
His heart in earth is cold. ”

“ Along the little churchyard, packed full with women, streams all the gentle blood of North Devon,—tall and stately men, and fair ladies, worthy of the days when the gentry of England were by due right the leaders of the people, by personal prowess and beauty, as well as by intellect and education. And first, there is my lady Countess of Bath, whom Sir Richard Grenville is escorting, cap in hand (for her good Earl Bourchier is in London with the queen) ”

“ The forces in the west being too weak to oppose him, everything gave way to him, and all people expected he would besiege Exeter, where the queen was newly lying-in, and sent a trumpet to desire he would forbear the city, while she could be removed, which he did, and passed on westward, took Tiverton, Bideford, Barnstaple, Launceston, relieved Plymouth, drove Sir Richard Grenvile up into Cornwall, and followed him thither, but left Prince Maurice behind him with 4000 men about Barnstaple and Exeter. The king, in the meantime, marches from Oxford into Worcester, with Waller at his heels. ”

“ There can be little doubt that the foremost man in the whole history of Devon is Sir Francis Drake, the greatest of Elizabethan seamen, the first English circumnavigator of the globe, the terror of every Spanish ship, and the most conspicuous figure in the defeat of the Armada. ”

“ Every mile of Devonshire has its charm, not to be mapped out in advance, but freshly discovered by each new lover of the moorland and the sea, of soft air and the play of shadows, of folklore and tradition, of the memory of heroes. Those who cannot know fair Devon in actual presence may find her at her best in the romances of Kingsley and Blackmore and Phillpotts. The shire abounds in sea-magic. The south coast, with its wealth of sheltered bays and tempting inlets, has so mild and equable a climate that its dreamy windings have become dotted with winter resorts as well as watering-places. ”

“ We may recall with pride the fact that, among the Members for Devon, have been some of the most distinguished men who have ever sat in Parliament. Thus, Sir Walter Ralegh sat for the county, Plymouth has been represented by Sir Francis Drake, Sir John Hawkyns, and Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Tavistock by John Pym and Lord John Russell, Barnstaple by Skippon and Lord Exmouth, Okehampton by William Pitt and Lord Rodney, Plympton by Lord Castlereagh and Sir Christopher Wren, Dartmouth by Lord Howe, and Tiverton by Lord Palmerston. ”

“ I meet with no more of the names of these officers which governed the town, and were nominated by the King, who was lord of it, but find the office expired in Richard the First's time, who changed its government from a provost to a bailiff, coroner, and mayor; the bailiff was the superiour officer, his jurisdiction being general; be was always nominated by the King, as lord of the dominion or manor of Thetford, and held his place during life ”

“ The road from Dartmouth to Slapton Sands is almost entirely composed of astonishing hills. Only in Devon could hills so many and so fierce be compressed within so small a space. But only in Devon, surely, is the [88] coast at the same time so wild and so luxuriant, so stern and yet so tender; only in Devon can we look down from the clifftop through so soft a veil of trees, and see far below us sands so yellow and rocks so red, and the ripples of so very, very green a sea. ”

“ But to the imagination Bideford in Devon is something quite different from that. It is the gateway of adventure, the arch wherethrough gleams the untravelled world. On the shore you may meet Grenville or Drake in buff jerkin and silken hose, and Salvation Yeo telling tales to a crowd of open-mouthed youths and blowing clouds of tobacco before their astonished eyes. And in the harbour you may see the little Revenge herself, waiting for her crew of "men from Bideford in Devon" who are to share in the immortal exploit that hangs like an imperishable halo over this Devon shore. ”

“ When the Reader finds an Account here from Milford-haven in Wales, and from Helford in Cornwall West, from Yarmouth and Deal in the East, from Portsmouth in the South, and Hull in the North, I am not to imagine him so weak as to suppose all the vast Interval had not the same, or proportion'd suffering, when you find one Letter from a Town, and two from a County, it is not to be supposed that was the whole damage in that County, but, on the contrary, that every Town in the County suffered the same thing in proportion ”

“ Warner of the eighteenth century, “is by far the most genteel town in North Devon.” This is a very happy word; though why a town whose history includes the days of Athelstane, a town that has had a castle and a priory and a [187] life by no moans dull, should be “genteel” when all is said, is hard to understand. The nice public gardens and open spaces, the air of clean prosperity, and the colonnade with the fluted pillars give it an eighteenth-century air, at latest. ”

“ John wrought so upon the townsmen, by talking thus rationally and smoothly to them, that they went away; and though they did not give any consent to their staying there, yet they did not molest them; and the poor people continued there three or four days longer without any disturbance. In this time they had got some remote acquaintance with a victualling-house at the outskirts of the town, to whom they called at a distance to bring some little things that they wanted, and which they caused to be set down at a distance, and always paid for very honestly. ”

“ The young ladies had been all married or gone to London; the old gentleman, and the old lady that had been my early benefactress, all dead; and, which troubled me most, the young gentleman my first lover, and afterwards my brother-in-law, was dead; but two sons, men grown, were left of him, but they too were transplanted to London.
I dismissed my old man here, and stayed incognito for three or four days in Colchester, and then took a passage in a waggon, because I would not venture being seen in the Harwich coaches. ”

“ This town is large and populous, and has four spacious streets, a handsome church, and a good trade. This town also sends members to Parliament. Beyond this is a market-town, though of no resort for trade, called Market Jew. It lies, indeed, on the seaside, but has no harbour or safe road for shipping.
At Helford is a small but good harbour between Falmouth and this port, where many times the tin-ships go in to load for London; also here are a good number of fishing vessels for the pilchard trade, and abundance of skilful fishermen. ”

“ Above all things, its position has made Devonshire a native land of heroes. Very few other counties have produced so many men of mark, so many men of enterprise [8] and daring. Certainly no other has played a greater part in the expansion of England. From Devonshire came not only some of the most distinguished seamen of the Golden Age of Elizabeth, some of the most skilful and daring of her naval captains, but some of the earliest and most famous of our explorers ”

“ But Devonshire, one entire county, is so full of great towns, and those towns so full of people, and those people so universally employed in trade and manufactures, that not only it cannot be equalled in England, but perhaps not in Europe. ”

“ Such was the general configuration of the little town of Ottermouth in South Devon, for no fault of its own not quite a first-class seaside resort as yet, but slowly and surely worming its way into the affections of those who had discovered it. There was no pier, and therefore there were but few "trippers." But in the curious blend of brand-new brick villas and old-world houses of "cob" there dwelt men of varying fortunes, who in their time had helped to make history, and who had chosen this peaceful spot on the Devon coast as the one in which to end their strenuous days. ”

“ The fact that I have been able to take only a small handful from the vast hoard that constitutes the history of Devon will explain, I hope, the many omissions that must strike every reader who has any knowledge of the county—omissions of which no one can be more conscious than myself. ”

“ The Edinburgh mob, which was very fierce and determined according to Scott, had one or two remarkable maxims. At an Irish fair the proper course is to bring down your shillelagh on any very prominent head. Here the rule was to throw a stone at every face that looked out of a window. Daniel Defoe was in Edinburgh in 1705, on a special mission from Government, to do all he could to bring about the Union. From his window in the High Street he was gazing upon the angry populace and only just dodged a large stone. ”

“ Another characteristic of the people has always been their loyalty to their sovereign, to their county, and to each other. Devon is proverbial, like Cornwall and Yorkshire, for the clannishness of its inhabitants. It is a land, too, where superstition dies hard. Belief in pixies—fairies, as they are called elsewhere—in witches and witch-craft, in whisht-hounds and other weird and uncanny creatures, and in portents and omens, still lingers, especially on Dartmoor. ”