Old Ashburton

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                                               Samuel Chapple

Samuel Chapple (Chaple on Familysearch), was born, and apparently christened, on 20th February 1775 at Crediton, the son of John and Martha.

He married Sarah (probably Matthews) and the couple had at least eight children, some of whom did not survive infancy: John (bpt. 1810); William Matthews (bpt 1812); James Matthews (bpt 1814); Sarah (bpt 1816); Samuel (bpt 1818);  Henry (bpt 1820); George (bpt. 1823) and Jane Parhan (bpt 1825).

He died aged 58 in 1833 at Ashburton, and was buried on October 3rd.

https://familysearch.org

Ashburton Burials 1813-1837, Devon Family History Society 1997

On the centenary of his death the Western Morning News published an item about him, which stated that he had been the parish church organist at Ashburton for most of his life. Born in Crediton in 1775, he had been blind since the age of 10 after an attack of smallpox. His aptitude for music led the ratepayers of Crediton to support his musical education, and he was articled to another former Crediton resident, Mr Eames of Exeter. Mr Eames was himself blind, as his own teacher had been.

Samuel was appointed organist at Ashburton in 1795, before his articles were finished, and became known for riding around the district on horseback, with a boy as a guide. A teacher of music - he was both a pianist and a violinist - he also published 30 anthems, songs and piano pieces, which brought him fame and, the newspaper speculated, wealth.

The Devon and Cornwall Reference Library at Plymouth had, said the article, one of Chapple's works.*

Western Morning News 20 September 1933 p4 col5

* 2015 - Devon Heritage Centre has Six anthems dedicated to the choir of Ashburton Church by Samuel Chapple, ref 2141A/PZ/1

There is also, in a collection awaiting reclassification, an original music manuscript attributed to Samuel. Its cover is missing, but appears to be choral music written in two part and four part.
Ref 2141A Acc: D2017/209 https://devon-cat.swheritage.org.uk/records/2141A - accessed 01-07-2023

The account of Samuel's life given by John S Sainsbury differs slightly. He says that Samuel became blind at 15 months old. According to the dictionary, Samuel's works were: Three sonatas for the pianoforte, with an accompaniment for the violin; Six songs, dedicated to Miss Amelia Templer; Five songs and a glee, the words written by A G C Tucker Esq.; Six anthems in score; A second set of anthems in score; a third set of six anthems and twelve psalm tunes. He also wrote an anthem for the coronation of George IV, sung in Ashburton Church on coronation day*. 
A Dictionary of Musicians from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time, Sainsbury and Co., Vol 1, 2nd ed., 1827.

*Crediton based West Gallery Quire were to sing the anthem at Crediton Parish Church on May 8th, 2023, to celebrate the coronation of King Charles III. A copy of the original published anthem, 'The King shall rejoice in thy strength, O Lord', was discovered in 2021.
https://www.creditoncourier.co.uk/news/entertainment/west-gallery-quire-brings-1821-coronation-anthem-back-to-crediton-606096 - accessed 01-07-2023

1819 The overseers ordered that Mr Chapple be paid £5 5s for instructing Rob Jewell in musick.

Overseers Application Books, quoted on https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/England_Overseers_of_the_Poor_and_Board_of_Guardians_-_International_Institute - accessed 24-06-2023

                                                             *******

Edwin Edward Foot, Frederick's older brother, was born on January 5th 1828. The date and time - half past eight on a Saturday morning - were recorded in a bible which was given as evidence of his age in 1858 when he joined the Civil Service.

Before this change of career he had been a master painter - the 1851 census shows him living in East Street with his wife Elizabeth and six month old son, Edward. By 1861 they are living in Queen Street, Mile End Old Town, London, and Edward's occupation is messenger, customs*.

www.findmypast.co.uk

1851 census HO107, piece no. 1871, folio 265, p12

1861 census RG09, piece no. 293, folio 117, p18

*Findmypast has this transcribed as 'manager'.

'Mr Edward Edwin Foot... was born at Ashburton, Devonshire... where his father, the late Mr Peter Foot, carried on the business of a boot and shoe maker, hatter etc., and enjoyed a considerable reputation as a musical composer, vocalist, and instrumentalist.  There were five sons and a daughter, all of whom, with the exception of the youngest brother, Frederick, a well-known landscape painter, inherited their father's musical gift - more especially Edward...who at the age of twelve had attained some notoriety as a classical flautist, being a private pupil of the late Henry Caunter esq., of the same town, who was also a very clever portrait painter. The boy however, seems to have had but a very indifferent amount of school education at the Free School, simply acquiring reading, writing and arithmetic;...possessing rather an inventive genius, he, in the year 1854, designed and submitted to the War Office the drawing of a breech-loading man-of-war's gun, which received the careful attention by the authorities...but without success. Later on, during the Crimean campaign, he submitted to the Inspector-General of Fortifications plans and specifications of a military hut of his invention, executing the drawings to scale himself, for which he was awarded the sum of £50. Again, in 1865, he forwarded to the Postmaster-General his design of a postal exchange stamp, which although unsuccessful, no doubt had something to do with the origin of the present postal order.

In the year 1855 Mr Foot went to Australia, returning in 1857.'

West Country Poets, W H Kearley Wright, London 1896, p175ff

Catherine W Reilly describes Edward as 'an inventive man'. But what he is chiefly remembered for, and the reason for his inclusion in her book, was his poetry.

Mid-Victorian Poetry, 1860-1879, An Annotated Biobibliography, Catherine W Reilly, Mansell Publishing Ltd., 2000, p167

In 1867 Edward published The Original Poems of Edward Edwin Foot, of Her Majesty's Customs, London. There are 3 footnotes on the first page of the preface, one of them stating that he is native of Ashburton, Devonshire.
Copious footnotes are a characteristic of all Edward's poems; The Stuffed Owl (see below) credits him with naming the footnote. The website Futility Closet describes him as a 'poet with the mind of an attorney'.
The Sex Column and other Misprints, David Langford, Cosmos Books, 2005, p238

http://www.futilitycloset.com

'Mr Foot's poems are numerous, and the majority of them are lengthy...'

West Country Poets, W H Kearley Wright, London 1896, p176

His poems turn up in one or two anthologies, such as The Stuffed Owl, by D B Wyndham Lewis and Charles Lee, published 1930. The subtitle of The Stuffed Owl is 'An Anthology of Bad Verse', but Edward is in good company - poems by Wordworth, Tennyson, Keats and Byron also appear in the book.

Extract from Lovers' Leap, which Edward describes (in a footnote) as 'Situated in a very picturesque spot on the banks of the river Dart... a perpendicular rugged precipice, immediately contiguous to a carriage road. Its summit is about seventy feet above the river, and where, at the foot of the rock, the stilly waters flow; distance from Ashburton about three miles, and about half a mile from the foot of "Raven Rock" which is seen on "Lovers' Leap" with great advantage' :

'Tis said two lovers (and it may be true),

For lack of reason, or of grace,

Lept from this rugged precipice,

Down to the peaceful main below,

Whose silvery waters ever flow,

(I'm more than glad it was not I or you)

...[several verses follow]

Now as the waters 'gan again to smooth,

A thousand little bubbles leap

From up the bottom of the deep;

Say, what are these? Oh, globes of air,

The breathings of the dying pair,

All telling mournfully the solemn truth.

Enough, enough: turn to a calmer day.

Here, once, on issuing from the wood,

The gentle Albert* stay'd and view'd.

The grandeur of the sight drew forth

A plaudit of most precious worth

(For never did he more pass by that way).

*The late lamented Prince Consort, accompanied by the late Colonel Phipps, and two other gentlemen in attendance on His Royal Highness, made a tour from Dartmouth, via Totnes, to Ashburton and thence to Tavistock (on route for Plymouth by this circuit), proceeding by way of the river Dart, in the carriage drive which passes over "Lovers' Leap" on the 20th July 1852; Her Majesty Queen Victoria proceeding, in the meanwhile, in her yacht to Plymouth.'

By 1891 Edward and Elizabeth were back in Ashburton, living in North Street. In the census he describes himself as a retired civil servant. He died, aged 70, in 1898.

1891 census RG12, piece no. 1698, folio 40, p18

                                    William Mann, the Blind Poet

 'To me the world's a darksome waste...'

A 'self taught muse......'

Exeter Flying Post 27 March 1845 p4 col1

It seems certain that William was the son of Silvester Mann, born in March 1784 and baptised nearly a year later in February 1785
Parish records

In 1809 the overseers ordered that a 'tryal' was made to get Sil. Mann's son into the Bristol Asylum for the Indigent Blind.
Overseers Application Books, quoted on https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/England_Overseers_of_the_Poor_and_Board_of_Guardians_-_International_Institute - accessed 24-06-2023

William Mann and his wife Mary are living in Heavyhead Lane at the time of the 1841 census. William is a basketmaker.

1841 census HO107, piece no 253, folio 22, p36

In 1846 William Mann had been blind for nearly 40 years

His son, S Mann, was agent for the Western Times in Ashburton

Western Times 21 June 1845 p4 cols1,2

Western Times 8 August 1846 p8 col2

Western Times 20 March 1847 p2 col2

Jenkin Thomas of Plymouth printed his 'Poems' in 1846, at which time Mr Mann was living 'nearly opposite' the Baptist Chapel.*

Exeter Flying Post 20 August 1846 p4 col1

*The only Baptist Chapel I know of was in Heavyhead Lane (now Woodland Road).

By 1851 William is in East Street (next door to the Foot family), a basketmaker but also an 'almsperson'. It is noted on the census that he is blind.

1851 census HO107, piece no 1871, folio 289, p6

On the 1861 census 77 year old William is living with his son John, John's wife and their 8 children in North Street. William is a basketmaker, and in the remarks column it says 'Disability, blind.'

http://www.freecen.org.uk

21 October 1862 Mr William Mann, 'The Blind Poet' died aged 79

1911 census RG14, piece 12669, schedule no. 221

New Zealand Herald, 27 May 1939, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23357,p3, distributed through the Creative Commons New Zealand BY-NC-SA licence

Available through the National Library of New Zealand at http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz, to whom many thanks for the image.

                                                  Mabel Gear

Mabel Gear was born in March 1898 and baptised in Ashby, Suffolk, the daughter of Lucas George and Annie Margaret Gear. Her father's profession was written as 'Esq.' By 1911 the family were living at New Town Lodge, Colchester, Essex, and in the census of that year both Mabel, 13, and one of her elder sisters were students. Her father was a 'Gentleman, (private means).'
Norfolk parish records
1911 census RG14, piece no. 10302, schedule 262

According to suffolkartists.co.uk Mabel studied at Colchester School of Art and Herkomer's Art School at Bushey, Hertfordshire.
https://suffolkartists.co.uk/index.cgi?choice=painter&pid=264  

She passed advanced stage examinations at Torquay School of Art and Evening Schools in 1917.
Western Times 3 July 1917, p5 col1

It seems certain that Mabel was the Mabel Gear of St Olave's, Babbacombe, Torquay, who was a British Red Cross Society Volunteer in WW1, on general duty working at the Town Hall Hospital, Torquay. Her period of service was from 1918 until 1919.*
*Just out of interest, Agatha Christie worked at the same hospital from October 1914 until September 1918 - they may have met.
British Army, British Red Cross Society Volunteers, 1914-1918, available through https://www.findmypast.co.uk

Only one Torquay artist was represented at The Royal Academy exhibition in June 1926 - Miss Mabel Gear, of St Olave's, Babbacombe, 'a well known painter of animals and birds'.
Western Morning News 5 June 1926, p6 col3

At an exhibition at the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, in 1927, Miss Mabel Gear (Babbacombe) contributed a picture of gulls hovering over a tempestuous sea.
Western Morning News 31 October 1927, p3 col4

 She married Ivor I J Symes in London in the December quarter of 1928
https://www.freebmd.org.uk/