Tavistock Library - a short history

This is a history of the public library run by Devon County Council. Not to be confused with the independent Tavistock Subscription Library or the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust Library and Information Service.

In the beginning

The history of libraries in Tavistock goes back over one thousand years to the abbey founded by Ordwulf, son of Ordgar, Ealdorman of Devon, in the year 974. The abbey had a scriptorium for copying manuscripts, and the works being copied would have formed part of the abbey's library.

By 1525 Tavistock Abbey had a printing press, and it was there that The boke of comfort called in latyn Boecius de consolatione philosophie was printed by "me Dan Thomas Rychard monke of the sayd Monastery, To the instant desyre of the ryght worshypful esquyer Mayster Robert Langdon." What happened to the press and collection of books and manuscripts after the dissolution of the abbey in 1539 is a matter for speculation.

Tavistock Subscription Library

The concept of a free public library, open to all and managed by a local authority, did not develop fully until the mid-nineteenth century. But in 1799 Tavistock's first library, available to all on payment of a subscription, was opened. This was at a time before compulsory education existed so literacy was limited. If you could read, it was likely that you could also afford the subscription. The idea behind the library was simple - one person could only afford a limited number of books in their own personal collection. By clubbing together with other like-minded individuals a much larger collection could be established by pooling resources.

As the Subscription Library still exists and its history is well-documented, we will move on to the first true "public library" in Tavistock.

Public Libraries Act, 1850

The Public Libraries Act 1850 enabled towns and districts to establish free public libraries. It allowed local authorities with a population over 10,000 to spend one halfpenny in the pound on the service, subject to a vote approved by two thirds of the local ratepayers. Tavistock's population in 1851 was 8,036. The Public Libraries and Museums Act 1855 reduced the population requirement to 5,000 and increased the expenditure to one penny in the pound - the so-called "penny rate". Further legislation in 1866 removed the population requirement entirely.

Devon's free public libraries

It's one thing for legislation to exist which allows free public libraries to be opened, but a very different thing for them to open. Devon's first was in Exeter which opened the first true free public library in the county in 1870, the same year as Leeds. The Borough of Plymouth opened its first library in the former Guildhall in 1876, the Borough of Bideford followed in 1877, and the Borough of Devonport in 1882. Devonport was unusual in that the corporation took over the library and collections of the former Mechanics' Institute which had been transferred from the Civil and Military Library in 1865. South Molton followed in 1889, Moretonhampstead in 1902, Newton Abbot in 1904, and Torquay in 1907.

But what of Barnstaple, Paignton, Tiverton, Exmouth - and Tavistock?

Enter the County Council

Council councils were created in 1888, largely taking over the administrative functions of the unelected county courts of quarter sessions. They consisted of councillors, directly elected by the electorate; and county aldermen, chosen by the council itself. In the wake of the Great War, the Public Libraries Act 1919 allowed county councils to open and run free public libraries. It also allowed small library authorities, such as South Molton and Moretonhampstead, to hand over their services to the county council.

All this needed money, as opening public libraries had done in larger towns. And, as in larger towns, Andrew Carnegie, Dunfermline-born American steel magnate came to the rescue. The Western Times of 4 January 1924:

An explanation of the Rural Library Scheme was made to the Devon Education Committee at the Castle of Exeter yesterday by the Secretary of the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust (Colonel Mitchell). Members were previously handed a brief memorandum of the scheme, together with a short summary of the chief provisions of the Public Libraries Act, 1919. The information in the memorandum was based chiefly on recent reports by the Carnegie Trust.

It was pointed out that a grant made by the Trustees is calculated at the rate of £1 for five books, one book being allowed for each five of the school population. In one case of Devon this would mean a grant between £1,700 and £1,800. The Trustees consider that such a supply would probably be adequate for about five years, after which the Council would have to make substantial purchases of books each year...

With the help of the Trustees a Central Library Scheme in London has been inaugurated for the loan of expensive books of an advanced character, which may be obtained through the Rural Library Scheme by students in rural areas...

The scheme would be under the management of a County Librarian, and the Trustees as condition of their grant require that a salary of not less than £300 a year [£23,000 in 2024] should be offered in an area such as Devon. The cost of maintenance has not reached a halfpenny rate in any county, and is generally considerably less than that.

Colonel Mitchell explained that it was the late Mr. Carnegie's belief that one of the ways he could help in the spread of knowledge was to give a large sum of money for the erection of borough libraries. These buildings were now in various parts of the country, and were maintained out of the rates, the average rates levied for their upkeep being equivalent to one penny three-farthings the pound.

What was desirable for the boroughs was even more desirable for the villages, and nowhere more so than in Devon, where the population was scattered in as high a degree as anywhere in England or Scotland.

In practical terms, a central store was required together with locations in towns and villages across the county, probably in schools, where the deposit collections were available. Books, packed in boxes, were to be sent to each location and, after an appropriate amount of time, returned to the store for reallocation to the next location. Experience had shown that central monitoring of the collections was essential, and one location simply sending a box to another did not work.

Colonel Mitchell added that this offer was time-limited and had to be accepted by the end of 1925.

Devon County Library

It was hard for the county councillors to turn down the offer of free money to set up a much-needed service which would reduce the inequality between those living in rural areas and those in the county's boroughs. No time was lost.

The Western Morning News reported on Wednesday 18 June 1924:

[Tomorrow] the Education Committee will report, with reference to the county library scheme under the Public Libraries Act, that the sub-committee have appointed as librarian Mr. S. T. Williams, senior assistant librarian of the Cambridge Borough Free Library, who will take his duties on July 1.

A central depot for books will be established in Exeter, from which boxes of books will be sent out three times a year to local centres.

By September 1924 things had moved on apace. The service would be known as the Devon County Library, with its premises in Colleton Crescent until more suitable ones could be found. A list of 52 or 53 centres had been drawn up to receive the books.

Tavistock's County Library Centre

The Western Morning News of Monday 2 March 1925 provides an update, and for the first time Tavistock features. The population of Devon to be served is about 310,000 with a grant of £2,900 from the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust of which at least £2,200 [about £168,000 in 2024] must be spent on books. The balance to be spent on boxes and furniture.

📌 Personal aside: Those boxes were still in use when I started work in Exeter Central Library in 1981. Strongly made of wood, they were about three feet wide, two feet from front to back and eight inches in depth. They had metal fastenings which could be secured with a padlock. They had to be strong, being taken to railway station in Exeter and sent by rail. When they reached their destination they were loads on to carts or lorries and taken to their destination. They ended their lives carrying books to residential homes in Exeter.

Tavistock's population was reckoned at 5,238 and the centre would initially receive 400 books, increasing to 500 by the end of the first year. Torquay, the largest centre, would receive 3,000 increasing to 4,000.

A better class of book is generally required in the larger places than in the villages. Although there are exceptions, most of the latter require only the simplest non-fiction, but in larger places the percentage of non-fiction required is higher and more advanced. It is probable that a large number of modern works of travel, biography, essays, and up-to-date works on a variety of subjects will required. These books are published at a high price, and it is not possible to purchase many of them new, unless the average cost of the book is to be much higher than at present. Many of the books, however, can be obtained at about a third of the published price, and bought in large numbers at one time can frequently be purchased very cheaply.

Agatha Christie on the rates

The objection to public libraries stocking "light" fiction is an old one which ignores what we would now call the benefits to mental health they bring. The Western Times of 19 March 1926 hints at a discomfort on the part of library staff: 

The opinion expressed by many librarians is, says the report, that in time works of an educational nature will be more widely read.

And in the Western Times of 13 April 1928 it surfaced again:

Mr Batting...wished the practical side could be developed at the expense of the fiction side. It sickened him somewhat to find young fellows and girls going to their schools and getting books of fiction and poring over them morning, noon and night. Could it do very much good? Mr. Goaman said was to the credit of the Devonshire people that they were actually reading a higher percentage than the average of practical books. Even small villages were showing well in this respect.

Into the Thirties

It's clear from reports from other towns in Devon, including Torrington, Plympton and Plymstock, that staffed branches were opened. In 1935 the post of Male Branch Librarian at Paignton was advertised with a salary of £150 a year [£13,500 in 2024]. Applicants had to be certificated members of the Library Association.

Tavistock was not in the fortunate position of Paignton or other larger towns. The service was run for two hours a week by volunteers "operating in cramped conditions in a room used during the day as an office of the Urban District Council and with minimum equipment necessary for library purposes". [Librarian's Annual Report for year ending 31 Jan 1949]

At County Library level, the service moved to 138 Cowick Street in Exeter, the former St Thomas Rural District Council premises opposite the parish church. From there Cyril Manchester and later E. J. Coombe ran their ever-expanding domains. Cowick Street was much more convenient for despatch of those wooden boxes from St Thomas railway station. By 1942 the headquarters had moved to Barley House, high above St Thomas, where it remained until the late 1990s.

Planning the new library

Under the system of local democracy then in use, each County Branch Library was overseen by a local Sub-Committee. In Tavistock, at its fullest in 1956, it comprised representatives from:

• Tavistock Urban District Council
• Tavistock Rural District Council
• Co-opted Members
• County Council representatives

The book of minutes starting from the initial meeting in 1947 has been preserved and its pages provide us with considerable, and not always interesting, information.

The first meeting took place in the Council Chambers on 28 July 1947, attended by Mr. Heyden, JP, (in the chair), Mrs M. E. Bazley, Mr A. H. Callaway, Mr E. H. Conybeare, Mr Frank G. Quant* and E. J. Coombe, the County Librarian.

It was agreed that the opening hours would be:

Monday: 2.30 - 4.30pm, 6 - 8pm
Wednesday: 6 - 8pm
Thursday: 2.30 - 4.30pm
Friday (market day): 11am - 1pm, 2.30 - 4.30pm, 6 - 8pm
Saturday: 2.30 - 4.30pm, 6 - 8pm

The County Librarian would advertise for the post of Librarian and the opening date would be agreed by the Chair and the County Librarian.

📌 Personal aside: Frank Quant, JP, (1900-1985) who had worked for the London and South Western and Southern Railways bequeathed his collection of railway books to the library.

The Library opens

By January 1948 the new library in the east corner of the main Pannier Market building had been fitted out. But sparsely, as future discussions would show. It was opened to the public on 28 January 1948 between 4pm and 8pm. The Branch Librarian, working 18 hours a week, was Mr. S. Brock.

The Western Morning News of 29 January 1948:

LET THEM READ ADVENTURES

ADVICE WHEN NEW LIBRARY OPENED

A warning against condemning the reading of adventure books children was given by Mr. John Day (vice-chairman Devon Education Committee and the County Library Committee's chairman) at a public meeting before officially opening Tavistock's new branch of Devon County Library.

The spirit of adventure of Tavistock's greatest man—Sir Francis Drake—would live as long as the English race endured, he declared. Mr. Day recalled that a library was first founded in Tavistock by John Tayler, of Holwell, in 1799. Tavistock had always been a seat of teaming, and in 1524 had a printing press, one of the earliest in the country. Many notable men and women, writers, and statesmen had lived there.

The main difference between libraries of the past and those of the present was that once books had been the privilege of the few, but now a social service for many was being established.

The true library rate for last year was 4d., and the 1949 rate would be 4½d.; not a great increase when the service of the libraries was borne in mind. 

The Western Times of 30 January 1948 gave a different account: 

A warning against condemning the reading of adventure books by children was given by Mr. John Day (vice-chairman of Devon Education Committee and the County Library Committee's chairman) at a public meeting before officially opening Tavistock's new branch of Devon County Library...

The new branch was the thirteenth to be established in the county's post-war programme, Mr. Day continued. It would be open for 18 hours a week instead of two hours a week as in olden days, and 4,500 books would be available, increasing to 6,000.

Mr. J. Heyden (chairman of Tavistock Urban Council) said the new centre, in the pannier market, was not an ideal one. nor was it in an ideal place, but it was central and spacious, and better than nothing.

📌 Personal aside: Arriving in Tavistock as Librarian-in-charge in 1983, the Area Librarian told me that a town centre location, though small, was better as it was more likely to be used by shoppers.

The minutes of the Sub-Committee meeting on 18 February 1948 tell us that in the first seventeen days of opening 941 new members had joined and 3,114 books had been borrowed.

Of the new members, 81 lived outside the town in places such as Brentor, Lamerton, Lydford, Mary and Peter Tavy, and Yelverton.

There were 386 women members, and 367 men; 102 boys and 86 girls.

Adult fiction, unsurprisingly, was the most popular with 1,554 loans. Adult non-fiction represented 792. Children's fiction (as discussed by Mr Day at the opening) was 451 and non-fiction 317.

📌 Personal aside: "Lt.-Comdr. S. Brock" as he is described in an article in the Tavistock Times of 30 July 1948 has proved to be an interesting and somewhat elusive character. Samuel Brock, born in the Coastguard Buildings at Grade, near Ruan Minor, Cornwall, on 6 June 1889. His father had joined the Royal Navy, claiming to be 14 at the age of 13; by 1879, when was married, he had transferred to the Coastguard at Weymouth. He had retired to Uffculme by 1911 but rejoined the Coastguard for the duration of the Great War. He was promoted to the honorary rank of Lieutenant Commander (retired) in November 1923 and died in Uffculme in 1942

His son Samuel, our first branch librarian, seems to have adopted his father's rank for his own purposes. He trained as a draughtsman and worked for a railway signalling company in Kilburn. Married at Hampstead Register Office in 1909, he joined the Royal Army Service Corps as a Motor Transport Driver in October 1916, specialising in driving lorries. He was discharged in November 1919 with an injury to his ankle. In 1939 Samuel and his family were living in St Albans where he had resumed working as a draughtsman.

It may never be clear what circumstances led Samuel to apply for the post of branch librarian when it was advertised, probably in the two Tavistock newspapers. His wife died in Kingston-upon-Thames in 1972. Samuel died in East Cornwall in July 1974 and was buried at St Ive.

Onwards and upwards

Such was the success of the new branch library that at the May 1948 meeting of the Sub-Committee it was unanimously resolved to extend the opening hours from 18 to 24. The Branch Librarian's salary was also increased to £150 [£6,800 in 2024] and an assistant appointed for 12 hours a week to help at busy periods.

Mr Quant suggested that a bench be provided and one was to be obtained from the Urban District Council store. And all agreed that an electric clock should be provided.

The West Devon Regional Library

With the branch library up and running - and the hours of Mrs N. Phillips, assistant librarian, increased from 12 to 18 - Mr Snook from Headquarters attended the Sub-Committee on 22 July 1948 to explain the concept of the Regional Library. Because of Tavistock's success and distance from Exeter, he proposed that collections of books for the rural centres should be assembled and despatched from Tavistock rather than the county town. An additional 3,000 books would be supplied together with a "qualified full-time Librarian" to run it from 1949. The branch would benefit from the additional books "floating through it", and (possibly) longer opening hours.

Mr Quant, who we can tell would have loved spreadsheets, had created graphs showing the number of loans and members for the previous quarter. They would be displayed in the library.

The Regional Librarian was confirmed as Mr K. G. Hunt who would start work in the autumn of 1948 in readiness for the Regional Library service to start in January 1949. The branch's opening hours would be increased to 30 per week.

📌 Personal aside: By the 1980s Ken Hunt had become Area Librarian in North Devon responsible for a vast rural area.

Minutiae

The minutes of the Sub-Committee meeting on 29 October 1948 give us an indication, if we needed one, of why the sub-committee system was eventually disbanded. But during its existence its members were valuable allies of the Branch Librarian.

E. J. Coombe travelled down from Exeter and announced that the heating for the Regional Library was being provided, that K. G. Hunt had moved to Exeter, that Mr J. G. Galt had been appointed in his place, and that a reconditioned vacuum cleaner had been bought.

The Sub-Committee recommended a glass screen to protect staff from the draught and a spring be fitted to the door for the same reason.

📌 Personal aside: Jack Galt (1923 - 2000) was the son of a solicitor's managing clerk from Exeter. On 29 September 1939 he was already working as a "librarian's clerk" in Exeter, though whether it was for the City or the County Library isn't clear. It's to Jack that we owe the compilation of a scrapbook of press cuttings about Tavistock Library as well as the continuation of the book of Sub-Committee minutes. He was nearing retirement when I joined Devon Library Services in 1981 and was working at the Barley House headquarters as Bibliographical Services Librarian. His memory stretched back many years and it was while I was working on the refurbishment of Tiverton Library in 1983 that he told me of the wooden book boxes being sent to Tiverton by train from Exeter, and taken up the hill to the library by horse and cart. As Tavistock's pioneer post-war librarian, I am dedicating this history to his memory. The initiatives which follow were put in place by Jack.

A full-time library

At the Sub-Committee meeting on 22 April 1949, the County Librarian announced a planned increase in opening hour to 40 per week, making Tavistock a "Full Time Branch Library", Alongside the increase was the appointment of a full-time Junior Assistant to be trained in the work of both the Branch Library and Regional Library. Unsurprisingly, the Sub-Committee was delighted. At the next meeting they were less delighted as the vacancy had only had three applications, and none had the School Certificate.

The Librarian's Report records the loan of a book to the National Central Library of Italy, and 39 books lent to other libraries in the UK. Quite an achievement for a library hardly a year old.

The new opening hours would be:

Monday: 10.30am - 1pm, 2pm - 7.30pm
Tuesday: 10.30am - 1pm, 2pm - 7.30pm
Wednesday: 10.30am - 1pm, 2pm - 7.30pm
Thursday: 10.30am - 1pm
Friday: 10.30am - 1pm, 2pm - 7.30pm
Saturday: 10.30am - 1pm, 2pm - 7.30pm

A library cleaner, Mr G. H. Slatter, was appointed to work eight hours per week at 2/0¾ [two shillings three-farthings] an hour.

Financial crisis

A report to the County Library Sub-Committee on 28 March 1951 spelled out the grim reality of local authority cuts, the first since the Second World War. The budget for new books for the County would be reduced from £21,000 to £14,000, and £2,500 less would be spent on fiction for adults. The impact would be to reduce the number of novels available by 15,000. Measures to mitigate included ending services to the H.M Forces and hospitals, and buying more secondhand books - and recalling 7,000 books from urban branch libraries, including Tavistock. And no requests would be taken for new fiction unless the books were of "outstanding literary merit".

Into the Fifties

Mr S. Brock, who had served as Branch Librarian at the library's opening, and subsequently become Part-Time Assistant, left the service on 26 September 1953. Mr P. J. Bawden joined as Full-Time Assistant on 28 September.

📌 Personal aside: Peter James Bawden was born in Truro in 1941 and died on 7 November 2018, fondly remembered by many people. He lived in Plympton for many years which is when I met him and was regaled with stories of the Tavistock Mobile Library in the 1950s, one the less salacious ones I repeat below. He was presented with the Music Shield of the Gorsedh Kernow in 2014 for "outstanding services to music in Cornwall." A man of many parts and a great sense of humour.

On 17 December 1954 the temporary BBC television transmitter controversially located on North Hessary Tor began broadcasting to the Tavistock area just in time for Christmas. 

The Cornish Guardian on 23 December 1954 took a positive view:

Used selectively, television is perhaps better entertainment than even sound broadcasting, and at times even more educational. We have always regarded as nonsense the attitude of people who, with so little experience say of television. "I wouldn't have it if you gave it to me." Much nearer the truth are the people who say, "You are not living in your day and generation without it." 

Jack Galt, now the West Regional Librarian, reported in April 1955:

The past working year has been satisfactory in every respect. A careful check on the use of the Library was made from the opening of the North Hessary Tor Television transmitter and, although adult reading showed a very slight decline in January and February [1954], March reading returned to the high level of the first nine months of the year.

The Regional Library saw some changes over the same period. The centres at Tavistock Secondary Modern School and Postbridge were transferred to Headquarters, Sydenham Damerel lapsed and Maristow House, a "school for retarded children" started. Horrabridge received an extra bookcase.

Enter the Travelling Library

The Tavistock Times of 1 July 1953 had some exciting news:

Thanks to the progress - unequalled by any other County Branch Library in Devon - made by the Tavistock branch under the guidance and care of Mr. J. E. Galt and his staff, the Devon County Library Committee decided to make a big experiment in the county using their model branch of Tavistock for the experiment.

"The operation of this new method will mean the disappearance of the village library service as we have known it for the last 30 years except that certain large villages which can offer a good choice of books to readers will continue to function."

Following the meeting an inspection was made of the new mobile library, blue and cream van, it measures 22ft. by 7ft. 6ins. and inside bookshelves reached from floor to ceiling. Skylights and electric lighting enhance the brightly-painted interior and lockers provided storage space for reserve books.

The mobile library will be staffed by a qualified librarian and a driver will assist with the books.

Inevitably, not everyone was happy as Plymouth's Western Evening Herald demonstrated  on 11 August 1954:

It would be boorish to begrudge the amenity, but it looks a little queer side by side with reports of Westcountry parents complaining that their children have to walk nearly three miles to school.

Taken in conjunction with the plastic cover innovation introduced by Plymouth, this will look a little like having literature delivered on the doorstep with the milk.

After three months of operation the Sub-Committee received a report. It had 134 stopping points, 2,000 registered readers and had issued more than 13,000 books. A six-fold increase in loans and 300 per cent increase in membership compared with the deposit system.

The end of an era - and the start of a new one

On 19 October 1957, Jack Galt, who had created the full-time library in Tavistock, the Regional Library and Travelling Library, left Tavistock and headed with his family to Exeter. There he became Readers' Advisor at the County Library branch within the Library Headquarters at Barley House. Until 1974, Exeter had two main public libraries - the City Library in the centre and the County Library on top of the hill in St Thomas. 

Jack was replaced as Regional Library on a temporary basis by Mr T. Shannon. At their meeting on 15 November 1957 the Sub-Committee recorded their unanimous appreciation of Jack's services.

📌 Personal aside: By the time I arrived in Devon in 1981 Terry Shannon was Librarian-in-Charge at Okehampton. Born in 1933, he died in 1999. 

Terry Shannon was soon replaced on a permanent basis by Mr R. E. P. Wood. Born in Plymstock in 1934, Ray Wood first appears in the minutes of the Sub-Committee on 2 May 1958. Proposals for library improvements included fluorescent lighting and the shelves and walls to be painted. The Travelling Library had issued 105,378, an increase of 25%.

📌 Personal aside: I knew Ray Wood well - he worked for me in Plymouth from 1987 until his retirement. Stories abound, but I will only give two of the more repeatable. The first comes from Peter Bawden who discovered an orthodox way of providing staff facilities on the Travelling Library - by lifting up a flap in the floor.

The second involves Ray's underwear which he would leave soaking overnight in the library's washbasin. There was also a story involving his pyjamas, a cat and filing cabinet...

Those were unorthodox for the male staff of the library service. Johnny Bright, working at Torrington Library, slept on the table in the library. Later, when I knew him, he was working at St Thomas Library in Exeter and was seriously concerned about the curtains in the staff room there.

On 25 July 1961 Devon County Library opened its biggest and busiest branch costing £29,000 - at Paignton.

By 1964, society was changing and the Sub-Committee questioned the late opening of the library until 8pm on so many evenings, especially on Saturdays. Ray was instructed to count the number of visitors after 5pm in half-hourly bands and report back to the next meeting.

The stocks of the Branch Library and Travelling Library were combined, allowing much easier exchanges between the two.

In March 1965 the results of the survey were clear, and the Sub-Committee recommended that the library close at 6.30pm on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, and 6pm on Saturday.

The members of the Sub-Committee were also told that it would cease to exist. The Sub-Committee recommended to the new Public Libraries Committee of the County Council that there should continue to be local representation.

The last days of the Devon County Library

In February 1971 the Conservative Government published a White Paper on the structure of Local Government in England. This led to the Local Government Act 1972 which reduced the Cities of Exeter and Plymouth and County Borough of Torbay to secondary authorities, subordinate to a new Devon County Council. In library terms, services in Exeter, Plymouth and Torbay would become part of a much larger Devon Library Service.

The uncertainty that led up to this decision saw Devon County Council rapidly investing in library buildings in "vulnerable" areas. Plympton received a temporary structure which lasted over forty years, Plymstock a smart new-build. It is probably at this time that Tavistock Library, under pressure in its corner of the Pannier Market, expanded into the ground floor of Court Gate - the space currently occupied by the Museum of Policing in Devon & Cornwall.

Brave New World

It's not clear exactly when Ray Wood left Tavistock, but it seems likely that his move to Plymouth coincided with the creation of the new service on 1 April 1974. This, from the County Library's perspective, saw a takeover by the former senior staff in Plymouth. E. J. Coombe, County Librarian, retired, as did Bill Best Harris, City Librarian of Plymouth. Rex Charlesworth, former Deputy in Plymouth became the first County Librarian of the new authority.

Tavistock, along with Ivybridge, Okehampton and Princetown, became part of the new service's West Area. It was never a happy situation. Plymouth's service was the busiest and biggest in Devon. Grafting three rural branches, not to mention three very rural Mobile Libraries, on to the largest urban system on the south coast of England, was not going to work.

The County's decentralised structure meant that Barnstaple, Exeter, Plymouth and Torquay became local headquarters for their area. Book stock purchase, headed up by Jack Galt, remained at Barley House. But for Tavistock an extra layer had been created. No longer was Barley House just a phone call away - everything had to be run through Plymouth first. And Plymouth's priorities and viewpoints were not always Tavistock's.

The new service inherited a vast amount of books, with a plethora of catalogues in different formats. Previously Tavistock had a card catalogue which was matched by a "union catalogue" of all the county's stock at Barley House. Now Exeter's, Plymouth's and Torbay's catalogues had to be combined and something usable created.

Enter the COMCAT

Devon became the biggest customer of the British Library's new BLAISE service. The result was a catalogue on microfiche which was updated annually with monthly supplements. For Tavistock's customers this opened up the large and important collections of Exeter and Plymouth. Books could be requested and delivered by the internal van service.

Many readers will remember the orange plastic fiche reader used in the old library and the sheaves of plastic sheets. 

Moving to the Fire Station

With the new Devon Library Services in charge, library buildings were reviewed. These ranged from the good - Churston was almost new in 1974 - to the ancient - Barnstaple. Tavistock's was inadequate for a growing town with a developing service.

With Christine Kinsman as Divisional Librarian, ably assisted by Jean Greaves, the library moved from the now-cramped Pannier Market space into the former Fire Station opposite. For the first time the library had a large Children's Library, in accordance with Plymouth's longstanding priority to develop services for children and young people.

Because the library was now so busy, issuing over 250,000 books a year - slightly behind Plympton and Plymstock - it was given a large, long counter to handle the manual system. Although Exeter was automated, and East Devon branches followed along with Plymouth, Plympton and Plymstock, it was to be ten years before Tavistock was connected.

Chris left and her place was taken by Tina Weekes. Tina moved to Paignton on a temporary basis in the early 1980s and took up the post permanently in 1983.

From 1983 to 1987

📌 Personal aside: I arrived at Exeter Central Library, fresh from Library School in London, in June 1981. Before Library School I had worked as a Library Assistant in Richmond-upon-Thames and Westminster and completed a degree in music. During my time at Exeter I worked on the refurbishment of Tiverton Library, and it was this that brought me into contact with Jack Galt. In June 1983 I arrived as the new Librarian-in-charge at Tavistock.

In June 1983 the staff of Tavistock Library comprised a full-time Librarian-in-charge (the writer of this history), a full-time First Assistant (Jean Greaves), a full-time Library Assistant (Judi Martin), and part-time Library Assistants Margaret Maker, Madeleine Green and Olive Ottley. There was also a Mobile Library Assistant who was independent but relied on the Branch for book exchanges and cover when she was on leave or off sick.

It's hard to imagine a time when music cassettes were the last innovation in libraries, but so it was at Tavistock in July 1983. The collection was launched by Tavistock Gazette music critic Ben Morland and County Councillor Lysbeth Gallup. There was a catch - unlike books which by law had to be free of charge, there was a 20p per week hire charge for cassettes.

Hard on the heels of the cassettes, the following month saw Tavistock hosting a Writer-in-Residence, Alexis Lykiard, for six months. As well as giving advice and encouragement to local writers, Alexis arranged visits and talks by well-known poets. These included Charles Causley and Alan Brownjohn. Quite a coup for a small market town in West Devon.

Friday mornings were the busiest day of the week as it was market day. And wet Friday mornings were something to be anticipated with something akin to horror. Three or four members of staff working around each other on "the issue", finding the tickets of queues of borrowers which regularly stretched out of the door. Unforgettable.

Memorable borrowers in those days included Angela Rippon, then living at Grenofen and looking very different from her glamorous self. And Mrs Lakeman, with her little boys Seth and Sam, now well-known musicians. Mrs Kelly of Kelly House, and her mother-in-law, were always welcome for the smile they brought.

Always under pressure to raise money, the Library Service decided to start selling bus tickets on which they would receive a commission. These were time-consuming and cumbersome and lasted only a few years, but appreciated by those who bought them.

Something else that was cumbersome was the income from fees and charges. All in cash in those days, of course. Rolls of "fines tickets" were used as receipts and woe betide if, the next morning, the number of receipts issued didn't match the money in the box. If there was too much in the box the solution was simple - tear off the requisite number of receipts. But if more receipts had been issued than money taken, there was a problem. The official line, followed in Tavistock, was simply to note the discrepancy.

📌 Personal aside: When I started work in Plymouth in 1987 I discovered a different approach: the "ups tin". Any excess of money over receipts was put in a jar and used to balance any discrepancies. I was horrified.

Eventually, around 1985, came the news that Tavistock would be the next library for automation. This was before the Internet enabled easy connections between computers. A dedicated BT line using the X.25 protocol was used and at some considerable expense. Almost overnight the service was transformed. The old tickets and cards were binned and the queues - especially those wet Friday queues - became a thing of the past.

Using a terminal (in those days known as a VDU), staff could access the county's catalogue and see, for the first time, exactly what books were where. It revolutionised the requests service, speeding up delivery by weeks.

Through all this change, the fundamental work of shelving return books and tidying the shelves continued. There was little space available to promote books or have displays. Such things were still a pipedream and Tavistock Library was fast becoming the modern equivalent of the old pre-1948 library in the room in the Council Chamber.

More change

In June 1987 there was a new Librarian-in-charge. This was Jean Boase, a very experienced member of Plymouth staff who had previously jointly-run the Central Lending Library. It was a good move for her in her final years before retirement. In a strange quirk of fate she found herself buying the house in Buddle Close which Tina Weekes had sold in 1983. Jean had a happy retirement in Tavistock and died in 2009.

Jean's place was taken by another experienced member of Plymouth staff, Moira Cave. Moira took the library service into the new millennium and the new building in Plymouth Road. But before that...

And even more change

Changes were afoot in local government again in the 1990s. New counties such as Avon and Humberside had not found favour with their communities, and cities which had been subsumed by their surrounding counties, wanted greater control. Leicester, Nottingham, Brighton and, of course, Plymouth.

It was Devon's turn in 1998. In 1997 everyone was planning for the dismantling of a service which had been assembled in 1974. Plymouth was becoming a unitary authority, and getting control of its library service, and so - surprisingly to some - was Torbay. The rest of Devon was unaffected - except that they were losing access to Plymouth's books and specialist resources.

Since Tavistock was being run from Plymouth, there would be major changes again. Plymouth Reference Library was no longer the default for answering information enquiries, and the Music and Drama Library and Bookbindery were being lost as well. But so was the level of management introduced in 1974 where everything was channelled through Plymouth.

As if to mark the new service Tavistock finally heard the news it had been waiting for - a new library would be built at The Wharf as part of a County Council development. Gone would be the cramped, but town centre, location. Replaced with a spacious new building opposite the bus station and next to a large car park.

Libraries Unlimited

Any history, however short, of Tavistock Library must record the creation of the charity Libraries Unlimited in 2016. This model of library service provision, where the local authority legally responsible commissions a new charity to deliver the service, wasn't new. But it was new to Devon. Advantages include independence from the local authority's constraints and freedom to make new partnerships for the benefit of communities, and funding for a set period. Disadvantages include a new bureaucracy taking over from the old, and a possible loss of professional library expertise.

In November 2023, the County Council agreed to decommission its fleet of mobile libraries, including that which had been based at Tavistock since 1954. In place of the mobile libraries, the Council wanted to create a network of "community libraries" run by volunteers.

Now where have we heard that idea before?

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all those former colleagues of mine who worked for both Devon County Council and Plymouth City Council. Without their knowledge, experience, advice and anecdotes this short history would not have been possible because so many records no longer exist. Many of these colleagues are now longer with us, and I would like to dedicate this to the memory of their hard work, patience, skill and good humour. I would also like to thank my successor at Tavistock, Jan Horrell, and her team for preserving what records do exist and making them available to me.

A recovered lunatic

The West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum opened to patients on 23rd November 1818 with the aim of providing mental health care assistance to people from poorer backgrounds.

In 1831, Dr Charles Caesar Corsellis was appointed Director and Resident Physician; he remained there until 1853.

Corsellis was one of the many children of Nicholas Caesar Corsellis and his long-term mistress, Sarah Plampin. He was born in Caister-on-Sea, Norfolk, on 1 February 1800 and baptised at St Mary the Virgin, Wivenhoe, Essex on 8 July 1813. On 31 August 1827 he married Caroline Coolidge Turkington in London. After his time at Wakefield, he moved to Llandysul, Cardiganshire, and then to Oxford where he died on 1 January 1876.

Mary Hutton, née Taylor, the writer of these lines appreciative of the care given to her by Dr. and Mrs. Corsellis, was born in Wakefield on 10 July 1794. She moved to Sheffield when young and spent most of her life there.

On 4 March 1844, the Sheffield social campaigner, Samuel Roberts, and the poet, James Montgomery, published an open letter in a Sheffield newspaper entitled The case of Mrs Mary Hutton. This letter detailed the plight of Mary Hutton and her husband, who had been "thrown into great difficulties...his wife, who detested and publicly denounced, in verse, the dreadful New Poor Law, was of too independent a spirit to apply to it for relief. They struggled on but the struggle was too much for them both; their strength, their health, and, at length, HER reason gave way. Her husband was then compelled to apply for her to the Workhouse, while he himself was admitted as an in-patient of the Infirmary". 

In 1843 Mary was sent to Attercliffe Asylum, which had recently been the subject of an enquiry into the forced restraint of inmates. The letter continues "There she remained during two weeks of such dreadful sufferings, that had they been longer continued, they must, she says, have precluded all hope of recovery". 

Mary was then sent to the West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum, and the care of Dr. and Mrs. Corsellis, "a change as she states, almost resembling a removal from hell to heaven".

Leeds Intelligencer - Saturday 23 March 1844

The following lines, which we have great pleasure in publishing, have been written by Mrs. Mary Hutton, the poetess, of Sheffield. The writer, who has long had to struggle with poverty and privations, was a few months ago deprived of her reason and she became an inmate of the Lunatic Asylum at Wakefield, where she continued for four months, when she happily recovered. 

In some letters to her friends, written whilst she was in the Asylum, she speaks in the highest terms of thankfulness to Dr. Corsellis and his lady, and on her release she wrote the following lines.

To Dr. and Mrs. Corsellis

To you, ye worthy, noble minded pair.

Devoted love and gratitude I owe;

For your exalted skill and timely care,

Uprais'd me from the lowest depths of woe.

When in a storm of wild convulsions toss'd

My health and strength and blessed reason lost;

And when I scarce could know my depth of pain,

Through the wild whirlings fever'd brain;

Angelic tones fell softly my ear,

And sweetly soothed and bade banish fear,

And cheer'd poor desponding soul with love,

And bade me hope and trust heaven above.

MARY HUTTON.

We may just add that Samuel Roberts and James Montgomery, Esqrs., of Sheffield, have made an appeal to the public on behalf of this poor woman which we hope will be successful.

In defence of the "Savages of North Devon"

The first of several letters to the Editor of the North Devon Journal from Rev. T. J. Leslie, Appledore, published Thursday, 23 November 1871. The "Special Commissioner" was James Greenwood who later published an expanded account.

The "So-Called Savages of North Devon"

Upcott, photographed about 1860 by William Hector

Dear Sir,

Will you kindly publish the following facts in reference to the above subject?

On the 23rd October the Daily Telegraph published a report of a visit made by their "Special Commissioner" to the house of Mr. C. Cheriton, of Nymet Rowland. The report being greatly exaggerated and highly sensational, and having been reprinted by many of the daily and weekly newspapers throughout the country, I wrote to the Editor of the Daily Telegraph, not as an apologist for Cheriton or for his ill-deeds, but simply to place a few facts, which had come under my own notice, before the readers of the said report, so that they might have more correct account of poor Cheriton and his family. But to my astonishment the editor has not published my letter. Such conduct, to say the least about it, is mean in the extreme. It unjust to the poor man and his family; and it unjust to North Devon.

Many my friends, knowing that I knew the neighbourhood of Nymet Rowland, have asked me for my opinion about the report of the "Special Commissioner;" and my reply has been—It is greatly exaggerated. It contains some of the most unjust charges and abominable insinuations that it is possible for a corrupt mind to think of; and if the "Special Commissioner" be the author of them, I fervently pray that he may never again visit the North of Devon. I will not repeat the abominable and vile insinuations which the report contains, but will point out to you a few things connected with the family, which may be of interest to readers of your paper, and secure for the Cheritons that justice which is their due.

It is not a difficult matter for a few rich farmers to invite a reporter to come down to "interview" a poor family, who may be disagreeable neighbours—give him good fare for the day, and frank his expenses. Many of their prosecutions of the Cheritons have savoured much of the spirit of persecution. The "Special Commissioner" in his report says, "Thus saith rumour." Allow me to tell him that rumour also saith, "The rich farmers would like to rid the parish of the Cheritons." I would suggest to him, and through him to them, that would be more Christlike, if, instead of persecuting them, they would try a little kindness and respectful forbearance. 

The "Special Commissioner" speaks of "a mud floor, walls as black as soot, and full of chinks." He says "There was no fire place; but a ruddy glow smouldered from a hole in the floor of earth, and over it, by an "iron chain, a cooking pot was suspended." If he had examined other houses in the neighbourhood, he would have found that nearly the whole of them are built of "cob," the floors made of what he calls "mud," (lime and sand, or paved with small stones,) and very few would have fire-grates, the fire being on the hearth, with an open chimney place, and the pot or kettle hung over it by a chain fastened to a cross-bar in the chimney. Wood and not coal is mostly burned in the neighbourhood. 

A person coming down from London would conclude at once that such houses were not fit for human beings live in: but the natives like to live in houses built of cob, and to have good fire of wood upon the hearth. I admit that poor Cheriton's house is in a very dilapidated condition; it needs much repairs; but I very much question whether any of his detractors in Nymet Rowland would let him have a few bundles of reed to repair the roof with. 

Much of the cottage property of North Devon is far below what it ought to be; but such reports as the one written by the "Special Commissioner of the Daily Telegraph" will not tend to improve it. The landlords themselves are aware of the fact, and many of them are improving the cottages of their workmen. The "Special Commissioner" makes much of the fact that there was a little mud between the gate and the house through which he had to pass. I could take him to respectable farm houses where he would experience some difficulty in getting from the gate to the house in wet weather without dirting his boots.

This "Special Commissioner" tells us that he came down to interview this poor family because "a clergyman had this time spread the amazing intelligence." I am sorry to hear it. It is a great pity that a clergyman, who is paid by the State to instruct the poor, should have nothing better to employ his time than write to the Times against one of his own parishioners, who could not reply to his letter. I would suggest to the "Special Commissioner" that the next time he makes a visit to North Devon he should enquire into the conduct of some of the clergymen who have lived in the neighbourhood of Nymet Rowland; and I am sure he will be able to write a report far more sensational than the one he wrote about the so-called savages of North Devon. 

There are several state-paid clergymen living within the radius of a few miles of Cheriton's house. What, I ask, have they done to save this poor family from a life of sin and misery? They cannot plead a lack of time, for some of them have time enough to go fox-hunting. They need not fear being molested, for I have passed the house both by day and night without fear or harm. Let the clergy of the county do their duty, as before the Lord, (which I am thankful to say many of them are endeavouring to do,) and there will soon be no (so-called) savages of North Devon to write the newspapers about.

I admit they are in bad repute in the neighbourhood, but, speaking from what I used to see of them, I am bold to say that they do not deserve the treatment which they have received. When I was pastor of the Independent Church in Lapford I frequently saw them at the chapel. At other times I have seen them going to the church. I conducted religious services in a cottage at Nymet Rowland, and I have seen some members of the family there. I have also seen them at the meeting at Chenson, and they always behaved themselves in proper manner. 

Having spoken of them as I knew them a few years ago, let me now speak of them as they are at present. My wife went with a lady to see them last Thursday. They drove up to the gate, and one of them alighted and went into the house. A young woman came out, and took charge of the horse and trap, and then gave the horse some hay. When they entered the house they found a young woman sitting near the fire, who was evidently very ill, with the baby on her knee (of whom the "Special Commissioner" gives such a graphic description). They spoke kindly to her (she was very weak and faint), and looked at the baby, which they found to be sickly, but not in the state as described by the "Special Commissioner." 

The other young woman then entered the house, and said that her mother had gone to the shop at Lapford to buy some things, but added—"She will back soon." Three little boys came and looked in two or three times: at length one of the little fellows ventured in, and sat down beside his mother. The old man was out working on the farm, but a message having been sent to him, he came to the house, and seemed to very pleased to see his visitors. He rubbed his hands, smiled, and said—"I am glad to see ye, I be; but I be afeard ye will not be comfortable here. Will ye mind going to the Public, and I will pay for a glass each for ye." 

They thanked him for his kindness, and said they had brought some provisions with them and they were going to take tea with him. He thanked them much, and appeared to be somewhat confused. Tea was provided, and they were all enjoying the social cup when the old woman returned. She looked as if she was taken aback, but, recovering herself, soon made herself at home, and began to tell them how they were persecuted and annoyed. 

She complained very bitterly of the infamous report of the "Special Commissioner." She says that he called and them if they would give him a drink of water, and, thinking that he was an honest man, she told her daughter to give him a drink of milk; at the same time saying, she knew gentlemen liked cider, but that they were quite out of it. She declares he is a bad man, or he would never have drank the milk, which she gave to him, and afterwards and write lot of lies about them. 

Before leaving my wife said they had brought two New Testaments with them, and they intended to read a chapter and pray together before they left. Cheriton said he should be pleased if they would do so. But as she was beginning to read Matthew, xxv. chapter, a voice was heard outside, "Is your father at home?" Cheriton went to the place where the door once stood, and the voice was heard again, "I have come to speak to you as the head of the house about your family insulting my servants." 

The daughter went to the door, and the voice was heard again, "You women are the worst." They replied, "Your servants, and a brother of one of them, were here last night stoning us for an hour and half: they won't let us alone." The voice was heard again, "I am going now, and if you do not behave yourselves I will get a summons for you." The old woman called out, "It is you who put the letters in the papers." The voice was again heard, "I know nothing about that, I have come now to talk to you about your conduct." That voice was the Parson's. 

The above facts will speak for themselves. During the last few weeks they have received several letters, some of which are full of silly questions, such as—"Can you read?" "Can you say the Lord's prayer? If you cannot, then go to the clergyman and he will teach you." Several persons have called, but they have no confidence in these "special" visitors, and they have refused to have any conversation with them. 

My wife did not see the eldest son. She enquired where he was, and they said, "He had gone to help the daughter's husband with little work he had to do. 

Cannot something be done to help this poor family? It would not cost much money to repair the house, and provide a little clothing for them. Things have gone from bad to worse, and members of the family have been fined at various times by the magistrates, so that they are not able to repair the house, although they may desire to do so. 

A christian lady has kindly promised to give me ten shillings if a subscription list is opened on their behalf. I shall be willing to receive other sums toward the relief of the so-called savages of North Devon. Subscriptions will be acknowledged through your paper.

I am, Dear Sir, yours truly, 

T. J. LESLIE, Independent Minister. 

Appledore, North Devon, November 18th, 1871.

[We readily make use of our correspondent's letter. All will admire the audi alteram partem ["listen to the other side"] spirit which prompted him to say what he knew that was favourable to, or extenuating of, the Cheritons. All will do justice to the kindness of the ladies who visited them. Still, there can be no denying that, under how much provocation soever, they have been guilty of many indefensible breaches of the law, and that their mode of living is an outrage on the proprieties of civilization, the more inexcusable because it is idle to say that a family occupying their own freehold of forty acres have not the means of living in decency. 

One can't much wonder if the rich farmers in the neighbourhood do wish to be rid of such neighbours. We hope they will bethink themselves that there is a better thing to be aimed at than even to be rid of them. If they would but try what the "law of kindness" can do, it might astonish them by its results. It has wrought greater wonders than it would be even to convert these "savages" into a family and household restored to the pale of civilization, "clothed and in their right mind." Doing full justice to the kindness which only can have suggested our reverend correspondent's appeal for pecuniary help, does he think the case a man living in his own freehold is one for which eleemosynary assistance can be fairly asked, or that, if rendered, it could be expected to do real and lasting good? 

Injustice is always to be condemned; but is there not danger in leading persons who are unquestionably wrong doers to conceive themselves martyrs He knows the case better than we do, and he has, no doubt, weighed the matter. If, indeed, they have been wronged and soured by persecution, possibly that might be means by which society might make a sweetening and purifying compensation.—Ed.]

A Daily Telegraph reporter visits a Devon farming family

From In Strange Company: Being the Experiences of a Roving Correspondent, by James Greenwood (London: Henry S. King, 1873)

Some facts

James Greenwood (1832-1929) was a reporter working for the Daily Telegraph. In 1871 he travelled to Nymet Rowland and wrote a sensational and widely-syndicated article about the family.

Christopher Cheriton, of whom Greenwood writes, was a real person, son of John and Frances Cheriton and baptised in Down St Mary, Devon, on 18 September 1803. In the census taken take two years Greenwood published his book, he was living at Upcott in Nymet Rowland, farming 30 acres and employing one labourer. The cottage at Upcott was demolished in the 1880s and the current Nymet House built on the site, immediately bringing into question the accuracy of Briggs's drawing below. Christopher died at Ash in the parish of Sandford on 29 October 1884, leaving an estate of £174. His executor was his brother Hermon Cheriton of Western Road, Crediton. He was buried at Crediton on 4 November 1884.

The North Devon Savages

Upcott, photographed about 1860 by William Hector

STRANGEST of all strange company was that which, in my journalistic peregrinations, it was my lot to fall in with in North Devon. At first the vague rumours of a veritable savage tribe existing at a remote place called Nymet Rowland was received by the British public with incredulity. At the nick of time, however, I received from the good minister of the parish such information as decided me to make the journey, and if possible glean, as an eye-witness, some particulars of the manners, habits, and customs of these modem barbarians who were scandalizing the land. Without daring to breathe a word of my intention to anxious friends or family, I made the first step towards invading the barbarian stronghold by taking a North Devon ticket at Waterloo Railway station. 

Nymet Rowland, approaching it across country, is about a mile from Lapford station, on the North Devon line. The village is not numerously inhabited, but it contains several substantial farm-holdings, a sprinkling of the handsome residences of gentlemen farmers, and a venerable and goodly-sized church. Almost within the shadow of its ivy-clad square tower is to be found the kraal of the savage tribe of Cheriton. Hut, hovel, stye, or whatever else it should be termed, it is in every respect inferior to anything in the way of house architecture that can be met with in the most barbarous regions on the earth. 

A mandan of the Indian prairies would laugh to scorn such an effect at hut-building; a man-eating Fijian would regard as a wanton insult the suggestion that the hideous structure at Nymet Rowland might serve as a pattern useful to be followed in his construction of a dwelling-place. Carved and painted warrior as he is, he has at least some notions of decency and domestic life, and of home comfort for those dependent on him. He will take care that his house is shut in from the inquisitive gaze of neighbours by a wattle wall or latticed fence; and, with no other material at his command than rough-hewn timber, grass, and reeds, he constructs a clean and commodious habitation, not uncommonly 

with some attempt at ornamentation in its exterior. 

Within the hut of the Fijian will be found a fire-place, even though it be nothing more than a slab of stone edged about with a curving of iron-wood; he recognises the utility of doors and windows, and weaves mats for the floor. Even the benighted Esquimaux, who has nothing besides snow to serve in the place of bricks and mortar and timber, somehow contrives a house of which he has no reason to be ashamed. He provides a window of thin fresh-water ice in the wall of his snow-hut; and he has raised seats for his family and guests, covered first with a layer of whalebone, then with sealskins or deer pelts; and all within is made as snug as possible. 

But the barbarian tribe of Nymet Rowland, squatting amid the model dairy farms and mellow apple orchards of Devonshire, are less fastidious in their domestic economy. They care no more for the house they inhabit than the pig does. The pig indeed! I can imagine with what disgust and scorn a daily-scrubbed, milk-and-bran-fed, white prize Windsor pig would curl his dainty snout were he condemned to pass a single night in the crazy, breezy hovel in which the individuals who have earned for themselves such unenviable notoriety are born, are bred, and pass their lives. To be sure, the premises in question give shelter to pigs as well as people; but they are pigs of a bad sort—unhappy animals which have had constantly before their eyes the villainous example their owners and fellow-lodgers have set; and therefore it cannot be expected that they should be so delicate in their tastes as pigs more fortunately circumstanced. 

The savages of North Devon are by no means shy. The threshold of their abode, although not exactly on the highway path, is not so far removed therefrom that it would not be quite easy for the passer-by to pitch a penny piece into any one of the yawning holes in the wall or roof, partly mended with wisps of filthy straw. The building is not large, and it is difficult to decide whether it was originally a farm-house, a granary, or merely a cow-house. It is perhaps forty feet long by twenty-five feet wide; its walls are apparently a mixture of lime, mud, and pebbles, and very thick; and the thatched roof is surmounted by a wide-mouthed chimney partly blown down. The front of the hovel may be made out with tolerable distinctness from the road. There are several apertures, designed and accidental; but the main opening, which I suppose is designated by a window, is a jagged hole about seven feet high and five wide, 

into which, by way of window blind, ragged bundles of straw are piled. 

This was the inviting domicile for which I was bound; and the closer I approached, the more vividly rose to my mind the current stories of its redoubtable inhabitants—of the eldest son, the lawless villain with a gun who, on the smallest provocation, or none at all, would let fly at a peaceful neighbour; of the shock-headed amazons, who, from concealed parts of the premises, hurled bricks and other unpleasant missiles at strangers. I thought, too, of the offensive farmer who, guilty of no crime more grave than that of looking over the fence behind which these savages dwelt, was set on and so terribly cut and mauled, that, in the words of the local guide book, "he bears the marks of his barbarous treatment to this day." 

There was a gate—a five-barred gate—with its posts rotten and sunk all aslant in the ground; and between it and the "house" such a quagmire of black mud, that it looked more like a pitfall for the inquisitive and incautious than a path to be trodden by visitors. Besides this, it was a gate with a curious crook for a fastening; and, one way and another, I deemed it advisable to make my presence known before I proceeded any farther. I shook the gate and rattled on it with my stick; and from amid the bundles of straw I have mentioned as piled in the great jagged hole at the front of the premises was protruded what, in consequence of the hair growing over the eyes, could be recognised as a human head only by the open mouth and remarkably white teeth. The eyes in the head having from behind its covert of thick hair, contemplated me for some little time, the head was withdrawn, and one of a larger size filled its place—a female head this time, with a face tolerably clean, and a pair of cheeks rosy as any Devonshire milkmaids; a "devil" of a face all the same, with high cheekbones and a retreating forehead, and eyes deeply set in their orbits. 

Like the first inquisitor, this one had, as I believe most savages have, a splendid set of teeth, but, oh! the voice that proceeded from between them. 

"Well, what is it?" It was the voice of a full chested "navvy", grown hoarse through long toil in tunnels and deep railway cuttings. 

"Well, what is it?" 

"Have you got a drink of water to give to a thirsty man?" 

She did not say she had not, nor did she say that she had. She appeared undecided on the matter; and I thought it a good opportunity for unhitching the gate-fastening, and walking in—slush, plash—through twenty yards of mud that covered my boot-tops. Then I had a fair view of the savage interior through the opening before-mentioned. 

A mud floor, walls black as soot, and full of chinks as a child's dissecting puzzle with the bits wrongly placed together; and overhead the roof, through which protruded faggot-sticks and smoke-dried blades of straw that had dropped through holes in the rotten ceiling above. The depth of the place might have equalled that of an ordinary dwelling-house; and through a great gap at the farther end, partly curtained with a piece of frowsy red baize, came a breeze that bore on its wings a strong odour of pigs and their favourite food. The porkers, however, were not yet in sight. The visible living creatures within the shanty, besides half-a-dozen cocks and hens and a duck or two, were seven human beings—an old woman, three young women, a girl of about twelve, a boy of about fourteen, and a baby. 

There was not a single article of what could be called furniture to be seen—neither chair, nor stool, nor table. Ranged against the wall to the right was a long rough-hewn bench, and above it was slung a shelf on which were stacked a few odd bits of crockery, five or six yellow quart basins, and an old earthenware foot-bath patched and tied round with string, which, since a ladle reposed in it, and the idea of feet-washing among such a community was simply ridiculous, I presume was the family soup tureen. On the bench were a pile of onions, a monstrous loaf or two of hearth-baked bread, a battered tin pail three parts filled with milk, a ragged old saddle, and some jars and bottles containing apparently medicine for cattle. 

There was no fire-place; but a ruddy glow smouldered from a hole in the floor of the earth, and over it, by an iron chain, a cooking pot was suspended. Round about the fiery pit hole, squatted on their hams, were two of the young women and the younger girl ; while the fourteen-year-old lad was prone on his belly among the ashes, with his hideously dirty face resting on his infinitely dirtier hands, and his keen eyes twinkling through his matted hair. They all wore clothes of a sort, and the young women had shining eardrops hanging from their ears. I renewed my application for a drink of water, and, emboldened by the fact that no savage of mankind appeared, accompanied the request with a second—"Might I get a light for my pipe at the fire?" 

A general stare, and a rumble of masculine laughter on the part of the damsels by the fire-hole, were the only immediate response; so, seeing no other way in, I stepped round to the back of the hovel, and putting aside the red baize curtain, walked in. The pigs were a sight obstruction. An enormous black sow, with monstrous flapping ears and an iron ring through her snout, was sprawling in what, from its recognised relation to the rest of the building, might be designated the back parlour ; while nine or ten little piglings, as fierce-looking as herself were eagerly besetting her for natural nutriment. This impediment overcome there was nothing to bar my way to the fire. 

Bad as they may be, these North Devon barbarians—bestial, filthy, and inexpressibly vicious—they at least exhibited towards me, a chance visitor and complete stranger, an amount of hospitality that smote my conscience hard when I reflected how little I deserved it. A damsel of the tribe, aged apparently about twenty, with thick clouted boots on her feet like those of a maltster, and a white rag bound about her muscular jaws, caught up an antique pot or piggin of red clay, capable of holding, I should say, a  couple of gallons. This she took out, and brought it back full. Then she got a little jug and half filled it with water out of another vessel, filled it up with milk, and presented it to me with the polite observation that " she wished as how it was cider, but they were quite out of it." 

"You're a stranger? " said she, interrogatively. 

I nodded. 

"Don't know the passen (parson), or any of them in these parts?"

"No; shouldn't know them if I saw them."

"There, I told thee so," said she, turning to the others; whereon, as though it was the constant recreation of their lives, and my entry had interrupted it, there arose a family chorus of the foulest abuse and cursing, directed against "passen" and all his friends, that might have made my blood run cold, only that I was stooping over the red-hot chumps and sticks to get a light for my pipe. 

"Parson a bad sort?" I ventured to enquire. 

"A reg'ler old ——," spoke the young gentleman in the ashes, deftly picking up a stick with his toes, and thrusting it into the fire; "that's what I'd like to do wi' passen," a sentiment which was highly applauded by the rest, one of the girls adding, in far more idiomatic language than I dare use, that she would like to perform upon the gentleman in question the operation of disemboweling.

"He don't come here very often, I'll wager," I remarked, wickedly joining in the hideous laughter. This crowned the joke. Come there! "Passen" come here! The little villain in the ashes was so tickled that he almost stood on his head, his mahogany-coloured legs writhing convulsively in the air; while a comely squaw of thirty, who as she sat in the dirt was engaged in patching an old pair of corduroy trousers with some twine and a carpet needle, flung aside her work to grasp her sides, they ached so with laughter. 

"You're a droll 'un," exclaimed the old woman, grinning till she showed her toothless gums. "Passen come here! ho! ho! Gi' he some more milk, Lisa." 

"I suppose the old fellow is too wide awake to chance it," was my next irreverent remark, for which I humbly beseech the clergyman's forgiveness. 

"He ain't old, him; he's young enough to take a young wife," returned the female savage, named Lisa. "He got married a bit ago, and come up with his—(it was a mercy that the villainous epithet she applied to the bride did not sear her heathen throat)—and we all of us went to the gate to gi' 'em a warmin'. Ha! ha! ho! ho! She won't forget us more'n passen will. It'll make him hotter agin us than ever, —— his carcase!"

I wanted to prolong my stay a little, so looked about for an excuse; and at that very moment the baby which the old woman was nursing thrust its little face forward, and presented a convenient, though at the same time an appalling, pretext for talk. It was a ghastly contrast, that between the nurse and the child. The former was a creature wrinkled gray, and hideously dirty, but still with some tigerish light in her deep-set eyes, which, combined with her flat, backward-slanting forehead, and her hard-set thin lips, betokened the constitutional inclination to vice that tempted her to the dreadful path she had entered forty years ago, and which still sustained her in that path unashamed and dauntless. This was the female founder of the savage tribe by which she was now surrounded, and her arms held the last fruit of the inhuman stock—a five months old, as I was informed; but there were more than as many years of suffering in its poor little yellow, pinched face, its weak watery eyes that blinked shyly at the light, its frothed lips, and the sickening sores that disfigured it.

"Does the doctor come and see it?" I asked.

"He don't come here, he'd be afear'd; nobody comes here;" the old hag replied, with an ugly grin. "I takes it to the doctor, but he don't do it any good; and I ain't goin' to stand his humbuggin' any longer. It's been like it ever since it was born; the biles come up on it, and they break and leave sores. Look here." As she spoke, she turned the helpless infant savage over, and showed me its neck and shoulders; and glad indeed was I to escape from the sight on pretence that my pipe had gone out again, giving me an excuse for turning towards the fire. There was another baby somewhere—I had learned that previously—and some allusion was made to it by a member of the family; but I could not see it anywhere, and I did not care to appear too curious. I did not like even to ask to which of the three strapping wenches present the poor little horror belonged.

And here I have to touch on the most repulsive and scandalous feature that distinguishes the North Devon haunt of savagery and its occupants. The facts are simply these: Here is a man Cheriton by name —who takes a woman as his mate; and the pair agree to defy decency and goodness in any shape for the remainder of their lives, and "to do as they like." The den they inhabit at the present time is that in which more than forty years ago they first took residence. They can afford to keep aloof from their neighbours, their homestead being surrounded by about forty acres of good land, their own freehold. In the natural course of events, they have children; their daughters grow up and have children, and the latter in turn grow up and become mothers; but no one ever yet heard of a marriage in that awful family, or ever knew any male stranger to be on visiting terms with it. The only adults of the masculine sex ever heard of in relationship with the Cheritons are the old man, Christopher; his eldest son Willie, aged thirty-five or so; and the fourteen-year-old youth I have already mentioned. 

They decline communication with the world outside the boundary hedges of their estate. Accidental encounters with civilized beings are invariably accompanied by conflict, physical or verbal. No one knows when a child is about to be born in this mysterious settlement, for they dispense with the service of a doctor and nurse each other. No one knows to whom a child belongs when it is born, nor are the neighbours usually aware of the fact until by chance some one gets a glimpse of the infant two or three months afterwards. Supposing the members of this awful tribe to be so inclined, they might dispose of their infant dead and nobody would be the wiser. The horrible suspicion is, that they herd together like brutes of the field, and breed like them. 

Thus saith rumour; and my personal observation enabled me to gather what may be regarded as corroborative evidence in support of much of it. The ground-floor of the hovel is at once the living-place, the cooking-place, the pig-stye, and the sleeping-place. As I have mentioned, not a single 

article of furniture is contained within it; there is not even a bedstead. The family bed, on which repose savage old Christopher, Willie his middle-aged son, the old woman, the three strapping daughters, the big boy and the big girl, and the smaller fry, including the horrifying baby or babies, consists of an accumulation of foul straw, enclosed within rough-hewn posts driven into the earth. 

It has been said that the tribe sleep in a pit;. but if so, the pit has become filled in with fresh "layers" till now it is raised nearly two feet above the level of the ground. The bed space is about that of the floor of a country waggon, and in or about it not a vestige of sheet, or rug, or blanket was visible, thus there seems no choice but to suppose that they burrow in the straw like rats or ferrets, and so keep themselves warm. 

That they are more decent in their behaviour than they used to be, is allowed by very good authority in Nymet Rowland. I was informed by a gentleman whose extensive estate joins that of the savages, that not more than two years since, it was quite common to see dreadful old Christopher sunning himself at noon, with nothing but a wisp of dirty rag slung round his waist, his body being otherwise perfectly naked, except for the dirt that begrimed it; while the daughters, grown women and mothers, thought nothing of attending to their daily farm duties, clad airily in a single garment of calico. 

The most incomprehensible part of the business is, that the Devon authorities, who have effected a partial reform, are not strong enough entirely to wipe the disgrace from their country. If the horrors proved, and the dreadful suspicions whispered, came to civilised ears concerning some benighted tribe at the Gaboon or Tierra del Fuego, every community of Christians, with missionary power at its disposal, would be roused to immediate action, and the whole religious world thrown into a state of commotion, until the happy day when it was announced that the barbarians had been brought to acknowledge the iniquity of their ways, and had given substantial security against longer continuance in them. But Nymet Rowland is not in a savage land. It is in the heart of fruitful Devon. You may take a railway ticket at Waterloo Station at noon, and arrive at Nymet Rowland in time to see grandmamma savage slinging the iron pot over the fire-hole to brew tea for the evening meal. 

Whoever sets about the task of converting the savages of North Devon should, however, be thoroughly surprised of the attending difficulties. He should be a man accustomed to barbarians in grain, to their manners and customs—a Moffat, a Livingstone, or a Williams. Savagery is in the blood of the Cheritons. It is a fact that a brother of the present old Christopher Cheriton, Elias by name, was even more strongly tainted than the latter with the family malady; but by some merciful dispensation of Providence, he lived and died a bachelor. Elias Cheriton resided at Whitsone [Whitestone], which is not very many miles from Nymet Rowland. Like Christopher, Elias was freeholder of land to some extent; but unlike him he had not a house or a hut to live in. He lived in a cask, with a few rags and some straw, just like a make-shift mastiff-kennel. The cask was placed under a hedge that skirted one of his own broad meadows: and it was his serious declaration that there was nothing on earth so handy as a tub to live in because one could shift it about according to the quarter, from which the wind blew.

Elias, however, though he neglected his land, was famous for rearing poultry—making caves and breeding-places for them in the earth all round about the spot where his gipsy kettle was slung, and where he sometimes cooked the meat he ate; and when he died, which is no more than two years back, 

he was able to leave to his dear brother Christopher between three and four hundred pounds. Of the five-and-thirty or forty acres owned by the Cheriton savages, not a fifth part is under cultivation; it being their practice to grow no more than suffices for their personal consumption, and that only in the way of potatoes and cabbages, and a little wheat which they dry and grind for themselves. They breed a few sheep—a mere dozen or so. They hire no labourers, the whole family engaging in the necessary field-work; the females helping at the plough, assisted by an old horse and a bull. 

The animal I have just mentioned was out of work when I saw him, and taking his ease in a field; but, as though determined that all their belongings should be in keeping with their savage selves—the horned brute has the reputation of being the most vicious and dangerous bull in the county. The only way of getting him to work yoked with the old horse is to envelop his head and shoulders in a sack; and even then he needs to be pretty sharply watched, lest in his blind malice he should wickedly prod his equine comrade through his sackcloth hood. They are proud of their bull, those wild Devonians. He has never slept under cover since his calfhood, one of the damsels informed me; and she showed me out in the open the tree to which the creature was tethered at nights, all withered and barren in consequence 

of the bull's fierce assaults on its bark, which was gored and torn all away. 

"They'll be home with him presently," said old grandmother savage, who sat rocking the awful baby that was squeaking like a snared rabbit.

"Who will be home with him?" I asked.

"My old man and Willie," she replied.

Willie was the young fellow who had nearly smashed the unoffending farmer; so, inwardly thanking her for the timely hint, I bade the interesting family good-morning, made for the five-barred gate that grew out of the black mud, and sought the sweet highway.

Further reading

A Family of Savages in Devonshire. Reprinted from the Daily Telegraph by the North Otago Times, 26 January 1872. James Greenwood's original article.

Baring-Gould, Sabine. An Old English Home and its dependencies. London, Methuen, 1898.

Christie, Peter. The True Story of the North Devon Savages. Transactions of the Devonshire Association, Vol. 124 p.59-85. Exeter: Devonshire Association, 1992.

Girvan, Ray. The North Devon Savages. JSBlog - Journal of a Southern Bookreader, 2009 [online]

The North Devon Savages. Devon Perspectives, n.d. [online]

Heard, Nick. The Story of Ellen Wright. A Criminal Past, 2018. References to the photographs of Upcott.

 From the Luton Times and Advertiser - Friday 28 January 1916

A Nurse's Terrible Journey in Serbia

Leighton Lady’s Experiences

Edith Dickinson outside her tent in Belgium, 1915

Miss Edith Dickinson, a daughter of Mrs. Dickinson, of Heath-road, Leighton Buzzard, was one of the party of British doctors and nurses which accompanied the Serbian Army in its retreat, and her dreadful experiences form a long story of terrible hardships.

Miss Dickinson arrived in England few days ago, and, being blest with a good constitution, the rest that she intends to take should leave her little the worse for what she has been through, but the horrors that daily accompanied the retreat are indelibly engraved upon her memory.

Miss Hilda May Dickinson (a sister) who is now engaged in Belgian Relief work in London, was with her sister doing Red Cross work in Belgium when the invasion was at its height.

From Miss Dickinson's story in the Leighton Observer, we gather that the fall of Belgrade marked the opening of what proved to several days terrible hardships. After reciting a vain attempt to leave by railway for Salonika, the line having been torn up, she says:

After proceeding some distance farther by motor car this also had to left and the journey continued on foot. Waggons drawn by oxen and containing stores also had to be abandoned until the party had nothing beyond what they carried and what clothing they stood up in. The Austro-German army was then only a few miles away, and their big guns were action.

The route that was eventually decided upon was an uneven, muddy track, and along this trudged groups of many thousands of grief-stricken refugees, and the remains of the Serbian army. On the way the party had to pass numerous dead horses and cattle which had figured in the earlier stages of the retreat, and been abandoned by the refugees. The dead bodies of human beings also lay by the roadside half-covered by snow.

With these sights an all too frequent occurrence the sorrowful procession wended its way over the mountains for ten days. Piercing blizzards and rain storms beat down upon the party unmercifully, and the wonder is that the toll of death and disease numbered so few among its victims.

At one stage in the journey the strain proved too much for Miss Holland (a nurse associated with Miss Dickinson), and she undoubtedly owed her life to that lady who, although herself weak, was able to support her companion over a great stretch the journey.

At night tents were pitched in the snow, and into these the exhausted refugees flung themselves to sleep. Sometimes rest houses—small wooden buildings—were used, and into these the people flocked, glad of the opportunity to lie on the floor.

The track was altogether too dangerous go along night, for in some places the "road" was little more than a narrow ledge on the mountain side, and on more than one occasion vehicles were precipitated over the edge, and fell a distance of many feet throwing out and either killing or injuring those who happened to inside. The toll of death in this way included one of the nurses, a Scottish lady.

The food supply was very limited and rations had served out gradually diminishing quantities. The prisoners who accompanied the party received food as far possible. On many occasions these prisoners, who were Bulgarians and Austrians, had nothing to eat, and many died of sheer starvation. Miss Dickinson saw officers high rank in the Austrian army pick cabbage stalks that had been dropped by the others, and bite at them ravenously.

In the matter of food, the hospital party itself was better off than the great bulk the refugees, although the only bread they had was black bread and maize bread. The party had fortunately retained some of the hospital stores, of which Bovril and condensed milk came in very handy. For some days, however, they had nothing to eat but a little bread and some Bovril, and when a nurse discovered a tin of margarine and divided it, everyone who was fortunate enough to share it said it was delicious.

The cold grew intense as the party got high up into the mountains. In many places they had to wade through streams owing to the bridges being broken, and there was no chance drying the clothes, which froze on the wearers and became stiff as boards. In this respect some of the lady nurses came off worse than others, as they were attired in light summer dresses, and were wearing shoes totally unfit for such a journey. Miss Dickinson had the good fortune to be provided with breeches and top boots, for which she was very thankful. The track was frequently knee deep in mud and slush, and hard and slippery with a temperature of nearly 40 degrees of frost.

Two of the mountains the party had to ascend were 8,400 and 7,600 feet high respectively. Upon descending on the Adriatic side the atmosphere became warmer, however, and relieved the sufferings some what.

The hospital party sailed across the lake of Scutari, and a farther tramp of two days enabled them to reach San Giovanni di Medua [Shëngjin]. Their dangers had not ceased here, for they were told that the Austrian Army was on the move, and that unless they embarked on a small Italian vessel which had arrived with food for the Serbian Army, for Brindisi, they might have to remain. It was decided to risk the journey, and 300 people were packed into the vessel, which had to combat heavy seas, and many of the voyagers fell ill.

The party presented a sorrowful spectacle arrival at Brindisi, and there was difficulty in getting sufficiently into the authorities’ good books to be allowed to land. "In fact," says Miss Dickinson, "we looked simply wretched. Most of were ragged, muddy and dirty, not having been in a bath for weeks. On top of this they were distressingly thin, and our feet were showing through our boots."

The party entrained at Brindisi for Paris, and thence Havre and England.