History of the Johnstones, 1191-1909, with ... - Electric Scotland

2 5 4
EDWARD'S MARRIAGE
of gentlemen in general that Government must look in the present distress for
effectual relief for the country at large." The taxes were enormous, and enough
munitions of war having been collected, and economy being urgent, all Government
orders were stopped for a year in 1800. A wet summer spoilt the harvest,
and no foreign corn was imported. A subscription depot was opened, which
supplied good meat—soup at id. a quart to the poor, who were seen eating
potato peelings picked out of the gutters. In 1799 the poor-rate was levied
sixteen times, but in the terrible winter of 1 800-1 no child born in the working
class in Birmingham is said to have lived. The nobility and gentry came
forward to do their duty. There were liberal distributions of loaves and meat
on different days from the larger houses, including those of the Johnstones, and
George III. set the fashion adopted here of forbidding flour to be used in the
kitchen for any purpose than bread. All kinds of wild fruits and herbs were
suggested for fattening pigs instead of meal. The youth of that day grew up
with an ingrained economy as regarded food. They recollected hearing their
fathers say as they sat down to a meal that they felt as if they could hardly
eat when they thought of the hungry poor. The quartern loaf was 2s. 2d.,
and this state of things prevailed more or less till the battle of Waterloo.
The Inniskilling Dragoons, as well as a battalion of Volunteers, were
quartered in Birmingham throughout the year 1800 for fear of riots, and the
press-gangs were active, for men were too dispirited to enlist voluntarily.
" Working men were always in rags, and guns were being proved morning,
noon, and night. The street posts were made of old cannon, and bread was
a luxury which the country labourer only got on Sunday." This was the
recollection of an old inhabitant of the first twenty years of the nineteenth
century in the great Midland Metropolis. 1
The matrimonial project referred to, rather too soon, in Mrs Montagu's
letter failed or was put off, and Edward Johnstone was thirty-six before he
married Catherine Wearden of Olton Hall, Solihull. By the death of her
parents, and lately of her only sister, Letitia, whose illness had long delayed
the wedding, she was left alone in the world, and through her mother had
inherited the estate of Fulford Hall, in the same parish. This lady, nee Letitia
Holden, was the descendant of Sir Cresswell Levinge 2 (1627-1701), Attorney-
General in 1679, on one side, and on the other of a county family owning considerable
estates in the Midlands. The first of the Levinge family was Archbishop
of Canterbury in 1005, and he crowned King Canute. Sir Walter
Levinge, his collateral descendant, accompanied Richard I. to the Crusades.
1 When statistics were collected in South Staffordshire in 181 5 the male population exceeded
the female by one-third. The compiler supposed that the conditions of life in the
mining districts were too hard for women to support them.
2 His brother spelt the name Levinge and Levinz, so did their father. The Reports Oj
Sir Cresswell Levinz, two volumes published in 1702 in black letter, were republished in 1722
and 1792. He represented the Crown in various trials of supposed Popish plotters in 1677-79.
His uncle, Robert Levinge, was hanged for supplying Charles II. in 1650. His sister was
Maid of Honour to the Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James VI., and some of the thick
brocade dresses she wore, and her travelling chest with the German Custom House mark on
it, still exist.