Ryde Social Heritage Group research the social history of the citizens of Ryde, Isle of Wight. Documenting their lives, businesses and burial transcriptions.
RYDE SOCIAL HERITAGE GROUP
Based at Ryde Cemetery Heritage & Learning Centre. Preserving, documenting and promoting the social history of Ryde on the Isle of Wight.
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December 1873

Hampshire Advertiser: – Agent, Mr H. N. MILLS Royal Marine Library, Union-street, Ryde

Dec 3rd 1873:  DISTURBANCE IN CHURCH – Frederick FAIRALL was again brought up before the Borough Police Court on a charge of being unlawfully guilty of riotous and indecent behaviour in the parish church of All Saints, on the evening of the 16th ult.  Evidence having been taken, the defendant was fined 6d. and costs.  Robert DE SA, a companion, was fined 2s.6d. on a similar charge.

Dec 10th 1873:  THE VICAR – The Mayor proposed that the Vicar of Ryde (the Rev. A. POOLE) being a member of the burial board, should be a member of the Burial Committee.  The Cemetery Committee, however, had a report to the effect that it was not desirable that the Vicar should be elected on the committee.  The feeling of the Council appeared to be against the Vicar’s appointment, and the Mayor withdrew his proposition.

Dec 10th 1873:  FATAL CANOE TRIP – A young man named Louis William LANGLANDS, an apprentice in the service of Mr. ARNOLD, watchmaker, of Union-street, having recently had a canoe constructed for him, made his first trial trip on Sunday morning.  He left home about a quarter to 10 o’clock, he embarked from the Eastern Esplanade slipway to make a trip to Portsmouth and back.  In the course of an hour an empty canoe was seen drifting with the current past a cigar ship which is lying off the end of the Pier.  No tidings of the young man have reached Ryde.

Dec 17th 1873:  PRACTICAL JOKE AMONG GHOSTS – As the story goes, a séance was held at a tradesman’s house in Union-street early in last week, and the devout company received a visit through the medium, of the departed spirit of Louis William LANGLANDS, the youth who is supposed to have perished from his canoe on the former Sunday.  The spirit gave a brief account (all ghost’s stories are short) of the fatal accident, and prophesied that his body would rise at 2 o’clock on Thursday, at a certain point near the slipway from where he started, even naming the boatman who would find his remains.  The story was told to one or two outside the circle, and it soon procured wings.  A reward of £10 has been offered for the recovery of the body, and as might have been expected, a great number of boatmen were cruising about on Thursday, but all they got for their pains were the taunting grins of the bystanders.

Dec 20th 1873:  NEW LAMPS – The lamps ordered by the Town Council as substitutes for those belonging to the Gas Company, and hitherto hired by the Council for the benefit of the public, have arrived, and workmen are employed in their erection.  There are rumours, however, that some dispute will arise between the Corporation and the company in reference to the notice served by the former on the latter.

Dec 24th 1873:  EDUCATION – The School Board have appointed Mr. James TAYLOR to the office of master of the board schools in St. John’s-road, instead of Mr. JENKINS (resigned), who has been the master of the establishment for a great number of years.

Dec 24th 1873: LITERARY INSTITUTE – The committee of this institute have decided to obey the behests of the Town Council, and will quit the rooms they now occupy at the Townhall buildings at the end of this quarter.  The institute will now be amalgamated, we hear, with the Young Men’s Christian Association, whose tooms are opposite the Townhall.

Dec 24th 1873: FINE ARTS – On Monday evening the exhibition of fine arts in connection with the Ryde School of Art, of which Mr. Benjamin BARROW is president, was opened in the Townhall with great eclat. The opening was attended by a large number of the gentry of the Island, both rooms being crowded by a most fashionable assemblage.