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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November 1870

Hampshire Telegraph: (agent at Ryde – Mr. THURLOW)

Nov 2nd 1870:  IW RIFLE VOLUNTEERS – On Monday afternoon the Battalion were inspected in the grounds of St. John’s House, Ryde, by Colonel PEEL, Assistant Adjutant-General at Portsmouth.  The weather was anything but favourable to out-of-door exercises.  After noon it apparently settled down for continuous wet and at the time appointed for different corps to meet on the esplanade the downpour was vehement.  Our citizen soldiers, however, proved that they were not merely fair-weather soldiers.

Nov 5th 1870:  TOLLS ON THE PIER – A “Visitor” writes a letter to a London contemporary, in which he protests against the exorbitant charges of the Ryde Pier Company. “I have frequent occasion to visit Ryde, and each time have to submit to be what I have frequently heard called lawfully robbed.  If I have luggage and am unable to walk up the long pier, I am charged 4d. return ticket for the tramway and 2d. off the pier, then 2d. on my return, and also some enormous charge for luggage, bringing the whole up certainly to 1s.6d. This is too much to be obliged to pay in excess of your steamboat fare (1s.6d. return ticket).”

Nov 9th 1870:  ESCAPE OF EMPRESS EUGENIE – We are pleased to announce that Sir John W. BURGOYNE, Bart., has commissioned our neighbour, Mr. A. W. FOWLES, of George-street, to paint him a representation of the passage of the gallant little cutter yacht, the Gazelle, from Geauville, near Trouville, to Ryde, with the Empress on board, in the early part of September last.  The Gazelle is struggling against a fierce north-west gale, under closely reefed canvas, and with the sea breaking over her.

Nov 9th 1870:  FAREWELL – On Monday evening a number of Mr. CONDUIT’s friends invited him to a farewell dinner at the York Hotel.  After the cloth had been removed Mr. GABELL took the chair, and a convivial evening was passed.  Regret was felt at the loss the town would sustain by the departure from among us of Mr. and Mrs. CONDUIT, and of Mr. Owen CONDUIT, and good wishes for their prosperity in their new home were expressed.  There was a presentation of a purse of gold.  Mr. and Mrs. CONDUIT and family left Ryde on Wednesday, and will sail for Sydney from Milwall in the course of the coming week.

Nov 12th 1870:  NEW CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH – One of the first public duties, if not the very first, which it has fallen to the lot of our new Mayor (Mr. Alderman THURLOW) to perform, has been to head a procession of the corporation to take part in laying the memorial stone of the new structure, which is to supersede the George-street Congregation Church, destroyed by fire on the 29th April last.

Nov 16th 1870: BOROUGH POLICE COURT – On Monday, the license of the Nelson Hotel, Belvidere-street, was transferred by endorsement from Henry MILLER to –- RAYNER.

Nov 26th 1870:  CHUNDER SEN IN INDIA – Those people in England who so recently made their homes hospitable to the Indian Reformer, will receive with pleasure the following account of what Mr. SEN said before the first meeting he had addressed in India since his return. “Whatever the shortcomings and defects of the English may be, I have seen in that country a noble and a generous heart in the root of society.  I do not think there is in any other part of the world such as a sweet English home.  Its sweetness, its purity must command our respect.”

Below some of the defects mentioned in Mr. SEN’s full report of his talk in India, all made amongst shrieks of laughter:

All the entanglements of the ladies’ dresses!

The horrid crinoline, would you not be amused? Spare us the horrid thing.

To eat and drink in the English way?  It is barbarous, a vegetarian in the midst of carnivorous England!

To see the horrors of the meat market in London, the people of India would never send their children to England.

I was invited to dinner parties. The dining-room was more like a zoological garden. Fowl of the air, and Beasts of the wilderness, Fishes of the sea, and creeping things laid on the table, I could not say whether they were alive or dead.

I think there ought to be a protest against 2 things – what is called “fashion” the tail of the English ladies’ dress and the horrors of English dinners.