The Reades' ministry: Blackgang and Punrooty

Another Blackgang, Isle of Wight, story: "Mr. Charles Reid, at Blackgang, in the Isle of Wight, is indefatigable in calling the sinner to sobriety.” notes the author of Drink: the Vice and the Disease, in the October 1875 London Quarterly Review. This one-liner spins off into an unusual saga of 19th century missionary activity by unlikely people in unlikely places.

Mrs. Disney Leith: bibliography

Another annotated bibliography with an Isle of Wight connection: Mrs. Disney Leith is one of the several names in the literature for the Scottish author Mary Charlotte Julia Leith (née Gordon, 1840-1926) a.k.a. Mary Gordon a.k.a. "M. C. J. L." a.k.a. Mary Leith. Her chief route into history is as the first cousin of the poet Swinburne, who she corresponded with, and later recalled in memoirs.

Shanklin Home of Rest

Further to the previous post, I checked out Shanklin Home of Rest as planned. Its history turns out to be quite well-documented. But I'm always of the opinion that there's never any harm in another take on a topic - especially as this, it turns out, ties in with a previous Shanklin post on JSBlog.

Letts lineage: a clarification

Another loose end from previous posts. I've mentioned the long-disappeared Southview, Blackgang, several times, along with its connection with Thomas Letts (see Letts, a relic). However, a skim of commentary on the topic still finds some doubt as to whether Letts was the founder of the diary company, and a factoid or two being propagated. The trail leads also to a professor's fatal accident in Ventnor.

The A'Court Smiths of Gurnard: fossil insects and pedestrianism

After reading about the appalling Thomas Hawkins, the story of Mr A'Court Smith of Gurnard makes a refreshing contrast. He was a fossil collector also with Isle of Wight connections, but of very different temperament. The Athenaeum magazine commemorated his death in 1900 thus:

The Great Sea Dragons and other weirdness

"Ow, me neck!"

Lyme Regis Museum Blog just announced what looks an interesting talk by Stephen Locke at Woodmead Halls, Lyme Regis, on Thursday: Thomas Hawkins and his Sea Dragons – a mad, bad, fossil collector? I can't get there that day, but the name rang a bell. I knew Hawkins was buried in Ventnor, Isle of Wight (see the God's Acre photo post Thomas Hawkins 1810-1889), but had never bothered to pursue his details.

Mount Misery

Mount Misery is another interesting topographical poem from the 1860 The Vecta Garland, and Isle of Wight souvenir. A number of locations have this name: notably the highest points of St Kitts (renamed Mount Liamuiga on its independence in 1983) and of West Point Island in the Falklands). Midlane's Mount Misery, however, is—or rather was—only a mile and a half north-east of Newport.

The timeline of Chad's Rock

Another post inspired by the interesting category History of Blank, Missing and Empty Things at John Ptak's blog Ptak Science Books: the fate of "Chad's Rock" (aka Chad Rock), a picturesque monolith on the Isle of Wight Undercliff that regularly appears in paintings and photos of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but which no longer exists.

The Kestyns of Cather Castle

Further to the brief comment in Carisbrooke Castle #1, I just checked out Robey F Eldridge's 1897 The Kestyns of Cather Castle, a novel by an Isle of Wight author, which turns out to be available as a PDF from the British Library.

The lucky escape of Kerenhappuch Newnham

Parachute Petticoat trope

A steep flight of steps scales the cliffs, along which the pedestrian may proceed, and from which he can get a very extended view; but he will have to be careful, as not long since a girl, named Karanheippuck [sic] Newnham, was blown from the cliff, but her clothes, becoming inflated, broke her fall, and she alighted unhurt on the shore below, and was afterwards known as "Happie Ninham."

Lowcliffe and Southlands: from cradle to grave

I've touched on this topic a couple of times before, but I just found in Isle of Wight County Press Archive an editorial that's quite enlightening about the fate of Lowcliff (aka Lowcliffe aka Lowecliffe) and Southlands, two villas built in the 1800s on the unstable cliff terraces near Blackgang, Isle of Wight.

Micah Morey's Cave

John Ptak's blog Ptak Science Books has a very useful category - "History of Blank, Missing and Empty Things"- and this handily covers a now-lost Isle of Wight cave connected with a grim story.

Milne-Shaw

A recent post at the Ptak Science Books weblog - On the Continued Rediscovery of the Horizontal Pendulum - leads into an interesting backstory with roots in Birmingham, Japan, and the Isle of Wight.

Harriet Parr in Shanklin

I've just been reading about another now-unsung Victorian female novelist, Harriet Parr (1828-1900), who wrote under the pseudonym Holme Lee. Although Yorkshire-born, she spent the latter half of her life in Shanklin, Isle of Wight, which appears in some of her works.

Alma Lee found

A fascinating development arising from the Isle of Wight County Press feature on A Wren-like Note: a correspondent has sent me a clear identification of the original for the wronged coachman's daughter Alma Lee, a central character in Maxwell Gray's 1886 The Silence of Dean Maitland.

Spindler's list

Sorry, more DWM - but I just found out more about the career of William Spindler, the German industrialist who figures large in the Isle of Wight Undercliff's 19th century social circuit. Ventnor was the final destination of a far darker story of the dangerous political climate of Bismarck's Germany.

A Wren-like Note: IWCP piece

I'm very pleased to see that the Isle of Wight County Press, after a few months' delay, just ran a piece on A Wren-like Note: "Secret life of a Victorian novelist" (Richard Wright, IWCP, 11 Apr 2014, Weekender section, p7).

Sandrock Spring: quaffing the lymph

Further to The Sandrock Chalybeate Spring, I just found these excessively erudite verse testimonials to its medicinal properties, courtesy Isle of Wight County Press Archive.

The Sandrock Chalybeate Spring

Another example where John Ptak's blog Ptak Science Books category - "History of Blank, Missing and Empty Things" - is applicable: the Sandrock Chalybeate Spring, Isle of Wight.