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davywavyDue to a succession of circumstances this weekend I found myself unexpectedly in the small Gloucestershire town of Berkeley, just south of the Bristol channel, with an hour or two to burn. This wasn't what I'd expected from the weekend - in fact I'd never even heard of Berkeley before I arrived there - but I wasn't put out by this. I often find the most interesting way to travel and explore is to show up at places in a fairly random manner and see what is to be seen, and in this Berkeley didn't disappoint because - like so many places in Britain - just because you've never heard of it doesn't mean the town is simply cluttered with the sort of history which other nations would make a big deal of and the British just look at in a weary way as if to say "God, not more history. Where the bloody heck are we going to put it?".
Being on the borders with Wales, the town was a seat of one of the powerful Marcher lords during the middle ages, and it was there, in Berkeley Castle on the outskirts of town, that on the 21st of September 1327 King Edward II famously - and literally - came to a sticky end. Obviously a bit of history like that had to be my first port of call and so I wandered down to the castle in the hopes they'd have a commemorative display (possibly animatronic) or even better an interactive 'Death of King Edward experience' where you got to hold the poker and assail an appropriately positioned dummy.
Alas, it wasn't to be. The Castle was shut for the day for an event called the 'Berkeley Skirmish'; a medieval re-enactment fair with knights and jousting and hog roasts and entertainingly-dressed mummers with lutes saying hey nonny nonny in a manner designed to give me the red mist. The sign on the gate said that adult entry to the Skirmish was £12. I looked at my watch. I had - at best - half an hour inside if I wanted time to explore the rest of the town and twelve nicker struck me as bit much for half an hour of entertainment, so I did what any self-respecting gentleman would do under the circumstances: I walked round the back of the castle, cut across a field, and climbed over the fence.
The Skirmish was actually rather bigger than I expected. There were dozens of plate-clad knights in a mass melee, with obvious heroes and villains hamming it up for the crowd. There were stands showing medieval crafts and displays of life. There were people in period costume. There were a couple of replica early cannon and hundguns, some falconry displays, tapestries, and several lute-strumming mummers singing hey nonny nonny who I made an effort to get alone behind a pavilion with a mace and chain.
Still, I couldn't hang about. There was the rest of the town to glance over and time was moving on. I wandered back up to the town centre (pausing to note that it was a very pleasant place - no chain stores and instead all the shops seemed to be small local affairs run by small local people*) and set off up the hill to the other place of historical note: A museum dedicated to Dr. Edward Jenner who, it turned out, had lived in the town.
Most people have heard of Jenner. He gets taught in school a lot, but in case you haven't, Jenner is a famous chap in the history of medicine as it was him who came up with the idea of innoculating people against smallpox using the less serious but related disease of cowpox. From this idea has grown the idea of innoculation against other diseases, and the museum describes Jenner as the man whose work saved more live than any other. With the possible exception of Alexander Fleming, this statement is probably true - Jenner was an enthusiastic proponent of innoculation and travelled widely, speaking about his discovery and demonstrating despite an initially hostile and mocking reaction from the medical establishment and the press (contemporary cartoons show people injected by Jenner turning into cows or having cows bursting out of their skin). However, in time his contribution was recognised and the Royal Society gave him a medal and a reward of £20,000 - a staggering sum at the time. To give an example of the contemporary value of £20,000, it was roughly similar to what the admiralty would budget to build a new major warship.
In the light of his fame, his position in history, and the rewards showered upon him in life, there is only one problem with this story. Jenner didn't invent innoculation at all. It was someone else entirely.
A few years ago I was at an exhibition of portraiture and I happened across a picture of a porty, red-faced regency man in a red jacket. He had an open but worried expression and a faint smile, which struck me as unusual. Portraits of people from the regency period tend to have a plump, placid, relaxed expression which say the owner knows they're a member of a nation which is doing all kinds of interesting things - conquering the world, having an industrial revolution, making daily scientific breakthroughs, that sort of thing - and although they're not directly part of any of that themself, they're jolly pleased about it and glad not to be, you know, foreign.
This fellow's expression was different. He just looked a bit taken aback by the painter's attention and like he hoped he could stop posing soon. He looked a tremendously nice man and I liked him immediately, so I took the time to find out who he was.
He turned out to be Dorsetshire farmer by the name of William Jesty who, 22 years before Jenner had received all kinds of laurels for discovering you could prevent smallpox with innoculation, had noticed that farmhands who handled cows with the pox didn't get smallpox and so had innoculated himself, his family and servants. Then, presumably reasoning that saving his family from a hideous, crippling and often fatal diseasewas reward enough, he didn't make much more of it until a few years later a local doctor by the name of Jenner heard what he'd done, tried it himself, and went on to fame and fortune.
Several years after Jenner had been given his medal and wad of notes someone pointed out to the Royal Society they'd credited the discovery to the wrong man, and they invited Jesty up to London. They didn't give him any medals or rewards, as £20,000 is a fair amount and once was enough as far as the society was concerned, but they did shake him warmly by the hand, have his portrait painted, and give him the bus fare home.
And if there's a lesson to be learned from that, it's that if you want to make a fortune chances are you're better off being a salesman than an inventor.
*People in the South-West tend to be quite short, but they make up for it in alcohol consumption.
Being on the borders with Wales, the town was a seat of one of the powerful Marcher lords during the middle ages, and it was there, in Berkeley Castle on the outskirts of town, that on the 21st of September 1327 King Edward II famously - and literally - came to a sticky end. Obviously a bit of history like that had to be my first port of call and so I wandered down to the castle in the hopes they'd have a commemorative display (possibly animatronic) or even better an interactive 'Death of King Edward experience' where you got to hold the poker and assail an appropriately positioned dummy.
Alas, it wasn't to be. The Castle was shut for the day for an event called the 'Berkeley Skirmish'; a medieval re-enactment fair with knights and jousting and hog roasts and entertainingly-dressed mummers with lutes saying hey nonny nonny in a manner designed to give me the red mist. The sign on the gate said that adult entry to the Skirmish was £12. I looked at my watch. I had - at best - half an hour inside if I wanted time to explore the rest of the town and twelve nicker struck me as bit much for half an hour of entertainment, so I did what any self-respecting gentleman would do under the circumstances: I walked round the back of the castle, cut across a field, and climbed over the fence.
The Skirmish was actually rather bigger than I expected. There were dozens of plate-clad knights in a mass melee, with obvious heroes and villains hamming it up for the crowd. There were stands showing medieval crafts and displays of life. There were people in period costume. There were a couple of replica early cannon and hundguns, some falconry displays, tapestries, and several lute-strumming mummers singing hey nonny nonny who I made an effort to get alone behind a pavilion with a mace and chain.
Still, I couldn't hang about. There was the rest of the town to glance over and time was moving on. I wandered back up to the town centre (pausing to note that it was a very pleasant place - no chain stores and instead all the shops seemed to be small local affairs run by small local people*) and set off up the hill to the other place of historical note: A museum dedicated to Dr. Edward Jenner who, it turned out, had lived in the town.
Most people have heard of Jenner. He gets taught in school a lot, but in case you haven't, Jenner is a famous chap in the history of medicine as it was him who came up with the idea of innoculating people against smallpox using the less serious but related disease of cowpox. From this idea has grown the idea of innoculation against other diseases, and the museum describes Jenner as the man whose work saved more live than any other. With the possible exception of Alexander Fleming, this statement is probably true - Jenner was an enthusiastic proponent of innoculation and travelled widely, speaking about his discovery and demonstrating despite an initially hostile and mocking reaction from the medical establishment and the press (contemporary cartoons show people injected by Jenner turning into cows or having cows bursting out of their skin). However, in time his contribution was recognised and the Royal Society gave him a medal and a reward of £20,000 - a staggering sum at the time. To give an example of the contemporary value of £20,000, it was roughly similar to what the admiralty would budget to build a new major warship.
In the light of his fame, his position in history, and the rewards showered upon him in life, there is only one problem with this story. Jenner didn't invent innoculation at all. It was someone else entirely.
A few years ago I was at an exhibition of portraiture and I happened across a picture of a porty, red-faced regency man in a red jacket. He had an open but worried expression and a faint smile, which struck me as unusual. Portraits of people from the regency period tend to have a plump, placid, relaxed expression which say the owner knows they're a member of a nation which is doing all kinds of interesting things - conquering the world, having an industrial revolution, making daily scientific breakthroughs, that sort of thing - and although they're not directly part of any of that themself, they're jolly pleased about it and glad not to be, you know, foreign.
This fellow's expression was different. He just looked a bit taken aback by the painter's attention and like he hoped he could stop posing soon. He looked a tremendously nice man and I liked him immediately, so I took the time to find out who he was.
He turned out to be Dorsetshire farmer by the name of William Jesty who, 22 years before Jenner had received all kinds of laurels for discovering you could prevent smallpox with innoculation, had noticed that farmhands who handled cows with the pox didn't get smallpox and so had innoculated himself, his family and servants. Then, presumably reasoning that saving his family from a hideous, crippling and often fatal diseasewas reward enough, he didn't make much more of it until a few years later a local doctor by the name of Jenner heard what he'd done, tried it himself, and went on to fame and fortune.
Several years after Jenner had been given his medal and wad of notes someone pointed out to the Royal Society they'd credited the discovery to the wrong man, and they invited Jesty up to London. They didn't give him any medals or rewards, as £20,000 is a fair amount and once was enough as far as the society was concerned, but they did shake him warmly by the hand, have his portrait painted, and give him the bus fare home.
And if there's a lesson to be learned from that, it's that if you want to make a fortune chances are you're better off being a salesman than an inventor.
*People in the South-West tend to be quite short, but they make up for it in alcohol consumption.
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no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 10:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 10:25 am (UTC)I think the Arab/Indian treatment was to slit your skin and put a pox scab under it, that rings a bell.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 10:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 10:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 11:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 11:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 12:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 12:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 12:21 pm (UTC)Although I'd advise avoiding Somerset and North Devon, a few too many married cousins has hit the genepoll a little hard. Brixham's nice, got a statue of the most important thing to ever happen in England as well. Only important thing to ever happen in Brixham, mind, but...
no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 12:25 pm (UTC)http://davywavy.livejournal.com/425310.html
no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 01:37 pm (UTC)en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_nuclear_power_station
Last I heard, both reactors were entombed in concrete.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-01 01:47 pm (UTC)Outrageous.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-02 08:47 am (UTC)