Easter Revels

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The Stamford Mercury tells us that there were, on Good Friday and Easter Monday, various entertainments provided for the public to suit the respective tastes of the Peterborians, neighbours and visitors. I wondered what these may have been and tried to investigate. Well, on this day - Good Friday - in Peterborough town, the recreation ground was well filled while 'various sports were indulged in'. What these 'various sports' were is not recorded so I'll let your imagination bring these to life. There were also several large tea parties, one of which was held at the Grand Hotel in Wentworth Street - a significant establishment then vying for central Peterborough ascendancy with the Angel just round the corner - while another was at the Drill Hall. One I would like to have attended was the 'monster' tea party at New England. I'm not too sure, though, that I would have liked to have rounded off the day sitting through the lecture by Mr George Goodwin, which was 'remarkably well delivered and much appreciated, there being a fashionable platform and a very good audience in the body of the room'. The Mercury tells of the platform and the audience, but nothing about the lecture. Perhaps the journalist went to sleep!

Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.

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Burial of a Controversial Bishop

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Bishop Herbert Marsh was buried on this day in a prepared vault behind the altar in the 'New Building' part of the cathedral - the last bishop to be buried there. His wife Marianne was buried alongside him eight years later. He had died on May Day, after twenty years as bishop. Referred to by some as an 'enfant terrible', and others as 'the Peterborough Theological Laboratory' - the latter due to his deep knowledge and firmly held beliefs as an 'old-fashioned High Churchman'. He had been the centre of a controversy a few weeks before his death for taking up a political position in Peterborough - but that was nothing new. His obituary in The Gentleman's Magazine referred to his unpopularity: 'His attempts to repress Calvinism in his diocese soon rendered him obnoxious to the evangelical portion of the clergy, and several publications appeared on the subject that were ultimately brought before the House of Lords - but without material result.' Balancing this is a comment in the Stamford Mercury of 24 May 1839, attributed to the cathedral sexton, who supposedly said that 'the Bishop liked his pipe and many hours of the day were spent inhaling Greek and tobacco'. (Carnell, Geoffrey, The Bishops of Peterborough, RJL Smith & Associates, 1993; Jenkins, Eric, Victorian Northamptonshire: The Early Years, Cordelia, 1993) Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.