Wedlock (57 page)

14
Narrative, pp. 25-6.

15
John Scott to Henry Scott, 1 May 1778, in Surtees, William, p. 75.

16
Testimonies of Margaret Garret and Ann Bell in anon,
A full and accurate report of the trial
, pp. 13 and 17.

17
Bacon, vol. 1, p. 285; Blackstone, vol. 1, p. 432. For background on the history of domestic violence see Foyster (2005); and Doggett. Doggett has pointed out that there appears to be no legal case in which Justice Buller made this remark. However, the three cartoons produced by Gillray depicting him as ‘Judge Thumb’ in 1782 make it plain that he did make such a comment, possibly out of court.

18
Judith Noel to Mary Noel (her aunt), 28 June 1778, in Elwin, p. 68.

19
Berry, pp. 120-40. The assembly rooms opened in 1776; ARB is listed in the book of subscribers.

20
Narrative, pp. 33-4.

21
Testimony MEB, 16 December 1784 [in pursuit of Chancery case to regain custody of her children], submitted by ARB in divorce appeal to Delegates: NA, DEL 2/12.

22
Personal accounts of children 1778-9: SPG, box 97, bundle 11.

23
Testimony MEB, 16 December 1784.

24
ARB to anon [William Davis], cited in Foot, p. 63.

25
Evidence Revd Samuel Markham, Consistory Court of London deposition book 1783-90: LMA, DL/C/282.

26
MEB, ‘Copies and Extracts’: SPG, box 243, f. 3. ARB’s abuse of his sister is described here and in Narrative, pp. 26-7.

27
Foot, p. 65. Foot cites a letter from ARB to anon [William Davis], sent on 10 May 1779; the dashes are Foot’s. Stanley House was sold to Lewis or Louis Lochee, who is listed in the Chelsea rates book from March 1780. Rates book, Chelsea, 1775-80, Kensington Library, March 1780.

28
Longrigg, pp. 69-99.

29
Newcastle Chronicle
, 26 July 1777.

30
Foot, p. 66. Bowes later stated that he had paid £750 for the horse but was forced to relinquish her in 1798 at which point she had ‘not a single tooth in her head’ and was expected to die within weeks.
Newcastle Advertiser
, 8 December 1798. Icelander won £50 at Hexham, £50 at Durham, 100 guineas at Nottingham and £100 at Morpeth. Weatherby, p. 165.

31
Foot, p. 67. The explanation for the term ‘stoney-broke’ is widely reported in Irish and north-east England circles although I have been unable to ascertain an original source for the link and it may be apocryphal. See, for example,
Gaelport.com
;
http://tinyurl.com/58m88l
; Newcastle City Council/West Newcastle;
http://tinyurl.com/5h7u58
; Sunniside and District Local History Society;
http://tinyurl.com/59cvjs
.

32
Robinson, pp. 171-7.

33
Narrative, p. 105.

34
Narrative, pp. 54-8. For more detail on the letters see Moore (2007).

35
M. Armstrong to ARB, 8 October [c. 1780]: SPG, box 185, bundle 1.

36
For information on the sheriff’s role see Gladwin.

37
Wills (1995), p. 78; Day book of Gibside estate receipts and expenditure, 24 May 1776 to 9 July 1782, for October 1780: DCRO SEA D/St/E5/5/22. This volume is the last of the Gibside household accounts to have survived from Bowes’s period of ownership. Jessé Foot’s quote is from Foot, pp. 81-2.

38
Wills (1995), p. 78.

39
Thunberg, pp. 69 and 94.

40
Paterson, p. 39; Forbes and Rourke, p. 43. The following quotes in this section are from Paterson, pp. 110-2, 113, 124 and 124-7. The plant Paterson describes as of the Pentandria Monogynia class was
Pachypodium namaquanum
, see Forbes and Rourke, p. 162n.

41
Lindsay, p. 52.

42
Hickey, pp. 223-7. The later details are from pp. 267-8 and 290-3.

43
James Lind to Joseph Banks, 23 October 1779, in Dawson, p. 542.

44
MEB to Thomas Joplin, 9 January 1781 and 27 August (probably 1782): SPG, box 186, bundle 6.

45
My thanks for advice on the cabinet to Claire Jones, former keeper of furniture at the Bowes Museum. So far no records regarding the design or purchase of the cabinet have been found and its maker has not been identified. It is not known when Mary commissioned the cabinet, conceivably before she married Bowes. The cabinet was sold after the death of John Bowes, Mary’s grandson, and only bought back by the museum in 1961.

46
Mary Bowes to John Bowes, October 1854: BM Archives. Some dried plants kept in an album thought to have belonged to MEB may have been the original specimens from the cabinet. Album of Botanical Specimens believed to have been collected by MEB, BM Archives.

47
Aiton, vol. 2, pp. 191 and 412; and vol. 3, pp. 498-9. Several plants were claimed as new species by botanists reading Paterson’s narrative and studying the accompanying plates; only a handful, including
Monsonia patersonii
and
Erica patersonii
, were named after him: Forbes and Rourke, p. 38. The ‘giant cudweed’ is described in
Curtis’s Botanical Magazine
(1795), plate 300. Today it is known as the strawberry everlasting or
Syncarpha eximia
. My thanks to Peter Goldblatt and John Manning for botanical advice on the Cape.

48
Moore (2005), pp. 292-3 and 348; Dobson, pp. 124-8;
London Evening Post
, 7 June 1788.

49
Le Vaillant, vol. 1, pp. 32-3.

50
Karsten, pp. 283-310.

51
Forbes and Rourke, p. 28.

52
Forbes and Rourke, p. 43. Masson’s account of his earlier travels was published only as an article in the
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
in 1776. Paterson’s original manuscript was discovered in 1956 in Swedenborg House, London, and is now preserved in the Brenthurst Library, Johannesburg. The document, a leather-covered notebook, is believed to have been written between 1780 and 1785, since it refers to Gordon as colonel, a rank he only assumed in 1780. Possibly Paterson wrote the document, which forms the basis for his published narrative, on his return journey from the Cape. See Duckworth, pp. 191-7. The Brenthurst Library also possesses Paterson’s three albums of more than 300 watercolours.

53
William Paterson to William Forsyth, 21 December 1783, sent from India, cited in
The Cottage Gardener
vols 8-9 (1852), pp. 364-5.

54
Brown, Robert, pp. 303-4.

55
Gentleman’s Magazine
98 (1828), II, p. 7.

Background information on the 1780 general election in Newcastle and Bowes’s term as MP is from Namier and Brooke, vol. 2, pp. 106-8 and 350-1; Dickinson; and Knox (1992), as well as various contemporary newspapers. The result is recorded in the Poll Book, Newcastle Election (Newcastle, 1780). Details of the refreshments Bowes ordered can be gleaned from the Day book of Gibside estate receipts and expenditure, 24 May 1776 to 9 July 1782, 29 November 1780: DCRO SEA D/St/E5/5/22.

1
General Advertiser and Morning Intelligencer
, 9 February 1780.

2
Foot, p. 70.

3
Newcastle Courant
, 5 April 1780. The
Courant
supported the government.

4
Foot, p. 71.

5
Narrative, pp. 91-2.

6
Newcastle Chronicle
, 2 September 1780. The attack, originally in the
Courant
, was cited in the
Chronicle
by Bowes’s team.

7
Newspaper cutting, n. d. [c. 1811], BM Album.

8
Namier and Brooke, vol. 2, p. 350.

9
Judith Noel to Mary Noel, 23 September 1780, in Elwin, p. 169.

10
Details of Mary Stoney’s escape are from Narrative, p. 27; ARB to Thomas Johnston, 3 July 1781 and MEB to George Stoney, 8 December 1780 in Stoney, pp. 39-43; Mary Lawrenson (née Stoney) to MEB, March [no day] 1785: SPG, box 185, bundle 1.

11
George Stoney’s diary, 8 March 1781, in Stoney, p. 45.

12
Mary Lawrenson (née Stoney) to MEB, March [no day] 1785: SPG, box 185, bundle 1.

13
Narrative, p. 60.

14
Copy of Mary Bowes’s will, 6 April 1777: SPG, deed box 12.

15
It would be more than forty years before George and Mary Bowes were finally interred together in the mausoleum of the Gibside chapel.

16
Mary Lawrenson (née Stoney) to MEB, March [no day] 1785 and same to same, n. d.: SPG, box 185, bundle 1.

17
Testimony MEB, 16 December 1784 [in pursuit of Chancery case to regain custody of her children], submitted by ARB in divorce appeal to Delegates: NA, DEL 2/12. All the letters quoted are from this document.

18
Biographical information on John Downman can be found in Munro; and Williamson (1907). The nine sketches of the Bowes family are preserved in the Fitzwilliam Museum, numbers 1867, 1868a, b, c and d, 1869a, b, c and d. All the portraits are dated 1781 with the exception of that of young Mary which Downman has dated 1786, plainly erroneously since the sketch obviously shows a much younger child.

19
Narrative, pp. 63-6; depositions of Ann Davis and Sarah Frederick, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282. The 17,000-acre estate of Wemmergill Moor, near Lunedale in County Durham, was sold in 2006 by the current Earl of Strathmore. For historical background on grouse-hunting see Carlisle; for a contemporary account see Thornton, especially pp. 149-52. Beating or driving grouse was only introduced in about 1800. My thanks for advice to the British Association for Shooting and Conservation.

20
Foot, pp. 82 and 72.

21
William’s birth is given as 8 May in some sources. However, the
Newcastle
Chronicle
of 16 March 1782 reported that he had been born the previous week which tallies with a handwritten note giving his date of birth as 8 March 1782, in SPG, volume C.

22
John Burton,
An Essay towards a Complete New System of Midwifery
, 1751, cited in Hill, Bridget, p. 106.

23
Narrative, p. 67. The following exploits are from Narrative, pp. 32-3, 44, 68- 70, and Foot, p. 85.

24
Deposition of Ann Parkes, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.

25
Bowes to Lord Shelburne, 19 February 1783, cited in Namier and Brooke, vol. 2, p. 107. ARB’s comment is from Foot, p. 78.

26
Narrative, p. 70.

27
Judith Noel to Mary Noel (her aunt), 29 July 1783, in Elwin, p. 216.

28
Sarah Angus, sister to the Gibside gardener Thomas Joplin, referred in 1782 to Bowes refusing to pay the ‘work people’. Thomas Joplin described Bowes sacking Robert Stephenson and the Gibside groom. Sarah Angus to Thomas Joplin, 7 August 1782; Thomas Joplin to Silas [Angus?] 13 August 1782: DCRO SEA D/St/C2/3/122. Estate accounts for Gibside were not kept or have been destroyed after July 1782.

29
Deposition of Dorothy Stevenson [sic], LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282. Dorothy’s parents signed their name Stephenson.

30
Bowes rented 48 Grosvenor Square from a Mrs Wyndham from 1783 to 1785. Parish rates books, St James’s Church, Piccadilly, CWAC, 1783-5; Dasent, p. 101.

31
Deposition of Dorothy Stevenson [sic], LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.

32
George Stoney to William Gibson, 18 September 1783, in Stoney, p. 51.

33
Deposition of Dorothy Stevenson [sic], LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282; anon,
The Trial of Andrew Robinson Bowes, Esq; first heard in the Arches
, p. 21.

34
Narrative, pp. 67, 31, 104-5 and 15.

35
Deposition of Dorothy Stevenson [sic], LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.

36
Deposition of Susanna Church, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.

37
MEB to Thomas Joplin, 27 August [n. y. probably 1782]; 10 September 1782; 19 October 1782: SPG, box 186, bundle 6. The new gardener’s evidence is given in Testimony of Robert Thompson, NA divorce appeal to Delegates: DEL 2/12. Thompson said Bowes gave him his instructions in summer 1783.

38
Foot, pp. 85-6.

39
Taylor, vol. 1, p. 5; Moore (2005), pp. 199-200.

40
Evidence of Jessé Foot, anon,
The Trial of Andrew Robinson Bowes, Esq; first heard in the Arches
, pp. 90-2.

41
Narrative, pp. 76-8, 72-5 and 83-4; Deposition of Dorothy Stevenson [sic], LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.

42
Deposition of Elizabeth Waite, LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282; anon,
The Trial of Andrew Robinson Bowes, Esq; first heard in the Arches
, pp. 1-8. Her letter is recorded in Narrative, p. 79.

43
Newcastle Chronicle
, 17 April 1784.

44
Newcastle Chronicle
, 24 April 1784.

45
Namier and Brooke, vol. 2, p. 107.

46
Narrative, pp. 48-50; Deposition of Dorothy Stevenson [sic], LCC divorce case: LMA DL/C/282.

47
Narrative, p. 61.

Mary Morgan related her employment history in court. Deposition of Mary Morgan, anon,
The Trial of Andrew Robinson Bowes, Esq; first heard in the Arches
, p. 56. It seems that Morgan had a daughter who was aged about ten when she entered service with Mary Eleanor although no mention of her is made in letters or other documents. She was buried in the same grave as her mother, at Priory Church, Christchurch. Although Mary wrote that Morgan arrived on 17 or 18 May, Morgan herself said she began work on 18 May. Chancery suit ARB v MEB, 1 June 1786: NA, C12/608/15.