Character and Conduct
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Character and Conduct’
The villagers of Mabutso in Southern Africa begged Dr David Livingstone to rid them of a menacing pride of lions.
On February 16th, 1844, Scottish missionary David Livingstone was digging a water channel at his mission near the South African village of Mabotsa when the villagers rushed up, crying that lions had again raided their village and slaughtered their sheep and goats. Livingstone ‘very imprudently’ agreed to go with them and demoralise the pride by shooting one of the dominant males.
Mill owner William Grant was deeply hurt by a scurrilous pamphlet circulated by a fellow businessman, and vowed the miscreant would live to regret it.
Among the many memorable characters in Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby are Ned and Charles Cheeryble, the vehemently philanthropic brothers who employ Nicholas on a delicate mission to Walter Bray. They are widely believed to be based on William (1769-1842) and Daniel (?1780-1855) Grant of Ramsbottom in Lancashire, and from this tale one can see the similarities very clearly.
After Joseph Paxton won the competition to design the venue for the Great Exhibition of 1851, he recalled how his rival had helped him.
In 1851, the Great Exhibition opened in the groundbreaking Crystal Palace, designed by Joseph Paxton (1803-1865). The decision to run with Paxton’s innovative concept was taken at the last minute, and was a disappointment to Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859), who was hoping his Great Dome would become a London landmark. Paxton tells us Brunel behaved like a gentleman throughout.
Royalist soldier Sir Jacob Ashly exemplified a Christian gentleman in the heat of battle.
As secretary to the Chancellor of Oxford University, William King moved among elevated but sometimes tactless company. He remembered one dinner-time conversation in 1715 during which Sir William Wyndham, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, joked about prayer right in front of Lord Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester.
Sir Walter Scott tells of the tale of how a little spider inspired Robert the Bruce to win his country’s sovereignty.
Robert I of Scotland forced England to recognise Scottish independence in 1328. But back in 1307, King Edward I had responded to news of Robert’s coronation by seizing his estates, kidnapping his Queen and murdering his brother. Robert fled to the remote isles, and according to a popular folktale his fate hung almost literally by a spider’s thread.
During the Battle of Inkerman in 1854, one of Lord Raglan’s hospital sergeants had a close encounter with a Russian cannonball.
Lord Calthorpe was aide-de-camp to Lord Raglan during the Crimean War of 1853-6 against Russia. The war was a bloody and costly mistake, but the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava on October 24th, 1854, was not the only moment of heroism. A few days after the Battle of Inkerman on November 5th, Calthorpe had this story to share.