1057
Rudyard Kipling’s poem about St Wilfrid’s chaplain and an unusual Christmas congregation.
Kipling firmly believed that Christianity should embrace the animal kingdom, and this poem precedes a tale in which a seal plays a key role in the conversion of the South Saxons. That story and this poem are pure fiction, though Eddi (Eddius Stephanus, Stephen of Ripon) really was St Wilfrid’s chaplain.
Picture: © Chris Gunns, via Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted September 7 2017
1058
The Northumbrian monk is duped into wasting one of his beautifully-crafted sermons on a row of dumb rocks.
This story about St Bede from the 13th century ‘Golden Legend’ (some five centuries after Bede died) is not attested in earlier sources, and Bede himself has taught us to be wary of taking such stories on trust. On the other hand, it is a very good story, and deserves to be retold.
Picture: © Hayley Green, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted September 6 2017
1059
Driven out of Northumbria, Bishop Wilfrid goes to the south coast and saves a kingdom from starvation.
In 681 St Wilfrid, exiled from Northumbria by King Ecgfrith, arrived in Sussex, the still-pagan Kingdom of the South Saxons, where he and his monks had an instant impact.
Picture: © Paul Farmer, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted September 6 2017
1060
William Windham MP was appalled at the idea of levying a tax on man’s best friend.
In 1796, a proposal went before Parliament to tax dogs, partly as a rebuke to rich sportsmen, and partly because it was felt that the poor were frittering away their income support on dog-food. Windham was not much bothered about the rich sportsmen, but he leapt to the defence of the poor man and his lurcher.
Picture: Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-1873), Victroia and Albert Museum, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted September 5 2017
1061
Businessmen in Liverpool engaged George Stephenson to build one of his new-fangled railways.
The first purpose-built freight and passenger railway line linking two cities was opened in 1830, joining the port of Liverpool with the mills around Manchester. The social and economic impact was instant, bringing more real and tangible benefit to Britain’s common man than he had ever known before.
Picture: © Alan Murray-Rust, Geograph. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.. Source.
Posted September 4 2017
1062
William Wilberforce told Parliament that the more his opponents slandered him, the more he was sure he was winning.
William Wilberforce, Britain’s leading anti-slavery campaigner, was accused of ‘fanaticism’ for his refusal to accept the prevailing customs of the day. But as he warned Parliament, such jibes only made him more determined to fight on.
Picture: By John Simpson (1782–1847), Art Institute of Chicago, via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.. Source.
Posted September 2 2017