The Great Acceptance: The Life Story of F. N. Charrington

Then cast the worthless hulk away.

Licensed, where peace and quiet dwell,
To bring disease, and want, and woe;
Licensed to make this world a hell,
And fit man for a hell below."

"Call up the dead from their cold, cold graves
And summon up memory's link,
And see if human tongue can tell,
The millions damned through drink."

To sum up and crystallise his great temperance efforts, Mr. Charrington has invented a concrete symbol of them. The initials B.R.O.T.A. stand for "The Blue Ring of Total Abstinence," which is entirely Mr. Charrington's idea, and serves as a badge that unites abstainers throughout the whole world.

This ring is made of metal and blue enamel, bearing the aforesaid initials. It can be had in cheap metal, while for richer people it is manufactured in gold set with diamonds. In itself it is a beautiful and decorative thing. As a symbol, as a cementing of the great brotherhood of abstainers formed by Mr. Charrington, it is unique. Mr. Charrington invariably wears one of these rings himself, and from the farthest parts of the world applications for them are daily received.

We now pass to the final chapter of this book, where we see Frederick Charrington in an entirely new setting.

THE LAST CHAPTER

LORD OF THE MANOR OF OSEA

You have seen the subject of this memoir under very many changing circumstances, the central figure in one lurid scene after another, but there is a side to Frederick Charrington's life as strangely contrasted as possible to nearly all I have hitherto written.

My readers will not have accompanied me so far without realising that in Mr. Charrington is an unique personality. No one has done what he has done, and the originality of temperament has always been curiously aided and abetted by originality and strangeness of circumstance. I venture to think that this chapter illustrates not the least interesting of the great missioner's activities. Certainly he again appears against a background without parallel in English life to-day.

A few years ago – many people will remember it – the press of Great Britain was full of articles upon Osea Island.

Mr. Charrington, it was announced, had purchased this island, lock, stock, and barrel, and was about to develop it as a seaside and health resort, while at the same time carrying out the great temperance scheme.

The whole of the island was to be let or sold under express conditions that no license of any kind whatever would be permitted, or clubs for the sale of intoxicating drink.

Osea was to be, in short, a Temperance Island, and as such was to stand alone in the United Kingdom.

The announcements which appeared at the time of which I am speaking created an extraordinary amount of interest.

The Spectator said —

"Mr. F. N. Charrington is about to try a most interesting experiment – the effect of total prohibition under fair conditions. He has purchased the well-wooded island of Osea, on the coast of Essex, and intends to turn it into a seaside resort in which the manufacture, sale, and consumption of alcohol will be absolutely prohibited. No license of any kind will be granted, and stringent conditions as to intoxicants will be inserted in all the leases. The island, in fact, will be a large sanatorium conducted on strict temperance principles, and will, it is probable, be in the first place a resort for the great number of persons who wish to break themselves finally of the habit of excess in drinking. The evidence which will gradually accumulate will, we hope, be sifted with much care, and will help to settle three disputed points. Will total abstinence for a time eradicate the desire for drink? – a question upon which the evidence of prisoners is by no means hopeful. Does total abstinence develop, as many affirm, a tendency to the use of drugs such as opium and ether? – a doubt suggested by the mass of experience acquired in the East. Has total abstinence any effect in diminishing working energy? Teetotalers declare with one voice that this question is already answered in the negative; but none of the Northern races as yet show themselves convinced, though there is an approach to the conviction manifest in Canada."

Nearly every paper of any importance in the kingdom devoted considerable space to Mr. Charrington's new scheme.

Near New York there is another island where no intoxicants can be obtained, and it was hearing of this that first gave Mr. Charrington his idea as to the purchase of Osea.

The thought of a drink-barred domain arose in his mind as a logical outcome of his forty years experience in dealing with the miseries and vices of the poor in East London. The work for temperance naturally brought Mr. Charrington into contact with all sorts and conditions of people, and it was not only the slaves of the fiend alcohol in the lower classes – he saw many members of the upper classes going down to their destruction no less surely than their poorer brethren.

He made inquiries, and thought over the whole problem with sustained and earnest attention.

He found that while there were several sanatoria for well-to-do inebriates scattered up and down the country, yet, in nearly every case, such retreats were in proximity to the public-house. No one knew better than he to what lengths the inebriate will go when the craving is upon him, and he found that the unhappy victims who were confined in grounds often very limited in extent would either cunningly or violently break away and secure alcohol.

It was then, while meditating upon the best methods to adopt in rescuing inebriates, that Mr. Charrington noticed a report of the fact that a New York temperance society had purchased an island for a retreat or a sanatorium. Here, it seemed to him, was a thoroughly admirable solution of the problem. Proprietorship of an island precluded the incoming of drink across the silver streak of sea, and at the same time, the domain was large enough in extent to make living upon it perfectly pleasant and without any sense of confinement.

One cannot, however, go to Whiteley's and order an island, and there was still the problem of finding one which should be suitable for the purpose. It was solved at last by the purchase of Osea.

Nothing could have been more convenient. The island is a real island. It is always surrounded by deep water on three sides, while on the other the mainland is reached by a road called "The Hard" about a mile long, and only uncovered at low tide.

Shortly after the acquisition of Osea Mr. Charrington stated his plans to an interviewer. How these plans have been extended I shall proceed to say, but meanwhile it is interesting to read the proprietor's views at the time, when the island had only just become his own.

The interviewer of Household Words wrote —

"I had noted in a contemporary: 'Mr. Charrington has long been a power in the East End, where his name is a household word,' and I thought it would be in the eternal fitness of things if I interviewed him for Household Words. As Honorary Superintendent of the Tower Hamlets Mission he is naturally a very busy man, and as soon as he could give me a few moments I put the question to him —

"'What is the main idea of this new scheme of yours of a teetotal island?'

"'It is not altogether new,' was the reply, 'for the same idea has been carried out on various properties owned by temperance landowners of not allowing drink licenses on any part of their property, as is the case with the Corbett estates; but the good work has been rendered ineffectual by drink being obtainable on adjoining property.'

"'Drink would not be obtainable in inebriate homes,' I suggested.

"'Inebriate homes situated in ordinary neighbourhoods experience the same difficulty,' he exclaimed. 'Inmates afflicted with the accursed craving will scale high walls and walk miles to obtain drink. You would not credit the trouble they would take, the fatigue they would undergo, and the risks to life and limb they would run to procure alcohol. It is only a man who has spent a lifetime in a practical study of the question who can realise its difficulties.'

"'And you anticipate much good from the acquisition of Osea?'

"'In many ways, yes. As a retreat for those whose removal from all chance of temptation is a necessity it will be perfect. Instead of being confined within four walls, like being in a prison, they will be able to roam at large for four miles. Already I have had applications from persons wishing to buy building plots for inebriate homes, convalescent homes, and from one lady M.D., who desires to erect a house for her patients suffering from nerve trouble, and to whom the quiet will be invaluable.'

"'Will it be populated entirely by invalids and inebriates?'

"'Oh, dear, no! Yachting men have applied for sites for bungalows, and can have them on agreeing to the non-intoxicant clause. It will be a very delightful temperance seaside resort. The island is well wooded, with high elms running in single lines north and south and east and west, the trees being in centre of avenues, and by planting young trees on either side we shall get double avenues, as in Chicago and Berlin.'

"'Have you commenced to build yet?'

"'Only workmen's cottages for the builders' men to live in, and these will be picturesque, half-timbered dwellings, similar to those in the city of Chester.'

"'And you anticipate a commercial success for your philanthropic investment?'

"'Most decidedly. Since I acquired Osea at a remarkably moderate cost, I have seen two other islands offered for sale for the same purpose, one near Tenby, and one in Scotland, at £28,000 and £18,000 respectively, which figures are a great contrast to mine, and Osea has the great attraction of being the nearest seaside resort to London.'

"'How do you reach it?'

"'By Great Eastern Railway to Maldon in Essex, and thence by a steamer which has been purchased, which now runs twice a day, the distance being only five miles.'

"'And Osea is not a desert island?'

"'It never has been since the Conquest. In the Doomsday Survey Book (1086) there had always previously been on the island three serfs, one fisherman, and pasture for sixty sheep. If needed there would be room for 10,000 people. Osea has many natural attractions. It abounds with most curious marine plants and shrubs, and is so wild that some of the sea-gulls, the tuke, the stone-runner, and the bar-goose have taken to breeding on the shore.'

"To be able to enjoy life on an island within forty miles of the metropolis, including sea-bathing, fishing and shooting, has the wonderful charm of novelty, to say nothing of its freedom from the pandemonium created by drinking trippers. This of itself ought to draw all London holiday-makers, and we wish Mr. Charrington success in his noble efforts to promote temperance amongst the people, and trust he may have the gratification of seeing his most sanguine hopes realised and his self-sacrificing labours truly and thoroughly appreciated."

In a book such as this, which purports to be a comprehensive history of Frederick Charrington's life, and which will be the only lengthy biography of him ever written with his sanction, it is necessary that I should give some account of the island with which his name will always be associated.

I propose, in the first instance, to tell the history of the island from the very earliest times, and afterwards to describe it in detail and to say something of my life with Mr. Charrington there. It may have struck some of my readers that up to the present I have said little or nothing about the great evangelist's personality. When I began this book I decided to leave this intimate part of the biography to the very last chapter. I designed to draw a pen picture of the man as he is to-day, as he lives upon the island which is his home among the simple things of nature.