Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853

A cursory conversation with a lady in her eighty-fifth year, now living at Skelton in Cleveland, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, when she deprecated the notion that she was one of the old inhabitants, led me to inquire more particularly into the duration of life in that township. The minister, the Rev. W. Close, who has been the incumbent since the year 1813, and who has had the duties to perform, and the registers to keep, therefore, from about the period of the act which required the age to be stated, now forty years ago, was most willing to give me aid and extracts from the burial register, from the commencement of 1813 to August, 1852, during which period 799 persons were buried. The extracts show these extraordinary facts.

Out of the 799 persons buried in that period, no less than 263, or nearly one-third, attained the age of 70. Of these two, viz. Mary Postgate, who died in 1816, and Ann Stonehouse, who died in 1823, attained respectively the ages of 101. Nineteen others were 90 years of age and upwards, viz. one was 97, one was 96, one was 95, four were 94, one was 93, five were 92, three were 91, and three were 90. Between the ages of 80 and 90 there died 109, of whom thirty-nine were 85 and upwards, and seventy were under 85; and between the ages of 70 and 80 there died 133, of whom sixty-five were 75 years and upwards, and sixty-eight were between 70 and 75. In one page of the register containing eight names, six were above 80, and in another five were above 70.

In this parish of Skelton there is now living a man named Moon, 104 years old, who is blind now, but managed a small farm till nearly or quite 100; and a blacksmith named Robinson Cook, aged 98, who worked at his trade till May last.

In the chapelry of Brotton, which adjoins Skelton township, and has been also under the spiritual charge of Mr. Close, the longevity is even more remarkable. Out of 346 persons buried since the new register came into force in 1813, down to 1st October, 1853, no less than 121, or more than one-third, attained the age of 70. One Betty Thompson, who died in 1834, was 101; nineteen were more than 90, of whom one was 98, two were 97, three were 95, one was 93, four were 92, five were 91, and three were 90; there were forty-four who died between 80 and 90 years old, of whom nineteen were 85 and upwards, and twenty-five were between 80 and 85; and there were fifty-seven who died between the ages of 70 and 80, of whom no less than thirty-one were 75 and upwards. The average of the chapelry is increased from the circumstance that sixteen bodies of persons drowned in the sea in wrecks, and whose ages were not of course very great, are included in the whole number of 346 burials. That celibacy did not lessen the chance of life, was proved by a bachelor named Simpson, who died at 92, and his maiden sister at 91.

I am told that the neighbouring parish of Upleatham has also a high character for longevity, but I had not the same opportunity of examining the register as was afforded me by Mr. Close.

And now for a Query. What other, if any district in the north or south, will show like or greater longevity?

    William Durrant Cooper.

REV. JOSIAH PULLEN

Every Oxford man regards with some degree of interest that goal of so many of his walks, Joe Pullen's tree, on Headington Hill. So at least it was in my time, now some thirty years since. Perhaps the following notices of him, who I suppose planted it, or at all events gave name to it, may be acceptable to your Oxford readers. They are taken from that most curious collection (alas! too little known) the Pocket-books of Tom Hearne, vol. liii. pp. 25-35., now in the Bodleian:

"Jan. 1, 1714-15. Last night died Mr. Josiah Pullen, A.M., minister of St. Peter's in the East, and Vice-Principal of Magdalen Hall. He had also a parsonage in the country. He was formerly domestick chaplain to Bishop Sanderson, to whom he administered the sacrament at his death. He lived to a very great age, being about fourscore and three, and was always very healthy and vigorous. He was regular in his way of living, but too close, considering that he was a single man, and was wealthy. He seldom used spectacles, which made him guilty of great blunders at divine service, for he would officiate to the last. He administered the Sacrament last Christmas Day to a great congregation at St. Peter's, which brought his illness upon him. He took his B.A. degree May 26, 1654. He became minister of St. Peter's in the East anno 1668, which was the year before Dr. Charlett was entered at Oxford."—P. 25.

"Jan. 7, Friday. This day, at four in the afternoon, Mr. Pullen was buried in St. Peter's Church, in the chapel at the north side of the chancell. All the parishioners were invited, and the pall was held up by six Heads of Houses, though it should have been by six Masters of Arts, as Dr. Radcliffe's pall should have been held up by Doctors in Physic, and not by Doctors of Divinity and Doctors of Law."—P. 32.

Dr. Radcliffe's funeral had taken place in the preceding month.

In Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. iv. p. 181., is the following epitaph of Pullen, drawn up by Mr. Thomas Wagstaffe:

"Hic jacet reverendus vir Josia Pullen, A.M. Aulæ Magd. 57 annos vice principalis, necnon hujusce ecclesiæ Pastor 39 annos. Obiit 31

Decembris, anno Domini 1714, ætatis 84."

From the notice of Thomas Walden, in Johnson's Lives of the Poets, it appears that Yalden was a pupil of Pullen. (See also Walton's Life of Sanderson, towards the end.) I hope this may elicit some farther account of a man whose name has survived so long in Oxford memory.

As to the tree, I have some recollection of having heard that it had a few years ago a narrow escape of being thrown down, sometime about the vice-chancellorship of Dr. Symons, who promptly came forward to the rescue. Was it ever in such peril? and, if so, was it preserved?

    Balliolensis.

FOLK LORE

Ancient Custom in Warwickshire.—In Sir William Dugdale's Diary, under the year 1658, is noted the following:

"On All Hallow Even, the master of the family antiently used to carry a bunch of straw, fired, about his corne, saying,

'Fire and red low,
Light on my teen low.'"

Can any of your readers learned in ancient lore explain the custom and the meaning of the couplet, well as its origin? Does it now at all prevail in that county?

    J. B. Whitborne.

Nottinghamshire Customs.—1. The 29th of May is observed by the Notts juveniles not only by wearing the usual piece of oak-twig, but each young loyalist is armed with a nettle, as coarse as can be procured, with which instrument of torture are coerced those unfortunates who are unprovided with "royal oak," as it is called. Some who are unable to procure it endeavour to avoid the penalty by wearing "dog-oak" (maple), but the punishment is always more severe on discovery of the imposition.

2. On Shrove Tuesday, the first pancake cooked is given to Chanticleer for his sole gratification.

3. The following matrimonial custom prevails at Wellow or Welley, as it is called, a village in the heart of the county. The account is copied from the Notts Guardian of April 28, 1853:

"Wellow. It has been a custom from time immemorial in this parish, when the banns of marriage are published, for a person, selected by the clerk, to rise and say 'God speed them well,' the clerk and congregation responding, Amen! Owing to the recent death of the person who officiated in this ceremony, last Sunday, after the banns of marriage were read, a perfect silence prevailed, the person chosen, either from want of courage or loss of memory, not performing his part until after receiving an intimation from the clerk, and then in so faint a tone as to be scarcely audible. His whispered good wishes were, however, followed by a hearty Amen, mingled with some laughter in different parts of the church."

I do not know whether any notices of the above have appeared in "N. & Q.," and send to inquire respecting 1. and 3. whether a similar custom holds elsewhere; and whether 2. has any connexion with the disused practice of cock-shying?

    Furvus.

Minor Notes

A Centenarian Couple.—The obituary of Blackwood's Magazine for August, 1821, contains the following:

"Lately, in Campbell, County Virginia, Mr. Chas. Layne, sen., aged 121 years, being born at Albemarle, near Buckingham county, 1700. He has left a widow aged 110 years, and a numerous and respectable family down to the fourth generation. He was a subject of four British sovereigns, and a citizen of the United States for nearly forty-eight years. Until within a few years he enjoyed all his faculties, and excellent health."

The above extract is followed by notices of the deaths of Anne Bryan, of Ashford, co. Waterford, aged 111; and Wm. Munro, gardener at Rose Hall, aged 104.

    Cuthbert Bede, B.A.

"Veni, vidi, vici."—To these remarkable and well-known words of the Roman general, I beg to forward two more sententious despatches of celebrated generals:

Suwarrow. "Slava bogu! Slava vam!
Krepost Vzala, yiatam."

"Glory to God and the Empress! Ismail's ours."

It is also stated, I do not know on what authority, that the old and lamented warrior, Sir Charles Napier, wrote on the conquest of Scinde, "Peccavi."

Perhaps some of your correspondents could add a few more pithy sentences on a like subject.

    G. Lloyd.

Dublin.

Autumnal Tints.—Scarce any one can have failed to notice the unusual richness and brilliance of the autumnal tints on the foliage this year. I have more particularly remarked this in Clydesdale, the lake districts of Cumberland and Westmoreland, and in Somersetshire and Devonshire. Can any of the contributors to "N. & Q." inform me if attributable to the extraordinary wetness of the season?

    R. H. B.

Variety is pleasing.—Looking over my last year's note-book, I find the following morceau, which I think ought to be preserved in "N. & Q.:"

"Nov. 30, 1851. Observed in the window of the Shakspeare Inn a written paper running thus:

'To be raffled for:
The finding of Moses, and six
Fat geeze(!!).
Tickets at the bar.'"

    R. C. Warde.