Grevillea Genealogy: Curious: the case of the retired news vendor

John Rose 1804-1884

“Are you still working, Mr Rose?” asked the census collector. It was 3^rd April, 1881 and John Rose was at home, 4 Anspach Place, in Southampton Old Town. In fact, Anspach Place houses were built into the old town walls.

“Not these days,” John Rose replied. “But put me down as a retired newsagent.”

I can imagine daughter Hannah, one of 20 children, looking up sharply. She knew her pa had been a carpet-beater, and earlier, a licensed porter, but a news agent? Now that was a surprise.

Only 20, Hannah was not interested in her father’s early days, although she’d heard the tale of the tenth son often enough.

Aged 21 in 1825, John had married Isabella Sievewright at St Michael’s church, and by 1838, she’d delivered her tenth child.

Being a practical joker, but at the same time, deeply into radical politics, John decided to make a point about tithing. He waited till the absentee rector of St Mary’s, Frederick North, soon to be Earl of Guilford, arrived to deliver a sermon and collect his dues.

John handed the baby to the Earl, who admired his chubby cheeks.

“Here is my tithe, my Lord – my tenth son,” John Rose said.

“No, no!” replied the rector, quickly relinquishing the child, who was later baptised Guilford North Rose.

The incident was retold with mirth around the beer houses of Southampton whenever the discussion turned to the unfairness of the annual tithe.

With 19 children born between 1826 and 1864 to his two wives, the Rose household was often crowded. John wished his work paid better, enabling the family to move away from the dark, dank back lanes of the Old Town. With so many people arriving from the rural areas, rents were constantly rising.

Indeed, the population of Southampton was exploding, with the expansion of the docks in the 1830s and the railway opening in 1840. The town was a magnet for agricultural workers seeking employment after years of drought and mechanisation of farming.

Newspaper reports show that John Rose had been a barrowman in the late 1840s, prior to becoming a porter; but there in the 1841 census, was Isabella Rose, a news agent’s wife at 35 College Street, together with an infant daughter and many sons.

But what of John? I finally found him listed amongst prisoners in the Southampton House of Correction. He’d been found guilty of libel in 1840.

If he hadn’t been a newsagent for 35 years, why state that occupation in 1881?

Could it be that only that occupation had given him true satisfaction, feeling proud of trying to make his contemporaries aware of social and political injustice?

Newspaper reports of public meetings and his court appearances, whether as a defendant, plaintiff, grieving father or witness, show John holding strong convictions, arguing forcefully and often theatrically. He certainly believed that working men deserved to have a voice in political decision making and everyday matters. Daily, he challenged injustice.

As a literate young man, he would have been aware of the Six Acts introduced to Parliament in 1819, aimed at keeping the working classes quiet and ill-informed and at suppressing riots and revolt. Laws were made to suit the wealthy and well-born, not men like him.

John Rose’s father Simon, of Misterton in Somerset had, by 1795, established himself as a wool comber in Southampton. This trade was amongst the first to become organised, so I like to think John gained his political consciousness by sitting at his father’s feet in winter, or at the beer shop, where men escaped their crowded housing, telling tales, reading newspapers and discussing politics over a pint of ale.

By 1832 John Rose had established a newsagency in College Street, near the bustling retail area Canal Walk, selling newspapers and tobacco products. He also set up a printing press, creating posters, almanacs and his own political tracts and humorous ditties.

Like so many other working men and their champions, he’d been disappointed when the 1832 Reform Act dashed his expectations of gaining the vote: only men of property did so.

He became known as the Opposition Town Crier, dressed in a crimson coat with white sleeves and a gold hat, with a bell, announcing the headlines from the radical papers and tracts he sold. He was a tall man of imposing physique, a consummate showman, not averse to a scuffle or to drown out the opposition with his loud voice. The Town Corporation tried to shut him down but had no legal grounds to do so. John was what we’d call a bush lawyer, and had plenty of supporters amongst the poorer town folk and intellectuals.

However, the authorities constantly monitored his activities and, by using the laws enacted in 1819, brought him before the Police Court, fining him for selling unstamped newspapers. The tax was often four times the unstamped price, putting the papers out of the reach of poorer folk. After the congregating laws were relaxed, the first working men’s literary or mechanics institutions were born and subscriptions taken out, with better educated men reading the newspapers and tracts to others. Earlier, beer houses were a place to gather for discussions.

Throughout the 1830s and 40s, John Rose struggled to pay his fines, and sometimes found himself in the God’s House Tower, at that time used as a debtor’s prison, until he could find the money. Other times, he was fined a small amount, and let go with a surety of £20 or more to keep the peace. His impetuosity often got the better of him.

The Chartists tried time and time again until 1848 to get their petitions taken seriously by Parliament, but gave up after the third attempt. It was not until 1867 that the franchise was further extended and the qualifications for seeking parliamentary office extended beyond wealthy landowners and leaseholders. Universal franchise was instituted in 1928.

Meanwhile, sometime after his libel case, John Rose had closed down his news agency. I often wonder whether he’d burnt out politically, had a newsagent’s license suspended, or if Isabella had put her foot down and suggested he earn a better living for his fast growing family.

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Note: John Rose (1804-1884) was one of my 3x great grandfathers.

This post was written as an assignment for the UTas Diploma of Family History in 2017.