Living in a village has its points – the closeness of the community, everyone knowing everyone else, but sometimes you felt the downside of village life, and nowhere more so than when you were the object of the “rough music”. Here is an incident that took place in 1898.
Eliab Robinson was a builder, who lived in Woollards Lane. If you remember Robinsons’ Dairy, then you will know where I mean. His wife, Jane, died in 1888, and 3 years later he married again. But it seems it wasn’t a happy marriage, and his wife Susan went to live in Church St. This is what happened next…
In May 1898, seven labourers were summoned for “tin kettling” in Great Shelford. They were yelling and hooting at Susan Robinson in the garden of Susan Dean. PC Chater said:
They were banging tins and trays, and such things, as well as shouting and yelling. Smith and Page had pails half full of tar which they used for burning the woman in effigy. This entertainment continued for about two hours…
The effigy consisted of a sack filled with straw, and surmounted with a hat.
Arthur Turtlebury, gardener of Shelford, testified that on the day in question he had seen the aforementioned crowd making a row in the neighbourhood of Mrs Robinson’s garden. They were shouting and “hollering”, and several of them had tea-trays and tin pots, which they banged and made a noise with.
Mrs Robinson said that on the 16 May she was in her house all day. In the evening a crowd gathered outside and commenced to hoot and yell. She recognized all defendants except Page and Smith, having taken observation through a window with a pair of opera-glasses. She knew it was meant as an insult for he (I think this should be “her”). She had heard so in the village (and here she was interrupted by the defence lawyer, who tried to shut her up) because she had given her tenant notice to quit… and she did not see why she should be so insulted.
The defence lawyer asked after her husband. She said: “It’s all very well asking me questions; I could pay you quite as well, and so could my husband, only he won't part with his money, and that's why I left him”. (Here the witness rapped the front of the box in front of her, and laughed defiantly. He then asked "What is your husband's name?" - "I don't know what his name is. I never took the trouble to remember his nasty name”.
The Chairman of the bench was obviously getting as fed up with her as the Shelford crowd, and said: “You are doing your case no good, by expatiating thus”.
Finally, the defendants were fined 2s.6d each. (CDN, Thurs 28 May 1898).
Rough music is a tradition that goes back hundreds of years, and it was a way of expressing the community’s disapproval of someone’s behaviour. Often, it was sexual behaviour – wandering from the marital path, or allowing your wife to bully you if you were a man – that sort of thing. When I say “ the community”, I should add that it was usually the labouring classes who indulged in this sort of performance, while their betters looked on with icy disapproval. The tradition was alive and well at the end of the 19th century – there are five examples that I know of in the local newspaper between 1898 and 1906. However, it was also, by this time, illegal, under the Highways Act of 1882, and that is why it came to court.
Now who was the lady in question? Susan Robinson was married to Eliab Robinson, and it seems she left him. It was Eliab’s second marriage – his wife Jane died in 1888, leaving him with 6 children, the youngest 7, the oldest 18. Perhaps it was because of the children that he married again. If so, we must count it a mistake.
The ringleaders were listed. Charles Robinson (20), was a carpenter, and son of Eliab Robinson. He obviously didn’t like his stepmother. There were Richard Rowlinson, (30), Robert Gifford (18), Frederick Smith (26), all labourers, Henry Poulter (16), a blacksmith, Jack Page (17), a groom, and Percy Pain (17), a labourer. It seems Mrs Robinson had upset the village by evicting a tenant – we don’t know who. I strongly suspect that this episode was drink-fuelled. Susan Robinson lived at Culver Cottage (now no 2 Church St), and it was opposite the Black Swan. She was the daughter of a publican herself, and we can see that she had a tongue on her. Indeed, she was far from abashed by being subjected to the rough music, simply incandescent with rage.
Susan Dean was the wife of Philip Dean, and I can’t find the couple in Shelford, but in 1891 they are the publicans of a pub in Hertfordshire, so I think it’s a fair bet that, for a short while, they had the tenancy of the Black Swan (indeed this was the sort of incident that might cause you to lose your licence). They’re never among the licensees listed in the Directories or on the census.
What we are seeing in this incident is the end of an era. No longer was the village to regulate the behaviour of its members by its own sanctions. The old social constructs were breaking down, or rather, the law was breaking them down by outlawing them.
Eliab died in 1905, but his widow lived on, still at Culver Cottage in 1911. By then she was about 70. Charles Robinson, the leader of the rough music, died in 1908 at only 30. His eldest brother, John, had already died in 1891.
© Helen Harwood, 2015