Part 11

In the parish of Skelton there was then living a man named Moon, 104 years old, who was blind, but managed a small farm till nearly or quite 100; and a blacksmith, named Robinson Cook, aged 98, who worked at his trade until within six months of this age.

In the chapelry of Brotton, adjoining Skelton township, the longevity was even more remarkable. Out of 346 persons buried since the new register came into force in 1813, down to Oct. 1, 1853, 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 97, three 95, one 93, four 92, five 91, and three 90; forty-four died between 80 and 90 years old, and fifty-seven between 70 and 80, of whom thirty-one were 75 and upwards. That celibacy did not lessen the chance of life was proved by a bachelor named Simpson, who died at 82, and his maiden sister at 91.

Gilling, in Richmondshire, shows also a very great length of life, and in persons above 90 years of age a larger proportion even than in the Cleveland parishes. Between 1813 and 1853, of 701 persons buried, 207, or rather more than one-third, attained the age of 70 and upwards. Three were 100, or upwards; between 90 and 100, twenty-one; one 96, 95, and 94; two 92, six 91, and ten 90. Between 80 and 90 there died 87; between 70 and 80, ninety-six.

George Stephenson, a farm-labourer, of Runald-Kirk, near Barnard-Castle, Durham, who died 1812, aged 105, was a very early riser; he used to reprove (for lying a-bed) his daughter and her husband, both about 70 years of age, but who rose before six o’clock in the morning,—George saying, “if they would not work while they were _young_, what would they do when they became old?”

Mr. Carruthers, of Inverness, whose evidence is entitled to respect, wrote in 1836, that “the patriarchs of the glen of Strathcarron have been gathered to their fathers. The primitive manners of the olden time are disappearing even in that remote corner, and human life is dwindling down to its ordinary brief limits.” This experience is the converse of the opinion that civilisation and refinement tend to lengthen life.

The Western Isles of Scotland have long been noted for persons of great age. Martin describes a male native of Jura, who had kept 180 Christmas festivals in his own house, and this marvellous account was confirmed to Pennant; but the evidence is not given, and the man died fifty years before Martin’s visit. Buchanan, in his _History of Shetland_, gives an account of one Laurence, a Shetlander, who lived to 140; Dr. Derham, in his _Physico-Theology_, confirms this, and Martin received from Laurence’s family particulars of his fishing to the last year of his life. At Orkney Martin heard of a man aged 112; and that one William Muir, of Westra, lived to be near 140. Tarquis M’Leod, near Stornoway, in the island of Lewis, died in 1787, aged 113; he had fought at Killiecrankie, Sheriffmuir, and Culloden, under the Stuarts.

In the _Aberdeen Journal_ we find this evidence: Died, at Strichen, Widow Reid, aged 81; and in the following fortnight, Christian Grant, aged 97 years. The surviving resident paupers number only twenty-five, and among them there are seven individuals whose respective ages are 92, 90, 88, 86, 83, 82, and 80 years—making a total of 601 years, and an average of nearly 86 years to each. These statistics, in a parish containing a population of only 947, are perhaps unparalleled in Scotland.

A well-authenticated instance is that of Mrs. Elizabeth Gray, who died at Edinburgh on the 2d of April 1856, at the age of 108, having been born in May 1748, as chronicled in the register of her father’s parish. Her mother attained 96, and two of her sisters died at 94 and 96 respectively. In 1808 died the Hon. Mrs. Hay Mackenzie, of Cromartie, at the age of 103. The well-known Countess Dowager of Cork died in 1840, having just completed her 94th year; she was to the last accustomed to dine out every day when she had not company at home. Mr. Francis Brokesby, in 1711, wrote of a woman then living near the Tower of London, aged about 130, and who remembered Queen Elizabeth; to the last there was not a gray hair on her head, and she never lost memory or judgment. Mr. Brokesby also records the death, about 1660, of the wife of a labouring man at Hedgerow, in Cheshire; she is said to have attained the age of 140.[53]

Reflecting upon this record, Mr. Robert Chambers observes, with poetic feeling, “When we think of such things, the ordinary laws of nature seem to have undergone some partial relaxation; and the dust of ancient times almost becomes living flesh before our eyes.” We confess to the weakness of being occasionally depressed in the society of some very aged persons. We remember Louis Pouchée to have died about twenty years since, considerably above 100 years old: his voice was a childish treble, and there was at last a sort of forced gaiety in his manner which was any thing but cheerful; his piping of “I’ve kissed and I’ve prattled with fifty fair maids” was a lugubrious rendering of that lively lyric.

In White’s _Suffolk Directory_ for 1844, the following living instances are recorded. “W. A. Shuldham, Esq., resides at the Hall, in which, on July 18, 1843, he celebrated the hundredth anniversary of his birthday. Mrs. Susan Godbold, who was born at Flixton, has resided at Metfield eighty years, and walked round the village on her 104th birthday, Sept. 13, 1843. Thomas Morse, Esq., of Lound, is now in his 99th year.” Dr. Smith, residing at Bawdsea, a few years since completed his 109th; when, in the fulness of his spirits, he expressed a belief that he should live for some years to come.

Here is an instance of remarkable memory. George Kelson (”the Woodman,” in illustration of Cowper’s poem) died near Bath in 1820, aged 101; he gave evidence before the Commissioners of Public Charities, deposing, with great clearness, to facts which had occurred ninety years before his examination.

The parish register of Bremhill, Wiltshire, records: “Buried, September the 29th, 1696, Edith Goldie, Grace Young, Elizabeth Wiltshire. Their united ages make 300 years.”[54]

Two centuries ago, the now sleepy town of Woodstock, Oxon., was proverbial for its long livers. The Rev. John Ward, Vicar of Stratford-upon-Avon, in his Diary, 1648-9, records: “Old Bryan, of Woodstock, a taylor by profession, and a fiddler by present practice, of age 90, yet very lively, and will travail well. George Green and Cripps, each 90, very hard labourers. Thomas Cock, _alias_ Hawkins, 112 years of age when he died. Woodstock men frequently long lived. Goody Jones, of Woodstock, and old Bryan, two such old people as it is thought England does not afford, nor two such travailors of their age.”

In 1637 there was living in Blackboy-lane, Oxford, “Mother George,” who, although 120 years of age, could thread a fine needle without the help of spectacles.[55]

Between February and May 1767, there died in Oxford seven persons whose ages together amount to 616, viz. 88, 93, 86, 87, 90, 82, and 90. In the same year is recorded the death of Francis Ange, in Maryland, aged 130; he was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, remembered the death of King Charles I., and left England soon after.[56]

The heads of Colleges in Oxford have frequently attained great ages: we have mentioned Dr. Routh, President of Magdalen, who died in his 100th year. There are generally very old people living in Oxford; and at Iffley the ages recorded in the churchyard commonly exceed 70.

Midhurst, in Sussex, must be a healthy locality; for, according to the _Dublin Chronicle_, December 2, 1788, the town, then containing only 140 houses and cottages, had seventy-eight inhabitants whose ages were above 70; thirty-two were 80 and upwards; and five were between 90 and 100; and the seventy-eight persons, except four, were in some business or occupation.

Wye, near Ashford, Kent, is another noted locality for long life; the ages of 70, 80, and even 90, being by no means rare in the parish register.

In 1800 twenty-two men died in England and Wales who had reached or passed the age of 100, and forty-seven women. The oldest woman, 111 years of age, died in Glamorganshire. With the men there was a tie: a man aged 107 died in Hampshire, and another of the same age in Pembrokeshire. Four of the centenarians died in London, two others at Camberwell, one also at Greenwich, and one at Lewisham. More men died in the year than women; but of the 595 persons who had reached the age of 95 or upwards before they died, nearly two-thirds were women.

Great longevity is attained in some of the murky streets, lanes, and alleys of London. In 1767 died Widow Prossen, of Oxford-road, in her 102d year, having passed nearly her whole life among old clothes in a pawnbroker’s shop, accumulating a large fortune. In the same year died her neighbour, Benjamin Perryn, aged 103.

In 1767 also we find Widow Waters, of Saffron-hill, dying at the age of 103; and one Wood, of Markam-court, Chandos-street, at 100.

In 1846 there died in grimy Holywell-street, Strand, one Harris, a Jew clothesman, who had lived in the same street more than seventy years: his wife died a few years before him, at the age of 93; and his eldest son was 73 at the time of his father’s death. In 1780 there died in St. Martin’s workhouse Widow Pettit, aged 114; and next year, Widow Parker, of White-Hart-yard, Drury-lane, aged 108, with all her faculties unimpaired.

In 1788 there died at Hoxton, aged 121, a widow, who, up to a very advanced period, cried gray peas for sale about the streets of London; and was well remembered by many aged persons as a woman apparently beyond the middle stage of life, full twenty years before the time of her decease.[57]

Occasionally we find very old persons almost _growing to the spot_ on which they were born. In 1780 died at Englefield, Hants, James Hopper, an agricultural labourer, aged 108, who had never quitted his native Englefield even for a few miles. And in 1799 died Mr. Humphries, a carpenter, born at Newington, Surrey, aged 102, and who would never go more than two or three miles from the house in which he was born. One Trundle, a farmer of Rotherhithe, who died 1766, aged 100, had lived in the same house eighty-two years. Sometimes this takes the turn of misanthropic seclusion: Christopher Tarran, of Sutton, near Richmond, Yorkshire, who died 1827, aged 93, shut himself up in his chamber, from which he never stirred during the last twenty years of his life, and only twice admitted any one into the room. In 1811 there died at Desford, Leicestershire, one John Upton, aged 100; he had been a worsted framework-knitter for one firm in Leicester for ninety-three years.

Widow Richardson, of Holwell, Leicestershire, who died 1806, aged 97, kept school in the parish 75 years, and was never five miles from home during her long life.

We remember two stalwart millers, brothers, Joseph and John Saunders, aged 79 and 73, born at Pixham-mill, and then of Pixham-house, hard by, near the foot of Boxhill, Surrey, where they died, at the above ages.

Footnote 52:

Edward Hailstone, Horton Hall; _Notes and Queries_, 2d series, No. 230.

Footnote 53:

Condensed from Chambers’s _Book of Days_, vol. i.

Footnote 54:

Britton’s _Wilts_. vol. iii.

Footnote 55:

_Walks in Oxford_, 1817.

Footnote 56:

_Select. Gent. Mag._ iv.

Footnote 57:

Bailey’s _Records of Longevity_, p. 249.

LONGEVITY OF CLASSES.

Deep-thinking philosophers have at all times been distinguished by their great age, especially when their philosophy was occupied in the study of Nature, and afforded them the divine pleasure of discovering new and important truths,—the purest enjoyment; a beneficial exaltation of ourselves, and a kind of restoration which may be ranked among the principal means of prolonging the life of a perfect being. The most ancient instances are to be found among the Stoics and the Pythagoreans, according to whose ideas subduing the passions and sensibility, with the observation of strict regimen, were the most essential duties of a philosopher. Thus, we have the examples of a Plato and an Isocrates. Apollonius of Tyana, an accomplished man, endowed with extraordinary powers both of body and mind, who by the Christians was considered as a magician, and by the Greeks and Romans as a messenger of the gods, in his regimen a follower of Pythagoras, and a friend to travelling, was above 100 years of age. Xenophilus, a Pythagorean also, lived 106 years. The philosopher Demonax, a man of the most severe manners and uncommon stoical apathy, lived likewise 100. Even in modern times philosophers seem to have obtained this preëminence; and the deepest thinkers appear in that respect to have enjoyed, in a higher degree, the fruits of their mental tranquillity. Kepler and Bacon both attained to a great age; and Newton, who found all his happiness and pleasure in the higher spheres, attained to the age of 84. Euler, a man of incredible industry, whose works on the most abstruse subjects amount to above three hundred, approached near to the same age; and Kant, who reached the age of 80, showed that philosophy not only can preserve life, but that it is the most faithful companion of the greatest age, and an inexhaustible source of happiness to one’s self and to others. Academicians, in this respect, have been particularly distinguished. We need only mention the venerable Fontenelle,[58] who wanted but one year of a hundred, and that Nestor, Formey; both perpetual secretaries, the former of the French, and the latter of the Berlin Academy.

We find also many instances of long life among schoolmasters, so that one might almost believe that continual intercourse with youth may contribute something towards our renovation and support. But poets and artists, in short all those fortunate mortals whose principal occupation leads them to be conversant with the sports of fancy and self-created worlds, and whose whole life, in the properest sense, is an agreeable dream, have a particular claim to a place in the history of longevity. Anacreon, Sophocles, and Pindar attained a great age. Young, Voltaire, Bodmer, Haller, Metastasio, Gleim, Utz, and Oeser, all lived to be very old; and Wieland, the prince of German poets, lived to the age of 80. (See _Wilson on Longevity_.)

Among the clergy are several remarkable instances. The venerable Bishop Hough, the Cato of Sir Thomas Bernard’s _Comforts of Old Age_, through an extraordinary degree of health of body and mind, attained the age of 92. “Blessed be God for his great mercies to me! I have to-day entered my ninetieth year, with less infirmity than I could have presumed to hope, and certainly with a degree of calmness and tranquillity of mind, which is gradually increasing as I daily approach the end of my pilgrimage. I think, indeed, that my life must now be but of short duration; and, I thank God, the thought gives me no uneasiness.”[59]

Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, after he had been deprived and ejected from Lambeth, for refusing to take any new oaths to William and Mary, retired to his paternal estate, of 50_l._ a year, at Fresingfield, in Suffolk, his birthplace. He was then approaching fourscore; and here he was visited by Bishop Hough, in 1693.

I found him (says the Bishop) working in his garden, and taking advantage of a shower of rain which had fallen to transplant some lettuces. I was struck with the profusion of his vegetables, the beauty and luxuriance of his fruit-trees, and the richness and fragrance of his flowers, and noticed the taste which had directed every thing. “You must not compliment too hastily (says he) on the _directions_ which I have given. Almost all you see is the work of my own hands. My old woman does the weeding, and John mows my turf and digs for me; but all the nicer work,—the sowing, grafting, budding, transplanting, and the like,—I trust to no other hand but my own; so long, at least, as my health will allow me to enjoy so pleasing an occupation. And in good sooth (added he) the fruits here taste more sweet, and the flowers have a richer perfume, than they had at Lambeth.” I looked up to our deprived metropolitan with more respect, and thought his gardening-dress shed more splendour over him, than ever his robes and lawn-sleeves could have done when he was the first subject in this great kingdom.[60]

The Rev. Mr. Sampson, Incumbent of Keyham, Leicestershire, who died 1655, is stated by Thoresby to have held the living of his parish 92 years; so that he could scarcely be less than 116 years old.

The Rev. R. Lufkin, Rector of Ufford, Suffolk, died September 1678, aged 110, having preached the Sunday before he died.

Morton, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, who died 1695, aged 95, constantly rose at four o’clock to his studies when he was 80 years old; he usually lay upon a straw bed, and seldom exceeded one meal a day.

Here are two lengthy incumbencies: “1753, December 22. Rev. Mr. Braithwaite, of Carlisle, [died] aged 110. He had been 100 years in the cathedral, having commenced singing-boy in the year 1652.” “1763. Rev. Peter Alley (Rector of Donamow, Ireland, 73 years), [died] in the 111th year of his age. He did his own duty till within a few days of his death; he was twice married, and had thirty-three children.”[61]

The Rev. John Bedwell, Rector of Odstock, near Salisbury, according to the Bishop’s registry, held that benefice 73 years; and, by the parish register, died at the age of 108.

The Rev. S. W. Warneford, the munificent benefactor to colleges and schools, died 1855, aged 92; and Maltby, Bishop of Durham, 1859, at 90.

Soldiers who survive the chances of war are proverbial for long life: there are several instances recorded in the Chelsea Hospital burial-ground. The lists of the survivors of England’s great battles present instances ranging from 100 to 120 years.[62] The oldest General of our time was Marshal Count Joseph Radetzsky, who died January 5, 1858, in his 92d year.

“History only mentions a single man who, at such an advanced age, commanded an army in the field; and that was Dandolo, the Doge of Venice, who was 95 years of age, and almost blind, when he commanded the Venetians in the great Crusade, and who was the first to enter Constantinople at the time of the assault on it in 1203. Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, was 83 years old when he commanded in Guienne, in 1453; but he was killed in the same year at the battle of Chatillon. Fuentes, General of the Spanish troops at the battle of Rocroy, in 1643, was 82; but he was gouty, and was carried in an arm-chair. He fell in that battle, and with him disappeared the glory of the Spanish arms. The Prussian Field-Marshal Mollendorf was present, in his 82d year, at the defeat of Auerstadt, but not as commander-in-chief. One octogenarian of modern times has been more fortunate than the preceding, and that is Marshal de Villars, who, in his 81st year, undertook the campaign of 1712, crowned by the victory of Denain, which saved the French monarchy.”[63]

Quakers attain great ages. In the Obituary of the _Friend_ Magazine, 1860, we find the following ages of some deceased members of the Society of Friends: 84, 84, 85, 85, 85, 86, 86, 87, 87, 88, 88, 89, 89, 89, 91, 91, 91, 91, 91, 91, 92, 92, 93, 93—making a total of 2128 years, with an average for each life of rather more than 88½ years. Fifty lives in the same period give 4258 years, with an average of 85 per life. The average duration of life in the Society of Friends during 1860 was 58 years and 6 months; but one girl died under 6 months old; five girls and thirteen boys—in all eighteen out of the 324, or 5½ per cent—did not reach the age of one year.

Hard-workers are often long livers. Hobson, the noted Cambridge carrier, died on New-year’s Day, 1630-1, it is said in his 86th year. His visits to London were suspended on account of the Plague, and during this cessation he died; whereupon Milton remarked that Death would never have hit him had he continued dodging it backwards and forwards between Cambridge and the Bull Inn, Bishopsgate.

One John King, of Nokes, Oxon, died in 1766, at the age of 130: he was a farm-labourer, and at the age of 128 walked to and from the market at Oxford—twelve miles. One Wilks, a farm-labourer, of Stourbridge, Worcestershire, who died 1777, aged 109, was suspected by his ignorant neighbours of having purchased the secret of long life from a witch with whom he had become acquainted.

An Irish fisherman, Jonas Warren, who died 1787, Mr. Bailey states, at 167, had for ninety-five years drawn his subsistence from the ocean. Another fisherman, Worrell, of Dunwich, Suffolk, died 1789, aged 119, having fished till he was 107.

On June 3, 1862, there died at his farm, Tullyskerra, near Castleblayney, Gilbert Hand, at the advanced age of 105 years. Two days before his death deceased travelled round his farm, apparently taking his last farewell of the fields in which he so often toiled.

Of Ephraim Pratt, who was living at Shaftesbury, U.S., in 1803, aged 116 years, the Rev. Timothy Dwight relates that he had mown grass 101 years successively. He drank large quantities of milk, and in his latter years it was almost his sole sustenance. His descendants, to the fifth generation, it was publicly stated, numbered more than 1500 persons.

Margaret Woods, of Great Waltham, who died 1797, aged 100, had, with her ancestors, lived in the service of one Essex family for 400 years.

Here is well-authenticated evidence of long service from Sussex. At Battle is the gravestone of Isaac Ingoll, who died April 2, 1798, aged 120 years; his register is to be seen in the parish, and he lived 101 years in the service of the Webster family, of Battle Abbey, having entered it at the age of 19.[64]

Philip Palfreman, who had been box-keeper at the first Covent Garden Theatre in Garrick’s time, died in 1768, aged 100: he almost lived in the theatre, and by his thrift saved a fortune of 10,000_l._ In 1845 died William Ward, aged 98, of the Sun Fire Office, London, where he had filled a situation seventy years.

Jockeys, from the severe effects of training, are proverbially short-lived; yet John Scott, of Brighton, once a jockey, reached the age of 96.

Great pedestrian feats have been performed by very old men. Mr. M’Leod, of Inverness, who died 1790, aged 102, two years previously walked from Inverness to London (five hundred miles) in nineteen days: he had served in Marlborough’s wars.

On May 28, 1802, a lunatic named James Coyle, 47 years old, was admitted a patient into St. Patrick’s (Swift’s) Hospital, Dublin: he continued there upwards of fifty-eight years, and eventually died July 17, 1860, at the age of 105. There can surely be no mistake as to this great age.

Peter Breman, of Dyott-street, St. Giles’s, London, is one of the few instances on record of long life attained by tall men: he stood 6 feet 6 inches high, and was in the army from the age of 18 nearly until his decease, in 1769, at the age of 104 years. Another tall man, Edmund Barry, of Watergrass-hill, Ireland, died 1822, aged 113: he was 6 feet 2 inches in height, and walked well to the last.

One John Minniken, of Maryport, Cumberland, who died 1793, aged 112, was remarkable for the fast growth and profusion of his hair, which he sold, in successive croppings, to a hairdresser of the town, for a penny a day, during the remainder of his life; and more than seventy wigs were made of Minniken’s hair.

Among aged persons of diminutive stature was Mary Jones, of Wem, Salop, who died 1773, aged 100: she was only 2 feet 8 inches in height. Elspeth Watson, of Perth, who died 1800, aged 115, did not exceed 2 feet 9 inches in height, but was bulky in person.