Clergy -- England -- Biography; Stoughton, John, 1807-1897
In connection with the town of Windsor, let me mention two or three
traditions I received from the lips of my beloved wife, who became the
light of my dwelling on May 12th, 1835. Her good old father, Mr. George
Cooper, had long been a sort of Christian Gaius, receiving as guests
under his hospitable roof several men and women of renown. Often would
she speak of Rowland Hill, who repeatedly visited her home on his way to
Wotton-under-Edge, where he spent the summer months. He delighted to
preach in our little chapel in High Street, where the Eton boys would
attend to see and hear the eccentric old clergyman, who in his youth had
been one of their predecessors as a schoolboy. He would tell Mr. Cooper
how he used sometimes to steal at eventide beyond Eton bounds, to attend
a prayer-meeting in a cottage, which he could reach only by leaping over
a ditch with the help of a long pole. He allowed the good woman who
lived there an annuity, which Mr. Cooper used to convey as long as she
lived. Rowland Hill liked to hear at High Street Chapel the Hundredth
Psalm in Watts’s Hymn-book, and the youngsters who came used to alter the
last verse, shouting: “When _Rowland Hill_ shall cease to move.”
I remember hearing how Charles Wesley, the son of the great hymn-writer,
visited the town, accompanied by his sister, and spent an evening in Mr.
Cooper’s house, greatly to the joy of my wife as a girl. They arrived in
a sedan chair, dressed in Court costume. His execution on the piano was
surprising; and those who watched his thick, short fingers, as they swept
over the keys, said it was miraculous how he played.
Before I conclude what I have to say of my life in Windsor, let me advert
to attempts I made to promote intellectual and literary improvement,
according to methods then beginning to be popular. There was an
Institute formed in the adjoining town of Eton for the encouragement of
reading amongst such as had not enjoyed the advantages of early
education. A room was opened, furnished with a few books, where
inducements to what is termed mutual improvement were provided, and there
the famous astronomer Sir J. F. W. Herschell delivered an inaugural
lecture, which gave it at once a character of distinguished
respectability. I was invited to join in the infant enterprise, which I
did with pleasure and satisfaction, and felt it an honour to become one
of its lecturers. The effort made at Eton was followed at Windsor. I
threw myself into the enterprise, and worked on its behalf as long as I
remained in the town. The committee honoured me with an invitation to
lecture in the Town Hall, where my effort was kindly accepted by a large
audience; a short course on the History of the Castle and Town followed.
This, by request, was published in a volume dedicated, by permission, to
the Prince Consort. In its preparation assistance had been furnished
through books, documents, and advice, by residents in the town, and by
officials in the castle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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