The Strand Magazine, Vol. 17, February 1899, No. 98.Various
General
The Strand Magazine, Vol. 17, February 1899, No. 98.
Various
English literature -- Periodicals; Short stories, English -- Periodicals
To commemorate the event, the two sheep who were the victims of Mr.
Coxeter's energy were killed and roasted whole in a meadow near by, and
distributed to the public, together with 120 gallons of strong beer,
this latter being the gift of Mr. Coxeter.
Our next illustration is a photograph of Mr. Charles Coxeter, of
Abingdon, Berks, the only living eye-witness to this feat. He is the
younger brother to the weaver of the cloth, long since dead, who is
shown in our second illustration. His present age is ninety-three. When
approached on the subject he said he well remembered the event, and
recalls with pleasure seeing the workmen dine off portions of the sheep,
in a barge on the river near the mill. The original mill unfortunately
no longer stands, having long since been destroyed, a more modern mill
now occupying the site.
We now give an illustration of the silver medal which was struck in
honour of the occasion. It is worded as follows:--
[Illustration]
"Presented to Mr. John Coxeter, of Greenham Mills, by the Agricultural
Society, for manufacturing wool into cloth and into a coat in thirteen
hours and ten minutes."
Mr. Coxeter was a very enterprising individual, for seemingly not
content with this wonderful achievement, not many years after, in
connection with the public rejoicings for peace after the Battle of
Waterloo, he had a gigantic plum-pudding made, which was cooked under
the supervision of twelve ladies. This monster pudding measured over
20ft. in length, and was conveyed to his house on a large timber waggon,
drawn by two oxen, which were highly decorated with blue ribbons. The
driver was similarly ornamented, and bore aloft an old family sword of
state, presumably to give _éclat_ to the occasion. Arrived at its
destination, the pudding was cut up in the celebrated old mill-yard at
Greenham, and distributed to all and sundry, those who had the good
fortune to partake of it pronouncing the pudding to be "as nice as
mother makes 'em."
[Illustration: BILL PRINTED FOR THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1851.]
The famous coat, which has found a resting-place in a glass case in Sir
William Throckmorton's hall, was exhibited at the great International
Exhibition of 1851, where it attracted a great deal of attention, a few
copies of the old engravings from which our first two illustrations are
reproduced being eagerly bought up. Our last photograph shows the bill
which was printed for that exhibition.
Over thirty years afterwards the coat was again brought before public
notice, this time at the Newbury Art and Industrial Exhibition of 1884.
It was photographed for the first time, by Sir William's permission, for
this article. Though to us it may seem rather a curious cut for a
hunting-coat, it was the approved style for those times, the long
coat-tails flying to the wind during a chase. Needless to say, however,
this coat has never been used for that purpose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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