The Rochester of Edwin Drood, late 19th century
/Canon William Telfer, D.D., sometime Master of Selwyn College and Ely, and Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, reflects on Rochester at the time of Charles Dickens. Extract from The Friends of Rochester Cathedral Annual Report for 1967.
As one who was born in St. Margaret's 81 years ago, I have been invited to write down some personal reminiscences of my earliest childhood there. But I shall do my best to start from something much better than my own reminiscences. This is Charles Dickens's last and unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
In 1870 it was printed as a serial in a magazine. It attracted little notice at the time. And in the 1880's those who held that it was finer work than anything Dickens had written previously complained that it was still unappreciated. I doubt if my parents knew of it, or if it was much talked of in the Rochester of their day. Nevertheless, the Rochester they knew was the "Cloisterham" of the novel slightly up-graded and a little more awake, but fundamentally unchanged. It was still the little Cathedral city, linked up, beyond thillary his and de tonne thronging with naval and that flowed into it through its docks. They may have brought no opium den to Chatham. Dickens may have drawn his picture of the Princess Puffer's establishment from something he had seen in East London. But it fitted into the Chatham of his day with reasonable veri-similitude.
In my childhood the life of Chatham still did not spill over much into little Rochester. We saw sailors, but not many. A sapper from the R.E. barracks came over to be coached for his London B.A., which he attained while still a private soldier. But I am sure that I should have remembered if scarlet coats had been frequent in our streets, as they would have been a sight to take my fancy. Rochester still lived apart.
The 16 years, however, that separated me from Edwin Drood saw some awakening, by comparison with "Cloisterham". My father's coming from London to Rochester was to join the staff of Sir Joseph William-son's Mathematical School under Mr. Bird. The building in the High Street still in use, was then new, and a token of modernization. My father, but newly wed, was able to rent a little house very conveniently for his work. It was a little way up the hill in St. Margaret's, about flush with Minor Canons' Row.
William Miles, Verger, Sub-Sacrist and Sexton, 1847-1900.
"Mathematicals" did not have much contact with the King's School. And my father having been brought up Presbyterian, we should not have had much to do with the Cathedral but for music. The organist, Dr. Hopkins, was a friend to any and every local music-lover, and my father was such. So they became acquainted. Presently my father was privileged to receive private invitations to moonlight organ recitals.
On a mild night with a bright moon Hopkins would go up to his organ loft. His invited guests would be let into the Cathedral by a side door. And inside the building there would be no sound but the organ, and no light but moonlight streaming in through the windows.
Photograph of John Hopkins, Rochester Cathedral Organist. Rochester Cathedral Chapter Library, portrait photographs collection.
It is not surprising that my father began to attend choral services. Sunday "High Mattins" was a particular treat. And when there had been a small boy at the little house up the hill for about three years, his proud father was rash enough to take him with him, one Sunday morning, to Cathedral. I suppose that it was my first experience of a church service. The entry of the choir in procession excited me so violently that I had to be picked up and hurriedly carried out. The reasons for my excitement might make an amusing study in child psychology. But that is too personal a story to be recorded here.
The Cathedral body of our time was much more distinguished than that of "Cloisterham" according to Dickens. In 1885 Thomas Cheyne was elected to the Oriel chair of Biblical Exegesis at Oxford and came I ex-officio into residence as Professor-canon about the time that I was born. The Close was now a hive of industrious scholarship. Nevertheless it remained as withdrawn and self-enclosed as in "Cloisterham" days.
A great friendship that came to us at that time also exemplifies the changing Rochester. It was with Miss Topple, another London B.A., who had a private school for girls on the Banks. It was not as expensive as the "The Nuns House", but academically no doubt was on a different plane. My first goings abroad from the little house up the hill were in my pram, pushed by a young nurse-maid. We took our walks in the castle gardens. There a small bag of maize provided entertainment with the pigeons. But the maize was liable to attract the attention of swirling and shrieking sea gulls. One of these great birds scared my nurse by swooping low over the pram. My father averred that it mistook my nose for a maize corn.
At that period, nothing large in the way of shipping came through the bridge. The upper river was wholly rural in its surroundings. And this had its disadvan-tages. For the wet banks at low tide bred ague, which attacked my father from time to time.
As I entered my fourth year, my father began to think of a headship. He applied for Longton Grammar School in the Potteries. He had lived in Middlesbrough and was therefore not himself unprepared for Longton. But the idea of taking his small son from Rochester to grow up in the Longton surroundings was too much for him and he withdrew. Shortly afterwards he was appointed to Henry Weight's Commercial School at Faversham. Here we found a lovable home and he a noble life's work.
Rochester, however, was not so easily left behind. My Faversham boyhood was punctuated with visits to the home of one of the Mathematical School masters, Mr. Ternouth. And when the time came for me to go to Cambridge I was sent off on my bicycle to have the proper sort of tweed suit made by my father's tailor of past days. I cannot tell how far the enduring spell of those Rochester years contributed to my father coming, in later life, to Holy Orders in the Church of England. or to my mother returning to be confirmed in Rochester Cathedral by Bishop Harmer.
Photograph of Rochester Cathedral before the restoration of the West Facade in 1888. Rochester Cathedral Chapter Library, albumen prints collection.
The central tower of "Cloisterham" had, at its four corners, slender pinnacles. It was still so in my child-hood. It would be dishonest not to say that it seemed more beautiful so. But with other changes that have been made inside the Cathedral and to the West front no one could find fault. It is high time, however, to leave retrospect and look forward. Nostalgia for a remembered past is a failing of old age. These days are at once more difficult and more bracing than those I have been recalling. New measures designed to enable the Cathedral to play an appropriate role in a rapidly changing social structure deserve our welcome and our prayers. And so may it be!
Canon William Telfer, D.D.
The Friends of Rochester Cathedral were founded to help finance the maintenance of the fabric and grounds. The Friends’ annual reports have become a trove of articles on the fabric and history of the cathedral.
Canons, colleagues, volunteers and staff have shared their memories and reflections in many forms over the years.
