On this day … 13 July 1889

The Preston Chronicle published a lengthy obituary of the Preston historian Charles Hardwick, whose history of his native town is now one of the best sources for local historians.

In the obituary, that history is relegated to a mere couple of lines at the very end, after an account of his membership of the Oddfellows society that took up over half its length. The obituary was probably written by the Chronicle’s editor and Hardwick’s fellow historian of Preston, Anthony Hewitson, so perhaps the relegation of Charles’ major work reflected professional envy.

The obituary follows Hardwick’s life from his birth in 1817, the son of the landlord of the Grey Horse Inn in Fishergate, and records that at the age of fourteen, he started work as an apprentice at the Chronicle, long before Hewitson became its editor.

Shortly after, his father, William, by then a widower, died and, according to the obituary, ‘the cares and responsibilities of a large family devolved’ on the eighteen-year-old Charles.

Here the obituary becomes confusing, for it says Charles then gave up his job at the Chronicle to study as an artist, moving to London to continue his studies, which included a trip to Italy, in 1839, when he would have been about twenty-two. How did he support that large family, his studies and his stay in Italy?

Next, the obituary reports, he returned to Preston and set himself up as a portrait painter and art teacher. Also, it adds, by the age of twenty-two he had met and married Elizabeth Addison, originally from Leyland, who died two years later, leaving their daughter in his charge.

Julie Foster wrote an article for the Preston Historical Society website, which adds a lot more information about Charles’ subsequent life and career.

One of the friendships that Charles developed that is highlighted in both the obituary and in Julie’s article was with Eliza Cook, the Victorian feminist and writer, an ardent proponent of the political rights of women.

She and Charles, she forcefully and he more cautiously, took the Preston prison reformer, the Rev John Clay, to task for his utterly ridiculous assertion that Preston’s working-class mothers were murdering their babies to claim ‘burial money’ from the friendly societies.

Eliza’s lengthy rebuttal of the Rev Clay’s attack includes many references to Preston locations that make it clear that she must have visited the town and toured its worst slums, probably in the company of Charles.

Their friendship had its gentler aspects. Eliza was a poet and wrote some of her poems for Charles. It is unlikely there was any romantic involvement. Her lover was the American actress Charlotte Cushman, and she chose to dress in ‘a very masculine style, which was considered strange at the time’.

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Sources
For more on Charles Hardwick, see Julie’s article: http://www.prestonhistoricalsociety.org.uk/members-articles
For more on Eliza Cook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliza_Cook
For their demolition of the Rev Clay’s infanticide claims: ‘Child murder’ in Victorian Preston