The Club's historic membership roster, part II: Members joining 1870-1876

This is the second post in a series on the historic membership roster of the Club. These posts may be updated as additional biographical information on the members is uncovered. Research by Martin C. Langeveld, incorporating research by Harold L. Hutchins for a paper given to the Club in 1993.



The following became members of the Club from 1870 through 1876:



1870



James Madison Barker — (see image) 1839-1905; graduated from Williams College in 1856 and from Harvard Law School in 1863; lawyer, became a partner of fellow Club member Thomas B. Pingree in 1865; member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives 1872-1873; Superior Court judge 1882-1891; justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court 1891-1905; served as director and later vice-president of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company, director of the Pittsfield National Bank, and director of the Pontoosuc Woolen Company, president of the Berkshire Athenaeum 1903-1905, trustee of Williams College 1882-1905; author of "Shire Town Stories" and other unpublished historical and biographical narratives; member of the Massachusets Historical Society. (Additional information here.)



Thaddeus Clapp Jr. — 1821-1890; born in Pittsfield; discontinued his schooling in order to begin work at the Pontoosuc Woolen Mill where his father, Thaddeus Clapp, was manager; became president of the company in 1882 succeeding Ensign H. Kellogg, fellow member of the Club; married in 1845 Lucy Goodrich; died in Pittsfield 1890.



Edward Boltwood — 1839-1878; graduate of Yale College, 1860; born Amherst, Mass.; studied law at Harvard and admitted to the bar in Boston; practiced in Detroit beginning 1863; married in 1865 to Sarah E. Plunkett, daughter of Thomas F. Plunkett; returned to Berkshire County in 1871 to become treasurer of Berkshire Life Insurance Company; became president of the company in 1876 (succeeding fellow Club member Thomas F. Plunkett upon his death); died of tuberculosis (consumption) in Cairo, Egypt in 1878 at the age of 39 after various travels to mitigate the disease; father of Edward Boltwood Jr., who wrote the "History of Pittsfield 1876-1916."



1871



Robert W. Adam — 1825-1911; born in Canaan, Conn.; graduated from Williams College in 1845; admitted to the bar in Pittsfield, 1849; practiced law in Pittsfield until 1865; elected treasurer of Berkshire County Savings Bank in 1865, an office he held until his death in Pittsfield in 1911; served as director of the Pittsfield Coal Gas Company at its organization in 1853; was elected to the city council for the first two years of city government beginning in 1891, serving as president of the council the second year; married in 1852 Sarah P. Brewster; their one son, William L. Adam, a member of the Club, succeeded him as treasurer of the Berkshire County Savings Bank.





Daniel Day — born 1815; married 1840 Jane Eliza Smedley of Williamstown; graduated from Williams College in 1848; principal of the Academy at Lanesborough.



Morris Schaff — 1838-1929; graduate of West Point Military Academy in 1862; Brevet Captain of Ordnance in the Civil War; fought in the Battle of the Wilderness; author of "The Battle of the Wilderness," 1910; employed by the Page Harding glass company of Lanesborough.



1872



Henry Walbridge Taft — 1818-1904; born in Sunderland, Mass.; editor of the Berkshire County Eagle 1838-1839 and part of 1849; admitted to the bar in 1841; became clerk of the courts for Berkshire County in 1856 and held this office until 1897; served as president of the Stockbridge and Pittsfield Railroad Company, president of the Third National Bank of Pittsfield, vice-president of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company, and director of the Housatonic National Bank; member of the American Antiquarian Society and the Massachusetts Historical Society; deacon of the First Church of Christ.



1873



Joseph Tucker — 1832-1907; born in Lenox, Mass.; graduated from Williams College in 1851; studied law at Harvard and with Judge Julius Rockwell; established a practice of law in Great Barrington, Mass. in 1859; served in the Civil War as a private in the 49th Massachusetts Volunteers, 1862-1863; state representative in 1865; state senator 1866 and 1867; U.S. register in bankruptcy 1867-1869; lieutenant governor of Massachusetts 1869-1873; judge of the Central District Court of Berkshire County beginning 1873; chairman of Pittsfield's school committee 1893-1904; served as president of the Pittsfield Street Railway Company and president of Berkshire County Savings Bank succeeding Judge Rockwell; moderator of the last town meeting of Pittsfield prior to incorporation as a city; presided at the inauguration of Charles E. Hibbard as Pittsfield's first mayor in 1892; died in Pittsfield, resided at 105 E. Housatonic St.



Rev. Edward Otis Bartlett — 1835-1909; born in Utica, N. Y.; graduated from Union College, Albany in 1859, president of his class; served in the Civil War as chaplain of the 150th New York Volunteer Infantry 1863-1865; pastor of the Congregational Church of South Deerfield, Mass., 1867-1868; pastor of the Richmond Street (or Free Evangelical) Congregational Church in Providence, R. I., 1868-1873; installed as pastor of First Church of Christ in 1873 succeeding Dr. John Todd (at a salary of $3,000 plus hous rent). A church history notes that his departure was "for reasons undisclosed — although doubtless because in either his mind or that or the parish, he did not measure up. His name was never removed from the membership list, so this could have been his last pastorate." However, he subsequently served as pastor of Centre Congregational Church, Lynnfield, Mass. from 1877 to 1879 and as pastor of the Academy Congregational Church in Providence from 1887 to 1894. He received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Union College in 1889.



Charles Bailey Redfield — 1818-1876 -born Cromwell, Conn.; married Mary Ann Wallace in 1847; treasurer of the Treadwell Stove Manufacturing Co.; his  son William C. Redfield was U.S. secretary of commerce 1913-1919.



Rev. Charles H. Spalding — 1837-1921(?); pastor of the Baptist Church in Pittsfield, resigned 1875.



Rev. Thomas Crowther — pastor of South Congregational Church 1872-1875; later pastor of First (or Memorial) Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, N. Y.; died in Brooklyn 1877 (of diphtheria); buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn.



Frank E. Kernochan — graduated from Yale College about 1864; admitted to the bar in New York State; treasurer of the Pittsfield Woolen Company and of its successor, the Bel Air Manufacturing Company; died in Pittsfield (shot himself accidentally while looking for burglars in September, 1884).



1874



John A. Kernochan — Pittsfield financier and mill owner; purchased Oliver Wendell Holmes's summer residence at Canoe Meadows and altered it for a permanent residence; died about 1887.



Benjamin Colman Blodgett — 1838-1925; musician and composer; organist at the Eliot Church in Newton, Mass.; Essex Street Church and Park Street Church, Boston; taught at the Maplewood Institute in Pittsfield in 1865-1878; then opened his own school of music which he moved to Northampton in 1881; began teaching at Smith College; later was organist at Memorial Church at Stanford University, Calif.; retired to Seattle. Works: The Prodigal Son, a scriptural cantata; A Representation of the Book of Job.



1875



Walter Cutting — 1841-1907; born in Westchester County, N. Y.; graduated from Columbia College, Class of 1862; mustered into the 13th New York Volunteers as ensign in 1862; advanced through the ranks and ultimately attained the rank of major; moved to Massachusetts in 1868 and became senior aide-de-camp to Governor William F. Russell; launched a paper manufacturing firm with fellow Club member William F. Bartlett in Dalton in 1868 named Bartlett & Cutting, which was dissolved in 1875 after a fire destroyed the mill (the ruins were purchased by Byron Weston, who joined the Club in 1883, who established his own paper company on the site); at his farm (Meadow Farm on Holmes Road, now Miss Hall's School) became a breeder of "fast steppers" and Guernsey cattle; was a candidate for lieutenant governor; married M. C. Pomeroy in 1869. (Died in Pittsfield, July 23, 1907. His son, Walter L. Cutting, committed suicide several months later in September.)



Rev. William McGlathery — rector of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church beginning in 1875; previously served a rector of Christ Church, Towanda, Penn., from 1870 to 1873 and the Church of the Ascension in Fall River, Mass. from 1873 to 1875; served as rector of Grace Episcopal Church, Middletown, N. Y. from 1886 to 1980.



1876



Rev. William Carruthers — graduate of Bowdoin College; pastor of South Congregational Church beginning in 1876, succeeding Club member Thomas Crowther who moved on to First Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, N. Y.; previously pastor of North Avenue (or Third) Congregational Church, Cambridge, Mass. from 1857 to 1866; at Calais, Maine in 1870; later pastor at Fair Haven, Mass. and Richmond Hill, Long Island, N. Y.



James Wells Hull — (1842-1911); born in New Lebanon, N.Y., where he worked for some years as a farmer; worked at Pittsfield National Bank 1865-1872; joined Berkshire Life Insurance Company as secretary in 1872; elected treasurer as well in 1878 and served in these capacities until 1903 when he became president of the company (succeeding Club member William R. Plunkett who died in that year), serving until 1911 when he stepped down to the vice-presidency due to ill health; member of the Massachusetts State Board of Health; active in the Young Men's Association; died in Pittsfield.

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The Club's historic membership roster, part I: Founding members

This post begins a series on the historic membership roster of the Club. These posts may be updated as additional biographical information on the members is uncovered. Research by Martin C. Langeveld, incorporating research by Harold L. Hutchins for a paper given to the Club in 1993.





There were 21 founding members who formed the Club in 1869. Of those, the following 16 were present at the organizational meeting of the Club at the home of Thomas F. Plunkett, November 11, 1869:



J. F. A. Adams — Pittsfield physician; author of numerous medical and scientific articles; a resident of Wendell Avenue; founding member of the Berkshire Historical and Scientific Society organized in 1878.



William F. Bartlett — 1840-1876; born in Haverhill, Mass.; studied at Harvard University; Civil War veteran with an illustrious record: Captain, 20th Mass. Volunteers, wounded at Yorktown and had a leg amputated; returned to service as Colonel of the 49th Mass. Volunteers, wounded twice at Port Hudson, organized 57th Mass. Volunteers and led them to the in the Battle of the Wilderness, promoted to Brigadier-General, was taken prisoner, released in an exchange and made Major-General in command of the 1st Division of the 9th Corps; returned to Pittsfield where he had recruited the 49th regiment, married Mary Agnes Pomeroy, and engaged in business here; died of consumption in 1876. There is a bronze statue of Bartlett in Memorial Hall in the Massachusetts State House in Boston, unveiled in 1904. A biography of Bartlett by Richard Allen Sauers and Martin H. Sable was published in 2009.



Henry Shaw Briggs — 1824-1887; born in Lanesborough, Mass., lawyer and politician; graduate of Williams College, 1844; Massachusetts state legislator; Captain and later Brigadier-General in the Civil War, commander of the Allen Guards of Pittsfield; son of Massachusetts Governor George Nixon Briggs; elected state auditor in 1867, served until 1871; later special justice at Pittsfield District Court; died in Pittsfield and buried in Pittsfield Cemetery.



Thomas Colt — Graduate of Williams College, 1842; active in First Church of Christ and in civic affairs; paper manufacturer with a mill at Coltsville, lived at 42 Wendell Avenue (later the Women's Club of Pittsfield); helped to organized the Housatonic Engine Co., a forerunner of the Pittsfield Fire Department; filed a $220,000 bankruptcy in 1876. (The idle mill was purchased in 1879 by the Crane Paper Company and has been manufacturing the U. S. currency paper ever since.)



Henry Laurens Dawes — 1816-1903; born in Cummington, Mass.; U.S. Senator and Representative; editor of the Greenfield Recorder and later the North Adams Transcript; lawyer; served in Massachusetts legislature; served as U.S. Attorney for western Massachusetts; U.S. Representative 1857-1875; a friend of Abraham Lincoln, who served as a pall bearer at Lincoln's funeral; supporter of the creation of Yellowstone National Park and the transcontinental railroad; U.S. Senator 1875-1893; author of the Dawes Act and later chairman of the Dawes Commission, under which native Americans were gradually deprived of some 90 million acres of tribal land.



Jacob Lyman Greene — 1837-1905; born in North Waterford, Maine; Brevet-General in the Civil war, described as Gen. George Armstrong Custer's "best man"; studied law at University of Michigan; enrolled as private in the 7th Michigan Volunteer Infantry in 1861; joined Custer's staff as assistant adjutant general in 1863; captured at Trevilian Station and held prisoner; refused parole "over an issue regarding unequal treatment of black prisoners"; paroled in December 1865; rejoined Custer's command one day after Lee's surrender at Appomattox; mustered out of the volunteer service in 1866; moved to Pittsfield where his brother was a physician; joined Berkshire Life Insurance Company as assistant secretary; moved to Hartford in 1870 to join Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance, where he became president in 1878 and held this position until his death; died following an operation at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1905. In Hartford he was the member of the Monday Evening Club of that city.





William Greenough Harding — 1834-1908; one of the proprietors of the Berkshire Glass Company of Lanesborough, which gained fame for producing colored glasses used in the stained glass windows of Tiffany and others; he was a member of the First Church, and upon the deaths of his wife and two children within a short period in 1874 he commissioned, in 1882, the first stained-glass memorial window in the church's sanctuary; died in Pittsfield.



Frank K. Paddock — Pittsfield physician and medical examiner; served as president of the Massachusetts Medical Society; married to Anna Danforth Todd, daughter of Rev. John Todd; upon her death married Anna's sister Sarah Denman Todd.



Thomas Fitzpatrick Plunkett — Manufacturer, financier and politician, born in Lenox, Mass. in 1804; educated at Lenox Academy; moved to Pittsfield in 1836; was engaged in the cotton business; president of the Agricultural Bank for five years, became the first president of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company in 1861; elected to the Massachusetts house in 1834, 1835, 1868, 1869 and 1870, and to the Senate in 1842 and 1843, founder of Berkshire Gas Company in 1853. His second wife, Harriet M. Plunkett, was a public health pioneer, who was a founder of Pittsfield's House of Mercy hospital, and a leader in efforts to develop more sanitary plumbing. Father of William R. Plunkett, who joined the Club in 1869 after the inaugural meeting.



William Bainbridge Rice — 1824-1917; Pittsfield superintendent of schools; graduate of Williams College, 1844; father of A. H. Rice who founded the Pittsfield manufacturing company of that name.



Rev. William C. Richards — author and naturalist; pastor at the Baptist church 1865-1867; then became principal of Pollock Institute, "a boarding school of higher class for lads locate one-half mile north of Maplewood"; author of the biography of Gov. George Nixon Briggs.



Rev. Charles Vinal Spear — 1825-1891; graduate of Amherst College, 1846; became teacher at the Maplewood Institute, studied theology with Dr. John Todd and became licensed to preach in 1851; pastor at Sudbury, Mass. for three years; purchased the Maplewood Institute's business in 1857 and real estate in 1864; donor of the former Spear Zoological Laboratory to Oberlin College in Ohio.



Rev. Edward Strong, D.D. — Born in Somers, Conn., 1813; graduate of Yale College, 1838; studied theology at the Union Theological Seminary and the New Haven Theological Seminary; Minister at the State Street Church (later called the College Street Church), New Haven, 1842-1862; Minister of the South Congregational Church from 1865 to 1871; Minister of the South Evangelical Church, West Roxbury, Mass. 1872-1882.



Rev. John Tatlock — Born on the island of Anglesea, North Wales, 1808; sailed to America in 1830, landing in Philadelphia; worked in mercantile establishments while studying to enter college; attended Williams and graduated 1836; was a college tutor for two years; became Professor of Mathematics in 1838, a position he held until 1867, except during the 1845-1846 academic year when he served as Professor of Ancient Languages; served as college librarian 1845-1856; was licensed to preach by the Congregational Association of Berkshire in 1852; received a Doctor of Law degree from Western Reserve College in 1857; was admitted to the bar in 1868 (at the age of 60) and began practicing law in Pittsfield; served for some years as a special justice. In his later years (according to Harold Hutchins) "mental disease impaired his faculties and injured his usefulness."



John Metcalf Taylor — born Cortland, N.Y. 1845; graduated Williams College in 1867; admitted to the bar and began practice of law in Pittsfield 1870; boarded at Mrs. Lawrence's on Summer Street served as town clerk, clerk of the courts, and clerk of St. Stephen's Parish; followed Club member Jacob Lyman Greene (above) to begin an insurance career in Hartford in 1872, eventually becoming president of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company as successor to Greene; a student of early Colonial history as well as Civil War history and the author of several historical books; member of the American Historical Society and the Connecticut Historical Society;



Rev. John Todd — 1800-1873; the eighth minister of First Church of Christ; born in Arlington, Vt., 1800; attended Yale College, studied Theology at Andover, received Doctor of Divinity degree from Williams College in 1845; became a Williams trustee; assumed his first pastorate in Groton, Mass. in 1826; went from there to the Edwards Church in Northampton in 1833 and then to First Congregational Church in Philadelphia in 1837; came to First Church in 1842 and remained until 1873; died just months after ending his pastorate, in August 1873. He was very conservative theologically: his son wrote about his preaching: "He rather liked to feel bad, and he enjoyed making others feel bad, and being sensitive himself, he knew just where the fountains of tears lay.” He wrote a total of 33 books and traveled widely. By happenstance or design, he was at Promontory Point, Utah in 1869 and delivered the invocation at the ceremonial driving of the Golden Spike completing the transcontinental railroad. After that occasion he continued to San Francisco, where he was offered $10,000 in gold to start a church, but declined the offer. Nearly every minister of First Church since John Todd has been a member of the Club.



Not present at the original meeting but also agreeing to join as "founding members" in 1869 were the following five members:



George P. Briggs — 1822-1882; son of Gov. George Nixon Briggs; graduate of Williams College 1842; master at law Harvard 1846; Pittsfield lawyer; overseer of the Pittsfield Cemetery.



Benjamin Chickering — 1824-1889; born in Phillipston, Mass.; secretary of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company, with actuarial duties, 1856-1873; helped organize the first Convention of Life Underwriters in 1859; incorporator of the Maplewood Institute; later proprietor of Chickering's Commercial College in Pittsfield.



Ensign H. Kellogg — born in Sheffield, Mass., 1812; graduate of Amherst College 1836; practiced law but switched to commercial pursuits including banking and manufacturing; prominent in civil affairs; served several terms in the legislature two terms as Speaker of the House; through the influence of his neighbor, Henry L. Dawes, was appointed in 1876 to the Halifax Commission, a commission set up to settle a dispute between the United States and Great Britain over fisheries in Canadian waters; served as president of the Pontoosuc Woolen Mill until 1882 when he was succeeded by fellow Club member Thaddeus Clapp Jr. He also served as president of the Agricultural National Bank, helped establish the Water Works and the Fire Department, and was a charter incorporator of the Berkshire Athenaeum.



Thomas Perkins Pingree — 1829(?)-1895; lawyer, partner of James M. Barker (who joined the Club in 1870); clerk-treasurer of the Berkshire Athenaeum; "worked arduously with money and labor on behalf of the Young Men's Association; died in Pittsfield.



Wiliam R. Plunkett — 1831-1903; born North Chester, Mass.; son of Thomas F. Plunkett, who joined the Club at its inaugural meeting in 1869; studied at Yale (member of the class of 1854 but did not graduate); studied law at Harvard, admitted to the Berkshire Bar in 1855;  had his law office at 4 North St., was an incorporator of the Berkshire Athenaeum and served on the Water Works commission; served for 20 years as president of the Pontoosuc Woolen Manufacturing Co., beginning in 1868; became president of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company in 1878; Lived in the "Longfellow House" in Pittsfield; died in Pittsfield. In the first intercollegiate baseball game, played between Williams and Amherst July 7, 1859, each team brought its own umpire, who, naturally, could not always agree, so it was necessary to have an arbiter or referee. This role was filled by William R. Plunkett.



Photo by designwallah, used under Creative Commons License.

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The Bard's Berkshire connection

Presented to the Club by Michael A. Shirley in April, 1999

It is quite remarkable that today we use in everyday language so many of those quotations which were written 400 years ago and are taken from plays performed not only in English-speaking countries but literally in almost every country in the world. Our love, respect, wonder and admiration for William Shakespeare know no bounds.

In a humble way I would like to show you how my tenuous connection with him in England has now coincidentally extended to the Berkshires. I hope, nay I pray that you will find it interesting and that for those of you who have never studied the Elizabethan period Shakespeare’s plays with their difficult but beautiful verse will mean more to you. After all, an entree to Shakespeare opens up a world that one can dream about all one’s life. “Such stuff that dreams are made of.”

You are warned, though, that I find the social conditions that existed at this time are what really interests me so I’ll pass some of them on to you. My history at school was of the dates of kings and queens and other such static information. Little social history was taught, although in fairness the emphasis has shifted in modern times.

A little over two years ago I received an e-mail from a most surprised young lady at Shakespeare & Co. She had ventured onto the internet to look for the alumni of a school in South London called Dulwich College, and found my name with an address on the same street as the company she worked for.

Why, and why surprised? She, Mary Guzzy, is in charge of a project to build a replica of the Rose Theatre and its surrounding village, one of the new theatres built in London in the late 16th century, where Shakespeare’s new plays were performed. So “you could have knocked her over with a feather” (not a Shakespearean quote, I hasten to add) when she made this surprising discovery.

Why this Dulwich College? Well, the school was founded by Edward Alleyn, one of the most successful of Shakespeare’s actors. He was married to the daughter of a gentleman called Phillip Henslowe, an entrepreneur, who built and ran the Rose Theatre. His diaries and all the plans of the theatre reside in the archives at Dulwich College. We will see how Edward Alleyn, an actor, celebrated in a profession which took advantage of the prosperous times of Elizabeth's reign, managed to make enough money to found a school for twelve poor scholars, originally called “Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift at Dulwich.”

In the space of a few years on the North and South banks of the Thames in London several theatres were built. One should say purpose-built theatres, because there is evidence of plays being put on in arenas or pits where bear and bull baiting went on and in the courtyards of inns, all open to the air of course.

The first was built in 1576 by James Burbage and his brother-in-law John Brayne, and was just called “The Theatre.” Another called The Curtain was built close by the next year, 1577. The Theatre was situated North of the river at Cripplegate. It is this theatre that in 1599 was dismantled and moved to the South Bank or Bankside to become the Globe Theatre of which there is now a replica which is the centre of a thriving Shakespearean “industry” where education, an exhibition and performances are the hallmarks. (I can only urge you to visit and attend one of the plays when you are in London. )

Besides these “public theatres” which were considered noisome and rowdy there were smaller indoor ones considered “private” because higher fees were charged. The original actors here were choir boys (from St. Paul’s, the Chapel Royal at Windsor) who had begun acting out religious parables but turned to the performance of secular drama. We will see how religion was central to much tension and strife in Elizabethan England. But I am running ahead of myself.

The Rose was built in 1587 by Philip Henslowe, as I told you. It was the fourth such purpose-built theatre to be built in London and the first on Bankside. Now, Henslowe was an Elizabethan with an eye for making money and one of the first to see the financial potential of the new drama that was rapidly developing in London’s nascent playhouses from 1576 onwards. He was no player, or playwright, but his business success became joined with that of the Rose, as did his private life. In 1592 his stepdaughter married the celebrated actor Edward Alleyn.

There is evidence that the Rose was first built with the general entertainments in
mind, particularly animal baiting and traditional forms of drama, and that the new drama which demanded a fixed stage, tiring house (where actors changed their costumes) and frons scenae (performing area) came as a later modification.

I should point out that that this is disputed by some. The first five years of the Rose was a period of frantic development and change, first when a fixed stage was introduced and ending when it became a full version of a purpose-built playhouse after the extensive modifications of 1592. In one building we find the impressions left from this seminal period in the evolution of English drama. The Rose was a crucible of theatre development.

As an aside, to give you an idea that the theatre was not suited at first to the performances of theatrical plays I’ll read to you this amusing if rather chilling account found in Henslowe’s records at Dulwich:

You shall understand of some accidental news here in this town, though myself no witness thereof, yet I may be bold to verify if for an assured truth. My Lord Admiral, his men and players having a devise in their play to tie one of their fellows to a post as to shoot him to death, having borrowed their callyvers [guns] one of the players’ hands swerved, his piece being charged with bullet, missed the fellow he aimed at and killed a child, and a woman great with child forthwith, and hurt another man in the head very sore. How they will answer it I do not study, unless their profession were better, but in Christianity I am very sorry for the chance, but God, his judgements, are not to be searched or enquired of at man’s hands. And yet I find by this an old proverb verified: "There never comes more hurt than comes from fooling."

History has taught us that the Elizabethan Age was a golden age. England enjoyed prosperity and a certain stability. Land values and employment increased. Ships explored foreign lands. Foreign armies and navies, particularly the Spanish, were defeated. Elizabeth matured into a wise, diplomatic, shrewd and popular queen. It is only recently that it has been realised that the momentous events and changes that occurred in the 16th century caused turmoil in the religious and political lives of her citizens, only three million at this time.

After all, in the space of less than a century medieval Catholicism was replaced by modern Protestantism accompanied by the more extreme Puritanism. The link with Rome had begun in 597 with the conversion to Christianity by the mission of St. Augustine. It had been strong ever since. Henry VIII in his dispute with the Pope over his desire to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Ann Boleyn in the 1530s solved it by declaring himself the supreme head of the Church of England in place of the Pope. He meant to establish that he was the ultimate authority in his own kingdom.

It is quite likely that he was happy for change to stop there, but for two things. First, in 1536 he had financial problems and these led him to seize the lands, buildings and treasures of the monasteries. Second, there was an influx of new Protestant ideas from the German states, where Martin Luther had defied the Pope and emperor and become a national hero. One’s relation to God was a matter of personal conscience and initiative not determined by the doctrines and superstitious goings-on of the Catholic Church. The ordinary folk was imprisoned by them.

So the dissolution of the monasteries and the Protestant Reformation that followed brought about a fundamental shift in the power structure in England, the rise of a new landed class whose well-being was dependent on the new regime (Henry VIII had sold much of the land of the dissolved monasteries to them) and a state religion. Out of the religious strife, class conflict and eventual civil war the secular Britain as we know it today would evolve.

However, at the level of the village, town and in the countryside when Henry died in 1547, not much had changed. The Church was part Catholic and part Protestant with such new features as a new prayerbook. Edward, Henry’s son from his third marriage, then attempted to speed up the change — his determined, pious, singleminded personality egged on by a group of politically motivated advisors. Religious statues, screens and paintings were to be removed from churches, chapels and cathedrals. This destruction was cut short by his early death still in his teens in 1553. His half-sister, Mary, daughter of Catherine of Aragon and an ardent Catholic, set about reversing the trend. Her five years saw the burning of many Protestants all over the country. She earned the nickname of “Bloody Mary.”

The country was see-sawing between the religions, and now entered the new queen, Elizabeth. She was a convinced Protestant but no zealot. She set out to return the country to the path her father had begun. She surrounded herself with wise, moderate and astute men and could look forward to the smooth establishment of a country-wide Protestant Church. She achieved this, but not smoothly.

From our point of view, her achievement allowed the wondrous Renaissance of English literature and the theatre evidenced by our playhouses, the plays of Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson and eventually snuffed out by the Civil War of 1642. And within this achievement lived William Shakespeare. He was truly a man of his times witnessing all the momentous events around him.

Much evidence has been accumulating that his family were being caught up in these religious tensions. In 1563, a few months before William’s birth John, his father, previously a farmer, then a glover and now the Treasurer of Stratford responsible for the town accounts, was supervising the covering up and desecration of the religious images and painting in the churches. The records show that from being a relatively prominent and wealthy citizen he lost much of this almost certainly because of his Catholic faith and was lucky not to have lost his life in the frequent purges that Elizabeth’s regime resorted to as papist plots increased.

A century later a most extraordinary discovery was made in the attic of John Shakespeare’s house — a will requesting that he be buried essentially in a Catholic funeral. The goings-on around him were the fodder for his plays. He is said to have invented the concept of personality; he skillfully balanced the conflicting opinions around him; and he was the witness to the rise of European nations to challenge the ancient Asian civilizations — and yet he was born early enough to know the great medieval traditions of Christian England and Europe. He was successful enough in his time to restore his family’s fortunes so that he bought property that allowed his family to live comfortably in Stratford.

The public was demanding more and more plays. Shakespeare, Marlowe and Ben Jonson among others were providing them. The competition must have been fierce, as new theatres such as The Swan were going up. Henslowe responded as we have seen by modifying and modernising the Rose. Later in 1600 he and Alleyn built the Fortune Theatre and another, the Hope was also built. Two to three thousand people attended each play, paying a penny in the pit, another in the gallery and another for private rooms.

The acting companies were busy, very busy. The most successful of them like the King’s Men and Admiral’s Men included as many as 20 plays in their repertoire. Shakespeare belonged to the Chamberlain’s Men which later became the King’s Men that performed at the Globe Theatre. Indeed he and about five other actors had invested in, it as Burbage had difficulty in raising enough money, when they moved from The Theatre and built the Globe. That move was mainly necessary because it had proved most difficult to get a new lease because of the objections of residents to the noise and exceedingly bad company attracted to that theatre.

Shakespeare of course had written plays to be performed by his company and it is most likely that in his later years he became more of a theatre manager, even collaborating with others on some of them. Rehearsing in the mornings and performing in the afternoons must have meant a punishing pace but the public’s main entertainment in this late Elizabethan era was the theatre.

It boggles the mind how actors remembered all their lines, but education at the time concentrated on learning by rote. Printed copies were scarce not only because of the current printing methods but to prevent theft. Actors received only copies of their own lines. And then there were tours of the country which were conducted at least twice a year. The only breaks were enforced closures of the theatres by the authorities because of outbreaks of the plague. There was one of 18 months from the spring of 1602 until November 1603. Descriptions of the urban conditions on Bankside and in London make it quite plain that disease was rife. Open sewers running into the River Thames abounded so that rats which spread the plague must have infested the place. The stench apparently was appalling and the ground was frequently waterlogged.

From the diagrams of the City of London at this time you can see that most of the habitation existed on the North side of The Thames. Here is where the City authorities’ writ ran, not on the South side. Permits had to be obtained for performances of plays, often denied because they thought theatres were dens of iniquity frequented by lewd and lascivious folks, let alone a fear of the doubtful political intent and its effect on the populace.

It was not an accident that Bankside on the South bank was the site of numerous brothels, inns, bear and bull baiting arenas and eventually theatres. It was out of the City authorities’ jurisdiction. Interestingly, the land was owned by the Church and administered by the Bishop of Winchester. We will see how Edward Alleyn, the founder of Dulwich College, took advantage of this situation.

Another phenomenon I find interesting is the continual discovery of more documents that throw light on these Shakespearean times. England’s public records are more complete than those of most European countries. She has not been invaded or ravaged by foreign armies. As records are being scoured and then further references found to all sorts of events and material, a more complete picture is evolving. For instance now that it is known that the acting companies toured the countryside, town records have been examined for where their performances took place and which gentry patronised them. Much recent information has surfaced about Shakespeare’s life in London and in later years back in Stratford-on-Avon.

Some scholars are having a crack at identifying the boy who is the object of his first 17 sonnets. Interpretation of course has fixed on a homosexual relationship, but it is quite possible that having lost his only son about the time that they were written in the late 1590s, he was in a crisis-time of his life. He had described this as “being a hell of a time”

Speculation is rife about who “The Dark Lady” is. She is the object of very many of his later sonnets. Diaries have been found of an astrologer-cum-healer called Forman who treated many of Shakespeare’s circle. A lady who fits the bill is a woman descended from a Venetian family that arrived in England in the early part of the century. Their name was Bassano, and it was a Jewish family. The intrigue of the sonnets is that Shakespeare used the young man to be a messenger to the Dark Lady, a common practice of those times, but he ended up sleeping with her. Forman’s diaries are full of news, comment and scandal of these times.

In the first decade of the 17th century when he had gained success and fame he lodged with a Huguenot family in Cheapside on the North side of London. Maps of the area show the pubs, inns, brothels, houses, etc. and it can be appreciated that he was in daily contact with the common people of London. He only returned to Stratford about once a year although his wife and children continued living there.

Illustration: the planned reconstruction of the Rose Theatre at Shakespeare & Co., Lenox, Massachusetts

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