Loyalty, harmony & hilarity: the jubilee in Wales

To celebrate the latest leg of the Diamond Jubilee tour, the Queen's visit to Cardiff and south Wales, here's a taste of how the Welsh celebrated George III's jubilee in 1809. The quotations are taken from An Account of the Celebration of the Jubilee, compiled in 1810.

Cardiff, Glamorganshire

The Vice-Lieutenant of the county, the High Sheriff, the Corporation, the Cardiff Troop of Cavalry, and the Military stationed there, attended divine service; and the day was afterwards spent with the greatest loyalty, harmony, and hilarity, there being two public dinners — the High Sheriff presided at one of them, and Captain Wood at the other. The Local Militia, quartered at Cardiff, were liberally regaled with roast beef, plum-pudding, and Welsh ale, at the expense of their Officers.

Further north in Snowdonia, in Dolemelynllyn, Merionethshire,

Mr. Bowes, of Dolemelynllyn, called together upwards of 120 peasants, with their wives and children,and feasted them on the grass-plot before his house, while he and his friends enjoyed the spectacle. The following letter, containing an account of the proceedings at Dolemelynllyn, to the editor of a provincial paper, may be interesting to many persons, as a picture of the gratification experienced by the lower orders of society upon this truly joyful occasion.

Sir, Being a farmer of the poorest kind, near Dolgelley, our market town, where I usually go once a week on business, and in the evening, over a pint of ale, hear your newspaper read, which last week contained an abundance of news about the feastings and rejoicings at every place, and finding nothing about our feast at Dolemelynllyn, which strangers say is a beautiful place, where now lives (God be thanked for it!) Mr. Bowes, his wife, and two daughters, all strangers in this country, but who, ever since they have lived here, have done everything in their power to make their poor neighbours happy.

Please, Sir, to tell the world, that these gentlefolks did, on the Jubilee day, invite me, and above 120 more persons, who were poor and in low condition like myself, to a feast on a green before their house; we had beef, mutton pies, and puddings, such nice ones too, as few of the feasters ever tasted, or even saw before, and plenty, plenty of them. I thought my children, Evan and Lowry, never would have stopped eating. The gentleman and his friends stood behind our chairs, along with the common servants, without the least pride in the world; they would give us all clean knives and plates to eat our pudding. When the board was cleared, on came plenty of ale and then the King's health, with three hurras. Next we were took to a large room, where the young folks danced until past midnight; in the meantime we had plenty of ale and cold meat. Never was such a happy day, never, never. God bless the founder !

The Jubilee Asylum

King George III’s Golden Jubilee in 1809 was remarkable not only for the wide geographical scope – every area of the British Isles hosted some sort of festivity – but also because every event was locally organised. There does not seem to have been a hint of intervention from central government. It was an example of localism writ large in an age when speedy communication was measured in the single figures of horsepower not megabytes.

General discussion about the king’s jubilee began in the national press in the summer of 1809. There was some debate about exactly when and how the jubilee should be observed, because according to the Bible, a jubilee should be observed every 49 years, with the 50th year proclaimed sacred for reflection and forgiveness of debts and sins. The Grand National Jubilee of 1809 was observed for one day, on 25 October 1809, as George III entered the 50th year of his reign and the Biblical sentiments were observed by pardoning debtors, deserters and prisoners, and seeking ways to alleviate the suffering of the less fortunate.

In the letters column of The Times and The Gentleman’s Magazine, correspondents wondered whether the cost of illuminating buildings as part of the celebration might not be better spent on poor relief. On October 5, a minister of religion, urged the bishopric to guide their flocks towards ‘a sensible recommendation of public worship, public subscriptions and private acts of devotion, as far more appropriate to the occasion than the tumult, the riot and excess’ proposed by the secular authorities.

A rather alarmist letter published on 21 October 1809, signed by ONE WHO WILL ENJOY THE JUBILEE RATIONALLY, believed that illuminating windows ‘will be the signal for a mob to commence their lawless sport of demolishing windows’.

Courtesy of www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

My favourite suggestion comes from the Morning Chronicle of 22 September 1809, which advised the establishment of a public subscription in every county to fund the construction of an asylum ‘to enable the poor, the old and the helpless . . . to commemorate the blessings of a reign which has made the people of great Britain so happy’.

It was an entirely laudable and well-meaning suggestion, although the author may have lost the sympathy of his female readers before the end of the first paragraph.

The king was 71 at the time of his jubilee, so the writer symbolically used that as the age of entry for men. And as he had been on the throne for 50 years this somehow seemed the logical age at which to admit women, especially because ‘at that period all women have lost the bloom of beauty’.  Logically, therefore, they should be locked up, with nothing much to look forward to except ‘a good dinner and a drink’ twice a year on the king’s birthday and the anniversary of his accession.