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ancient and modern lore

No Man is an Island

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Current image: African wildlife gathered around a large baobab tree in savanna

‘No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
everyman is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were:
As well as a manor of thy friends
Or of thine own were.
Any mans death diminishes me.
because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.’

I was looking for this poem of John Donne’s, having found that I had his biography but not his poems, when I came upon Julianne Sandberg’s Substack post which contained the words.

I had remembered the quote, ‘no man is an island’, however I had forgotten that the poem ends, ‘for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee’. From one poem, two famous quotes, both of which point out a fundamental truth about life.

Julianne Sandberg’s post was mostly concerned with the latter part of the poem, ‘For whom the bell tolls’; I was initially interested in the first part.

‘No man is an island, Entire of itself’ is such a profound statement. It is also something that modern society seems to have forgotten.

Laurence van der Post, in his books about the lost world of the Kalahari, talks about the African Bushmen and the fundamental connection they had with the land they lived in. These people had a deep understanding of the interconnectivity of all life. Their relationship with the land, the animals and even the sky itself; their knowledge of the seasons and their ancient lore of legends, myths and tales of the animals, stars and the land and the spirits therein, show that they intrinsically knew they were an interrelated part of the universe.

Much more recently, my own father ran night classes on how to use a sextant to navigate a ship. A sextant is a mechanical tool to make accurate observations of the sun and the stars to plot one’s journey. Nowadays computers do these computations for us. Long before the sextant was invented, mariners would cross the seas purely on their knowledge of the stars, the sun, wind and wildlife. Today, how many of us can even identify ‘The Three Sisters’ or ‘The Plough’, two very basic star patterns?

Similarly, as a child my parents and grandparents would take me along the verges and know which fruit, berries and nuts etc, were safe to eat. How many of us nowadays can identify any flowers, nuts, berries or trees, never mind know what is safe to eat?

However, I digress. ‘No man is an island unto himself’. Nature is interconnected. The moon exerts gravitational pull on the earth, effecting the tides on the earth. The sun also effects the earths tides and water systems; indeed, the sun is essential for life on our planet, however if we get too much of it this will put an end to our existence. The sun even has an impact on the wind, and the amount of water in the air. We are very much at the mercy of forces far bigger than ourselves; something the Kalahari people understood only too well.

When my children were very small, we used to run our dogs along the Greenway, in Kenilworth, which is now part of the HS2 track. Lovely as it was, and although we enjoyed the walk and the dogs enjoyed their run, there was a sinister downside. On either side of the path were fields of some type of corn/ wheat, and a few times a year, the smell of chemicals was overpowering. This was when they were spraying the crops to get rid of insects which might affect the magnitude of the harvest. The fields, and the Greenway, were devoid of life, there were no caterpillars, bees or butterflies, nor the noise of grasshoppers. Bees are essential to the planet, for they are involved in the fertilisation of plants; without this very important behaviour, our food production is put in jeopardy. Farming practices are decreasing their numbers to a concerning degree. Also, I confess that at this point I was converted to the importance of organic flour! If the plants were so often sprayed with insecticide, what are we eating! This again reveals how interconnected everything is.

Farming practices effect our health, and the world, in so many different ways. What goes into the ground as food for the plants, comes out of the ground as food for us. If we deplete the ground of nutrients, with over-intensive farming, then we also deplete our own nutrients, for the fruit and veg will be deficient in the minerals that we need to survive and thrive. If we add into the waterways and the earth poisons from our factories and sewers, then the fish, animals and plants will consume these in one way or another, and we, when we consume them, will consume the poisons also. Everything is connected even if we do not see it. ‘No man is an island unto himself’, how he lives effects how others live and die.

A plant produces a berry, a bird eats it and then passes it somewhere else, and a new plant is born. An animal dies in the wild and thus feeds so many other animals, and what goes into the ground is used by plants as food and they grow. A carelessly dropped tissue on the ground has its own cycle, everything is interconnected in some way or other.

This interconnectedness works is the same way socially. Every smile, gesture, action we make or don’t make has an effect, not just on the person or situation we think it does. An unthinking cross word to one person could be the thing that sends a person home sad, who then presents an unhappy face to the partner at home, who then finds it harder to be patient with the children, which stresses the baby which doesn’t sleep which means the person goes back to work more tired, and probably more grumpy and/or ineffectual, the next day… And so on. Just like the children’s story of the old woman who swallowed the fly, and then swallowed the spider to catch the fly etc etc.

This is not to say we should develop a guilt complex. Just that we should be aware. No man is an island. Not even the old woman who lives alone and sees no one from one end of the day to the next. Over time she will deteriorate mentally and physically until the time comes when she will come to the notice in one way or another to the rest of society. This is not to talk about the effect on her environment while she is on her own in the house that is deteriorating around her.

The Kalahari people talk about hearing the stars sing, something that most of us can’t, or don’t, do; however, we can and do read non-verbal, accurately and inaccurately, so even the non-verbal and the verbal from those we do not know affect us. Visual and auditory displays and information affect us and then we pass the effect of this on to the places and people we encounter. Most of us do not know the names of our neighbours, sometimes not even their faces. Despite this, in one way or another, those we know, and the other faceless people we come across will affect us, and we will affect them. My granny always used to say that we should always pass a smile on, for if we smile at someone it takes a lot of effort for that person not to smile back! Or as Dolly Parton famously said, ‘If you see someone without a smile give them one of yours!’

It is as if life were one big tapestry; where a stitch is loose, or in the wrong place, it skews the whole structure, for as Donne says, ‘no man is an island unto himself.’ We are all interconnected.

As a Christian this idea is brought home very strongly to us by St John. In his gospel he talks about the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, who would be sent after Jesus was resurrected and this Spirit would dwell in us and connect us to him and to God. In John 14:20, we read, ‘At that day ye shall know that I am in my father and ye in me, and I in you’. In addition to, or as part of, the interconnectedness of everything in the universe, there is a special interconnectedness between those people, past and present, who have the Holy Spirit. We are all connected to each other for all time. All the discussion as to which earthly church or denomination, and who can take communion with who, and who doesn’t like or want to spend time with people in different churches or denominations just doesn’t work, if ‘I am in my father and ye in me and I in you’. We are totally interconnected for all time. For that same Holy Spirit which is in me is in you too!

Finally, as Donne says so wisely:

‘Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.’

Donne is bringing back to remembrance our interconnectedness. We are connected because we are inextricably linked to each other and the world and universe we live in, even if we don’t know, and have never met each other. Each of our actions causes another reaction which we may not notice ourselves but will be felt somewhere. Our pains and joys and sorrows, will on some level effect each other and the world we live in. We are bound together also by the fact that because of our humanity the bell will toll for us, both directly and indirectly.

At secondary school English lessons, we had to learn by heart some of the War Poets and one poem that always stays with me, despite my being a Scot, is one by Rupert Brooke. It is called The Soldier:

‘If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam.
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds: dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness;
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

I always loved this poem even though it was sad and about a brave young man worrying about dying in a foreign land; because it showed the gratitude and appreciation for what his country and his upbringing had given him. It also showed the interconnectedness of life, for even in death his life would be ongoing, there would be a part of him and his upbringing forever in this foreign land, just as there would be a part of him forever in the people and places he had interacted with in life, and in the life beyond.

Modernity, as it rushes blindly headlong through life, forgets the words of these two poets and the wisdom of the Kalahari people at their peril.

‘No man is an island.
Entire of itself;
every man Is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were:
As well as a manor of thy friend’s
Or thine own were.
Any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls:
It tolls for thee.’

ancient and modern lore, History Blog

The Fate of the Sword of Captain Lawrence of the USS Chesapeake

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The Death of Captain James Lawrence on Board the Chesapeake, June 1st 1813

I was reading Peter Berresford Ellis and Seumas Mac A’ Ghobhainn’s book, ‘The Scottish Insurrection of 1820’, for Book 3 of the Dragonseyrie Series, ‘Rebellion and Subterfuge’, and I came across an entry that intrigued me. It mentioned that a Captain James Jones, a former lieutenant in the Royal Marines, was wearing a sword which had belonged to the Captain of USS Chesapeake, Captain James Lawrence. I immediately set out to find out more about this.   

USS Chesapeake was a 38- gun wooden hulled, three- masted heavy frigate, in the USA Navy.  She launched in December 1799.    Captain James Laurence took over command of the Chesapeake in May 1813, a year into the 1812 war between Britain and the USSA.

America declared war on Britain in 1812, for several reasons. One of the factors influencing this declaration was that the UK was busy with France and Napoleon, and as America was wishing to add Canada to its territories, and since Britain would now have less firepower and men available to defend Canada, this would be a good time to try and take it.  The Americans were also annoyed that British ships were pressganging American sailors and citizens into serving on its ships, on the pretext that they were British citizens or deserters; although this was actually often the case.  

James Lawrence was a well-respected, seasoned Captain, but the ship he took over was not a happy one.  Indeed, his crew were said to have been on the verge of mutiny, and he is believed to have paid the prizemoney they had not yet received, for various administrative reasons, out of his own pockets. Other sailors on board had been cobbled together from different ships, and many had overstayed their time serving on board ship and were badly overdue Leave. 

Captain Philip Broke on the other hand had captained HMS Shannon since 1806, and his crew were kept very sharp.  They ran daily drills, lasting for hours to keep their skills continuing improving and their discipline tight.  

USS Chesapeake was just inside Boston harbour, while outside the harbour HMS Shannon was patrolling off the port, trying to blockade the harbour.

In the first year of this war the US army had defeated several British Warships; Captain Broke, of HMS Shannon, wished to redress the balance.  On the afternoon of June 1st, 1812, Captain Broke sent out a challenge to the Captain of USS Chesapeake, but Captain Laurence and USS Chesapeake, were already on the way out of the harbour, on their way to meet the HMS Shannon.

They came alongside each other at about 5 pm in the afternoon, and commenced firing at each other, both landing hits on the other ship. Then the drills enforced by Captain Broke began to take effect. Within a few minutes a succession of helmsmen on the Chesapeake were killed, and her wheel was destroyed. Then her foretop sail was shot away, further damaging her manoeuvrability.  Captain Brokes gunnery team had destroyed Chesapeake’s steering wheel and the ropes holding the sails.  At this point Chesapeake was doomed as the ship was now out of control. 

The two ships crashed together, and Captain Brode of the Shannon prepared to board. 

Captain Lawrence also tried to rally a boarding party, but now his crews lack of discipline seriously failed him.  His bugler took fright and hid.  The bugler should have sounded out the captain’s orders to the rest of the ship.  Even worse was to come.  A single shot from a sniper mortally wounded Captain Lawrence.  His response was to go down in USA Navel history and become its moto.  His last order, as he his men carried him below deck, was “Don’t give up the Ship,’ then continued, ‘Fight her till she sinks…’

As it was, after the death of their Captain, the demoralised crew of the Chesapeake put up little resistance.

However, there were casualties on HMS Shannon too.  Captain Broke, who led the boarding party, was struck on the head with a sword and never fully recovered, and Captain Broke’s 1st lieutenant, Lieutenant Wat was killed by friendly fire, as he was hoisting the British Flag on the Chesapeake, as accidentally, initially it appeared as if the American flag was taking precedence. 

Second Lieutenant Provo Wallis took command of HMS Shannon after Broke was injured.  He was later rewarded with a promotion to Commander as was the third Lieutenant Charles Falkiner, who sailed the Chesapeake to Nova Scotia, alongside the Shannon

Captain Lawrence died of his wounds and was awarded the posthumous Congressional Gold Medal.  He was buried with full military honours, and his close friend Commodore Oliver Perry named his flagship the USS Lawrence. Dozens of geographical locations and landmarks are named in his honour including at least ten US counties, and many cities, towns and schools.

The Royal Navy repaired the Chesapeake and she became HMS Chesapeake, and served in the British Navy until 1819, when she was sold to a Joshua Holmes in Portsmouth, who broke her up and sold her components.  A lot of her was sold to a John Prior to build a new watermill. In Hampshire, the Chesapeake Mill is still running to this day as an antiques and vintage goods centre in Wickham, Hampshire

In 2021 it was announced that a USS Chesapeake, Constellation class ship would be constructed, however this was subsequently cancelled due to the Navy’s decision to only build 2 ships of that class.

Captain Broke of HMS Shannon was also treated as a national hero, and he received many awards.  He was elevated to a hereditary Baronetcy, becoming Sir Philip Broke, 1st Baronet.  He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) and was awarded the Naval Gold Medal.  He also got The Naval Sword of Honour and was given the Freedom of the City, of London., and several other honours.  In addition to this he was promoted to Rear-Admiral, despite his head injury preventing him for ever taking active service.

There were two other Lieutenant on the ship, both lieutenants of the Royal Marines; Captain James Johns, who led the boarding of the Chesapeake by the marines, and second Lieutenant John Law of the Marines, who is thought to have shot Captain James Lawrence. Both these men got a share of the bounty fort the Chesapeake, and John Law was promoted to Captain.  Captain James Johns got enormous public prestige for his role in the battle and a massive amount of prize money

This war lasted until 1815, and neither side significantly benefited on the face of it.  Britain kept Canada, but America grew in confidence, and it was the American Indians, who had supported Britain, who perhaps lost out most. However, the British army did burn down the White House, which was only called the White House after this event due to the thick coat of white paint used to cover up the black smoke and other fire damage!

Legend, and the book by Berrisford Ellis and Seumas Mac A Ghobhainn, ‘The Scottish Insurrection of 1820’, John Donaldson, 1988, says that Captain James Johns, took as spoils, as was the then practice, the sword of Captain Lawrence, and that this became a family heir loom. 

Captain James Johns would have been on half pay after 1815, after the war with France finished.  It is lpossible that he was a volunteer in Samuel Hunter’s Glasgow Sharpshooters, and the other a volunteer in the yeomanry, which was made up of Gentlemen Volunteers, in 1820, at the time of the Scottish Insurrection, and was ordered into active duty alongside regular army forces and local Yeomanry units at this time.  

Due to his role in the USS Chesapeake / HMS Shannon battle, Captain James Johns became quite a local celebrity, and his sea service chest was put on display inside the local kirk in his hometown of Inveraray. This chest was sold at auction in October 2009 and purchased by a private collector.  The fate of his sword, whether it was his own personal military sword, or the sword of Captain James Lawrence is unknown. 

However, after a lot of reading, I wonder if it was perhaps Captain James Jones, an Argyll man, of the Royal Marines, rather than Captain James Johns, of the Royal Marines, of the HMS Shannon incident, who was involved in guarding the banks in Glasgow, in April 1820. Or were both of them there?  

Captain James Johns, a very well-known and respected Royal Marine, retiring on half pay, could very well have been a volunteer in Samuel Hunter’s, Glasgow Sharpshooters, which were used to guard the banks.   Though records show that he did not retire to 

 half pay until April 1828, making this more questionable.  Captain James Jones, also a Royal Marine, after a successful career in the Napoleonic wars, retired on half pay in 1810, and then served as the Corps Adjutant for the Edinburgh Town guard, where he would have been responsible for policing and maintaining city security.  He would have been charged with defending the banks during the Scottish Radical War of 1820, and may have been drafted to Glasgow, as an experienced officer, and given a temporary position, in the Glasgow Yeomanry.

ancient and modern lore

Trade unions and Proto-unions

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Five men seated at a table writing and discussing under a banner reading United Mechanics 1820 Strength in Unity Combination Laws Repeal

My maternal grandfather was a trade union official.  Sadly, I didn’t ask him enough questions as a child and don’t know for sure what union he was in but as he was a lithographic artist, I suspect that it was the Society of Lithographic Artists, Designers and Engravers which was founded in 1885 and dissolved in 1982 when it merged with the National Graphical Association.  The union originated in Manchester, where my grandfather lived, although I understand its headquarters relocated to London in 1919.   It was formed to protect the livelihoods of its members and to advocate for fair wages during a time of significant technological change. Its core objectives were securing fair pay and work conditions and protecting the journeymen from being displaced by cheaper, unskilled assistants.  It was also involved in the regulation of apprentices to ensure that there were not too many and that that they were trained to a minimum standard.  In addition, it promoted new technologies and helped its members get knowledge, training, and experience in the use of them. 

Many of these aims and objectives seem very similar to modern day trade unions, and indeed, if one looks down through the history books, to Roman times, and even earlier, to the time of the pyramids, people have grouped together in differing ways to protect their trades, their employment, and their families.  For example, around 1155 BC artisans, in the Egyptian town of Deir el-Medina, in the time of Pharaoh Ramses III, laid down their tools to complain about their lack of promised pay, and eventually received payment (Sarah E Bond, 2025)[1].

Before the trade unions, there were guilds, which were associations of craftsmen, merchants or professionals who united to protect their mutual interests, regulate trade standards, and share specialised knowledge. They rigidly controlled the quality of goods and worker output through a structured hierarchy.  Apprentices were bound to a master for several years, while journeymen were skilled workers who travelled and worked for various masters to perfect their craft.  Then there were the masters, artisans who owned their own shops and were allowed to train others. The members of the guild pooled resources, strictly to pay for collective worship, charity, and burial services for fellow members.  Over time they developed into economic trade networks.  Guilds in some form or another have been around since the times of the Anglo-Saxons. 

Prior to the guild system, were the Roman collegia, legally recognized groups of people in the same craft trade or religious organisation.  They had a system of shared finances which, similarly to guilds, paid for member funerals and financial assistance, however unlike the independent medieval guilds, the late Roman collegia were heavily controlled by the imperial state and had a strong hereditary element.

Following the collapse of Rome this collegia system vanished in Western Europe and a more decentralised system of wandering traders became more common.  Due to their fear of bandits and other dangers on the road, these merchants banded together for mutual support, and this gradually grew over time into the powerful Merchant Guilds.

The guild system was supposed to support the workers as well as the merchants.  However, as trade improved, many of the merchants, became more interested in ensuring that their wealth was maintained, rather than the welfare of the apprentices and journeymen in their charge. As a result of this, in the early 18thcentury, some of the journeymen started to group together in Secret Societies to try and obtain better conditions, career structure, and wages.  By the end of the 18th century many of these groups had grown into official trade unions. 

In 1820, when Eilidh Ruadh, the main character in the Dragonseyrie Series, was a young woman, trade unions in Britain were illegal.  The Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800 stated that any combination of 2 or more masters or two or more workmen grouping together to discuss work conditions or changes to wages, was punishable in law.  They were brought in as an attempt to stop workers from banding together and causing a disturbance – after all, the French Revolution had just ended in 1799!  They were not repealed until 1824.

In order to get round these laws, the workers banded together as mutual aid organizations, called Friendly Societies.  In 1793, parliament passed a Friendly Societies Act, to encourage groups to band together to collectively provide money for sick relief and funerals.  Registering as a Friendly Society enabled people to meet, ostensibly for social and societal reasons, but also to discuss and share their concerns for social justice, to hear what other groups were saying and planning and to organise more active agitation for changes to the law, to promote equality for all. 

The guilds, those ancient institutions, which had hitherto looked after the poor, the widows, orphans, the sick amongst their members, had essentially been broken 6 years previously by the Apprentices Act of 1814, which intentionally destroyed the power of the guild, paving the way for a flood of cheap unregulated labour and cheap unregulated produce, thus opening the doors to capitalism.  

In response to the Apprentices Act, journeymen clubbed together to form unions to protect themselves from factory owners, and with the help of the Friendly Society cover, they started to work together to protect their rights, support each other, and battle for reform.  

[1] Sarah E. Bond, Strike: Labour, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire.  Yale University Press, 2025.

ancient and modern lore

Uncovering the Yorkshire Rebellion of 1820

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Group of men walking on rural road toward a town guarded by British soldiers in red uniforms

On the 1st April 1820, 2000 armed men approached the town of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire.  They came from four different directions and their intention was to take the Garrison that was situated there.  Approximately 400 of these men came from within Huddersfield itself.    

The Yorkshire rebellion is surprisingly not widely known about; it doesn’t feature in many of the history books.  While we hear about the Cato Street conspiracy of February 1820, and the massacre of Peterloo of August 1819, we don’t often hear or read about the rebellions that occurred in Yorkshire, and it is only comparatively recently that the connected insurrection in Scotland, despite the execution of 3 of the rebels, has been brought to public awareness.  

In June 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated in the battle of Waterloo.  There will have been great rejoicing that the war was over and much joy and relief that the soldiers would be coming back to their loved ones, and few would have realised the economic backlash that this would bring.  

The Napoleonic wars lasted for twelve and a half years, in which time the National Debt grew astronomically.  However during the war the economy was strong as there was much demand for items to pursue the war and this gave rise to high employment and a rich and profitable manufacturing industry.  With peace there was a ruinous drop in demand for many items causing massive layoffs, and in addition to this, there came into the workplace, the 250,000 demobilised soldiers and sailors, who with no pensions were now desperate for work.  The response of the government to this was to introduce laws that would protect the purses of the wealthy rather than the stomachs of the poor.

Then in early 1820, King George III died, putting his unpopular son, the Prince Regent, now King George IV, on the throne.  The French revolution ended only two decades previously, and the ‘power of the people’, was far from forgotten.  Did Britain need a King?  France had toppled theirs with its cry of ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’. ‘Liberty’ was the rallying cry of the American Revolution, that finished in 1789, only a decade before the end of the French revolution, when Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, wrote that ‘all men are created equal.  With such a heady brew of ideas to draw from, was it surprising that the English working class should group together in political societies to plot and plan for a better society, and dare to hope that in Britain also all men could be considered equal.         

The Yorkshire Rebellion of 1820 was however, less successful and much less ‘bloody’ than they early revolutions that may have inspired them.

In Huddersfield the attack was called off, there is no known reason given for this.  No arrests were made on the day, but four Huddersfield radicals were subsequently arrested, two of whom were later transported to Tasmania and another two were sent to the prison hulks, only to be pardoned after two years.

In Barnsley, the Barnsley Union Society received word that in the early hours of 12th April there was to be a second attempt to capture Huddersfield.  As a result about 400 of them marched to the outskirts of Huddersfield, at Grange Moor, to await the arrival of other radicals to arrive.  Only 20 men appeared. They had expected thousands. When the men  from Barnsley understood that no more were coming to join them, they panicked and fled back to their homes.  Troops hearing of the prospective uprising later arrested 17 individuals, and confiscated the weapons that had been abandoned in the flight.

A similar situation happened in Sheffield. On the night of the 11th April, about 200 men, under the banner of a local agitator, John Blackwell, congregated on the Haymarket; Blackwell fired a pistol, but no other acts of violence occurred, and they later dispersed.  Only Blackwell was arrested and he received a sentence of 30 months.

References

Fred Donnelly, 2007. The Yorkshire Rebellion of 1820: What caused it? Albion Magazine Online Summer 2007.

Fred Donnelly, 2012, Blackwell Reference Online

The Yorkshire Rebellion 1820. Yorkshire Roses online ,2012.

Yorkshire West Riding Revolt of 1820. Wikipedia, 2014.

Northern Voices: The Yorkshire Rebellion of 1820.  Online archive 2020.