Fact 218: FREE CHOCOLATES & CIGARETTES ?
When ship ran aground full of cigarettes which had run aground in the Avon was later raided by locals. It happened in 1924 and the ship was the Glasgow steamer Ettrick, which had left Hotwells in a thick fog bound for Belfast and Glasgow with a cargo of chocolates and cigarettes. She grounded at Sea Mills and even a tug could not get her off. As the tide ebbed, she slewed around and began to list.
The captain then ordered the 25 crew and eight passengers to leave the ship and scramble ashore, which meant climbing over slippery mudbanks.
Fact 219: ' THE BIRD OF KINGS '
ACCORDING to a 17th-century jingle, 'Turkeys, heresy, hops and beer, came into Bristol, all in one year'. But which year was it? Historians are divided, but one thing that they are certain about is that sometime after 1521 this strange-looking, 4ft-high bird arrived in England from the Americas. Some sources say the date was as early as 1525 and that they were brought here by North African traders nicknamed 'Turks' — hence the name. Traders from the Levant were also called 'Turkey traders'. (Strangely, in Turkey, the bird is called an India and in Portugal a Peru.)
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Other sources say that they were first shipped from the New World to the Spanish Netherlands and thence to England, along with a consignment of valuable Dutch bulbs. Turkey, like chocolate, had first been tasted by Spanish adventurer Hernando Cortes at the tables of fabled Aztec ruler yontezuma. But local historians swear that it was cabinboy William Strickland—who had gone adventuring with John Cabot's son Sebastian to the New World—who brought back the first scrawny bird in 1526.
They had been domesticated by the natives there for hundreds of years and could easily be kept alive on board ships for the long journey home. Back in Bristol, where Sebastian's ship was based, Strickland sold six birds for two pence each and, in the big houses at Christmas, they gradually began to replace such exotics as swan, peacock and bustard. Strickland made further voyages and in 1550, after becoming rich, he was allowed to incorporate the bird into the family crest.
We find that King Henry VI11 was prepared to put aside his traditional orange and apple-decorated boars'heads in favour of turkey but it was King James I, who disliked pig meat, who is reputed to be the person who first made turkey really popular in England. He had turkey replace pork at a number of banquets and ceremonial occasions, labelling it 'the king of birds, the bird of kings'.
Within 50 years of its first arrival in England, we find cooks mentioning turkey as being a standard part of Christmas fare. Competing with geese, capons and pheasants (to which the.turkey is related but which originally came from the Caucasus) the birds were soon found in all the London markets. By the 18th century a large turkey industry grew in East Anglia, with the birds being driven to London markets alive, protected from lameness by having their feet dipped in tar or by the fitting of little wooden boots. But the meat remained expensive. George II loved the bird but in 1851 turkey replaced swan on Queen Victoria's Christmas table. The middle classes were quick to follow the Royal lead. Ease of communications and the advent of refrigeration after the last war brought prices down and turkey industry really took off. The bird soon became standard Christmas fare.
When Victoria first came to the throne however, both chicken and turkey were too expensive for most people to enjoy. In northern England roast beef was the traditional fayre for Christmas dinner while in London and the south, goose was favourite. Many poor people made do with rabbit. On the other hand, the Christmas Day menu for Queen Victoria and family in 1840 included both beef and of course a royal roast swan or two. By the end of the century most people feasted on turkey for their Christmas dinner. The great journey to London started for the turkey sometime in October. Feet clad in fashionable but hardwearing leather the unsuspecting birds would have set out on the 80-mile hike from the Norfolk farms. Arriving obviously a little tired and on the scrawny side they must have thought London hospitality unbeatable as they feasted and fattened on the last few weeks before Christmas!
He put on such a convincing display as a claimant to the Ashton Court estate and the wealth of the Smyths, that even after he had been unmasked as an imposter many people still believed in him.
Provis, who had no training or experience but styled himself Dr Smyth, described himself as a lecturer and author on the 'mental education of the aristocracy'. But as pickings on his lecture tours proved somewhat meagre, he started looking around for something a bit more fruitful. He discovered that, if he was bold enough, the valuable Smyth estates just outside Bristol were a plum ripe for picking. The male line, having died out without male issue, meant that the family were facing an emergency.
The last of the Smyths was a female who died leaving the estates to her young grandson Greville Upton. Having assumed the family name by royal licence Greville had been made a baronet. But there was a problem. As he was still a minor the estates were being managed for him by Arthur Way, an appointment made by the Lord Chancellor himself. Provis thought that if he played his cards right, all the Smyths' possessions - then a vast estate consisting not only of the deer park and mansion but also of many farms and many thousands of acres - would be his.
So in his bid for the fortune he concocted a story. He said he was the son of the late Sir Hugh Smyth and in evidence produced a forged will and some trinkets bearing the family crest. But first he dropped in at Heath House, Stapleton - then one of the many Smyth possessions - and asked an old family retainer for permission to look round. When he reached the portrait gallery, he flung himself down before a painting of the late Sir Hugh and exclaimed, 'O my beloved father' to the surprise of the old retainer. The very next day Provis and his solicitor walked authoratively up the drive to Ashton Court. At the door, the imposter, announcing himself as 'Sir Richard Smyth', said that all the servants must leave.
He would, he said, shortly be bringing in his own staff. Then after demanding the keys, he gave Mr Way just hours to vacate the premises. But a few minutes later a surprised Provis found himself dumped bodily outside the front door by two burly footmen. His solicitor soon followed. Robbed of a quick victory, the claimant now settled down to a long campaign. For weeks he called on local farmers and other estate tenants promising lower rents and better conditions if he should get control. He even promised the Bower Ashton strawberry growers that a threat of eviction hanging over their heads would be withdrawn.
The next move was to rent a house in fashionable Clifton where he found plenty of tradesmen willing to give him credit. The tall, sallow-faced man with the authorative air made such a convincing liar that many actually started to believe that he was a real claimant. It cost the 'real' Smyth family £6,000 - a staggering sum in those days - to reduce the claims of this bogus Smyth to tatters.
Even then, at the Gloucester Assize of August 1853, it was touch and go whether or not Provis would win. The case, heard before Mr Justice Coleridge and a special jury, aroused tremendous interest, not only in the West Country. Leading counsel appeared for both sides and one Bristol newspaper devoted a four-page supplement to the proceedings. Provis certainly put on a convincing show. He pleaded that he was the ill-used heir who was brought up as an impoverished carpenter when he should have been living a life of luxury.
But the imposter hadn't reckoned on Sir Frederick Thesiger. On behalf of the 'real' Smyths the QC pursued a withering cross- examination.Provis, wilting under fire, was soon transformed from a confident, smiling man into a stumbling, shaken one. His clumsy story of how he had received a will naming him as the Smyth heir from a man he had never seen, was exposed by Sir Frederick as a hollow sham. And he couldn't explain why the family's Latin motto 'Qui Capit Capitor' was misspelt as 'Qui Capit Capitur' on the heirlooms he had produced so confidently in court.
The claimant's last vestige of pretence was swept away by a telegram handed to Sir Frederick. This had been sent to the QC by a jeweller who had read about the sensational case in the London papers. Damningly, he said that Provis had brought a ring and brooch to him with the request that the Smyth crests and names should be engraved on them. As soon as his claim was dismissed the imposter was arrested and taken to the adjoining criminal court to stand trial for perjury and forgery. The will on which Provis had placed such high hopes was now proved to be a forgery - it was written on new paper instead of parchment which should have been some 30 years old.
And the jeweller who had sent the telegram to Sir Frederick was now in Bristol in person to tell his side of the story. It would seem that the imposter hadn't got a leg left to stand on. But Provis was never a man to give up easily and made one last desperate appeal. Standing up in the dock he reached inside his coat collar and, to everyone's surprise, pulled out a long pigtail. Waving it in the air he declared that all 'true' Smyths had one and, indeed, his own son had been born with one six inches long.
But the pigtail story could not save him from Judge Coleridge's harsh sentence of 20 years' transportation. Provis died after serving two. Sir Greville Smyth, the man he had tried so hard to dispossess, became an ardent collector of big-game trophies, keeping the heads in a museum in the Ashton Court stables.But the one trophy all his guests wanted to see was a pigtail of human hair kept in a glass case.
