In the history of Kingswood, before the year 1800, stories of poverty and wrong'doing seem to predominate. Although it is easy to exaggerate there is still overwhelming evidence of widespread degradation and brutality. When Wesley's teaching began to take effect, a gradual change, however, is clearly to be seen.
His great work was followed by that of his local lay-preachers, such as Victory Purdy and Sam Bryant. Of these valiant reformers George Pocock, the founder of the Tent Methodist Society, was one. The son of a Church of England clergyman, Pocock, was born in 1774, and at the early age of 25, succeeded Revd. D. Keith as headmaster of Prospect Place Academy, Church Lane, St. Michael's Hill. Here his eleven children were born, John, Edward, Jemima, Euza, Mary, Henry, Ebenezer, Alfred, Sarah, Rose and Martha, the last-named later to become the mother of the famous W. G. Grace.
By the year 1820 some of the older children were able to help in their father's school; in the future, Ebenezer was to have his own school at Fieldgrove House, Bitton, and another son, one at St. George. A daughter, probably Eliza (' Bessie') also had a well-known girls' school at Overn Lodge, Downend. With his sons to help him, the school on St. Michael's Hill flourished, although its fees were only 25 guineas a year. Mathematics was the headmaster's own subject, and it was this turn of mind which enabled him to make the somewhat startling but ingenious invention of a ' self- thrashing ferule.'
No details of this are available; to Judge by the genuine love which its inventor had for his pupils, as shown in the dedication of his book '' The Aeropleuristic Art'—'to my dear boys with the most lively feelings of the sincerest affection by your old master,' the mechanical cane must have been rarely employed. Another invention for use in his school was a collapsible globe which was inflated when needed for a geography lesson. One of these globes was sold at Oldland Hall amongst Mr. Henry Budgett's effects in 1850.
Large balloons, working on the same principle were also used when the foundation stone of the Suspension Bridge was laid in August 1836. Getting up very early in order to reach the bridge in time for ths opening ceremony at 7 a.m., Mr. Pocock, and his pupils, let off three large green balloons, painted as globes, and two still larger white ones which all floated gently over the Avon Gorge, one of them having a ribbon attached to it, on which was painted 'Success to the undertaking.'
Some years earlier, another brilliant idea had occurred to this remarkable schoolmaster. Having seen his nine-year old son, Alfred, being pulled over the Downs, sitting on a wheeled plank, to which he had attached his kite, his father thought ' Why not a real carriage drawn by an enormous kite, instead of a toy one?' Plans were drawn up, and by 1822 the first test of the ' char'volant,' or flying carriage was made. During the Christmas holidays the Pocock family, father, sons and daughters, gave the invention its trial run between Bristol and Marlborough, but very wisely ' towed their horse behind them on a two'wheeled platform.' After some improvements had been made in it, four years later three persons, in a light carriage drawn by two large kites (one 20ft. in length, flying at a height of 170ft.) travelled the Bristol to London Road. An apparatus under the axle served to wind up or let out the cord, the carriage being guided in the same way as a bath'chair. According to its inventor, this novel conveyance could travel at 18-20 miles per hour.
It was demonstrated at many public gatherings, at Ascot, at the Durdham Down Races in 1828, and also in St. George, where it won great admiration after a race with the Duke of Gloucester's coach'and-four between the Turnpike and the ' World's End.' ' It kept up with His Royal Highness for some distance, although the horses galloped.'' The young Pococks had many adventures while travelling in this way along the Gloucestershire roads. The girls were allowed to drive as well as the boys, and according to Rose (afterwards Mrs. Gilbert) ' when they tired of day-light drives, they hung lanterns from their kites, and, blowing non-stop blasts on their coach-horns, travelled by night.'
On one occasion, while crossing Salisbury Plain in a thunder storm, the drivers received an electric shock from the metal thread running through the guiding reins. At the suggestion of a chance passenger, a silk merchant, to whom they had offered a lift, the cords were afterwards replaced by silk-covered rigging. By 1827 the charvolant had become so popular that a patent was taken out and advertisements were put in the Bristol papers: ' The kites and car may be seen at the Horse Bazaar, Portland Square. A set of kites for drawing a car for 3-5 persons, five guineas. Price of a car, nearly the same as a pony cart.' Many claims as to the usefulness of these kites was made by their inventor. Apart from a means of travel, they could be used in cases of shipwreck to get a rope to shore; they could also be the motive force for ferry boats, or used to make military signals.
The use most dear, however, to the heart of their lively and inventive creator was for boyish pleasure. Mr. Pocock thought that if a charvolant and a set of kites were to be introduced into all boys' schools, for gymnastic exercise, ' the youth of our country would be rendered manly and active and nothing would afford such a cost in recreation . . . Wherever it might be practised, manliness would succeed effeminacy, sloth be banished by activity, and health, strength and courage triumph over sickliness and fear.' If, as seems likely, the boys of his own school had the fun and recreation so strongly recommended, it is not to be wondered at that the school in Prospect Place was successful and remained in existence for over 40 years.
George Pocock's boundless energy, however, was by no means confined to the case of well-to-do boys in Clifton. As early as 1814 he was a tireless worker amongst the poor in the Gloucestershire countryside. Here he travelled about on Sundays, preaching on Methodist lines. Where there was no chapel, he would set up a tent on a piece of wastground and use it as a centre for his religious work, as a meeting-house and as a Sunday School both for children and adults. His first tent was set up at Whitchurch in April 1814, and in October of the same year he began his work at Jeffries' Hill, Hanham, where he says ' multitudes attended.' During the winter the meetings and schools were held in the colliers' cottages, but, as he says in a most interesting letter to Canon Ellacombe, ' On the return of the swallow we were again found on the hill through the summer months until driven in by the cold.'
A few years later, in 1819, some of the stricter Methodists objected to this open'air preaching and several of the most zealous tent'preachers and class'leaders were refused membership of the parent Methodist Society. To carry out Pocock's aims, the Society of Tent Methodists was then formed so that the open'air preaching could continue. This work lay mainly amongst the poor and ignorant. The first tent was consecrated ' To the service of God and the benefit of the wretched and wandering ' and the simple rules of the Society state that: 'l All who cannot read the Scriptures are expected to learn to do so.' Again, ' Any member receiving parochial relief or who is otherwise in poverty shall not be allowed to contribute anything to the funds.' Soon 10 entirely new societies had sprung up in the neighbouring villages. In 1820 three hundred Soundwell colliers, ' lately reformed Sabbath'breakers and thieves' according to Mr. Pocock, decided to build a schoolroom where services could also be held. This was called ' The Colliers' Temple ' and was built near the field where the preaching tent was usually erected, near where the Star Inn now stands.
Similar religious work went on unceasingly from 1814 until 1835. In the middle of this period occurred the execution of John Horwood, a former labourer at Philip George's Spelter Works at Hanham. His sweetheart, Eliza Balsam, having annoyed him, he threw a stone at her from a distance of over 40 yards, injuring her forehead. She died six weeks later from the effect of the wound. Horwood was convicted of murder and condemned to the gallows.
His parents and his brother Joseph had attended the services on Jeffries' Hill regularly and occasionally ' among the rest, the unhappy youth himself.' For this reason, Pocock was admitted to the New Gaol on the day of the execution; he describes seeing the boy brought out of his cell ' with his irons and gaol'cap on.' After the tragic scene was over, on the same afternoon, the preacher went to Hanham to try to comfort the parents who, after a pathetic interview with the house-surgeon at the Infirmary, had been refused their son's body for burial.
A secret rescue party had been planned by Horwood's friends, who had remained all night in a boat on the river just outside the gaol walls, but this plan failed, as the body had already been removed. Having prayed in the Horwood cottage, Pocock undertook to hold a memorial service at Jeffries' Hill on the following Sunday. Three services were held, at which 2,000 people attended in the morning, 6,000 in the afternoon and, although a violent hailstorm was raging, 2,300 in the evening, 'the dirt and hail making a very cold and dangerous carpet.' In spite of this the service lasted for 3 hours. Mr. Pocock's pamphlet, ' The Life and Death of John Horwood ' produced a great effect through' out the neighbourhood ' for which,' as he says, ' some whole families thank God to this day.'
Soon after these eventful days, Hanham Tabernacle was built, of which Mr. Pocock laid the foundation stone. One result of this was that the other Tent Methodists ' grew weary of gratuitous and outdoor preaching ' so that for the following 14 years during the Spring and Summer of each year, Mr. Pocock worked alone. He used to speak twice in the chapel on Sundays and once in the open air ' where the most idle and careless were to be found.' In the cleft of a rock (' just below Mary Reed's cottage ') where there was a spring of water, he had his midday meal, his daughter. Rose, known as his guardian angel, always being with him.
He describes how the cottagers, who loved him, would bring him small bunches of flowers and fruit from their small gardens and how once a poor gleaner brought him a cake made from the wheat she had gathered. ' No dessert was more enjoyed in a Bishop's palace, for perhaps these free'will offerings may have been grown in some garden where Paradise had been regained.' George Pocock was not only schoolmaster, inventor, writer and preacher, but also a poet. His verse sometimes achieves genuine distinction and always expresses his exuberance of spirit and originality of mind.
Only the inventor of the kite-carriage could have chosen as his subject ' A travelling song for high winds ' in which his kites are the horses and— ' The god of the tempest has hold of their reins And they feel Heaven's power inflating their veins.' Another poem written for the founding of Christ Church, Hanham, in 1842 gives many small but clear pictures of Kingswood life in the earlier years of the nineteenth century, the bull-baiting and cock-fighting, the savage wrestling and boxing matches, the highway robberies and poverty in the ' lone hovels ' of the rough quarry-men— ' Uncultivated still Has lain this sad, unhallowed ground This long-neglected hill.' For the improvement of later years much is owed to the devoted work of the untiring preacher, this great man of indomitable courage, with so gentle a heart.
His name should not be forgotten amongst those whom Kingswood people delight to honour.
George Pocock was one of Bristol’s great eccentrics.
He is reputed to have overtaken the Duke of York’s coach on one of these excursions, which prompted the Duke to invite him to Ascot to display his various forms of kite-propelled transport.
Legend has it that he once strapped His daughter Martha, the mother-to-be of W.G. Grace, (England's finest cricketer) into a chair attached to a set of kites and then flew her, hazardously but without mishap, over the Avon Gorge.
Windpower
Kites have been around for at least 2,500 years and probably originated in China. But the prize for the most original use of a kite has to go to Clifton schoolmaster George Pocock, inventor of the amazing Charvolant or Flying Car.
Pocock was a true Bristol classic whose previous inventions included an automatic caning machine which he used to beat his boys without effort.
The carriage of his Charvolant was a bit like a tricycle but could carry four people. It was powered by two kites, one of 10ft, one of 12ft, and managed 25mph in a good wind incredible speeds by the standards of the day By increasing the size of the kites to 20ft and 12ft, the Charvolant could carry six people at faster speeds than a horse and carriage. Pocock refined the rigging to allow him to tack the yachtsman's manoeuvre to use winds coming from the sides.
In 1828, he took the Charvolant to Ascot races where he demonstrated it to George IV, and the following month he used kites to pull a ferry boat across the Mersey.
Local reaction was enthusiastic this was before the days of steam and the journey from Liverpool to Birkenhead was subject to serious delays.
Pocock's kites, however, could be used at any state of the tide and passengers ended up more or less where they wanted to be.
Pocock built a number of Charvolants and raced them, but his best public relation stunt was replacing the sails on a yacht with giant kites and taking a party on a three week cruise of the Bristol Channel. In 1836, during a meeting of the British Association in Bristol, Pocock showed off a Charvolant to delegates. Among those who he took for a ride was Prince George of Cumberland
(after whom Cumberland Street is named) who was suitably impressed...
Pocock also recalls an incident when passengers of a char-volant overtook the royal coach of the Duke of Gloucester, an act considered very rude and improper.
Having illustrated the power of the carriage, the group made amends by pulling over and letting the Duke pass by with his horse drawn carriage. This contraption also confused toll keepers. At this time a tax was levied on the number of horses used to pull a carriage, and apparently the keeper was puzzled as to what the charge would be for a carriage without horses.
A book written by George Pocock, published in 1827.
The book details The origin and history of the Invention and Pocock states that when he was a little tiny boy, I learnt that my paper kite would draw along a stone on the ground, tied to the end of its string. Experimenting with kites and stones, Pocock 'wondered' and grew ambitious.
