Cook, Thomas: They were all a child of their times

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Most people will agree that the way you are brought up has a bearing on your later life. Here Vivienne Smith takes a look at the first few years of some of Derbyshire’s most famous children and considers what early influences were brought to bear on their adult lives.

GIVE me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man. There is a lot of truth in this popular saying.

The upbringing of some of Derbyshire’s most famous worthies had an important influence on the sort of person they became.

A good example of this is Thomas Cook, the father of tourism.

The Melbourne lad was forced to leave school at the age of 10 to earn a living to help support his family.

He worked six days a week for local market gardener John Robey. The pay was pathetic – just a penny a day – but, with his mother, Elizabeth, struggling to make ends meet, every little helped.

In 1820, she was widowed for the second time and left with two infant sons to care for.

As Thomas Cook later recalled of his step-father’s death: “After his burial, my mother took me into her bedroom and, laying her hand on my head, said: “Now Tommy, you must be father to these two boys.”

Unfortunately, the man he worked for had a strong liking for alcohol, and was often the worse for drink.

This meant that young Thomas was left to cart the produce round the neighbouring villages on his own, shouting “Peas! Beans! Seeds! Plants for sale!” as he went along.

The youngster even had to walk the eight miles to Derby to stand in the market place hawking fruit and vegetables.

It is not surprising then that his appreciation of the evils of drink began at a young age.

By his early 20s, Thomas Cook had joined the fledgling temperance movement, on whose behalf he organised his first trip.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

It was the home environment rather than the workplace which had the greatest influence on Catherine Booth.

Co-founder of the Salvation Army, she was born Catherine Mumford in Ashbourne where she spent the first five years of her life.

Her upbringing was both strict and religious.

She spent much of her time with her mother, Sarah, who was firmly against leaving children too much in the care of servants.

Catherine was rarely allowed to play with other youngsters in case she picked up bad habits.

From her earliest years, she was taught by her mother that the chief purpose of life was to please God.

Able to read from the age of three, the youngster soon became familiar with many of the Bible stories.

Fiction was out of the question, as Mrs Mumford regarded it as the work of the devil.

Catherine is said to have read the Bible aloud all the way through eight times by the age of 12.

Despite being naturally reserved and shy, the little girl revealed a more passionate side when roused by injustice.

On one occasion, she rushed into the house and flung herself on a couch in a “speechless paroxysm of grief”.

The cause of her distress had been the sight of sheep being goaded in the street.

It was this compassion for all God’s creatures which eventually drove her to pursue a life of evangelism among the urban poor.

In sharp contrast to Catherine Booth’s childhood, that of the famous philosopher Herbert Spencer proved more bohemian.

Derby born and bred, he was the only surviving child of George and Harriet Spencer.

Although his father worked as a local schoolmaster, Herbert’s early education was badly neglected. His parents did not even send him to school until he was seven.

Indeed, the young lad much preferred to occupy his time exploring the countryside around Osmaston and Normanton, collecting insects.

However, his favourite pastime was to go fishing in the local rivers and canals.

At the age of nine, this almost cost him his life.

One day, while at a little back stream of the Derwent, close to the Long Bridge in Derby, Herbert fell in and was swept away by the current.

Fortunately, a 16-year-old youth on the opposite bank heard his cries. Throwing off his jacket as he ran, George Holme dived in and rescued him.

Herbert’s passion for books was a safer activity. Despite never learning to read until he went to school, the youngster soon made up for lost time.

Much to his parents’ disapproval, he soon became addicted to novels which he took to reading secretly in bed.

Mrs Spencer tried to put a stop to this by coming to his room to check the candle was out. She was soon out-manoeuvred by her son.

As Herbert himself related years later in his autobiography: “Close to the bedside was a fixed corner cupboard. When I heard her step on the stairs, I leapt out of bed, put the candle still burning into the cupboard and pretended to be asleep.”

Alison Uttley, the creator of Little Grey Rabbit, was another person who started her formal education late.

The reason was that her family lived at the remote Castle Top Farm, situated high on a hill above the Derwent, near Cromford.

In order to attend the school in Cromford, young Alison would have had to walk each day alongside the fast-flowing river.

Yet, to reach Lea School (the only alternative) involved a two-mile walk each way, partly through dense woodland.

Neither option was acceptable for a small child. So, her parents waited until she was seven before deciding to send her to Lea School.

The headmaster, Mr Allen, agreed to special concessions for their daughter.

When the other children went home for dinner, Alison would be allowed to eat a packed lunch in the schoolroom by herself.

During the winter months, she could take a lantern and leave school before the rest of the pupils to begin the long walk home.

Alison quickly settled into school life. But, far more difficult, was coping with the daily journey through the dark, menacing wood.

Her fertile imagination brought the trees to life and she thought their branches were trying to grab at her clothes.

The young girl’s solution was to encourage her classmates to walk part of the way with her.

This she did by entertaining them with stories which she made up as they went along.

As the children’s writer recalled in later life: “I think that was my first story-telling.”

Alison Uttley had fond memories of her youth and even featured them in several of her books.

However, the reminiscences of George Nathaniel Curzon reveal a far less happy childhood.

The future Viceroy of India may have grown up amid the magnificent surroundings of Kedleston, but it was not entirely an idyllic experience.

The 4th Lord Scarsdale and his wife, Blanche, employed a governess for their children who was a fierce disciplinarian.

Miss Paraman disapproved of toys and, according to George, was a “brutal and vindictive tyrant”.

He later wrote of her treatment of him and his siblings: “She persecuted and beat us in the most cruel way and established over us a system of terrorism so complete that not one of us ever mustered up the courage to walk upstairs and tell our father or mother.”

Locking the children up in the dark was one of Miss Paraman’s more humane punishments. Far worse were those cruelly devised to humiliate.

For instance, young George was once made to write a note to the butler asking him to make a birch for him to be beaten with.

Sometimes the lad was even forced to wear a red calico petticoat together with a large conical cap.

Strips of paper bearing words such as “liar” or “coward” were then attached to this outfit and he was made to parade before the gardeners or sometimes through the village.

As Lord Curzon reflected years later: “I suppose no children well-born and well-placed ever cried so much or so justly.”

He finally escaped Miss Paraman’s clutches at the age of 10, when sent away to boarding school.

Vera Brittain, the author of Testament of Youth, also had a governess before she started school in Buxton aged 11.

Fortunately, her parents made a better choice.

The Brittains moved to the town in 1905.

And it was here that Vera made her debut in society on leaving school at 18, at the High Peak Hunt Ball, in January 1912.

During the round of chaperoned dances which followed, the teenager was never short of a partner. Dressed in the obligatory white satin and pearls and with her hair up, she soon discovered that men found her attractive.

Yet, like so many of her generation, Vera had been left almost completely in the dark about sex.

Warnings about not going “too far with men” were taken on board by the young woman without knowing exactly what this meant.

Vague advice that she should not be seen talking to her brother’s friends or travel alone with strange men in railway carriages only increased her suspicions of the opposite sex.

Eventually, curiosity go the better of her.

As Vera Brittain’s diary entry for March 4, 1913, reveals: “On the way to golf, I induced Mother to disclose a few points on sexual matters I thought I ought to know, though the information is always intensely distasteful to me and most depressing – in fact, it quite put me off my game!”

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