My Family
Matters
On 30 April 2011, I opened an e-
While reading an article about John Pounds (a famous Portsmouth cobbler), she had found a reference to ‘Lemmon’ of St Mary’s Street . This discovery led to an incredible avalanche of information about Richard Lemmon.....
John Pounds
In 2000, readers of The News, Portsmouth voted John Pounds as the city’s Man of the Millenium – ahead of Charles Dickens and Isambard Kingdom Brunel. This is a brief story of a remarkable man who left his mark on English education.
John Pounds, the son of a sawyer in Portsmouth Dockyard, was born on 17 June 1766 at 3 St Mary’s Street (now, Highbury Street), Old Portsmouth.
In 1788, aged twelve, he began an apprenticeship as a shipwright in the Dockyard.
However, three years later he was crippled when a fall into a dry dock left him ‘a
heap of broken bones and all out of joint’. To earn a living ‘they puts me ‘prentice
to a shoemaker’. Probably, he was not a skilled cobbler doing rough work -
Guthrie was so moved by what he read that he declared, ‘’That man’s an honour to humanity and deserves the tallest monument ever raised within the shores of Britain’. It transpired that the monument was the Ragged Schools Union established in 1844 whereby tens of thousands of destitute children were rescued and educated to become respectable citizens.
In 1803, John (who never married) had to move to new premises along St Mary’s Street.
It was a small building – a weather-
John befriended a young, crippled nephew whose deformity he corrected by designing and making crude orthopaedic boots. To provide his nephew with company, he encouraged local children to play with him. His ‘school’ grew out of his friendship with these tots who grew into the habit of going to his workshop. As he cobbled, he began to teach the youngsters how to read and write, using the Bible and scraps of newspapers and handbills.
Education for their children was simply beyond the means of most parents in the area and John’s reputation as a ‘teacher’ grew. He taught them without asking for payment – indeed he rebuffed children from wealthier parents: ‘He can afford to pay for your schooling; I want those who cannot pay’.
The criteria for admittance to John’s classroom was a dirty face and poor rags of clothes. Sometimes he would search the alleys for pupils. His lure might be warm ‘tatties’ and the promise of more at his shop. And so, surrounded by birds in cages and John’s cat, lessons were held daily for upwards of forty children amidst leather and old shoes as John toiled on his lap stone – ‘They’s rather thickish on the ground...they never wants to go, save at twelve an’ four then they runs off like mad, the little rascals.
His teaching methods were unsophisticated – he knew no theory – but he was consumed by a passion to teach and had a fertile and inventive brain.
Field rambles to Portsdown Hill were part of the ‘curriculum’. What an odd group
they must have looked – a tall man, so bent forward that his back was almost parallel
to the ground, with a hip that bulged out shockingly, surrounded by a rag-
A local artist and fellow shoemaker, HS Sheaf, painted the cobbler at his work. John’s first exclamation on inspecting the portrait – ‘that’s my cat!’ The painting was sold to a wealthy man who lived nearby in High Street.
John died on New Year’s Day, 1839. When his body was taken to his shop, his ‘poor little things’ ran out screaming in all directions and soon the whole ‘neighbourhood was in a state of confusion and lamentation’.
John was not alone in Britain during the nineteenth century as a man who recognised the lot of impoverished children and sought to improve it by rough and ready education. Yet, it is he who has been christened, ‘The Founder of the Ragged School Movement’. How so?
In 1841, Dr Thomas Guthrie, a preacher and philanthropist who lived in Glasgow, spotted a picture above a chimney piece of an inn at Anstruther on the shores of the Firth of Forth. It had been transported there by a captain of a ship. It was an etching of the painting of John Pounds. Underneath was a brief description of his work.
Richard Lemmon -
In 1884, Henry Hawkes ( a Portsmouth Unitarian Minister) wrote, Recollections of John Pounds. Hawkes moved to Portsmouth in 1833 and knew both Pounds and Richard Lemmon. His book describes both men and their conversations in consummate detail......
Richard Lemmon’s childhood
When Richard was a youth, he was employed in the foundry department at the Woolwich Arsenal. Here, he worked for some years, faithful in his duties, respected and trusted by those under whom he served. From Woolwich, he was honourably transferred to the Gunwharf at Portsmouth. His good conduct gained esteem and confidence and he worked there until near the end of the Napoleonic wars when he entered the merchant navy in which he had served nearly twenty years.
He worked his way until he became the master of a small trading vessel, the Elisabeth (sic). He plied his trade in Jersey, among other ports of call, and was master of several trading vessels, respected and trusted by all who had dealings with him. Going from port to port, he saw a good deal of various society, in a small way and gained considerable knowledge by it and practical experience.
His appearance
Richard Lemmon was a square-
There was something about his appearance and manner that pleased at once and left a very pleasing impression to dwell upon. Though there was evidently not much culture, and his living in the lower part of St Mary’s Street implied that he was in but a lowly condition of life, there was a native dignity about him, a manly openness of countenance and expression, intelligent and expressive of good feeling, an ingenuous self possession that made it a delight to converse with him.
His eye was bright observant and penetrating. His dark ruddy complexion, sunburnt
and weather-
Richard never abused a good constitution. He enjoyed life, but never gave in to those mad pranks that made a wreck of life – a misery and a disgrace.
His home
Richard, in 1833, had been a widower for some years and lived with his grown-
He lived in the lower part of St Mary’s Street, the third house from the Sally port
(confirmed as No 3 in censuses), on the right hand side of the street going towards
the walls. It was a small house that was entered directly from the street with three
steps down from the street to the floor. It had only one room – the sitting room
(which was also a kitchen) – that had an appearance of comfort, cheerfulness and
propriety -
There was an armchair in a quiet corner beside the fire. The room was very bright,
well-
Of St Mary’s Street
Hawkes reported, ‘St Mary’s Street was thronged with revolting sights of intemperance
and bloated degradation – women of the grossest appearance, sitting on doorsteps
or lounging about, lazy and gossiping; their voices and language heart-
This crowded neighbourhood abounded with dark alleys filled with dissolute, abandoned occupants. St Mary’s Street was one of the principal thoroughfares between Portsmouth and Portsea for persons on foot.’
On 4 September 1869, a letter to the Hampshire Telegraph concerning St Mary’s Street
reported, ‘There are in that street, seventy-
Hawkes’ meetings with Richard Lemmon
In his book, Hawkes recounts his meetings with Richard in considerable detail -
What follows are extracts from Hawkes’ book:
Re: Pounds funeral: ‘As the funeral came out of White Horse Street into High Street and turned left towards the Chapel, it seemed as if all St Mary’s Street were passing after it. The Nephew and Mr Lemmon and his family and others of his near friends and relatives, walking after the coffin as mourners’.
A conversation between Hawkes and Mr Martell that compared Lemmon and Pounds: ‘He
and his friend Lemmon would go out on a fine summer’s evening...and would walk hours
together...Theirs was a beautiful friendship...in a humble way. They were like brothers...There
could not have been a friendship more faithful or more affectionate -
They were, both of them, incapable of an untruth,. They were, both of them, incapable of an ungenerous action...All through their life their spirit has been truly Christian..They were both constant in the House of God (the Unitarian Church in High Street)..Lemmon once said on a very wet, stormy Sunday, ‘My Pastor will be there; and if my Pastor can be there, I can be there...It was very touching to see those two plain old men, homely as they looked, side by side, devoutly singing hymns, looking over the same book’
1855 at a Teachers’ tea party: ‘And now my friends...You see a place vacant to the right of the chair. This is for one, who as a little boy played with John Pounds himself a little boy’ He then then went down to the end of the room and offered his arm to an old man of more than eighty and in the midst of the most enthusiastic cheering from all sides, led Mr Lemmon up to the seat of honour for the evening....Even good old Lemmon became so excited by the interest in the evening, that toward the close he rose somewhat tottering and said in a tremulous and faint voice that he had something he wished to say...(but) most of what he said was scarcely intelligible.
Around 1860, Hawkes came across Richard by the memorial to John Pounds: One beautiful
Sunday evening, as I turned round the corner of the Chapel to go to the vestry, I
saw Mr Lemmon standing before the monument of his friend (right). He stood with his
back to me. As I touched him gently on the shoulder, ‘Ah, Sir’, he said, with deep
feeling, his eyes glistening with tears, ‘I was reading these inscriptions again.
Johnny never thought it would come to this. Who’d have thought it? -
A comment on Hawkes’ recollections
There are some aspects of Hawkes timelines of Pounds’ and Lemmon’s childhood that cannot be reconciled. However, there are enough unflattering comments about Pounds’ appearance to give one confidence in the accuracy of Hawkes’ observations.
One example of his pursuit of truth are his paragraphs about the exactness of the
details in the painting of Pounds. He noted, ‘But the hair of the old cobbler was
painted of a dark colour -
The old man’s arms were long and very energetic....This was not well intimated in
the picture....In the foreground, there was an ample proportion of clear space; which,
while it showed the rest of the picture off to advantage, gave no idea of the old
man’s crowding benificence; for his scholars were close packed up to the very door.
And the roomy appearance of the place made it look larger than his little shop -
It is ironic that the picture that spawned John’s reputation was so sanitized!
In conclusion
This detail about Richard Lemmon is manna from heaven for this descendant!
The only aspect missing is Lemmon himself in the painting of Pounds’ workshop -
What became of Richard and Johanna’s children....
Two of Richard and Johanna’s children died young and were buried at St Thomas: Henry,
on 16 August 1816 -
Elizabeth married Richard Gillett on 13 February 1829 at Alverstoke; Samuel married Jane Stacey on 5 February 1834, also at Alverstoke; while Mary probably married John Bradford on 24 June 1832 at St Mary’s, Portsea.
My direct ancestor was John Lemmon who will feature in a separate article. Link: John Lemmon
(Acknowledgement -
Source: ‘Recollections of John Pounds’ by Henry Hawkes)
According to censuses, Richard was born at Erith, Kent -
Unfortunately, when searching for his baptism in the Erith parish records, I found that the relevant register had been ‘damaged by fire on 21 February 1877’. The Bishop’s Transcripts for the period also don’t exist, so the identity of Richard’s parents is currently unknown.
Further details of his family emerged when he applied for a pension in 1850 (details
of which were discovered by the eagle-
However, in 1850 some information was provided by a Richard Lemmon, my ancestor’s
nephew, when he was fifty-
When Richard was a youth, he was employed in the foundry department at the Woolwich Arsenal. Here, he worked for some years until he was transferred to the Gunwharf at Portsmouth.
According to the notice of his death in the Hampshire Telegraph (10 Sept 1864), Richard
had moved to Portsmouth by 1786/7 and was living in St Mary’s Street (now Highbury
Street). This street is off High Street and lies to the north of the present-
In 1787 and aged fifteen, Richard joined the Merchant Navy as an Ordinary Hand on
board the 60-
Richard Lemmon’s marriage and children
Richard married Johanna Slade on 12 December 1796 at St Mary’s, Portsea. Both Richard and Johanna were apparently illiterate, marking rather than signing the register (though near the end of his life, Richard was able to sign his name and read an inscription on a monument). Their witnesses were Thomas Wood and Mary Christie.
Between 1798 and 1816, the couple probably had eight children. All known baptisms
were conducted at nearby St Thomas’ church. The family lived at 3 St Mary’s Street,
Portsea -
Johanna died when she was aged sixty-
Richard had been a mariner in the merchant navy and retired in 1849, aged 77 years, due to ‘old age and infirmity’. He received a small annual pension of £4 from the Merchant Seamans’ Hospital Fund and applied for an additional pension from Trinity House, Deptford. Hence he described himself as a pensioner in 1861.
Following his death on 7 September 1864, he was buried four days later in Highland Road Cemetery, Portsmouth.
By May 2011, I had found a reasonable amount of information about my greatx4 grandfather,
Richard Lemmon.
However, I was not prepared for some further thrilling revelations about him...
Confirming Richard Lemmon as my direct ancestor.
For some time I believed that my 4xgreat grandfather was a John Lemmon. However, when another direct ancestor in Portsmouth, James Pafford, died, the informant of his death was a ‘niece’, Harriet Seal, of 15, Havant Street, Portsea. Examining her life answered the question of which Lemmon was my ancestor.
In 1881, Harriet Seal was a widow (aged 36, born Portsea) living at Havant Street.
I looked in vain for her marriage and therefore her maiden name. Then, I realised
that although she was only thirty-
I could now put it all together. Richard’s daughter, Elizabeth Lemmon married Richard
Gillett in 1829 at Alverstoke. The couple had five children, including Harriet Gillett.
Her uncle, John Lemmon, married the sister of James Pafford’s wife -
The point of this exercise is to prove that Harriet’s ancestor was Richard Lemmon.
Thus, conclusive evidence that Richard, and not John, was my ancestor had been found on the basis of the information provided by a name on one death certificate,
Postscripts
In 1855, my greatx2 grand parents, James and Harriet Mills were living in Richard’s home, at 3 St Marys Street, Portsea.
Frederick Joseph Proctor was born on 10 April 1854 -
In around 1924, FJ Proctor wrote ‘Reminiscences of Old Portsmouth’, a series of articles that appeared in the Hampshire Telegraph and were later published in book form in 1931. In it the following claim was made:
Thus, Proctor claims John Lemmon as Pounds ‘most intimate friend’. However, I believe he is probably mistaken for these reasons:
1) According to the Portsea Rate Books, John Lemmon lived in Tower Street, Point during the 1820s. In the 1841 census, Harriet Ann was still living there, as a victualler of the ‘Ship Tigre’.
But, according to Hawkes’ book, ‘Lemmon’ lived in St Mary’s Street, Point. There is primary evidence that Richard Lemmon lived in St Mary’s Street, as shown earlier.
2) Hawkes describes ‘Lemmon’ and John Pounds as contemporaries -
In is improbable that John Lemmon was born in around 1772 -
Richard Lemmon was born in around 1770.
3) In 1833, Hawkes describes ‘Lemmon’ as having ‘several grown-
Slater’s Directory for 1851 records Maria Lemmon, John and Harriet’s daughter, as
a beer retailer at 5/6 St Mary’s Street. So she was the next door-
The positive that can be taken from Proctor’s comments is the association of his family with John Pounds. This is compounded as his uncle, Alexander Lemmon, sailed in a ship called ‘John Pounds’ in about 1864. This may indicate a family relationship between John and Richard Lemmon
Richard’s signature in 1850:
Painting
Etching