SHOWELL'S
Dictionary of Birmingham.
Quacks.—Though we cannot boast of a millionaire
pill-maker like the late Professor Holloway, we have not often been
without a local well-to-do "quack." A medical man, named
Richard Aston, about 1815-25, was universally called so, and if the
making of money is proof of quackery, he deserved the title, as he
left a fortune of £60,000. He also left an only daughter, but
she and her husband were left to die in the Workhouse, as the quack
did not approve of their union.
Quakers.—Peaceable and quiet as the members of the
Society of Friends are known to be now, they do not appear to have
always borne that character in this neighbourhood, but the punishments
inflicted upon them in the time of the Commonwealth seem to have been
brutish in the extreme. In a history of the diocese of Worcester it is
stated that the Quakers not only refused to pay tithes or take off
their hats in courts of justice, but persisted in carrying on their
business on Sundays, and scarcely suffering a service to be conducted
without interruption, forcing themselves into congregations and
proclaiming that the clergymen were lying witnesses and false
prophets, varying their proceedings by occasionally running naked
through the streets of towns and villages, and otherwise misbehaving
themselves, until they were regarded as public pests and treated
accordingly. In the year 1661, fifty-four Quakers were in Worcester
gaol, and about the same time seven or eight others were in the lockup
at Evesham, where they were confined for fourteen weeks in a cell 22
ft. square and 6 ft. high, being fed on bread and water and not once
let out during the whole time, so that people could not endure to past
the place; female Quakers were thrust with brutal indecency into the
stocks and there left in hard frost for a day and night, being
afterwards driven from the town. And this went on during the whole of
the time this country was blessed with Cromwell and a Republican
Government.—See "Friends."
Quaint Customs.—The practice of "heaving" or
"lifting" on Easter Monday and Tuesday was still kept up in
some of the back streets of the town a few years back, and though it
may have died out now with us those who enjoy such amusements will
find the old custom observed in villages not far away.—At
Handsworth, "clipping the church" was the curious
"fad" at Easter-time, the children from the National
Schools, with ladies and gentlemen too, joining hands till they had
surrounded the old church with a leaping, laughing, linked, living
ring of humanity, great fun being caused when some of the link loosed
hands and let their companions fall over the graves.—On St.
John's Days, when the ancient feast or "wake" of
Deritend Chapel was kept, it, was the custom to carry bulrushes to the
church, and old inhabitants decorated their fireplaces with
them.—In the prosperous days of the Holte family, when Aston
Hall was the abode of fine old English gentlemen, instead of being the
lumber-room of those Birmingham rogues the baronets abominated,
Christmas Eve was celebrated with all the hospitalities usual in
baronial halls, but the opening of the evening's performances was
of so whimsical a character that it attracted attention even a hundred
years ago, when queer and quaint customs were anything but strange. An
old chronicler thus describes it:—"On this day, as soon as
supper is over, a table is set in the hall; on it is set a brown loaf,
with twenty silver threepences stuck on the top of it, a tankard of
ale, with pipes and tobacco; and the two oldest servants have chairs
behind it, to sit in as judges, if they please. The steward brings the
servants, both men and women, by one at a time, covered with a
winnow-sheet, and lays their right hand on the loaf, exposing no other
part of the body. The oldest of the two judges guesses at the person,
by naming a name; then the younger judge, and, lastly, the oldest
again. If they hit upon the right name, the steward leads the person
back again; but if they do not he takes off the winnow-sheet, and the
person receives a threepence, makes low obeisance to the judges, but
speaks not a word. When the second servant was brought the younger
judge guessed first and third; and this they did alternately till all
the money was given away. Whatever servant had not slept in the house
the previous night forfeited his right to the money. No account is
given of the origin of this strange custom, but it has been practised
ever since the family lived there. When the money is gone the servants
have full liberty to drink, dance, sing, and go to bed when they
please."
