The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-08-23 00:00:00

MEMOIR OF ARCHIBALD BOLAM.—No. 11.

(From the Newcastle Journal.)
The entrance of Bolam into the large and respectable
Academy kept by the late Mr. Bruce, in Percy-street, and
continued by his exemplary son, was an advancement in lifq
exceedingly gratifying to the feelings of a young and aspiring'
mind, inasmuch as it originated with Mr. Bruce himself, who
entertained a very high opinion of Bolam, and offered an
augmentation of his pecuniary resources as an inducement
for him to make the change. Nor was this the only instance
in which his amiable disposition, general good behaviour, and
industry, secured for, him the esteem and approbation of
those with whom he became professionally connected. Whilst
at Caistron, as before mentioned, he had many warm and
sincere friends, and during his subsequent engagement under
the Directors of the Newcastle Savings' Bank; he appears to
have been equally fortunate in this respect ; and those friends
he maintained to the last, as was most strikingly evinced on
his trial, when a host of highly respectable inffividuals came
forward, and gave testimony in favour of his general charac-
ter. Indeed, his conduct through life appears to have been
most exemplary.
Minor details of biographical notices are valuable princi-
pally on account of the character which they tend to developc.
They throw aside; as it were, the veil behind which the'mo-
fives of human action are hidden—they remove the tinselled
garb assumed for portraiture and effect—and reveal the cha-
racter of the individual in naked comeliness or deformity. In
this light, then, must we regard the apparently trivial cir-
cumstances we are about to relate in regard to the subject of
the present memoir.
In the year 1819, one of the pupils of Mr. Bruce, named
Henry Shield, experienced the misfortune of breaking his
leg, in one of those romps in which schoolboys so frequently
indulge. This circumstance appears to have created, as it well
might, some degree of anxiety and uneasiness among the
heads of the establ4hment, and accordingly, as was the
practice with Bolam In regard to almost every matter which
interested him deeply, he made a record of the event among
his private memoranda. The entry is not very clear, hut we
shall transcribe it, such as it is, with the remarks, which ap-
pear to have been made by others, or 'suggested to his own
mind, on the occasion :

" 1819—May 4. *Henry Shield's leg broken. 'lf I find
you or any other boy fighting or inducing other boys to fight,
I will punish you most severely ; there is no excuse:for fight-
ing, and, James Duke, if ever. I find you fighting again, I
will give you something that you will remember as long as
you live:' Question.— How did the quarrel originate ?'
John Smith diverted himself at the expence of E. Duncan.
John Smith you are the oldest boy among them, and you
have been at my school nearly six years ; you" should know
better. However I must give you a complete flogging.'
" Mr. Bruce cries aloud to Duncan— All that you have
to do is to come and tell me, if either he or any boy in'the
school touches you ; if you do not you may blame yourself.' "
These salutary admonitions, and the method of enforcing
them so prominently referred to, mark the course of school
discipline at the time in question, when the rod, the ferula,
or the birch was the sceptre of dominion, and the only ar-
guments advanced to illustrate and vindicate the laws of
such an establishment. In regard to Mr. Bruce himself,
however, it is only proper to add, that he was no less dis-
tinguished for the humanity of his character on all occasions
than for his exquisite acquirements, in witness whereof, ap-
peal can be safely made to hundreds of individuals in almost
every rank and profession in life, who derived instruction
from his counsels, and habits of activity and usefulness from
the discipline which he enforced, always with firmness, and
yet without unnecessary rigour.
Shortly after the transaction above referred to, a rather
curious incident befel the individual concerning whom we
write. Bolam, after the labours of the day were over, was
in the habit of indulging himself with a stroll into the
country ; and on these occasions his mind would often re-
vert to the scene of his former labours near the pebbly basin
of the Coquet. It is perhaps necessary to state that Mr.
Bruce's school was situate near the north east end of Percy-
street, a few yards from the Barras Bridge, which carries the
turnpike over a small rivulet, dividing the town of New-
castle from the moor or common, which belongs by chartered
right, to the freemen of the ancient borough. The burn or
rivulet still exists, but its course is under ground from the
head of Eldon-street to St. Thomas's Chapel, whence
emerging it runs along the Dean, and thence by a conduit
through Pandon to the river Tyne. Twenty years ago, when
the freemen held undisturbed possession of their inheritance,
asses and other beats of burthen belonging to the poor
among the privileged class, were permitted to feed upon the
common, and to consume the grass in the lanes .near the
vicinity of the town. During one of Bolam's evening walks,
he had the misfortune to be attacked by a he ass, as he him-
self describes it, near the Barras Bridge, and but for timely
assistance, might have fallen a victim to its ferocity. He
was, however, rescued from his perilous situation, without
having sustained any material injury, by some persons who
witnessed the onset, and his..quadruped antagonist was put
to flight. As a curious coincidence he remarks that on the
same day he had'seen two young men boxing on the Leazes.
Among the jottings in his note book, at this period, we
find transcribed the following, to use his own terms, " most
extraordinary sublime lines," and as they accord so strictly
with what appears to have been his feeling throughout the
greater portion of his life, as well as from their own intrinsic
worth, though well known, we do not hesitate in interrupt-
ing the course of our narrative by introducing them,
" Could we with ink the ocean fill,
Was the whole earth of parchment made,
Was every single stick a quill,
Was every man a scribe by trade ;
To write the Love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry ;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Tho' stretched from sky to sky." - -
During the vacation in the summer of 1819 Bolam visited
Edinburgh, for the purpose of still further improving himself,
and on his return he spent a few days with his friends at
Harbottle. The plan of his journey was well considered be-
forehand, and he appears to have been anxious not to neglect
so favourable-an opportunity of hearing the popular preachers
in which that great city abounded. With that view he pro-
vided. himself with a list of, their names, and the churches
and chapels with which they were connected. Mr. Bruce's
school broke .up on Thursday the 17th of June, and Bolam
set out from Newcastle to Edinburgh on the following Satur-
day, and arrived in that city in the afternoon of Tuesday,
June the 22d. He engaged lodgings the same evening in
Nicholson's-street, nearly opposite the college; and on the
following morning entered Mr. Ewing's class in Hanover-
street. He entered the writing class of Mr. Scott, St. An-
drew's-square, on the Friday, and spent the following day
(Saturday) in visiting Edinburgh Castle, Lord Nelson's mo-
nument, and Holyrood House. On the first Sunday which
he spent in Edinburgh, he attended the Methodist chapel in
the morning, the Burgher meeting house in the afternoon,
and the College meeting in the evening, thus keeping up that
strict observance of religious duty for which he was always
distinguished. The only text he appears to have recorded
was that taken by Dr. Jamieson in the College meeting-house,
on the second Sunday that Bolam was in Edinburgh ; and it
is not a little remarkable that it should embody that fine
moral sentiment in relation to social life which he subse-
quently so brutally and inhumanly outraged—" It is a good
thing to see brothers dwell together in unity." He was ex-
ceedingly attentive to his studies whilst in Edinburgh, and
in order to facilitate his adoption of the various methods of
tuition practised by the able masters under whom he studied,
he wrote down ample descriptions of them, which are still
preserved, but which it is not necessary here to transcribe.
Mr. Bruce's school re-opened on the 2d August, and on the
24th of July, Bolam reached Harbottle on his return to
Newcastle. Here he spent the few days at his disposal, after
which he came to Newcastle and resumed his labours, im-
proved, as he observes, both intellectually and physically, by
his excursion.

Up to this period he seems to have carefully abstained from
interfering in politics ; notwithstanding the stirring events of
the time in which he lived, his reading appears to have been
almost exclusively confined to religious books, and such as
were calculated to improve his mind and qualify him for the
duties of the profession in which he was engaged, according
to the notions then generally entertained amongst persons of
his class. In the month of November this year (1819,) he
became a subscriber to the Newcastle Chronicle, which, how-
ever, he subsequently abandoned in favour of the Courant.
In the following year, he entered into an arrangement with
his brother John, who then had taken up his residence in
Newcastle, Mr. Anderson, and Dr. Elliot, and took in Cob-
bett's Weekly Register, and some other works published by
that extraordinary individual, who was at that time approach-
ing the zenith of his literary fame. Bolam was a member of
the Arcade News Room from its commencement, and was
observed in general to be pretty regular in his attendance,
though he never took a prominent part in either general or
local politics.
Bolam left Mr. Bruce's establishment in the summer of
1820 ; the school broke up on the 14th of June, and he went
to the Royal Jubilee School, in the New Road, on the fol-
lowing day. lie was introduced to Mr. Drury, the head
master of the school, by the late Mr. Bruce, who still retained
for him a very high respect, and manifested a willingness to
forward his interests as much as possible. He did not remain
long in the Jubilee School, though the precise reason of his
quitting that establishment we have been unable correctly to
ascertain. On the 7th of November, in the same year, he
was elected an ordinary member of the Newcastle Literary
and Philosophical Society, and his course of reading at this
period may be seen by the following extract from the books
of that establishment :

- Sadler's lErial Voyage across the Channel, &c..... Nov. 13
Mungo Parke's Travels in Africa — 20
Ditto Ditto Second Mission .... Dec. 5
Speeches of the Right Hon. W. Pitt
Jeremy Bentham on Morals and Legislation — 23
Watts Essays
Goldsmith's Animated Nature Jan. 28
Condorcet's Life of Voltaire
He left the Royal Jubilee School at Christmas, 1820, and
entered Miss Stoe's school, on the 9th of January in the
following year. At this time he was engaged in connection
with the Sayings' Bank in this town, the business of which,
however, it being then in its infancy, was not of very great
extent, and did not require the whole of his services. Close
application to study, and the various duties which devolved
upon him, at length affected his health, and he was com-
pelled for a time to abandon his professional engagements.
His situation at the Savings' Bank was filled during his ill-
ness by a Mr. Taylor, and Bolam seems ,after this to have
relinquished scholistic duties altogether. On his recovery
he returned to the Bank, where he remained until the melan-
choly event which will henceforth stamp his name with
Infamy.

REVISING BARRISTERS APPOINTED BY MR. JUSTICE
COLTMAN ON NORTHERN SUMMER CIRCUIT, 1839.—Nor-
thern Division of the County of Lancaster, Preston, Cli-
theroe, and Lancaster—Stephen Temple, George Hutton
Wilkinson, and Hugh Spencer Stanhope, Esqrs. Southern
Division of the County of Lancaster, and Liverpool, Man-
chester, Oldham, Salford, Warrington, and Wigan—Robert
Wharton, Jeremiah Robinson, and Spencer Horatio Wal-
pole, Esqrs. Ashton-Under-Lyne, Bury, Bolton-le-Moors,
Rochdale, and Blackburn, in the County of Lancaster—
Henry Lawrence, Esquire.
POST-MERIDIAN Houns.—lt being found by woeful ex-
perience, that many ordinances in parliament had passed in
a most indirect manner, at unreasonable houres and thinne
houses, the shame and dishonour of that Royal Council, and
ruine of the kingdome, Sir Benjamin Ruddier (a grave,.wise,
and witty man) stoode up and made this motion, that noth-
ing should be putt to the finall vote upon a thinne house
(under a certain number,) or after twelve of the clocke ;
" for, Mr. Speaker," says he, " we plainly find that post-
meridian votes are as dangerous and pernicious as nocturnal
lucubrations," reflecting upon their night workes and hellish
designes hatched at such unreasonable houres.-Camden
Society's last publication, " Anecdotes and Traditions."
[ln as far as regards the " unseasonable houres, and thinne
houses" at and in which legislative measures are now some-
times enacted, when cOmpared with the times of Sir J 3.
Ruddier, we cannot exclaim, " Tempora mutantur.]