CHAPTER X

THE LETTERS OF RICHARD CHICKEN

ETTY died in November 1849. The following year Mr. Pritchard of the Theatre Royal announced that he had got suits of real armour for his production of The Jewess. In 1842 the York mail-coach from London came to the city for the last time. On July 10th, 1844, for the first time in this country, the polka was danced in public by Mr. Elesgood and Miss Harcourt; Mr. Pickwick had made his appearance, and so had Richard Chicken.

In appearance Mr. Pickwick was short and stout with a chubby face. Chicken was tall, lean, and cadaverous. Mr. Pickwick amused the world. Chicken amused York. Chicken died in the workhouse, whereas Mr. Pickwick, who retired to Rochester about a hundred years ago, is apparently still alive, as nothing has so far appeared in the newspapers announcing his death.

Deposited in the public library at Stoke Newington for safe custody are the letters of Richard Chicken, who for over thirty years was one of York’s genteel oddities, and who, like Mr. Micawber, was always ‘waiting for something to turn up’.

As Chicken was quite irresponsible it is not surprising that his letters are undated. They came into the possession of Mr. Gilbert Hudson of York, whose grandfather. Alderman William Hudson, employed Chicken as a temporary clerk from time to time.

Alderman Hudson was appointed Proctor of the Ecclesiastical Courts of York in 1829, and Deputy Registrar in 1853. Chicken’s letters, which are published herein, would probably be written during the 1830’s.

Mr. Gilbert Hudson, who presented Chicken’s letters to the public library at Stoke Newington when he went to live in Hertfordshire, has recently endeavoured to get them transferred to the public library at York, but as they are bound and catalogued not only at Stoke Newington but also at the National Central Library in London and in other places, the committee of the Stoke Newington Library is loath to part with them.

Chicken was born just before the close of the eighteenth century in Low Ousegate, York, where his father, Nicholas Chicken, was in business as a wine merchant. To be precise, Chicken was baptized on August 14th, 1799, at St. Michael’s Church on the opposite side of the street. Chicken therefore appears in these pages as a connecting link between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for like his distinguished fellow-citizen, William Etty, his career extends into the early years of the reign of Queen Victoria.

After being educated at the Bingley Grammar School, Chicken started life equipped with a remarkable flow of lofty language and happily possessed of a variety of other qualifications. Elocution seems to have been his favourite subject, for after having been attached to an itinerant stock company of players connected with the theatre at Nottingham, he became a professor of that art in York.

Chicken’s high opinion of his powers of elocution was not shared by the editor of the Yorkshire Gazette, for in the issue of that journal of April 3rd 1824, is the following criticism of Chicken’s efforts when he appeared on the boards at York in a play with the appropriate title of The Poor Gentleman.

THEATRE ROYAL,
YORK

THIS EVENING, THURSDAY, APRIL 1ST, THE COMEDY OF
THE POOR GENTLEMAN

OLLAPOD - - - MR. CHICKEN
(His first appearance)
FREDERICK - - - MR. F. RAMSEY
(His second appearance)

As was customary, a night at the Theatre Royal was set apart for the —

BENEFIT OF
MR. CHICKEN

On Saturday Evening, May 22nd, 1824,
His Majesty’s Servants will perform the
....admired Play of....

LOVERS’ VOWS

‘Mr. Chicken, who is an amateur of this city, cannot be said to have been very successful. He has much to learn and to unlearn, before he can attain eminence in his profession. He misplaces the h’s terribly, his utterance is too rapid, and much of the dialogue was lost from his speaking in too low a tone. If he will attend to these points we have no doubt but on a second representation he will succeed much better.’

This would have had a damping effect on most people who were ‘Professors of Elocution’, but not so on Chicken, who shortly after made the following announcement in the York Herald:

Preparing for the Press
and shortly will be published
a Treatise on the Harmonic
Principles of the English Language
and the Beauty and Correctness of its Prosody
By Richard Chicken

Professor of Elocution and Lecturer on Defective Enunciation
Dedicated to Robert Denison, Esq., of Kilnwick Percy

Present Subscribers
[Then follows a list of 40 subscribers, including the Archbishop of York.]

The book was never published.

As Chicken’s movements were somewhat erratic we cannot follow his career very closely, but after closing down as a ‘Professor of Elocution’ we know that he was for a time a clerk at the York Diocesan Registry Office. After leaving the Diocesan Registry Office and finding himself in a state of ‘financial embarrassment’ to the extent of 7s. 6d., he sent the following letter to the Lord Mayor:

‘May it please your Lordship,
‘Sabbath as it is, I must devote a few moments of it to address you. In an emergency it is lawful to take the shewbread; works of necessity and mercy may be performed on a Sunday; the priests defiled the temple on the Sunday and were blameless. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. I have frustrated as long as I can my landlord’s intentions, who will tarry no longer. The citizens have just made up £1 12s. 6d. for me, so that I now require seven shillings and sixpence. Pray exercise your benevolence to me at this time. If it be your first and your last, let me experience at your hands that feature in the body, of the charity designated almsgiving. I want some employment, anything however tedious or irksome is better than dependence. Can you work me in your office occasionally to execute errands or what not? I am to be relied on. Chicken and punctuality are synonymous terms. I can vie with Pythagoras for sobriety and with Scipio for continence.
‘I worship with the Methodists, and joined that body when I was with Mr. Birkinshaw. I have been attached to them from boyhood, ever since I was trained by my grandmother at Pocklington, at the time my grandfather was steward to the Denisons of Kilnwick Perry. In a temporal point of view, I mourn the most over the five years 1 wasted in my clerkship in the Ecclesiastical Court—precious time wasted and useful money misapplied in my articles and keep. The profession was not my choice, as I was not consulted but placed there by my father’s executors. I should have preferred the temporal courts. I lament leaving the stage. There I was composed, if not happy; but my delicate constitution gave way under the fatigue of itinerant acting. In the early part of next year we may be in a more easy condition, as my wife’s mother is dead, and part of her property, viz., the inn at Doncaster, was sold on the 8th ult. for £775, and there is yet a dwelling-house and two gardens to go by private contract, after which she and her sisters will divide the inheritance. Her brother, however, is sordid, mercenary, avaricious, and gripping. His heart’s in the world, and the world’s in his heart.

‘Your humble servant,

‘RICHARD CHICKEN

‘PS.—Do you think, sir, that you have a coat or trousers in reversion? Quintus (my son) will call for your considerations to-morrow (Monday) as he goes to the station at nine.’

We next trace him to the office of a Mr. Buckle where he confidentially unburdens his heart in the following note to the clerks in Mr. Buckle’s office:

‘GENTLEMEN,
‘For the last 9 weeks I have been suffering from a species of physical declension, which at length assumed so serious an aspect, that it became expedient I should have medical aid. I consequently became an out-patient of the Hospital last week. I don’t much anticipate a recovery, and am not at all anxious about it, as I have an enduring inheritance above.
‘Within the last six weeks I have lost 17 lbs. weight, and go on decreasing. I have an abundance of medicine from the Institution, but I had much rather have been an in-patient, as I should then have had the advantage of the house diet. When an individual feeds on drugs, he is soon satiated.
‘I am ordered generous support, such as Mutton Chops and Porter, but I cannot procure them; the wants of my family are too absorbing.
... I do not affect to have any claim upon your regard or sympathy, but you may, perhaps feel disposed to grant me a trifling pecuniary aid towards assuaging my sufferings under the present dispensation for “Auld Lang Syne”.
‘I am sure that if the late Mr. Buckle had been living, this appeal would not have been in vain. It is “the Actor’s last Cake”.

‘I am. Your obedient servant,

‘RICHARD CHICKEN

‘PS.—I manage to take a little exercise, but am unequal to much locomotion. I will take the liberty of sending Sextus for your consideration in the course of the day.
‘When I was a member of the Nottingham Company, they used to tell me that I looked as if a good dinner would be a memorable event in my history. Boddy, the light comedian, used to plague me about my lean condition. Poor fellow! he is now in the “Actors’ Paradise”—America.’

After leaving Mr. Buckle's the clerks frequently heard from their impecunious acquaintance. One of them received the following letter from Chicken, who evidently had a predilection for brown gloves:

‘MY DEAR SIR,
‘I am just reminded that you and I pledged our vows at the hymeneal altar about the same time as our Gracious Sovereign, but we have not kept pace with her Blessed Majesty in progeny.
‘As you are aware, it has always been my desire to maintain a correct personal appearance in whatever sphere I have had the fortune or the misfortune to have been cast, and I take this favourable opportunity of enquiring if you have the matter of half-a-dozen pairs of despised gloves a little worse for wear, they would be of service and appreciated by your old and

‘Ever grateful acquaintance,

‘RICHARD CHICKEN

‘PS.—If I may be allowed to express a choice, those coloured brown would be preferred.’

In his letters Chicken refers to his family. He had been the father of ten little Chickens, but fortunately for him five had died. In the graveyard of St. Mary, Bishophill Senior, may be seen the gravestone erected to their memory.

IN MEMORY OF
ALEXANDER JORDAN, GUSTAVIUS,
NICHOLAS HUDDLESTONE,
SONS OF
RICHARD AND LOUISA CHICKEN,
AGED RESPECTIVELY 11, 9, AND 7 YEARS,
WHO ALL DIED ON THE 13TH JUNE, 1845,
OF PESTILENTIAL FEVER;
ALSO
LOUISA ADELAIDE,
SISTER TO THE ABOVE, AGED 18 MONTHS,
WHO EXPIRED
ON THE 19TH OF THE SAME MONTH
UNDER A SIMILAR ATTACK,
AND ON THE 24TH OCTOBER, 1847,
JESSE QUARTISSIMO CHICKEN,
AGED 7 YEARS.

During one of his many periods of being out of work, Chicken found casual employment as a clerk in the railway offices. Here he toiled for a while with an air of ‘doing something genteel’. After a time the work began to pall, and quite regardless of consequences he wrote in his usual style to the chief of his department:

‘To Mr. SHERIFF,
“May it please you Sir,
‘A few weeks ago I ventured (through the medium of Mr. Wilson) to bring before you the fact that I have for a considerable period suffered from disease in the region of the heart, and that very close application to the desk, with its accompanying contraction of the chest operate against me. My desk work in the Clearing-house is from 9 till 6 without intermission or interval (excepting dinner hour) and I am really unable to stand it. If you require a Medical Certificate on this point, “I can put one in”.
‘Under these circumstances if you can give me an appointment where I might have more exercise and less restraint, it would be received with appropriate emotion by

‘Your humble Servant,

‘RICHARD CHICKEN’

Much to his consternation Chicken received notice to quit. As he already had a family of five, and another Chicken was on the point of being hatched, his position was serious. He writes as follows:

To Mr. WILSON,
‘SIR,
‘In the absence of Mr. Sheriff, I venture to acknowledge to you the receipt of my Discharge from the service of this Company. You signify no charge against me; and it appears to me a thing unreasonable to discard a servant against whom there appears to be no accusation. As I have been both attentive and diligent to my duties, as well as punctual to my appointments, I cannot conjecture why I am to be thrown “on my beam ends”. . . . You must excuse me when I say that I consider myself ill-used, when I reflect that Mr. S——’s services are to be retained in some department, while I with a young family, which I hourly expect to be increased, am to be driven away.
‘If I had continued in the tranquil employment of Mr. Bailey, or Mr. Benson in the Goods Office, this would not have occurred. Why was I transplanted, and why am I now to be rooted-up?
I hope that Mr. Sheriff will reconsider his verdict, and allow me to tarry. The circumstances of my discharge will cause those gentlemen to wonder, through whose influence with Mr. Sheriff I obtained my first engagement.

‘I am, yours respectfully,

‘RICHARD CHICKEN’

Though no response came he continued writing:

‘To Mr. SHERIFF,
‘May it please you Sir,
‘In pursuance of my Discharge I quitted the service of the Company on Saturday, but as no charge was brought against me, I cannot conjecture the grounds of my dismissal…. In the several departments in which I have been engaged since I entered the service of the Company in September last, I have been diligent, punctual, and obliging, and if I have erred, it has been in judgement, not design.
‘Cast on my own resources at this juncture when my wife is confined of her eleventh child, and in a very delicate condition, the event operates doubly against her, producing restlessness and anxiety.
‘It may be that you have been annoyed by the several notes which I have addressed to you Sir within the last two months, but I declare that I had none but a pure and legitimate object in view, and as I am a creature of circumstances, and act under such impulse, I hope you will not visit me with displeasure on that account. If not for my own sake, at least in consideration of my family I venture to hope that you will consider to offer me an engagement in some department which you may think adapted to me.’

Again no reply. Another month elapsed, and a further letter was sent to the same gentleman containing similar expressions, and concluding:

‘As I write this with a conscience void of offence, as regards my past services at the Railway, I cannot but exercise faith as to its result.’

Chicken’s confidence was misplaced, and affairs in the Chicken household reached a climax. Mrs. Chicken, who was as prolific a letter-writer as her husband, writes to a York lady as follows:

‘MADAM,
‘I hope you will send me a little more work to commence of on Monday. If you are so kind, be so good as to send me a reel of your nice cotton, those penny ones I purchase are not at all nice for fine work. Mr. C. walked off with my spectacles some months ago, but I have redeemed them yesterday. I am removing into Bilton Street . . . mine is No. 31. Chicken must look out for himself. I cannot work to feed him and my children want. He has even taken the bread out of their hands to eat. He says he shall apply to the Parishosial Authorities—he must do as he pleases. He has disgraced me and my children too long. I only wish I had taken this step years ago. Only give me work. Madam ——.

‘Your truly grateful sert.,

‘LOUISA CHICKEN’

Chicken carried out his intention to apply to the ‘Parishosial’ Authorities and went to the Workhouse. Here, though in uncongenial surroundings, he continued to write in the old familiar strain. As letter-paper was scarce, his last pathetic appeal was written on the yellow fly-leaf torn from some work he had procured.

‘Mr. SIMPSON,
‘You have perhaps heard that I am in the Workhouse, and in a bad condition of health. I don’t expect to come out alive. The confinement and the society will kill me: moreover, I cannot eat the porridge, which constitutes our breakfast and supper; but we are allowed to have coffee and tea if we find it ourselves. Many who have friends to assist them do obtain it. I desire my respects to the clerks in the office, and hope that they will have the humanity to raise me a trifle to procure a morsel of coffee and sugar, with a little tobacco to console and refresh me. Anything left at the lodge of the Workhouse will reach its destination.

‘Yours respectfully,

‘RICHARD CHICKEN

‘PS.—The society of idiots, the ignorant and the profane, is not adapted to me:—poor Chicken!’

When Chicken went to the Workhouse, Mrs. Chicken removed to Leeds, where she opened a Girls’ School, where no girls ever went. In one of her numerous begging letters to Mrs. — of York she says:

‘I removed to Leeds with my family. I commenced a school and had two clerks as lodgers. We were getting on comfortably. Five weeks ago I was attack [?] with Thyphoid Fever, which terminated in Rheumatic Fever. I am now up, but confined to my bedroom. My feet and legs are so swollen I cannot touch the ground. It has been a sad visitation, as our School was broken up and my two lodgers left for fear of infection…. I was over in York to see Chicken twice before Christmas . . . and when he died on 22nd of January, I sat up with him all night and saw the last of him, poor thing . . .

‘Your grateful sert.,

‘LOUISA CHICKEN’

Poor Chicken! The unsuccessful player of many parts. To travel hopefully seemed to you a better thing than to arrive. You hoped without labour to ascend to some conspicuous height, and, but a little way farther, against the setting sun, descry the spires of El Dorado.

Misery and want made Mrs. Chicken think your life was lived in vain, but I for one don’t think so. When you were alive you pleased a great many people by making them laugh, and now that you are dead you have pleased me immensely by helping me to bring this book to what I hope may be regarded by the reader as a satisfactory conclusion. Poor Chicken! You never found your El Dorado, but you have a place in Georgian York.