[List-Cumbria] Carlisle Patriot, 21 Jun 1823 - Death of Robert BOWMAN (1)

[Petra Mitchinson]

Saturday 21 Jun 1823   (p. 3, col. 5-6)

 

DEATH OF 

Mr. ROBERT BOWMAN, OF IRTHINGTON, 

IN HIS 118TH YEAR! 

 

On the evening of Friday the 13th inst. this venerable old man breathed his last, at Irthington, near Carlisle, in the 118th year of
his age. 

 

He was born at Bridgewood-Foot, a small farm-house, near the river Irthing, about two miles from the place of his death. "His
birth-day is not known, (says Dr. BARNES, who published some account of him in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal in 1820), but he
believes he was born about Christmas. As some doubts have been entertained with respect to his age, to put it beyond dispute, I have
examined the register of his baptism in the parish Church of Hayton. His name and place of nativity, as well as the year of baptism,
which was 1705, are very legible; but from his name having been placed at the foot of the page, the month and day are worn out. The
baptism immediately preceding his, was on the 23d of September; and the next succeeding on the 28th of October: of course, his must
have been between these two periods." Thus the age of this extraordinary man is ascertained with a precision not often met with in
accounts of persons whose span of life has been extended in any considerable degree beyond the general term of 'man's pilgrimage on
earth.' 

 

In August, 1817, Mr. Thomas SANDERSON, of Kirklinton (a writer whose productions have often delighted and instructed the Cumbrian
public,) inserted in this paper a memoir of Mr. BOWMAN, from which a few extracts at this time cannot fail to be generally
acceptable. 

 

Mr. B., observes Mr. SANDERSON, "was brought up to the profession of a husbandman. He has resided during the last forty years of his
life at Irthington, a pleasant hamlet, surrounded by a tract of dry and well-cultivated land, about seven miles from Carlisle. Some
time last May, accompanied by the worthy vicar of the parish and his son, I paid a visit to his humble habitation, which, like its
aged proprietor, has withstood many a wintry blast. I found him lying on a couch near the fire-place, with the roseate glow of
health on his cheeks, and a serenity on his countenance that indicated the tranquillity of his heart. I approached him with all the
veneration due to an old man of an hundred and twelve; and was happy to find, in the course of conversation, that time, though it
had blanched his locks and furrowed his brow, had not impaired his hearing,* his memory, or his intellects; and that, though it had
extended him on his couch, and incapacitated him from walking, he was not without hopes of continuing the contest with the tyrant a
few years longer. All the occurrences of his youth are still fresh in his memory. He well remembers the insurrection of the Scots in
1715, in favour of the Pretender, when the Sheriff of Cumberland mustered on Penrith Fell the posse comitatus to stop the progress
of the rebels; and can recollect the time when Barley was 3s. a bushel (Carlisle measure), oats 1s. 6d., butter 3d. a pound, and
eggs one penny a dozen. Wheat and potatoes had not then made their appearance in Cumberland; and animal food and tea were mostly
confined to the tables of the opulent. 

 

"At the age of fifty, our venerable villager married, and took a farm of five pounds per annum in his native parish, which he
managed so successfully as to realize a little fortune. He had all the merit of a good farmer: he was skilful, frugal, active, and
industrious; and, what adds not a little to his character, was well-respected by his neighbours. His wife, who had long been the
sharer of his toils, and by whom he had several children, died several years ago. He felt her loss sensibly; but had too much
veneration for her memory to enter into a second marriage. He determined to live a chaste widower; and the bonniest lass (he would
say) that ever was wooed in a corner should never tempt him to break that resolution! * * * Long after he had completed a century,
time had made so little impression on his constitution, that he could perform the most laborious operations of husbandry, and use
the spade, the flail, the scythe, and the reaping-hook, with all the vigour and dexterity of a person that has not seen thirty
summers. At the age of one hundred and nine, he walked to and from Carlisle, a distance of 14 miles, with an expedition that would
surprise men in these times; and it is only little more than a year since he assisted his family at their harvest-work. 

 

"He has always lived abstemiously; his diet being chiefly potatoes, butter, cheese, milk, and hasty-pudding.† Snuff or tobacco he
never used, and seldom tasted spiritous liquors. He is no friend to tea-drinking, to the general prevalence of which he imputes the
whole train of nervous disorders and mental maladies which have spread so much pain and misery over the world. He has no aversion to
ale, provided it be made of good malt and hops, which, he says, was always the case before the establishment of public breweries. He
was never intoxicated but once during his life; a circumstance that happened during the festivity of a marriage, when that grave
virtue, sobriety, is generally forced to give way to jolly Comus and his train. His dress was generally light, even in the rigour of
winter; and, whether the weather was cold or tempestuous, he was seldom seen muffled up in a surtout. He rarely wore gloves,
considering them as an effeminate covering; and boots and spatterdashes were rejected for the same reason. He made it invariably his
practice to go to bed soon and rise early, and during the summer season generally took a noon-tide nap on some breezy bank where he
enjoyed the air in all its purity and elastacity [sic]. In many particulars his life resembles that of Old Parr, as described by
TAYLOR, the water-poet:— 

 

          'Good wholesome labour was his exercise, 

          Down with the lamb, and with the lark would rise; 

         In mire and toiling sweat he spent the day, 

         And to his team he whistl'd time away. 

         The cock his night-clock, and till day was done, 

         His watch and chief sun-dial was the sun; 

         He entertain'd no gout, no ache he felt, 

         The air was good and temp'rate where he dwelt. 

         While Mavisses and sweet-tongued Nightingales 

         Did chaunt him roundelays and madrigals.' 

 

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* As a proof of the perfection of this faculty, Mr. BOWMAN himself told the Editor of this paper, in 1819, that, at night, when all
was silent, he could hear the ticking of a watch which usually hung in a window several yards distant. 

 

" † On this dish, called the thick pottage (oatmeal and water boiled, and eaten, chiefly with milk, while warm) the Cumbrian peasant
generally makes his morning and evening repast." 

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[to be continued] 

 

 

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