by Diccon Bewes
The family name continued on through her younger brother William, although he died five years before her. The tour’s paymaster, he became a bank manager in York, and was also the author of The History and Antiquities of Selby, which featured illustrations by Jemima. Both his sons went to work for Rowntree, the York chocolate maker that invented KitKats and was eventually bought by Nestlé, the Swiss food giant. The younger of the two sons, John Bowes Morrell, ended up as a director of Rowntree, Lord Mayor of York and a founder of York University. And it is through him that his grandchildren and great-grandchildren have a continuing link with Miss Jemima; some of them even took part in the costumed re-enactment of the tour on its 100th anniversary in 1963. Same route, same family, one century later.
So the Morrell family’s part in this story ends; or does it? A few days later, my father sends me an email. He recognised one name that had popped up, that of Robert’s wife – Margaret Leir from Hertfordshire – and so dug a little deeper. And then everything becomes a little spooky for me personally. Sitting on my parents’ sideboard is a handsome silver teapot with the Leir family crest engraved on it. Not only that, but one of the many old family portraits in their house is of a distinguished gentleman who looks like he’d have a walk-on part in Pride and Prejudice. His name: Reverend William Leir, who died in 1863. Is it a coincidence? Maybe one connection but not two, and it’s not as if the family name is Smith; there can’t be that many Leirs in England. It turns out that the William in the portrait was Margaret’s great-grandfather, who also happened to be the great-grandfather of Thomas Bewes, my own great-grandfather. Margaret and Thomas were thus second cousins or, in other words, she is a distant cousin of mine (second cousins three times removed, thanks to the huge generation gap).
Illustration by Jemima Morrell from her brother William’s book, The History and Antiquities of Selby; notice her signature bottom left
And the teapot? That was a wedding present to William’s daughter Sophia, Margaret’s great-aunt, through whom I am descended: Sophia had a daughter Elizabeth, who had a daughter Hester, who married Thomas Bewes, who had a son Arthur, who had a son David, who is my father. At the same time, Sophia’s brother William (a reverend like his father) had a son Charles (another reverend), who had a daughter Margaret, who married Robert, whose mother was Jemima. Simple really.
How amazing is that? I spend four years with Jemima, reading her words and following her across Europe, and end up discovering that I’m loosely related to her daughter-in-law. It was the last thing I ever expected. I never knew my great-grandfather Thomas, and he possibly never met his second cousin Margaret (or indeed her mother-in-law). Then again, maybe he did. I know some of my second cousins and went to their weddings, so met their mothers-in-law. Britain 150 years ago was very different, with only 23 million people and classes that kept to themselves, so the two might well have met. Either way, the family connection is there, a little echo of history waiting to be heard many decades later by an unsuspecting writer.
Reverend William Leir, 1768–1863
Sadly, as both Robert and Margaret died without children, there are no fifth cousins around for me to find. I have to make do with the mother-in-law of my great-grandfather’s second cousin. Perhaps it is true that everyone is connected by a maximum of six degrees of separation. It certainly worked for me and Miss Jemima.
Generations and decades apart, fate determined that we explore Switzerland together, in joint admiration at the glorious scenery. The transport may have changed as much as the nature of tourism, but the pleasure of travel has not. And maybe it never will.
Appendix I
THE WORLD IN 1863
What was the world like when Miss Jemima went abroad? Almost 50 years after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, Europe was for once relatively peaceful and prosperous. Great Britain had been ruled for 26 years by Queen Victoria, now in permanent mourning for Prince Albert. She would rule for another 38 and wear black for every single one.
France was royal again, having failed twice as a republic, Germany didn’t exist but was a confederation of 30-odd states, unified Italy was barely two years old, and most of Eastern Europe was still part of the Austrian or Ottoman Empires.
The not-so-United States were halfway through their civil war. At the Battle of Gettysburg in July a Swiss soldier fighting for the North, Emil Frey, was captured by the South. He later became Switzerland’s first ambassador to the (reunited) USA and a Swiss Federal Councillor.
Latin America was largely independent, as was the kingdom of Hawaii. Alaska belonged to Russia, Africa to Europe and Australia to Britain. China was ruled by the Qing Dynasty and India by the British Raj, then only five years old. Thailand was Siam, Iran was Persia and Sri Lanka was Ceylon.
Great Britain’s population was 23 million – not huge considering it controlled half of the globe – whereas Italy had 25 million inhabitants, the USA 31 million, France 37 million and Switzerland only 2.5 million.
1863 saw the birth of a mildly popular sport: football (of the non-American kind) had its official beginnings in October, but not everyone liked the new rules. Some chose to play the Rugby school way, sticking their heads between the legs of fellow players.
And just when Thomas Cook was launching mass tourism, London Underground ran the world’s first subway trains between Paddington and Farringdon. More people could travel more widely than ever before, either across the world’s largest city or halfway across Europe.
1863
January
1
Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln, ending slavery in America
1
Birth of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, creator of the modern Olympics
4
Four-wheel roller skates patented by James Plimpton in New York
8
Yorkshire Cricket Club founded in Sheffield
10
First London Underground trains run, on the Metropolitan line
13
Thomas Crapper demonstrates his one-piece pedestal flushing toilet
17
Birth of David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister
23
State funeral of Australian explorers Robert O’Hara Burke and William John Wills in Melbourne
February
3
Samuel Clemens uses the pseudonym Mark Twain for the first time
9
Geneva Society for Public Welfare creates the committee that eventually will become the Red Cross
10
Alanson Crane of Virginia patents the fire extinguisher
17
First meeting of the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded in Geneva
March
10
The Prince of Wales marries Princess Alexandra of Denmark
27
Birth of Henry Royce, British car maker
30
Prince William of Denmark chosen as King George I of Greece
April
19
Schweizerische Alpenclub (Swiss Alpine Club) founded in Olten
29
Birth of William Randolph Hearst, American newspaper publisher
May
2
Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia
10
Stonewall Jackson dies from wounds received at Chancellorsville
21
Seventh-day Adventist Church founded in Michigan
TIMELINE
June
20
West Virginia becomes the 35th state of the USA
23
Napoleon III grants the mineral rights to the spring water at Vergèze, later re-christened Perrier
26
Thomas Cook’s First Conducted Tour of Switzerland leaves London
July
1–3
Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania
16
Thomas Cook’s First Conducted Tour of Switzerland returns to London
17
Invasion of Waikato during the New Zealand Wars
30
Birth of Henry Ford, American car maker
September
20
Jakob Grimm dies in Berlin
29
First performance of The Pearl Fishers opera by Bizet in Paris
October
3
President Lincoln sets Thanksgiving as the last Thursday in November
25
Federal elections in Switzerland, with Freisinnige Linke the largest group
26
Football Association (FA) created in London
26-29
Geneva International Conference leads to the formation of the Red Cross
November
19
Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address
19
Swiss Re insurance company founded in Zurich
23
Louis Ducos du Hauron patents the process for making colour photographs
December
8
Clubs following the Rugby rules of football withdraw from the FA
12
Birth of Edvard Munch, Norwegian artist
18
Birth of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary
24
William Makepeace Thackeray dies in London
Appendix II
SWITZERLAND IN THE 1860s
POPULATION
According to the census of 1860, Bern was the largest canton (467,141 people), followed by Zurich and Vaud. There were only ten communities with a population of over 10,000 people, and together they accounted for only 8 per cent of the total population. Today 45 per cent of the population lives in a community of more than 10,000 people, with the top ten cities making up 17 per cent of the national total.
Switzerland
2,510,494
German-speaking
69.5%
French-speaking
23.4%
Italian-speaking
5.4%
Romansh-speaking
1.7%
Catholic
40.7%
Foreigners
4.6%
Cows
944,000
Protestant
58.9%
British residents
1202
TEN LARGEST TOWNS
Geneva
41,415
Basel
37,918
Bern
29,016
Lausanne
20,515
Zurich
19,758
La Chaux-de-Fonds
16,778
St Gallen
14,532
Lucerne
11,522
Fribourg
10,454
Neuchâtel
10,382
LIFE AND DEATH (CURRENT FIGURES IN BRACKETS)
Life expectancy
Men 40.6 (80.1)
Women 43.2 (84.5)
Death rate
23.6 per 1000 people (7.8)
Birth rate
32.3 per 1000 people (10.2)
Marriage rate
7.8 per 1000 people (5.3)
People per doctor
1715 (500)
EMPLOYMENT (CURRENT PERCENTAGES IN BRACKETS)
Primary sector: agriculture
57% (4%)
Secondary sector: industry
33% (23%)
Tertiary sector: service
10% (73%)
WAGES PER DAY
Farm hand, textile factory worker
1 to 1.50 francs
Bricklayer, glassmaker
2.40 francs
Metalworker, tailor
3 to 3.50 francs
PRICES
Francs per kilo
Beef
1.08
Bread
0.43
Butter
2.16
Flour
0.48
Potatoes
0.07
Sugar
1.10
Eggs
5 rappen each
Milk
11 rappen/litre
Wine
3 rappen/litre
Shirt
2.20 francs
POST AND BANKS
Post offices
2166
Letters sent
Domestic: 25 million
Abroad: 8 million
Telegrams sent
Domestic: 299,000
Abroad: 116,000
Post coaches
318 lines, 734 diligences and 774,000 passengers
Number of banks
291
Total deposits
542 million francs
Interest rates
4%
Appendix III
A NOTE ON MONEY
The final page of Miss Jemima’s Swiss Journal is Appendix II, which is short, to say the least:
“The Editor has received the following record of our excursion from a member of the Club. It is remarkable at all events for its brevity and it is therefore inserted:
‘Account of a tour in Switzerland and France – June 26 to July 16, 1863, twenty-one days inclusive £19.17.6.’
W.W. Morrell, Paymaster”
That amount (£19 17s 6d) is equivalent to about £1500 today and was declared by Mr William to be “very reasonable … less than I expected”. There is no breakdown of the total, but we get an idea of that from Thomas Cook’s trip later that same summer.
For the return trip from London to Rigi via Geneva, Chamonix, Interlaken and Bern, Cook spent a total of £17 0s 1d (about £1300 today), of which:
Tickets
£10 8s 1d
Hotels, etc
£6 12s 0d
Within that, Cook paid 18 francs for two nights in Chamonix, including five meals a day (the “etc” in the amount above), or about £60 today. His train fare just from London to Geneva would have cost £4 13s in second class or £6 6s in first (equivalent to £350 and £480 respectively today).
Today the hotels and food add up to far more than the train tickets. Our trip cost a total of £1824 per person for 16 days, of which:
Tickets
£426
Hotels
£995
Food, etc.
£403
That was including a Swiss railcard, which halved all the train and boat fares in Switzerland, something in which every modern visitor should invest.
So almost 150 years later there was not a truly vast difference in costs, although if we had spent four days in Paris at the end our total might have been somewhat higher. Perhaps the biggest difference is that, sadly, it would have been cheaper for us to fly than to take the train to Switzerland. Cheaper, but not as much fun.
The Swiss franc is one of the world’s strongest currencies today, but that wasn’t always the case, particularly in 1863. When Thomas Cook took his first group of tourists to Switzerland, the franc was only 13 years old. The new single currency had been created alongside the federal constitution to help unify the country after a civil war.
Up until the introduction of the Swiss franc, over 8000 different coins were legal tender in Switzerland. Not only did each canton have its own currency, but money left over from the old Republic and neighbouring countries could also be used. The new Swiss franc was modelled on the existing French one, subdivided into 100 centimes, or rappen in German. For nervous British travellers there was reassurance in the guidebooks: “English sovereigns and banknotes are usually taken at inns throughout Switzerland.” That’s not usually the case these days.
The pound in 1863 was the pre-decimal version that is as confusing to foreigners as it is to anyone who grew up post-1971: one pound consisted of 20 shillings and each shilling was worth 12 pence. Prices were written as £ s d to show these elements (with d the abbreviation for an old penny). For example, the total cost of this first Cook’s Tour was £19
7s 6d. To make things more complicated, there were other coins and amounts with their own names, all of which disappeared either before or on decimalisation:
Bob: colloquial name for a shilling
Crown: a silver coin worth five shillings (i.e. a quarter of a pound)
Guinea: a term for 21 shillings, based on a coin that no longer exists