The Autobiography of Arthur Young

Here ends the diary. Arthur Young died in Sackville Street on April 20, 1820, and was buried at Bradfield. The following letter from Mary Young to her brother in Russia gives some details about his last years. The letter (undated) apparently belongs to 1818: ‘My father talks of going to Bradfield in June with Miss Francis and Mr. St. Croix. He is fearful lest Miss Francis (who is a granddaughter of Dr. Burney, and a daughter of Mrs. Broom by her first husband) will join the Wilberforces at Brighton, and leave him. When at Bradfield she sleeps over the servants’ hall, with a packthread tied round her wrist, and placed through the keyhole, which he pulls at four or five times, till he awakens her, when she gets up and accompanies him in a two hours’ walk on the turnpike road to some cottage or other, and they take milk at some farmhouse; and she distributes tracts (religious ones), and questions the people about their principles, and reads to them and catechises them. They return at half-past six, as that is the hour Mr. St. Croix gets up (his secretary), who finds it quite enough to read and write two hours and a half before breakfast. After breakfast they all three adjourn to the library till one, when Mr. St. Croix takes his walk for an hour; she and my father read, or write, or walk till three. Before she went to Bradfield, Mr. St. Croix had but one hour. She has a table and great chair filled with books in all languages, as she reads in every language every day to keep them up—Greek, Latin, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic, German, Spanish, French, Dutch, &c. &c. &c.

‘My father puts children to school at Cuckfield, Stanningfield, and Bradfield. Every morning, summer or winter, she inspects and teaches at these schools. Every Sunday they all meet in the hall and read, and are catechised; and every Sunday night a hundred meet, when St. Croix reads a sermon and a chapter, and my father explains for an hour, after which a prayer dismisses them! Last summer they went to church at Acton or Ampton every Sunday, each church ten miles out and ten home, besides teaching the schools and the meeting at night in the hall.

‘He has taken out a licence for the hall, as there is an assembly of people which would have been otherwise liable to an information.

‘Mr. Young’s benevolent exertions for the poor in his own and the adjoining parishes, and constant plan for welfare and relief of their necessities, was very beautiful, and I believe and fear very uncommon. To women this attention is natural.

‘H. More truly says, “Charity is the employment of a female; the care of the poor is her profession;” but to see this extend to the other sex, to witness the same solicitude for the distresses of the ignorant, unextinguished by business or by ingratitude, in a man of such activity of genius as Mr. Y., was indeed an impressive sight. At one time he established spinning matches; a cap was the prize, and several young girls contended for it, the best spinner being victorious. This occasioned industry and emulation, certainly; but even this was not without its attendant evil, and Mr. Y. finally abandoned it, from the dread of encouraging vanity, and appropriated the money to winter feasts.

‘In this cold, unproductive season, there were amongst the poor constant endeavours and constant failure at repletion. Every Sunday after church a set of poor people, chiefly children, were invited, and a plentiful dinner provided for them, Mr. Y. waiting on them and carving himself.

‘But this he was at last obliged to relinquish. The Sunday cooking was certainly a grand objection; and some neighbouring ladies who had (charity) schools remonstrated at the absence of the children, who were crazy if they were not allowed to forsake everything in order to attend Mr. Y.’s dinners. But another scheme, more extensive and more useful, succeeded this—namely, the introduction of straw-plaiting among the young cottagers.’