FAMOUS SHOEMAKERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 April 1936, Page 10

FAMOUS SHOEMAKERS

'i’llOSU WHO i.Fd’T THEIR LAST!. f-’liocmaking. it has been said, h i onducive to thought. The quie. hours spent by the cobbler hehim his little curtain with hammer, pegs, and leather, make for serenity; and serenity is good soil for the growth oi ideas (writes Grace Tyers in the Melbourne Argus). Iliiiis Sach, the Xuremberg poet ami

diamatist (1494-1576) was, at. the ag< of 15, apprenticed to a shoemaker. Hi

learnt the art. of the Meistersingei

from a. weaver, and at 17 set out 01 his wanderings, singing and working ai his craft in many towns: Salzburg. Munich, Lubeck and Leipzig. At 22 he returned 10 Xun-niberg. where In remained ever after, working at. shoe making and writing poems, fables ii verse, tales and dramas. He wrote most of the Shrovetide plays for tin Nuremberg Maistersinger School, ol which he was the leading spirit until his death when aged S2 years. To-day. foremost amongst Hn. Xurembeit memorials is ipc slalue of Hans Sach. the famous cobbler. Sir Cloudeslev Sliovell. a redoubt-

able British Admiral (1650 1707), began life as a cobbler. Ho conveyed > William HI. (of Orange) across to Ireland, and co-operated in taking Gibraltar. When rcliirning to England with, the Fleet in 1707 after capluring Barcelona, his ship, Associa- | tion. struck on ihe Scilly rocks, and went down in a few minutes. Not one of her SOO souls was saved. Sir Cloudesley Shovoli's body came ashore next day and he who had begun life as a cobbler was buried in W< stminstor Abbey. Ai Hie dawn of the- nineteenth century many shoemakers rose to fame. William Gifford (1756-1526). first editor of the Quarioi'ly Review, was first a. .- hoeinaker's -apprentice. A surgeon. William f'ookesley, noting the young cobbler’s ability, sent him to Exeter College, Oxford, where he did a. brilliant course. Known for. his clever satires, he was elected editor of ihc Quarterly Ue\ iew in 1808-1824. It probably was he who wrote the Quarterly's attack on Keats’ “Endymion” in 181-8. He also inspected all Byron’s works before publication. Gifford founded many exhibitions at Exeter College. Later he edited I Juvenal as well as many dramatic! works, including Massinger’s and Ben | Jonson’s.

Thomas Hardy (J 752-1832) a bootmaker, became the foremost radical politician of bis day. lie founded the first society in London to promote Ta.iliamentary reform in 1792. lie was charged with high treason with others, but was actiuiCed and later was pensioned by ihe Government.

A GREAT M ISSIONARY. William Carey (i7GI-1534), the pioneer foreign missionary of England, began life as a shoemaker. Al. 22, he joined the Baptists, becoming pastor at. Moulton, then at Leicester, and in 1789, when aged 28, he devoted himself to study, and founded the Baptist Missionary Society. Ho went, to Calcutta in 1794, first working as foreman at an indigo factory, and preaching in Bengal. He became professor of Sanskrit in 1801, opened a mission chapel at Calcutta in 1805. issued translations of (he Scriptures, and compiled grammars and dictionaries of several native Lan-

guitges. In his honour the Bay of Bengal is known to India to-day as

"Baptist Bay.” Robert Bloomfield (1766-1823)_, known by his poem “The Harmer’s Boy. worked for years as a shoemaker in a. garret, with his brother and endured extieme poverty. Later, he led a chequered life, first as undersealer in the seal office in 1802, 1 hen as a manufacturer of aeolian harps. He embarked unsuccessfully in the book trade, then visited Wales and wrote “The Banks of the Wye” in 1811. A collected edition of his works appeared in 1824, a year alter his death.

John Pounds (1766-1839), crippled

for life by an accident, when aged 15 yiais, became a .shoemaker at Portsmouth and a’ gratuitous teacher of •poor children. When aged 40 years lie became famous a teacher and friend of outcast cmkireii, and became the originator of the idea of “ragged schools.” He was the forerunner of Dr. Barnardo, George Muller, Mr Spurgeon and oilier founders of orphanages for destitute children.

Di- Morrison (1782-1834), a Chinese missionary, was oiiginally a shoemaker. While studying .in England he worked at his trade and went to China when aged 25. Elected translator -to the East India Company, he established the Anglo-Chineso College al. Malacca, and published a dictionary of the Chinese language in 1823. He translated the Bible into Chinese before his death at Macao lin 1834, at the age of 52 years. [ Thomas Edward (1814-18.86). the I naturalist, settled at Banff as a shoe-j maker in 1.834. Ten years later he exhibited at Banff Fair an astonishing taxidermic collection formed by himself: he discovered 20 new species of British sessile-eyed Crustacea, became curator of Banff Museum, and associate of the Linnean Society in 1866. He was placed on the Civil List in 1-876. HANS ANDERSEN.

Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark’s greatest genius, was the son of a poor shoemaker, suffering from melancholia, living in an insignificant provincial town. His home was so poverty stricken that his parents’ bed was made from lough unplaned boards, which had served as the bier« for a nobleman’s coffin. Remnants of black cloth still clung to the boards—one of the indelible memories of his childhood. He wrote in the famous story of his life: “Instead of the corpse of the count, surrounded with high-burning candelabra, there! lay here on April 2. 1805, a little, liv-1

ing, crying child —that was I. Hans Christian Andersen.” 11 is mother, large, ignorant, and none-foo-sober' who look in washing, is pictured in her son’s tale “She Was No Good." His grandfather, a poor insane old man, went occasionally to visit them, bedecked with flowers and feathers, heralded by hooting crowds of rude- hoys, who followed him down the street. But his grandmother, with her kind blue eyes, was the one ray of sunshine in Andersen’s childhood, lie paid her bis tribute in "’rhe Little Girl With the Matches.” where it is she "lakes the little dying girl in her arms and carries her up to heaven.” The poor, ungainly shoemaker’s soil through his wizardry of fairy-tale telling, has served up for the childhood of all time the childish joys of which Ito himself had been cheated. Andersen is now Denmark’s most famous son. His best-known fairy tale has

Como true: The ugly duckling has I become- a swan. The cobbler boy : ranks as a prince among storytellers. I And where- the cobbler himself has not become famous for ideas, Ire has transmitted his force of thought to his children. Stalin, for instance, comes of a long line of Tiflis, cobblers. “Joseph.” his father thought, proudly, 1 observing his son, “will make a good i cobbler.” But Joseph’s peasant 1 mother had other ideas. On his father’s death she sent the 10-year-old boy to school “to learn to be a priest.”

But Joseph, fired with even higher ambitions than his little Georgian mother, forged ahead on his own plan —to lead his vast country. These men rose to fame by scorning, literally, the advice of the old adage that “the shoemaker should stick to his last.”