LITERARY INSTITUTIONS

The city of Exeter has several large and valuable public libraries, and various societies for the cultivation of literature, philosophy, and the arts and sciences; and they are liberally supported both by the citizens and the gentry of the surrounding country.

DEVON and EXETER INSTITUTION, in the Cathedral yard, was established, in 1813, by a number of gentlemen of the city and neighbourhood, for the promotion of science, literature, and the arts. It occupies a spacious building, handsomely fitted up. The large reading room is well supplied with modern publications, newspapers, magazines, &c., and the library comprises about 15,000 volumes in the various departments of literature. The museum, in the galleries, contains numerous specimens illustrative of natural history; an extensive herbarium of British plants; and a fine collection of Devonshire mosses. The institution is supported by 224 proprietary shareholders, who subscribe £2 each per annum. J. Sillifant, Esq., is president; the Rev. J. Huish and J. Harris, Esq., are vice-presidents; T.G. Norris, Esq., treasurer; Saml. Barnes, Esq., honorary secretary; and Mr. John Squance, librarian.

The ATHENEUM, in Bedford circus, is a large and handsome building, erected in 1835, by a society now consisting of 53 shareholders, each entitled to a free ticket to the lectures; and seven original holders of double shares, each entitled to two such transferable tickets, and a free personal admission to all lectures. The principal part of the building comprises a semi-circular theatre or lecture room, capable of seating nearly 400 hearers, and often used by the various literary societies of the city for public lectures, discussions, &c. Dr. Miller is secretary to the proprietors.

EXETER PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, was established in 1835, and meets at the Athenaeum on the first Monday of every month during the session, when papers are read, and the subjects discussed. Mr. H.U. Janson is the secretary and curator.

EXETER LITERARY SOCIETY, at the Athenaeum, was established in 1841, and has a reading room, a weekly lecture, and classes for instruction in French, Latin, Drawing, &c. It has about 550 members, and a library of more than 1300 volumes. Gentlemen pay 12s., and ladies 6s., per annum. J. Sillifant, Esq., is president; and Mr. F. Channon, secretary.

The SCIENTIFIC and LITERARY INSTITUTION was established in 1844, and holds its lectures, &c., generally at the Athenaeum, and sometimes at the Church Music Room. It has classes for German, French, Latin, Drawing, &c. Gentlemen pay 12s., and ladies 8s., per annum, and connected with it is the GENERAL LIBRARY, which comprises about 1900 volumes, at the society's rooms, 43, High street. Lord Courtenay, M.P., is the president.

The PUBLIC SELECT LIBRARY, at 247, High street, was commenced in 1807, and now contains about 6000 volumes. Mr. Wm. Drewe is the secretary, and Mr. Wm. Balle the librarian.

The POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTION was established in 1847, solely by the zealous exertions of Mr. S.R. Ridgway, of Magdalen House Academy, where his students, and the citizens generally, are admitted gratuitously to the lectures, and where there is a highly interesting museum, illustrative of natural history, and a fine collection of antiquarian relics, models, drawings, paintings, &c.; as well as a variety of apparatus, for the exemplification of electricity, pneumatics, optics, chemistry, &c., &c. A good library is attached to the lecture room, and a botanic garden is in process of formation.

The Cathedral Library, now deposited in the Chapter House, contains about 8000 volumes, including many ancient manuscripts, and a folio edition of Caesar, printed in 1471, and in good preservation.

The MEDICAL LIBRARY, at the Devon and Exeter Hospital, and the LAW LIBRARY, at the Athenaeum, were established in 1833, and have large collections of works in their respective branches of literature.

Here is a Botanical and Horticultural Society, which was established in 1829, and holds periodical exhibitions of fruits, flowers, vegetables, &c. It has rooms and a good library at 263, High street; and is supported by a long list of annual subscribers. Sir R. Lopes, Bart., is president; Thos. Wm. Gray, secretary; and Mrs. Spreat, librarian. Devon Agricultural Society, formed here in 1831, has its rooms at 197, High street. It holds periodical exhibitions of live stock, &c., in the Castle yard, and gives prizes for the encouragement of agricultural labourers in habits of industry, cleanliness, and economy. Mr. Rt. Dymond is the secretary.

Five weekly NEWSPAPERS are published in Exeter, as will be seen with their names and proprietors in the subjoined Directory. One of them, Woolmer's Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, was established sixty years ago, and the others during the present century. Two other journals, called the Alfred and the Exeter News, were formerly published here. Almanacks and Pocket Books, adapted for the county of Devon, and some other periodical publications, are printed here. NEWS ROOMS are attached to several of the literary institutions, as already noticed, and there are others at some of the inns. Mount Radford College School was founded in 1826, in the commodious house which was formerly the residence of Judge Doderidge.

WORTHIES. - Among the eminent men who were born or flourished at Exeter may be enumerated - Bartholomew Iscanus, bishop of Exeter, who wrote the life of Guy, Earl of Warwick; Josephus Iscanus*, who was born here about the close of the 12th century, and is styled by Wharton "the miracle of his age in classical compositions;" Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, the patron of Geraldus Cambrensis; Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Cardinal; John Hooker, who was born here in 1524, and wrote a History of Exeter and many other valuable works; Sir Wm. Petre, a distinguished statesman, who was secretary and privy councillor to Henry VIII., Edward VI., and to Queens Mary and Elizabeth; Sir Thos. Bodley, the great patron of learning, who was born here in 1544, and founded that extensive and valuable collection of books and manuscripts at Oxford University, called the Bodleian Library, to which he left a yearly income for the purchase of books, the support of the librarian, &c.; Wm. Tucker, dean of Lichfield, who wrote upon the king's evil, &c., and was born about 1550; Wm. Martyn, recorder and historian of Exeter, born about 1562; Dr. Barkham, dean of Bocking, a learned antiquary, whose heraldic and historic works came before the public in the 16th century, under the names of Gwillim and Speed; Sir Simon Baskerville, an eminent physician and anatomist, born in 1573; Wm. Hakewill, a learned lawyer, who wrote on the liberty of the subject; his brother, Dr. George Hakewill, author of a popular work on the "Providence of God," and sometime chaplain to Prince Charles; John Reinolds, author of "God's Revenge against Murder," &c.; Sir Wm. Morice, secretary of state to Charles II.; Matthew Locke, the celebrated musical composer; Thomas Long, a controversial writer among the Separatists, in the 17th century; Sir Peter King, the son of a grocer at Exeter, and nephew of the great Locke, was born here in 1669, and became a learned lawyer and statesman, and was Lord Chancellor of England from 1725 till his death in 1733; Sir Bartholomew Shower, an eminent lawyer and reporter; his brother, John Shower, a learned dissenting minister, and author of several religious treatises, born 1657; Thomas Yalden, the poet, born 1671; Simon Ockley, the learned orientalist, and author of a History of the Saracens, born 1678; Dr. Richard Walker, author of the "Sufferings of the Clergy;" Dr. John Foster, a dissenting minister, who was complimented by Pope for his pulpit oratory, and wrote a defence of the Christian Revelation against Tindall; Andrew Brice, the printer, who published a Topographical Dictionary; William Jackson, an eminent musical composer, who died in 1808, and has a monument in St. Stephen's Church; Samuel Walker and Richard Hole, two learned divines; the late Chief Justice, Sir Vicary Gibbs; Nicholas Hilliard, a painter, in the reign of Elizabeth; Charles Hopkins, a dramatic writer, son of the Bishop of Derry, born. 1664; Tom Durfey, a celebrated dramatic writer of the 17th century; Eustace Budgell, an eminent writer of last century, and a contributor to the Spectator, said to have been born at St. Thomas's, about 1685; and Robert Pullein, who, in the reign of Henry I., acquired great fame by his lectures on the Scriptures at Oxford, and was reputed the reviver of learning in that university. Dr. Musgrave, the antiquary, and Dr. Downman, the poet, resided several years at Exeter, as practising physicians. Richard Hooker, the learned author of the "Ecclesiastical Polity," was a native of Wonford; and Sir Arthur Ducke, author of the Life of Archbishop Chichele, was born at Heavitree, and was an eminent civilian in the reign Charles I.

JOANNA SOUTHCOTT, sometimes called the Exeter Prophetess, was the greatest of all the religious fanatics and impostors of the present century. She resided many years in this city, but is said to have been born at Gittisham; and she was certainly baptised at Ottery St. Mary in 1750, as appears from the parish register. She proclaimed herself here as a prophetess early in 1800, and afterwards removed to London, where she died in December, 1814, to the utter consternation of her deluded followers, who amounted to many thousands, in various parts of the kingdom, and had been led to believe that she was immortal, and was about to give birth to the promised Shiloh, under whom they were promised a patriarchal existence upon earth of at least a thousand years. To raise money, under the guise of ensuring them the full enjoyment of this millennium, she visited her ignorant proselytes in the populous parts of the kingdom in 1803, and subsequent years, and distributed among them her "celestial seals." At one time she promised her foolish followers a miraculous translation to the New Jerusalem, and hundreds of them gave up their employments, and distributed their goods and chattels among their unbelieving relations and neighbours, on the eve of their expected journey. This failing, she impiously declared that the promised land was at home, and that she was about to give birth to Shiloh, for whose reception a splendid gilt cradle was subscribed for, and exhibited to the gaze of the credulous and curious at a small sum per head. Her enthusiastic adherents were generally among the most vulgar and illiterate, though some of them were people of property, and one of them was George Turner, a Leeds merchant, who, in 1809, published an appeal to the public in defence of Joanna Southcott, her believers, and her Book of Wonders, which extends through several volumes. Even after the death of herself and many of her "sealed faithful," hundreds still lived in her "light," believing her to be "'not dead, but translated." Some of them and their descendants may still be recognised under the name of Israelites, and by their whity-brown hats, and the full growth of that dignifying ornament, the beard.

Notwithstanding the great exertions which have been made for the education of the poor, and the immense sums of money which have been expended in the erection of public schools during the present century, the most impudent pretenders to supernatural revelation and the science of astrology still find votaries, therefore we need not wonder when we read of the blind credulity and infatuation which existed in post centuries. So late as 1646, three poor friendless old women from Bideford were condemned and executed at Exeter, for the supposed crime of witchcraft, as also was Richard Wilkins, in 1610. They were not the last of the many victims who suffered capital punishment under this delusion in different parts of the kingdom; but happily the repeal of all the statutes relating to witchcraft and demonology, about half a century ago, removed from our criminal code the reproach which these ridiculous enactments cast upon the legislature. Yet it has been said that there never was a period when the lower orders of people in this kingdom "were more credulous, more easily imposed, upon, or more generally duped, by the specious arts of daring deceivers, than in this very age;" witness the astrological nonsense still circulated in one of our almanacs; the "wise-men" and the fortune tellers still finding employment among the ignorant; the many Mormonites, or Latter Day Saints, lately gone or expecting to go to the supposed land of promise in America; and the numerous other quackeries and impositions which still disgrace humanity, and cast a slur upon the intelligence of the 19th century.

* His poem on the Trojan War has often been reprinted in Germany, under the name of Cornelius Nepos. He wrote his Antiocheis after attending Richard I. to the Holy Land.

Brian Randell, 24 Oct 1998