Episode 62. Two Portsmouth Portraits: John Pounds and Robert Dolling

SYNOPSIS

The industrial city on the south coast of England, Portsmouth, gained in population and importance at the time of the Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815) as it became a naval base that was strategically critical to the safety of Britain. As young men congregated in the town as sailors, soldiers and dockworkers, all the attendant social problems of poor housing, poverty, prostitution, and feral children agglomerated too.

In the absence of the safety net of the Welfare State, overstretched parish relief was the only seasonal mitigation to destitution unless heroic individuals stepped in to fill the breach. This episode features two such men: John Pounds (1766-1839) the crippled shoemaker and altruist who provided a primitive education to generations of poor children in his small workshop and Father Robert Dolling (1851-1902), the Irish Anglo-Catholic ritualist, who was installed in the slum of Landport in 1885, courtesy of the Winchester public school mission, before spearheading a ten-year campaign of social reform.

After his death, the local reputation of John Pounds burgeoned into a national flowering, as he was adopted as the precursor and poster boy for the Ragged School Movement. In the process, the iconography of John Pounds was given a middle-class makeover as his example was publicized by social reformers, such as the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. By contrast, the Harrow-educated Robert Dolling suffered a social reversal. Initially his work in Landport was welcomed by the Winchester headmaster, Dr William Fearon and the Bishop of Winchester, Anthony Thorold. But when the latter died in harness and was replaced by future Archbishop of Canterbury, Randall Davidson, Robert Dolling’s Catholic leanings proved too much, and he was ejected from his post, never preaching at the new St Agatha’s church for which he had fund-raised so diligently.

GUESTS

TV writer, novelist, book dealer and publisher, Matt Wingett, is an expert on the literary and social history of Portsmouth, and has republished historically important texts about the city through his publishing house, Life is Amazing. These include the two texts that form the backdrop to the interview: .Recollections of John Pounds (1884) by Henry Hawkes and Ten Years in a Portsmouth Slum (1896) by Robert Dolling. The interview ends with an eye-witness report of the bombing of Conway Street, Landport, in December 1940, which St Agatha’s somehow managed to survive.

Simon’s interview with Matt Wingett was recorded at his Portsmouth home on 28 February 2025.