Social History of the Pineapple

Fair Trade fortnight falls in the last week of February and the first week of March. It is an event designed to get a better deal and working conditions for farmers in the developing world. The range of goods that we can get in shops at any time would have amazed our fore fathers who would have got their food seasonally.

One of the fruits that the fair trade campaign has publicised is the pineapple, many of which are grown by farmers suffering from poor working conditions in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

Until Columbus landed on the island of Guadeloupe in 1493 on his second voyage to the New World the fruit was unknown to Europeans. We owe the Native Americans a great deal for without them along with the pineapple, the strawberry, chilli, potato, cacao beans and maize would not have been cultivated.

The Pineapple was an instant success when it was bought over to Europe although it took two centuries for European gardeners to successively cultivate it. In Britain there is a painting of Charles II being presented with one grown by his gardener John Rose in 1675.

In the 18^th century aristocrats vied with each to grow the fruit as it was highly prized. It is estimated that they were valued at the equivalent of £5,000 in today’s money, but growing them before the introduction of effective hot house systems would always be problematic. In the 18^th century  pineapples are grown in a 4ft-deep trench in a 40ft-long 'pineapple pit', using traditional  methods; i.e. they are buried under 30 tonnes of manure — and regularly soaked in horse urine. The heat that was needed was generated by a chemical reaction caused by the straw and the manure. Such pits existed at Chatsworth, Shugborough and Alton Towers and a traditional pinery has been restored at Tatton Park.

As the 18th century went on, the pineapple became a common theme on Staffordshire Pottery dishes, plates, teapots, tea caddies and even in architecture where it appears in stone finials at Biddulph Grange and Chatsworth.

In the Victorian Age the ability to grow them was still esteemed and I have a report from Alton Towers of a flower and fruit show in 1870 where the first prize for growing pineapples went to Mr Deaville the gardener to Major Martin of Wotton Hall with the second prize going to Mr Icke the gardener to Sir John Chetwode.

As for working people in the Victorian Age the possibility to taste a fresh pineapple was restricted to occasions such as the one reported in the Sentinel ten years earlier when workers at Washington Pottery in Burslem sat down to a meal prepared by Mr Hodson of the Swan which included a “splendid dessert of pineapples, raisins. plum pudding and brandy sauce”.

It was not until tinned pineapples appeared after 1900 that the need to grow in bulk pineapples when the issue of fair trade becomes apparent.

A Talbot!

They could not have been more different either physically or in temperament. John Talbot the first Earl of Shrewsbury was aristocratic and rich, brutal, audacious - the English Achilles. She was young- only 19- slight, unconnected, devout and of peasant stock.  Yet fate brought them together.

2012 is the 600th anniversary of the birth of St Joan of Arc the saviour of France. Talbot is the man from whom she wrestled control of France. He had local connections. Through marriage Talbot acquired Alverton Lodge later to be named Alton Towers. He acquired his ferocious reputation initially in the Glyndwr rebellion in Wales, but it was in France that his reputation was sealed. The height of English power in France during the Hundred Years War was reached on the campaigns of Henry V most notably at Agincourt in 1415, but after his death English power began to fade. Doing his best to hold back the French advance was John Talbot- a considerable thorn in the side of the French.

The unlikely coming together occurred after 1429 when the young shepherdess appeared. Everything was against her, her class, her gender, and her youth. Convinced at the age of 13 that she was an agent of God and shortly after her 19th birthday she began her mission to drive the English from France. She convinced the heir to the French throne, the Dauphin, of her mission and set off with images of Christ to the fore to relieve the city of Orleans. Later Joan led the French to victory at the Battle of Patay at which Talbot was captured. Joan was later burned as a heretic at Rouen was and Talbot after a ransom returned and was killed in 1453 the year the war ended.. He is buried in the parish church of Whitchurch. Joan was canonised in 1920.

 Reading University has developed a database from muster rolls of medieval soldiers who fought in France. Several Corleys/ Cauleys/Cawleys from Cheshire- my ancestral home- served as “valettus” or archers. The Cheshire archers were amongst the renowned warriors of the time. It’s thrilling to think that an ancestor fought at Agincourt or saw Talbot or Henry V or indeed Joan.

Russian War hero visits Alton Towers 1839

Gallitzin- a battle hardened visitor comes to Alton Towers

It is gratifying to note that corrections in spectacular mistakes in newspapers are not a new phenomenon. I came across such a correction in the Staffordshire Advertiser in July 1839 concerning a distinguished visitor to the home of the Earl of Shrewsbury- Alton Towers. The newspaper amended a previous report that Prince Dmitry Gallitzin of the Imperial Russian court was the governor of Moscow and not Mexico as had been previous stated.

It was something about the name Gallitzin that triggered a response in me. I looked further. They were an extended family of Russian aristocrats that served the Czar’s right up to the revolution where a descendent of Dmitry was the last Prime Minister to Nicholas II and like his master was shot by the Communists. The one who visited Staffordshire in the 1830s was a soldier. He seems to have been involved in every battle fought against Napoleon from Austerlitz in 1805 to the killing grounds of Borodino in 1812. His mother was the model for the poets Pushkin’s “Queen of Spades”, she was also known as the “moustached lady”, and his brother Nicolay was a patron of Beethoven and commissioned the late string quartets. While Dmitry was in the area he visited the Potteries he visited the Copeland showrooms.

The Battle of Borodino was a ferocious encounter fought was the largest and bloodiest single-day action in Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. It involved more than 250,000 troops and resulting in at least 70,000 casualties. Such losses were next seen in World War One. The French attacked the Russians under General Kutuzov, but failed to destroy the Russian army despite heavy losses. About a third of Napoleon's soldiers were killed or wounded; Russian losses were also heavy. Gallitzin commanded a cavalry division. The Russians retreated after the engagement and the French advanced on Moscow burning it before being forced into an ignominious retreat. By the time they left Russian lands over 300,000 had died in fighting or cold and disease. In the depths of the savage winter the retreating French ate their horses and huddled inside the carcasses of animals to keep warm. The campaign forms a backdrop to Tolstoy’s great novel “War and Peace”. Given this experience the life of French Prisoners of War at this time lozzucking in Leek would seem to be cushy.