totnes

We arose today to a somewhat warmer reception, and a suitably English breakfast. From Exeter we then drove the half hour of so south to Totnes, Babbage ancestral homeland. If Charles ever lived in Totnes he appears to have done so for only a short period. However, his forebears including his father were Totnes to their roots.

We found a parking lot with a detailed map of the town—that omitted only a “you are here” indicator—and so randomly wandered in the general direction of more dense civilisation. We came, soon afterwards, upon the Totnes Museum. Feeling this a stroke of luck, the museum being one of our planned destinations, we abandoned our search for the Tourist Information Centre. (Which was fortunate, really, for it transpired we were headed in exactly the wrong direction.) We perused the general collection before finding what I was really interested in—the Charles Babbage room. For a small museum their information on Charles is extensive and they are clearly proud of “Totnes' son”. Their display even provided lead that may have solved an old puzzle for me—what happened to Charles' home at 1 Dorset Street, London? A visit we made to the location in 2001 when passing through London revealed the street now starts at about number 17... We wondered if the street had been bombed in the war, but the Totnes museum suggests it was demolished in the 1930s. A lead to be followed up... As we were leaving the museum, I introduced myself to the woman in charge for the day, who had taken our entrance fees. It was quite fun that she was most excited to meet a direct descendent of Charles, and she introduced me to another member of their team who was there also. I included a potted family tree in my comment in their visitor's book.

After a visit down to the tourist information centre, we returned to the High Street where the museum was to find two of our other destinations were only a few meters up the street—St Mary's church and the Guildhall. In Hyman's book he recorded that Charles' grandfather Benjamin Babbage was the mayor of Totnes in 1754, and that his name could still be seen on the Mayoral Roll of Honour in the Guildhall. (This gentleman not to be confused with Benjamin Babbage, Charles' father, or Benjamin Babbage, Charles' oldest son!) Sure enough, entering the guildhall we immediately saw the list of mayors including our Ben! (Mind if I call you Ben? It's just that great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather doesn't quite roll off the tongue...) Not only was he listed, Totnes has a complete record of its mayors back to the first mayor, John Aiyling, in 1359. With a new mayor each year, it's an impressive list. At the guildhall we could enter both the courtroom and the council chamber which were in use in 1754, the latter of which is still used today. Amongst their displays I found information about their ceremonial maces, and discovered the current ones have been in use since they were presented in 1754! That makes Ben the mayor who would have overseen their first use, a nice link.

We moved next door to St Mary's church. While Bronwyn sat in the sun I scoured the grounds and outside of the church, looking for a family vault mentioned in Hyman's book—in this case not a Babbage, but a Teape. Charles' mother was Elizabeth (Betty) Plumleigh Teape, and Hyman recorded that, “The flagstone of the Teape's vault can still be seen under the tower of Totnes church”. I found a number of other vaults marked, but nothing for a Teape. An enquiry inside to the woman supervising visitors suggested a different angle: perhaps the flagstone was under the inside of the tower? This was a locked vestry, but peering through the doors we could immediately see four or five 1750s flagstones. After she made a few calls on my mobile we had the code to open the door and were inside. And after a couple of minutes searching, I discovered the well worn flagstone directly in front of the outside door and at the foot of the tower stairs was unquestionably labelled “Teape”. I was most excited. We could make out some words, but not all, due to how worn the stone was. Initial photographs were unenlightening. A rubbing was suggested, and with free access granted to the vestry we returned from a nearby art store with a large roll of black paper and a wax brass-rubbing crayon. This worked reasonably well, and after quite some exertion we had a reasonably legible copy. One section continued to confuse us, however: “Third time of his [something illegible]...” Not third time of his death, surely! Yet what else would one record on a gravestone? Before leaving, I experimented with further photographs from another angle to accentuate shadows. These were much more effective. Now, having noticed something else on the photos of those mayoral rolls, read another comment in Hyman's book, and reviewed my later photos carefully, finally it all makes sense. The vault reads:

We finished the day with a visit to the Totnes Castle, viewing below what we believe to be the “Babbage's field” that was handed down to Charles, and is again mentioned in Hyman's book. I am not unaware of how much simpler it is to explore family history when proper historians have taken the time to write books about a member of your family!

We drove around to see a little more of Totnes, during which time I quite coincidentally found six wifi networks, though they all unfortunately required passwords so no internet access for me. We returned to Exeter for a now quite late dinner at a pub in a huge old home overlooking Exeter, before crashing back at our B&B that had been fairly randomly-selected but was as it turned out in Exter's suburb of Alphington... the area that Charles spent a number of years in one of the two small boarding schools there at the time. Connections, more connections.