Dartmoor’s Karl Marx

Dartmoor’s Karl Marx 

Martin McDonagh investigates a Lewtrenchard resident ahead of his time 

Many years before Marx and Engels, a small group now called  ‘The Early English Socialists’ were already writing angrily about the terrible conditions of the poor. One of them was Charles Hall, physician and author of ‘The Effects of Civilization on the People in European States’, published in 1805. In the ‘Effects’, Hall argues that the labour of the poor is the foundation of all wealth - but the poor only receive only one eighth of the value of their labour, the other seven eighths ending up in the pockets of the landowners. His remedy was to divide the land of England equally between the people, so that each family would be self-sufficient on a small farm. 

Hall’s passion to understand poverty grew directly from the misery he found on medical visits to the rural poor. Here he saw ‘the children, several of them generally lying in the same bed: heated by and heating each other in a small room, corrupted by the exhalations of the whole family; disturbed by one another's cries; … the effects of disorder increased by the vermin and hard beds, covered by filthy clothes…no attendants, but the poor mother worn out by watchings.’  

The ‘Effects’ was well ahead of its time and a modern historian described it as one of the first texts to combine ‘an uncompromisingly radical critique of the political structure with an equally radical critique of the social and economic system’. However, despite knowing Hall’s book, historians despaired of ever knowing anything about Hall’s life. I took this despair as a research challenge. After several years in the archives I made a surprising discovery: Hall had written his great book in the remote farmstead of Down House near Lew Trenchard.  

The move to Lew was a Devon homecoming for Hall, as he was born at Salcombe Regis,  East Devon in 1739, the son of the vicar Joseph Hall. We have no record of Hall’s early schooling, but his later education was rather strange. It took place in France at the English College in Douai, a seminary for training catholic priests. Hall was the first protestant boy ever to study there and odder still, he started his course at 18, when the normal age was thirteen. It was a tough curriculum at Douai, the boys studied Latin, Greek, the New Testament, Logic, Rhetoric and classical authors such as Cicero and Hesiod. Despite this demanding course, there was an informal atmosphere amongst the boys, revealed by their nicknames - Tom Thumb, Goat, Oggy and the less than complimentary ‘Boiled Rags’. 

After Douai, Hall trained as a doctor at Edinburgh University, which had one of the best medical schools in Europe. From Edinburgh, Hall moved to the renowned medical school at Leiden in the Netherlands, where in 1765, he obtained his MD with a thesis on Phthisi Pulmonali (Tuberculosis). 

Once he had qualified, Hall set up as a physician in Northamptonshire where he married Ann, a farmer’s daughter, whose father gave them the large Bragborough estate just outside Braunston. Here for 22 years, Hall farmed Leicestershire sheep for wool.  

Ann bore Hall eleven children and, remarkably for the time, ten of them reached adulthood, perhaps a testament to his skill as a physician. 

In 1795 the family moved to Lew Trenchard having abandoned plans to emigrate to America.  At Lew he rented Down House and its estate from William Baring-Gould for the annual sum of £390. After twelve years at Lew, Charles moved first to Tavistock and then, after Ann’s death there in 1807, he went to live with his eldest son John in Bath. 

Charles was a good farmer and advertisements for his farms extol the good heart of the land and the quality of the stock. However, his  ability as a business man was an entirely different story. He got into debt and one of his creditors went to court to recover £157 (£11,000 today). Hall denied the debt, refused to pay, and was arrested at Bath by the Sheriff of Somerset. On Christmas Eve 1816 he  was thrown into Ilchester Prison as an undischarged debtor. There he remained until April when, still refusing to pay, he was moved to London’s Fleet Prison as the summons against him had been originally issued by the Court of Common Pleas in Westminster. 

The records of the Fleet show that Hall arrived on April 1st and joined the other 250 prisoners confined within the walls. He was 78. Inside the Fleet, a debtors’ prison, inmates paid for themselves, organised their own lives and created a microcosm of the world outside with its ranks, deference and disparities of power.  The prison doors were open in daytime and visitors, prostitutes and players in the prison racquet courts came and went at will.  

Also coming in were market traders who used the ‘necessary houses’ so frequently that one prisoner complained: ‘When those filthy butcher’s boys come in, there are no gentlemen who would sit down after them.’ 

Hall remained incarcerated in the Fleet for eight years, refusing to pay on a point of principle  even though his friends offered to pay the debt for him. At last in 1825 Catherine Lamb, his creditor, relented and he was released to live with his daughter Margaretta in South London. Two years later the greatest Early English Socialist was dead.  He was buried on 3rd March, 1827 at Kennington, six days short of his 88th birthday. 

Martin McDonagh 

This article is based on a talk given to 'Lewdown Past', the Lewdown and area local history group. 

A fully referenced booklet on the life of Charles Hall is available from the author.