THE "REAL" TOM POOLEY.

This account, Tom Pooley’s Fateful Year is, I freely admit, a contrived work and does not claim to be either an academic paper or 'history'. It is a jeu d’esprit in the sense that I thoroughly enjoyed putting it together and it is a personal interpretation of Pooley's 'year'; it is the story that I and he wanted to be told.  It contains, however, much of Pooley’s own work.  He has contributed more to it than I have, indeed the work must be something like  60% Pooley and 40% Pooley-pastiche supplied by me, Wayland Wordsmith, and, I hasten to add, the vituperative content is 100% Tom Pooley.

The writings of Tom Pooley exist and the original manuscripts are in the public domain but they are such a kaleidoscope of fantastic ideas with so many repetitions and confusions and with such bizarre capitalization and with such an unconventional orthography that they needed the savage edit which I have sought to apply. Most 'serious' commentators, lawyers and historians, on the Pooley case have concentrated on the legal and social aspects and largely neglected these writings and have not therefore permitted the world to glimpse what a truly remarkable man he was.  

The ‘real’ Tom Pooley, 1807 to 1876, was one of those many men or women, some more clever than others, and some even who seem to change the world for the better, who are naturally suspicious of what they are told by persons in authority.   Tom Pooley was a natural contrarian.  Although he was not a clever man and not, one might think, a man capable of changing anything, he questioned everything and thought as hard as he was able to find alternative theories to counter opinions that he felt were being foisted upon him.  Invited to look up to heaven, Tom Pooley looked down to his boots, to the Earth beneath his feet.  Invited to love Christ as the son of God, Tom Pooley declared him to be an imposter and a blackguard.  He was by nature argumentative.  He was, as his daughter said of him, a man who liked to enjoy his own opinion.   It was his duty, he believed, not only to protest his own beliefs but to write on gates and walls and in Bibles and so to alert the world to his truths.

His zeal, however, went no further.  He did physical harm to no man and despite his fulminations he was content to live at peace with all around him. He believed that, as an Englishman, he was free to speak his mind. His neighbours, his wife and children read their Bibles and went to church unrestrained by him and worshipped as and when they pleased.  In his children’s Bibles he did not write.  Like any prophet, Tom would have liked the world to know the truths that had been ‘revealed’ to him but he found no followers, he commanded no audience.  He was more-or-less alone with his thoughts.  He dictated no rules.  His was truly a voice crying in a wilderness.  He lacked the power to make anyone take notice of him.   When he expressed himself  his ideas were ill-formed and no-one took him seriously.  This was what frustrated him.  Most people thought him to be harmless but just a little crazy.  Eccentric his ideas were, but not more difficult to accept perhaps than the mystery of the Holy Trinity or the New Testament miracles:  walking on water, turning water into wine, raising the dead, stories which in 1857 were taken literally and about which, whatever they thought about the matter, very few poor Cornishmen dared or cared to express any doubt.

Tom believed that important truths had been revealed to him.  Not only that, he felt that it was his duty to be the Evangelist of his own crude Gospel and that he was called upon to reveal to his friends and neighbours the virtue of his faith and the essential iniquity of Christ and Christianity.  “What is man or woman after they converted to the Christian religion?  Sly. unjust, selfish, deceiving, lying.” It is not in the least too strong to say that he made it quite clear in his writing and in his conversation that he hated and feared Christ, Christians and Christianity and the expressions of his fear and hatred were hardly warmly welcomed by most of the good people of Victorian Liskeard.  But although he had for many years sought to advertise his views and although he had made enemies, he had, until his fateful year,  lived a relatively quiet life and his name was known to only a few.

I find Tom Pooley, the Cornish Well-sinker so much like a precocious infant, a terrible child, that still today, nearly a century and a half after his death, he amazes and gently amuses; at least, he amazes and gently amuses me.  Child-like and confused, he struggled to be a serious man and, more than that, he presented himself as a prophet, a chosen one and as the saviour of mankind.  I believe there is a case for him to be remembered, which is what he very much wanted.  His ‘Case’ divided ‘polite society’ and a handful of eminent Victorians allowed themselves to be drawn into the controversy.  What they said and did seems to me to be relevant today as we find ourselves once again between the poles of Free Speech and forms of increasing Censorship.  This blog seeks to record all things Pooley, to explore the consequences of Pooley’s Case on the individuals who were involved in it and perhaps to make the occasional odorous comparison with circumstances in the United Kingdom today.