THE ALTOGETHER AMAZING TOM POOLEY

“O Christain judge Coldridge what ‘as T Pooley Done?   ’as He Called man And woman to Live in those filthy Dens, those Brothels?  No!  ’as He Called man And woman to Live in Hordom, vice, Gamon and Blasphemy?   No!  Have I Called man And woman to Live a Drunken And a Blackguard Life?   No!  Have I Called man And woman to Live that Disgraceful Life to Bring Children into the wourld And then Starve or murder them?   No!  Have I Called man or woman to Robb the Rich or the Rich to Robb the Poor?  No!  Have I called man to war or Strife wich is the Blackest Sin in the Sight of man And the Laws of the one Allmighty, for man can’t distroy or give Life?  No!   If T. Pooley had upholded those filthy Laws judge Coldridge and ‘is Son with the Christain Clergey And jurey of Cornwall would Have aquited Him But as I Doe not uphold those Laws I was found Guiltey with one year And nine months in the Christain’s Dungeon to Rome.”  T. Pooley, Mr Justice Coleridge did not arrive at the Judges’ Lodging at

  “I Have Been throw All the Christain traps and snares and the one Allmighty and Holyoake ‘as brought me throw and Trampled Christain Tyranny under foot.” T. Pooley  The county of Cornwall welcomed George Jacob Holyoake.   He wrote that “The whole country, clothed in verdure and autumnal gold, was delightful to look upon.”  He was to spend only two full days in the county but from his investigations he managed to produce an impressive pamphlet of thirty-two dense pages on ‘ The Case of Thomas Pooley, the Cornish Well-sinker. ’  His ‘Report, made at the instance of the Secularists’, first appeared in instalments in the pages of The Reasoner in the issues of the twenty-third and the thirtieth of September and then, ten days later, with very little editing, as a sturdy booklet to be distributed to Freethinkers throughout the land.  This detailed yet undoubtedly somewhat rushed and biased publication is the direct and indirect source of practically all the personal details that we know

  “Christains Cast me Into Thir Dungons.  But who Delievered me?  Not Christains but what Christains calls Infidles,”   Tom Pooley    The name of George Jacob Holyoake was new to me but I was soon astonished that it should have been so.  He was undoubtedly a great man who was a power for good in the land.  As will be seen in this chapter, there would be no story of Tom Pooley without him.  All that is positive that can be said about Tom, all that I have written about him, was recorded by Holyoake.  Without his intervention Tom would have served his sentence and, if he had survived prison, would have emerged to vanish into the same obscurity which he had known before.   Having said this, Holyoake at this stage of his life was a journalist with some of the journalist’s determination not to let the truth stand in the way of a good story.  He was an idealist with an end in view and did not overly examine the means that contributed to this end.   His own experiences had, understandably, emb