When Garibaldi came to Chippenham

in 1864

Harry Weston’s latest post reminds me that I wrote a piece of free verse about the town, one afternoon in Chippenham Library, after a wander through the Record Office archives. Here it is:

Brotherhood

Chippenham features in international history twice. 
The first time, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 
translated by Coneybeare, 1900, page 105:
‘In this year’ (878 A.D.)
‘In Midwinter after Twelfth Night,
the great army came stealthily 
to Chippenham and overran the land
of the West Saxons and conquered
most of the rest and forced them 
to submit, save King Alfred,
and he, with a small band of followers
went with difficulty to the woods
and fastnesses of the moors.’

The second time, Garibaldi
was on his way from London,
via Brunel’s railway, to Bristol.
The train would pause, just pause,
mind you, in Chippenham
for the ‘hero of the moment’
to receive the adulation of the crowds. 
One Rowland Brotherhood,
a man with fourteen children,
three daughters and eleven sons
who could form a cricket team,
owned a foundry in Chippenham.
A maintenance contract with the GWR 
maintained his family. 
His sons, the Brotherhood Boys, 
decided to construct a cannon
to salute Garibaldi’s progress.
They were better iron-founders
than artillerymen. 
As the train drew towards the station
Brotherhood had built,
the lads set off their gun
and shattered all the roof glass
on the platform, much to everyone’s
amusement, including Garibaldi’s.
Mr Brotherhood paid for the repairs.
There is a photograph of family members
after Rowland’s funeral in 1882.
They all look out of shot 
in different directions.
He was, as someone said,
‘a poor, but hardworking,
industrious, enterprising man’.

PS And Jeremy Corbyn was born there.