52 Ancestors in 52 weeks – Cheryl Hunnisett

What happened when Scamp became Manley Camp?

James Scamp started life in Plymouth, Devon in 1820 as the son of a shipwright, moved to Cornwall where he became a teetotal Wesleyan minister and married the daughter of a publican! They moved to one of the poorest areas of London, the location of Oliver Twist (1837) by Charles Dickens, where they worked as teachers in a church school. On the journey, he changed his name to from James Scamp to James Manley Camp and that is how the family was known from then on. This fresh start led to a long and interesting life as he became a Baptist minister, visiting preacher and a vocal member of the Liberation party and Total Abstinence Union.

This blog is part of The Scamp One Name Study, if you have any Scamp information you wish to share or have any queries about the Scamp family please contact me at scamp@one-name.org

It is also part of the 2020 GOONS Blog Challenge #GOONSblogchallenge and also the 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks 2020 challenge #52Ancestors – Fresh Start

If Only

This biography would have been a lot easier to write, if the author could have been at James’ talk in October 1883, entitled “Reminiscences of a chequered career” where he reviewed his life from his boyhood upwards, with a short review of his ministerial training and subsequent labours!

Born in Devon

James was born James Scamp in Plymouth, Devon on May 21 1820 to Thomas & Mary Scamp. Thomas was a self-employed shipwright with work at the Navy dockyard and Mary was originally Mary Manley born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In the 1841 census deciphering James’ occupation is difficult, but it looks like an apprentice teacher.

Life in Cornwall

On 5 April 1847, (aged 26) he married Elizabeth Noel in Redruth, Cornwall as James Scamp. They married at the Teetotal Wesleyan Connexion Chapel, Copperhouse, Hayle, Phillack. There was a large Wesleyan ministry in Cornwall and a big debate began about whether Wesleyans should be teetotal. In 1842, a group of about 600 ministers separated from the main methodist church in Cornwall and organised as the Teetotal Wesleyan Methodists. James was listed on his first child’s birth certificate as a teetotal Wesleyan minister.

This first child, born in 1847 in Penzance in Cornwall was named Ina Manley Scamp.

The stench of Bermondsey and the task of school teaching

The family moved north in about 1849-50, to Bermondsey, by the Thames River in south-east London where both James and Elizabeth worked as schoolteachers in Christchurch School, Neckinger Road. They now used the surname Manley Camp. The family lived in the Christchurch schoolhouse. Their 2^nd son Horace died from Bronchitus exhaustion when he was 6 months old.

**“The air has literally the smell of a graveyard”**
*Jacob’s Island about 1840*

Christchurch was a new church built in 1848, with a school attached, to serve Jacob’s Island by the River Thames. It was an extremely poor and unhealthy area, described as “The very capital of cholera and “The Venice of drains” by Henry Mayhew in The Morning Chronicle in 1849. Spared by the fire of London (1666), the buildings were extremely old and unfit for habitation, and about a hundred years behind the slums that surrounded it. Fed by an old river, the Neckinger, which had become an open sewer, a number of fetid drains made the land an unsavoury island and two hundred years of the local tanning industry filled the air with “sulpharated hydrogen” and “hydrosulphate of ammonia”

The article in the Morning Chronicle was syndicated across Britain and was discussed in Parliament. Henry Mayhew started collating his famous work, London labour and the London poor.

James and Elizabeth next became master and mistress of the Brideswell School (by 1856). As part of the ancient “Brideswell Hospital”, the school aimed to reform the juvenile criminal, it was next to the famous prison (which closed in 1855).The school changed its name and its approach in 1860 to King Edwards School and aimed to prevent crime by the training it provided. The school is still flourishing but moved to Godalming, Surrey.

Away from London

In 1858, James and Elizabeth were selected to open the New School in Peterchurch, Herefordshire and to be the first master and mistress. About 20-30 children attended and there was accommodation for the Manley Camps and their growing family. His first externally reported speech (so far found!) was a free talk about the Druids in his schoolroom in 1859, after much applause the audience ran out before a collection could be made! The local Baptist minister died in 1859 and James started preaching in the baptist chapel. In October 1859, he was referred to as Reverend.

Life as a Baptist Minister another fresh start

A report in the Hereford Journal in January 1860 stated that James had been sacked by the trustees of the New School. He then became the Peterchurch Baptist Minister, Reverend James Manley Camp. He undertook an open air river “Believers Baptism” for 6 believers later that year, which was attended by about 800 people. His eloquence as a speaker is mentioned.

Back to London

By 1871, (aged 50) he was the Baptist minister at Burtons Hill Woolwich. In around 1876 he then moved to become the Pastor of the small Medway Chapel in Rotherhithe, whose annual report of 1879 stated that

“ We are fully convinced that if the walls of this chapel were enlarged to admit 6 times the number, Mr Camp’s eloquence would be equal to filling the place.”

Medway Chapel from a painting in the British Library

Medway Chapel lay in an out of the way corner, behind the Red Lion, Deptford Lower Road and was one of the oddest places of worship in South London. It was an old fashioned cottage with a door in the middle and entered through a porch. A large fireplace faced you as you entered and on the right a steep short staircase led to the low gallery which ran 3 sides around the building. There was very little space between the roof and the heads in the back row! It could hold about 250 people and had originally stood in the middle of a field .

Speaking further afield – a true orator

In addition James had started featuring as the guest preacher at other churches, e.g. Leamington Spa, Ross on Wye, Milton in Gravesend, Deptford etc.

He also spoke on other topics, for example: Livingstone – Philanthropist and Explorer, The Priest in Absolution, Disestablishment – what we mean by it and why we want it, The trials and victories of civil and religious liberty, The right to God’s Acre, Imperialism and its cost, William Gladstone, John Bright and more. His talk on “Chinese” Gordon was particularly well received as he had met the General, probably when he taught at Ragged and Sunday School in Gravesend when he was Colonel of Engineers.

He became a member of the Liberation Society which was an organisation that campaigned for disestablishment of the Church of England. It supported the Liberal party and James often spoke in support of local liberal candidates.

He was said to have a way of carrying his audience away on a flood tide of vigorous language –

“Give him a congenial topic, social or political, and it is marvellous to witness the effect produced upon his listeners!”

In 1880, the Midway Chapel threw a huge tea party to celebrate their pastor’s 60^th birthday. He left the Chapel in July that year accompanied by another tea party and sad farewells.

James then returned to Neckinger Road, Bermondsey. and took on the Baptist Chapel Church there. His speech to his congregation in 1881 on the evils of “tattling” i.e. gossiping, was described as humorous but telling. He was soon involved with the local Liberal party too, speaking in favour of the local candidates for election.

Backing total abstinence

In June 1882, James was at the inagaural meeting of the Southwark Total Abstinence Union. Abstinence from alcohol was a growing movement in England at this time, advocated particularly for the working man, and the meeting was supported by a number of members of parliament. James was also involved in the local “Tea Festival”, admission a penny for a songsheet. Sixty people took the “Blue Ribbon” temperance pledge after James spoke in Gravesend later in 1882

The Ebenezer Chapel (possibly), now demolishsed

By 1883, he was also pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Chapel in Abbey Street, Bermondsey, which ran an educational Sunday School.

In 1884 James starts “freelance” preaching in and around Gravesend, Kent, and speaking for the LIberal Party in Sussex, so he may have retired as the Bermondsey baptist pastor. By the 1891 census James had definately retired.

He died in 1898, after a fall in which he cut his arm and got blood poisoning, He was survived by his wife Elizabeth, who had followed him around the country for over 50 years. She bore him seven children

Ina Manley b 1848

Horace Noell b 1850 d 1851

Helena Jane b 1853

Percy Havant b 1857

Elizabeth Noell 1862

Flora McDonald 1867

whose baptisms follow James’ progress around the country. But their story is for another time.