MRS. PARTINGTON

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 135, 9 June 1937, Page 12

MRS. PARTINGTON

WHO WAS SHE?

A CHARACTER IN HISTORY

HOW FAME IS MADE

Who was Mrs. Partington? The name as the main heading to an article, in Monday's "Post," on the problem of the Waimakariri River and the proposal to lower the riverbed by removing the shingle brought down from the hills, has been the occasion of unexpected curiosity and comment. As the significance of the lady's name does not appear to be as familiar to the present as it was to earlier generations, some account of her claim to fame may be worth while. Mrs. Partington was a real character, a personage who played a part in the history of Britain, though the lapse of time has created more or less of a legend about her. She- was the lady who tried to drive back the waters of the Atlantic Ocean with her mop when they invaded her house on the seafront at Sidmouth, Devonshire, during a great storm in November, 1824. Her story was told, no doubt with some embroidery, by Helen Simpson in the "Listener" last year.

Mrs. Partington was a very strongminded woman, a widow, with three grown-up fisnermen sons, who lived on the beach at Sidmouth. She kept her house spotless and would not allow her sons to come in' from the sea until they had removed their hoots and other gear. When her youngest son Moses was arrested for poaching, she refused to appear on his behalf, in spite of the local clergyman's appeal, and Moses was transported. This was about the beginning of November, 1824. On the twenty-fourth of that month the worst storm of the century broke over England. It was bad everywhere, but the Devon coast had the worst story to tell, sixteen merchantmen wrecked, and lives lost, ashore and at sea, impossible to number., The gale hit Sidmouth full. All fishing boats had made for home at the first threat of it, so the men were safe, though their boats were driven all ways and smashed by walls of water that rode in on the making tide. There was sea water in the streets and houses, and most people cleared out in a panic. Not so Dame Partington. Her house, being in the front, got the very worst of the storm. Her two sons nailed tarpaulins over the windows, but the gale tore them away. A log of driftwood struck her parlour cloor and loosened the grip of the lock! so that water was coming in fast. Anybody else would have given the weather best and gone to bed upstairs until it was all over. But not Mrs. Partington. She put on the boots Moses had left behind, kilted her skirt over them, got her mop, and set to work. Nothing, not even the Atlantic Ocean, was going to come into her parlour without her leave. And so she twirled her mop and gathered up the water, and threw it back, buckets of it, into the very face of the gale. The neighbours watched her actions with mingled astonishment and amusement. She was a character, Dame ■ Partington. If the Atlantic Ocean beat her, she won in the end, for the storm and the sea went down and with her mop she swabbed up the water left by the, receding tide and triumphantly resumed habitation.

Nothing much more might have been heard of her and her reputation have remained purely local but for the political storm that swept Britain in the succeeding years during the campaign for Parliamentary reform. Mrs. Partington was for the status quo, but others wanted change, and so came the reference that made her name a proverb. It was on the rejection of the Reform Bill by the House of Lords in 1831 that the Rev. Sydney Smith first brought forward the case of Mrs. Partington as an illustration of the politics of • the day. The following well-known passage occurred in a speech of his at Taunton, Somerset, not so very far from Sidmouth: The attempt of the Lords to stop the progress of reform reminds me very forcibly, he said, of the great storm at Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington en that occasion. In the winter of 1824 there set in a great flood upon that town—the tide rose to an incredible height, the waves rushed in upon the houses, and everything was threatened with destruction. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house, with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington's spirit was up. But I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest. Gentlemen, be at your ease —be quiet and steady—

you will beat Mrs. Partington,

It is said that that speech, with the reference to Mrs. Partington, did more for the Reform Bill than anything else written or spoken in England that year. It was the comparison that did the damage—the anti-refolmers with mops and • pails trying to ■ sweep back the ocean of reform. Mrs. Partington's name became a byword; strangers came to stare at her cottage to her intense annoyance. It is even said that she took to them with her mop. Next year, in June, 1832, the Reform Bill went through Parliament. The ocean had won. What happened to Mrs. Partington after that is not recorded, but her name, as a byword for fruitless effort, lived after her, a modern counterpart of the King Canute who bade the tide go back in vain.