“Plymouth Ducking Stool (site of): The last person who went through the ignominy of being dipped at Plymouth was Nancy Clark, an aged fishwoman (a great drunkard), for an assault on Kitty Ware, in the same line of business; also for curing, swearing, and using obscene language. The stool was lowered slowly down into the water at high tide, by a crane which stood on the Barbican, for many years opposite the ‘North Country Pink’ Inn.”
Reference Data:
Plymouth and Devonport: In Times of War and Peace, by Henry Francis Whitfield, 1900, page 23
My 3x Great Grandparents had owned this up until the very early 1850s, my 3x Great Grandfather, William Kerslake Sargent had died fairly young, at the age of 42, in 1850 of liver failure, so I believe that his wife, Mary Sargent (nee Lishmund) had carried on for a short while after, but had to move on due to the fact that their seven children were all between 13 years and several months at the time of William’s death.
The North Country Pink Inn was once owned by my Great, Great, Great Grandparents, they really must have seen some interesting things during their ownership!
Alex Foot.
Oxford, England.
If this type of punishment were carried over into today’s world for swearing and using obscene language, our entire land mass would be flooded with so many bodies in the water bringing up the level. I’m wondering who would be left to operate the crane. Just a humorous comment. Good article Vickie.
C. Wayne Ware
Cedar Falls, IA