James Chapple of Bodmin Gaol

by Godfrey J. Ellis – November 2002

This poem shares my shifting impressions upon visiting the Bodmin Gaol (Jail).  There, I experienced an unexpected roller-coaster of conflicting feelings about my distant ancestor, James Chapple.

Chest swelling,
Button popping, 
Rightful heir,
Spirits high.
Entering Bodmin Jail, Gaol – Gee! 
Old and lofty prison,
Bastion, tall and proud.
“In with the In,” we enter in.
There’s room in this inn,
Announcing to all who will listen,
“He was my Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather…
And he was great!
My James Chapple.”
 
This James Chapple, the Great,
Foreman of the building crew,
Who built this mighty fortress in 1779.
“He was somebody!”
And that’s not all…
Invited to stay on for 50 years,
As the governor/warden.
A man of respect.
Fifty years of honorable, important service,
James Chapple, feared and revered
From Land’s End
to Plymouth Sound,
The real Pirate of Penzance,
The true, sainted Michael of Saint Michael’s Mount,
Known far and wide.
Dreaded name whispered in reverential tones
Borne of guilt and fear,
My four-times great grandfather,
My James Chapple.
 
Closest claim to fame,
My ticket to respect, prestige,
Symbol of Entitlement.
We entered with no shred of fear!
“This will be fun!!”
But, greeted by “Executioner’s Shed...” 
We stopped up short.
A gallowed, wooden platform, 
Swinging deadly rope,
Sobering trap door, 
Goose-bumping, giant lever of no return,
(A hint of hesitation …halts …haughty high).
And, next door, old pillar stocks,
Good for smiling photograph…
With trace of guilt.
A slightly uncomfortable souvenir of slight discomfort
And slight realization of long-ago shame and disgrace
When still and silent hours turned into slow torture
With distant limbs numbed and aching,
Yet still able to scream.
Okay …all quickly shrugged off in excited anticipation
Of multi-storied, multi-building, multi-proud
Tour of Bodmin Gaol,
Home and kingdom of my ancestor,
My James Chapple.

Once inside proud gaol-now-museum,
Most interesting…
But somewhat sobering
Reality still slowly seeps in.
(Push it away!)
Signs and mannequins tell tales
...Of baby-innocent children.
One child’s prank taken as adult crime:
Putting pebbles on the rails
Of the West Cornwall Railway.
Brings six months of hard labor.
A hard punishment for little James Hart.
Then there was Thomas, 
Just 10 years old,
Flesh ripped open by cat-a-nine-tails,
Whipped for stealing a pound of raisins
...and 20 walnuts.
And John Trelaise and Henry Bailey,
Twelve lashes.
One for each year, perhaps?
Crime of stealing beer for abusive, demanding fathers
Too cowardly to steal their own.
Too cowardly (or too clever)
To meet my grandfather,
My James Chapple.
 
Too traumatized to toast their own deaths
With a tall, frothy one.
(Harder to push away now….)
Then Elizabeth Osbourne, 
A maiden barely 20,
Hung for setting fire to a bale of hay.
(Strange crime,
Strangely judged guilty of death).
There’s William Congdon, just 22,
Who stole a watch…
But ran out of time.
Michael Stephens, executed for killing a sheep,
And William Moyle, 26, hung for killing a horse
(An animal’s life more valuable than a man’s).
Thirty-eight men and women
Hung during the tenure of,
Under the orders of,
(Push, Godfrey, push it back!)
My James Chapple….
 
Impotent lights emphasize
Embracing gloom.
We walk deeper
Down shivering, hollow, halls of dark,
Tour through massive walls 
Of cold, hostile stone,
See three stories high 
Of barren rows of lined-up cells,
All now empty – once were full.
Imagining desperate hopelessness,
In Bodmin Gaol,
A place of 365 fears
…and then 365 more.
Could we endure a similar life?
And face such horrors for ten... 
…Twenty years?
Yet, better that than snapped neck and lolling tongue.
Lolling in the darkness,
Our imagination hears
Far-off clunk of chains,
Risked sibilant whispers,
Lost in hostile shadows,
Echoed in distant moan.
Cool puff of air – is it a wispy ghost?
Is it the poltergeist’s rattle…
Of my James Chapple?
 
A quick violation of musty silence,
We trespass with camera’s blinding flash.
A teenage girl climbing circular staircase screams,
Her sober silence shocked by sudden burst of light,
Transporting her quiet horror back to the present.
We capture a sober display telling tale of terror,
Of blistering pain from strokes of lash.
Back slowly healing
From lash’s licks of lightning,
Legs in irons.
Red ribbon weeps down mannequin’s back,
The back of a woman 
…Or of a child.
Cheap shot for tourists,
But reminding them
Of expensive price paid long ago,
Many times, many strokes.
Those whippings, mind-numbing shocks,
Each shock, a shock of disbelief: 
Can pain feel so shockingly sharp?
Reach so shockingly deep?
“Can I live through this?  
Will I survive?”
Blistering pain with cries stifled…almost.
In fear’s silence, hours of darkness pass.
Back heals slowly,
Memory slower.
Our photo, an irreverent theft
Of long-ago pain, still remembered.
If 38 hangings, Grandfather, how many floggings?
I wish to understand; 
I wish to ask... 
To ask my James Chapple.
 
In muted silence we walk out,
Exiting from my classroom.
Lessons of life.
Few words spoken,
Very interesting, all, 
But sobering, too.
Don’t ask me if he was my four-times great grandfather,
This monster...  
I never knew him!
Shrunk to size ...and lower.
And yet….
Dare I judge?
Life was different then…
Those were hardened prisoners then…
He was only following orders then…
And the Gentleman's Magazine of 1804:
“Mr. Chapple is intelligent and humane.”
His obituary of 1827: 
“Discharged his duties with firmness,
Yet with humanity, towards the prisoners.”
Discharged… with humanity.
What to believe?  
What to think?
What an enigma,
My James Chapple....