Life and death ... and life (Part 3)

More about the ever-present Now.

This is something of a curiosity. A very special curiosity and one that I hope you’ll find interesting. It is particularly special because it relates to, and was sourced by, the late Paul Bagshawe.

Paul died in November 2024 and his untimely loss is keenly felt by many of us. So this is really a guest post - sadly a posthumous one. (There’s more about Paul here and here and here.)

What follows is by Paul Bagshawe in his own words: I hope he will forgive the fact that the setting and typography are definitely NOT up to his standard.

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Alexander Ollerenshaw, of Chelmorton, and the perpetual motion

Blacksmith, Licensee, Inventor – Alexander Ollerenshaw was a notorious man around Chelmorton. He devoted decades of his life to the pursuit of designing a perpetual motion machine.

Shortly after my father’s death in 1992, amongst multiple reams of family paperwork crammed into his spare leather briefcase, I came across two innocuous, heavily-inked photocopy sheets filed under Chelmorton.

The sheets were incredibly compact copies of pages from a book. I knew these papers were somehow related to my family history, but being half my current age and busy with other things – I just thought all this can be looked at another day.

The another day arrived in early-April 2024. What caught my eye within the dense typesetting were the slightly larger words within the heading: perpetual motion.

As I read this tiny script, my first thought was of the wonder I felt as a boy when I started to discover the forces at work when toppling dominoes over on a wooden table, the serenity of releasing a paper aeroplane that would fly through more than one room in the house, and of course in the late-1960s becoming completely transfixed watching the Saturn V space rockets slowly clear the launch pad before roaring out of the atmosphere, hang silent over the earth for a little while and then disappear off to the moon.

Alexander Ollerenshaw, of Chelmorton, and the perpetual motion felt like it could be worth a read.

The Reliquary: Quarterly Archaeological Journal and Review, July 1863 – October 1894, Vol 11

I soon realised that these three photocopied pages I had found were reproductions from a 19th-century journal. The three pages forming one of numerous pieces within this rather highbrow quarterly publication.

The piece was written by Thomas Brushfield J.P. and commented on by the Editor of the journal, Llewellyn Jewitt, of Winter Hall, Derbyshire – a prominent illustrator, engraver, natural scientist and author who’s output was prodigious and covered a large range of interests.

The photocopies were of quite poor quality, the reproduced type size tiny (around seven point with no line spacing) so I decided to recreate the pages line-for-line, in a larger format – to aid reading (a little) and make the story more presentable.

As is evident, Thomas Brushfield’s account in this journal is of the rather notorious character Alexander Ollerenshaw, a resident of Chelmorton, a hamlet a few miles south east of Buxton in Derbyshire. Ollerenshaw lived from 1753 to 1841.

The piece outlines Brushfield’s father’s encounters with Ollerenshaw in some detail, with occasional corroborations from Brushfield himself. Whilst not delving into the precise machinations of Ollerenshaw’s perpetual motion endeavours, which would have been terrifically interesting, he does paint a very considered portrait of Ollerenshaw as a man.

Ollerenshaw ran his blacksmith’s business from a public house opposite to the local (and only) church in Chelmorton, St. John the Baptist – the highest-steepled church in England, where as well as his blacksmith’s business, he also served as the pub’s licensee for many years.

Within the Blacksmiths’ Arms (now The Church Inn), was one secret room where Ollerenshaw spent decades working on his perpetual motion machine. Apparently very few people were ever allowed in there to see his work, but he talked of little else – always being just a couple of adjustments away from perfecting his invention.

On his death, at age 88 in 1841, Ollerenshaw’s machine was broken up, and parts given to the villagers as mementos of this unique character, and the village commemorates his life on the chelmorton.org website.

Chelmorton is the birthplace of many of my ancestors, including my father and grandfather Fred – the eldest of the five eccentric Bagshawe Brothers – of whom I am yet to determine exactly which four of his six brothers can be classified as such.

The Bagshawe brothers (and sisters) were all been born and raised in Chelmorton, and although I figured Alexander Ollerenshaw would certainly have known, and worked with the Bagshawes – it turns out he was my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.

[And here follows the text of the actual piece in The Reliquary. DP]

ALEXANDER OLLERENSHAW, OF CHELMORTON, AND THE PERPETUAL MOTION.

BY THOMAS BRUSHFIELD, J.P.

THE village of Chelmorton is situated in a dimple upon the top-lands of the Peak of Derbyshire. It consists of one street, the upper end of which is sheltered from the north-east by an immense hill (of that igneous formation called toadstone) known as “Chelmorton Low;” the bottom of the street joins the old road from Bakewell to Buxton, once a road of great importance, but now almost unused by travellers. An unfailing spring of excellent water rises off this toadstone. Its overflow passes along the middle of the pathway down to the bottom of the village; the equality of the temperature of the water furnishing a ground for the popular fallacy, that it is cold in summer and warm in winter. The place, primitive and out-of-the-way as it is, is not unworthy of notice by the antiquary and the lover of the curious and the peculiar. Many a relic of the Celtic and of the Roman periods have been found in the barrows and tumuli on the top of the volcanic rock called the Low, and of the surrounding hills. The church, too, is notable. It is said to stand on the highest ground of any church in England, and no doubt it its of very early date, some portions being, probably, of the twelfth century. In the churchyard around it may be seen some of the finest specimens of ancient memorial crosses to be found anywhere in this country; the evidencies gathered from the interior of the church buildings, prove them to be of a very early date. Besides these peculiarities of nature, art, and antiquity, Chelmorton is otherwise notable as the place where for many years dwelt a singular character, Alexander Ollerenshaw— Alick Ownshaw, as he was commonly called—who was the village blacksmith, and was also the landlord of the “Blacksmiths’ Arms,” the only public-house in the place. I knew him well; his strange figure, earnest manners, and pleasing address, live vividly among my earliest recollections. He had got into his head the idea that he would be the discoverer of the perpetual motion, and so deeply was this idea fixed in his mind that he sacrificed the most valuable portion of his time and energy in pursuing that end which he believed he was destined specially to accomplish; his whole soul appeared absorbed in the thought, and by day and by night, confident in a final triumph, persistent and unwearied, he pursued his purpose to the last moment of his earthly existence. All other matters, every other work, he neglected for this. The horse was left unshod, the hot iron unwelded, the most pressing and important business in his smithy untouched and neglected, when the idea crossed his brain which he believed might tend to guide him to the accomplishment of that work which he held to be paramount in his life’s purpose.

In company, he would scarcely ever converse on any subject except his perpetual motion,and he appeared indifferent, yea dead, to every other movement or existence in the world. In a small private room of the public-house he carried on his work. He visited that little room many times in the course of every day for many years. Strangers were not generally admitted there, but he once allowed my father to see his “machine,” as he called it, and I had the privilege of seeing it too. I remember well how he tried to explain the work he had done, and what was yet needed to reach the end. He said—“ Yo ’seen oive manag’t t’ mak it mowve, be pulling this woir; luk yo it’l gu itsel a bit; aw oi want now is t’mak this peyce t’ cum back agen, loik a parlor dur, that’s aw, en oi know ois t’ manage that.” This was the exact purport of what he said to my father, and I believe the very words he used. On one occasion, when doubts on the subject were expressed by some one, “Ow’d Alick” used, as I thought, a strange argument for his confidence of success, he said, “Yo happen dunna know what Sir Isaac Newton said—HEY sed as th’ perpetual motion o’d be fun out— and th’ discovery o’d be made by an idiot.” But though Ow’d Alick lived to a good old age he left the machinery unfinished, the perpetual motion undiscovered, and all this screws and cranks, springs, wheels, and pivots, on which he expended the most valuable portion of his life remained a monument of what the world may deem his weakness or his folly.

Of such a man it may be said that he was governed by vanity or by ambition in his attempt at so great a discovery as the perpetual motion, but a more unselfish man never existed; nor will it be denied that, however visionary he may be considered, he was true to the dictates of his own heart, and pursued that which he believed to be the great purpose and aim of his life. Whenever a man is seen to leave the common and beaten track of life in pursuit of some object or purpose which is really only seen by himself, he is considered by ordinary minds as “eccentric,” looked upon with a sneering pity, and frequently called by very ugly adjectives; but if, like a Newton, a Jenner, or a Faraday, success crowns his efforts, the contemptuous sneer of the thoughtless and unreflective condemnatory becomes changed to expressions of wonder and admiration, and the name of the man stands out in bold relief on the public records of the period, and becomes a watchword and a glory to the world for ever. The great men whose names I have mentioned, after—no doubt—many discouragements, lived to triumph over all opposition, and to accomplish the end and purpose to which they have devoted their whole lives and energies to the pursuit of that which they believed to be attainable, and might produce blessings and benefits to mankind, and have failed in that attempt? Alas! there name is legion! and yet they deserve to be ranked among the world’s worthies. Those discoveries which have been of most value to mankind, have been made by men who lived in a sort of dream-world indeed

“ Look’d not like the inhabitants of earth,
And yet are on it.”

Their very singularity may be said to have constituted their greatness. And when we consider the fact, how very few men there are, loyal to the higher and nobler purposes of life; how few there are who set aside self to serve mankind, we may look with complacency and respect on the untiring zeal and the honest endeavours in the pursuit of that which he believed to be the path of duty, which are evident in the life of Alexander Ollerenshaw.

Lately I again visited Chelmorton. The village remains in the same state it was upwards of sixty years ago— the name of Alexander Ollerenshaw still survives in the memory of the old inhabitants by whom he is spoken of with great respect, and the mention of his attempt at producing the perpetual motion produces a smile, perhaps a kind remark, as “poor ow’d chap, he troid hard but he cud na dow’t — he was a gud fellow, nowbuddy’s enemy bur his own—iv’ry boddy loik’d old Alick.” I enquired about the fate of his “machine,” as his work was called. I found it had been broken up and portions of it distributed and kept as memories of the old man. I was fortunate in getting possession of a portion of it, which I have great pleasure in handing to you, Mr. Editor, hoping you will place it, labelled with my name, among the many relics of Derbyshire, which you possess; for I know you give every lover of such relics the opportunity of seeing them.

London.

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The Ollerenshaws appear to have been a very old family in connection with Chelmorton, and in a number of extracts from the parish registers of that place kindly supplied to me by the Rev. R.W. Foulger, I glean that the subject of this brief notice, Alexander Ollerenshaw the “Perpetual Motion Man,” was born on the 1st of September, 1753. He was the son of Peter Ollerenshaw, and Alice his wife, and was evidently one of a rather numerous and long-lived family. He appears not to have married at Chelmorton as no entry of his marriage occurs in the registers. By his wife Hannah, he had issue Sarah, born 3rd October, 1776 ; John born 21st February, 1779 ; Michael, born 18th March, 1781 ; Ruth, born 10th August, 1783 ; Hannah, born 1st April, 1792 ; and Mary, born 21st May, 1797. In 1819 (22nd of August), Hannah, his wife, was buried in Chelmorton churchyard, aged 65, and on the 16th of October, 1841, Alexander Ollerenshaw himself, full of years— for he died at the age of 88— and firmly believing to last in the success of his “machine,” was laid beside her. The portion of the “Perpetual Motion Machine,” so kindly procured for me by my friend Mr. Brushfield, is an interesting relic of the genius of one of the least known of our “Derbyshire Worthies,” and is placed in my collection with extreme pleasure.

L. JEWITT.

Winter Hall.

Thanks for reading.

Image at the top is from Shuterstock