Roger Langdon

by Tony Perry

Born 1825 Chiselborough, Somerset
Died 18th July 1894 Silverton, Devon
Buried Columbjohn Chapel, Killerton, Devon
His Father was Edward Langdon and his Mother Rhoda Langdon

Roger was born in Chiselborough in 1825 and was one of ten children. He survived smallpox at the age of four and started work on a local farm at the age of eight. During his life in Chiselborough he came across families whose names are still in the village today. The Langdon’s and June and Mervyn are distant relatives, the Holland’s who Norman Holland is a distant relative, and the Greenham’s of which Hilary Venn (née Greenham) is a distant relative.

His short time in Chiselborough was not a happy one; traumatic is the word he uses in his biography. At the age of fourteen he leaves the village in the early hours of the morning. Getting to the edge of the village and to quote, ”On arriving at the end of the Village, I glanced back to take a last look at the Church and Steeple”. From there he walked the thirty three miles to Weymouth. The journey took him fourteen hours including stoppages. From Weymouth he took a boat to Jersey where he found employment. Initially Jersey was good, but after about eight years there was a depression so he made his way back to England where he first worked in a sail making company, then he was employed by a solicitor, which almost cost him his life. After two years the company closed and he was unemployed. He took a job as a porter for The Bristol and Exeter Railway Company, which was taken over by the Great Western Railway, the company he worked for until his death in 1894.

During his life time he achieved many things. He was self taught. He could read and write, speak several languages including Greek, was from an early age interested in astronomy constructing four telescopes and built his own observatory. He developed an interest in photography and took pictures of the moon and the Transit of Venus culminating in presenting several papers to the Royal Astronomical Society.

His Early Life in Chiselborough: Why Was I Born?

Roger Langdon came into this world Saturday 22nd October 1825. He was one of ten children having six brothers and three sisters.

We know little of his mother, but his father Edward Langdon was Parish Clerk, Choir Master Organist, Sunday School Teacher and sometimes preacher. He had great power in the village and was fond of using the stick. Woe betide a bell ringer who was late or anyone caught drinking cider in the church grounds. They would be at the receiving end of his stick. His philosophy was: Spare the rod and spoil the child. This was the regime Roger was brought up in.

Roger’s first recollection of village life was, at the age of two years and five months, he encountered Nanny Holland. Nanny Holland was a force to be reckoned with. She was midwife, nurse, housekeeper and much, much more. She would tell him to go outside and get out from under her feet. When he came in covered in mud and muck from chasing the chicken and ducks, she would give him a walloping then shut him under the stairs. He then asked the question, “Why was I born?” It was a question he asked himself many times throughout his childhood and teenage years. As he grew older his father would wield the stick and acted on King Solomon’s advice, to never spare the rod. His mother was a gentler person and as soon as Nanny Holland had gone or after his father had left she would sit him on her knee and comfort him teaching him hymns. She would never smack him, no matter what he had done or how dirty he got. The hymns his mother taught him stayed with him for the rest of his life.

In 1829 Smallpox came into the village, and it was the custom in those days for mothers to take one of her healthy children into an affected house. So it was that he was taken to a house where a boy was dying of Smallpox. He did not contract the disease. So Nanny Holland, taking on her role as quack doctor, decided he should be “Knockled-headed”. He knew what was coming as Nanny Holland approached him with a knife, knitting needle and some puss on a plate. She sliced into his arm leaving a flap about the size of threepence, pulled back the skin and pushed the puss into the wound, pulled the skin back over, bound it and was told, “If ee pulls it off, I’ll kill ee”. He latterly learnt this was Nanny Holland’s way of inoculation. He had a slight fever but his two sisters were very sick, with his little sister Louisa dying.

Because his parents struggled to make ends meet, at the tender age of eight he was sent to work on a farm belonging to Joseph Greenham. His life on the farm was not a happy one. He was first a plough boy starting at six in the morning and finishing at six at night in all winds and weathers. He would get home in wet clothes and the following morning they would be still wet. He was put under the wing of Jim, the ploughman. He was a cruel master. He reported Jim to Mr. Greenham. He had caught him stealing hay from him and selling it to feed his drinking habit in The New Inn. He was not believed and from then on his life has hell. He was often beaten, kicked and thrashed. He told his father who said he probably deserved it. He soon learnt that a still tongue makes a wise head. Again the question, '“Why was I Born?”

Over the next few years Roger grew in strength and ability, but Jim, at every opportunity, still gave him beatings and thrashings. His father still insisted he probably deserved it. He became a very proficient ploughman and it all came to a head when he beat Jim at a ploughing match. Because Roger was still apprentice to Jim, it was Jim who received the £1-00 prize money and refusing to give it up, spent it at The New Inn. Roger had had enough of Jim’s cruelty and he had made up his mind to leave. He asked Mr. Greenham to keep his wages for a few weeks. That was the only time he was deceitful to his mother, making an excuse why he had not been paid. He was fourteen now and tall enough to get into the army, which was his aim. He had now accrued £1-00 and was now ready. Packing a few clothes in a sack, he rose early and at 3 o’clock, said a secret goodbye to his parents and family, then left home. Reaching the edge of Chiselborough, he looked back to take a last look at the church and the steeple just discernible in the grey morning mist, turning he left reciting, “The Lords my shepherd, I shall not Want”.

Jersey: the boy becomes a man

With Chiselborough firmly behind him, Roger started to make his way to Weymouth, thirty three miles distant. The first seven miles to Yeovil he knew well, since he had made this journey many times. From there to Dorchester he was on strange ground. He trudged on slowly, like a snail, arriving in the quaint old town of Dorchester after about ten hours. He wondered about the town being in awe of the town houses. His thoughts had always been to join the army, but an encounter with a recruiting officer who clasped a hand firmly on his shoulder and said, ‘Come on young man, here’s the shilling!’ filled him with disgust. Whether it was that he felt hungry, or he was tired and hungry, that man had put him off ever becoming a soldier.

*A Press Gang recruiting a man into the Navy*

After about an hours rest and something to eat and drink he made his way to Weymouth. Although tired, weary and feet blistered, he walked on with a new spring in his feet and a light heart. He reached Weymouth at five in the afternoon, fourteen hours after leaving home. He made his way to the docks hoping to work his passage to Jersey, but no one was taking on cabin boys. He became despondent and asked himself, ‘Why was I born?’ A man then told him that a Jersey ship owner was looking for workers and that a ship was leaving for Jersey at nine o’clock that evening. He bought a ticket for ten shillings and set off for Jersey.

After a very disagreeable twelve hour journey he was in Jersey. He found the ship owner who immediately employed him unloading salt from a ship for one shilling and sixpence a day. Salt, being salt, soon found its way into his blistered feet. The pain almost made him faint, but the pain was nothing compared to the beatings he took from Greenham. After two days his feet became hardened to the salt.

Sunday came around and he longed to go to church so, dressed as he was, he went to St. James’s Church. He sat quietly at the back, but on no account would he stay away from church. The following day, the Judge of the island, who was also his employer, came to see him. He said he had seen him in church the previous day and questioned his dress. He told the Judge that these were the only clothes he had. He told the Judge he would not have missed going to church. This impressed the Judge who immediately increased his wage to two shillings a day and told him to report to his office in the afternoon. Langdon was told to go to his house where his wife would supply him with clothes. The clothes were the Judge’s cast-offs and he could have got into one leg. So for the next two Sundays, much to his disgust, he stayed away from church until he had saved enough money to buy a cheap suit.

He got on well with the Judge’s wife, but had no respect for her. She, like all the women on Jersey, was kept down. Her dress was very demure, yet she was married to the wealthiest man on the island. The women were slaves to their husbands. They kept the house, worked on the farms, milked the cows, sold the milk on the morning rounds, made the butter and cheese and had to have a cooked meal ready for their men.

Over the following months Langdon so impressed the Judge that he was made up to Deputy Clerk and at Christmas he was given a gold sovereign. Now he began to feel pleased with himself and felt good to be born. Now he had three good suits, six gold sovereigns, and his thoughts went back to poor Jim the ploughman who would go to bed early on a Saturday night so it was clean for Sunday to go to church.

He had left Chiselborough in April and now Christmas had come and gone. He longed to see his mother, but he would not go back home. His education in Chiselborough had been very sparse. He had learned to read, he’d had to. His father made him read the scriptures, but he had never learnt the art of writing. In the short time he had been in Jersey he taught himself to write, and because so many people spoke French he learnt to speak French, but he never mastered to write it. He wrote a letter to his mother and enclosed some money for her come to stay with him. She should have stayed for four weeks but he tricked her into staying for five.

The months passed into another year and he grew in posture and wealth and he became very proficient in French. He was a very honest and upright man yet he was only seventeen. He had high regard for the Judge and the Judge for him. However this soon changed when the Judge promised him a position on board a ship bound for Brazil. It was to give him experience in another aspect of the business. Two days before he was due to leave he was told that the Judge have given the post to a Jim Drake whose father had recently died. Several months later he discovered that it had happened for the best. But the Judge had deceived him and he felt he could no longer trust him so he left his employment. He found work in a blacksmiths where he stayed for a while. Then he found work with a shipping merchant. His voyages took him frequently to Plymouth, Poole and Southampton, but he never went home. He had been in Jersey for eight years when depression set in. It was not only Jersey, but France and England as well. It was time for him to go back to England. He had taught himself to write, which he could now do with eloquence, taught himself to read and speak French, and also become proficient in accountancy. He’d arrived in Jersey a boy, but left a man.

Return and Marriage

Roger left Jersey after eight years. Work had become scarce and for any sort of work, no matter how menial, there were over a dozen men waiting to do it, each one willing to do it for less money. To make matters worse the Irish pensioners would do it for even less. They had their pensions to fall back on. He moved to France but things were no better, so he moved back to England. Things were no better there. Thousands of poor people were half starved and half clothed. In London in April 1848, when England was at its lowest ebb, a riot and rebellion broke out with thousands of starving people parading the streets. In the House of Commons someone declared that it would be a wholesome proceeding to hang a few of the rebels. Soldiers were placed in every town in England lest the owners of hungry stomachs decided to fill them. At the same time imported grain was being dumped at sea so that the rich merchants could keep the grain price high. Such is the greed of man.

The only work Roger could get was in Coker, Somersetshire, working in a canvas manufacture. So close to Chiselborough, yet he never went back. His weekly wage was eight shillings and this was considered a good wage. The company employed about four hundred people, ages ranging from people in their eighties to children as young as five. Some people had hand looms in their homes and worked from there. They had to be at the factory early morning with the previous day’s work and wait till it had been inspected and then, if they were lucky, get paid for their work. They would then have to trundle up to four miles back home carrying their woof for that day’s work and if they were lucky, with some money. The owners of the mill would find any excuse not to pay their workers. From pin holes in the canvas, to being too heavy or too light, or gout, which is where the course of weaving was too thick and this was gouty. There were many more reasons the owners found reasons for the weavers to be “Fined” and not to receive their full wages.

Several years later there was a great fire in the factory putting many people out of work, including Roger.

He soon found work in a solicitor’s office and his duties included serving writs and gardening. The writs had to be handed to the person it was against and Roger had various means of doing just that. On one occasion he burst into a gentleman’s house just as he was cutting his way into a rather large portion of beef, handed him the writ, bowed politely, turned and headed to the door when he heard a swish and the carving knife hit the door. On another occasion he had to deliver a writ to a master carpenter who started at first light and came home at dusk. So Roger went to his house at night and slept in the porch. At three o’clock in the morning when the carpenter left for work Roger was there and handed him the writ, said thank you, bowed politely and left. After two years his master was retiring and closing the business, so again he was out of work.

He was now twenty five and thought it time he got married. He had been acquainted with a Miss Anne Warner who agreed to marry him providing he got a permanent job either in the railway or in the post office both being safe establishments to work for. He was offered a job as a porter for The Bristol and Exeter Railway. In the same year he was married. It was not long before he was offered a Signalman’s position at Stoke Canon, a village in Devonshire earning sixteen shillings a week. His shift was twelve hours, alternating one week days and the next week was night duty. His only accommodation whilst on duty was a sort of sentry box. Not good in cold weather. Whilst at Stoke Canon he made a model of the village church just using his pen knife. He added a peel of bells which rung by putting a penny in a slot in the roof.

In 1853 his eldest daughter was born and in the following year he was moved to Martock in Somersetshire where his son was born. In 1857 he moved to Durston, and in May another daughter was born. His income was just £1.00 a week, a very small amount to keep him and his family and pay rent. His wife kept a school and also taught several neighbours children privately. Whilst at Durston, Roger had three more sons. Roger had a great ability at making things. He made a harmonium, which was so successful he was able to sell it and with the monies he made, he made another one. He also made a magic lantern and because of his interest in astrology he made slides of the stars, the moon, the sun and comets. He was also very keen on photography and with the advent of electricity he predicted that every house would have lights and it would be used to drive our railway engines and our carriages. (What a man to have such a vision in the 1860’s!) In 1865 Roger moved to Taunton, Norton Fitzwarren to be precise. There was no station, just a small office to sit in. Whilst here he befriended a Rev. J. Jackson who held evening classes for halfpenny a class, and with others Roger learnt Greek. He greatly enjoyed the classes and later in life reflected how much he appreciated them.

Roger had developed a deep interest and love of astrology, which he studied and bought books to help him. He bought celestial and terrestrial globes and it was here that Roger built his first telescope.

“I was Glad to be born”

Scientific Achievements

Roger had a yearning passion for the heavenly bodies, such that he now wanted a telescope. He befriended a Mr. Nicholetts, a dear old gentleman who lived in North Petherton. He had a telescope and would often invite Roger to his house to look through it. This increased his passion to have one of his own. So for a few shillings he bought some secondhand lenses and very quickly made a small telescope with a 11/2 inch reflector mounted on a wooden stand. Not being satisfied with this he wanted something bigger and better. So he sold it for 7s. 6p. He used this money to buy more materials. His new telescope had a 4 inch reflector. With this he could he could see some of the moons of Saturn and the crescent form of Venus. What really astonished Roger was the detail and physical features of the moon.

In 1868 Roger became Station Master at Silverton in Devon. In 1870 he became acquainted with Dr. Blacklock who gave him a great deal of advice on the building of telescopes, all done by letter. They never met. Roger also befriended a Mr. Nasmyth, an inventor, who would write to Roger with diagrams and sketches of the tools Roger needed. By now Roger had two telescopes, but still yearned for another even bigger and better. So it was he built his third. It had a 6 inch speculum (a polished reflector) and with it he could see detail marking on Venus. In 1871 he presented a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society in London upon his findings along with over a thousand photographs and drawings of the moon’s surface. His paper was well received.

In 1874 Roger made a model of the moon in Plaster of Paris showing over 500 hundred principle objects of craters and mountains. A Dr. Hermann J. Klein of Cologne discovered a new crater on the moon and Roger was able to show him that very crater on his model. Roger still wanted more. His passion for the heavenly bodies, the stars and the planets just drove him to achieve greater things. So he built his fourth telescope. It was a masterpiece and to house it, he built an observatory. It was a circular building with a conical shaped revolving roof with two swing flaps, which gave the required opening to the sky. It took many, many months to build, primarily through lack of funds. There were many technical problems to overcome. At last the Newtonian Equatorial Reflecting Telescope, fitted with a finder, a Ramsden eye-piece and a trap for taking photographs, was finished.

Roger had now taken up photography and made a collapsible dark room where he could process the pictures he took of the moon and the planets. For many years the simple folk of Devon and even more educated people would ask him if he could rule the planets. He would reply that he was ashamed that they should ask such a question. He was a very religious man and firmly believed that everything was God-created. When asked how he was able to achieve so much with such a large family to provide for, his answer would always be; “It is through the woman that the Almighty gave me, she has done the most.” Roger was very mechanically proficient and over the years made many mechanical toys for his children, for example he made a miniature replica of Stoke Canon Church with its peal of bells. You inserted a penny and the bells would ring, ships rocking on the ocean, which would rock too and fro—and many, many more. He was a talented man.

It was in March 1894 Roger died, and on the evening before he died he repeated parts of Psalms and hymns to his daughter. He passed away in the following morning. Through the kindness of Sir Thomas Acland, he was buried in the private burial ground of the Acland family, near his two sons.

Over the years Roger presented several papers to the Royal Astronomical Society in London and was a regular contributor to the monthly notices of the Society. He also wrote short stories, such as “A letter from the Man in the Moon”, and “A Journey with Coggia’s Comet.”

What an achievement, what a man. Born here in Chiselborough, the son of the choir master, farm labourer at the age of eight, ran away from home at fourteen to work for a ship owner in Jersey, returning to England to work as a blacksmith, canvas maker, work for a solicitor, till eventually working for The Bristol and Exeter Railway Company, which later became part of Great Western Railway Company.

He never returned to his place of birth, CHISELBOROUGH.

—by Tony Perry

I would like to make reference to the book from which I have taken Roger’s story:

THE LIFE OF ROGER LANGDON, published by Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-02164-7

Eulogy of a Farm Labourer : Farm Boy to Astronomer, Model Maker to Station Master

Amended by Tony Perry, the full version of this article was published in The Railway Signal in October 1894. The Railway Signal is a Railway Mission Organisation still in existence today.

The humble minded, hardworking stationmaster at Silverton near Exeter, Devon was one of the most interesting on the whole Great Western Railway system. Set to work on a farm in Chiselborough at the age of eight, he struggled against what to most men would have been insurmountable difficulties. In his seventieth year he was still working at his post for a living knowing he had the satisfaction that his chief work, as an astronomer, was recognised in the standard books of astronomy.

When as a child he was launched into the world to earn his own living and fight his own battles, he had received no education worth the name. He remembered that his mother used to write letters on a slate and he then copied them, but beyond that he had no learning except what was “taught” him in Sunday school. He was told that it was wicked to teach poor children to read and write. Whilst on the farm he displayed a love of making things. On one occasion a Punch and Judy show visited his village of Chiselborough and afterwards, in his moments, young Langdon cut the well-known figures out of turnips. He kept them to himself up in the fields and one day the parson came to see him, and wearing his sister’s clogs to keep his feet dry, discovered them behind a hurdle, and then made them known to the village.

Langdon could not put up with what he was doing and the way he was doing it, so this man of thirteen left Chiselborough and went to Jersey in search of work. There he worked as a striker in a blacksmith’s shop helping with the new pier in St. Helier. Education was his hobby and he attended any school he could in his spare time, learning to read and write. By the time he left Jersey he could converse in French.

Returning to England, Roger worked in a canvas factory, and then as “man of all work” for a lawyer, devoting his spare time to self improvement. In 1850 he entered the service of the Great Western Railway Company as a porter at Bristol. By working hard, promotion came to him fast. He was a signalman, then he advanced to a switchman, with four shillings a week more money, and £5.00 a year premium if he kept the road alright. For twelve years in succession he received that premium, and then he was promoted to be Station Master at Silverton in Devon where he stayed to his death.

Most of his spare time was devoted to astronomy, and the money most men would have spent on beer and tobacco, he devoted to books and to the provision of his observatory.

It was while acting as switchman at Taunton that he first seriously turned his attention to astronomy. He gave 3s.6d. for the first telescope he ever had, and was delighted with it. Getting up at three o’clock one morning, he was astonished by what he saw through that little glass and his desire was wetted for more. Then came the difficulty: how was he to get the costly instruments necessary to see more of what he wanted to see?

For Roger it was useless to think of buying a telescope, because his money would not run to it. Looking at instruments in shop windows he saw they were chiefly made of brass with mahogany boxes and the sight-seeing portions were practical nil. So he decided to make one and pool all the money he could muster. And he put all his intelligence and ability into the “seeing“ parts and let all the other parts come as they will. He knew it would not matter if the body was made of brass or anything else. Whatever it was it would answer the purpose. So he set to work and after many a failure, and the expenditure of all the spare money he could muster, he at last succeeded in making a telescope with a 4 inch reflector.

That suited his purpose for a time. Then he sold it and he made another again with a 4 inch reflector, and what a splendid telescope it was, with a 6 inch speculum and the whole thing was 5 foot long. He sold that for £10.

Those however were just experiments. His chief instrument occupied the well-known observatory outside the Station Silverton. It took him many a weary month to make. Night after night after leaving his duty Roger buried himself in his self-made workshop at the back of the house. Hour after hour he spent building up his great telescope. The want of tools hampered him as much as anything. Many of the tools he made himself including a large lathe like machine for polishing the spectrum. Time after time he failed in his work, but with the enthusiasm of a youngster, Mr. Langdon was getting on in years. Fortunately he was introduced to the great Mr. Nasmyth, of steam hammer fame, and was invited to write to him about his work. Mr. Nasmyth took the deepest interest in this self taught and self teaching astronomer, and he knew exactly what Mr. Langdon wanted better than Roger. He used to write him letters pointing out the difficulties he would encounter and showed him how he would succeed. He made diagrams of what tools he would need and altogether was of great service to him. After he had made the speculum, which was intensely difficult, it had to be silvered on the front surface. Just at the right moment a friend, a Dr. Blacklock of Manchester, turned up and gave Roger the information as to the silvering process and he succeeded at the very first attempt. Several times later, when he tried to make silver speculums they were never as good as that first attempt.

In time Roger completed his Newtonian Equatorial Reflecting Telescope, which was fitted with a finder with a Ramsdon eye-piece, and was a splendid monument to his genius and perseverance. Then he set to work to erect his observatory in the garden in front of his home. The shuttered roof revolved so that the telescope could be brought to bear in any direction.

Roger met with considerable success. In 1871 he read a paper before the Royal Astronomical Society in London on the planet Venus, and the paper was so well regarded, that it was specially published. Of the observations he had made, there were volumes of notes and charts and a large array of photographs, taken with his self-made camera, of the moon.

For many years, Roger had been the wonder of simple country folk residing around about him at Silverton. They could not understand a man devoting his spare time to studying the universe for the love of science, and they superstitiously believed he had something to do with ruling the plants.

It was surprising to Roger what an amount of superstition prevailed, even among well educated people. Many came to him privately to know if he would “Rule Their Plants” and “Tell Their Fortunes.” When he told them he could not they were surprised and said that they thought he could. Roger at one time remarked that he could have made a fortune if he had chosen, but would not prostitute the science of astronomy to such base purpose.

It was amusing to him to hear the expressions of people when they saw the moon for the first time through his telescope. One person thought it looked like a piece of beef suet, whilst another thought it was covered in ice.

Roger Langdon was a genius. To photograph celestial objects a camera was necessary. He could not afford one, so he made one, a credit to anyone. In fact it was superior to any cameras available at that time; compact, being only three inches when closed, and fitted with instantaneous shutters. With this camera not only did he photograph the moon but was the first person to photograph “The Flying Dutchman” as it tore past Silverton Station at great speed. So good was the photograph that at that time it was purported to be the best negative ever taken of a moving train.

It seems that whatever Roger wanted and could not buy, he made it. His children wanted a Harmonium, so he made one. He made an exact replica of Stoke Cannon Church complete with a peal of bells, which if a penny was put into the slot, would ring in exact imitation of the bells in the church.

Few more instances could be given to “The Farm Lad” from Chiselborough, Somerset, rising by sheer hard work and determination to overcome the greatest difficulty. Throughout his career Roger was animated solely by the desire of knowledge and had been content to work on steadily at the little wayside station Silverton, almost unobserved by the world beyond.

The full version of this article was published in The Railway Signal in October 1894. The Railway Signal is a Railway Mission Organisation still in existence today.