Belfast's Richest Radical Groundbreakers


Belfast's Richest Radical

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He was imprisoned for his prominent role in the 1798 Rebellion

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against British rule in Ireland,

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and considered fortunate not to be hanged.

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Yet he went on to become Belfast's richest man.

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He was the son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister

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of traditional Calvinist views.

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And yet his private life was cloaked in scandal.

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I've counted 13 children that he had

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with a number of different women.

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His name was William Tennent.

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And he was a man who was to shape the cultural,

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commercial and political life of Belfast.

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You know, this is a man whose position in society

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didn't happen by chance.

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He was kind of a calculating individual, I think.

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And very, very shrewd.

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And he was the central figure among Belfast's radical reforming elite.

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A man of business who not only made money,

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but he wanted to transform the face of the town in which he lived.

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The late 18th and early 19th century was a defining period

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in the history of Belfast.

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It was a place of change,

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where the population was doubling every decade.

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Not only a developing centre of commerce and industry,

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but a place of ideas and debate.

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A town that defined the extraordinary life of William Tennent.

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DOOR SQUEAKS

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FLOORBOARDS CREAK

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This striking and elaborate memorial in First Presbyterian Church

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in Belfast's Rosemary Street was placed here in the 1850s.

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It depicts one of the leading citizens of this town

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and for many years its wealthiest.

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This is William Tennent.

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Now, this is the first time I've ever seen this memorial

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and yet it provides a window into a very different Belfast

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to the one we think we know today.

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The memorial gives us some clues

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to William Tennent's many achievements.

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He is shown in a classical pose, reading a book,

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a work of literature or maybe a company ledger.

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For when you look at the inscription underneath, it says

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his intellectual pursuits were funded by

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"an arduous mercantile career".

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At first glance, this seems a tribute to an educated

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and respectable businessman.

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Now, this inscription begins to tell us a little bit of his story.

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It says that Tennent was a consistent advocate of free enquiry,

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that he believed in principles of liberty

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and that he was moderate in times of popular excitement.

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So, we're beginning to get a little bit of a clue

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about the extraordinary life and times of William Tennent.

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This is pew number 65, where William Tennent once sat.

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And from here, we can revisit his life.

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Out into the heart of Belfast.

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A town whose streets in the late 1700s and early 1800s

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were alive with liberal, rebellious and charitable citizens.

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It was a vibrant world of change and possibility.

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As an adult, William Tennent may have lived and worked

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amidst the noise and tumult of Georgian Belfast,

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where his private life, where his scandal

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and his political views put his life in danger.

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But he spent his early years in a very different environment.

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He was born near Ballymoney in County Antrim in 1759,

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the eldest son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister

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and his wife Anne, who had settled in Ireland eight years earlier.

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Together they raised a large family of five boys and three girls.

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As well as bringing their children up in the Presbyterian faith,

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both parents were vocal

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about challenging those in power when necessary.

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William's mother, Anne, was said to be possessed of a singular

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aversion to any of her family being slaves to landlords,

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while the Reverend John supported Catholic emancipation

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and parliamentary reform.

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These are the values William Tennent absorbed as a boy

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here at the family homestead.

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He would live by them until the end of his life.

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So, I'm in the townland now of Ballyrobin, you can see here.

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I've just been down at the Bush River

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and walked up a path along here

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and here we are, round about here, at this moment in time.

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This is a map from 1805 and this was formerly Tennent family land.

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You can see that from a ledger

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from the period in which plot number three, which we've just been on,

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the Reverend John Tennent, which is William Tennent's father,

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in this area at this time.

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William's father, Reverend John Tennent, died in 1808.

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But more than 200 years later,

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the church that he established at Roseyards

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is still flourishing today.

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So, Mark, what can you tell me about the Reverend John Tennent?

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John Tennent was the first minister here at the Roseyards.

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I am the tenth.

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He began here in the year 1751.

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He would go on to be the minister here for 57 years

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until his death in 1808.

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Later generations would say that he preached here every single

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Sabbath, every Sunday, throughout that whole time.

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So what was life like back here in the middle of the 18th century

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for the Tennent family?

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It would have been a fairly simple, rural lifestyle.

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They wouldn't have been all that well off, financially,

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because the congregation would have been made up mostly

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of tenant farmers, maybe a few tradesmen, craftsmen,

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but none of the landed gentry, few, if any, wealthy professionals, and

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his salary would have come out of the offerings given by this church.

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So, William Tennent left this area.

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What ideas and what notions would we have taken from his father

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and from the congregation?

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Loving God with all his heart,

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the importance of education would have been there too,

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because everybody ought to be able to read the Bible for themselves.

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Also, to show respect for civil government

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and yet at the same time, not to give it your absolute

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allegiance, because such allegiance should be given to God alone.

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Tennent never forgot the values that he had been taught

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during his Presbyterian upbringing.

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But his ambition and lust for adventure

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took him away from Roseyards.

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He went first to Glasgow, where he served as an apprentice merchant.

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Then in 1781, he settled in Belfast,

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a town that was alive with trade and commerce,

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a town with opportunities for a young man like William Tennent.

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At the time, Belfast consisted of not much more than

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a handful of streets, built around the mouth of the lough.

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It was owned by just one

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aristocratic and Anglican family, the Chichesters.

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For his services to the Crown,

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Sir Arthur Chichester had been granted 250,000 acres

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in the early 1600s by King James I.

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This included Belfast and the surrounding land.

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From this vantage point at the top of the Belfast Hills,

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you can really get a sense of the vastness of the Chichester estate,

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which stretched as far as the eye can see.

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The Chichesters built an impressive castle on a high street,

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said to be the glory and beauty of the town.

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They effectively ruled Belfast until 1708,

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when a fire swept through the castle and burned it to the ground.

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Afterwards, the Chichesters left for England

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and for the next 100 years, they were to be absentee landlords.

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This was the Belfast that William Tennent arrived in.

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It was a town on the brink of great change,

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a change in which Tennent was to play a leading role.

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In 1781, it would have taken William Tennent almost a day

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to ride from the family home in Antrim to Belfast,

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where he had established himself in business.

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So Reverend John Tennent kept in touch with William by letter.

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This correspondence was the start of an extraordinary family

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archive that is preserved here at the Public Record Office in Belfast.

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All of William Tennent's life, both professional and personal,

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is laid out here in these boxes in meticulous detail.

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The first thing that really jumps out of these letters

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is that Tennent's influence stretches far and wide

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and most of that comes through industry and commerce and trade.

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These documents provide not only an insight into Tennent

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and of course the Tennent family, but into Belfast itself.

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And at the time, it was a town full of money and excitement.

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Something that was of great concern

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to the Reverend John Tennent back in Antrim.

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"Oh, William, William, dear William,

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"I fear you're now in a most dangerous situation

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"if you be not changed from what you was when I saw you last.

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"Did you ever consider the difference

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"between the gracious favour of Almighty God

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"and his awful and just frown?"

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From the mid-1600s, A steady stream of Scottish Presbyterian merchants

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had sailed up this lough and settled here in Belfast.

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They leased plots of land from the Chichesters

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and began trading out of the port.

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The merchants exported linen and agricultural goods

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across the Atlantic to North America and the West Indies.

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The returning ships brought back cargoes of tobacco and sugar.

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At the dawn of the 1760s, a traveller came to Belfast

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and he observed the hive of local activity.

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And he wrote,

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"There are many traders and merchants of substance here.

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"It seems to me to be the London of the North of Ireland."

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The town, however, was in dire need of improvement.

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In the 1760s, it was still contained within earthen defensive walls.

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It lacked public meeting places and broad, well laid out streets.

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The current Chichester,

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who had recently acquired the grand title of the Earl of Donegall,

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was keen to make Belfast a shining example of a Georgian town.

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But in order to achieve this, he needed the help of the wealthiest

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group of people in Belfast, the Presbyterian merchant class.

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This is a map of Belfast from 1791.

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Now, that's significant,

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because Tennent would have been in Belfast for ten years by that

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stage, and actually, what's striking about it is just how small

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the built-up area of the town is.

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Most of the names are actually very recognisable.

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So, you have the Newtownards Road going out to the east.

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You have the Lisburn Road, the Falls Road, the Antrim Road.

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The Shankill up here.

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But actually, these are just fields,

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tree-lined avenues with a few gentlemen's homes and a few farms.

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The key thing, really, is that all those roads are pointing

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right into the centre, right into the commercial hub of the town.

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And it's in this tighter knit series of streets and alleyways

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that one really gets a sense of the world of William Tennent.

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So there's Waring Street,

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which was the main commercial hub coming in from the docks.

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High Street, where the main shops would have been.

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Rosemary Street - First Presbyterian Church, where he worshipped.

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And just round the corner, Hercules Lane, where he lived.

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The merchants of Belfast also leased land along the lough shore

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and built new quays to accommodate larger ships.

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And there was one addition in particular,

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a new building that was to become the lifeblood of Belfast.

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This building lay at the heart of the new, fashionable town.

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It was a building that William Tennent knew well.

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It stands at the junction known in the late 1700s

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as the Four Corners -

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Rosemary Street, North Street, Donegall Street and Waring Street.

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It was initially built as a market house by the Donegall family.

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Then, an extra storey was added and it gained its present name,

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the Assembly Rooms.

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Today, the upper floor is missing,

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but you still get an impression of the sheer grandeur of the building.

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This is where the young men of Belfast, merchants and preachers

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and teachers and doctors and lawyers,

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all met together to do business

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and exchange goods and services, but they also exchanged ideas.

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Radical ideas, ideas from the Scottish Enlightenment

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and thinkers such as Francis Hutchinson and Adam Smith.

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These philosophers and economists began to challenge

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the foundations of the political order.

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Young men like William Tennent followed suit and started

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to question what was unreasonable in their own town and country.

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At the top of their list was the way Belfast chose

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its representative in the Irish Parliament.

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The local MP was nominated by a 13 man corporation,

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that was essentially hand-picked by the Earl of Donegall.

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So it was Donegall's friends

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and family who kept a vice-like grip on the town.

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For all their money,

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merchants like Tennent had no say over who represented them.

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A new buzzword began to circulate - reform.

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And discussion about how to bring it about

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fuelled the intellectual life of the town.

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It's easy to understand why the Belfast of the late 1700s

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was so alluring for a young man of William Tennent's background.

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Not only was it a hotbed of radical ideas

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and a place with a vibrant social and cultural life, it was

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also a place where with hard work came the promise of untold riches.

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William began his career as a merchant in this street in 1781,

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and the clue to his choice of trade lies in the name of this

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passageway, Sugarhouse Entry,

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named after the large sugar warehouse that once stood here.

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Having come from the Caribbean plantations as raw cane,

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the sugar was refined and sold on as a luxury good.

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It was a lucrative business, and within a couple of years,

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the Reverend John Tennent commented wryly that his son, William,

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was rolling in money.

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However, William's new trade was already embroiled in a wider

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debate taking place in Belfast.

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A debate on the morality of slavery.

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Nini, could you tell us about

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the growing popularity of sugar in the 18th century?

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Well, in the 18th century, sugar was a really, really important

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and popular crop.

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It was new, and from the point of view of making money out of it,

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it was really like owning an oil well.

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All over Ireland, for example, every port in Ireland,

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by the 18th century, would have a sugar house.

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Sugar can be seen, of course, as a luxury item at this stage,

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and of course it goes into things like...

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sweetening alcohol,

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and then at the time that you get sugar coming in, you also get -

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the sugar coming in from the West -

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at the same time, you're getting tea coming in from the East.

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And when this arrived, the tea and the sugar,

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which were both fashionable and new crops in the 18th century,

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when this arrived, everybody sugared their tea.

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It was a great thing if you were well-established

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and thought of in a place like Belfast, to have money.

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You would have a beautiful tea table

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and you would have sugar on the tea table.

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On the table you could have sugar tongs,

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and then you would drop the sugar into your tea.

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Then you'd have a sugar bowl and you'd have a silver jug as well.

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So all these things were a sign that you had arrived,

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that you were a wealthy merchant in Belfast.

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So we have sugar, which is a real luxury good in this era,

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people are using it for their tea parties and also

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in the creation of alcohol, but there's a contradiction here,

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isn't there? Because on the other end of the spectrum,

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those involved in the produce and the making of sugar are actually

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slaves living in very difficult conditions.

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People in Belfast who read the newspapers are well aware

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that a lot of people are saying that sugar depends on slavery,

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slavery depends on the slave trade,

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the slave trade is cruel and vicious.

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In Ireland, William Tennent believed in Catholic emancipation,

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he believed in parliamentary reform,

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but he was not interested or excited by the fate of the slaves.

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If you were a radical in Belfast at this time,

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you might be excited by this new anti-slavery

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and your conscience might be pricked, or you might not.

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But what you would be aware of is that anti-slavery was

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a growing movement at this time.

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William Tennent was rising up the social ladder,

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and before long, he was one of Belfast's richest men,

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thanks to his aptitude for trading goods

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back and forth across the Atlantic.

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He was also becoming one of the town's most well-known

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and influential citizens.

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He had joined the board of the newly formed Chamber of Commerce

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and was a keen supporter of the Society for Promoting Knowledge,

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which would later become Belfast Linen Hall Library.

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However, he was about to jeopardise both his wealth

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and his meteoric rise to the top of Belfast's society by becoming

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involved in a movement that was gathering momentum in Ireland.

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GAVEL BANGS ON DESK

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Today, 60 local councillors meet in this chamber

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in Belfast City Hall to debate the city's most pressing issues.

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And in doing so, each and every one of them

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represents the interests of the citizens who elected them.

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Local politics was very different in Tennent's time, however.

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For all the money and for all the wealth that he and his friends

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brought to the town, they had very little political influence.

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In fact, they didn't even have a vote.

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That right was still monopolised by a Belfast landlord,

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the Earl of Donegall.

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Much to the frustration of men like William Tennent.

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And that frustration was stoked by events taking place far

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from Belfast and driven by the twin ideals of liberty and democracy -

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the American War of Independence and the French Revolution.

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GUNFIRE

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Belfast was considered to be the most radical town

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in Ireland, perhaps the whole of the British Isles.

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And its political activists sought to make connections with those

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who shared their views.

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And so, in the autumn of 1791,

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they joined forces with the Dublin solicitor Wolfe Tone and founded

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a new society that was to change the history of Ireland forever.

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Its objectives included equal rights for citizens of all faiths

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and the reform of Ireland's unrepresented parliamentary system.

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It was called the Society of the United Irishmen.

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William Tennent publicly demonstrated his support

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for the United Irishmen by providing financial

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backing for their newspaper, the Northern Star,

0:24:120:24:15

which was first published in 1792.

0:24:150:24:18

The paper's masthead proclaimed, "The public will our guide,

0:24:210:24:25

"the public good our end."

0:24:250:24:27

And for the next five years,

0:24:270:24:29

it was to be a constant thorn in the side of the Government.

0:24:290:24:33

And its popularity can be measured by the fact that

0:24:340:24:37

at its peak, it had a circulation of 4,000 copies.

0:24:370:24:41

Larger than any other contemporary newspaper.

0:24:410:24:45

There were reports from London, where the slave trade was being

0:24:450:24:49

debated in the British Parliament. But here in 1797,

0:24:490:24:53

you really have the pinnacle of Ulster radicalism.

0:24:530:24:56

A letter in the Northern Star, from the United Irishmen, which is

0:24:560:25:00

essentially a call to arms, Ireland should be free, urging them

0:25:000:25:05

to cast off the yoke of England.

0:25:050:25:08

And here, in the midst of all this excitement and news from France

0:25:080:25:12

and the revolution there, William Tennent is doing business.

0:25:120:25:15

It says here that William Tennent has for sale barrels of raisins

0:25:150:25:19

and figs, and he is also well supplied with old port wine,

0:25:190:25:24

sherry and Jamaica rum.

0:25:240:25:26

A year after the launch of the Northern Star,

0:25:290:25:31

the French Revolutionaries beheaded their monarch, Louis XVI.

0:25:310:25:36

Alarmed by this,

0:25:360:25:37

the British Government took a hard line with potential

0:25:370:25:40

revolutionaries in Ireland, and in Dublin ruthlessly suppressed

0:25:400:25:45

the Society of United Irishmen.

0:25:450:25:47

The only remaining solution for the members left in Belfast was

0:25:500:25:53

to go underground, and they began planning an uprising in earnest.

0:25:530:25:58

The Irish House of Lords now viewed Belfast as a disloyal town,

0:26:000:26:06

condemning it as the rankest citadel of treason in the kingdom.

0:26:060:26:10

In this climate of intrigue and rising tension,

0:26:130:26:16

the Reverend John Tennent heard a rumour that William had become

0:26:160:26:20

involved in the revolutionary politics spreading across Ireland.

0:26:200:26:25

Perturbed by this news, he wrote an anguished letter to William.

0:26:260:26:31

'When I mentioned it to your mother, she could not rest till

0:26:310:26:34

'I wrote you to keep far distant from such dangerous combinations.'

0:26:340:26:39

His father's worst fears were realised, because on 6th June 1798,

0:26:390:26:45

as rebellion raged across the country,

0:26:450:26:47

Belfast was flooded with the military

0:26:470:26:50

and William Tennent was arrested and imprisoned.

0:26:500:26:53

So, 6th June 1798, can you give us

0:27:000:27:02

a sense of the scene of Belfast at that moment in time?

0:27:020:27:06

I would imagine it would be pretty chaotic.

0:27:060:27:08

The Army had been active in Belfast before that, there had been

0:27:080:27:12

a riot where they closed the offices of the Northern Star.

0:27:120:27:16

The Northern Star was the mouthpiece of the United Irish

0:27:160:27:19

organisation, that had been shut down in 1797, but the atmosphere

0:27:190:27:23

would have been absolutely chaotic in Belfast on 6th June 1788, and

0:27:230:27:28

before that as well, because news of the outbreak of the rebellion down

0:27:280:27:34

south in Wicklow and Wexford would have reached Belfast by that time.

0:27:340:27:39

So William Tennent was a very wealthy man with a lot to lose.

0:27:390:27:42

What was the nature of his involvement with the United Irishmen?

0:27:420:27:45

Tennent had been involved in the United Irishmen right from the very beginning.

0:27:450:27:50

He was a member of what was called the "secret committee" of the volunteers,

0:27:500:27:53

some of the volunteers in the 1780s were not satisfied with what

0:27:530:27:58

they achieved, the legislative independence of the

0:27:580:28:01

Irish Parliament, and they wanted to press on for more radical reform.

0:28:010:28:05

And they would have met Wolfe Tone,

0:28:050:28:07

when Wolfe Tone came to Belfast in 1791,

0:28:070:28:09

so he was a United Irishmen right the whole way through.

0:28:090:28:13

And his involvement in 1797, 1798.

0:28:130:28:18

First of all, he was a wealthy man,

0:28:180:28:20

so he was probably giving money for arms purchases.

0:28:200:28:24

He was certainly, because of the status in Belfast,

0:28:240:28:28

he would have been in the upper ranks of the movement,

0:28:280:28:31

and he would have come to the Government's attention through that.

0:28:310:28:34

So these are very dramatic scenes, the military swoops in on Tennent.

0:28:340:28:38

-What happens to him after he's arrested?

-Tennent's name crops up in the Black Book of the Rebellion,

0:28:380:28:43

which shows how serious the Government took his United Irish activities.

0:28:430:28:48

He's sent on board the Postlethwaite, which was a prison ship moored in Belfast Lough,

0:28:480:28:53

where suspects like William Tennent would have been placed

0:28:530:28:57

until the Government knew what to do with them.

0:28:570:29:00

Tennent, as I said, was a wealthy Belfast businessman

0:29:000:29:03

and it would have been a tremendous shock to the system

0:29:030:29:06

to being placed on board a prison tender, like a common criminal.

0:29:060:29:10

But it probably saved his life, because undoubtedly, Tennent,

0:29:100:29:13

as a young man, would have been involved in the 1798 Rebellion.

0:29:130:29:18

He would either have been killed in battle or arrested

0:29:180:29:21

and subsequently hung.

0:29:210:29:23

The authorities considered Tennent a dangerous figure,

0:29:260:29:31

not merely the financial backer of the Northern Star newspaper.

0:29:310:29:35

He was accused of trying to enlist men in the rebellion

0:29:350:29:39

against King and constitution,

0:29:390:29:42

and was to stand trial on a charge of high treason.

0:29:420:29:46

If found guilty,

0:29:460:29:48

he risked meeting the same fate as Henry Joy McCracken,

0:29:480:29:52

the leader of Belfast's United Irishmen,

0:29:520:29:55

who was hanged in Corn Market in 1798.

0:29:550:29:57

On board the Postlethwaite, the prison ship

0:30:040:30:07

moored in Belfast Lough, Tennent endured miserable conditions.

0:30:070:30:12

Below deck, portals remained open

0:30:130:30:16

and the prisoners were buffeted by the wind and drenched in seawater.

0:30:160:30:21

On deck, conditions were even more treacherous,

0:30:220:30:25

as William Tennent discovered when he slipped and fractured his leg.

0:30:250:30:29

As a result of his injury, he was brought back to shore

0:30:290:30:33

and placed under house arrest.

0:30:330:30:35

Then, in the winter of 1799, the Government decided that Tennent

0:30:400:30:45

and 19 other United Irishmen were still so great a threat that they

0:30:450:30:50

should be transported to a fortress in a remote corner of Scotland.

0:30:500:30:55

As William Tennent set sail under armed guard,

0:30:570:31:00

he was unsure whether he would see his family or Belfast ever again.

0:31:000:31:05

After a gruelling two-week journey, on 9th April, 1799,

0:31:130:31:18

Tennent and his fellow prisoners finally arrived in this forbidding

0:31:180:31:22

place, Fort George, just outside Inverness in the Scottish Highlands.

0:31:220:31:27

Tennent had become accustomed to all the luxuries that money could buy.

0:31:340:31:38

He'd been free to travel wherever he wanted and he'd also dined

0:31:380:31:42

at the lavish tables of the cream of Belfast society.

0:31:420:31:46

Now, as he entered the cell that was waiting for him,

0:31:540:31:56

he left all those trappings behind.

0:31:560:32:00

William Tennent was incarcerated here for three years.

0:32:050:32:10

In a diary entry, one of his fellow prisoners at Fort George

0:32:100:32:14

captured just how desperate and grim their situation was.

0:32:140:32:19

He wrote...

0:32:190:32:22

'We were captives in a foreign land.

0:32:220:32:25

'Under the control of military strangers.

0:32:250:32:28

'Far removed from friend or acquaintance

0:32:290:32:32

'and the consoling endearments of parents, brother, wife or children.'

0:32:320:32:37

Tennent also kept his own diary, and it offers brief glimpses

0:32:440:32:48

into the physical toll that the long hours of confinement took upon him.

0:32:480:32:52

He was often in poor health.

0:32:560:32:58

He writes that he took a mixture of salts,

0:32:580:33:01

vinegar and water to soothe severe stomach pains.

0:33:010:33:05

He also writes that he suffered with inflammation of the eyes

0:33:050:33:09

and underwent some rough surgery for swollen tonsils.

0:33:090:33:13

There were, however, some consolations.

0:33:150:33:19

The prisoners were allowed books,

0:33:190:33:21

and in these Tennent took great comfort.

0:33:210:33:23

In fact, he built up quite a substantial library

0:33:230:33:26

with texts on a range of subjects from medicine to ancient Greece

0:33:260:33:31

and Rome, history, philosophy and, of course, politics.

0:33:310:33:36

Still the time dragged for Tennent.

0:33:400:33:43

He struggled to endure the grinding monotony of prison life.

0:33:430:33:47

But finally, in November 1801, after three long years,

0:33:510:33:56

he received the news that he had hoped for.

0:33:560:33:59

He was to be released.

0:33:590:34:01

Along with four other prisoners, also suspected United Irishmen,

0:34:070:34:11

he was a free man and he set sail for Ireland.

0:34:110:34:15

After a pleasant crossing,

0:34:180:34:20

carriages were waiting at Holywood to take them to Belfast,

0:34:200:34:24

where their friends and family were ready to welcome them home.

0:34:240:34:27

While Tennent was imprisoned in Fort George,

0:34:350:34:38

Belfast had undergone its own transformation.

0:34:380:34:42

Enthusiasm for revolutionary politics had been dampened,

0:34:420:34:45

to say the least, by the public execution of the United Irishmen.

0:34:450:34:49

The political landscape had also changed.

0:34:510:34:55

The rising had convinced the British Government to exert greater

0:34:550:34:58

control over Ireland, and to dissolve the Irish Parliament.

0:34:580:35:02

Irish peers and MPs now sat in Westminster.

0:35:020:35:08

And so it was that the United Kingdom of Great Britain

0:35:080:35:11

and Ireland came into effect in January 1801.

0:35:110:35:15

So, Belfast in 1798 is really, arguably, the most radical town,

0:35:220:35:27

not only in Ireland but the whole of the British Isles.

0:35:270:35:29

Where does the radical energy it used to have go?

0:35:290:35:33

It's tempting to say actually that it doesn't go anywhere.

0:35:330:35:37

That that radical energy, if you like, is still there,

0:35:370:35:39

but that the political context has changed.

0:35:390:35:42

1798, the rebellion, the bloodshed in Ireland changes the context,

0:35:420:35:46

makes people think again.

0:35:460:35:48

And so that radical energy in people like William Drennan

0:35:480:35:52

and people like Robert and William Tennent is still there,

0:35:520:35:57

but, if you like, it's modified,

0:35:570:35:59

it's maybe moderated a little by the change of context.

0:35:590:36:02

The point is, these people are still pushing for reform, they're pushing

0:36:020:36:05

for parliamentary reform, they are pushing for Catholic emancipation.

0:36:050:36:08

These are the things that they had been pushing for in the 1790s,

0:36:080:36:13

but they're doing them in a changed political context, and they're doing them within, or pushing for them

0:36:130:36:17

within the context of the union between Great Britain and Ireland.

0:36:170:36:21

So, tell us about the culture of Belfast in this period

0:36:210:36:25

after the rebellion, after the Act of Union.

0:36:250:36:27

What type of things are going on in town?

0:36:270:36:29

People, when they think about 19th-century Belfast, tend to think about shipyards, heavy industry,

0:36:290:36:35

they think of Belfast as a workshop of the British Empire.

0:36:350:36:38

But in the early 19th century,

0:36:380:36:40

there's a sort of different Belfast that exists.

0:36:400:36:42

Belfast is known at that time, among some people,

0:36:420:36:44

as the Athens of the North.

0:36:440:36:47

And that phrase "the Athens of the North" is first used in relation

0:36:470:36:50

to Belfast in the late 18th century.

0:36:500:36:53

And it is used, in a sense, to refer to the kind of libertarian

0:36:530:36:57

or radical principles of the people of Belfast.

0:36:570:37:00

But it also has a cultural connotation and a cultural dimension.

0:37:000:37:03

Because Belfast at that time was starting to develop

0:37:030:37:05

a kind of civic society, cultural and intellectual institutions.

0:37:050:37:09

And that process develops, then, on into the early 19th century,

0:37:090:37:12

so you have in Belfast the Society for Promoting Knowledge,

0:37:120:37:15

you have the Literary Society, the Historic Society.

0:37:150:37:18

You have some short-lived societies as well,

0:37:180:37:21

the Galvanic Society, the Phrenological Society in the 1820s.

0:37:210:37:25

And then established in 1821, the Natural History and Philosophical Society.

0:37:250:37:30

So you get this sense, when you look at these societies, of Belfast being still a fairly small town,

0:37:300:37:34

not quite the industrial powerhouse that it becomes

0:37:340:37:38

later in the 19th century,

0:37:380:37:39

but a town with a sort of vibrant, energetic middle class

0:37:390:37:44

that's establishing these societies,

0:37:440:37:46

and really creating a place for itself in public life.

0:37:460:37:51

Under the Act of Union, Belfast was to flourish as a crucial cog

0:37:540:37:58

in the wheels of the British Empire.

0:37:580:38:01

The completion of Clarendon Dock at the beginning of the 19th century

0:38:010:38:04

had opened up the port to even more global trade.

0:38:040:38:08

And now the increasingly wealthy middle class,

0:38:090:38:13

dominated by Presbyterian merchants such as William Tennent, began

0:38:130:38:17

to take the lead in the cultural and intellectual life of the town.

0:38:170:38:21

William Tennent was aware of his luck.

0:38:260:38:29

His radical politics had led him to the brink of ruin.

0:38:290:38:33

But he was now a free man, ready to resume his career as one

0:38:330:38:36

of Belfast's most successful merchants.

0:38:360:38:39

He was ready to cultivate a new image as a pillar of respectability

0:38:420:38:47

in the town through public service and philanthropic work.

0:38:470:38:51

When, in 1804, the Belfast Newsletter observed that

0:38:590:39:03

the new stately and elegant homes around the town reflected the taste

0:39:030:39:07

and opulence that reigned in Belfast,

0:39:070:39:10

it was referring to the dwellings of men like William Tennent.

0:39:100:39:14

Tennent lived in a residence like this on Hercules Place.

0:39:180:39:22

A street that was demolished during the Victorian expansion of Belfast

0:39:220:39:26

to make way for Royal Avenue.

0:39:260:39:29

But behind closed doors,

0:39:290:39:32

Tennent conducted a private life that was far from conventional,

0:39:320:39:36

which involved mistresses and more than a whiff of scandal.

0:39:360:39:40

You would expect the details of such a colourful private life

0:39:400:39:42

to be hidden or destroyed.

0:39:420:39:44

Far from it. They are in fact preserved in the family archive.

0:39:440:39:48

So it's fair to say that William Tennent had

0:39:520:39:55

-an unconventional private life.

-Yes, I think it is. He did get married,

0:39:550:40:01

he was married for two years from 1805 to 1807.

0:40:010:40:06

He was married to a woman called Eleanor Jackson,

0:40:060:40:10

but she died very shortly after they were married.

0:40:100:40:14

They had one child, Letitia, who then becomes his legitimate heir.

0:40:140:40:20

But in between his marriage, before his marriage and after

0:40:200:40:24

his marriage, William Tennent did live an unconventional life.

0:40:240:40:29

He had a series of mistresses and

0:40:290:40:33

he had a large number of children

0:40:330:40:36

outside marriage, apart from Letitia.

0:40:360:40:40

I've counted 13 children that he had

0:40:400:40:45

with a number of different women.

0:40:450:40:48

We know the most about two of the mistresses, who wrote to him

0:40:480:40:53

and whose letters we have here.

0:40:530:40:55

One is Anne Henry, the other is Margaret McCabe.

0:40:550:40:59

And he treats them very differently.

0:40:590:41:01

With Margaret McCabe, he gives her money.

0:41:010:41:04

And she's clearly sending him, as we can see there,

0:41:040:41:07

begging letters asking for money.

0:41:070:41:10

Two of her sons live with another mistress, Anne Henry,

0:41:100:41:15

who's the second woman who turns up a lot in the correspondence.

0:41:150:41:20

And Anne Henry is the woman that William Tennent has the most

0:41:200:41:24

long-term relationship with.

0:41:240:41:27

He met her before he went to prison in the 1790s,

0:41:270:41:31

and he's still with her in the 1820s,

0:41:310:41:35

when I think she probably died.

0:41:350:41:37

So he has this lifelong relationship with Anne Henry,

0:41:440:41:47

both before and after he gets married.

0:41:470:41:50

Why didn't he simply marry her?

0:41:500:41:52

Yeah, that is the key question in their relationship.

0:41:520:41:56

I think his marriage to Eleanor Jackson

0:41:560:42:00

was going to move him up that social scale

0:42:000:42:04

that he was anxious to climb.

0:42:040:42:07

Anne Henry is well looked after, both before and after he marries,

0:42:090:42:14

but if you read her letters,

0:42:140:42:16

she's saying all the time, "I live a very quiet life."

0:42:160:42:21

At one stage she says, "I'm ashamed to go out if I'm pregnant,"

0:42:210:42:26

and she frequently was, with his children,

0:42:260:42:28

"or to go out even just after I've given birth to a child."

0:42:280:42:33

-YOUNG WOMAN'S VOICE:

-'I am present in your house.

0:42:370:42:39

'I slept in your bed last night.

0:42:390:42:42

'I hope to hear from you soon, and receiving a letter from you,

0:42:420:42:46

'my dear Mr Tennent, will give me a great deal of satisfaction.

0:42:460:42:51

'I long to know how you have been since you left home.'

0:42:510:42:54

Now, what's interesting also about the letters that have

0:42:580:43:01

survived from Anne Henry,

0:43:010:43:04

is that William kept

0:43:040:43:07

the letters she wrote to him

0:43:070:43:09

when he told her he was getting married.

0:43:090:43:12

She was clearly absolutely devastated by it.

0:43:120:43:16

But, indirectly, I think, you could almost see his affection for her,

0:43:160:43:20

that he kept them.

0:43:200:43:22

Tennent may have had a deep affection for Anne Henry,

0:43:260:43:29

and other women in his life, and provided for as many children,

0:43:290:43:33

but by marrying into a landed family,

0:43:330:43:36

he was, first and foremost, taking care of business.

0:43:360:43:40

And doing so extremely successfully.

0:43:400:43:43

In the years following his incarceration at Fort George,

0:43:470:43:50

he became Belfast's richest man.

0:43:500:43:53

He became director of a successful shipping company

0:43:530:43:57

and bought and resold a range of goods,

0:43:570:43:59

from beef and pork to tobacco and whisky and rum.

0:43:590:44:04

He also, along with his fellow merchants,

0:44:040:44:07

established Belfast Commercial Bank.

0:44:070:44:10

Tennent also became deeply involved in the running of the town.

0:44:120:44:16

Serving as a committee member

0:44:160:44:18

on a number of newly established public bodies,

0:44:180:44:21

ranging from the police commissioners

0:44:210:44:23

to the Belfast Society For Promoting Knowledge.

0:44:230:44:26

There are very few images of the elusive William Tennent,

0:44:280:44:31

but here is a portrait commissioned in 1810.

0:44:310:44:35

And the painting tells a story in its own right.

0:44:350:44:38

Tennent appears as an elder statesman.

0:44:380:44:41

He is grey around the temples, he's dressed like a gentleman.

0:44:410:44:44

He, of course, has asked for this painting to be completed

0:44:440:44:46

and has paid for it,

0:44:460:44:48

so he's clearly thinking in terms of his reputation and his legacy.

0:44:480:44:52

Indeed, he's looking to his future. Perhaps also wanting to leave

0:44:520:44:55

some of the whiff of scandal behind him.

0:44:550:44:57

And he is to become an even more important

0:44:570:45:00

citizen in the history of Belfast.

0:45:000:45:02

One area of the city's life

0:45:150:45:17

in which William Tennent was to have a lasting influence was education.

0:45:170:45:21

This was something he believed in passionately.

0:45:210:45:24

And in 1814, he became one of the founders

0:45:240:45:28

of the Academical Institution,

0:45:280:45:31

the city centre grammar school we know today as Inst.

0:45:310:45:34

Tennent, and other former radicals such as William Drennan,

0:45:380:45:42

gave money for the building to be constructed on this land.

0:45:420:45:46

Land granted to them by the Marquess of Donegall,

0:45:460:45:48

which at the time was just a green space at the edge of town.

0:45:480:45:52

The aim of the new college was to educate boys

0:45:590:46:02

from the middling orders of society.

0:46:020:46:04

To be a place where education would be seen as a necessity,

0:46:040:46:08

not a luxury, of life.

0:46:080:46:10

However, just two years after it opened,

0:46:110:46:14

the school was almost forced to close its doors, thanks to

0:46:140:46:17

a flare-up of the old rebellious spirit at a dinner

0:46:170:46:21

attended by William and his brother, Robert Tennent.

0:46:210:46:24

This was an extraordinary affair that occurred on St Patrick's Day,

0:46:260:46:30

1816, in Gillett's Hotel in Arthur Street, Belfast,

0:46:300:46:35

where 50 Of Belfast's...

0:46:350:46:38

radicals, I suppose,

0:46:380:46:41

gathered to celebrate St Patrick's Day.

0:46:410:46:44

Perhaps fuelled by an overindulgence in wine,

0:46:460:46:49

a considerable number of what, at the time,

0:46:490:46:52

were regarded as disloyal oaths, were drunk.

0:46:520:46:55

And there were long-term consequences,

0:46:550:46:59

both for the individuals involved and for the Institution.

0:46:590:47:03

In an increasingly conservative Belfast,

0:47:050:47:08

news of the dinner soon reached the newspapers.

0:47:080:47:11

And there was a public outcry

0:47:110:47:13

of what were considered disloyal toasts.

0:47:130:47:16

I can see here this cutting from the Belfast Commercial Chronicle,

0:47:180:47:21

maybe from the Monday after the dinner,

0:47:210:47:24

"St Patrick's day evening,

0:47:240:47:26

"Gillett's Hotel, Dr Tennent is called to the chair."

0:47:260:47:28

And a whole list of toasts are read out,

0:47:280:47:31

like "Eirinn go Brach", and "a toast to civil liberty

0:47:310:47:35

"and political independence

0:47:350:47:36

"to the people of every clime and every colour."

0:47:360:47:39

-Could you tell me a little bit more about these?

-Yes.

0:47:390:47:42

I suppose one of the more contentious of the oaths

0:47:460:47:49

that were drunk on this occasion, to the memory of Marshal Ney,

0:47:490:47:54

Marshal Michel Ney,

0:47:540:47:55

one of Napoleon Bonaparte's most loyal military officers,

0:47:550:47:59

who only months earlier, I believe, in December, 1815, had been

0:47:590:48:02

sentenced to death and executed following the Battle of Waterloo.

0:48:020:48:07

Reading these now, they appear innocuous enough,

0:48:070:48:10

but at the time, given that we are within 20 years

0:48:100:48:14

of the ending of the 1798 Rebellion,

0:48:140:48:17

these toasts would have been seen,

0:48:170:48:20

perhaps, as provocative and inappropriate,

0:48:200:48:23

even inimical to the British constitution.

0:48:230:48:25

-And so that embroiled the school in some controversy?

-Absolutely.

0:48:250:48:29

The school lost its annual grant of £1,500,

0:48:290:48:33

a considerable sum of money in the early 19th century,

0:48:330:48:37

bringing long-term financial hardship

0:48:370:48:39

to Belfast Academical Institution.

0:48:390:48:41

So, did this represent, if you like, an attempt to keep alive

0:48:410:48:45

the spirit of 1798 and the rebellion of that year?

0:48:450:48:49

I wouldn't say "being kept alive".

0:48:490:48:51

I would have thought that this was the dying embers

0:48:510:48:55

of radical Belfast,

0:48:550:48:58

the death throes of the men of 1798.

0:48:580:49:02

These were old men who, 20 years on,

0:49:020:49:05

were having their last jaunt, if you like.

0:49:050:49:08

By the 1820s, Belfast was entering another phase of development.

0:49:120:49:17

The population had expanded to more than 40,000 people.

0:49:170:49:21

The intellectual life of the town,

0:49:210:49:23

although no longer revolutionary, was still incredibly vibrant.

0:49:230:49:27

In a sign of the times, in 1820,

0:49:290:49:31

the cottages that once stood here on Waring Street were knocked down

0:49:310:49:36

and replaced by this grand commercial building,

0:49:360:49:39

a hotel and a gentleman's club.

0:49:390:49:42

But an even more significant development was on the horizon.

0:49:430:49:47

And it was to come about thanks to

0:49:470:49:50

the fall in the fortunes of another man,

0:49:500:49:52

Belfast landlord George Augustus Chichester,

0:49:520:49:57

Second Marquess of Donegall.

0:49:570:50:00

The Marquess and his family arrived in Belfast in 1802,

0:50:000:50:04

after almost 100 years of being absentee landlords.

0:50:040:50:09

But he did so with a stack of gambling debts

0:50:090:50:12

and creditors at his heels.

0:50:120:50:14

The Marquess moved his family here to what is now Ormeau Park.

0:50:170:50:21

But he wanted to build a bigger and grander home

0:50:220:50:25

and was in dire need of cash.

0:50:250:50:28

His only asset, though, was the land he owned in and around Belfast.

0:50:280:50:33

So he put almost all of it up sale.

0:50:330:50:36

It was quickly bought up by the wealthy people of Belfast,

0:50:360:50:39

eager to own the land on which their homes and businesses stood.

0:50:390:50:43

The biggest investor of all was William Tennent.

0:50:440:50:48

He bought 20 pieces of property and land,

0:50:480:50:50

stretching from the High Street right through to the Shankill Road.

0:50:500:50:55

So, the Donegalls had their Tudor mansion,

0:50:550:50:57

of which this is the last remaining part.

0:50:570:51:00

But the merchants and professionals of Belfast

0:51:000:51:03

finally owned their own town.

0:51:030:51:05

William Tennent also bought up land elsewhere in Ireland,

0:51:130:51:17

including estates in Tyrone, Sligo and Donegal.

0:51:170:51:21

Among his acquisitions was this

0:51:220:51:24

beautiful domain in Tempo, County Fermanagh.

0:51:240:51:28

More than he could ever have imagined, when he set out

0:51:290:51:32

from his modest rural home at Roseyards,

0:51:320:51:35

as a young man eager to make his fortune.

0:51:350:51:38

Now, as he entered old age, Tennent was able to enjoy

0:51:420:51:45

the fruits of his labour on his occasional stays at Tempo.

0:51:450:51:48

Ironically for a man who ended up owning

0:51:510:51:53

so much of Belfast, Tempo Manor is the only one William Tennent's

0:51:530:51:58

properties that has remained in the hands of his descendants.

0:51:580:52:01

Tempo itself was 18,000 acres when he bought it.

0:52:030:52:07

And I think he paid £1750 for it.

0:52:070:52:09

But it would have been a very beautiful estate.

0:52:090:52:12

I mean, it's got lakes, rivers. A very pretty part of the world.

0:52:120:52:15

This is something of a rags to riches story.

0:52:170:52:19

William Tennent is famous as a merchant and that's how

0:52:190:52:22

he makes his money, but then he buys into the land.

0:52:220:52:25

Is that something that still echoes in the family?

0:52:250:52:28

I think there's quite a lot, I mean, we've all lived off, really,

0:52:280:52:32

been living off a lot of the work that hey did,

0:52:320:52:35

and through generations, or through time,

0:52:350:52:37

different families to have people

0:52:370:52:39

that do very, very well for themselves,

0:52:390:52:41

and I think that William Tennent did terribly well,

0:52:410:52:44

which has sort of kept us going since, but, I mean, you know,

0:52:440:52:46

obviously, it's still trying to keep it as best as we can to the end,

0:52:460:52:49

but it's not getting quite the same breaks

0:52:490:52:51

as maybe they got at their time.

0:52:510:52:53

William Tennent and his friends never quite achieved

0:52:560:52:59

the radical, sweeping reforms that they had envisaged as young men

0:52:590:53:04

in the United Irish movement. But the system did begin to change.

0:53:040:53:08

And in 1832, the Great Reform Act of that year began to push

0:53:080:53:13

Britain along the road to democracy.

0:53:130:53:16

Crucially, the Marquess of Donegall no longer had the sole right

0:53:190:53:23

to choose Belfast MPs.

0:53:230:53:24

Now, 1,300 property owners in the town could vote

0:53:250:53:29

to select their Parliamentary representatives.

0:53:290:53:32

William Tennent was identified the candidate to stand at the election.

0:53:490:53:53

Before he could do so, tragedy struck.

0:53:530:53:57

A cholera epidemic swept across Belfast.

0:53:570:54:00

More than 400 people died.

0:54:000:54:03

And William Tennent was one of them.

0:54:030:54:05

Perhaps it was William Tennent's determination to remain

0:54:070:54:12

in the heart of Belfast that sealed his fate.

0:54:120:54:15

Long after the wealthier citizens had moved

0:54:150:54:17

to the tranquillity of the rural outskirts,

0:54:170:54:21

William Tennent stayed at his home in Hercules Place.

0:54:210:54:25

When cholera struck, he was right at the centre of the epidemic.

0:54:250:54:29

But there was one last twist in the story.

0:54:360:54:39

At the 1832 election,

0:54:390:54:42

it was William Tennent's son-in-law, James Emerson Tennent,

0:54:420:54:47

husband of his daughter Letitia,

0:54:470:54:49

who was elected as one of Belfast's two MPs.

0:54:490:54:52

But James' political inclinations were very different

0:54:530:54:57

to those of William and the wider Tennent family.

0:54:570:55:00

James Emerson Tennent, in fact, became a Conservative.

0:55:010:55:05

While his father-in-law would have been horrified,

0:55:050:55:08

it was a sign of how Belfast was changing in the Victorian era,

0:55:080:55:12

moving away from Liberalism to Conservatism.

0:55:120:55:15

And it was James Emerson who took the Tennent family name

0:55:150:55:19

to London, becoming close friends not only with Charles Dickens,

0:55:190:55:23

but the British Conservative Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel.

0:55:230:55:27

In the 1850s, Tennent's family erected the elaborate memorial

0:55:350:55:39

to him in First Presbyterian Church in Belfast's Rosemary Street.

0:55:390:55:43

But here among the great and good of Clifton Street Cemetery,

0:55:490:55:53

it's curious that there is no trace of such an eminent man's name

0:55:530:55:57

on any of these gravestones.

0:55:570:55:59

Now, that is...

0:56:080:56:10

the Sinclair family.

0:56:100:56:12

Famous Belfast family.

0:56:120:56:14

Now, that is William Drennan,

0:56:180:56:21

famous, famous citizen of Belfast,

0:56:210:56:24

which means...that...

0:56:240:56:27

Now, this is the Tennent family plot.

0:56:360:56:38

It was bought by William Tennent in 1802 in Clifton Street Cemetery,

0:56:380:56:42

but actually there's nothing left on the headstone.

0:56:420:56:45

Which means that you could say the final resting place

0:56:480:56:51

of William Tennent remains a mystery.

0:56:510:56:54

And yet it would somehow be fitting if Tennent's grave was here,

0:57:010:57:06

alongside those of the United Irishmen he outlived.

0:57:060:57:10

Henry Joy McCracken, Thomas Sinclair and William Drennan.

0:57:100:57:14

For, after all, he shared their passions and believed

0:57:140:57:18

until the end of his days that change was possible.

0:57:180:57:21

In the words of one historian, in the period

0:57:240:57:27

when William Tennent played such an important role

0:57:270:57:31

in its development, Belfast was a Presbyterian town.

0:57:310:57:34

Now it was poised to become a mighty industrial city.

0:57:340:57:39

Within a century of Tennent's death,

0:57:390:57:41

its population would expand from 40,000 people

0:57:410:57:45

to 350,000.

0:57:450:57:47

And perhaps more than any inscription on a gravestone,

0:57:520:57:55

or any fancy memorial, this extraordinary man,

0:57:550:57:59

who was self-made, and perhaps somewhat flawed, should be

0:57:590:58:03

remembered in the following way -

0:58:030:58:05

as a citizen who devoted his life

0:58:050:58:07

to Belfast and whose efforts helped shape the city it was to become.

0:58:070:58:12

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