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He was imprisoned for his prominent role in the 1798 Rebellion | 0:00:04 | 0:00:08 | |
against British rule in Ireland, | 0:00:08 | 0:00:10 | |
and considered fortunate not to be hanged. | 0:00:10 | 0:00:14 | |
Yet he went on to become Belfast's richest man. | 0:00:14 | 0:00:19 | |
He was the son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister | 0:00:21 | 0:00:24 | |
of traditional Calvinist views. | 0:00:24 | 0:00:27 | |
And yet his private life was cloaked in scandal. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:31 | |
I've counted 13 children that he had | 0:00:33 | 0:00:38 | |
with a number of different women. | 0:00:38 | 0:00:40 | |
His name was William Tennent. | 0:00:40 | 0:00:43 | |
And he was a man who was to shape the cultural, | 0:00:43 | 0:00:45 | |
commercial and political life of Belfast. | 0:00:45 | 0:00:48 | |
You know, this is a man whose position in society | 0:00:50 | 0:00:53 | |
didn't happen by chance. | 0:00:53 | 0:00:54 | |
He was kind of a calculating individual, I think. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:57 | |
And very, very shrewd. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:00 | |
And he was the central figure among Belfast's radical reforming elite. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:07 | |
A man of business who not only made money, | 0:01:07 | 0:01:10 | |
but he wanted to transform the face of the town in which he lived. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:13 | |
The late 18th and early 19th century was a defining period | 0:01:15 | 0:01:19 | |
in the history of Belfast. | 0:01:19 | 0:01:20 | |
It was a place of change, | 0:01:21 | 0:01:23 | |
where the population was doubling every decade. | 0:01:23 | 0:01:26 | |
Not only a developing centre of commerce and industry, | 0:01:27 | 0:01:30 | |
but a place of ideas and debate. | 0:01:30 | 0:01:33 | |
A town that defined the extraordinary life of William Tennent. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:37 | |
DOOR SQUEAKS | 0:01:53 | 0:01:55 | |
FLOORBOARDS CREAK | 0:01:55 | 0:01:56 | |
This striking and elaborate memorial in First Presbyterian Church | 0:02:02 | 0:02:06 | |
in Belfast's Rosemary Street was placed here in the 1850s. | 0:02:06 | 0:02:11 | |
It depicts one of the leading citizens of this town | 0:02:11 | 0:02:14 | |
and for many years its wealthiest. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:17 | |
This is William Tennent. | 0:02:17 | 0:02:19 | |
Now, this is the first time I've ever seen this memorial | 0:02:23 | 0:02:26 | |
and yet it provides a window into a very different Belfast | 0:02:26 | 0:02:30 | |
to the one we think we know today. | 0:02:30 | 0:02:32 | |
The memorial gives us some clues | 0:02:35 | 0:02:37 | |
to William Tennent's many achievements. | 0:02:37 | 0:02:40 | |
He is shown in a classical pose, reading a book, | 0:02:40 | 0:02:43 | |
a work of literature or maybe a company ledger. | 0:02:43 | 0:02:47 | |
For when you look at the inscription underneath, it says | 0:02:49 | 0:02:52 | |
his intellectual pursuits were funded by | 0:02:52 | 0:02:54 | |
"an arduous mercantile career". | 0:02:54 | 0:02:56 | |
At first glance, this seems a tribute to an educated | 0:02:59 | 0:03:02 | |
and respectable businessman. | 0:03:02 | 0:03:04 | |
Now, this inscription begins to tell us a little bit of his story. | 0:03:06 | 0:03:09 | |
It says that Tennent was a consistent advocate of free enquiry, | 0:03:10 | 0:03:14 | |
that he believed in principles of liberty | 0:03:14 | 0:03:17 | |
and that he was moderate in times of popular excitement. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:20 | |
So, we're beginning to get a little bit of a clue | 0:03:20 | 0:03:23 | |
about the extraordinary life and times of William Tennent. | 0:03:23 | 0:03:26 | |
This is pew number 65, where William Tennent once sat. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:36 | |
And from here, we can revisit his life. | 0:03:36 | 0:03:39 | |
Out into the heart of Belfast. | 0:03:46 | 0:03:49 | |
A town whose streets in the late 1700s and early 1800s | 0:03:49 | 0:03:53 | |
were alive with liberal, rebellious and charitable citizens. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:58 | |
It was a vibrant world of change and possibility. | 0:03:58 | 0:04:02 | |
As an adult, William Tennent may have lived and worked | 0:04:07 | 0:04:11 | |
amidst the noise and tumult of Georgian Belfast, | 0:04:11 | 0:04:14 | |
where his private life, where his scandal | 0:04:14 | 0:04:17 | |
and his political views put his life in danger. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:19 | |
But he spent his early years in a very different environment. | 0:04:20 | 0:04:23 | |
He was born near Ballymoney in County Antrim in 1759, | 0:04:25 | 0:04:29 | |
the eldest son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister | 0:04:29 | 0:04:32 | |
and his wife Anne, who had settled in Ireland eight years earlier. | 0:04:32 | 0:04:36 | |
Together they raised a large family of five boys and three girls. | 0:04:36 | 0:04:41 | |
As well as bringing their children up in the Presbyterian faith, | 0:04:51 | 0:04:55 | |
both parents were vocal | 0:04:55 | 0:04:56 | |
about challenging those in power when necessary. | 0:04:56 | 0:04:59 | |
William's mother, Anne, was said to be possessed of a singular | 0:05:03 | 0:05:07 | |
aversion to any of her family being slaves to landlords, | 0:05:07 | 0:05:11 | |
while the Reverend John supported Catholic emancipation | 0:05:11 | 0:05:14 | |
and parliamentary reform. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:17 | |
These are the values William Tennent absorbed as a boy | 0:05:19 | 0:05:23 | |
here at the family homestead. | 0:05:23 | 0:05:25 | |
He would live by them until the end of his life. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:28 | |
So, I'm in the townland now of Ballyrobin, you can see here. | 0:05:33 | 0:05:37 | |
I've just been down at the Bush River | 0:05:37 | 0:05:39 | |
and walked up a path along here | 0:05:39 | 0:05:41 | |
and here we are, round about here, at this moment in time. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:44 | |
This is a map from 1805 and this was formerly Tennent family land. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:48 | |
You can see that from a ledger | 0:05:48 | 0:05:51 | |
from the period in which plot number three, which we've just been on, | 0:05:51 | 0:05:55 | |
the Reverend John Tennent, which is William Tennent's father, | 0:05:55 | 0:05:58 | |
in this area at this time. | 0:05:58 | 0:05:59 | |
William's father, Reverend John Tennent, died in 1808. | 0:06:04 | 0:06:09 | |
But more than 200 years later, | 0:06:09 | 0:06:11 | |
the church that he established at Roseyards | 0:06:11 | 0:06:13 | |
is still flourishing today. | 0:06:13 | 0:06:15 | |
So, Mark, what can you tell me about the Reverend John Tennent? | 0:06:24 | 0:06:28 | |
John Tennent was the first minister here at the Roseyards. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:33 | |
I am the tenth. | 0:06:33 | 0:06:35 | |
He began here in the year 1751. | 0:06:35 | 0:06:40 | |
He would go on to be the minister here for 57 years | 0:06:40 | 0:06:44 | |
until his death in 1808. | 0:06:44 | 0:06:46 | |
Later generations would say that he preached here every single | 0:06:48 | 0:06:50 | |
Sabbath, every Sunday, throughout that whole time. | 0:06:50 | 0:06:54 | |
So what was life like back here in the middle of the 18th century | 0:06:54 | 0:06:58 | |
for the Tennent family? | 0:06:58 | 0:07:00 | |
It would have been a fairly simple, rural lifestyle. | 0:07:00 | 0:07:05 | |
They wouldn't have been all that well off, financially, | 0:07:05 | 0:07:09 | |
because the congregation would have been made up mostly | 0:07:09 | 0:07:12 | |
of tenant farmers, maybe a few tradesmen, craftsmen, | 0:07:12 | 0:07:16 | |
but none of the landed gentry, few, if any, wealthy professionals, and | 0:07:16 | 0:07:22 | |
his salary would have come out of the offerings given by this church. | 0:07:22 | 0:07:26 | |
So, William Tennent left this area. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:28 | |
What ideas and what notions would we have taken from his father | 0:07:28 | 0:07:32 | |
and from the congregation? | 0:07:32 | 0:07:33 | |
Loving God with all his heart, | 0:07:33 | 0:07:36 | |
the importance of education would have been there too, | 0:07:36 | 0:07:38 | |
because everybody ought to be able to read the Bible for themselves. | 0:07:38 | 0:07:43 | |
Also, to show respect for civil government | 0:07:43 | 0:07:49 | |
and yet at the same time, not to give it your absolute | 0:07:49 | 0:07:52 | |
allegiance, because such allegiance should be given to God alone. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:55 | |
Tennent never forgot the values that he had been taught | 0:07:58 | 0:08:01 | |
during his Presbyterian upbringing. | 0:08:01 | 0:08:04 | |
But his ambition and lust for adventure | 0:08:04 | 0:08:07 | |
took him away from Roseyards. | 0:08:07 | 0:08:09 | |
He went first to Glasgow, where he served as an apprentice merchant. | 0:08:12 | 0:08:17 | |
Then in 1781, he settled in Belfast, | 0:08:17 | 0:08:21 | |
a town that was alive with trade and commerce, | 0:08:21 | 0:08:25 | |
a town with opportunities for a young man like William Tennent. | 0:08:25 | 0:08:29 | |
At the time, Belfast consisted of not much more than | 0:08:33 | 0:08:36 | |
a handful of streets, built around the mouth of the lough. | 0:08:36 | 0:08:40 | |
It was owned by just one | 0:08:40 | 0:08:43 | |
aristocratic and Anglican family, the Chichesters. | 0:08:43 | 0:08:46 | |
For his services to the Crown, | 0:08:48 | 0:08:49 | |
Sir Arthur Chichester had been granted 250,000 acres | 0:08:49 | 0:08:52 | |
in the early 1600s by King James I. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:56 | |
This included Belfast and the surrounding land. | 0:08:56 | 0:09:00 | |
From this vantage point at the top of the Belfast Hills, | 0:09:00 | 0:09:03 | |
you can really get a sense of the vastness of the Chichester estate, | 0:09:03 | 0:09:07 | |
which stretched as far as the eye can see. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:09 | |
The Chichesters built an impressive castle on a high street, | 0:09:13 | 0:09:17 | |
said to be the glory and beauty of the town. | 0:09:17 | 0:09:20 | |
They effectively ruled Belfast until 1708, | 0:09:20 | 0:09:24 | |
when a fire swept through the castle and burned it to the ground. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:29 | |
Afterwards, the Chichesters left for England | 0:09:32 | 0:09:35 | |
and for the next 100 years, they were to be absentee landlords. | 0:09:35 | 0:09:39 | |
This was the Belfast that William Tennent arrived in. | 0:09:43 | 0:09:46 | |
It was a town on the brink of great change, | 0:09:46 | 0:09:49 | |
a change in which Tennent was to play a leading role. | 0:09:49 | 0:09:52 | |
In 1781, it would have taken William Tennent almost a day | 0:09:58 | 0:10:03 | |
to ride from the family home in Antrim to Belfast, | 0:10:03 | 0:10:06 | |
where he had established himself in business. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:09 | |
So Reverend John Tennent kept in touch with William by letter. | 0:10:10 | 0:10:14 | |
This correspondence was the start of an extraordinary family | 0:10:17 | 0:10:21 | |
archive that is preserved here at the Public Record Office in Belfast. | 0:10:21 | 0:10:25 | |
All of William Tennent's life, both professional and personal, | 0:10:28 | 0:10:31 | |
is laid out here in these boxes in meticulous detail. | 0:10:31 | 0:10:35 | |
The first thing that really jumps out of these letters | 0:10:47 | 0:10:49 | |
is that Tennent's influence stretches far and wide | 0:10:49 | 0:10:53 | |
and most of that comes through industry and commerce and trade. | 0:10:53 | 0:10:57 | |
These documents provide not only an insight into Tennent | 0:11:01 | 0:11:04 | |
and of course the Tennent family, but into Belfast itself. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:08 | |
And at the time, it was a town full of money and excitement. | 0:11:08 | 0:11:12 | |
Something that was of great concern | 0:11:12 | 0:11:15 | |
to the Reverend John Tennent back in Antrim. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:18 | |
"Oh, William, William, dear William, | 0:11:22 | 0:11:25 | |
"I fear you're now in a most dangerous situation | 0:11:25 | 0:11:28 | |
"if you be not changed from what you was when I saw you last. | 0:11:28 | 0:11:32 | |
"Did you ever consider the difference | 0:11:32 | 0:11:34 | |
"between the gracious favour of Almighty God | 0:11:34 | 0:11:37 | |
"and his awful and just frown?" | 0:11:37 | 0:11:40 | |
From the mid-1600s, A steady stream of Scottish Presbyterian merchants | 0:11:55 | 0:11:59 | |
had sailed up this lough and settled here in Belfast. | 0:11:59 | 0:12:04 | |
They leased plots of land from the Chichesters | 0:12:04 | 0:12:06 | |
and began trading out of the port. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:08 | |
The merchants exported linen and agricultural goods | 0:12:17 | 0:12:20 | |
across the Atlantic to North America and the West Indies. | 0:12:20 | 0:12:24 | |
The returning ships brought back cargoes of tobacco and sugar. | 0:12:24 | 0:12:29 | |
At the dawn of the 1760s, a traveller came to Belfast | 0:12:32 | 0:12:36 | |
and he observed the hive of local activity. | 0:12:36 | 0:12:39 | |
And he wrote, | 0:12:39 | 0:12:41 | |
"There are many traders and merchants of substance here. | 0:12:41 | 0:12:44 | |
"It seems to me to be the London of the North of Ireland." | 0:12:44 | 0:12:47 | |
The town, however, was in dire need of improvement. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:57 | |
In the 1760s, it was still contained within earthen defensive walls. | 0:12:57 | 0:13:02 | |
It lacked public meeting places and broad, well laid out streets. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:07 | |
The current Chichester, | 0:13:07 | 0:13:09 | |
who had recently acquired the grand title of the Earl of Donegall, | 0:13:09 | 0:13:13 | |
was keen to make Belfast a shining example of a Georgian town. | 0:13:13 | 0:13:17 | |
But in order to achieve this, he needed the help of the wealthiest | 0:13:19 | 0:13:23 | |
group of people in Belfast, the Presbyterian merchant class. | 0:13:23 | 0:13:27 | |
This is a map of Belfast from 1791. | 0:13:28 | 0:13:32 | |
Now, that's significant, | 0:13:32 | 0:13:33 | |
because Tennent would have been in Belfast for ten years by that | 0:13:33 | 0:13:37 | |
stage, and actually, what's striking about it is just how small | 0:13:37 | 0:13:41 | |
the built-up area of the town is. | 0:13:41 | 0:13:43 | |
Most of the names are actually very recognisable. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:52 | |
So, you have the Newtownards Road going out to the east. | 0:13:52 | 0:13:56 | |
You have the Lisburn Road, the Falls Road, the Antrim Road. | 0:13:56 | 0:14:00 | |
The Shankill up here. | 0:14:00 | 0:14:02 | |
But actually, these are just fields, | 0:14:02 | 0:14:05 | |
tree-lined avenues with a few gentlemen's homes and a few farms. | 0:14:05 | 0:14:09 | |
The key thing, really, is that all those roads are pointing | 0:14:09 | 0:14:12 | |
right into the centre, right into the commercial hub of the town. | 0:14:12 | 0:14:16 | |
And it's in this tighter knit series of streets and alleyways | 0:14:23 | 0:14:27 | |
that one really gets a sense of the world of William Tennent. | 0:14:27 | 0:14:31 | |
So there's Waring Street, | 0:14:31 | 0:14:32 | |
which was the main commercial hub coming in from the docks. | 0:14:32 | 0:14:36 | |
High Street, where the main shops would have been. | 0:14:36 | 0:14:39 | |
Rosemary Street - First Presbyterian Church, where he worshipped. | 0:14:39 | 0:14:43 | |
And just round the corner, Hercules Lane, where he lived. | 0:14:43 | 0:14:46 | |
The merchants of Belfast also leased land along the lough shore | 0:14:48 | 0:14:52 | |
and built new quays to accommodate larger ships. | 0:14:52 | 0:14:55 | |
And there was one addition in particular, | 0:14:55 | 0:14:58 | |
a new building that was to become the lifeblood of Belfast. | 0:14:58 | 0:15:02 | |
This building lay at the heart of the new, fashionable town. | 0:15:09 | 0:15:12 | |
It was a building that William Tennent knew well. | 0:15:12 | 0:15:16 | |
It stands at the junction known in the late 1700s | 0:15:16 | 0:15:19 | |
as the Four Corners - | 0:15:19 | 0:15:21 | |
Rosemary Street, North Street, Donegall Street and Waring Street. | 0:15:21 | 0:15:26 | |
It was initially built as a market house by the Donegall family. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:33 | |
Then, an extra storey was added and it gained its present name, | 0:15:33 | 0:15:36 | |
the Assembly Rooms. | 0:15:36 | 0:15:38 | |
Today, the upper floor is missing, | 0:15:38 | 0:15:40 | |
but you still get an impression of the sheer grandeur of the building. | 0:15:40 | 0:15:45 | |
This is where the young men of Belfast, merchants and preachers | 0:15:45 | 0:15:49 | |
and teachers and doctors and lawyers, | 0:15:49 | 0:15:51 | |
all met together to do business | 0:15:51 | 0:15:53 | |
and exchange goods and services, but they also exchanged ideas. | 0:15:53 | 0:15:58 | |
Radical ideas, ideas from the Scottish Enlightenment | 0:15:58 | 0:16:01 | |
and thinkers such as Francis Hutchinson and Adam Smith. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:05 | |
These philosophers and economists began to challenge | 0:16:10 | 0:16:13 | |
the foundations of the political order. | 0:16:13 | 0:16:16 | |
Young men like William Tennent followed suit and started | 0:16:17 | 0:16:22 | |
to question what was unreasonable in their own town and country. | 0:16:22 | 0:16:26 | |
At the top of their list was the way Belfast chose | 0:16:29 | 0:16:31 | |
its representative in the Irish Parliament. | 0:16:31 | 0:16:35 | |
The local MP was nominated by a 13 man corporation, | 0:16:35 | 0:16:40 | |
that was essentially hand-picked by the Earl of Donegall. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:44 | |
So it was Donegall's friends | 0:16:44 | 0:16:46 | |
and family who kept a vice-like grip on the town. | 0:16:46 | 0:16:49 | |
For all their money, | 0:16:49 | 0:16:51 | |
merchants like Tennent had no say over who represented them. | 0:16:51 | 0:16:55 | |
A new buzzword began to circulate - reform. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:04 | |
And discussion about how to bring it about | 0:17:04 | 0:17:06 | |
fuelled the intellectual life of the town. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:09 | |
It's easy to understand why the Belfast of the late 1700s | 0:17:20 | 0:17:24 | |
was so alluring for a young man of William Tennent's background. | 0:17:24 | 0:17:29 | |
Not only was it a hotbed of radical ideas | 0:17:29 | 0:17:32 | |
and a place with a vibrant social and cultural life, it was | 0:17:32 | 0:17:36 | |
also a place where with hard work came the promise of untold riches. | 0:17:36 | 0:17:42 | |
William began his career as a merchant in this street in 1781, | 0:17:45 | 0:17:49 | |
and the clue to his choice of trade lies in the name of this | 0:17:49 | 0:17:52 | |
passageway, Sugarhouse Entry, | 0:17:52 | 0:17:55 | |
named after the large sugar warehouse that once stood here. | 0:17:55 | 0:17:58 | |
Having come from the Caribbean plantations as raw cane, | 0:18:05 | 0:18:09 | |
the sugar was refined and sold on as a luxury good. | 0:18:09 | 0:18:13 | |
It was a lucrative business, and within a couple of years, | 0:18:17 | 0:18:21 | |
the Reverend John Tennent commented wryly that his son, William, | 0:18:21 | 0:18:26 | |
was rolling in money. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:29 | |
However, William's new trade was already embroiled in a wider | 0:18:29 | 0:18:33 | |
debate taking place in Belfast. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:36 | |
A debate on the morality of slavery. | 0:18:36 | 0:18:39 | |
Nini, could you tell us about | 0:18:46 | 0:18:47 | |
the growing popularity of sugar in the 18th century? | 0:18:47 | 0:18:50 | |
Well, in the 18th century, sugar was a really, really important | 0:18:50 | 0:18:56 | |
and popular crop. | 0:18:56 | 0:18:57 | |
It was new, and from the point of view of making money out of it, | 0:18:57 | 0:19:01 | |
it was really like owning an oil well. | 0:19:01 | 0:19:04 | |
All over Ireland, for example, every port in Ireland, | 0:19:04 | 0:19:07 | |
by the 18th century, would have a sugar house. | 0:19:07 | 0:19:11 | |
Sugar can be seen, of course, as a luxury item at this stage, | 0:19:11 | 0:19:15 | |
and of course it goes into things like... | 0:19:15 | 0:19:19 | |
sweetening alcohol, | 0:19:19 | 0:19:22 | |
and then at the time that you get sugar coming in, you also get - | 0:19:22 | 0:19:25 | |
the sugar coming in from the West - | 0:19:25 | 0:19:27 | |
at the same time, you're getting tea coming in from the East. | 0:19:27 | 0:19:31 | |
And when this arrived, the tea and the sugar, | 0:19:31 | 0:19:34 | |
which were both fashionable and new crops in the 18th century, | 0:19:34 | 0:19:39 | |
when this arrived, everybody sugared their tea. | 0:19:39 | 0:19:41 | |
It was a great thing if you were well-established | 0:19:41 | 0:19:45 | |
and thought of in a place like Belfast, to have money. | 0:19:45 | 0:19:48 | |
You would have a beautiful tea table | 0:19:48 | 0:19:50 | |
and you would have sugar on the tea table. | 0:19:50 | 0:19:54 | |
On the table you could have sugar tongs, | 0:19:54 | 0:19:58 | |
and then you would drop the sugar into your tea. | 0:19:58 | 0:20:01 | |
Then you'd have a sugar bowl and you'd have a silver jug as well. | 0:20:01 | 0:20:07 | |
So all these things were a sign that you had arrived, | 0:20:07 | 0:20:12 | |
that you were a wealthy merchant in Belfast. | 0:20:12 | 0:20:15 | |
So we have sugar, which is a real luxury good in this era, | 0:20:17 | 0:20:20 | |
people are using it for their tea parties and also | 0:20:20 | 0:20:23 | |
in the creation of alcohol, but there's a contradiction here, | 0:20:23 | 0:20:26 | |
isn't there? Because on the other end of the spectrum, | 0:20:26 | 0:20:28 | |
those involved in the produce and the making of sugar are actually | 0:20:28 | 0:20:31 | |
slaves living in very difficult conditions. | 0:20:31 | 0:20:34 | |
People in Belfast who read the newspapers are well aware | 0:20:34 | 0:20:37 | |
that a lot of people are saying that sugar depends on slavery, | 0:20:37 | 0:20:41 | |
slavery depends on the slave trade, | 0:20:41 | 0:20:43 | |
the slave trade is cruel and vicious. | 0:20:43 | 0:20:46 | |
In Ireland, William Tennent believed in Catholic emancipation, | 0:20:46 | 0:20:51 | |
he believed in parliamentary reform, | 0:20:51 | 0:20:53 | |
but he was not interested or excited by the fate of the slaves. | 0:20:53 | 0:20:59 | |
If you were a radical in Belfast at this time, | 0:20:59 | 0:21:03 | |
you might be excited by this new anti-slavery | 0:21:03 | 0:21:07 | |
and your conscience might be pricked, or you might not. | 0:21:07 | 0:21:10 | |
But what you would be aware of is that anti-slavery was | 0:21:10 | 0:21:16 | |
a growing movement at this time. | 0:21:16 | 0:21:19 | |
William Tennent was rising up the social ladder, | 0:21:25 | 0:21:28 | |
and before long, he was one of Belfast's richest men, | 0:21:28 | 0:21:32 | |
thanks to his aptitude for trading goods | 0:21:32 | 0:21:35 | |
back and forth across the Atlantic. | 0:21:35 | 0:21:37 | |
He was also becoming one of the town's most well-known | 0:21:37 | 0:21:41 | |
and influential citizens. | 0:21:41 | 0:21:43 | |
He had joined the board of the newly formed Chamber of Commerce | 0:21:43 | 0:21:46 | |
and was a keen supporter of the Society for Promoting Knowledge, | 0:21:46 | 0:21:51 | |
which would later become Belfast Linen Hall Library. | 0:21:51 | 0:21:55 | |
However, he was about to jeopardise both his wealth | 0:21:55 | 0:21:58 | |
and his meteoric rise to the top of Belfast's society by becoming | 0:21:58 | 0:22:02 | |
involved in a movement that was gathering momentum in Ireland. | 0:22:02 | 0:22:06 | |
GAVEL BANGS ON DESK | 0:22:07 | 0:22:09 | |
Today, 60 local councillors meet in this chamber | 0:22:17 | 0:22:20 | |
in Belfast City Hall to debate the city's most pressing issues. | 0:22:20 | 0:22:25 | |
And in doing so, each and every one of them | 0:22:25 | 0:22:28 | |
represents the interests of the citizens who elected them. | 0:22:28 | 0:22:32 | |
Local politics was very different in Tennent's time, however. | 0:22:36 | 0:22:40 | |
For all the money and for all the wealth that he and his friends | 0:22:40 | 0:22:43 | |
brought to the town, they had very little political influence. | 0:22:43 | 0:22:47 | |
In fact, they didn't even have a vote. | 0:22:47 | 0:22:49 | |
That right was still monopolised by a Belfast landlord, | 0:22:53 | 0:22:56 | |
the Earl of Donegall. | 0:22:56 | 0:22:58 | |
Much to the frustration of men like William Tennent. | 0:22:58 | 0:23:02 | |
And that frustration was stoked by events taking place far | 0:23:02 | 0:23:06 | |
from Belfast and driven by the twin ideals of liberty and democracy - | 0:23:06 | 0:23:12 | |
the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:17 | |
GUNFIRE | 0:23:17 | 0:23:18 | |
Belfast was considered to be the most radical town | 0:23:20 | 0:23:22 | |
in Ireland, perhaps the whole of the British Isles. | 0:23:22 | 0:23:26 | |
And its political activists sought to make connections with those | 0:23:26 | 0:23:30 | |
who shared their views. | 0:23:30 | 0:23:33 | |
And so, in the autumn of 1791, | 0:23:33 | 0:23:36 | |
they joined forces with the Dublin solicitor Wolfe Tone and founded | 0:23:36 | 0:23:41 | |
a new society that was to change the history of Ireland forever. | 0:23:41 | 0:23:45 | |
Its objectives included equal rights for citizens of all faiths | 0:23:48 | 0:23:52 | |
and the reform of Ireland's unrepresented parliamentary system. | 0:23:52 | 0:23:57 | |
It was called the Society of the United Irishmen. | 0:23:57 | 0:24:02 | |
William Tennent publicly demonstrated his support | 0:24:06 | 0:24:09 | |
for the United Irishmen by providing financial | 0:24:09 | 0:24:12 | |
backing for their newspaper, the Northern Star, | 0:24:12 | 0:24:15 | |
which was first published in 1792. | 0:24:15 | 0:24:18 | |
The paper's masthead proclaimed, "The public will our guide, | 0:24:21 | 0:24:25 | |
"the public good our end." | 0:24:25 | 0:24:27 | |
And for the next five years, | 0:24:27 | 0:24:29 | |
it was to be a constant thorn in the side of the Government. | 0:24:29 | 0:24:33 | |
And its popularity can be measured by the fact that | 0:24:34 | 0:24:37 | |
at its peak, it had a circulation of 4,000 copies. | 0:24:37 | 0:24:41 | |
Larger than any other contemporary newspaper. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:45 | |
There were reports from London, where the slave trade was being | 0:24:45 | 0:24:49 | |
debated in the British Parliament. But here in 1797, | 0:24:49 | 0:24:53 | |
you really have the pinnacle of Ulster radicalism. | 0:24:53 | 0:24:56 | |
A letter in the Northern Star, from the United Irishmen, which is | 0:24:56 | 0:25:00 | |
essentially a call to arms, Ireland should be free, urging them | 0:25:00 | 0:25:05 | |
to cast off the yoke of England. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:08 | |
And here, in the midst of all this excitement and news from France | 0:25:08 | 0:25:12 | |
and the revolution there, William Tennent is doing business. | 0:25:12 | 0:25:15 | |
It says here that William Tennent has for sale barrels of raisins | 0:25:15 | 0:25:19 | |
and figs, and he is also well supplied with old port wine, | 0:25:19 | 0:25:24 | |
sherry and Jamaica rum. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:26 | |
A year after the launch of the Northern Star, | 0:25:29 | 0:25:31 | |
the French Revolutionaries beheaded their monarch, Louis XVI. | 0:25:31 | 0:25:36 | |
Alarmed by this, | 0:25:36 | 0:25:37 | |
the British Government took a hard line with potential | 0:25:37 | 0:25:40 | |
revolutionaries in Ireland, and in Dublin ruthlessly suppressed | 0:25:40 | 0:25:45 | |
the Society of United Irishmen. | 0:25:45 | 0:25:47 | |
The only remaining solution for the members left in Belfast was | 0:25:50 | 0:25:53 | |
to go underground, and they began planning an uprising in earnest. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:58 | |
The Irish House of Lords now viewed Belfast as a disloyal town, | 0:26:00 | 0:26:06 | |
condemning it as the rankest citadel of treason in the kingdom. | 0:26:06 | 0:26:10 | |
In this climate of intrigue and rising tension, | 0:26:13 | 0:26:16 | |
the Reverend John Tennent heard a rumour that William had become | 0:26:16 | 0:26:20 | |
involved in the revolutionary politics spreading across Ireland. | 0:26:20 | 0:26:25 | |
Perturbed by this news, he wrote an anguished letter to William. | 0:26:26 | 0:26:31 | |
'When I mentioned it to your mother, she could not rest till | 0:26:31 | 0:26:34 | |
'I wrote you to keep far distant from such dangerous combinations.' | 0:26:34 | 0:26:39 | |
His father's worst fears were realised, because on 6th June 1798, | 0:26:39 | 0:26:45 | |
as rebellion raged across the country, | 0:26:45 | 0:26:47 | |
Belfast was flooded with the military | 0:26:47 | 0:26:50 | |
and William Tennent was arrested and imprisoned. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:53 | |
So, 6th June 1798, can you give us | 0:27:00 | 0:27:02 | |
a sense of the scene of Belfast at that moment in time? | 0:27:02 | 0:27:06 | |
I would imagine it would be pretty chaotic. | 0:27:06 | 0:27:08 | |
The Army had been active in Belfast before that, there had been | 0:27:08 | 0:27:12 | |
a riot where they closed the offices of the Northern Star. | 0:27:12 | 0:27:16 | |
The Northern Star was the mouthpiece of the United Irish | 0:27:16 | 0:27:19 | |
organisation, that had been shut down in 1797, but the atmosphere | 0:27:19 | 0:27:23 | |
would have been absolutely chaotic in Belfast on 6th June 1788, and | 0:27:23 | 0:27:28 | |
before that as well, because news of the outbreak of the rebellion down | 0:27:28 | 0:27:34 | |
south in Wicklow and Wexford would have reached Belfast by that time. | 0:27:34 | 0:27:39 | |
So William Tennent was a very wealthy man with a lot to lose. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
What was the nature of his involvement with the United Irishmen? | 0:27:42 | 0:27:45 | |
Tennent had been involved in the United Irishmen right from the very beginning. | 0:27:45 | 0:27:50 | |
He was a member of what was called the "secret committee" of the volunteers, | 0:27:50 | 0:27:53 | |
some of the volunteers in the 1780s were not satisfied with what | 0:27:53 | 0:27:58 | |
they achieved, the legislative independence of the | 0:27:58 | 0:28:01 | |
Irish Parliament, and they wanted to press on for more radical reform. | 0:28:01 | 0:28:05 | |
And they would have met Wolfe Tone, | 0:28:05 | 0:28:07 | |
when Wolfe Tone came to Belfast in 1791, | 0:28:07 | 0:28:09 | |
so he was a United Irishmen right the whole way through. | 0:28:09 | 0:28:13 | |
And his involvement in 1797, 1798. | 0:28:13 | 0:28:18 | |
First of all, he was a wealthy man, | 0:28:18 | 0:28:20 | |
so he was probably giving money for arms purchases. | 0:28:20 | 0:28:24 | |
He was certainly, because of the status in Belfast, | 0:28:24 | 0:28:28 | |
he would have been in the upper ranks of the movement, | 0:28:28 | 0:28:31 | |
and he would have come to the Government's attention through that. | 0:28:31 | 0:28:34 | |
So these are very dramatic scenes, the military swoops in on Tennent. | 0:28:34 | 0:28:38 | |
-What happens to him after he's arrested? -Tennent's name crops up in the Black Book of the Rebellion, | 0:28:38 | 0:28:43 | |
which shows how serious the Government took his United Irish activities. | 0:28:43 | 0:28:48 | |
He's sent on board the Postlethwaite, which was a prison ship moored in Belfast Lough, | 0:28:48 | 0:28:53 | |
where suspects like William Tennent would have been placed | 0:28:53 | 0:28:57 | |
until the Government knew what to do with them. | 0:28:57 | 0:29:00 | |
Tennent, as I said, was a wealthy Belfast businessman | 0:29:00 | 0:29:03 | |
and it would have been a tremendous shock to the system | 0:29:03 | 0:29:06 | |
to being placed on board a prison tender, like a common criminal. | 0:29:06 | 0:29:10 | |
But it probably saved his life, because undoubtedly, Tennent, | 0:29:10 | 0:29:13 | |
as a young man, would have been involved in the 1798 Rebellion. | 0:29:13 | 0:29:18 | |
He would either have been killed in battle or arrested | 0:29:18 | 0:29:21 | |
and subsequently hung. | 0:29:21 | 0:29:23 | |
The authorities considered Tennent a dangerous figure, | 0:29:26 | 0:29:31 | |
not merely the financial backer of the Northern Star newspaper. | 0:29:31 | 0:29:35 | |
He was accused of trying to enlist men in the rebellion | 0:29:35 | 0:29:39 | |
against King and constitution, | 0:29:39 | 0:29:42 | |
and was to stand trial on a charge of high treason. | 0:29:42 | 0:29:46 | |
If found guilty, | 0:29:46 | 0:29:48 | |
he risked meeting the same fate as Henry Joy McCracken, | 0:29:48 | 0:29:52 | |
the leader of Belfast's United Irishmen, | 0:29:52 | 0:29:55 | |
who was hanged in Corn Market in 1798. | 0:29:55 | 0:29:57 | |
On board the Postlethwaite, the prison ship | 0:30:04 | 0:30:07 | |
moored in Belfast Lough, Tennent endured miserable conditions. | 0:30:07 | 0:30:12 | |
Below deck, portals remained open | 0:30:13 | 0:30:16 | |
and the prisoners were buffeted by the wind and drenched in seawater. | 0:30:16 | 0:30:21 | |
On deck, conditions were even more treacherous, | 0:30:22 | 0:30:25 | |
as William Tennent discovered when he slipped and fractured his leg. | 0:30:25 | 0:30:29 | |
As a result of his injury, he was brought back to shore | 0:30:29 | 0:30:33 | |
and placed under house arrest. | 0:30:33 | 0:30:35 | |
Then, in the winter of 1799, the Government decided that Tennent | 0:30:40 | 0:30:45 | |
and 19 other United Irishmen were still so great a threat that they | 0:30:45 | 0:30:50 | |
should be transported to a fortress in a remote corner of Scotland. | 0:30:50 | 0:30:55 | |
As William Tennent set sail under armed guard, | 0:30:57 | 0:31:00 | |
he was unsure whether he would see his family or Belfast ever again. | 0:31:00 | 0:31:05 | |
After a gruelling two-week journey, on 9th April, 1799, | 0:31:13 | 0:31:18 | |
Tennent and his fellow prisoners finally arrived in this forbidding | 0:31:18 | 0:31:22 | |
place, Fort George, just outside Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. | 0:31:22 | 0:31:27 | |
Tennent had become accustomed to all the luxuries that money could buy. | 0:31:34 | 0:31:38 | |
He'd been free to travel wherever he wanted and he'd also dined | 0:31:38 | 0:31:42 | |
at the lavish tables of the cream of Belfast society. | 0:31:42 | 0:31:46 | |
Now, as he entered the cell that was waiting for him, | 0:31:54 | 0:31:56 | |
he left all those trappings behind. | 0:31:56 | 0:32:00 | |
William Tennent was incarcerated here for three years. | 0:32:05 | 0:32:10 | |
In a diary entry, one of his fellow prisoners at Fort George | 0:32:10 | 0:32:14 | |
captured just how desperate and grim their situation was. | 0:32:14 | 0:32:19 | |
He wrote... | 0:32:19 | 0:32:22 | |
'We were captives in a foreign land. | 0:32:22 | 0:32:25 | |
'Under the control of military strangers. | 0:32:25 | 0:32:28 | |
'Far removed from friend or acquaintance | 0:32:29 | 0:32:32 | |
'and the consoling endearments of parents, brother, wife or children.' | 0:32:32 | 0:32:37 | |
Tennent also kept his own diary, and it offers brief glimpses | 0:32:44 | 0:32:48 | |
into the physical toll that the long hours of confinement took upon him. | 0:32:48 | 0:32:52 | |
He was often in poor health. | 0:32:56 | 0:32:58 | |
He writes that he took a mixture of salts, | 0:32:58 | 0:33:01 | |
vinegar and water to soothe severe stomach pains. | 0:33:01 | 0:33:05 | |
He also writes that he suffered with inflammation of the eyes | 0:33:05 | 0:33:09 | |
and underwent some rough surgery for swollen tonsils. | 0:33:09 | 0:33:13 | |
There were, however, some consolations. | 0:33:15 | 0:33:19 | |
The prisoners were allowed books, | 0:33:19 | 0:33:21 | |
and in these Tennent took great comfort. | 0:33:21 | 0:33:23 | |
In fact, he built up quite a substantial library | 0:33:23 | 0:33:26 | |
with texts on a range of subjects from medicine to ancient Greece | 0:33:26 | 0:33:31 | |
and Rome, history, philosophy and, of course, politics. | 0:33:31 | 0:33:36 | |
Still the time dragged for Tennent. | 0:33:40 | 0:33:43 | |
He struggled to endure the grinding monotony of prison life. | 0:33:43 | 0:33:47 | |
But finally, in November 1801, after three long years, | 0:33:51 | 0:33:56 | |
he received the news that he had hoped for. | 0:33:56 | 0:33:59 | |
He was to be released. | 0:33:59 | 0:34:01 | |
Along with four other prisoners, also suspected United Irishmen, | 0:34:07 | 0:34:11 | |
he was a free man and he set sail for Ireland. | 0:34:11 | 0:34:15 | |
After a pleasant crossing, | 0:34:18 | 0:34:20 | |
carriages were waiting at Holywood to take them to Belfast, | 0:34:20 | 0:34:24 | |
where their friends and family were ready to welcome them home. | 0:34:24 | 0:34:27 | |
While Tennent was imprisoned in Fort George, | 0:34:35 | 0:34:38 | |
Belfast had undergone its own transformation. | 0:34:38 | 0:34:42 | |
Enthusiasm for revolutionary politics had been dampened, | 0:34:42 | 0:34:45 | |
to say the least, by the public execution of the United Irishmen. | 0:34:45 | 0:34:49 | |
The political landscape had also changed. | 0:34:51 | 0:34:55 | |
The rising had convinced the British Government to exert greater | 0:34:55 | 0:34:58 | |
control over Ireland, and to dissolve the Irish Parliament. | 0:34:58 | 0:35:02 | |
Irish peers and MPs now sat in Westminster. | 0:35:02 | 0:35:08 | |
And so it was that the United Kingdom of Great Britain | 0:35:08 | 0:35:11 | |
and Ireland came into effect in January 1801. | 0:35:11 | 0:35:15 | |
So, Belfast in 1798 is really, arguably, the most radical town, | 0:35:22 | 0:35:27 | |
not only in Ireland but the whole of the British Isles. | 0:35:27 | 0:35:29 | |
Where does the radical energy it used to have go? | 0:35:29 | 0:35:33 | |
It's tempting to say actually that it doesn't go anywhere. | 0:35:33 | 0:35:37 | |
That that radical energy, if you like, is still there, | 0:35:37 | 0:35:39 | |
but that the political context has changed. | 0:35:39 | 0:35:42 | |
1798, the rebellion, the bloodshed in Ireland changes the context, | 0:35:42 | 0:35:46 | |
makes people think again. | 0:35:46 | 0:35:48 | |
And so that radical energy in people like William Drennan | 0:35:48 | 0:35:52 | |
and people like Robert and William Tennent is still there, | 0:35:52 | 0:35:57 | |
but, if you like, it's modified, | 0:35:57 | 0:35:59 | |
it's maybe moderated a little by the change of context. | 0:35:59 | 0:36:02 | |
The point is, these people are still pushing for reform, they're pushing | 0:36:02 | 0:36:05 | |
for parliamentary reform, they are pushing for Catholic emancipation. | 0:36:05 | 0:36:08 | |
These are the things that they had been pushing for in the 1790s, | 0:36:08 | 0:36:13 | |
but they're doing them in a changed political context, and they're doing them within, or pushing for them | 0:36:13 | 0:36:17 | |
within the context of the union between Great Britain and Ireland. | 0:36:17 | 0:36:21 | |
So, tell us about the culture of Belfast in this period | 0:36:21 | 0:36:25 | |
after the rebellion, after the Act of Union. | 0:36:25 | 0:36:27 | |
What type of things are going on in town? | 0:36:27 | 0:36:29 | |
People, when they think about 19th-century Belfast, tend to think about shipyards, heavy industry, | 0:36:29 | 0:36:35 | |
they think of Belfast as a workshop of the British Empire. | 0:36:35 | 0:36:38 | |
But in the early 19th century, | 0:36:38 | 0:36:40 | |
there's a sort of different Belfast that exists. | 0:36:40 | 0:36:42 | |
Belfast is known at that time, among some people, | 0:36:42 | 0:36:44 | |
as the Athens of the North. | 0:36:44 | 0:36:47 | |
And that phrase "the Athens of the North" is first used in relation | 0:36:47 | 0:36:50 | |
to Belfast in the late 18th century. | 0:36:50 | 0:36:53 | |
And it is used, in a sense, to refer to the kind of libertarian | 0:36:53 | 0:36:57 | |
or radical principles of the people of Belfast. | 0:36:57 | 0:37:00 | |
But it also has a cultural connotation and a cultural dimension. | 0:37:00 | 0:37:03 | |
Because Belfast at that time was starting to develop | 0:37:03 | 0:37:05 | |
a kind of civic society, cultural and intellectual institutions. | 0:37:05 | 0:37:09 | |
And that process develops, then, on into the early 19th century, | 0:37:09 | 0:37:12 | |
so you have in Belfast the Society for Promoting Knowledge, | 0:37:12 | 0:37:15 | |
you have the Literary Society, the Historic Society. | 0:37:15 | 0:37:18 | |
You have some short-lived societies as well, | 0:37:18 | 0:37:21 | |
the Galvanic Society, the Phrenological Society in the 1820s. | 0:37:21 | 0:37:25 | |
And then established in 1821, the Natural History and Philosophical Society. | 0:37:25 | 0:37:30 | |
So you get this sense, when you look at these societies, of Belfast being still a fairly small town, | 0:37:30 | 0:37:34 | |
not quite the industrial powerhouse that it becomes | 0:37:34 | 0:37:38 | |
later in the 19th century, | 0:37:38 | 0:37:39 | |
but a town with a sort of vibrant, energetic middle class | 0:37:39 | 0:37:44 | |
that's establishing these societies, | 0:37:44 | 0:37:46 | |
and really creating a place for itself in public life. | 0:37:46 | 0:37:51 | |
Under the Act of Union, Belfast was to flourish as a crucial cog | 0:37:54 | 0:37:58 | |
in the wheels of the British Empire. | 0:37:58 | 0:38:01 | |
The completion of Clarendon Dock at the beginning of the 19th century | 0:38:01 | 0:38:04 | |
had opened up the port to even more global trade. | 0:38:04 | 0:38:08 | |
And now the increasingly wealthy middle class, | 0:38:09 | 0:38:13 | |
dominated by Presbyterian merchants such as William Tennent, began | 0:38:13 | 0:38:17 | |
to take the lead in the cultural and intellectual life of the town. | 0:38:17 | 0:38:21 | |
William Tennent was aware of his luck. | 0:38:26 | 0:38:29 | |
His radical politics had led him to the brink of ruin. | 0:38:29 | 0:38:33 | |
But he was now a free man, ready to resume his career as one | 0:38:33 | 0:38:36 | |
of Belfast's most successful merchants. | 0:38:36 | 0:38:39 | |
He was ready to cultivate a new image as a pillar of respectability | 0:38:42 | 0:38:47 | |
in the town through public service and philanthropic work. | 0:38:47 | 0:38:51 | |
When, in 1804, the Belfast Newsletter observed that | 0:38:59 | 0:39:03 | |
the new stately and elegant homes around the town reflected the taste | 0:39:03 | 0:39:07 | |
and opulence that reigned in Belfast, | 0:39:07 | 0:39:10 | |
it was referring to the dwellings of men like William Tennent. | 0:39:10 | 0:39:14 | |
Tennent lived in a residence like this on Hercules Place. | 0:39:18 | 0:39:22 | |
A street that was demolished during the Victorian expansion of Belfast | 0:39:22 | 0:39:26 | |
to make way for Royal Avenue. | 0:39:26 | 0:39:29 | |
But behind closed doors, | 0:39:29 | 0:39:32 | |
Tennent conducted a private life that was far from conventional, | 0:39:32 | 0:39:36 | |
which involved mistresses and more than a whiff of scandal. | 0:39:36 | 0:39:40 | |
You would expect the details of such a colourful private life | 0:39:40 | 0:39:42 | |
to be hidden or destroyed. | 0:39:42 | 0:39:44 | |
Far from it. They are in fact preserved in the family archive. | 0:39:44 | 0:39:48 | |
So it's fair to say that William Tennent had | 0:39:52 | 0:39:55 | |
-an unconventional private life. -Yes, I think it is. He did get married, | 0:39:55 | 0:40:01 | |
he was married for two years from 1805 to 1807. | 0:40:01 | 0:40:06 | |
He was married to a woman called Eleanor Jackson, | 0:40:06 | 0:40:10 | |
but she died very shortly after they were married. | 0:40:10 | 0:40:14 | |
They had one child, Letitia, who then becomes his legitimate heir. | 0:40:14 | 0:40:20 | |
But in between his marriage, before his marriage and after | 0:40:20 | 0:40:24 | |
his marriage, William Tennent did live an unconventional life. | 0:40:24 | 0:40:29 | |
He had a series of mistresses and | 0:40:29 | 0:40:33 | |
he had a large number of children | 0:40:33 | 0:40:36 | |
outside marriage, apart from Letitia. | 0:40:36 | 0:40:40 | |
I've counted 13 children that he had | 0:40:40 | 0:40:45 | |
with a number of different women. | 0:40:45 | 0:40:48 | |
We know the most about two of the mistresses, who wrote to him | 0:40:48 | 0:40:53 | |
and whose letters we have here. | 0:40:53 | 0:40:55 | |
One is Anne Henry, the other is Margaret McCabe. | 0:40:55 | 0:40:59 | |
And he treats them very differently. | 0:40:59 | 0:41:01 | |
With Margaret McCabe, he gives her money. | 0:41:01 | 0:41:04 | |
And she's clearly sending him, as we can see there, | 0:41:04 | 0:41:07 | |
begging letters asking for money. | 0:41:07 | 0:41:10 | |
Two of her sons live with another mistress, Anne Henry, | 0:41:10 | 0:41:15 | |
who's the second woman who turns up a lot in the correspondence. | 0:41:15 | 0:41:20 | |
And Anne Henry is the woman that William Tennent has the most | 0:41:20 | 0:41:24 | |
long-term relationship with. | 0:41:24 | 0:41:27 | |
He met her before he went to prison in the 1790s, | 0:41:27 | 0:41:31 | |
and he's still with her in the 1820s, | 0:41:31 | 0:41:35 | |
when I think she probably died. | 0:41:35 | 0:41:37 | |
So he has this lifelong relationship with Anne Henry, | 0:41:44 | 0:41:47 | |
both before and after he gets married. | 0:41:47 | 0:41:50 | |
Why didn't he simply marry her? | 0:41:50 | 0:41:52 | |
Yeah, that is the key question in their relationship. | 0:41:52 | 0:41:56 | |
I think his marriage to Eleanor Jackson | 0:41:56 | 0:42:00 | |
was going to move him up that social scale | 0:42:00 | 0:42:04 | |
that he was anxious to climb. | 0:42:04 | 0:42:07 | |
Anne Henry is well looked after, both before and after he marries, | 0:42:09 | 0:42:14 | |
but if you read her letters, | 0:42:14 | 0:42:16 | |
she's saying all the time, "I live a very quiet life." | 0:42:16 | 0:42:21 | |
At one stage she says, "I'm ashamed to go out if I'm pregnant," | 0:42:21 | 0:42:26 | |
and she frequently was, with his children, | 0:42:26 | 0:42:28 | |
"or to go out even just after I've given birth to a child." | 0:42:28 | 0:42:33 | |
-YOUNG WOMAN'S VOICE: -'I am present in your house. | 0:42:37 | 0:42:39 | |
'I slept in your bed last night. | 0:42:39 | 0:42:42 | |
'I hope to hear from you soon, and receiving a letter from you, | 0:42:42 | 0:42:46 | |
'my dear Mr Tennent, will give me a great deal of satisfaction. | 0:42:46 | 0:42:51 | |
'I long to know how you have been since you left home.' | 0:42:51 | 0:42:54 | |
Now, what's interesting also about the letters that have | 0:42:58 | 0:43:01 | |
survived from Anne Henry, | 0:43:01 | 0:43:04 | |
is that William kept | 0:43:04 | 0:43:07 | |
the letters she wrote to him | 0:43:07 | 0:43:09 | |
when he told her he was getting married. | 0:43:09 | 0:43:12 | |
She was clearly absolutely devastated by it. | 0:43:12 | 0:43:16 | |
But, indirectly, I think, you could almost see his affection for her, | 0:43:16 | 0:43:20 | |
that he kept them. | 0:43:20 | 0:43:22 | |
Tennent may have had a deep affection for Anne Henry, | 0:43:26 | 0:43:29 | |
and other women in his life, and provided for as many children, | 0:43:29 | 0:43:33 | |
but by marrying into a landed family, | 0:43:33 | 0:43:36 | |
he was, first and foremost, taking care of business. | 0:43:36 | 0:43:40 | |
And doing so extremely successfully. | 0:43:40 | 0:43:43 | |
In the years following his incarceration at Fort George, | 0:43:47 | 0:43:50 | |
he became Belfast's richest man. | 0:43:50 | 0:43:53 | |
He became director of a successful shipping company | 0:43:53 | 0:43:57 | |
and bought and resold a range of goods, | 0:43:57 | 0:43:59 | |
from beef and pork to tobacco and whisky and rum. | 0:43:59 | 0:44:04 | |
He also, along with his fellow merchants, | 0:44:04 | 0:44:07 | |
established Belfast Commercial Bank. | 0:44:07 | 0:44:10 | |
Tennent also became deeply involved in the running of the town. | 0:44:12 | 0:44:16 | |
Serving as a committee member | 0:44:16 | 0:44:18 | |
on a number of newly established public bodies, | 0:44:18 | 0:44:21 | |
ranging from the police commissioners | 0:44:21 | 0:44:23 | |
to the Belfast Society For Promoting Knowledge. | 0:44:23 | 0:44:26 | |
There are very few images of the elusive William Tennent, | 0:44:28 | 0:44:31 | |
but here is a portrait commissioned in 1810. | 0:44:31 | 0:44:35 | |
And the painting tells a story in its own right. | 0:44:35 | 0:44:38 | |
Tennent appears as an elder statesman. | 0:44:38 | 0:44:41 | |
He is grey around the temples, he's dressed like a gentleman. | 0:44:41 | 0:44:44 | |
He, of course, has asked for this painting to be completed | 0:44:44 | 0:44:46 | |
and has paid for it, | 0:44:46 | 0:44:48 | |
so he's clearly thinking in terms of his reputation and his legacy. | 0:44:48 | 0:44:52 | |
Indeed, he's looking to his future. Perhaps also wanting to leave | 0:44:52 | 0:44:55 | |
some of the whiff of scandal behind him. | 0:44:55 | 0:44:57 | |
And he is to become an even more important | 0:44:57 | 0:45:00 | |
citizen in the history of Belfast. | 0:45:00 | 0:45:02 | |
One area of the city's life | 0:45:15 | 0:45:17 | |
in which William Tennent was to have a lasting influence was education. | 0:45:17 | 0:45:21 | |
This was something he believed in passionately. | 0:45:21 | 0:45:24 | |
And in 1814, he became one of the founders | 0:45:24 | 0:45:28 | |
of the Academical Institution, | 0:45:28 | 0:45:31 | |
the city centre grammar school we know today as Inst. | 0:45:31 | 0:45:34 | |
Tennent, and other former radicals such as William Drennan, | 0:45:38 | 0:45:42 | |
gave money for the building to be constructed on this land. | 0:45:42 | 0:45:46 | |
Land granted to them by the Marquess of Donegall, | 0:45:46 | 0:45:48 | |
which at the time was just a green space at the edge of town. | 0:45:48 | 0:45:52 | |
The aim of the new college was to educate boys | 0:45:59 | 0:46:02 | |
from the middling orders of society. | 0:46:02 | 0:46:04 | |
To be a place where education would be seen as a necessity, | 0:46:04 | 0:46:08 | |
not a luxury, of life. | 0:46:08 | 0:46:10 | |
However, just two years after it opened, | 0:46:11 | 0:46:14 | |
the school was almost forced to close its doors, thanks to | 0:46:14 | 0:46:17 | |
a flare-up of the old rebellious spirit at a dinner | 0:46:17 | 0:46:21 | |
attended by William and his brother, Robert Tennent. | 0:46:21 | 0:46:24 | |
This was an extraordinary affair that occurred on St Patrick's Day, | 0:46:26 | 0:46:30 | |
1816, in Gillett's Hotel in Arthur Street, Belfast, | 0:46:30 | 0:46:35 | |
where 50 Of Belfast's... | 0:46:35 | 0:46:38 | |
radicals, I suppose, | 0:46:38 | 0:46:41 | |
gathered to celebrate St Patrick's Day. | 0:46:41 | 0:46:44 | |
Perhaps fuelled by an overindulgence in wine, | 0:46:46 | 0:46:49 | |
a considerable number of what, at the time, | 0:46:49 | 0:46:52 | |
were regarded as disloyal oaths, were drunk. | 0:46:52 | 0:46:55 | |
And there were long-term consequences, | 0:46:55 | 0:46:59 | |
both for the individuals involved and for the Institution. | 0:46:59 | 0:47:03 | |
In an increasingly conservative Belfast, | 0:47:05 | 0:47:08 | |
news of the dinner soon reached the newspapers. | 0:47:08 | 0:47:11 | |
And there was a public outcry | 0:47:11 | 0:47:13 | |
of what were considered disloyal toasts. | 0:47:13 | 0:47:16 | |
I can see here this cutting from the Belfast Commercial Chronicle, | 0:47:18 | 0:47:21 | |
maybe from the Monday after the dinner, | 0:47:21 | 0:47:24 | |
"St Patrick's day evening, | 0:47:24 | 0:47:26 | |
"Gillett's Hotel, Dr Tennent is called to the chair." | 0:47:26 | 0:47:28 | |
And a whole list of toasts are read out, | 0:47:28 | 0:47:31 | |
like "Eirinn go Brach", and "a toast to civil liberty | 0:47:31 | 0:47:35 | |
"and political independence | 0:47:35 | 0:47:36 | |
"to the people of every clime and every colour." | 0:47:36 | 0:47:39 | |
-Could you tell me a little bit more about these? -Yes. | 0:47:39 | 0:47:42 | |
I suppose one of the more contentious of the oaths | 0:47:46 | 0:47:49 | |
that were drunk on this occasion, to the memory of Marshal Ney, | 0:47:49 | 0:47:54 | |
Marshal Michel Ney, | 0:47:54 | 0:47:55 | |
one of Napoleon Bonaparte's most loyal military officers, | 0:47:55 | 0:47:59 | |
who only months earlier, I believe, in December, 1815, had been | 0:47:59 | 0:48:02 | |
sentenced to death and executed following the Battle of Waterloo. | 0:48:02 | 0:48:07 | |
Reading these now, they appear innocuous enough, | 0:48:07 | 0:48:10 | |
but at the time, given that we are within 20 years | 0:48:10 | 0:48:14 | |
of the ending of the 1798 Rebellion, | 0:48:14 | 0:48:17 | |
these toasts would have been seen, | 0:48:17 | 0:48:20 | |
perhaps, as provocative and inappropriate, | 0:48:20 | 0:48:23 | |
even inimical to the British constitution. | 0:48:23 | 0:48:25 | |
-And so that embroiled the school in some controversy? -Absolutely. | 0:48:25 | 0:48:29 | |
The school lost its annual grant of £1,500, | 0:48:29 | 0:48:33 | |
a considerable sum of money in the early 19th century, | 0:48:33 | 0:48:37 | |
bringing long-term financial hardship | 0:48:37 | 0:48:39 | |
to Belfast Academical Institution. | 0:48:39 | 0:48:41 | |
So, did this represent, if you like, an attempt to keep alive | 0:48:41 | 0:48:45 | |
the spirit of 1798 and the rebellion of that year? | 0:48:45 | 0:48:49 | |
I wouldn't say "being kept alive". | 0:48:49 | 0:48:51 | |
I would have thought that this was the dying embers | 0:48:51 | 0:48:55 | |
of radical Belfast, | 0:48:55 | 0:48:58 | |
the death throes of the men of 1798. | 0:48:58 | 0:49:02 | |
These were old men who, 20 years on, | 0:49:02 | 0:49:05 | |
were having their last jaunt, if you like. | 0:49:05 | 0:49:08 | |
By the 1820s, Belfast was entering another phase of development. | 0:49:12 | 0:49:17 | |
The population had expanded to more than 40,000 people. | 0:49:17 | 0:49:21 | |
The intellectual life of the town, | 0:49:21 | 0:49:23 | |
although no longer revolutionary, was still incredibly vibrant. | 0:49:23 | 0:49:27 | |
In a sign of the times, in 1820, | 0:49:29 | 0:49:31 | |
the cottages that once stood here on Waring Street were knocked down | 0:49:31 | 0:49:36 | |
and replaced by this grand commercial building, | 0:49:36 | 0:49:39 | |
a hotel and a gentleman's club. | 0:49:39 | 0:49:42 | |
But an even more significant development was on the horizon. | 0:49:43 | 0:49:47 | |
And it was to come about thanks to | 0:49:47 | 0:49:50 | |
the fall in the fortunes of another man, | 0:49:50 | 0:49:52 | |
Belfast landlord George Augustus Chichester, | 0:49:52 | 0:49:57 | |
Second Marquess of Donegall. | 0:49:57 | 0:50:00 | |
The Marquess and his family arrived in Belfast in 1802, | 0:50:00 | 0:50:04 | |
after almost 100 years of being absentee landlords. | 0:50:04 | 0:50:09 | |
But he did so with a stack of gambling debts | 0:50:09 | 0:50:12 | |
and creditors at his heels. | 0:50:12 | 0:50:14 | |
The Marquess moved his family here to what is now Ormeau Park. | 0:50:17 | 0:50:21 | |
But he wanted to build a bigger and grander home | 0:50:22 | 0:50:25 | |
and was in dire need of cash. | 0:50:25 | 0:50:28 | |
His only asset, though, was the land he owned in and around Belfast. | 0:50:28 | 0:50:33 | |
So he put almost all of it up sale. | 0:50:33 | 0:50:36 | |
It was quickly bought up by the wealthy people of Belfast, | 0:50:36 | 0:50:39 | |
eager to own the land on which their homes and businesses stood. | 0:50:39 | 0:50:43 | |
The biggest investor of all was William Tennent. | 0:50:44 | 0:50:48 | |
He bought 20 pieces of property and land, | 0:50:48 | 0:50:50 | |
stretching from the High Street right through to the Shankill Road. | 0:50:50 | 0:50:55 | |
So, the Donegalls had their Tudor mansion, | 0:50:55 | 0:50:57 | |
of which this is the last remaining part. | 0:50:57 | 0:51:00 | |
But the merchants and professionals of Belfast | 0:51:00 | 0:51:03 | |
finally owned their own town. | 0:51:03 | 0:51:05 | |
William Tennent also bought up land elsewhere in Ireland, | 0:51:13 | 0:51:17 | |
including estates in Tyrone, Sligo and Donegal. | 0:51:17 | 0:51:21 | |
Among his acquisitions was this | 0:51:22 | 0:51:24 | |
beautiful domain in Tempo, County Fermanagh. | 0:51:24 | 0:51:28 | |
More than he could ever have imagined, when he set out | 0:51:29 | 0:51:32 | |
from his modest rural home at Roseyards, | 0:51:32 | 0:51:35 | |
as a young man eager to make his fortune. | 0:51:35 | 0:51:38 | |
Now, as he entered old age, Tennent was able to enjoy | 0:51:42 | 0:51:45 | |
the fruits of his labour on his occasional stays at Tempo. | 0:51:45 | 0:51:48 | |
Ironically for a man who ended up owning | 0:51:51 | 0:51:53 | |
so much of Belfast, Tempo Manor is the only one William Tennent's | 0:51:53 | 0:51:58 | |
properties that has remained in the hands of his descendants. | 0:51:58 | 0:52:01 | |
Tempo itself was 18,000 acres when he bought it. | 0:52:03 | 0:52:07 | |
And I think he paid £1750 for it. | 0:52:07 | 0:52:09 | |
But it would have been a very beautiful estate. | 0:52:09 | 0:52:12 | |
I mean, it's got lakes, rivers. A very pretty part of the world. | 0:52:12 | 0:52:15 | |
This is something of a rags to riches story. | 0:52:17 | 0:52:19 | |
William Tennent is famous as a merchant and that's how | 0:52:19 | 0:52:22 | |
he makes his money, but then he buys into the land. | 0:52:22 | 0:52:25 | |
Is that something that still echoes in the family? | 0:52:25 | 0:52:28 | |
I think there's quite a lot, I mean, we've all lived off, really, | 0:52:28 | 0:52:32 | |
been living off a lot of the work that hey did, | 0:52:32 | 0:52:35 | |
and through generations, or through time, | 0:52:35 | 0:52:37 | |
different families to have people | 0:52:37 | 0:52:39 | |
that do very, very well for themselves, | 0:52:39 | 0:52:41 | |
and I think that William Tennent did terribly well, | 0:52:41 | 0:52:44 | |
which has sort of kept us going since, but, I mean, you know, | 0:52:44 | 0:52:46 | |
obviously, it's still trying to keep it as best as we can to the end, | 0:52:46 | 0:52:49 | |
but it's not getting quite the same breaks | 0:52:49 | 0:52:51 | |
as maybe they got at their time. | 0:52:51 | 0:52:53 | |
William Tennent and his friends never quite achieved | 0:52:56 | 0:52:59 | |
the radical, sweeping reforms that they had envisaged as young men | 0:52:59 | 0:53:04 | |
in the United Irish movement. But the system did begin to change. | 0:53:04 | 0:53:08 | |
And in 1832, the Great Reform Act of that year began to push | 0:53:08 | 0:53:13 | |
Britain along the road to democracy. | 0:53:13 | 0:53:16 | |
Crucially, the Marquess of Donegall no longer had the sole right | 0:53:19 | 0:53:23 | |
to choose Belfast MPs. | 0:53:23 | 0:53:24 | |
Now, 1,300 property owners in the town could vote | 0:53:25 | 0:53:29 | |
to select their Parliamentary representatives. | 0:53:29 | 0:53:32 | |
William Tennent was identified the candidate to stand at the election. | 0:53:49 | 0:53:53 | |
Before he could do so, tragedy struck. | 0:53:53 | 0:53:57 | |
A cholera epidemic swept across Belfast. | 0:53:57 | 0:54:00 | |
More than 400 people died. | 0:54:00 | 0:54:03 | |
And William Tennent was one of them. | 0:54:03 | 0:54:05 | |
Perhaps it was William Tennent's determination to remain | 0:54:07 | 0:54:12 | |
in the heart of Belfast that sealed his fate. | 0:54:12 | 0:54:15 | |
Long after the wealthier citizens had moved | 0:54:15 | 0:54:17 | |
to the tranquillity of the rural outskirts, | 0:54:17 | 0:54:21 | |
William Tennent stayed at his home in Hercules Place. | 0:54:21 | 0:54:25 | |
When cholera struck, he was right at the centre of the epidemic. | 0:54:25 | 0:54:29 | |
But there was one last twist in the story. | 0:54:36 | 0:54:39 | |
At the 1832 election, | 0:54:39 | 0:54:42 | |
it was William Tennent's son-in-law, James Emerson Tennent, | 0:54:42 | 0:54:47 | |
husband of his daughter Letitia, | 0:54:47 | 0:54:49 | |
who was elected as one of Belfast's two MPs. | 0:54:49 | 0:54:52 | |
But James' political inclinations were very different | 0:54:53 | 0:54:57 | |
to those of William and the wider Tennent family. | 0:54:57 | 0:55:00 | |
James Emerson Tennent, in fact, became a Conservative. | 0:55:01 | 0:55:05 | |
While his father-in-law would have been horrified, | 0:55:05 | 0:55:08 | |
it was a sign of how Belfast was changing in the Victorian era, | 0:55:08 | 0:55:12 | |
moving away from Liberalism to Conservatism. | 0:55:12 | 0:55:15 | |
And it was James Emerson who took the Tennent family name | 0:55:15 | 0:55:19 | |
to London, becoming close friends not only with Charles Dickens, | 0:55:19 | 0:55:23 | |
but the British Conservative Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel. | 0:55:23 | 0:55:27 | |
In the 1850s, Tennent's family erected the elaborate memorial | 0:55:35 | 0:55:39 | |
to him in First Presbyterian Church in Belfast's Rosemary Street. | 0:55:39 | 0:55:43 | |
But here among the great and good of Clifton Street Cemetery, | 0:55:49 | 0:55:53 | |
it's curious that there is no trace of such an eminent man's name | 0:55:53 | 0:55:57 | |
on any of these gravestones. | 0:55:57 | 0:55:59 | |
Now, that is... | 0:56:08 | 0:56:10 | |
the Sinclair family. | 0:56:10 | 0:56:12 | |
Famous Belfast family. | 0:56:12 | 0:56:14 | |
Now, that is William Drennan, | 0:56:18 | 0:56:21 | |
famous, famous citizen of Belfast, | 0:56:21 | 0:56:24 | |
which means...that... | 0:56:24 | 0:56:27 | |
Now, this is the Tennent family plot. | 0:56:36 | 0:56:38 | |
It was bought by William Tennent in 1802 in Clifton Street Cemetery, | 0:56:38 | 0:56:42 | |
but actually there's nothing left on the headstone. | 0:56:42 | 0:56:45 | |
Which means that you could say the final resting place | 0:56:48 | 0:56:51 | |
of William Tennent remains a mystery. | 0:56:51 | 0:56:54 | |
And yet it would somehow be fitting if Tennent's grave was here, | 0:57:01 | 0:57:06 | |
alongside those of the United Irishmen he outlived. | 0:57:06 | 0:57:10 | |
Henry Joy McCracken, Thomas Sinclair and William Drennan. | 0:57:10 | 0:57:14 | |
For, after all, he shared their passions and believed | 0:57:14 | 0:57:18 | |
until the end of his days that change was possible. | 0:57:18 | 0:57:21 | |
In the words of one historian, in the period | 0:57:24 | 0:57:27 | |
when William Tennent played such an important role | 0:57:27 | 0:57:31 | |
in its development, Belfast was a Presbyterian town. | 0:57:31 | 0:57:34 | |
Now it was poised to become a mighty industrial city. | 0:57:34 | 0:57:39 | |
Within a century of Tennent's death, | 0:57:39 | 0:57:41 | |
its population would expand from 40,000 people | 0:57:41 | 0:57:45 | |
to 350,000. | 0:57:45 | 0:57:47 | |
And perhaps more than any inscription on a gravestone, | 0:57:52 | 0:57:55 | |
or any fancy memorial, this extraordinary man, | 0:57:55 | 0:57:59 | |
who was self-made, and perhaps somewhat flawed, should be | 0:57:59 | 0:58:03 | |
remembered in the following way - | 0:58:03 | 0:58:05 | |
as a citizen who devoted his life | 0:58:05 | 0:58:07 | |
to Belfast and whose efforts helped shape the city it was to become. | 0:58:07 | 0:58:12 |