In Stanley’s version of the story, John Rowlands and Moses Roberts were now on the run, still wearing rough workhouse clothing and identifiable to anyone searching for them. He states that they made their way through back roads towards Denbigh where Moses led them to ‘a dingy stone house near a bakery’ where a woman in the doorway recognised the boy. ‘When Mose crossed the threshold he was received with a sounding kiss, and became the object of copious endearments. He was hugged convulsively in the maternal bosom, patted on the back, his hair was frizzled by maternal fingers, and I knew not whether the mother was weeping or laughing, for tears poured over smiles, in streams. The exhibition of fond love was not without its effect on me, for I learned how a mother should behave to her boy,’ Stanley recalled.
The woman asked the boys whether they were in Denbigh on an errand – or had they run away? Moses related incidents leading to their departure from St Asaph’s and then allowed his companion to introduce himself as ‘the grandson of Moses Parry, of the Castle, on my mother’s side, and of John Rowlands of Llys, on my father’s side’.
She said she knew the family and asked if the boy planned to visit his paternal grandfather, old John Rowlands. The boy replied that he had indeed considered visiting him along with Young Moses, Uncle Thomas and his cousin, Moses Owen, who worked at a Church of England school at nearby Holywell. The woman told the boy that old John Rowlands was now a prosperous landowner, but a ‘severe, cross and bitter’ old man, unlikely to offer help. She said that the boy’s father had ‘died many years ago, 13 or 14 years, I should think’. He had, in fact, died two years before.
The following morning, the runaway grandson of wealthy farmer John Rowlands and son of the late John Rowlands, set off to visit his relatives, hoping they would take pity on him and welcome him into their home. He arrived at a large farm, stocked with well-fed animals, with an image in his mind of a severe and sour old man. He prayed it would be wrong.
Nothing is clear to me but the interview, and the appearance of two figures, my grandfather and myself. It is quite unforgettable. I see myself standing in the kitchen of Llys, cap in hand, facing a stern looking, pink complexioned, rather stout, old gentleman in a brownish suit, knee breeches, and bluish-grey stockings. He is sitting at ease on a wooden settee, the back of which rises several inches higher than his head, and he is smoking a long clay pipe.
He asked the boy who he was, what he wanted and sat back in his seat puffing on his pipe while the boy provided answers. ‘When I concluded, he took his pipe from his mouth, reversed it, and with the mouth-piece pointing to the door, he said: “Very well. You can go back the same way as you came. I can do nothing for you, and have nothing to give you.”’
This rejection, whether it happened as Stanley relates it or at another time in his young life, remained vivid in his mind into old age. He states: ‘The words were few; the action was simple. I have forgotten a million things, probably, but there are some pictures and some few phrases that one can never forget. The insolent, cold-blooded manner impressed them on my memory, and if I have recalled the scene once, it has been recalled a thousand times.’
Later, the boy returned to Castle Row where Young Moses had become prosperous after acquiring his late father’s butchery business. His wife Kitty received the boy ‘with reserve’. He was given a meal, ‘but married people with a house full of children do not care to be troubled with the visits of poor relations, and the meaning conveyed by their manner was not difficult to interpret’.
Next he knocked at the door of the Golden Lion, a pub kept by Uncle Thomas, but there was no room at the inn for a workhouse runaway and in a last-ditch attempt to find someone prepared to give him shelter, John Rowlands made his way towards Brynford and cousin Moses Owen the schoolteacher at the new National School who lived in lodgings next door.
Cousin Moses, ‘a tall, severe, ascetic young man of 22 or 23’, was surprised by his unexpected visitor. He asked the boy questions both academic and personal and appeared satisfied with the answers. To the boy’s surprise, cousin Moses offered him a job as a classroom helper, payment to be made in clothing, board and lodging. Moses was unable to take the boy into the school immediately, so packed him off to his mother’s home at Tremeirchion, where he was told she would provide clothes suitable for a young scholar. He would be sent for the following month.
At last, it appeared as if someone was prepared to admit an ex-workhouse boy into their lives, give him a chance – and, perhaps, some affection. The following day, full of high expectations, he walked to the village and a stone house called Ffynnon Beuno, or St Beuno’s Spring, where a sign over the door told anyone who could read that Mary Owen owned the house and was licensed to sell groceries, tobacco, ‘ale and spirituous liquors’. As he knocked on the door, the boy offered up a silent prayer that his aunt would be as gracious as her schoolmaster son seemed to be.
A woman with ‘a bony and narrow face’, who turned out to be Aunt Mary, opened the door and the boy handed over his letter of introduction scribbled by her son the previous evening. Its contents appeared both to surprise and annoy her and the boy felt she would rather not have received the news that he had come to stay.
In between serving ale and groceries to customers, Aunt Mary plied the boy with questions. Later, he overheard snatches of conversations with patrons and most were about how rash, extravagant and stupid her son Moses had been, offering this strange new boy in workhouse clothes a job and shelter in her home.
In return for board and lodgings, young John helped his aunt around the shop and farm. Over the following weeks he ‘had abundant opportunities to inform myself of the low estimate formed of me by the neighbours’. By eavesdropping on conversations between men drinking his aunt’s home-brewed ale, he learned he was the son of Aunt Mary’s youngest sister, Elizabeth, also known as Betsy, now mother of three other children who ‘had thereby shown herself to be a graceless and thriftless creature’.
Soon the boy also discovered that his situation at the house-cum-shop-cum-pub at Ffynnon Beuno was little better than he had endured at St Asaph’s. To her four sons, Aunt Mary was the best of mothers, but her sister’s young bastard she kept at arm’s length until the requisite month had passed and the next part of the boy’s life was to begin at the National School.
Wearing his first suit of smart school clothes, John Rowlands was driven to the school by his aunt in her pony and trap and the following day was appointed an assistant to his cousin who was in charge of the second class. He discovered that in some subjects, other boys were more advanced in their knowledge, but in history, geography and composition, young John Rowlands was best in the school. During evening hours, he was encouraged to study Euclid on geometry, algebra, Latin and grammar. He was allowed to read books from the school library and during weekends spent most of his waking hours engrossed in adventurous literature. The boy found it difficult to make friends. During his first few days at Brynford, boys learned ‘of my ignoble origin’ and workhouse background, resulting in taunts, jibes and social exclusion.
Although only in his early twenties, cousin Moses was a hard taskmaster, finding much to criticise in young John’s efforts. ‘With every spoonful of food I ate, I had to endure a worded sting that left a rankling sore. I was a “dolt, a born imbecile, and incorrigible dunce”. When the tears commenced to fall, the invectives poured on my bent head. I was “a disgrace to him, a blockhead, an idiot” . . . and [he would] say: “I had hoped to make a man of you, but you are bound to remain a clodhopper; your stupidity is monstrous, perfectly monstrous . . . your head must be full of mud instead of brains. You must go back whence you came. You are good for nothing but to cobble pauper’s boots.”’
The boy’s self-esteem plummeted. A long period of inactivity at the school had made him plump with a round face and rosy cheeks, which made him a target for more cruel jibes from students. Despite his academic achievements, the boy received no encouragement or praise from cousin Moses.
The violence began all over again. When Moses, wearing his ‘kill-joy mask’ ran out of spiteful words to hurl at John’s head, he reached for a birch, boots or anything else that came to hand and hurled them towards his young relative. After nine months of verbal and physical abuse, the lad returned to Ffynnon Beuno for a long weekend, never to return to the National School. He helped on the farm and in the shop under the stern and watchful eye of Aunt Mary, always in the habit of reminding her nephew he would ‘shortly be leaving’.
Quite where young John Rowlands would be going and with whom was never mentioned. He was encouraged to apply for a job as a platform assistant at Mold railway station, but nothing came of it, and Aunt Mary urged him to write to his Uncle Tom Morris and Aunt Maria in Liverpool to ask if they might find him suitable employment. Shortly afterwards, Aunt Maria arrived and told Aunt Mary that there was plenty of work to be found in the city and that her husband, Uncle Tom, had influence with the manager of an insurance company. The boy’s future as an office assistant was assured.
As the packet steamer carried the boy and Aunt Mary towards Liverpool and the coastline of North Wales disappeared from view, young John ‘was astonished to see dozens of huge ships sailing, under towers of bellying canvass, over the far reaching sea, towards some world not our own’. In his tin trunk was a new Eton suit paid for by his aunt, an overcoat and little else. Soon, the smoke-filled horizon of Liverpool came into view and, as they approached, the boy saw a mass of houses, tall chimneys, towers and groves of ships’ masts stretching as far as the eye could see.
They disembarked and boarded a public carriage that drove past berths where docked the scores of ships that sailed in and out of one of the world’s largest seaports. The air was acrid with the fumes of pitch and tar and the noise from the horse-drawn traffic that bumped along the street was deafening. For a boy who had spent the first fifteen years of his life in the quiet of the Welsh countryside, Liverpool’s clash and clamour came as a surprise.
The carriage stopped outside a hotel, where Aunt Mary handed the boy over to Aunt Maria who was waiting at the entrance. Aunt Mary could not stay; she had to return to Ffynnon Beuno, her business and customers. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a sovereign and pressed it into John Rowland’s hand. She told him to be a good boy and make haste to get rich. Then she was gone.
Aunt Maria ushered the boy into another cab and told the driver to head towards Roscommon Street in the city’s Everton district. There Uncle Tom was waiting with cousin Teddy. Suddenly the boy had acquired more of a family than he had thought possible.
Uncle Tom was a genial man who had once occupied a responsible post with a railway company. Thanks to his influence, a man called Mr Winter had secured a position with the company and this same Mr Winter was said to be the man who would arrange for Uncle Tom’s new nephew to begin a job in an insurance office. At some point, Uncle Tom had left the railway company and was now a lowly paid worker at a textile mill. Mr Winter, however, had risen to a managerial role and was in charge of an entire department. The reason why Uncle Tom toiled away at a poorly paid job while Mr Winter sat behind a large desk issuing instructions was not made clear to John Rowlands.
The boy’s first days in Liverpool were spent exploring the busy streets leading from Everton to the docks. And then the day was announced when Uncle Tom would take the boy in his new Eton suit to call on the famous Mr Winter, through whose guidance the foundations of his future prosperity would be laid. Uncle Tom told John he had befriended Mr Winter some years earlier when he had moved in more affluent circles. Then Uncle Tom’s influence had resulted in Mr Winter’s promotion and his promise to repay the favour one day – and today was that day.
They arrived at a large detached house where Uncle Tom and John Rowlands were met with a great show of friendship from a man wearing smart business clothes who shook hands with the boy and his uncle. When it was time to state the reasons for their call, compliments were showered on the boy and uncle and nephew told to return the following morning ‘to hear of something favourable’. On the journey home, Uncle Tom spoke enthusiastically about Mr Winter, his generous, influential friend. That month, they made the same journey to Mr Winter’s house on twenty separate occasions. On each visit a different excuse was politely offered, until at the end of the twenty-first visit, Uncle Tom’s patience snapped and he blurted out to his so-called friend: ‘Now, damn it all! Stop that, Winter. You are nothing but an artful humbug. In God’s name, man, what pleasure can you find in this eternal lying? Confound you, I say, for a damned old rascal and hypocrite! I can’t stand any more of this devilish snivelling. I shall be smothered if I stay here longer. Come, boy, let’s get out of this, we will have no more of this cheating fraud.’
Uncle Tom and his nephew strode out, the older man fuming all the way home, telling the boy: ‘Never mind, laddie! We’ll get along somehow without the help of that sweep.’
Back at Roscommon Street, Uncle Tom and Aunt Maria went into a huddle. When they emerged, it was to borrow the boy’s sovereign to buy food to revive Uncle Tom’s flagging spirits. The following week Aunt Maria ‘borrowed my Eton suit and took it to the place of three gilt balls’. His overcoat went to the same place a few days later ‘and then I knew the family was in great trouble’. The place was the pawnbroker’s.
John Rowlands now walked through Liverpool’s teeming streets with a different purpose, scanning shop windows for notices advertising job vacancies. There was little on offer – he was too young or too small, not smart enough or too late. But with the persistence for which Henry Morton Stanley would become famous in later life, he kept trying, finally landing a position in a haberdasher’s shop at 5s a week. His duties included shop-sweeping, lamp-trimming, window polishing and taking care of the store’s large and heavy wooden shutters, which he was required to take down each morning at 7 a.m. and replace at the end of the day.
The boy left the house early each morning, joining thousands of others trudging through the streets to their various tasks across the sunless and grimy city. In the evening he returned to Roscommon Street to eat a supper of cockles, shrimps or bloater and by 10.30 p.m. he would be in bed. After two months, the weight of the heavy shutters injured the boy’s back but after a week off to recover he returned to work to find his job taken by someone else.
He was forced to tramp the streets again whereby he rapidly took on the appearance of an urchin. The need to find work drove him further in the direction of the docks where, with nothing better to do, he watched sailing ships come and go to all parts of the world. He saw grain, textiles, barrels, boxes and sacks unloaded from their holds and read the sailing notices pinned next to gangplanks stating where vessels were bound – New York, New Orleans, Demerara, the West Indies, Bombay, Calcutta, Shanghai, Melbourne and Sydney. The boy wondered what those cities were like and for the first time in his life, decided that he, too, wanted to sail away and explore the world. . . .
He found a job as a butcher’s delivery boy at a shop close to the port. Duties included carrying baskets of fresh provisions to ships on the eve of sailing into the River Mersey and onwards to a hundred destinations around the globe.
Meanwhile, home life at Roscommon Street was getting harder. Money was scarce, space in short supply and the boy’s relations with his older cousin Teddy, who resented John’s presence, were causing tension in the small house.
Then, in the autumn of 1857, ‘fate caused a little incident to occur, which settled my course for me’. The boy was sent to deliver provisions to the packet-ship Windermere along with an invoice addressed to its American skipper, Captain David Hartinge. While the skipper checked his provisions, the boy gazed admiringly at the rich furniture and gilded mirrors in his cabin.
The Captain noticed the boy admiring his surroundings and asked if he would like to live there. John Rowlands was overwhelmed to be talking to an American and shyly stammered that he knew nothing of the sea or seamanship. The seaman asked: ‘What do you say to going with me as a cabin boy? I will give you five dollars a month, and an outfit. In three days we start for New Orleans, to the land of the free and the home of the brave.’
Without giving the matter a moment’s thought, the boy signed up for the voyage on the spot. He would leave unhappiness at Roscommon Street and begin a new and better life in the United States of America. He would sail away from his past life, workhouse brutality, rejection by relations, hatred from cousin Teddy, his pauper’s wardrobe and miserable jobs with dismal prospects. He would begin again in a place where nobody knew anything about him or his history. From now on he could be anyone he wanted to be and as soon as he arrived in America he would shake off his old life and reinvent himself as someone quite different to ‘John Rowlands – Bastard’.
Uncle Tom and Aunt Maria greeted the news of his impending departure, scheduled for three days after Christmas 1857, with dismay. The boy insisted there was nothing for him in Liverpool and he had made up his mind. Without too much protesting, his relatives agreed to let him go.
On 28 December, sixteen-year-old John Rowlands arrived at the foot of the Windermere’s gangplank with a tin trunk containing his few worldly possessions. As he climbed on board, his mind was full of confusing thoughts – but one thing was certain: life could only get better.
A steam tug towed the vessel into mid-river, the sail was loosened, sailors hoisted the topsails and the Windermere headed out towards the Atlantic. John Rowlands, cabin boy, stood at the railings with scores of steerage passengers and watched Liverpool sink slowly into a grey streak on the distant horizon. Before him lay America – and a new and exciting life.