An 1845 attack on William Charles Cotton’s My Bee Book of 1842

William Charles Cotton was a talented narrator. Most of his tales were true but some, in disguised
humour, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. From My Bee Book “I myself was once blowing
into a glass, [a bell jar used as a hive super] to drive the bees out when, in drawing my breath in sharply, I
swallowed a bee. I prepared myself for a run to the doctor's, had I felt its sting in my throat, or lower
down in my ‘inside pocket;’ 1 but the bee passed so rapidly down that he had not time to sting; when he
got to his journey's end, no doubt not a little surprised at the path he had travelled, he resigned himself to
his fate, like a good Bee, and did not revenge himself by stinging me.”
The Rev. T. Clark, of Gedney Hill, expressed vitriolic reaction to Cotton’s My Bee Book in his editorial
footnotes to the 6th edition of Thomas Nutt’s Humanity to Bees (1845). An article in the Mechanics’
Magazine, museum, register, and gazette for Saturday 5 October 1833, recognised the success of Nutt’s
system of bee management. Clark, among others, including the Marquis of Blandford at Delabere House,
near Reading, was a follower of Nutt’s “collateral” system as displayed at his Gedney Hill apiary. (p.126)
The Rev. Thomas Clark was the incumbent of the church of the Holy Trinity in the diocese of Lincoln. A
perpetual curacy it carried an annual living of £100. 2
Clark blatantly vilified both Cotton and his book, naming his target in antagonistic fury no less than ten
times. He mocked The Quarterly Review’s accolade of December 1842, wherein “this elegant volume”
was converted into an italicized insult. Clark opined that the swallowed bee tale was “one of the many
specimens of the ridiculous to be met with in the elegant volume. Fie, Cotton ! Fie, Quarterly!”
Clark had yet more vitriol to expend “By what motive actuated the Quarterly best knows, but, in my
opinion, from sheer ignorance of the subject on which it has written, it has bestowed its praise where
praise ought to have been withheld; and has withheld it, and even insinuated censure, where
commendation was justly due. Knowing how sensitive and testy critics in general are, I will only add that
Art. 1 of No. 141 of the Quarterly Review - is throughout a flippant production, and abounds with
peccadilloes far too numerous to be pointed out in a short note.”
There was more offence taken and ridicule piled upon Cotton for his legitimate generic use of the term
“he” when referring to an instance of a bee. Clark replied angrily to Cotton’s phrase “a little surprised at
the path he had travelled” by spitting “How, poor fellow, could he sting? He Bees have no stings: and
from the hes in the tale it is evident that he (Cotton) swallowed a drone Bee. I was expecting, observed a
person in whose hearing this passage was lately read, the conclusion would have been, that he passed so
rapidly on as soon to make his exit through Cotton’s postern, and that ‘he then flew away like a good Bee’
”
There was more: “The Quarterly, already quoted, pronounces Mr. Cotton's book to be "one of the most
elegant volumes that ever graced a library-table; "- and that "with its exquisite wood cuts, &c.- the
ingenuity with which every ornament, within and without, introduces either the Bee itself, or its
workmanship, reflects great credit on the designer, &c." This, and from the Quarterly too, is more than
could have been expected even by Mr. Cotton himself - unless indeed either he, or some friend for him,
and with his privity, [ie., collusion] had the getting up of the article in the Quarterly - a supposition
neither impossible nor improbable. But is the Quarterly aware that one of the " exquisite wood-cuts" - one
of the "ornaments" of Mr. Cotton's book, viz. that placed at the end of the list of Bee-books, has been
silently and surreptitiously taken from the sketch herein to grace one page of "the elegant volume ?" Does
this reflect great credit, or any credit, either on the designer, or on the Quarterly for its misplaced praise ?
1
From Cotton’s A Short & Simple Letter to Cottagers – letter the second, on the natural theology of bees (1837)
“They have two stomachs, like cows; in the first stomach, the cow and the Bee, when they are feeding, put the one
grass, and the other honey: if the Bee wants to make wax, she shifts some honey into her second stomach, which is a
regular ‘Inside Pocket,’ just like that into which men put their breakfasts and their dinners.”
2
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cmtilbury/gedneyhill.html
The good, old adage - suum cuique - has been disregarded by Cotton, though on several accounts
deserving a place in his book; - neither has it been duly observed by the Quarterly in its shine on the
Honey Bee and Bee-books.”
The Quarterly Review’s anonymous critic was aware of previous vitriolic reaction towards Cotton’s
views. He can only have been referring to Rev. Clark. In a discussion on the relocation of hives to take
advantage of near or distant bee pasturage areas: “a late writer, who has shown rather a waspish
disposition in his attacks on Mr. Cotton’s system, seems to question not only the advantage, but the
practicability of the transportation of hives altogether. But the fact is, that in the north of England and in
Scotland, where there are large tracts of heather-land apart from any habitation, nothing is more common
than for the bee-masters of the towns and villages to submit their hives during the honey season to the
care of the shepherd of the district. …”
To appreciate Clark’s character one need only read his “Advertisement” to the 6 th edition. “Were the
author, alias the proprietor of the following work, to attempt to write another Preface (there being no
fewer than three already, understood to be author's Prefaces) the substance of it would probably be to
express in glowing language his gratitude to his patrons particularly, and to the public generally, for the
encouragement he has met with, and for having purchased every copy of all the preceding editions; and
modestly to announce the superiority of the sixth to all the former editions. But, to spare the ostensible
author the disagreeable task of puffing, the editor in propria persona [note: exclusively the editor’s own ?]
takes the opportunity here afforded him of informing the reader - that the materials for the following work
were originally put into his hands in an unconnected and well-nigh unintelligible state, - they were
literally a "rudis indigestaque moles," [note: huge, bulky, clumsy and indigestible] which required
considerable labour and persevering industry in order to their being gradually moulded into the form in
which they now appear; - and that he has again been prevailed upon to bestow more than a little labour
upon the revision, enlargement, and, he thinks, improvement of the work.
For the Notes now introduced, he (the editor) begs to state, that he alone is responsible: - Mr. Nutt has had
no hand in them. Therefore if they, viz. the notes, or any of them, should, and they probably may, excite
hostility in certain quarters, that hostility can in fairness be directed against him only, and not against
Nutt. It should be remembered too, that those two or three writers, who have been chastised, have, in the
plenitude of their zeal for, and admiration of, exploded and antiquated systems of Bee-management, or
out of jealousy and envy of Nutt's improved plans, uncharitably and rashly, if not maliciously and out of
sheer ill-will to Nutt, attempted - vainly attempted - to write him down: therefore, however sore those
writers, critical or professional, as the case may be, may feel under the castigation that has been
occasionally bestowed upon them, it will be seen, and perhaps allowed - that they themselves have
provoked it, - and consequently that they deserve it. Dr. Bevan may nibble, and egg on Dunbar to disgrace
himself by his pitiful calculations, - the Quarterly maybe big and dictatorial; but neither the one nor the
other, aided by all their mercenary auxiliaries, can convince the unprejudiced reader that Nutt is not the
inventor of his own collateral Bee-boxes. Because White, nearly a century ago, enlarged his wooden hives
by adding to them plain, wooden boxes, having very imperfect communication with the mother-boxes,
and totally without the means of ventilation, and without under-boxes, therefore they - Dr. Bevan and the
Quarterly - hold that White, and not Nutt, was the inventor of Bee-boxes!
As reasonably might they maintain that, because a boiling teakettle throws out steam, the tinker, or
whoever he was that made the first tea-kettle, was the inventor of Watt's steam-engine. Nutt's boxes are as
superior to White's as the steam-engine is to a tea-kettle. No one, however - not even Bevan - has yet had
the hardihood to deny Nutt the merit of having invented the inverted-hive; which, when properly stocked
and well-managed, affords one of the most pleasing and beautiful sights that an apiarian can contemplate.
Why has not this invention been attacked? why, but because it is unassailable?
Lastly, and by way of blunting one at least of the dastardly shafts that the skulking concealed skirmishers
may perchance be pleased to level at him, the editor states positively - that he neither has, nor claims, nor
expects to have, any part or share of the profits arising from the sale of this work; and further - that he
never had, nor ever claimed to have, any part or share of the profits already realized, - nor has he ever
stipulated for any remuneration in any shape whatever. Gedney-Hill, December 26, 1845.”
Thomas Nutt, on the other hand, seems to have been far more magnanimous, He closed the preface to his
1832 1st edition thus: “I cannot close this preface without acknowledging myself to be under the greatest
obligations to the Rev. T. Clark, of Gedney Hill. But for his assistance the following work would not have
made its appearance in its present form; if indeed it had appeared at all. He has revised, corrected,
connected, and arranged the materials of which it is composed; and he has moreover gratuitously added
much that is original and valuable from his own rich stores of knowledge. To him I am indebted for the
selection of the Latin mottos. As an apiarian he is one of my most improved and skilful pupils, and bids
fair to become an ornament to the science of Bee-management. As a mechanic he is ingenious enough to
make his own Bee-boxes, and has actually made some of the very best I have yet seen. To his knowledge
of mechanics it is owing that the description and explanation of each of the different boxes, of all the
other parts of my Bee-machinery, and of my observatory- hive, in particular, are more detailed, clearer,
and more intelligible than they would have been in my hands. As a scholar there are passages in the
following work that afford no mean specimen of his abilities. I have only to regret that the reward for the
pains he has taken with it must be my thanks - that it is not in my power to remunerate him for his kind
labours more substantially than by this public acknowledgment of the obligations I am under, and of my
sense of the debt of gratitude that is due to him.”
As well as My Bee Book, Clark also referred to Cotton’s earlier A Short and Simple Letter to Cottagers,
from a Conservative Bee-Keeper first published in 1837, describing it as his “simple letter to cottagers”.
Two new editions of Nutt’s book appeared soon after, the 4th that same year and the 5th in 1839, both
revised, enlarged and edited by Clark. Cotton must have been aware of some of Clark’s heated criticism
before his departure for New Zealand in late December 1841, although I’ve found no record of his
reaction. I wonder did he become aware of the escalated vehemence of the attack towards the end of his
time at Auckland? The extensive list of bee books which appears at the beginning of My Bee Book does
include a copy of Nutt, the 3rd edition of 1835, the edition preceding those following as revised by Clark.
Rather than outrage I think Cotton would have been amazed, astounded, and in the end, mellowed
towards forgiving?
Peter Barrett, Caloundra, Queensland. July 2009