William Charles Cotton: some tales tall, some tales true

He “could do with impunity anything he liked with his bees”

The Hobart Town Courier for Friday 10 October 1834 carried the following anecdote: “A gentleman,
residing at Bury St. Edmund's, could do with impunity anything he liked with his bees; he knew every
one of them; could distinguish each bee from its fellow, as a shepherd is said to individualise his sheep by
the physiognomy of each; and, if he wanted to show a particular bee to a friend, he would have the hive to
which it belonged turned into a cloth, roll the insects about with his hands, like so many peas, and
unharmed select from them the one required! This feat he has often been seen to perform.” Prefixed by
some editorial comment and described as an “almost miraculous story,” the tale reappeared eight years
later under “Curious Hive Anecdotes” in John Lawrence’s A practical treatise on breeding, rearing, and
fattening, all kinds of domestic poultry (1842).
Could Cotton have been Lawrence’s mysterious gentleman? I failed to confirm whether the anecdote
appeared in any of Lawrence’s four editions between the 4th of 1822 and the 7th of 1834. In an attempt to
clear the fog of anonymity I attempted to trace Cotton’s known movements using the scant but best
information available. He attended Eton College between 1827 and 1832 and at age 19 in March of that
final year matriculated to Christ Church, Oxford. At the time of the 1834 Hobart Town Courier report
Cotton was 21 years old, then studying and residing at Oxford. He was awarded his BA in 1836.
Cotton’s claimed abilities were consistent with the anonymous apiarian. From his My Bee Book (1842)
“… no Bee-keeper can be successful [unless he] desires to become the familiar friend of his Bees. … He
loses the high pleasure of feeling that his Bees know him, and confide in him; and is enabled to do
fearlessly and promptly whatever they require.” Cotton was well known for his ability to literally handle
bees and could demonstrate the equivalent of being able to “roll the insects about with his hands, like so
many peas”. From William Beament’s An Account of the Ancient Town of Frodsham, in Cheshire (1881)
“... any one who, like the writer, has seen the vicar wholly unprotected turn a full hive of bees upside
down, handle the inmates at his pleasure, select the queen from the rest, hold her up to the admiration of
her subjects, and then restore her to them, without sustaining a hurt or a sting, would almost have believed
that they knew their historian, and would not injure him.”
From My Bee Book “I could tell one [a drone] by the touch, for I can put my hands into a parcel of Bees,
and pull out the drones with my eyes shut. … I said in my first Letter, ‘If you want to catch any of the
Bees, make a bold sweep at them with your hand, as though there was no such thing as a sting in the
world. I have so caught three or four at a time. … I can appeal to swarms of my friends who have seen me
among my Bees, whether I cannot do stranger things than this.’ ”
“There was some humour in the assumption that every member of the ‘House’ would feel aggrieved by
the Dean’s frivolous accusation, but the gentlemanly character and inoffensiveness of Cotton’s favourites
must be made known and vindicated. Could a Christ Church bee with an Eton pedigree, trained within the
sacred precincts of the ‘House’, so far forget his noble origin as to sting a well-affected Tuft? 1 Perish the
thought! Whereas the stinging proclivities of Bigg’s bees was a matter of common knowledge to Cotton
and his friends.” Cotton’s assertion that he “knew that bee well” is pure invention, an imaginative,
mischievous yet playful falsehood likely to be believed by those ignorant of bees. Beament (1881)
recalled of Cotton “the vicar possessed a vein of innocent humour”

1
From A dictionary of modern slang, cant, and vulgar words, used at the present day in the streets of London; the
universities of Oxford and Cambridge; the Houses of Parliament; the dens of St. Giles; and the palaces of St. James
… (1860) by John Camden Hotten.
TUFTS, fellow commoners, i.e., wealthy students at the University, who pay higher fees, dine with the Dons, and
are distinguished by golden TUFTS, or tassels, in their caps.
TUFT-HUNTER, a hanger on to persons of quality or wealth. Originally University slang, but now general.
 “I determined to give a feed all round to such Bees as chose to accept my invitation to
dinner.”
Cotton indeed kept bees in his rooms. From My Bee Book, in “the summer of 1836 – In my rooms at
Christ Church, I had two stocks of Bees, which worked through a sort of cuniculus [a burrow or low
underground passage] in the window sill into the open air; one was in a leaf Hive, the other in an
observatory Hive (or, rather in an octagon box, with three glass windows in the back, as they never
worked up into the observatory leaves).” At an unspecified time and place Cotton invited bees at large to
feed within his rooms. “I was living in a town where I knew some few Bees were kept, and I chanced to
have some coarse comb, from which the honey had drained; so, instead of being greedy, and squeezing
out all I could get, I determined to give a feed all round to such Bees as chose to accept my invitation to
dinner. This invitation I gave by opening the window, and setting the honey on the sill. In about half an
hour some foragers found it out; they helped themselves, and carried back the good news to their sisters in
the Hive. In the course of the morning my room literally swarmed with Bees, and I need not tell you, as
they are grateful creatures, that they did not meddle with me, but, as I sat at my books, repaid me for my
treat with their sweet music. In the afternoon they were satisfied, at least for the day, and dropped off, one
by one, without committing any excess.”
“a bodyguard of them used to attend him to lecture and chapel”
Charles Clement Coe’s Nature Versus Natural Selection: an Essay on Organic Evolution (1895), provides
what can only be a fictional remembrance of Cotton: “... The food was tolerable; we found, for one thing,
New Zealand honey especially excellent, taken from the nests of wild bees, which are now in millions all
over the colony. They are the offspring of two or three hives, which were once kept, when I was at
Oxford, in the rooms of Cotton, of Christ Church, between whom and his bees there was such strong
attachment that a bodyguard of them used to attend him to lecture and chapel.” 2 A variation on this
appeared in Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science and Arts in 1893 “It is told that he was
accustomed to keep them in his sitting-room, and they had become so attached and familiar with his
person, that a squad of them used to attend him at lectures and chapel.” Where could such a zany tale of a
personal “squad” and “a bodyguard” of bees have originated? Its fiction is obvious to any beekeeper.
The bodyguard story was no stranger to Cotton. Under the page heading “bees are my bodyguard”, the
following tale was originally published in Captain John Gabriel Stedman’s Expedition to Surinam: Being
the Narrative of a Five Years Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam in Guiana, on the Wild
Coast of South America, from the Year 1772 to 1777, Elucidating that Country and Describing Its
Productions, with an Account of Indians of Guiana and Negroes of Guinea (1796). Cotton reproduced it
in My Bee Book. “On the 16th I was visited by a neighbouring gentleman, whom I conducted up my
ladder; but he had no sooner entered my aerial dwelling than he leaped down from the top to the ground,
roaring like a madman with agony and pain, after which he instantly plunged his head into the river; but,
looking up, I soon discovered the cause of his distress to be an immense nest of wild bees, or Wassee
Wassee, in the thatch, directly above my head, as I stood within my door, when I immediately took to my
heels, as he had done, and ordered them to be destroyed by my slaves without delay.
A tar mop was now brought, and the devastation just going to commence, when an old negro stepped up,
and offered to receive any punishment I should decree, if even one of these bees should sting me in
person. “Massa,” said he, “they would have stung you long ere now had you been a stranger to them; but
they, being your tenants, that is, gradually allowed to build upon your premises, they assuredly know both
you and yours, and will never hurt either you or them.
I instantly assented to the proposition, and, tying the old man to a tree, ordered my boy Quaco to ascend
the ladder quite naked, which he did, and was not stung. I then ventured to follow; and declare, upon my
honour, that even after shaking the nest, which made the inhabitants buzz about my ears, not a single one
2
Also to be found in: Froude, James Anthony (1886) Oceana, or, England and Her Colonies. (pp.261-262)
attempted to sting me. I next released the old negro, and rewarded him with a gallon of rum and four
shillings for the discovery. The swarm of bees I since kept unhurt, as my body guard, and they have made
many overseers take a desperate leap for my amusement, as I generally sent them [ie., the overseers] up
my ladder on some frivolous message, when I wished to punish them for injustice and cruelty, which was
not seldom.”
The assertion that bees know their master may have appealed to William. A talented story teller himself
he would have appreciated the yarn, realising the “bodyguard” bees simply stung unwary visitors
approaching too close to the hive, thus giving the appearance to some that they were consciously
protecting their master. Possibly some readers, in hazy recollection of the contents of My Bee Book, may
have years later incorrectly interpreted the story and applied it to William Charles.
“as if he had in a previous state of existence been a queen bee himself”
The following account from Everton Leigh’s Pets, a paper, dedicated to all who do not spell pets - pests
(1859) attributes Cotton having bee like qualities: “I refer to bees, in which many take great pleasure and
interest, like Cotton, who has written an amusing little pamphlet about them called the Conservative Bee
Keeper, and he seems to know the inmost thoughts, politics and arrangements of his bees as well as if he
had in a previous state of existence been a queen bee himself.”
“He was never without a plurality of dogs”
Several cameos of Cotton in his later years were provided in William Beament’s (1881) An Account of the
Ancient Town of Frodsham in Cheshire. “… he had other objects besides his flock to share his kindness,
and these were the four footed and winged creatures. He was never without a plurality of dogs, and one of
these, named Gip, became the pseudo author of a number of clever papers contributed to the Field and
other journals, descriptive of a tour which the dog and his master had made together; … his fondness for
animals and bees left him some love to spare for flowers, a beautiful branch of creation; and every year
when his roses and tulips were in full blow, it was announced that they would be ‘at home’ on the
afternoon of a day named, and on these occasions the visitors partook of an al fresco tea, in the vicarage
garden. …” Cotton even took his dogs to New Zealand. Four days into the voyage his letter to his sisters
dated “30th December 1841, Tomatin at sea” contains “Becalmed for the first time since leaving
Plymouth. All well - Mrs Selwyn, Bishop and Willie - dogs and bees and self.”

Thomas Gaisford, Dean of Christ Church, 1831-55

“I know that bee well”
My favourite is a whimsical tale of Cotton’s innovative handling of an “unjust accusation” as found in
Francis Doyle’s Reminiscences and Opinions of Sir Francis Hastings Doyle, 1813-1885 (1886) “At Christ
Church, not in my time, but a year or two afterwards, Cotton, one of our distinguished Eton men, a
Newcastle scholar, thought proper to adapt the rural economy of [Virgil’s] Fourth Georgic to Peckwater,
[one of the Oxford quadrangles] the subdivision of Christ Church where he lived. He devoted himself
assiduously to bees, and troubled his contemporaries (so they said at least) with continual buzzings and an
occasional sting. In these cases he always denied stoutly that his bees were in fault, and once when Dean
Gaisford, having sent for him, told him plainly that his bees must be sent away because a gentleman
commoner had just been stung in Tom Quad, [aka The Great Quadrangle Christ Church] he replied
instantly: ‘Mr. Dean, I assure you that you are doing us a great injustice. I know that bee well; he is not
mine at all, but belongs to Mr. Bigg of Merton.” 3 Audacious? Playful? Humourous? I bet he got away
with his ruse.

Peckwater Quadrangle, Christ Church, Oxford

Peter Barrett, Caloundra, Queensland. July 2009

3
Mr. Bigge, of Merton College, was one of the founding members of the Oxford Apiarian Society.