Sarah
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Somerset County Herald and Taunton Courier. Saturday 25 Dec 1943
Page 4 Column 5
TAUNTON'S
“GABRIEL GRUB”
A SURLY OLD GRAVE-DIGGER
[BY H. J. CHANNON.]
I have often wondered who was the original of Gabriel Grub, the grave-digger who was so mercilessly kicked by the goblins while digging a grave on Christmas-eve. The only clue DICKENS gives us is that the churchyard was in an old abbey town. Taunton can claim to be an old priory town.
I have just been reading Recollections of Taunton, the Taunton of 1820, by E. F. GOLDSWORTHY. He gives his recollections of the old Church of St. Mary Magdalene.
“The grave-digger, old Phil GODFREY, was a vertiable 'Gabriel Grub.' He was a short, stout, gloomy and sour-looking old fellow, who looked at children – and, indeed, at everybody – as if he would like to have the pleasure of digging their graves. His clothes were generally besmeared with soil and filth. I fancy I see him now, as he walked with a slow and heavy step, with his spade and ladder on his shoulder, to and from the churchyard. Phil was quite an original, and fond of doing things at unseasonable times: one of them was digging graves at night.
“On a very dark night he once frightened the whole neighbourhood. He descended into a deep grave with a lighted lantern, and set to work to finish it; as he stooped over the light it was obscured, when he raised his body, to rest, the light flashed from the grave; it looked as if the grave opened and closed every few minutes, which excited great wonder and consternation until some one was bold and courageous enough to approach the grave and discover the cause.”
Like Gabriel Grub, he seems to have snarled at the mirth and cheerfulness of others. The resemblance between the two characters does not end here.
BLACKBOY LANE.
In order to reach the churchyard Gabriel Grub had to pass through a dark lane (Coffin Lane), where on Christmas-eve he rapped over the head with a lantern a small boy, who was roaring out some jolly song about a merry Christmas.
Near the Church of St. Mary Magdalene was Blackboy Lane, the entrance to which was about four feet wide. At one end of this narrow lane, nearest Canon Street, were several old thatched houses with diamond-shaped glass windows, and close to them stood the Black Boy Inn, kept by Anthony JERRETT. This JERRETT was supposed to have murdered a soldier and thrown his body over North Town Bridge; he was tried for the murder but acquitted.
The lane was without light of any kind, and had in it several sharp turnings. Vice and drunkenness gave it another name – the “Sink of Iniquity.” Through this horrid den of vice passed Phil GODFREY to his work, and if it were Christmas-eve he might have laughed like Gabriel Grub, when he reached the churchyard. “A coffin at Christmas! A Christmas Box! Ho! ho! ho!”
A GHOSTLY TOMBSTONE.
“Seated on an uprighet tombstone, close to him was a strange, unearthly figure, whom Gabriel felt at once, was no being of this world.”
St. Mary's churchyard had a ghost, a very harmless one, but it scared terribly the women and children. There was a tall head-stone, lancet-shaped at the top, with elevated corners looking not unlike arms partially raised. It was painted white. Nothing was thought of or said about it until a gas-lamp was placed at the Post-office, then at the corner of Magdalene Lane, the light from which was thrown over Church Square and some way up the churchyard. The effect of this light was to make the headstone appear at a distance like a human being with a sheet thrown over its head and shoulders. Its ghostly appearance may have troubled old Phil GODFREY as he worked at night in the churchyard.
As to whether, like Gabriel Grub, Phil GODFREY had any strange experience that led to his reformation, the records are silent. The only other thing we know about him is that he had a daughter, Mary, whose disposition was quite the reverse of her father's. She was a great churchgoer, and attended the funerals of rich and poor, when she cried the loudest of all the mourners.