Details
The characters in the novel can be divided into two general categories. There are those, like Captains Hocken and Hunken, Simeon Toy, Peter Benny and William Philp, who are as they appear on the surface. There are others, like John Rogers, Mrs Bosenna and possibly Mrs Bowldler, who are more complex. If Hocken and Hunken is seen as ‘pure comedy’, as Brittain suggests (p.43), it is difficult to see how the plot accommodates John Rogers. He is not as morally corrupt as Dr Beauregard in Poison Island, Roderick Salt in The Blue Pavilions or the steward of Gleys in The Splendid Spur; but he is morally ambiguous, with avarice as his besetting sin.
Initially, John Rogers is presented as an honest ship’s-broker and chandler who has scrupulously handled the financial affairs of Caius Hocken for 12 years and who arranges the leases of 1 and 2 Harbour Terrace for the captains with Mrs Bosenna. Thanks to Rogers’ astuteness, Hocken retires financially secure. However, when Hocken lunches with Rogers, the reader is introduced to Fancy Tabb, the young servant, and Elijah Tabb, her father. There is something mysterious, even dubious, about Rogers’ hold over them.
The reader’s suspicions are enhanced when Rogers’ position on the School Board is introduced. His sole aim appears to be to keep down the school rate and ensure his control of the coal contract. We learn that William Philp, and indeed Mrs Bowldler, believe Rogers to be suspect in delivering full weight, a suspicion Hocken later sees as justified. Rogers is therefore concerned to keep Philp off the board which means preventing an election he is sure Philp would win. He suggests resigning in favour of Hocken who could be co-opted without the necessity of an election; which is what happens (Chapter XI). Q’s intimate knowledge of the working of the education system is revealed here.
These shenanigans appear at one level to be no more than provincial satire, squabbles in the local community, as found in Troy Town. In fact, these are symptoms of a deeper malaise. To fully understand the darker side of John Rogers, some knowledge of shipping law and its evasion prior to the Shipping Act of 1906 is required and this is not generally found in the reading public today.
The reader first comes to the problem in Chapter III, ‘Tabb’s Child’. Elijah and Fancy Tabb, father and daughter, are controlled by Rogers at the chandlery. Elijah Tabb had once been the skipper of one of Roger’s boats called the Uncle and Aunt. Elijah Tabb had become involved with Rogers in a speculative venture (p. 264) which had failed, resulting in Elijah and Fancy being financially dependent upon the chandler.
Then the reader is introduced to Palmerston Burt who comes from the Tregarrick Workhouse to act as second servant to Mrs Bowldler at Harbour Terrace. In chapter eight, the reader learns that Burt’s father had been a crew member of a coal boat belonging to Rogers calledthe Tartar Girl which had foundered in 1891 sailing out of South Shields. Presumably, the boat was overloaded and any insurance did not cover the crew. As a result Mrs Burt was left with no male income and Palmerston had to be disposed of at a workhouse.
Thirdly, there is the case of the Saltypool. In Chapter XXII, Rogers challenges Tobias Hunken over the ‘Harbour Board, tryin’ to get the Commissioners to regylate the ladin’ of vessels’ (p.242). Hunken identified the Saltypool, on which the captains had unwittingly placed £200 of Mrs Bosenna’s money, as one of the worst examples. He had observed it leaving No. 3 jetty with a cargo of china clay well below Plimsoll mark. Rogers reacts with surprise: ‘the old sinner’s dismay was clearly honest.’ Hunken claims to be protecting the underwriters— he assumes the vessel to have been insured— and the seamen.
The reader learns in Chapter XXIV of the Saltypool being run ‘uninsured’. Its foundering near Philadelphia resulted in a total loss, causing John Rogers to have a second and near fatal stroke. Not only was it run uninsured, possibly because Rogers could no longer afford the insurance, it was the last vessel remaining to him. At one time he had been a successful speculator with a number of ships to his name. But misfortune had by 1896 left him with the Saltypool alone. It was the only available craft for him to place the £200 the captains had given him from Mrs Bosenna. All was forfeit.
As someone involved in the running of Fowey Harbour, Q was fully aware of the abuses in the sailing of merchant ships for which the various overseeing bodies and the harbour master— Bussa in the case of Troy— along with the ship-owners and sea-captains and mates, were equally responsible. In the novel Hocken and Hunken we have not romanticism or comedy but historical fact.