The Pious Shepherd

Having stacked a load of logs this morning I thought I deserved some time off, so have spent the afternoon on family history.

What started me off many years ago was a family story which told us that we had descended from the so-called 'Pious Shepherd of Salisbury Plain', who lived from 1726 to 1796 and was in fact a real shepherd on Salisbury Plain and my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. As he had sixteen children, six of whom married and might have had children (some checking to do here!) there are possibly quite a few great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren around!

I have a copy of a small book about the Shepherd that was written by Hannah More in 1820. Hannah was a noted religious writer and philanthropist, and a poet and playwright in the circle of Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds and David Garrick. She was also a friend of William Wilberforce, so with all this going on it was good of her to write a book about my relative!

The extra picture shows the cover of my edition, which was published by Nimmo, Hay and Mitchell of Edinburgh around 1874. It was given by the Railway Mission, Carlisle, as a 3rd prize for 'regular attendance' to a James Glegg in 1896.

I wonder what else I could achieve if I didn't do a Blip every day!