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Jennypeg
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Codnor History
replied on: 8/25/2005 4:04:34 PM

Also there's Mr. Woolley:

THE ILKESTON PIONEER
24TH AUGUST 1854

The original clock in Exchange at Nottingham was made by a mechanic of Codnor, named Woolley. As a brief history of the life of this eccentric character may be employed equally as an example and a warning to many of the youthful readers of the “Pioneer” we give it, with a few alteration, as recorded by Blackner:
When a young man, Woolley was fond of rambling through the woods and fields with a gun, for the purpose of enjoying the sport of shooting. Being detected in the pursuit of this amusement, on the estate of William Andrew Horne, of Butterley, he was convicted of the offence of poaching, and condemned in penalty and costs. Feeling extremely mortified at being thus at once mulcted in his means, and denied the further pursuit of his amusement, he, with a sternness of purpose which indicated a power of self-command capable of achieving the highest objects, had it been directed to nobler aims and ends, made a vow never to cease from labour except when compelled by the actual necessities of nature, until he had obtained sufficient property to qualify him legally to carry a gun, and pursue his sport without those vexatious interferences from gamekeepers and the owners and occupiers of property, to which he had been hitherto subjected. Accordingly, to work he went, and having a constant demand for his labour, continued it night and day without any regular intermissions from his self-imposed drudgery, except such as were of the most urgent nature. When hungry, he paused for a few minutes to eat, and when over wearied and drowsy he laid himself down on a sort of couch to sleep; denying himself every comfort and even necessary of life except of the very meanest kind. Persevering through a number of years in this course of unwavering self-denial, and continually investing his accumulations in the purchase of real property, which his constant command of ready money often enabled him to effect on highly advantageous terms, he at length found himself in the once-coveted position of a man with £100 a year in houses and lands. But, alas! The charm was broken! The idea of spending his time in idly rambling through woods and fields with a gun, in pursuit of hares and partridges, was altogether abhorrent to his then state of feeling: he had bound his once proud and generous spirit, with the untiring energies of an iron frame, to the attainment of an unworthy object and a baser had taken its place. He lived now not to enjoy life for the present, or to anticipate enjoyment or usefulness in the future, but to accumulate useless wealth. He toiled night and day, not for the “glorious privilege of being independent,” but merely to hoard. The hard-earned pelf, which rose continually in shining heaps before his eyes, he had not the moral courage to expend even in doing an act of real service to himself much less in conferring benefits upon his fellow creatures. What a different result to this might have been the case had the mind of this man, with all its original mighty power of self command, and generous love of independence, been directed to the accomplishment of purposes worthy of such a mind to have entertained. With one instance of the extraordinary parsimonious habits of the Derbyshire Clockmaker, we shall close our brief account of his life: A person came one Sunday to pay him for a clock, who, after having paid the money, was invited by Woolley to stay dinner. The visitor having acceded to this invitation, his host said “I will boil a whole penny-loaf, other wise I should have boiled only half one, which he did, and this constituted the whole of the fare.”
Woolley died about the year 1770, after having amassed a considerable property, which he bequeathed to one of his relations. (From Blacker and Bailey’s Histories of Nottingham)

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