The Extraordinary Lives of Richard Rodda, 1743-1815, and his family 

In July 2024, Penwith Local History Group gave four short talks at Penzance LitFest under the title Extraordinary People of West Penwith.

When I failed to find a relevant historical person who hadn’t already been researched, my husband suggested his ancestor the Reverend Richard Rodda.   To my surprise, David unearthed a fat folder from the cupboard under the stairs on which the following was based.                  

As the extraordinary can only be seen in contrast with the ordinary, we have to look at both aspects Richard Rodda’s life to see how unpredictable it was. The ordinary charts humble beginnings, work as a miner, conversion to Methodism, marriage and children. The extraordinary includes learning to read aged six; surviving several near-fatal accidents; success as a Methodist itinerant preacher rising to become one of Wesley’s esteemed 100 preachers; ownership of properties in London; and burial in the same graveyard as John Wesley. This lad from a mining family from Sancreed, an obscure hamlet of West Cornwall, was named on his Probate Records as the Rev, Richard Rodda, Gentleman.

The extraordinary family history continued after his death with the infamous Rodda Gun Heist from Rodda and Co, the company once owned by Richard Rodda’s grandson.

Family Members

Richard Rodda was one of eight children. His father, Nicholas, probably earned his living by a combination of mining, fishing and smuggling.[i]

Elder brother Martin became an itinerant Methodist preacher and worked in the then colony of America. However, he proclaimed his anti-independence, pro-royalist sympathies which tarnished the Methodist cause and so he was sent home in disgrace.

Younger brother Thomas, also started as a preacher however he turned to smuggling with another brother, William. They owned liquor establishments in Roscoff, Sennen and St Buryan. They smuggled tobacco and nick-knacks [eg needles, white stockings and tea] into France and brought back brandy and salt. William was murdered on the road in Cornwall.

Chapter of Accidents

Richard Rodda was miraculously saved from several potentially fatal accidents which he interpreted as God’s providence in saving him for a higher purpose.

When still a young boy he was thrown from a horse which then jumped over him, as did the following horse. He survived several tin mining accidents: near drowning aged 16, three underground cave-ins or collapses when he was protected by falling boulders every time.

Conversion  

Methodism was “originally and essentially a movement for the deepening of the spiritual life within the Church of England”, and early members met weekly in cottages and were led by local and by itinerant preachers. In1762, when Richard Rodda was 12, John Wesley preached at the Rodda cottage at Trannack Mill, which had a profound influence on the family.

As a young man, after considerable soul-searching, he converted to Methodism, and was appointed by John Wesley to the unsalaried post of preacher for the Glamorgan Circuit; he noted that he even bought his own horse. Richard Rodda spent part of each year in paid employment to fund his work on the Methodist circuit.

For a short time he worked as a Steward of the Estate of Clareston Hall, Hook, Pembrokeshire; “at twenty-one Richard Rodda’s attainment was phenomenal and his prospects appeared limitless in the prosperity of this world”. He also combined part-time work as a miner to fund his preaching activities.[ii]

As a preacher he achieved much success with small groups of supporters which grew in numbers every year, but also met with hostility: raucous mobs would threaten him with physical violence, rotten eggs and milk.

For 33 years he endured life on the road which meant travelling in all weathers, frequently staying in damp lodgings with unaired bedding, and eating indifferent or inadequate food. One itinerant’s wife described living in a flea-ridden house and later on in a grim manse; conditions were often so harsh that provision soon had to be made for families and for “worn out preachers”.[iii]

Family Life

In 1768, aged 25, he married Elizabeth Stephens and they had 10 children, three children of whom died very young.  Elizabeth and two daughters were later drowned when sailing from Bristol to join Richard Rodda in Wales. So he was then a widower with five children; however he did not delay BUT married a family friend, Elizabeth Dryall the same year.

He was particularly interested and engaged in the religious instruction of the young and, while working in Chester, founded a Methodist Sunday School based on his principles. He wrote “We soon had nearly 700 children under regular masters, and, with these, several assistants” aimed “to train the children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, that they might be useful members of civil and religious society”.  Typical of his devotional tracts was The Youth’s Manual or Guide to Happiness consisting of Diurnal Devotions throughout the Year.

At least two of his surviving children disappointed him. There are several letters extant from him to son John who found it hard to settle down as a printer and was frequently in debt, settled by Richard Rodda. “Supposing every child had cost me the above sum [of £20] the past years, I should have neither bread to eat nor clothes to wear.” He counsels John to live “soberly, carefully and diligently” and that his wife should be “cleanly, diligent and frugal.”

As Martin, another son, lay dying RIchard wrote to John ”I fear all my admonitions, reproofs and advice were counted by him as the wild reveries of a distemper’d imagination ... the man who dies in his sins can never be saved ...”

How much of Richard Rodda’s teachings, sermons and admonishments were heeded by his sons?

Secular Success and Wealth

There are no less than three portraits of Richard Rodda which implies a high social standing. Of course, we don’t know who commissioned the engravings - could he have done so himself? The earliest I found was made when he was aged 41, wearing a wig. He was already celebrated, or rich, enough to have a portrait made. This portrait was engraved by William Ridley, an established stipple engraver who depicted some of the most prominent people of his day.

In 1794 he was awarded the honour of Freeman of the City of Bristol, and a second picture was made, possibly to mark that occasion.  The inscription reads ‘Less than the least of all Saints’ which I suppose is a compliment.

In the last picture, made in “old age”, he looks prosperous and well-fed. The portrait was made by Nathan Cooper Branwhite (c1775–1857) who became Bristol's leading miniature portrait painter

Despite his impoverished beginnings, and his underfunded life as an itinerant preacher, Richard Rodda amassed a sizeable estate. This stemmed from his second wife, a “high churchwoman with £1,500”. He and his first wife must have struggled financially and complained as after the second marriage, a colleague commented drily “so [now] perhaps he may be quiet.”  Canny investments and a frugal life style made for a degree of prosperity.

Richard Rodda died in 1815 and was buried in the graveyard of Wesley’s Chapel. His will mentions at least three properties in Shoreditch, shares in the Gas Light and Coke Company, cash bequests to family and others, and scores of books. Probate was needed which only happens if the estate is large enough or if the will is contested, which it was.

To have amassed as much property as he did, the Reverend Rodda must have been a good entrepreneur, a characteristic he passed on to his son Richard and grandson Richard Burrows Rodda [see below].

After Richard Rodda’s death

Profuse accolades included: “a man of uprightness and independence of character, possessing great natural fortitude of mind, enjoying strong confidence in God, and always manifesting the greatest patience under affliction”

The lives of some of his descendants continued to combine a mixture of the ordinary and the extraordinary, particularly that of his grandson, Richard Burrows born in the early 1800s. He joined a prominent British arms dealer in Kolkata, India, becoming sole proprietor. The business, renamed R.B. Rodda and Company, had offices in London and Kolkata. In 1857 Rodda sold the business and emigrated to the USA.

However a century after Richard Rodda’s death, R.B. Rodda and Company was the victim of the Rodda Arms Heist, described as “The greatest Daylight Robbery”, which was planned carried out by pro-Independence revolutionaries against British rule.

On 24 August 1914 a large consignment of arms was to be loaded onto six guarded bullock carts and delivered from the docks in Kolkata to the warehouse of the highly respected Rodda & Co. however an unauthorised seventh cart secretly tagged along, and was loaded with small arms by accomplices at the dock; this cart peeled off from the other six carts and proceeded towards the Kanti Mukherjee ironworks yard where the guns were immediately distributed to different Independence groups. The plotters changed their names and clothes, and fled. A manhunt was immediately launched and most were caught and sentenced to periods of six months, and two or four years of imprisonment.[iv]

The Rodda Arms Heist scenario has been considered one of the most successful arms thefts of colonial India, in that that the guns and the bullets were successfully stolen and a majority were used for revolutionary activities. Not a single bullet was fired during the theft, and none of the revolutionaries received the death penalty or life imprisonment. Today the ironically named Rodda Memorial dedicated to the four master plotters, stands, garlanded, in Kolkata.

So, to sum up, Richard Rodda and his family’s extraordinary lives were connected to Methodism, smuggling, murder and dealing in arms.

[i] West Ding Dong and Wheal Conyers mines were within walking distance of Trannack Mill

[ii] Unpublished research in the family’s possession by historian John Pearce.

[iii]  The Development of the Methodist Ministry (methodistheritage.org.uk) Diary of Mrs Frances Pawson

[iv]  The authorities may well have been preoccupied by the consequences of Britain having declared war on Germany 10 days earlier. The British Indian Army, as part of the British Empire. was heavily involved in World War I. https://amitabhagupta.wordpress.com/2019/02/09/anatomy-of-a-100-year-old-arms-heist/ 

Note on sources: I am greatly indebted to Gwen Rodda’s Some Roddas , ; she corresponded with my husband and collaborated closely with John Pearce , see note ii above. https://victoriancollections.net.au/items/5dcb779721ea6711a0cab78f