William H. Mounsey
Encyclopedia
Major William Henry Mounsey of Castletown and Rockcliffe was a British spy
who worked in Persia and Afghanistan
. He was born in 1808 and christened on 25 January 1808 at Saint Cuthbert's Church in Carlisle in Cumbria
.
career
and became a Captain in the 4th (The King's Own) Regiment of Foot. The regiment
embarked for foreign service on 14 April 1832, seeing colonial service in Australia
from 1832 until 1837, stationed variously at Tasmania
, Sydney
, Victoria (South Australia)
and the Swan River Colony
. The King's Own left Sydney in two divisions, the last of which did not arrive in Madras until April 1838. In 1841/1843 serving in the East Indies
. In 1844 serving at Secunderabad
, Madras, under General
John Hodgson. Mounsey was commissioned as an Ensign on 28 May 1829; promoted to Lieutenant
on 4 January 1833 and to Captain on 14 April 1837. Later he was promoted to the rank of Major
.
Circa 1850 he became an amateur
archaeologist, living in Carlisle with his sisters Margaret, Mary and Ann. After his retirement he wandered in the UK dressed in a Jewish outfit and was known as the "Jew of Carlisle". During military service in the Middle East he became fascinated by the Jewish culture. He is known for an inscription he left on the Dwarfie Stane
, a Neolithic
rock-cut tomb on the island of Hoy
in Orkney, in Persian calligraphy
. Mounsey camped here in 1850 and inscribed: "I have sat two nights and so learnt patience". Above the Persian is his own name written backwards in Latin
. He also left his own mark on ancient sites in Cumberland. In 1850 he traced the course of the river Eden from the Solway Firth
to its source in Mallerstang
and set up a monument to mark the source of the river. It was an inscribed slate
pillar with Hebrew, Greek
and Latin elements. Striking was the Star of David
. Unfortunately it was smashed in 1870 by railway workers. In Outhgill
(Cumbria) there is a replica
made of limestone
, called the "Jew Stone", placed a few years after the visit of a Jewish traveller, named Shalom Hermon, who saw the broken original in 1984. The Latin inscription translated reads: "William Mounsey, a lone traveller, commenced his journey at the mouth and finished at the source, fulfilled his vow to the genius and nymphs of the Eden on the 15th March, 1850". He even carved a 9th century Welsh
verse on the walls of a pre-Roman
archaeological site in 1852 and left other inscriptions near the river Eden. Possibly, he was the sculptor of a series of enigmatic faces cut into the sandstone
cliffs of Eden gorge near Armathwaite
.
He was fascinated by a maze
or labyrinth
near the boathouse in Rockcliffe marsh. It was one of a number that have been cut on the marsh in the peat
at different times. He believed these to represent Caerdroia, or the Walls of Troy
, and to be restricted to land occupied by Celtic people. In 1858 - the year in which Archdeacon
Trollope published the results of his research - Mounsey drew attention to the description in a Welsh history book Drych y Prif Oesoedd, published in 1740, of a curious custom formerly prevalent among the Welsh shepherds. The custom consisted in cutting in the turf
a figure in the form of a labyrinth, a turf maze, which they called Caerdroia
. His study Tales - The Children of Lir
and Cath Cluana Tairbh, (1859), is just as Welsh version of Purgatorium S. Patricii, c.1860, held in the National Library of Wales
in Aberystwyth. These are examples of his fascination for the Celts, but he was also interested in other cultures. Two books, one about Spinoza and another about Persia, are now available in libraries with his name "Mounsey", as former owner, stamped in them. He lived for some time with his brother George Gill Mounsey and others at the Castletown House near Carlisle (c.1870). He died in Carlisle in the last quarter of 1877. As far as is known he never married.
SPY
SPY is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* SPY , ticker symbol for Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts* SPY , a satirical monthly, trademarked all-caps* SPY , airport code for San Pédro, Côte d'Ivoire...
who worked in Persia and Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
. He was born in 1808 and christened on 25 January 1808 at Saint Cuthbert's Church in Carlisle in Cumbria
Cumbria
Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...
.
Major
He had a militaryMilitary
A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...
career
Career
Career is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a person's "course or progress through life ". It is usually considered to pertain to remunerative work ....
and became a Captain in the 4th (The King's Own) Regiment of Foot. The regiment
Regiment
A regiment is a major tactical military unit, composed of variable numbers of batteries, squadrons or battalions, commanded by a colonel or lieutenant colonel...
embarked for foreign service on 14 April 1832, seeing colonial service in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
from 1832 until 1837, stationed variously at Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
, Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Victoria (South Australia)
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
and the Swan River Colony
Swan River Colony
The Swan River Colony was a British settlement established in 1829 on the Swan River, in Western Australia. The name was a pars pro toto for Western Australia. In 1832, the colony was officially renamed Western Australia, when the colony's founding Lieutenant-Governor, Captain James Stirling,...
. The King's Own left Sydney in two divisions, the last of which did not arrive in Madras until April 1838. In 1841/1843 serving in the East Indies
East Indies
East Indies is a term used by Europeans from the 16th century onwards to identify what is now known as Indian subcontinent or South Asia, Southeastern Asia, and the islands of Oceania, including the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines...
. In 1844 serving at Secunderabad
Secunderabad
Secunderabad popularly known as the twin city of Hyderabad is located in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh north of Hyderabad. Named after Sikandar Jah, the third Nizam of the Asaf Jahi dynasty, Secunderabad was founded in 1806 AD as a British cantonment...
, Madras, under General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
John Hodgson. Mounsey was commissioned as an Ensign on 28 May 1829; promoted to Lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
on 4 January 1833 and to Captain on 14 April 1837. Later he was promoted to the rank of Major
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...
.
Archaeologist
Amateur
An amateur is generally considered a person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science, without pay and often without formal training....
archaeologist, living in Carlisle with his sisters Margaret, Mary and Ann. After his retirement he wandered in the UK dressed in a Jewish outfit and was known as the "Jew of Carlisle". During military service in the Middle East he became fascinated by the Jewish culture. He is known for an inscription he left on the Dwarfie Stane
Dwarfie Stane
The Dwarfie Stane is a megalithic chambered tomb carved out of a titanic block of Devonian Old Red Sandstone located in a steep-sided glaciated valley between the settlements of Quoys and Rackwick on Hoy, an island in Orkney, Scotland....
, a Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
rock-cut tomb on the island of Hoy
Hoy
Hoy is an island in Orkney, Scotland. With an area of it is the second largest in the archipelago after the Mainland. It is connected by a causeway called The Ayre to South Walls...
in Orkney, in Persian calligraphy
Calligraphy
Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...
. Mounsey camped here in 1850 and inscribed: "I have sat two nights and so learnt patience". Above the Persian is his own name written backwards in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
. He also left his own mark on ancient sites in Cumberland. In 1850 he traced the course of the river Eden from the Solway Firth
Solway Firth
The Solway Firth is a firth that forms part of the border between England and Scotland, between Cumbria and Dumfries and Galloway. It stretches from St Bees Head, just south of Whitehaven in Cumbria, to the Mull of Galloway, on the western end of Dumfries and Galloway. The Isle of Man is also very...
to its source in Mallerstang
Mallerstang
Mallerstang is a civil parish in the extreme east of Cumbria, and, geographically, a dale at the head of the upper Eden Valley. Originally part of Westmorland, it lies about south of the nearest town, Kirkby Stephen...
and set up a monument to mark the source of the river. It was an inscribed slate
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...
pillar with Hebrew, Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and Latin elements. Striking was the Star of David
Star of David
The Star of David, known in Hebrew as the Shield of David or Magen David is a generally recognized symbol of Jewish identity and Judaism.Its shape is that of a hexagram, the compound of two equilateral triangles...
. Unfortunately it was smashed in 1870 by railway workers. In Outhgill
Outhgill
Outhgill is a hamlet in Mallerstang, Cumbria. It lies about 5 miles south of Kirkby Stephen.It is the main hamlet in the dale of Mallerstang - a civil parish, which retains the Norse pattern of its original settlement: a series of small hamlets and isolated houses, with no village centre...
(Cumbria) there is a replica
Replica
A replica is a copy closely resembling the original concerning its shape and appearance. An inverted replica complements the original by filling its gaps. It can be a copy used for historical purposes, such as being placed in a museum. Sometimes the original never existed. For example, Difference...
made of limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
, called the "Jew Stone", placed a few years after the visit of a Jewish traveller, named Shalom Hermon, who saw the broken original in 1984. The Latin inscription translated reads: "William Mounsey, a lone traveller, commenced his journey at the mouth and finished at the source, fulfilled his vow to the genius and nymphs of the Eden on the 15th March, 1850". He even carved a 9th century Welsh
History of the Welsh language
The history of the Welsh language spans over 1400 years, encompassing the stages of the language known as Old Welsh, Middle Welsh, and Modern Welsh.-Origins:Welsh evolved from British, the Celtic language spoken by the ancient Britons...
verse on the walls of a pre-Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
archaeological site in 1852 and left other inscriptions near the river Eden. Possibly, he was the sculptor of a series of enigmatic faces cut into the sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
cliffs of Eden gorge near Armathwaite
Armathwaite
Armathwaite is a village in the English ceremonial county of Cumbria.Historically within the county of Cumberland, Armathwaite lies on the River Eden, forms part of Eden district and is served by Armathwaite railway station...
.
He was fascinated by a maze
Maze
A maze is a tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage through which the solver must find a route. In everyday speech, both maze and labyrinth denote a complex and confusing series of pathways, but technically the maze is distinguished from the labyrinth, as the labyrinth has a single...
or labyrinth
Labyrinth
In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth was an elaborate structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos...
near the boathouse in Rockcliffe marsh. It was one of a number that have been cut on the marsh in the peat
Peat
Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter or histosol. Peat forms in wetland bogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests. Peat is harvested as an important source of fuel in certain parts of the world...
at different times. He believed these to represent Caerdroia, or the Walls of Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
, and to be restricted to land occupied by Celtic people. In 1858 - the year in which Archdeacon
Archdeacon
An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in Anglicanism, Syrian Malabar Nasrani, Chaldean Catholic, and some other Christian denominations, above that of most clergy and below a bishop. In the High Middle Ages it was the most senior diocesan position below a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church...
Trollope published the results of his research - Mounsey drew attention to the description in a Welsh history book Drych y Prif Oesoedd, published in 1740, of a curious custom formerly prevalent among the Welsh shepherds. The custom consisted in cutting in the turf
Sod
Sod or turf is grass and the part of the soil beneath it held together by the roots, or a piece of thin material.The term sod may be used to mean turf grown and cut specifically for the establishment of lawns...
a figure in the form of a labyrinth, a turf maze, which they called Caerdroia
Caerdroia
Caerdroia: the Welsh name for ancient Troy ; because of the similarity between Welsh troeau and the second element Troea , the name was later popularly interpreted as meaning "Fortress of Turns"...
. His study Tales - The Children of Lir
Lir
Ler or Lir is a sea god in Irish mythology. His name suggests that he is a personification of the sea, rather than a distinct deity. He is named Allód in early genealogies, and corresponds to the Llŷr of Welsh mythology...
and Cath Cluana Tairbh, (1859), is just as Welsh version of Purgatorium S. Patricii, c.1860, held in the National Library of Wales
National Library of Wales
The National Library of Wales , Aberystwyth, is the national legal deposit library of Wales; one of the Welsh Government sponsored bodies.Welsh is its main medium of communication...
in Aberystwyth. These are examples of his fascination for the Celts, but he was also interested in other cultures. Two books, one about Spinoza and another about Persia, are now available in libraries with his name "Mounsey", as former owner, stamped in them. He lived for some time with his brother George Gill Mounsey and others at the Castletown House near Carlisle (c.1870). He died in Carlisle in the last quarter of 1877. As far as is known he never married.