John Overy; or, The Miser of Southwark Ferry

Overview

First staged in 1829, John Overy is one of Jerrold's early melodramas, portraying the moral decay of a miser haunted by his own greed. Set along the banks of the Thames, the story blends gothic atmosphere with sharp moral lessons. John Overy was the father of Mary, and the legend of Mary Overy was described in the remarks on the play written by George Daniel:

The first religious house on the Bankside (says Pennant) was that of St. Mary Overie, said to have been originally founded by a maiden named Mary for sisters, and endowed with the profits of a ferry across the Eye, or river Thames.” The story is, that one John Overy, a miser, who lived about the eleventh century, rented the ferry of Southwark, before a bridge was built across the Thames. Flattering himself that his apprentices would volunteer one banyan day, should a master so munificent be gathered to his fathers, he counterfeited death, and suffered himself to be laid out ; hoping by this expedient to snatch at least one scanty meal from the mouths of his cormorants. But he sadly miscalculated ; for his apprentices, conceiving the death of a ravenous old miser a matter for especial rejoicing, resolved to make a night of it ; —in furtherance of which, they stormed the cupboard, which so terrified the ferryman, that he started up from his bier, grinning ghastly horrible at their merriment ; when one of the roysterers, taking the grim intruder for a ghost, struck him with the butt-end of an oar, and made a ghost of him in reality ! His daughter Mary wrote to her lover the glad tidings ; whereupon he instantly took horse for London, but on his way thither was thrown from his steed, and killed. Mary sought consolation in a monastery, on which she bestowed the miser’s gold ; and the monks, to reward her piety, canonised her, built a church, and gave it her name ; which church, says the record, is known as St. Mary Overy to this day

Excerpt

I saw this, and my heart grew hard, my eye sullen ; I asked the cause of so much baseness, so much unmerited contempt ?—tasked, what is it, that gets up these mockeries of life, dividing man against man—placing fetters on the lowly—crowns upon the proud ?—A thousand voices answered ‘‘gold! gold!” The sound sunk deeply in my heart—it brooded o’er the word ;—every feeling, every I sense, fell down and mutely worshipped the new-found secret : from that moment I became what I now am.

Excerpt

“Gold, gold! It mocks the bell of death and yet it tolls—aye, it tolls in a man's own heart. I hear it, and my sleep is broken.”

Featured Quote

“There is no chain so tight as gold, no dungeon so close as a miser's heart.”

Reception

Though not as celebrated as Black-Eyed Susan, John Overy earned praise for its strong moral tone and vivid dramatization. The play's haunting imagery of the Thames and its gothic melodrama influenced later Victorian stagecraft.

Related Links

St Mary Overie London