‘On Saturday June 18th a Service was held at Stapleford Tawney Church for that and Theydon Mount parishes in commemoration of the Jubilee of the Reign of Her Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria. The special service was used and a sermon preached by the Rector. The lesson was read by Sir Charles Cunliffe-Smith Bt, nearly all the parishioners being present. [This part of the sentence was vigorously underlined.] Church crowded. Medals were presented to all the parishioners in the Churchyard and an adjournment made to Church Mead4 where a band enlivened the proceedings. A substantial meal was served in the Hoppet – Sports, swings, donkies [sic], fire [or fine?] balloons etc. Beer, tobacco and ginger beer, a lovely warm afternoon.
Over the entrances to the Mead and Hoppet, arches with inscriptions and a number of large flags had been placed. About £40 was expended including presents to those who were absent through infirmity.’
Evidently the Church of England had created a service specifically for Jubilee commemorations.
This was Rector Lewis Prance, who served from 1872 until his death in 1912. As a member of the Royal Horticultural Society, he was fascinated by plants and flowers, as indeed were the whole Prance family. They planted the blue anemones by the church path and probably the winter aconites and snowdrops, and there are many unusual and foreign plants in the (Tawney) Rectory garden. The Rector’s grandson Professor Ghillean Prance was an Amazonian jungle explorer and became Director of Kew Gardens in 1988.
Source - Essex Record Office D/P 141/8/4.