High Country History Group

Rendezvous: 15:00; Black Bull, Fyfield, back car park (furthest from pub).

Walk: Cross the Roding behind the pub and then 2 (flat) miles on the Essex Way to Willingale, led by Patrick Griggs

Visit: We will visit the two churches of St Andrew’s and St Christopher’s which share the same churchyard in Willingale and we hope to have a guide from the local history society to take us round.

Walk: Rather than take the same route back to the Bull we will walk down to the Old School and thence to Miller’s Green and then follow the Roding back to Fyfield, a distance of 2½ (flat) miles.

Refreshments: Having used the Black Bull’s car park (and walked a few miles) some of us may feel under an obligation to take a beer in the pub before heading for home!

Footwear: As long as June is relatively dry, strong shoes or trainers should be fine.

Alternative: Non-walkers would be welcome to meet us in the churchyard at Willingale at about 16:00.

On 26 June 1697 Sir John Bramston, of Skreens near Roxwell, decided to visit friends at Albyns near Stapleford Tawney. His daughter had taken the coach horses to London, so he was reduced to using two borrowed horses (one of which was young and inexperienced), as well as a borrowed coachman. All went well until ‘goeinge apace downe a hill beyond Ongar, a butcher comeing up loden, and not getting out of the way, the chariot run upon him, and threw the butcher off, and I was afraid had mischeived the fellow, for he cried out on his back; but my men helped him up again, and I presume he had no hurt, for I never heard more of it.’

He resumed his journey to Albyns but the younger horse proved excitable and difficult to control. On driving up the chase to the house, the young horse refused to stop and, on being reined in hard, fell to the ground kicking. It succeeded in dislodging the footboard, causing the coachman to topple off the box and fall between the animal’s legs. Only the swift intervention of the Albyn’s servants in restraining the horse saved the man’s life, as well as preventing the death or injury of those still inside the coach.

The footboard was nailed back, and Sir John returned to Skreens after his visit with a horse borrowed from Albyns to replace the excitable youngster, as well as another coachman. It should be noted that Sir John was nearly 88 years of age when this incident occurred, but reported these events in his autobiography in a matter-of-fact way. Accidents involving horses were probably a part of daily life.

Oh quaint old Essex town! Your sheltered ways
Have fared so gently in this vale of tears;
That looking back with thought of other days,
One sees no change to mark the passing years.
I hear the same wind whisp’ring thro’ the trees,
Where Livingstone once wandered with his books:
I hear the same low murmur of the bees,
And recognise the cawing of the rooks.

Oh peaceful Essex town! you’re very old;
The Romans built within your lines a camp;
Your stones have oft resounded, so I’m told,
With Caesar’s sturdy warriors’ martial tramp:
I hear their shouts re-echo in the breeze;
Ye Britons, read about them in your books;
The sounds of Roman axe and falling trees
Are heard above the cawing of the rooks.

Oh, quiet old Ongar town! I’ve heard it said
When Cromwell and his Ironsides held their sway,
That many of your sons both fought and bled
To help the King they loved to win the day.
I heard the cry ‘For Cromwell and the Lord!’
Whilst students donned the helm and closed their books,
The sound of war’s alarms, the clash of pike and sword
Were heard above the cawing of the rooks.

Some day, I hope my ship will come to town,
And bring to me the fortune overdue;
I’ll buy a little cot and settle down,
And make my home, old Ongar town, with you.
I’ll rise each day to greet the early dawn,
And dawdle with my fishing and my books;
I’ll wander through the cornfields in the morn,
And listen to the cawing of the rooks.

Next this Houfe took into Confideration the Charge agaift John Merdith, Doctor in Divinity, Parfon of Stanford Rivers, in the County of Essex. And this Day he being by Order of this Hofe to appear, and he failing, Richard Cox testified upon Oath, “That he ferved the Order of this Houfe, at his Lodgings, upon Wednesday laft.”
Hereupon this Houfe, taking this as a Contempt, proceeded againft him; and thefe Witneffes were produced:

Ric’d Cox teftified, “That he hath not been at his Charge at Stanford Rivers this Nine Months.”

Francis Flewing , Ric’d Cranfield teftied, That the faid Dr.Meredith is at Oxford, with the King’s Army.

Hereupon this Houfe, taking the whole Bufinefs into Confideration, adjudged, “That for this Offence, the faid Dr Meredith fhall be fequeftered from his Living of Stanford Rivers, and the Profits thereof; and that Matthew Ellifton, Master of Arts is hereby appointed to officiate the faid Cure during the Pleafure of this Houfe, and fhall be allowed fuch Maintenance for the fame as this Houfe fhall appoint, when they are informed of the tur Value of the faid Living; and the Profits of the faid Living to be fewqestered into refponsible Hands.”

ORDERED, That the Perfon that is appointed by this Houfe to officiate the Cure of Stanford Rivers, shall have the whole Profits allowed him for his Pains.

*********
A further note regarding Dr Meredith is to be found in the Memorials of Oxford, Volume 1
All Souls College
Many of the wardens of this college highly distinguished themselves in the times in which they lived: but none went through such vicissitudes as Dr. John Meredith. He was sometime fellow of Eton, of which college he afterwards became provost; rector of Stanford Rivers, in Essex, in 1641, and chaplain to the earl of Newburgh; who being chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster bestowed on him the mastership of Wigston’s hospital at Leicester, on the sequestration of the celebrated Chillingworth, 1643-4; but the omnipotent house of commons of that day interdicted the appointment.

He was also deprived of his rectory of Stanford Rivers in May following an arbitrary vote of the house of lords. But he lived to be restored to all his preferments in 1660, nearly twenty years afterwards, and did in 1665.

I was amused by the following article reported in the Essex Newsman newspaper in 1870.

A benevolent gentleman residing at Wrabness recently presented on of his neighbours, a poor cripple, with a donkey and cart, in order that they might assist him in earning a livelihood. On Sunday last the man lent his donkey to a person for a drive to Manningtree, who on his arrival there tied it to a tree in Mr Viall’s yard. During his absence the animal, in attempting, as it is believed to brush off the numerous flies which were tormenting it, got its fore foot entangled in the halter, and the weight of its body caused such a pressure on the windpipe that when the man in charge returned a few minutes later he found the donkey quite dead from strangulation. A mock inquest on the body was held at one of the inns in the town, when a verdict was returned of “Involuntary suicide caused by the visitation of flies.”

Registers of Stapleford Tawney. Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1558 to 1752. Fifty copies printed, numbered and signed; subscription price, ten shillings and sixpence.

These Registers were printed with the permission of the Rev. Lewis Newcomen Prance MA, The following names amongst others occur:

Artherope, Baker, Becke, Benton, Bone, Bowes, Bowles, Burton, Cakebread, Casse, Cave, Chevings, Grave, Maulter, Quarke, Gray, Mott, Collop, Green, Nicholson, Comerford, Haddon, Orghar, Con, Hardwicke, Perry, Crabb, Cracknell, Harris, Hutchin, Ramsey, Randall, Dowset, King, Reed, Franks, Resley, Freshwater, Lord, Richardson, Fuller, Luther, Robinson, Rumball, Searle, Shadbolt, Smith, Threader, Turke, Turner, Waylett, White, Wood, Wright.

All copies sold.

A tea and Welcome Home was given to the returned soldiers in the Schoolroom. Twenty-two ex-Service men were present. Sir Drummond C. Smith, Bart., occupied the chair, and the following committee helped with the arrangements: The Rev. S. M. Stanley, Mr J. Miller, Mr A. Green, Mr R. Waltham, Mr. J. Padfield, and Mr Sledge. Laddies supplied the tea, and made the tables beautiful with flowers. The Rev. S. M. Stanley gave the men a hearty welcome home. He wished they had a hut so their wives, parents, and sweethearts could have been present with them. Fifty-five men left the two parishes in answer to the call of their country. Two were still serving in India, Major Bonner and H. Tricker. They met not forgetting those who had made the noble sacrifice. Sixteen of the fifty-five would not return.

The memorial to the fallen was nearly completed at Mount Church and it was hoped soon to have the Tawney Memorial in place in the church.

Each man received as a souvenir an inscribed cigarette case. Sir Drummond said he would like to add to the Rector’s rmarks his thanks to them all. Mr J, Miller proposed thanks to the Rector, and Mr R. Waltham proposed thanks to Sir Drummond. Mr. J.Padfield proposed thanks to the ladies, Mrs Stanley, Mrs Yeates, Mrs Chambers, Mrs Padfield and Mrs and Miss Sarling.

Lt. Malcolm Sworder, officially reported killed in action, March 18, 1918, was the youngest son of Mr and Mrs Harry Sworder, of the Hall, Stapleford Tawney, and subsequently of Whittles Hall, Springfield. He was an Old Chelmsfordian, and came from British Columbia in the first Canadian Contingent as a trooper in Lord Strathcona’s Horse R.C.

He was promoted to the rank of sergeant, and being subsequently recommended for a commission, was gazetted to his old regiment, afterwards transferring to the R.F.C. Before leaving England for Canada, he was in the Essex Imperial Yeomanry.

His brothers Lt. Norman Sworder R.F.C., Observation Balloon Corps, and Sec. Lt. G. Hope Sworder, 7th Dragoon Guards and A.D.C. to a Major-General of a Division of Indian Cavalry, are both on active service.

At Epping Petty Session on Friday, before A.J. Edwards Esq. (chairman), Sir Victor Buxton, Bart., E.A. Ball, A. W. Leech, W.W. Nicholls, P.g. Thompson, C. W. Skinner, and E. J. Wythes, Esqrs., Mary Hunter, Hill Hall, Theydon Mount, widow of Lt.-Col C.E. Hunter, was summoned under the Food Hoarding Order in respect of tea and sugar alleged to exceed the requirements of her household – the quantities being 49lb of tea and 98lb of sugar. Mr E. J. Naldrett, instructed by Mr Arnold Richardson prosecuted on behalf of the Ongar Food Control Committee, and Mr. H. A Colefax, K.C., and Mr. C. E. Jones defended.

Mr Naldrett said since the proceedings were instituted the Appeal Court had decided that tea was not an article of food and with the consent of the Bench he would withdraw this summons. The Bench allowed the case to be withdrawn.

In the sugar case, Mr Naldrett said that P.s. Denny and two constables visited the defendant’s premises early on the morning of Jan. 28. Mrs Hunter was not at home and the housekeeper showed them the storeroom where they found the 98lb of sugar referred to, and took it away. The housekeeper said the sugar was kept for the purpose of making jam this year. If that were so it was not the right thing to do as sugar required for jam-making had to be obtained in a particular way. A person might be allowed to save some out of rations, but the quantity seized at Hill Hall was not so saved. Before the police left, a daughter of Mrs Hunter invited them to search the house, but nothing further was found. The tradesman with whom Mrs Hunter was registered for sugar supplied her between April 10 and Dec 28 of last year with 518lb of sugar, ad from Jan 12 to Jan 26, when the rationing order was in force, with 33½lb. The average number of persons registered was 16. If there were other people at the house they should have been registered with their own grocer, and Mrs Hunter had no right to supply them with sugar.

P.s. Denny said there was no attempt to conceal anything. Augustus Hills, grocer, Epping, said 22 persons were registered at the house, and they were supplied with less sugar in January than they were entitled to. Mrs Hunter’s groceries included sugar, had been reduced by about one-third of the total supply formerly ordered. C. F. Lintott, Inspector under the Enforcement of Orders branch of the Ministry of Food, said he searched Mrs Hunter’s London house, but found only small supplies.

Mr Colefax contended that there was absolutely no evidence of hoarding. Voluntary rationing has been put into operation by Mrs Hunter before the Government’s scheme came out, and the servants were given a corresponding increase in wages. The number of people at Hill Hall fluctuated considerably, and the number staying there at the beginning of the year was nearer 40 than 16. In January, although Mrs Hunter was entitled to 45lb., she only had 33½lb. of sugar. If there was any accumulation of stores it arose from the fact that people were eating less than they were entitled to. Mrs Hunter said she had no intention whatsoever of hoarding. The Hall had been used as a convalescent home for soldiers till October, when it had been closed, as the work was too much for the doctor. There was a possibility of its being re-opened. There has been a number of shoots at the Hall, but the game were not artificially fed, and they were afterwards sent to hospitals. Mrs Yates, housekeeper, said the sugar was the accumulation of her savings.

The Bench retired, and on their return the Chairman said they had decided to dismiss the case as the Bench did not consider there had been any contravention of the Order, They allowed no costs in that case, but in the case which was withdrawn they allowed £5 5s costs. Mr Colefax: I hope we shall get both our tea and sugar back.

I had heard of him since I began to know myself because he was a step uncle to my father and born about 10 years before him (1860) at the ‘Wheatsheaf” Nine Ashes. I got to know him by sight in Brentwood up to about 1928, when I belive he died – in Billericay infirmary, or paupers end up. A diminutive figure with a large mottled nose, and a squeaky little voice speaking in broad Essex dialect. Such a dialect as you seldom hear now, 1970, having been eradicated by 46 years or so of BBC broadcasts and later TV. Mores the pity as it had considerable humour about it, but to be fully appreciated, spoken with a long drawl, unsuitable for what little expression one has time to explore himself now. Time is money and everything is calculated in terms of time.

I suppose Joe had a formal Christian baptism and this could be ascertained by a perusal of the church registers of High Ongar for that period. But legend says, he had another and more boisterous one at the “Wheatsheaf” Nine Ashes. This was done I gin, I understand, and undoubtedly the High Priest would have been Bob Amos – 1828-1917. A sporting farmer, living hard by at Lorkins Farm, on Christian name terms with Jim Mace, and not a bad artist with his fists himself. Could play a fair tune on a piana, or a strapping chorus girl from London, could he inveigle her down to his farm. An excellent shot with a 12 bore was he, and muzzle loader before it. He could mix in any company – high or low – with a strong preference for the latter.

This baptism would in modern parlance – be right up his street. With him would be Dick Oliver a younger protégé of Bobs in the fist game, Choikey Brazier, Hookey Winger, Rhubarb Chandler, and other worthies. They all earned a tough ill paid living in agriculture, and the taking of the products thereof to the Metropolis. Especially hay for the teeming horse population there. Also among them, would be also certainly be Lardie Farmer, a very kind person, but also of necessity rough and tough, and of most uncertain temper. Always came in for a certain amount of teasing from the poverty striken community, but the teaser would find himself with bodily injuries, if he took things too far.

So little Joe was christened in gin, and with this inestimable start, proceeded to grow. He grew up in a rural environment, his father and my great grandfather being a jack of all trades such as thatching, sheep shearing, horse clipping and haybinding. He was also the licensee of small country beerhouses and was landlord of three of these oasis – “The White Horse” burned down finally, after degenerating into a private residence on Paslow Common, the Wheatsheaf, and finally the Shepherd inn on Kelvedon Common. Little Joe was to grow to manhood in the last named pub and by his appearance and cunning left his nickname “Monkey” as part of the unofficial title there: premises acquired viz – The Drum and Monkey.

Joe’s father was a poacher and the receiver and disposer of poached game. He always obeyed the eleventh commandment, by never being caught at his pastime. Little Joe’s mother, being as broad as she was long, became the Drum, of the Drum and Monkey. She died of cancer on these premises.

JM

The British Library has launched online its vast newspaper archive. Visitors to the website http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk can search for entries in newspapers free of charge. Digitised copies of the originals are subject to a subscription payment.

The site boasts, quite rightly:

“We have scanned millions of pages of historical newspapers and made them available online for the first time ever.

“Search millions of articles by keyword, name, location, date or title and watch your results appear in an instant.

“Compare this with hours of painstaking manual searching through hard copies or microfilm often requiring a visit to the British Library in North London and it is easy to appreciate the ground breaking nature of this project.”

Up to 40 million pages will be scanned onto the archive over the next ten years.

Several Essex newspapers are included in the project, including the Essex Chronicle, which first published in 1764. Microfilm copies of this newspaper (along with the Essex Weekly News) are available to view in the Local Studies section of Chelmsford Library.

It is now possible to use the British Library website to pinpoint, by date and page number, articles in the Essex Chronicle then look at the detail free of charge on microfilm in the local Library. The resource will drastically cut the length of time taken to find relevant articles – previously a needle in a haystack approach - and opens the door, for the first time, to a wide range of undiscovered local topics.

To illustrate the site’s usefulness, one of my friends is writing a history of a local church – Ingatestone United Reformed Church – which celebrates its bicentenary in 2012. It was known that the first building, erected in 1812, was pulled down and replaced in 1840, but little else from this early period. Using the archive pinpointed within minutes three highly relevant articles:

Essex Chronicle 1 May 1840. Page 3 “independent chapel at Ingatestone has been pulled down and is about to be rebuilt on an enlarged scale”
Essex Chronicle 8 May 1840. Page 3, “dilapidated state … pulled down”.
Essex Chronicle 16 October 1840. Page 3 “to be reopened … 22 inst”

Why not try the site for yourself?

It is a cold house and an old house. The walls are thin. The windows let in the draught. Solar panels are not cost effective, not yet anyway, and planning permission needs to be sought before installation. The exterior plasterwork should not be disturbed. But we could increase the thickness of the loft installation – one easy solution . . . but the loft needs to be cleared!

Clearing the loft of the spoils of a sentimental collection amassed over a lifetime is not entirely a joy. It can be dirty, hot work but it does bring into focus a nostalgic view of one’s passages through life; old school books, and yes the odd school prize; the football programmes long since forgotten; magazines commemorating some event rendered into obscurity; the newspaper published the day after 9/11; china from past generations; picture frames, sometimes with pictures in them; trunks, empty.

But there are “finds” as well. You knew that they were there, just could not place that cardboard box in which they had lived out their retirement. So amongst this haul we found an urn-shaped trophy, silver-plate but quite handsome. The engraved title inscription, with the accompanying list of winners reads:

PERPETUAL CHALLENGE CUP
PRESENTED BY
THE FOUR TEES GREENSTED
TO THE
ONGAR AND DISTRICT AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY
FOR THE WINNER OF
OPEN JUMPING EVENT

1949 H. Gabriel
1950 E. A. Appleby
1951 H. Gabriel
W. Chapman
1952 W. Chapman
1953 D. R. Smith Esq, “Paddy”
1954 H. Holmes Roma
1955 G. J. Banham
1956 Mrs R. Arnitage
1957 H. Holmes “Diana”
1958 R. Dale
1959 Miss M. Vidler
1960 Miss V. Clark

So who were the “Four Tees”? What was the “Open Jumping Event”? Can you offer any further details on the background to the trophy? Do you have a cup with a history that has been deserted in the loft?

John Maryon was born in Highwood, Essex, in 1897. His father farmed Snails Farm, Billericay, during the First World War at the time when an enemy Zeppelin was fired and fell to the ground killing its occupants. This personal account tells of his experiences on the Western Front, and how those events shaped his thinking. John Maryon died in 1975. This account was given to Andrew Smith by his son, Tim Maryon, for publication.

By John Maryon, at the request of his sister. [Copied with the permission of his son, Tim Maryon.]

When I was about 8 years old, my gamekeeper father gave me a book – “The Autobiography of an English Gamekeeper”, by one John Wilkins of Stansted, Essex. The estate perambulated is now incorporated into Stansted airdrome. The opening sentence of the book astonished me at that time i.e. “I remember 63 years ago, my father, Luke Wilkins, was gamekeeper to Mr Key of Tring Park, Herts. about the year 1820.” He went on to relate how he was with his father and another gamekeeper, a survivor from Waterloo, who intercepted a night poaching gang – on a tip-off. Two of the poachers were detained and were sentenced to transportation to the Antipodes. One died on the way out, but the other returned to England, in the 1860s, in fairly affluent circumstances. But the author’s ability to remember 63 years previously was a revelation. Time has taken away this wonderment, and now I can recall incidents of 73 years ago fairly clearly, and have been urged to record them. In this connection, I once read a translation of a French book entitled “The Story of a Simple Man” and I make no pretension than being just that. I was born 1897 down an old Essex driveway in a house sans water supply, sanitary drainage, or any other “indispensable” necessities for modern living. Yet it was one of two “model” cottages – built by the largest Essex landowner, to house the farm workers of his tenant farmers. My father, however, was living here as a gamekeeper, and raised 7-800 pheasants in the neighbouring fields and woods, for the sporting syndicate from London, who were catered for in the other cottage of the pair. After 9 years in their employ, the syndicate broke up, but recommended my father as gamekeeper to one of the Palmer family, of Reading biscuit fame. This was on an estate about 9 miles from Reading, and there we arrived (January 1901), just as the old queen Victoria was expiring. Among the many remarks recorded from her, such as “We are not amused” when her attention was drawn to the puddle of cat’s urine at Windsor by a tittering maid of honour, and also another priceless gem: on being informed that her daughter’s baby was being wet-nursed on a railwayman’s wife, she remarked how much better if a soldier’s wife could have been procured, officers preferably, I suppose. A digression. I would like to mention my father’s background, which has a definite bearing on my mental development.

He was born of a family, who for generations had lived on the edges of an Essex common, with certain rights thereon. The rights were very important to them, in as much as thereby they could graze a cow, donkey and geese and with garden surpluses to sell, and with occasional hares and rabbits which used the common, they lived fairly well. This class of people could, if necessary, supplement this by contract work for farmers – thatching, sheep shearing and other seasonal work. Small beerhouse keeping was my father’s family tradition, which suffered with many others the traumatic shock of common enclosure. This was brought about with maximum concern for the interests of enclosing local landowners, with minimum concern for the cottagers on the common fringes. One of the benefits of the former class was the divorcing of land rights from a class of the population, who in future had to work full time for the farmer, more or less on the latter’s terms. And the taking of game from what had been common land the year previously, was now a penal offence. Therefore, it came about that the best outlook for the rural poor was in service with – “the gentle folk” – upstairs – downstairs.

This was the situation of my father for the first 10 years of my life, and my father, while aware of his family’s history, was convinced that unquestionably his interests a s a working man were bound up with the interests of the despoiling “gentle” classes. I remember a man telling my father how freight trains left Reading loaded with biscuits from the Palmer factories there en route for the war in S. Africa. When the empire expanded, as Lloyd George remarked concerning Chamberlain of armament fame: “When the Empire expands, Chamberlains and the Palmers etc – contract”.

My father, whose education terminated at 10 years old, has lost the knowledge of reading and writing because of the necessity to work, being the eldest of a family which finally numbered 15, by the time he courted my mother. She, being Scottish, re-educated him and he became literate, and read the “Daily Mail”, which just after the turn of the century was pushing for rearmament. About 1905 it ran a serial entitled “The Invasion (German) of England – 1910” and gave descriptions and plans of German army’s crushing victories over a heroic but diminutive and unprepared British army. I was fascinated with these instalments, and joined the Church Lads Brigade. My father also absorbed this propaganda, and continually prophesised a war against Germany, and politically backed the same political party as his employer, although my father had no biscuits to sell to the government – in trainloads.

But, although he spent many years catering for the sport of his “betters”, deep down, he hankered to have no master and have land of his own to farm, of which he had considerable knowledge from 12 years of age. He was a very saving individual, who when he married my mother, was financially able to assist his father-in-law, a small farmer, who relied on his family for farm labour. Being himself, the father-in-law, an execrable farmer, they worked hard for a pittance, and by 1908 had deserted him for a colonial life in Canada and marriage away. In this year the lease of is farm terminated, and my father, in an ill-judged moment, and to get an outstanding loan of 15 years’ standing back, decided to enter partnership on another farm with him. It was disastrous, and the partnership broke after 3 years, and at the ensuing sale, my father got his money back. He then rented a 120 acre farm at Billericay of derelict grassland, growing a tenth-rate grass, with rushes and bushes, hedges overgrown etc. in 1910 on a seven-year lease.

Previously, in that year, part of the Fleet had paid a visit to Southend-on-Sea, laying in the Thames estuary off Southend pier. My father took me down to view this illuminated phenomenon, which gave us all a patriotic thrill, and we began to look forward to the time when these expensive leviathans, fulfilled their purpose of “defending our isle” – all over the world. A connecting memory with me was the presence of drunken sailors in the town. I have never since seen so many intoxicated people together at one time.

So we became tenants of the 120-acre holding in Sept 1910, and my father promptly set about changing the derelict run-down nature of the farm. He plowed up 15 acres of derelict grassland after debushing it, and I remember seeing the rushes being plowed in, as the pasture was disrupted by the plow. He began to secure more grazing and corn-growing land by cutting back overgrown hedges. Some of the wood removed from the hedges was used in bush drains he had dug through wet places in his recently-made arable. He cleaned out several ditches, which had been level full for a generation or so, and gave a hedge or two away to be cut out by working neighbours, whose reward was to log wood, pea-sticks and bean poles that they got out of it. He applied basic slag, (a bi-product of the steel industry) on as much of the pasture as he could afford, and in two years the holding looked much more husbandlike.

Just before my birthday in 1911, I left school to work full-time with my father, who was continually telling me how lucky I had been in comparison to him. For he was working full-time when he was 10 years old – thatching, sheep shearing, horse clipping and rat catching. My mother really, having a Scottish appreciation of education, would have liked me to go to a better school. But they really couldn’t at the time afford it, which I realised. I already had done much farm work (part time) before I left school, retailing our milk supply with a horse and cart before school from the time I was 11 years. I took especial interest in the horse work on the farm, and only milked cows on sufferance. We joined a partnership with another farmer, whereby he bought 50 breeding ewes. My father provided the pasture and attention, clipping the ewes after lambing, for half the resulting lambs and half the wool. Come 1914, by which time I was doing all the horse work on the farm, besides other chores, and was cutting and traving wheat, when my father came into the field, and broke the news that our “gentle” betters had declared war on Germany, but our minds were so prepared for it, and being sure we British were right, we felt a thrill of anticipation. I bemoaned the fact that I was just two years too young for army service, and from my careful induction of anti-German propaganda, and British superiority, I knew for certain that the war would be terminated in six months or at most a year. Terminated in our favour – of course.

One thing I was thankful for and that was my military-type training in the Church Lads Brigade, and there was something contradictory in the Christian church’s interest in military matters. For didn’t I learn, in my three weeks’ experience as a choir boy at the parish church, that our Saviour had commanded the belligerent soldier to sheath his sword – before he did anyone any mischief.

Within a month the 6th Warwicks (territorial) came to our district, and six of them were billeted with us. On the first Sunday they were paraded to church, and nearly every civilian in the district attended church that Sunday. The service was terminated (as we were at war) by the singing of the “Gawd Save”. As we became upright at the first notes of our national anthem, the two senior officers (sitting in the front pews, with our country gentry – such as it was) drew their swords, and assumed an on-guard position, and at the termination, saluted with their weapons to the holy cross over the altar. There were some who regarded this action as a bit of braggadocio, but the majority approved – being “woolly” minded. Soon, pressures began to build up against men still in civilian clothes, for a big recruitment campaign was afoot – for the first 100,000 volunteers. This was carried on by all the newspapers, from pulpits, from hoardings and never behind in support for the “powers” who order the life of every citizen, especially in wartime, the majority of music-hall artists. Patriotic songs were composed and sung, such as “We don’t want to lose you – but we think you ought to go” and the rather melancholy ditty our soldiers sang as they marched to meet the Hun. “It’s a long way to Tipperary” became a best-seller and still 60 years after, sung at ex-servicemen and British Legion rallies and other patriotic assemblies. Later in the war, where the spirits were sagging a little, an inspired song came out in “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, boys, smile”. Later on, when death and mutilation touched nearly all British families, came the inspired lament “Keep the home fires burning”. But, that was four years hence. The local floozies took a hand at the applied pressure (what a pressure they can have on young men – and also on old men for that matter). They went about giving white feathers to young civilians, who they considered should be in the army. I was a well-grown lad, thanks to country life and good, clean food, and I was as big and strong as two of our billetees of the Warwicks, who were only slightly older than me. I was walking one evening in late September 1914 across a footpath and met the octogenarian local squire and MFH. (?) He had with him a young wife of 30 years he had recently married, and on me touching my hat to the “gentlefolk”, he stopped and asked when I was going to join the armed forces – damned cheek! Being in awe of such people, I mentioned my immaturity in age. “Nonsense”, was the reply, “It was reported today that a British soldier had been killed at the front aged 15 years.” (In this connection, I was shown the grave in a military cemetery on the Paschendaele ridge in 1967. The stone said that the soldier, killed in 1915, of the Irish Fusiliers, was 14 years of age. Next to him was a fusilier, born in 1868. They are still there, near the village of Poelcappele, if you require proof.) I should have offered to look after his young wife, while he went to risk an overdue ending. With a little practice, I would have made a better husband.

Even a female relative of mine offered me two packets of ten cigarettes weekly if I became a soldier. That she would be depriving my father of nearly 50% of his labour force, and possibly the complete loss of his and her older sister’s son was, lost in patriotic fervour. When I eventually did join the army, she kept up the cigarette bribe for about a month. At that time it would have cost her 1/- per week.

In October, my father, to produce more food, broke up a further 16 acres of grassland, and we spent the winter cutting the overgrown hedges round it and clearing the ditches. When the spring came, I had the heavy job of breaking up the grass furrows of the old pasture. I could hear, while engaged in this back-breaking, leg-straining task, the soldiers at nearly Warley Barracks practising on their machine-guns, and began seriously to consider myself in the wrong job. Especially, as schoolmates younger than me were becoming soldiers, which news was promptly disseminated by the floosies, and others. At last, after the hay-making had finished, I left home and attempted to join the London Scottish, but their MO smelt a rat and told me that if could produce a birth certificate to prove I was 19 years, he would pass me for military service. This, I couldn’t do, so I went along to Holborn, and joined one of the guard regiments, and was, sent the same day to their depot in Caterham, Surrey. Here, I was with others, mainly from Scotland, broken into the idea of blind obedience to those put in authority over us, and one of the methods of the instructors was to tread on your toes, while bawling obscenities in your face. This was a totally new experience for me, and I expect my fellow recruits, but we were prepared to bear this and more to be ready to fight for our King and country, and defeat the designs for world domination by the Kaiser and his bunch of “gentlefolk”. Fancy thinking of challenging our far-flung empire, covering at that time a quarter of the earth’s surface. They had a nerve! We finished our breaking-in period and among other things changed my weight from 10st.7lb on enlistment to 12st.7lb all in three months. No doubt heavy work on the farm contributed to the former weight, while with four parades a day, of say 6 hours’ total, with about half of it I exercise and the other half lectures with fair periods in between for rest, we gained weight. This may not have been so marked among the mature recruits.

Then we moved to Wellington Barracks, London, where the regime was not quite so vigorous and stringent. Here, at least, 50% of our training was devoted to ceremonial mounting of the palace guard. This was very important, and one reason a certain Regimental Sergeant Major was kept from overseas service was his imposing physical appearance, voice and knowledge of the “drill”. Here it was in March 1916 I contracted rheumatic fever and I was removed by stretcher to King George Hospital, which was only completed as a government stationery office as war broke out. It stood at the southern foot of Waterloo Bridge, and was very handy to receive the wounded coming in from Waterloo Station. I lay quite helpless there, and had to be hand-fed, with considerable pain for about 7 weeks, after which I slowly regained mobility. During my 5 months of hospital treatment I was told that my disease had had such a bad effect on my heart that I was on the hospital list for discharge from the army physically unfit. And from the wounds I saw dressed every day of men who had been to the front, together with their tales of it, made me view discharge with pleasant anticipation. There were two patients in particular, which horrified me, and they were about my age. Both had been shot in the back and were paralysed from the waist down and were continually the victims of bed sores. Another, wounded by shrapnel through the knee, had to have tubes in the wounds taken out and washed daily. The pain he suffered from these dressings daily, were not only terrible for him, but distressing for other patients. He gradually got weaker, and fell away physically. Finally, the medicals decided to amputate above the knee. Their reluctance to do so, before this young soldier showed definite signs of physical collapse and probably death, was the pension consideration for disability. The longer the limb stump, the less pension, and much less if one could retain an elbow or knee joint. Army surgeons were instructed accordingly. But, the Battle of the Somme occurred, in which the British army sustained nearly half a million casualties. Two battalions of my regiment had 800 casualties. So, cannon fodder getting scarce, any soldier who could walk was returned from hospitals and convalescent camps, given a month’s hardening course and packed off to the Front. I was given 5 days’ draft leave, which I spent at home. During the weekend a Zeppelin was brought down and the debris fell into one of our fields. There were the crew of 26 men (all dead and mostly burned). They were put in our adjacent barn, with a lane running hard by. It was here I saw a disgraceful scene. Thousands of people had come down by all means of transport, and they were standing 5 deep in the lane outside the barn, wherein lay the German dead. The front rank had torn the boards off the barn to get a better view and a brisk trade started with the R.A.M.C. and the sightseers for parts of the airmen’s furlined clothing. This was being cut off by the orderlies laying out the dead, in exchange for money. My father had about 4 acres of potatoes, which were overrun and looted, and 9 acres of barley trodden flat, and for the remaining year of my father’s lease, he was mending fences to keep his cattle in. Long after the war, he received a derisory sum in compensation from the government.

And the next week I went to France on my nineteenth birthday, hardly recovered from my crippling illness, to suffer the rigours of the cold winter of 1916-7, in and out of the trenches. This we spent on the Somme battlefield, about 6 miles wide, which we traversed backward and forward to the advanced trench system. The following year – June – we were rehearsing for the infamous 3rd Battle of Ypres, culminating in November in the capture of an area of mud and pounded rubble known afterwards as Paschendaele, from the name of the village on the Paschendaele ridge. Of the two years I spent in Flanders, this battle in which I was in 3 infantry attacks, was my worst experience. The area depended for its excellent fertility on careful drainage. This had been completely smashed up by the intense bombardments for 3 weeks prior to the first attack, on July 31st 1917. Three thousand, one hundred guns were used, firing 4.5 million shells, and the weather, which had been fine, broke into rain on the afternoon of our attack. It continued, if not by day, then by night, until we left the front in October 1917, and with continued artillery pounding, the conditions became almost indescribable. Come October, after a rest behind the lines, and some trench-holding stints, we were back for two more attacks on Oct 8th and 12th. To reach the attacking point, timed for early morning, we had to move up, over a sea of shell-holes in pouring rain, on the night of the 8th, waiting wet-through on arrival till it was time to attack. The attack was not quite so waterlogged as the rest. There was a gain of about 800 yds of swamp at the end of the attack. Relief came to us at night-time, but after 2 days’ rest, we moved up again on the night of the 11th to take the line forward between Poelcappele and Houthulst forest. I remember seeing trees and earth going up the same day, from the bombardment of our artillery and heavy stuff being used. Relief came at night, and when we reached the rest camp around 4am, and I had carried a trench mortar barrel from the front line for 3 miles, weighing 56lbs, my leave for England had come through. I had been out in France just over 12 months. (The best description of this battle that I know, though words can only dimly describe the reality, is as follows: “Paschendaele sums up the Great War in itself, because Paschendaele is courage and sacrifice beyond understanding. Paschendaele is the ultimate in acceptance of discipline. Paschendaele is mud, sleet, lice, mud, noise, jagged steel, horror piled on reeking horror, men and animals torn to pieces, mud seeded with brains and blood and heaving with putrefying fathers, sons and lovers. Paschendaele is appalling muddle to terrify the soul.” A German general described it as “Worse than Verdun, the greatest martyrdom of the Great War”.)

So I returned from this to my home in Billericay, to find my father was out of his farm, it having been sold over his head, with vacant possession. In fact he had notice to terminate his year lease soon after the farm had become a shambles from German aircraft and attendant crowds the year previously. I was home in time for the farm sale and there I met pre-war acquaintances, men who, although fit and of military age, never felt the urge to defend King and Country, or if they did, they lay down until the urge went. Some of them acknowledged me, but had little interest in my experiences. They had come with eyes open wide for a bargain. In fact, horror stories from the front were becoming boring. The farm had been bought by a Billericay horse dealer, farmer and corn, hay and horse buyer for the government. This latter was most lucrative of them all, for there was considerable scope for fiddling. He interpreted his new overlordship harshly, and when my father asked for certain justifiable compensations, he was threatened with farm dilapidations. My father, wherever he resided, always planted a few fruit trees, and grafted apples and roses, and he was seldom in a place long enough to get any fruit. He had planted perhaps a dozen apple and pear trees when he first took the farm, which the new owner promised to pay for, if they were left. He received nothing.

He went off to live in a house vacated – for the duration of the war – by my uncle, and I went back to the war, where I served until the eventual armistice. There is little doubt that my experiences at Ypres, together with the reduction of my father, or anything to come back to after the war had a deep effect on me, together with the callous attitude to the returning soldier, by both government and populace. The difference is the promise of grand reward, if it went – two packets of cigarettes weekly which was quickly forgotten – in my case, and the mean interpretation by the medical authorities toward disabled soldiers.

I was demobilised in Jan 1919, with a bounty of 14 Pounds, and from this I had money deducted for the loss of army clothing. The woollen socks we were issued with, shrunk through being on my feet immersed in water for days, and to get one pair off my feet, I had slit my socks down the front. I paid! I purchased a civilian outfit ready- made, and of imperfect fit for 10 Pounds. This left me very near bankruptcy. In March, my father got a job with a man who was a wool broker, and farmed a small area of land as a hobby. He bought this to avoid army service. In spite of being described as a farmer, it cost him 100 Pounds in bribes to a Hornchurch builder, who was on the tribunal. I learned afterwards that he cleared 20,000 Pounds on the London wool exchange during the war. He would speak of farming with contempt, and spoke about making 1,000 Pounds at the stroke of a pen. I was lousy for at least two years of my army service – on 1/- per day. ‘Tis true we were fed and clothed – thank you for the food and clothing. They also caught us on the rate of exchange – paying us in what were known as army francs, at the rate of five a week. It would be interesting to know the cost of printing these.

Our woolbroker was a pig to work for, and I soon rejoined the army (but not in the infantry). There were about 2 million ex-servicemen on the dole, and It was pointed out to those lucky enough to have a job – how lucky they were. So I served in the Mechanical Transport R.A.M.C. for a couple of years, and came home again and worked for a heavy-haulage firm. My instinct from early life was to eschew any form of trade unionism of the joining of sick clubs. My father always said, “Be your own trade union”. Well, I was sacked from this transport firm, mainly because the foreman disliked me because, having heard I was applying for work as a driver on the London buses, he said, “You can now have the time to seek a job at your leisure”. I got the job, and after a month’s tuition and pass out by the London police, I became a busman. The bus company informed all new recruits that, although a man could please himself, they preferred him to belong to the appropriate union. My previous foreman and other factors prepared my mind to join my fellow workers to protect our interests in the union. But I only became a card member at 9d per week. I never attended any meetings until after the General Strike of 1926. The strike generally, the unscrupulous propaganda against the strikers, of which I was one, the shameful settlement by phoney leaders, leaving the miners on their own, brought me to political consciousness. Before this time I loathed all politics – but voted Conservative. By 1928, I was a member of the Labour Party, and enthusiastic. After the betrayal of this party by its leaders, at the great depression, I abandoned all support of any of the political parties and became a devotee for the abolition of the system, which has one small section owning the means of production and distribution, and the majority having only their brain-power to sell for a wage. This set-up produces the terrible crisis and war, associated with the present economic situation, which is known as Capitalism. Whenever I was on strike, I felt I was in combat with the men who profited by the war while we, the in general dispossessed, struggled, fought and suffered to protect the status quo, which persecuted and exploited us both in peace and war. Millions of contemporary young Europeans took the same road for the communal ownership of the means of production and the ending of the wages system, the accumulation of great wealth in the hands of the minority – in fact capitalism – and it started with me in Flanders mud and will end in the crematorium.

JM

We have been favoured by Mr. Thompson, the able and experienced governor of this asylum, with a statement of expenditure for the past year, for the relief of the aged and indigent poor of ten parishes, which together include a population of upwards of three thousand two hundred, almost exclusively agricultural. The workings of this establishment as regards the advantages to the public and the poor themselves, may be considered a fair example of what will be derived from the new poor laws, if party prejudice is laid aside and the system recommended by the bill is allowed to have a fair trial. We have before us a statement of expenditure for the year ending the 27th of November 1835. At Stanford Rivers the sick, the feeble, and the orphan, derive those comforts which treble the cost would not procure for them at their own houses, whilst to the vicious and turbulent, this workhouse is indeed, “for a prison but a milder name,” and instances have occurred, that such characters, by restraint and judicious treatment, have been reclaimed and have escaped that contamination they had probably acquired, if mixed with others as worthless as themselves. The gross expenditure is divided into nine parts, and the charge apportioned to each parish, is in proportion to the number of paupers of each class sent to the house for maintenance in the course of the year.

The first class includes males and females, under the age of 10 years; this class in rated as two-ninths. The second class includes males and females between the ages of 10 and 15 years, rated as three-ninths. The third class consists of males above the age of 15 years, and is rated a four-ninths, The total expenditure for the past year ending the 27th of November is £526. 15s. 7d.
The following is a statement of the number of paupers maintained during that period, distinguishing the classes, which were sent to the House from each of the ten parishes:-

Note: the individual figures in the third-class column add up to 987, although the original table gives the total as 977.

These classes, when added together make a gross number of 2923, and an average of 56 weekly. The food consists of meat twice a week; broth, rice, milk gruel, puddings and bread the other five. Nothing can exceed the cleanliness of every department, as regards linen, bedding, and rooms; and the air they breathe is calculated to promote health and long life. The sturdy paupers are generally engaged in cultivating the garden, and the women capable of doing any work, and the children, knit stockings which over and above what is required for the establishment, are distributed to the parishes in the Union; in the present year they will receive 117 pairs.

In the course of three years, there has been a surplus of 343 pairs of stockings. The cost for maintaining and every other charge has been decreasing in three years in the following proportions –

1832, the cost per head was 3s.6d
1833 - 3s.3½d
1834 - 3s. 3¼d

In 1833 the expenditure was £644. 19s. 11½d, the average number in the House being 65; in the present year the average number being 56, the expenditure was £526. 15s 7d; this sum includes extra nourishment for the sick. The number now in the house is 60; four deaths only occurred in the year. The establishment has been but little troubled with able bodied paupers since the first year, and real necessity only will induce them to apply; in such cases they are admitted and provided for, but the vicious, if not reclaimed, are sent to the tread wheels at Springfield; seven of this class have been so dealt with; twelve have absconded, and four were ultimately transported.

In each parish of the Union, there are those who were continually applying for relief, but who now find means to maintain themselves. Several cases of fraud by pretended illness, have been detected, and the rules of the establishment have effected a reformation in habitual drunkards.

In the year 1824, the poor rated in Stanford Rivers amounted to £826; in the first year of the Incorporated Workhouse, it was reduced to £436, and since to £254. This must be highly satisfactory to the rate-payers of each parish, with the strict, but humane manner in which the house has been conducted under the present excellent system. But the reduction of the poor rates is not the only advantage derived by the system. Such a saving might induce some to suspect that the poor were pinched; but the following facts may be taken as evidence to the contrary, and that the condition of the poor has been materially improved. The sum of £118 was last year paid by the poor of Stanford Rivers, consisting of 130 families, into a clothing club; and the poor of Bobbingworth, one of the united parishes, have also raised for the like purpose, £46.11s.8d. The clothing clubs are deservedly encouraged. Mr Jonathan Stokes very kindly receives the money, and the clubs are becoming general; persons working in the parishes are also admitted members. Men and women are allowed to deposit three-pence per week, and a child two-pence. To the amount of each depositor, a fund is provided by subscription among the inhabitants, to add five-pence to every shilling so deposited. This act of benevolence has tended greatly to promote sobriety and economy among the poor.

PROGRAMME

2012/2013

“New Towns in Essex”
by Gareth Gunning

8.00pm, Thursday, 25th October
Toot Hill Village Hall

This talk is a repeat of a talk presented to the Essex Society for Archaeology and History at their prestigious annual Morant Lecture. The talk sets out to explore the founding principles of the design of Basildon, and Harlow, in particular. The talk reviews how original intentions have been compromised by new considerations and external factors over sixty years. The talk is copiously illustrated.

The talk for the 22nd November has still to be confirmed.

Meetings are held in Toot Hill Village Hall.
Meetings start at 8.00pm.

Visitors £3. Refreshments.

Details from 01277 364305.