High Country History Group

Some 24 members visited the windmill on Sunday 16 September and spent two hours being shown round the mill.

Built in approximately 1760, it is a large post mill on 4 floors, now restored to working order with fascinating wooden and iron machinery and fantail. Privately owned, the mill was leased to the Essex County Council in 1940 and who are the only Local authority in England and Wales to employ a full time Millwright to look after the mills in their care.

We were joined by members from the Ongar Millenium History Group on the 25th October, for this talk on the landscape gardener, Humphry Repton, given by Anne Padfield. An audience of some 68 people were present - our largest audience so far - and all bodes well for the future of our Society if we can attract this number each time.

Tithe was a tax fraught with difficulties both in fair administration and efficient collection. Its origins date back to the earliest days of the church, when the parish priest - in exchange for looking after the spiritual welfare of his parishioners - claimed for his support one tenth of the crop produced by the parish. In some places “tithe in kind” persisted into the nineteenth century. The rector or, more usually, one of his agents) having been given notice by the farmer, arrived at the harvest field to collect one tenth of the crop. This was an expensive and inconvenient arrangement as the rector’s share had to be carted away, stored and marketed - particularly troublesome with perishable products like milk. By the eighteenth century it was more usual but by no means universal) for “tithe in kind” to be commuted for a cash payment. This could be a lump sum, or modus, often at fixed level over a very long period, or at a set rate per acre for a particular crop. Both systems were insensitive to improvements in yield due to new agricultural methods. There could be problems in years when the crop was poor - the farmers felt penalised - but also in good years, when the rector felt that he had not received his just desserts. It took little or no account of yearly fluctuations in market prices, a major problem with crops such as hops where this varied markedly from year to year. Disputes were frequent and when the rector felt particularly aggrieved about the inequity of cash payments, he was entitled to demand a return to the very unpopular “tithe in kind”. Legal costs could be very high, but so were the benefits of winning - either a much improved income for the rector and his successors, or, for the landowner, the continuation of a fixed payment at an unrealistically low level.

John Redman was the owner of Greensted Hall and its estate near Ongar from 1771 till his death in 1798. His will suggests that he was a somewhat unusual individual, directing that his grave was to be 10 feet deep was this a precaution against body snatchers?) and that he was to be buried at 7 o’clock in the morning with “neither gravestone, hatchment, escutcheon, mutes, nor porters at the door”. Careful instructions including travel arrangements) were left to his executors to spend 6 weekends in the year after his death at Greensted Hall “to help drink out the wine in the Vault”. After a year, any remaining wine was to be distributed equally amongst them.

Only fragments of what appears to have been a lengthy and acrimonious tithe dispute have survived. In 1786, Redman noted “Parson Harris, having demanded an arbitrary and undue Tythe for the pts. of Woodland which he strove to establish as a Precedent”. Parish precedent was extremely important in tithe collection as it established a right in subsequent years, and was therefore likely to be opposed by parishioners. The rector, the Rev. John Harris, had clearly been reluctant to agree to arbitration as Redman added “after much Altercation, Evasion and Jesuitical Shuffling on the part of that Old Church Leech (he) agreed to be left to arbitration”. The final agreement was for 6s 9d per acre, presumably).

An undated memorandum throws further light on the problems associated with tithe, as well as Redman’s somewhat intemperate language. Headed “Rules in regard to Tythe in kind or alms for the support and maintenance of the parish priest & catchpenny couple beggar of Grinstead” he noted ironically “Apples his Holiness is above claiming Windfalls. They are claimed by the parish Hoggs, but the tenth barrel of good apples for the good man’s cheer at Xmas must be strictly preserved and carried to the Church porch”.

Another memorandum written by Redman in 1795 indicates that there had been further trouble over the Greensted woodland. He noted that it had been partly cleared but that trees (?standards) had been left, making it impossible to plough or cut hay. The land was only suitable for “soiling” horses ie. feeding them on cut fodder). “The timber Trees not only draw the ground, but No Grass can grow - it produces Great Crops of all kinds of Weeds”. There are further very unflattering references to the rector, “a haggling wrangling drunken parson”, “a parish couple beggar” and “a low scrub fellow”. It appears that this bombast was the result of the partial clearance of the woodland perhaps those fields called First Stub Piece and Second Stub Piece in the 1839 Tithe Award). The rector, “like a Thief in the Night”, had employed a surveyor to measure up the land without the consent of either Redman or his tenant “Mrs P”. The result of this was an increase in tithe from £28 per annum to 60 guineas. Redman implies that another of his tenants, Mr Lawrence, “by Lying, Swearing, Drinking - for which he was unparall’d) had colluded with the rector possibly in exchange for a bribe) and agreed to a similar increase, thereby establishing a precedent. It was common practice though usually without a bribe!) for a rector to persuade one amenable parishioner to agree to an increase which could then be imposed on the rest of the parish. The document is not easy to follow, possibly because Redman was beside himself with rage! However he firmly advised his tenant, “Mrs P”, to offer no more than £40 “as the utmost the farm can bear”. There is nothing further in the papers to indicate how this dispute was resolved.

During the first half of the 19th century, since the ending of the Napoleonic Wars, agriculture had suffered during a period of crisis. Falling wages contributed to hardship for the agricultural labourer. Indeed, wages dropped so much that eventually they fell below a subsistence level. Disaffection led to workers either organising themselves into groups, able to negotiate wages collectively with local farmers, or engaging in more direct action . . . arson. Farmers, landowners and the magistracy, the “establishment”, were, of course, eager to see law and order maintained. Discontent was widespread but there was a need to avoid any over-reaction on the part of the authorities, an over-reaction subsequently and tragically culminating in 1839 at Newport, Monmouthshire, where troops fired directly into demonstrators, killing at least 22 men.

In 1834, farm labourers in Tolpuddle, Dorset, formed themselves into a society called the Friendly Society of Labourers¹. They were led by the example of other similar, established local societies. Included in the rules of the society, the “union”, were details on the use of a password to enter the “Lodge” and a rule that prohibited obscenities. The society’s rules further stated: “That the objects of this society can never be promoted by any acts of violence, but on the contrary all such proceedings must tend to injure the cause and destroy the society itself”. They swore an oath, before a drawn sword, to carry out the aims of the lodge and to keep secret the rules. The labourers were determined but were high-minded men.

Anxious to counter the threat of such collective action, cautions from magistrates were published locally. Soon after this action, on 24th February 1834, the labourers were arrested by the local constable, a Mr James Brine. Under questioning, the group consistently stated that they were not aware of having violated any law. Various charges were brought against them. The act, which outlawed all forms of unionism, was repealed in 1824, but the principle charge concerned their taking an oath. The evidence against them was selective but scant. Nevertheless, an unrepresentative jury found them guilty. The judge, Judge Williams, sentenced them to be transported for a period of seven years. Furthermore, the judge refused parish relief for the families of the convicted men.

There was much subsequent support for the labourers against their conviction. A large demonstration attended by trade unionists took place in Copenhagen Fields on 21st April 1834 and, after a march, peacefully conducted, through the heart of London, a petition was presented to an absent Lord Melbourne at the Home Office.

Contemporary press correspondence indicated a deep concern. Parliamentary reaction was mixed and strongly polarized. Despite this, there was to be no immediate pardon and James and George Loveless, Thomas and John Stanfield, James Hammet and James Brine were transported on 17th May 1834 to Botany Bay.

Lord John Russell, sympathetic to the cause of the labourers, became Home Secretary in April 1835. Russell believed that George Loveless “had given a very fair . . . and true account of the evidence against him, was agreeable to the fact but . . . he did not know it was unlawful”. Furthermore, Russell believed that “the illegality on which they were committed was contrived”. Tellingly, Russell also drew attention to the King’s brother, the Duke of Cumberland, who as Grand Master of the Orange Lodges had himself taken an oath, was similarly “doing the same thing only with more cunning, and deserve at least a more severe punishment”!

Hansard of 14th March 1836 records that, in answer to a parliamentary question, Lord John Russell stated that His Majesty had been pleased to grant the Dorchester Labourers a free pardon. They were also granted a free passage back to England.

It took time for them to arrange the return voyage. Five returned as soon as they were able James Hammett could not be found at the time). They set sail on 11th September 1837 and arrived in Plymouth on 17th March 1838, a journey of six months. They landed to be greeted by celebrations and demonstrations in Dorset. They attended a procession through London.

On 8th October 1839, The London Dorchester Committee staged a benefit evening for all the labourers in a London theatre, and by then James Hammett had returned. The event was the last stage in an appeal to raise between £400 and £500 which was necessary to purchase small farms. Whatever the final sum, farms were leased in Essex, New House Farm in Greensted and Fenners Farm in High Laver in August 1838. It was now well over three years since the granting of the pardon. The farm in Greensted was leased from John Sympson Jessopp, a lawyer living in Ostend.

Chartism was the concern of those charged with maintaining law and order. In Greensted, the Loveless and Brine families continued to be a focus of some mistrust and prejudice, and this despite behaviour that was invariably honourable. The Morning Post of 17th December 1839 carried a long article “upon which the public may confidently rely”, which reported the arrival of the Dorchester labourers in Essex. “And what was the effect of this Ministerial counter-colonisation from Botany Bay to the rural parishes of Essex?” the paper asks. “The new settlers at Grinstead and High Laver had not been long established among the hitherto quiet and well-conducted population of these parishes before they began to agitate, and to agitate in a manner and with a degree of success which showed but too plainly that their mission of mischief had not been entrusted to unpractised or unskilful hands”. The article further asks “What spot . . . can be supposed free from this foul infection Chartism) when it is seen to have pervaded even the quiet and secluded hamlets of the county of Essex?” Of course there is a strong political undertone to the article with Lord John Russell, the Minister, the eventual object of the attack.

A local magistrate wrote to the Morning Post on 28th December 1839:

“I must request your insertion of the following remarks . . . It is true that some half dozen radicals in Ongar subscribe certain weekly halfpence to take in that immaculate print the People’s Charter.

It is true that a wagon load of delegates from some political union in London came down one day some six months ago, with ribbons in their buttonholes, to endeavour, I presume to get some beer and bread and cheese out of their Chartist brethren, in which praiseworthy object however, I believe they failed as signally as they did in endeavouring to enlist the people of Essex under the banner of Chartism.

It is true that these firebrands, the dreaded Dorchester labourers, are four poor ignorant creatures, who literally do not know how to plough the land they occupy.

And lastly it is true and let me tell them they are marked men) that if these half dozen democrats neither Essex men nor true agriculturists are they) should attempt to disturb the peace of the county, they would be put down, not by military forces as at Newport, not by an armed gendarmerie of rural police, but by the good sense and strong arm of the TRUE agricultural yeoman and labourers of Essex and I would stake my existence on the fact) would follow their landlords to the last drop of blood in defence of the cause - the cause of religion, their laws, and their own firesides, -

I am sir,
A Conservative
magistrate for the County of Essex”.

The letter, with its irony, says much about local feelings towards the Dorchester Labourers amongst one sector of society. There is some evidence to suggest that these local feelings were echoed by the Reverend Philip Ray, the long-serving Rector of Greensted.

New House Farm was auctioned on 8th October 1840 in Waltham Abbey.