Chapter 10
1854, the second week of June Sunday Some steady work last week for me, the lad and the wife as well. Almost everyone out hay timing. Some really hot days. Old Jim reckons it’s far too hot for the time of the year. There has been a good early crop of hay in most of the lower fields. No rain to speak of for ages. The brook has forgotten what it’s like to have any water in it. Been working ‘til late as it hasn’t been getting dark. No time for scribbling in the diary until now. I have been catching up with the goings on in the village while I was away. Certainly seems like a lot of changes. The wife told me things I didn’t know about the Brown family. I had known that Thomas Brown’s young wife Sarah was expecting a baby. She told me that they had a boy and named him William after Thomas’s eldest brother. The poor little chap didn’t live to see his first birthday. It caused quite a stir. Folk didn’t expect the Browns to lose a child like that, even though many in the village are well used to it. On a brighter note, the wife told me of young Charles Brown marrying James Griffin’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth. Phoebe Jordan had told her that the two of them had grown up together, in and out of each other’s houses. She said that this was the first marriage ceremony that the new vicar had performed in Piddington and the service was followed by quite a do up at Manor Farm. The whole of the Brown family was there as well as the Stones and the Tredwells. Went to the Stars last night. Old Henry came and fetched me. He said it was about time I got back to my place at the bar. He told me to expect the Stars to be full as Dumbletons’ had stopped serving a while ago. The wife had told me earlier about the whole village being shaken with young Jonathan Dumbleton dying all of a sudden and him not getting to see their second daughter. She said that his young wife Sarah and her two girls weren’t really able to live on the shop’s takings alone. The Stars was packed and a few drinking outside. It was a job to get to the bar. Everyone was talking about the new vicar and his new ideas. Most weren’t happy at all. It seemed that Vicar Hill was against the kids running wild in the village. He reckoned that they needed some learning. Word had it that he thought most folk in the village were ignorant, not just the littl’ns. Apparently, he thought there ought to be a school in Piddington. Old Jim said there was the Sunday School for those who wanted to send their kids and had been for ages. Richard Sulston said that a few villages here about were setting up schools and for every day, not just Sundays and Ludgershall have had a school for some time. Old Billy Dumbleton surprised us by saying that he was all for the idea. Old Topsy wondered if Billy had plans for filling a school with kids of his own. Billy was embarrassed to hear all the cheers in support of Topsy’s suggestion. He managed to blurt out a reply to Old Jim and Topsy sitting in the corner together: “You two can talk!” Young Thomas Gibbons put his squeeze box down. He could see that it wasn’t going to be a night for music and song. He thought a bit of schooling might be a good idea for some. Bill Elliott was concerned about folk missing out on the kids’ wages for those days they were in school. He reckoned that most families in the village depended upon their kids bringing in something. Most thought that there wouldn’t be any schooling during hay time or harvesting or blackberry picking. Bill still wondered who would pay for the littl’ns to go to school. It’s alright for those few folk living in the big houses. They have always been able to pay for their children to go to Dame schools. Old Topsy wanted to know if both boys and girls would be going to school. Thomas Gibbons said that he had heard that in some places there were separate schools for boys and girls and that girls were taught how to cook and do washing. Topsy thought it would take the boys a couple of weeks to learn how to use a scythe and a billhook and milk a cow. He wanted to know what else they would need to learn after that. Old Henry said he thought that Vicar Hill might be after learning the littl’ns about being not quite so wild. Most thought that any master or mistress would have a job to get the kids to sit on a chair for more than five minutes. Talk turned to where would be big enough to get them all to sit down on a chair. There was quite a discussion about how many kids there were in the village and what sort of ages the vicar might be thinking of. Most thought by the time kids got to be about ten years old then they should be working out in the fields. Young Edwin Parrott said that they can’t use the church, as there were plans for some major work about to start. Old Topsy said that if the vicar can’t get into the church to do his vickering, perhaps he could have all the kids up to the vicarage. That would soon learn him about educating Piddington folk. He didn’t see why the new vicar needed to change things. He said that he has hardly been in the village two minutes and that he didn’t think that any good would come of all this learning. Monday Got caught out by a heavy shower during the afternoon. Me and Bill Elliott got a bit wet on top of the rick in Billy Bottle’s yard. We had to work through it and finish the thatch to keep the hay from getting wet. Young John Elliott was up and down the long ladder like a good’un. He slipped a few times, but he kept up the pace for us two up top. Billy Bottle was pleased. He said he couldn’t ever recall having his first rick built in the stackyard this early in the year. The wife has been chatting with some of her friends today. Young Mary Rogers is expecting again. Like last time with young Caleb, she ain’t letting on who the father is and doesn’t mind if she has a boy or a girl. They were both talking with Ruth Hillsden. Ruth had her new baby, Abraham with her. She was a bit concerned about her husband, William and the blacksmith trade. She said he was thinking he may be better off doing labouring full time if he can get the work. The wife told me that the women have been talking about the schooling as well. She thinks that most seem to be in favour of it for the littl’ns future, especially for the girls. She reckoned that the girls needed more to look forward to than cooking and cleaning and lacemaking. She told me that Phoebe had heard about talk in the vicarage about maybe getting some help from a charity. She said that there was no way folk would be able to pay on their own, especially if it meant that they would be without some of the kids’ pay. Wednesday A touch of rain last night. I see the wife’s new beans have just started to show through. We had some of her broad beans last night. Still have some pods to pick. I reckon she has made a better job of the vegetables this year than I ever did. We had a mole catcher come down the village today. He looked quite a sight. Little chap looked a bit like a mole himself with little eyes and a pointy nose. He had big hands for a little chap. Could easily have been mole hands. He had a big hat on that looked like it could have been made out of mole skins, with a load of snares and traps hanging around his belt. He said he was Tom Newell from Arncott and that he had been catching moles across the Griffin’s land and Manor Farm for the last two weeks. He said he got paid a ha’penny a mole plus his meals and usually a nice warm barn to sleep in. He said that Thomas Brown wanted the grass in front of his house cleared of moles as he had just got himself a machine for cutting the grass short. The mole catcher tried to sell us some of his special lucky bags. He had some of them in his backpack. He showed me and Old Jim inside one of the bags. He tipped out half a dozen mole hands and feet into Jim’s hands. The moley man said that if you were to hang one of these bags around your neck, you won’t get no aches and pains or no toothache. Old Jim gave him a broad grin and proudly showed off his one tooth. The little moley man didn’t impress us with his little bottles of fresh mole’s blood either. He reckoned that it was a good cure for warts. Old Jim said he should try setting off for Ludgershall next as the village is knee deep in moles and Ludgershall folk were well known for their warts. The little mole catcher seemed to believe Old Jim’s yarn and he set off down Ludgershall track with his little legs and big boots, his traps and snares jangling and a string of kids following on behind. I saw Old Henry this evening. He told me that the Parrotts had been asked about undertaking the work in the church. Apparently, the vicar is after taking the galleries down and getting a few more pews down below. He wants to take out the big old pews with the doors and allow folk to sit anywhere they want. Henry reckons it will take a brave labouring man and wife to sit towards the front. Henry told me that the job is too big for the Parrotts to undertake now Old William has gone. He thought that it was only their youngest, George who was interested in the carpentry work. He thought that his brothers were keener on farming and the like. He told me that young Edwin Parrott had been talking to his son-in-law, John Wallington about grazing some cattle and selling them on to butchers. Henry thought that they would have to get a builder from outside the village to tackle the church. Sources & Inspirations Thomas & Sarah Brown’s new baby: Baptism: 12th July 1852, William Brown son of Thomas & Matilda, Farmer. Burial: 31st May 1853 William Brown, 10 months. Charles Brown marrying James Griffin’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth: Marriage: 18th April 1854, Charles Brown & Elizabeth Griffin. This was the first marriage recorded in the parish register by Charles Hill. Jonathan Dumbleton’s death: Burial: 17th February 1852, Jonathan Dumbleton, 26. His second daughter was born 4 months later: Baptism: 8th June 1852, Emily Dumbleton, daughter of Jonathan (deceased) and Sarah, Publican. Later records show that Sarah Dumbleton had moved out of the shop/public house. Vicar Hill’s plans for schooling: The Bullingdon Hundred records a note of the vicar’s statement in 1854 that “there was no day school and that one was urgently needed to remove the great ignorance of the villagers.” The same source states that in 1858 the Sunday school was extended as a day school and received a grant from the National Society. Most sources record the new school as built or opened in 1863. There is evidence of the new school in operation before 1863. I believe the 1863 date to be an “official opening,” perhaps by a visiting dignitary. I have seen some evidence of the new school being in operation in some form with funding from the National Society from as early as 1854, well before the new school was built. There had been schools at different times in Piddington since the beginning of the 19th century. It appears that these only provided for education for a few children and these schools did not last long. There is no evidence of a school building, and the Sunday school may well have taken place in the vicarage in the days of Vicar Cleobury. The main catalyst for education in the 19th century was the National Society for Promoting Religious Education. This charity’s objective was to provide elementary education for the children of the poor. They did this by providing financial assistance to parishes who established a “National School.” They received increasing levels of government funding to help with their objectives. Ludgershall was well ahead of Piddington, establishing a National School in 1847. The 1851 census for Ludgershall shows 78 out of the 85 children in the village as “Scholars”. Ages ranged from 3 to 14. The census shows a 35-year-old School Master and his 18-year-old wife as School Mistress. In the same year, the census for Arncott shows 21 out of 77 children as “Scholars”. Arncott did not have a National School at this time, but something that was often described as a Dame School, run by two unmarried School Mistresses. The 1851 census for Piddington records just one scholar, a 14-year-old visitor to the village and she went to school in Steeple Aston! Charles Hill arrived in Piddington having previously been the Curate at Staverton parish in Northamptonshire. The 1851 census for that parish shows that most children were scholars. This might help explain his comments shortly after his arrival in the village. Billy Dumbleton “had plans for filling the school with his own kids?” William Dumbleton married Elizabeth Barrett in September 1851. He was a widow and 64 years old, the father of Jonathan Dumbleton. Elizabeth Barrett was 20 years old at the time. She had had a difficult childhood. Her mother died when she was 18 months old. Her father remarried a year later. She was in the Bicester Workhouse in early 1851 when she gave birth to her daughter Rosena: Baptism: 23rd April 1851 Rosena Barrett daughter of Elizabeth, at the Bicester Union House. She was 3 years old in 1854. “Old Jim and Old Topsy sitting in the corner” In 1854 “Old Jim”, James Parker was 80 and married to 41-year-old Sarah with a 7-year-old son, Jesse. “Old Topsy”, William Turvey was 77 and married to 38-year-old Sophia. They had 3 children in their teens and 4 children under 8 years old, including 1-year-old James William Turvey. “Young Mary Rogers expecting again” Baptism: 13th August 1854, Caroline Anne Rogers, daughter of Mary, illegitimate. This is four year’s after the death of her 5-yar-old son, Caleb. “Ruth Hillsden and her new baby Abraham” Baptism: 12th March 1854, Abraham Hillsden, son of William & Ruth, Blacksmith The mole catcher and his trade: Contributions from Old Zachary, who I am told still wears his lucky charms around his neck. 1851 Census, Arncott: Thomas Newell, 38, Mole Catcher “Ludgershall knee deep in moles” My grandmother, Lilith Mole was descended from the “Moles of Ludgershall”. It took me a long time to establish how the dozens of different Moles I found in Ludgershall in the 18th and 19th centuries were related. “The work in the church” Undertaken between 1854 and 1855. “The musicians’ gallery on the north side and a southern gallery set up in 1813 which were removed, whereby the beautiful solid western arch was thrown open and the belfry used for extra seats. At the same time the irregular horsebox pews were replaced by low and open seats conducing to vigilance, propriety and decorum. The pulpit, installed in 1828 and made by the carpenter William Parrott, also was moved at this date.” Source: Bullingdon Hundred. Author’s Notes A more relaxed timescale with a week off publishing the diary last week. I spent the first week on the “The Big Houses” which entailed a lot of time researching family histories and building family trees: the Browns, Stones, Tredwells, Tubbs, Bottrills and Griffins. The second week I spent with “the working class” although it seems that many didn’t have much opportunity of regular work. The Dumbleton family history is littered with ill fortune and there is more to be revealed beyond the mid 1850’s. I have been distracted by the Parrott family, finding another son for Old William and Sarah, a Peter Parrott, a twin for Thomas, born on Christmas Eve. This brings Sarah’s total number of children up to 11! Until this last week I had failed to find Thomas after leaving the village sometime after he was 16. Up until now I had been keeping quiet about another John Parrott, a farmer in Piddington in 1851. I had expected that they must be related but hadn’t been able to confirm this until this week. I have quite a large flock of parrots now and need to undertake some further research to fully understand their pedigrees. I only have a partial picture of the early days of the school. I am sure that there is much more information that could be obtained from visits to the Oxfordshire Records Office once they re-open. Next week I intend to devote more time to research and plan to produce a new chapter in two weeks’ time. I am tempted to once again jump forward in time. I have learnt that I need to be careful in deciding when to land back in Piddington, and also to carefully record births, marriages, deaths and other events that the diarist will sadly have been unable to witness. David Cook 13th June 2020 |