Hamstead Marshall – Kintbury and Beyond

Our churches: Not what they seem?

The church’s restoration,

In eighteen eighty-three,

Has left for contemplation,

Not what there used to be.

John Betjeman

Many church guide books will proudly tell you that St Whoever’s is a fine example of, say, Norman architecture. It is easy to imagine, as you sit in your pew, listening to this week’s sermon, that the church you see around you is more or less the same building that, for example, knights would have known as they stopped off on their way to the crusades, carving on the Norman pillars the familiar crosses while their horses chewed on the church yard grass outside.

Although there are very few churches which exist today just as they were when the last mason knocked off work for the last time and the building was consecrated, it was the Victorians who were responsible for the greatest changes to our much-loved buildings. By the nineteenth century, many ancient buildings might well have required building work but in their enthusiasm for what they chose to call restoration, the Victorians swept away many significant features, and at times, entire buildings.

In the Berkshire volume of his series, The Buildings of England, the architecture historian Nikolaus Pevsner, describes St Mark & St Luke’s church at Avington as being, “A memorable little church … Entirely Norman …” so perhaps the crusade-bound knights of my imagination would have seen the very-same church that we see today. Except, that is, for the pulpit and pews, which are Victorian. Also the vestry. And the stained glass, of course.

So how did the other churches in our benefice fare during the nineteenth century?

St Mary’s, Hamstead Marshall seems to have survived the Victorian enthusiasm for restoration relatively unscathed, leaving earlier architectural features as they were. Pevsner says the building underwent a restoration in 1893 and another in 1929 – 30, “preserving and enhancing the C17th & C18th character of the interior.” Perhaps, therefore, the interior of this beautiful church does not look so very different as it did when the first battle of Newbury was being fought in 1643, just a few miles up the road. Perhaps a battle-weary soldier, either cavalier or roundhead, might have staggered into this church and seen before him an interior almost identical to that which we see today.

But what about the other churches?

I used to imagine Jane & Cassandra Austen would have known St Mary’s, Kintbury, just as I know it today, but this is far from the case. In 1859, the architect responsible for the now long-gone Christchurch and also the former vicarage, Thomas Talbot Bury worked on St Mary’s in what Pevsner refers to as a heavy-handed restoration. More restoration work followed 1882 – 84 by George Frederick Bodley & Thomas Garner. All three architects worked in the popular Gothic Revival style which took its inspiration from the medieval buildings much admired by the late Victorians.

In St Mary’s, many changes and remodelling included moving the Scheemakers monuments from their original position by the altar to their present one in the north transept. The gallery was repositioned to its present position under the tower and plans were proposed to enlarge the building, although this never happened. The eye-catching, brightly painted reredos is a Bodley & Garner addition, so one way and another Jane Austen’s view of the altar – in fact the church as a whole – would have been very different to ours.

Pevsner describes St Michael’s at Enborne as “an aisled Norman church” so could this delightful building really be almost exactly the same today as it was when my (imagined) knights passed through on their way to Jerusalem? Unfortunately, although Enborne church retains many Norman features, it did not escape the enthusiastic hand of the Victorians. However, it seems that there might have been a good reason for the work. The Newbury Weekly News of 12^th January 1893 included an article in which the Rector of St Michael’s is quoted as saying, “The church at present is in such a dilapidated state that the less said about it the better unless it is of a view of increasing the Restoration Fund at the Newbury Bank. The plans are the result of much care and thought.”

The Reading Mercury of August 12^th 1893 reported:

“The restoration of St Michael’s, Enborne is being satisfactorily carried out by Mr G. Elms of Marsh Benham under the direction of the architect Mr James H. Money.”

Apparently, the diocesan architect had recently visited the church along with James Money:

“… and has testified to the great pains being taken to render the restoration a favourable one in all aspects.”

Clearly, not everyone approved of what was being done, although there is little evidence of dissenting voices in the local papers.

On March 6^th 1897, the Reading Mercury reported on the rededication of St Michael & All Angels’ church, Inkpen, it having been “in restorer’s hands” for more than a year. The rector, the Rev Henry Dobtree Butler believed it had “long fallen into a lamentable state of decay” and so the grandly named Oxford architect, Mr Clapton Crabbe Rolfe, had been engaged to carry out a restoration. And a very thorough job he did of it, too. The Reading Mercury went on to report:

“The greater part of the church has been rebuilt and a new north aisle added …

The only ancient portions of the actual fabric are the exterior walls and one west window.”

Nineteenth century mural, St Michael & All Angels, Inkpen

Whilst the tone of the Reading Mercury’s report suggests that the destruction of much of the original building was a positive thing, not everyone agreed. According to Pevsner, the recently formed Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings had opposed the drastic restoration. Founded in 1877 by William Morris and Philip Webb, SPAB was concerned that the fashionable enthusiasm for restoration was destroying the historic fabric of many venerable buildings.

East window, St Laurence’s, West Woodhay

Despite his opposition to the fashion for extreme restoration, William Morris contributed work to many churches, including St Laurence’s, West Woodhay. Here, the red brick church which had stood next to West Woodhay House since 1716 was demolished and a church designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield built on a new site in 1882. The distinctive east window was designed by Burne Jones for Morris & Co as were the side windows of the sanctuary. On 15^th April, 1882, the Hampshire Chronicle waxed lyrical in their appreciation of this new amenity:

“The inhabitants of West Woodhay … have reason to congratulate themselves upon having in their midst a resident lord of the manor whose liberality bids fair to effect a great improvement in the social position of all in the village.”

Quite how the new church would effect a great improvement in the social position of the cottagers of West Woodhay, the Hampshire Chronicle does not explain!

So, there is nothing ancient about St Laurence’s, West Woodhay and it remains the only church in our benefice to represent just one period of church building. But this beautiful little church demonstrates, I think, some of the very best of Victorian architecture and design. No crusade bound knight in shining armour may ever have passed through passed through its door. No weary parliamentarian would have sought sanctuary from the battle field to the north. But it is beautiful, all the same.

And I would very much like to know if William Morris or Edward Burne Jones ever visited in person!

Our Village Schools in the late 19th century

Today, three of our local villages have village schools. Two of them, Inkpen and Enborne, are still based in their original Victorian buildings just like many other primary schools in West Berkshire. However, you might be surprised to find out that, at the end of the nineteenth century, there were twice that many village schools in our area.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, many towns and villages benefitted from schools established by churches or charitable organisations. However, it was not until Forster’s Education Act of 1870 that local school boards were created with the power to levy rates to finance building and running of so-called National Schools in their areas. Thus universal education became available to all children up to the age of 13.

It would be fascinating to research our village schools through documents in the Berkshire Records Office. For now, however, I decided to begin my research by looking at the 1881 census as by this time those schools opened as a result of Forster’s Act would be well established.

At the time of the 1881 census, the occupant of the Kintbury St Mary’s school house is 25 year old James Humphries, originally from Ditton Marsh, Wiltshire. James is described as a “certificated teacher” meaning he has gained a professional qualification at a teacher training college. His sister, Catherine, 20, who is living with him, is described as “assistant teacher” which might indicate that she trained to teach by learning “on the job” as a pupil teacher which was how the majority of teachers qualified at that time. How Kintbury parents would have viewed this fresh faced young man and his even younger sister, both in positions of authority over the village sons and daughters, we can only imagine!

James and Catherine did not stay in Kintbury for long, or so it seems. In November 1883 the Newbury Weekly News reported on a recent Diocesan Inspection at the school which found it to be, “in very good condition. The children are well taught throughout.” The master at this time was a Mr T. Sadgrove. But he did not stay long either. In May of the following year the NWN carried a report concerning the schoolboy Alfred Sturgess who was charged with stealing 2 shillings and 6 pence from the National School Board ( in other words, from St Mary’s school ), the case being proved by the master who was then W. Garrett Jones.

Perhaps Messrs Humphries, Sadgrove and Garrett Jones all found Kintbury too challenging to stay long, or perhaps they were ambitious and wanted to move on to bigger schools in towns. So far I can find no record of any of them to suggest where they were living when they moved on from Kintbury, or if they even stayed in teaching.

Things were different down the road in Inkpen. In 1881 the occupant of the village school house is 49 year old certified teacher Jesse Collins. Jesse was a retired naval captain originally from East Tilbury, Essex, whose teaching post in 1871 had been in Portsmouth.

Interestingly, Jesse’s wife, Charlotte, is also described on the census as “School mistress”, although at this time women were not – officially – allowed to teach after they had married.

Life in the relatively isolated, rural community of Inkpen must have been very different to life in Portsmouth for the Collinses, although it seems to have suited them as they were still there in 1891. Despite, that is, Jesse having appeared before the local magistrates in 1884, charged with having assaulted one Alfred Abraham, a school boy, and having been fined 5s and 16s 6d costs. Perhaps the experience of his former naval career led Jesse to take this in his stride as he is otherwise involved with the local community and, according to the NWN, with local politics.

If Inkpen was a relatively isolated rural community, then Enborne was more so. Back then as now, the school with its adjoining school house was in an isolated spot in Crockham Heath, on the road up to Wash Common where, in 1881, the school mistress was 58 year old Ann Elizabeth Pears. Ann was an experienced teacher: in 1871 she had been teaching near Salisbury in Wiltshire and in 1861 in Suffolk.

According to a report in the NWN of March 1887, two men broke into the school house when Ann was away from home and stole 10 shillings and a quantity of brandy. This must have been particularly unpleasant for a woman living on her own in an isolated house and might have contributed to Ann’s decision to move on. By the time of the 1891 census, Ann has relocated to Hampshire but not yet retired from teaching. At 68 Ann is head teacher at East Woodhay school.

Today there is no primary school in the village of West Woodhay – by modern standards it would probably be considered too small a community to support its own school. The censuses of 1881, 1891 and 1901 indicate that there were no teachers living in the village in those years which suggests to me that there was not a school or accompanying school house ( the usual Victorian arrangement, common in many local villages.) The evidence suggests that West Woodhay’s children attended East Woodhay school as, in December 1903, the NWN reported that a request had been made for a footbridge to be placed “over the water between East and West Woodhay” as “children went down there on their way to school and got their feet damp.”

However, for fifty years, from about 1903 to 1961, West Woodhay did have its own school, marked on early 20^th century OS maps as being somewhere near the village hall but on the opposite side of the road. Perhaps surprisingly, the NWN does not seem to have covered the opening of the school although the 1911 census shows assistant teacher, Celia Cook, 29, from Walworth, London, living in the school house.

Another local school I have, so far, found out very little about is Christchurch. Built at Kintbury Crossways close to the now demolished church which shared its name, Christchurch School opened in 1870 to relieve crowding at the established school down in Kintbury. Whilst the Reading Mercury reported on the opening, for some reason the more local paper, the NWN, did not.

I can find no record of the head teacher at the time of the school’s opening. However, the NWN of February 1884 reported that complaints had been made that a mistress, Agnes Peacock, had been ill treating the children. Unfortunately, a parent, Mary Ann Nash of Kintbury, had decided to take things into her own hands after Miss Peacock had patted her son on the hand by way of discipline. The teacher reportedly pushed the boy and he fell over. Nash went to the house where Miss Peacock was lodging and struck the teacher on the head with a stick. She was subsequently charged with assault and fined 9 shillings 6 pence with 10 shillings 6 pence costs.

As the smallest village in our benefice, then as now, it is perhaps most surprising that Combe had its own school. Although I can find no trace of when it first opened, the NWN of September 1894 reported that the school in the village had been, “nobly restored” with, “all the necessary requirements”. Local dignitary, Mr A.C.Cole had, “spared no expense” and the village children no longer had to walk to the neighbouring school, 2 or 3 miles distant. The school house furniture was supplied as a gift from Mrs Cole, as was that of the school, “according to government requirements”. Three cheers, then, for the Cole family.

In 1901, the schoolmistress at Combe was 34 year old Elizabeth Dingwall. Born in Chelsea, Elizabeth had been teaching in Fulham in 1891. At Combe, she shared the school house with her sister Isabella, a nurse and, although life the tiny village must have been very different from Chelsea or Fulham, the Dingwall sisters are still there in 1911.

One thing that has surprised me in researching this is that none of the teachers, either masters or mistresses, are local people. Whether this was a deliberate policy or coincidence, it is impossible to say for certain, although the weight of evidence suggests to me that the school boards deliberately chose to appoint people from out of the local area. For those single schoolmistresses, living alone in a village schoolhouse, life must have been very lonely. Whilst we know very little about the lives of Ann Elizabeth Pears, Celia Cook, Agnes Pocock or Elizabeth Dingwall, we do know a bit more about a schoolmistress living and working about 20 miles from here, in Denchworth, formerly North Berkshire, in the 1860s. Mary Hardy had been born near Dorchester in Dorset and trained to teach at the teacher training college in Salisbury so she was a “certified teacher”. Denchworth village school, 80 miles from her home and family, was her first post for which she was paid £40 a year and expected to play the church organ. Mary found the experience of living in Denchworth to be so lonely that she persuaded her parents to allow her younger sister, Kate, still a school pupil herself, to come to Berkshire to live with her.

We know a little more about Mary Hardy than we do about most Victorian village schoolmistresses because her brother, Thomas, was to become the celebrated novelist and so some of her correspondence is preserved in Dorset Museum. But while the names of most of the other women – and men – are mostly forgotten, many of the nineteenth century school houses are still standing. During my time as a supply teacher I was lucky enough to work in many village schools still using their original buildings, though now much adapted and extended. The school house has been, in some instances, sold off but in others the former living accommodation is now used as classrooms, staff rooms or storage. As you walk from late 20^th century extensions back into those Victorian rooms, there is, I think, a distinct change in atmosphere, an awareness that you have entered somewhere that has been in constant use for over 150 years.

Tessa Lock September 2023

A Woman’s Place?

According to records kept by the National Archive, at the time of the 1901 census, just over 40% of adult women in the UK were employed as domestic servants.

Image: Suffragette March in Hyde Park, by Christina Broom. Cream-toned velox print, 23 July 1910
4 1/2 in. x 5 5/8 in. in. (113 mm x 144 mm), given by Winifred Margaret Broom, 1940, Photographs Collection, NPG x17396 © National Portrait Gallery, London.

The early 20th century was a time when access to education and onwards to the professions was denied the great majority of young women for whom a position in the household of a wealthy family might have seemed the only employment option. For a significant minority, however, there were alternatives to domestic servitude.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Kelly’s Directories published lists of gentry, landowners, charities and those employed in commerce for every town and village throughout England. Listed under “Commercial” in the 1903 edition for Berkshire, Kelly’s Directory records 64 names in Kintbury, 33 in Inkpen, 17 in Enborne, 11 in Hamstead Marshall and 1 in Combe. But of the grand total of 130 people involved in “commerce” across what is now our benefice, only 13 are women.

In Kintbury, Mrs Maria Abraham and Mrs Ann Bance are both listed as bakers while Mrs Harriet Penny is a butcher. Mrs Eliza Peck is a shopkeeper and Mrs Elizabeth Taylor is a beer retailer, presumably running a pub. In Inkpen, Mrs William Killick is a grocer. It is likely, I think, that most of these women, if not all, are widows continuing with the businesses previously run by their husbands.

The same would appear to be true for the two carriers listed by Kelly’s: Mrs Emma May in Inkpen and Mrs James Miles in Hamstead Marshall are both continuing with businesses recorded in the 1901 census as having been run by their husbands. Of course, it may well have been that the women had long helped their spouses run the family business, but this would not have been recorded by the census enumerator.

Women had been employed by the Post Office nationally since the 1870s, where they could sort the mail and operate the telegraph system. In Inkpen, the Post Office at Upper Green was run by Miss Matilda Goodfellow Froom and in Kintbury by Mrs Emma Page who is also listed as a stationer. Although the smallest village, even then, Combe has its own post office, which is run by Miss Rose M. Salt.

Two women to have control of what must have been larger businesses are Mrs John Goddard of Hamstead Marshall and Mrs Mary Jane Dymond of Inkpen who are both listed by Kelly’s as farmers.

According to the 1881 census, John Goddard was farming 67 acres. In Hamstead Marshall. By 1891, his son, Richard was also working on the farm. However, John died in 1894 and by the census of 1901 Martha, John’s widow, is recorded herself as farmer with Richard employed by her.

It is a similar story over in Inkpen where Mary Jane Dymond had been running her 30 acre farm for over twenty years since the death of her husband John.

It would be easy to presume that these women must have had equal status with the men running similar businesses close by. Surely Eliza Peck or Maria Abraham’s experience of running their shops would have been largely similar to that of the male shopkeepers further down the road? Would life on a farm have been so very much different for Mary Jane Dymond or Martha Goddard when compared to farms run by men?

Apart from everyday sexism expressed in such phrases as , “the weaker sex” and “a woman’s place is in the home” and so on, the perceived inferior status of women was enshrined in certain laws. For example, whilst many women would have controlled a business budget, they would not have been able to open a bank account in their own names or apply for a loan.

However, for Mary Jane Dymond, Martha Goddard and the rest, the position of women in society was changing – but very, very slowly. The 1882 Married Women’s Property Act had enabled women to own and control property in their own right although it was not until 1922 that the Law of Property Act gave men and women equal rights to inherit property from each other.

Women ratepayers – that is to say, women who owned or rented property – had been able to vote in borough and county elections since 1888. So most, if not all, of the women in business in 1903 would have been able to vote for their local councillors although as women there were not able to stand for election themselves. Women – and many poorer men- were still unable to vote in parliamentary elections.

In 1902, textile workers in the north of England had presented a petition to parliament demanding votes for women and 1903 saw the formation, at the home of Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst in Manchester, of the Women’s Social & Political Union, a campaigning group concerned with extending the franchise to women. It is likely that both these events passed by even the most avid newspaper-reading folk of West Berkshire – however, news of the burgeoning women’s suffrage movement would gradually appear in the pages of the Newbury Weekly News.

Emmeline Pankhurst addressing a crowd in Trafalgar Square by Central Press, by Central Press, bromide press print, October 1908, 7 in. x 8 7/8 in. (177 mm x 226 mm) image size, Given by Terence Pepper, 2008, Photographs Collection, NPG x131784

© National Portrait Gallery, London

The NWN of March 31^st 1904 reported that the local Women’s Liberal Association held a packed meeting at which Mr Richard Heldene MP spoke on the subject of women’s suffrage. In 1906 members of the same association listened to an address given by Mrs Eva McLaren, “in favour of political rights for women”.

It seems that the issue of women’s suffrage had not always been taken seriously. On 21^st March 1907, the NWN carried a report of a debate in Reading at which Mr Mackarness, MP for South Berkshire had spoken. According to the report,

…there was a great deal of joking on the subject but for his part he always looked on it from a common sense point of view… They had given women votes in all local affairs therefore he could not quite see upon what line of argument … they were to refuse them a vote in Parliamentary matters.

Whilst the NWN was happy to report objectively on debates or speeches in favour of women’s suffrage, this seems not to have been the case when covering the actions of more militant campaigners such as the members of the WSPU. On 28^th March, 1907, it reported,

The women suffragists made another scandalous disturbance on Wednesday in avowed attempts to enter the House of Commons.

But it would seem that not everyone in the area agreed that the tactics employed by the more militant suffragettes ( as they were eventually known to distinguish them for the more peaceful suffragists ) were “scandalous”.

In November 1909, the newspaper of the WSPU, “Votes for Women” reported that a Miss Keevil, “is speaking at two meetings in Newbury. Sympathizers there are very anxious to hear about militant methods.”

In June 1911, the same newspaper reported that there were to be outdoor demonstrations in Reading, Newbury and Basingstoke, and that the Newbury & Reading contingent would march under a banner bearing the words, “Pro aris et foris”. A Miss Daukes of Newbury would be acting as sergeant, the newspaper reported. The WSPU was nothing if not well organised and this was expressed in the use of such military language.

“Votes for Women” was eventually replaced by a new newspaper representing the WSPU campaign, The Suffragette. Copies were sold in Newbury Market Place and reports included the successful, “At Home” held by Newbury’s Mrs Whittington and a meeting held at the Guildhall Hotel, Mansion House Street. The campaign for women’s suffrage had definitely come to town.

Nationally, Emmeline Pankhurst’s WSPU involved women from all social classes at all levels of the organisation. However, it must have been far easier for women of comfortable financial means and less demands upon their time to participate in local campaigning. Marian Daukes, Hon Sec of the Newbury WSPU branch, was the daughter of an architect and lived during the early 1900s at a house called Diglis on the Andover Road. At the time of the 1891 census she had been living on independent means in Surrey which suggests that she was most likely of the class of women able to spend their time as they chose. To working women such as Mary Jane Dymond and Martha Goddard, or Maria Abraham and Ann Bance, Marian’s life would have seemed a world away from theirs. It is impossible to know if these women from the villages ever saw a copy of The Suffragette, sold in Newbury Market Place. We do not know what they would have thought, had they read anything in the NWN of the campaign for women’s suffrage – I think it likely that some would have ignored it, others would have been appalled at the more disruptive or militant campaigns, whilst others may well have approved – but possibly secretly.

The 1907 Qualification of Women Act allowed women to be elected as borough and county councillors, also as mayor. Thus women were able to participate in local decision making for the first time. In Newbury, it was not until 1922 that Elsie Kimber was elected the town’s first female councillor. Elsie went on to become the first female mayor in 1932 and first woman Alderman in 1943.

The Representation of the People Act of 1918 granted the right to vote to all men over 21 but only to women over 30 who owned or rented property with a yearly value of at least £5, or to be married to a man who qualified to vote in local government elections. For many women who had run businesses or taken the places of men in agriculture or other industries during the 1914 to 1918 war, this must have been a bitter disappointment. For the many women still employed in domestic service, their position in the eyes of the law had changed very little.

In May 1919, political discussion came to Kintbury when a meeting of the Kintbury Branch of the South Berks Women’s Unionist Association, an organisation of the Conservative party, was held in the Coronation Hall. In attendance were many well known ladies of the village including Mrs Dunn and Mrs A.E. Gladstone. One speaker, the Hon Ethel Akers-Douglas spoke of the urgent need for self education with regards to politics. Another, Mrs W.A. Mount, wife of the local Member of Parliament, spoke of the “threat” of a Labour candidate in the constituency at the next general election. She explained the party’s intentions to see the conditions of the working men improved, however, “when people said there could be full equality, it was their duty to point out that such a state of things was absolutely impossible.”

Such was the mind-set of many at the time, although we do not know how many of the women running shops or businesses, particularly on behalf of men killed or disabled in the war, would have agreed with her. I wonder what Elsie Kimber, at her family’s shop in Newbury, would have thought.

Women were not granted equal voting rights with men until 1928. The first woman to be elected to the Westminster Parliament was Constance Markievicz in 1918, although as a member of Sinn Fein she refused to take her seat and so the distinction of being the first woman to sit in parliament goes to Lady Nancy Astor who won the Plymouth Sutton seat in 1919.

Emmeline Pankhurst believed that, once women achieved parliamentary representation, it would follow that other legislation to benefit the lives of women would soon be enacted. I think she would have been shocked to know just how long it took for women to achieve equality with men in so many areas. Back in 1903, Mary Jane Dymond would have been unable to open a bank account independently. This situation did not change until the 1960s and it was not until the 1970s that a woman could apply for a loan without having her application endorsed by a man – literally any man. Similarly, the Equal Pay Act did not come into law until 1970 before which it was quite legal for businesses, including high street banks, for example, to offer career prospects to young men with salaries higher than those offered to similarly qualified young women.

I believe Marian Daukes and her fellow WSPU supporters in Newbury would be disappointed – or even incredulous – that by the 2019 parliamentary election, out of 650 seats only 220 were filled by women. Similarly, although the position of women in society has changed in many ways that would surprise a Mary Jane Dymond or Martha Goddard, many businesses still have only male names over the door or in trade directories. Further more, to see the words, “And daughter” on a commercial vehicle is still very, very rare. So much has changed, but then, so much has remained the same.

Theresa Lock, July 2023

Acknowledgements:

Photographs in this article have been reproduced under creative commons licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

Fifty miles of good road?

And what is fifty miles of good road? Little more than half a day’s journey. Yes, I call it a very easy distance.
Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice

That was the opinion of Mr Darcy from Jane Austen’s novel of 1813, Pride & Prejudice. Whether many travellers of the time would have agreed with him it is difficult to say.

Of course, roads in towns and cities would have been very different from roads – where they existed – in rural areas such as ours. The villages of our benefice would have been linked back then, as now, by a network of winding lanes but then they would have become muddy and impassable in bad weather. Street names sometimes indicate what would have been the most direct or preferred route into larger towns such as Newbury Street in Kintbury, the road which can be followed eastwards through Hamstead Marshall and Enborne to enter Newbury on the south side, or oldest, part of town. This would have been the route used by the carriers’ carts and others for whom life moved at a much slower pace.

In Jane Austen’s day many working people rarely travelled beyond a few miles from their homes – although there were, of course, exceptions, such as the servants who travelled with their more affluent employers. But for many people the local villages furnished all their day to day needs and even somewhere as small as Combe had its own shops and even a post office.

But for some local people – and it goes without saying these were the upper classes – travel to the world beyond was part of their lives.

For the benefit of these people, with their liveried carriages, many roads had been steadily improving since the early years of the eighteenth century. This was when turnpike trusts, with responsibility for improving and maintaining important routes, were set up by acts of parliament and toll houses with their accompanying gates, became a familiar sight. So, whilst the lanes through Kintbury to Inkpen, West Woodhay and the like would have remained dusty or muddy track ways, roads linking important towns were much improved to facilitate coach travel.

At this time, Bath had become a very fashionable venue for the upper classes, many of whom travelled there from London. Consequently, the road we now know as the A4 – the Bath Road – was much repaired and widened. The stretch between Marlborough and Newbury in particular saw much improvement after 1744 when an act of parliament established a turnpike trust responsible for its repair. Milestones erected along the route at this time can still be seen today. One of its trustees was a man local to our area, a Dr Brickenden of Inkpen House, who, one can presume, could see the advantage of faster travel beyond his village.

The first public stage coaches to run between London and Bath had begun in 1657 when there were two regular services a week. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, the service had grown to over 150 a week. The Bear Inn, Cheap Street, Bath even advertised “A day and a half coach to London every Monday, Wednesday and Friday”. This was the express travel of the day.

For those able to afford to travel, mail coaches offered a more comfortable – and speedy -travelling experience. In 1782, John Palmer, a theatre owner from Bath, suggested to the Post Office in London that mail could be transported more quickly using the service he had developed for transporting his actors and stage scenery. An experimental run proved he was correct and his coach travelled along the Bath Road to London in just sixteen hours.

Mail coaches were pulled by teams of four horses, each team replaced every ten miles at one of the many coaching inns which had become well established along the Bath Road. Journeying more frequently through the night when the road was less busy, the black and maroon coaches with the coat of arms and words, “Royal Mail” emblazoned on the doors would have made a striking sight on a moonlit night as they made their way towards the toll house by the Hoe Benham turning.

There would have been a stop, too, at the Elcot turning; we know this because mail for the local area was deposited with the blacksmith there. We have, at St Mary’s, Kintbury, a letter written by Rev Noyes Lloyd of Enborne regarding his communication with the sculptor Sheermakers regarding the monument to the former Lady Craven, now in the north transept. Presumably written and sent from London, the letter is for the Rev Thomas Fowle of Kintbury but the direction is to the blacksmith’s at Elcot. From here the mail would have been collected and distributed. For those of the letter-writing classes, having relatively easy access to a speedy mail coach route must have been a big advantage.

But would this much improved turnpike road, along with the availability of fast travel to the bright lights of London or the fashionable resort of Bath, have really made much difference to the working villagers of Combe or Inkpen, West Woodhay or Kintbury? For those for whom travel was either by the carriers’ cart or a stout pair of boots, the answer is most probably no. The road to Newbury would have remained the lane through Enborne and the route to Hungerford was across the common.

For the toilers in the fields to the north of Kintbury, Hamstead Marshall or Enborne, the site and sounds of fashionable coaches rumbling past must have emphasised the great gulf between their lived experiences and those of the better off. So who would have used the new, improved Bath Road?

It goes without saying that the upper classes and members of the wealthier middle classes are most likely to have made the Bath Road their route of choice, particularly those who kept and maintained their own efficient carriage and horses. Dr Brickenden of Inkpen House, an early Commissioner of the Turnpike Trust, was most probably acting out of self interest in his support for the road.

Members of the Craven family of Hamstead Marshall may well have availed themselves of the fashionable amenities and social life to be had at Bath during the season. For the likes of them, a seat with very easy access to the turnpike road was equivalent to one’s country retreat having easy access to the M4 and onwards to Heathrow today.

Another person for whom the improved Bath Road must have been particularly convenient would have been Charles Dundas, member of Parliament for Berkshire from 1794 to 1832. Dundas lived at Barton Court which was – and still is – situated just off the Avenue, Kintbury. Two hundred years ago this route was one of the main roads into the village from the Bath Road, thus making access to the turnpike road particularly convenient for someone who could afford the very best carriage and team of horses.

Kintbury to Westminster along the Bath Road was – and still is – around 65 miles so just a bit longer than the fifty miles of good road which Mr Darcy thought “ a very easy distance” to travel in little more than half a day. I think Dundas would have needed the very best horses and several changes to travel to parliament in so short a time. However, if Palmer’s coaches managed nearly twice the distance in sixteen hours, it seems likely that the MP could have reached The House from his house on the same day as he set out, all other things, such as weather conditions, being equal.

Tessa Lock, May 2023

A rebel Revd?

The Reverend John Craven: Not what you’d expect in a priest?

In a letter of 1799, Jane Austen remarks that her friend Martha Lloyd has gone to visit her uncle – Rev John Craven.

John was the son of Governor Craven of Hamstead Park and brother to Martha, Eliza and Jane Craven. He was, therefore, uncle to Fulwar, Tom, Charles and William Craven as well as Martha, Eliza and Mary Lloyd.

Following the death of Governor Craven, John’s mother married the besotted Jemmet Raymond. Next she proceeded to marry her son to Jemmet’s sister, Elizabeth. Elizabeth was well off, but judged to be weak in intellect. They married in Kintbury (one presumes by Thomas Fowle, the groom’s brother in law) in 1756 when John was 24. Elizabeth owned land in Henwick, Thatcham and John at his marriage is described as ‘clerk of Henwick.’

In 1775 John became vicar of Wolverton near Basingstoke. Jemmet (John’s stepfather) had inherited the manor from his mother who had died aged 17 after his birth.

Jane did not do ‘bedroom scenes’, she was not a Jilly Cooper of the 18th century. But if she had been, then John would have provided plenty of copy!

In 1776, aged 44, John became embroiled in a divorce case brought by Mr. Potter Harris of Baughurst.

At the time, John Craven was vicar at Wolverton in Hampshire although he was actually living at Barton Court, near Kintbury. He travelled to Wolverton on a Saturday and stayed at the Potter Harris house to take the church service on Sunday.

The divorce case seems to have been quite sensational. Both a maid and Mrs Potter Harris’s cousin testified that they had seen Rev Craven enter Mrs Potter Harris’s bedroom and heard the sound of bedsprings! Also there was talk of misbehaviours in a coach and the Rev had been seen to put his hands under her skirt…

Mr Potter Harris wanted revenge and the Reverend was fined £3,000.

Despite this, John and Elizabeth Craven were married for over 20 years. There were no children so it may have been a marriage in name only.

When his wife died, Barton Court passed to another branch of the Raymond family.

In May, 1778 the papers reported:

“Last week died at Barton Court, near Newbury, Mrs. Craven, wife of the Rev’d John Craven and only daughter of the late Sir Jemmet Raymond.”

In 1779, John married Catherine Hughes from Letcombe, Berkshire. Catherine is the Mrs. Craven mentioned in Jane Austen’s letters:

Does Martha never hear from Mrs. Craven?

Is Mrs. Craven never at home?

Mrs Craven was, of course, Martha Lloyd’s aunt by marriage.

The Rev John Craven seems to have been rather a ‘rumbustious’ priest because his name appeared again in the local papers, this time in an argument not romantically inspired.

In essence John Craven went to a magistates’ meeting in Wantage and passed comment on something he considered an impropriety. Letters were printed in the Mercury complaining of his behaviour. There followed a meeting at the Alfred’s Head Inn in Wantage where a quarrel broke out as to who had reserved a room. One letter to the paper says:

Did Mr. Watts tell the whole truth? That he did not know that Mr. Craven carried pistols with him on that day to Wantage – Yes Mr. Printer pistols were carried thither.

The Wantage magistrate asked how Mr Craven would react if he came to the Newbury Assizes and passed comment. John Craven replied that he would be glad to drink a bottle with him at Speen. Thereafter the vicar seems to have calmed down.

Eventually John and Catherine moved to Chilton House in Chilton Foliat, Wiltshire. John died in 1804 after an hour’s illness. According to the notice of his death in the newspapers, he had, for many years, been acting magistrate in the counties of Gloucester, Hampshire and Wiltshire.

After her husband’s death, Catherine moved to Speen Hill near Newbury. In April 1839 her obituary read:

At her residence in Speen Hill, at a very advanced age, Mrs. Craven, relict of Revd John Craven and lamented mother of Fulwar Craven esq. The deceased lady was highly respected and esteemed by the gentry in the neighbourhood of Speen and by society in general.

References: The Newspaper Archives, The Letters of Jane Austen. Mrs. Thora Morrish

Penny Fletcher, May 2023

Lord Craven of Hamstead Marshall

Eliza has seen Lord Craven at Barton, and probably by this time at Kintbury, where he was expected for one day this week…She found his manners very pleasing indeed.

Eliza has seen Lord Craven at Barton, and probably by this time at Kintbury, where he was expected for one day this week…She found his manners very pleasing indeed.

Lord Craven was prevented by company at home from paying his visit at Kintbury, but, as I told you before, Eliza is greatly pleased with him and they seem likely to be on the most friendly terms.
Jane Austen, letter to Cassandra, January 1801

The Eliza to whom Jane refers is Eliza Fowle, wife of Fulwar Craven Fowle, vicar of Kintbury and sister to Jane’s close friend Martha Lloyd. Barton – or Barton Court – was the home of Charles Dundas, M.P. and is a large house about half a mile north of Kintbury church on what would have been the old coaching road into Kintbury.

Lord Craven was a distinguished military gentleman who served in Flanders and was AD to the King and a favourite of Queen Charlotte. He was reputed to be a bit of a rake before his marriage – as Jane Austen remarked in her letter to Cassandra:

The little flaw of having a mistress now living with him at Ashdown Park seems to be the only unpleasing circumstance about him.

Some people believe that Jane based Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility on Lord Craven. However, the novelist R. L. Delderfield wrote as a preface to one of his books that,

…every character in fiction is an amalgam of factors drawn from the author’s memory and imagination.

I disagree with the assumption that Willoughby’s character was based on Lord Craven’s. Why? Well Craven’s mistress was the young Harriet Wilson. Craven was 31 and unmarried at the time. Harriett was much younger and does not give Craven a good press. Her memoirs start with the line,

I shall not say why and how I became, at the age of fifteen, the mistress of the Earl of Craven…

Harriet leaves the reader in no doubt that she finds the Earl boring and old-fashioned, with his night caps and his endless talk of his cocoa trees on his estates in the Indies. She left him for Lord Melbourne. Mind you if as a teenager one had been isolated in Ashdown House on the Lambourn Downs I think most of us would have been a tad miffed even if our career was that of ‘entertaining men’!

Christopher Hibbert wrote that Harriet had a Swiss father and was renowned not so much for her beauty as easy manners, gaity and flighty charm. Sir Water Scott described her as smart, saucy with the manners of a wild schoolboy. Harriet was a well-known ‘lady’ in certain circles. When she grew too old to charm, she wrote her memoirs, sent the relevant passages to the gentlemen concerned and offered to suppress it for a fee. This caused the famous reply of Wellington: Publish and be damned!

So, I believe Harriet Wilson did not resemble the girl described as Colonel Brandon’s ward. She was seduced by Willoughby aged 17, and left without help, friend or home. He promised to return but didn’t and after breaking another girl’s heart married a rich wife.

Lord Craven on the other hand went on to marry an actress, Louisa Brunton, (without informing his very formidable mother) after Harriet had left him. They lived in Hamstead as a close family and the Countess was renowned for her gracious generosity. Obviously unlike Willoughby, Craven did not marry Louisa for money

The Georgian gossip collector Creevy, wrote that in January 1816, Lord Craven embarked, on his own yacht, for the Mediterranean. There were 70 members of his family on board at an expense of £40,000. Creevy added, somewhat ominously, that it gave a good chance to his brother Berkley, especially as he would rely much upon his own skill in the management of the vessel! Evidently they all survived Lord Craven’s seamanship and Berkley was disappointed.

Lord Craven died at Cowes in 1825 aged 55.

Penny Fletcher, May 2023