The Bonnet O' Blue also known as the Bonnet So Blue or more rarely the Blue Bonnets was in West Street very close to Borlase School.
The first mention that I found of it was in the handwritten 1833 parochial assessment notebooks that my family has. In that the William Stratford occupies a house used as a beerhouse and a garden together assessed as having an annual value of £4 10 shillings.
William was born in the 1770s and had married at Medmenham Bucks in 1801 Fanny West. The couple seem to have moved to Marlow in the 1810s. Fanny died in 1840. The couple's children have links to a number of other Marlow pubs - daughter Almeria born 1809 married Henry Beckett in Medmenham 1829 who would go on to run the Queen Pub in Quoiting Square - see here; daughter Sarah married George Johnson and went on to run the Hand and Flowers in West Street / Henley Road both with her husband and later as a widow on her own - see here; son Robert took over the Bonnet O' Blue after his father's death in 1843.
William Stratford left a will. He wrote it a year before his death. In the will he left all his household goods, plate, linen, wearing apparel, stock in trade, implements, utensils and all other property to his son Robert and nephew Henry Stratford. His son in law Henry Beckett was the will's executor. Witnesses were "Henry Jones, clerk to Mr Spicer" [Ralph Spicer was a lawyer in West Street] and Nathaniel Gordon veterinary surgeon [an Irishman, also of West Street].
As I said above Robert Stratford took over the licence of the Bonnet O'Blue. He had married Keziah Tuckwell at Medmenham in 1835. Sadly Robert died in 1849. Keziah had also left the premises by the time of the 1851 census when she was living in Oxford Road Marlow, or Oxford Lane as it was then known, with her nephew George Cox. She was earning a living as a seamstress. Later she went to live with her deceased husband's sister Sarah Johnson who was running the Hand and Flowers. She was on the 1871 census as a charwoman but may have helped out in the pub too if needed. Certainly when Sarah died in 1877 Keziah took over the license of the Hand and Flowers until 1882 when Henry Carter took over.
In 1855 then landlord James Pattison was summoned before the magistrates for running a disorderly house and "encouraging music and dancing" but the case was not proved. Sounds like the place to be in Marlow at the time!
Very close to the Bonnet O'Blue in the sub-divided Albion House was the Royal Standard. This was a pub by 1856. It was occupied between 1869 and 1883 by John Jeffrie / Jeffreys. It was also known as the Standard of England. It's location is shown, far left in the picture at the top of the page. It is possible that this was a new name for the Bonnet O'Blue, whose exact location is uncertain but was clearly very close to the same spot, if not the same premises. Albion House was of course the former home of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his writer wife Mary. The pub premises contained a room believed to be either their dining room or drawing room. Percy's study was in a portion of the building not part of the pub. The Royal Standard had a "taproom" but this just contained seating for the customers, the beer being fetched from the landlord's stores as required. There was not a bar. Such an arrangement was common in the small, humble beerhouse.
The Royal Standard shut down in 1890 as the site was due to be taken over by the nearby Borlase school to use as extra capacity, with a classroom below and rooms above for teachers as well as a few boys to stay in.
More former uses for Albion House in whole or in part:
Flint family home (embroiders) here
Royal Military College junior branch here
Breakaway worshippers from Congregational Church after Rev Thomas Styles marriage - here
Mrs Tylecote's school here
Other related posts:
For more pub posts see Pub Related on the menu.
All mentions of someone on the blog can be found on the Person Index.
Fuller list of Bonnet O'Blue landlords here
More West Street content can be found by choosing "Specific Shops, Streets...etc" on the top drop down menu.
Index of posts related to everyday life in old Marlow: here
Written by Charlotte Day, additional research and photograph by Kathryn Day.
Sources:
Medmenham Parish Registers.
GRO Death and Marriage Registration Indexes online from the GRO.
1833 parochial assessment notebooks, original items held by my family and transcribed by me.
Bucks Herald 23rd June 1877, copy held in the British Library Archives. Accessed by me March 2021 via the BNA.
South Bucks Free Press 22nd December 1882. As above.
Reading Mercury 13 Oct 1855
Pub licence transfer research of Kathryn Day.
1851 and 1871 England and Wales census, transcribed from microfilm by Jane Pullinger. Thanks Jane.
The Journal Of Education in Upper Canada, Volume 9, Egerton, Rev, - Ryerson, Lovell and Gibson, 1856
©Marlow Ancestors. You are welcome to use this research for family and local history purposes with credit to this blog and a link here so that the sources listed above do not lose credit for the information that they provided.
