Empire Day in Edwardian Marlow

 Marlow's reaction to royal landmarks such as birthdays, weddings and jubilees could range from polite indifference by the majority to all out take-over-the-streets celebrations that you couldn't ignore even if you wanted to.  So it's no surprise that Empire related celebrations had somewhat mixed receptions too. But if you were a child in Edwardian Marlow, one event was very likely to feature in your annual school experience - Empire Day.  This was especially intended to instil feelings of patriotism in the young participants but it doesn't mean involvement was restricted to the youthful. In this era, Empire day was celebrated on Queen Victoria's birthday of May 24th even though the Queen had died before the event really took off as a national celebration. Marlow's recognition of the day seemed to actually decline as the Edwardian era progressed but it was not one of the towns where the celebrations spread widely beyond the school participants and their parents - the town church service excepted.  However there were always reports of at least some people decorating the outside of their home enthusiastically, and of business people ornamenting their premises for the day. In 1908 it was already noted that only a few homes displayed a Union Jack however. The following year an extra effort was made to build the event with more bunting erected in the High Street. 

One important element was to educate the children about the countries that made up the Empire. This often involved in one way or another the young dressing up as inhabitants of other nations in tableaux- with varying degrees of accuracy! They were on familiar form here as such dressing up was a favourite of Marlow missionary pageants, Sunday school entertainments and the like. 

The day nearly always followed a similar pattern from around 1906 - a procession by all the various schools up and down the High Street to the Causeway, a salute to the flag, a few (or quite a few) words from the Vicar and of course the singing of the national anthem. Generally a small crowd would gather to watch the events at the enclosure. There were sometimes reports that the schools would get their own flag staff and Union Jack but the point was always a public display of patriotism in the most visible place. Often a special effort was made to get the pupils dressed in patriotic colours or to accessorize their outfits with flowers. It would be completely unrealistic to have asked many of the families to provide a colour appropriate costume for the day.  Poverty was a part of far too many young Marlovians lives and the idea of  the children having a choice of smart outfits to choose from would not have occured to the teachers. Instead they tended to rely on cheaper red, white and blue ribbons, hat or cap accessories or sashes made up by benefactors. The good news for those perhaps enduring a speech too many was the half day holiday was generally allowed to the children. 

On the Sunday nearest the event, there were usually special services in the churches in the town. That in the parish church of All Saints was obviously the biggest, not least because invitations to attend were made to all the major groups and bodies in the town. It's fair to say, if your organization wore a uniform you were a shoo in for participation for any civic event and this was no exception.  Groups such as the Church Lads Brigade and the volunteer Fire brigade were present and correct.  Technically this was an event open to all rather than merely the Church of England congregation but the non conformist churches in town tended to have their own parade with the Salvation Army.  This was followed by a combined service often in the spacious Congregational Church (URC Oxford Rd). The non conformist Church Lads Brigade equivalent the Boys Life Brigade headed this "other" parade with their ever popular drum and fife band and of course the Salvation Army musicians. In 1908 the Salvation Army also held a separate outdoor service. 

At Bovingdon Green 

The children of Bovingdon Green school usually gathered on the green there to do their salute to the flag. They often ended with a charming display of dancing round a temporary maypole and so attracted quite an audience beyond the villagers. However they are also recorded as participating in Marlow's Empire Day parade on the same day, so they were perhaps the most active of all the participants! 

Plans Awry

In 1910, the funeral of Edward VII meant the Empire day celebrations were officially muted and recognised in Marlow only in a minor way. A representative group of  children from the church schools  went to the Causeway to sing some appropriate songs such as the inevitable "Flag Of Britain" but the flag waving banner carrying  procession was cancelled. The Bovingdon Green pupils did not come because their schoolmistress was unwell and there wasn't enough hands to marshall them. Those at Little Marlow assembled in their school playground to hear some improving thoughts on "responsibility, duty, sympathy and self sacrifice" - the "watch words" of Empire Day they said. Unfortunately the half day school holiday was cancelled as inappropriate for a country in mourning. It had originally been intended that 1910 would see a larger scale event in Marlow than previous, with sports and a special public tea. 

Then in 1911 it was decided that Empire Day could be marked as part of a combined day of celebration related to the coronation. So for the second year in a row there was no large scale children's parade. But relevant flags were flown on the Overseas League Flagstaff on the Causeway on May 24th and some shops and other premises were "dressed up". This was not the end of event though.  It was revived in 1913, continued throughout the First World War and featured largely in the 1920s and 30s. Some Marlow children received a special medal from the Empire Medal Association as a prize for loyal essays on empire related subjects. These were provided with the financial assistance of local benefactors. I have some of the winning entries from other areas and it will be no surprise to hear that they are not the product of education aiming for a critical or balanced view of the empire for it's members. 

NB The images of Edwardian Empire Day celebrations in Marlow I have been shown have proven to actually be of other events - understandably so given the common decorations, themes and activities. Others do not in fact show the town but I have some more to check and will upload later if possible. 

Written and researched by Kathryn Day 

List of posts about general Marlow history including town celebrations such as coronations, jubilees, fetes etc here

To look for a specific ancestor see the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu. 

Sources include:

A Pattern of Hundreds - Bucks Federation of Woman's Institutes (Richard Sadler Ltd, 1975)

Memories and/or information from Elsie Coster, Betty Wethered, Gus & Dennis Winterbourne, "Vivian", Michael Eagleton and one who wishes to remain anon. 

South Bucks Standard 29th May 1908, 21st May 1909, & 27th May 1910

South Bucks Free Press 8ty may 1908, 21st May 1909, 26th May 1911

Bucks Free Press 14th Jan 1927 

The Dominions Song Book, undated..

©MarlowAncestors 

The Dreaded Pox In Marlow.

 Smallpox (not for the squeamish!)

You are feeling a bit tired, and at the back of your mind there is the thought that you might be going down with a cold. You check the funds in your purse or pocket and contemplate a visit to the reliable Mr Foottit in the High Street or perhaps good old Mr Cannon. Those chemists always have some promising pick-me-up when you feel yourself sagging. I'll go later, you think, it might pass. Save my money for now.

By the afternoon there's no doubt that you are sick. You ache all over. Your head throbs. You stand shakily on the threshold of your home. The shops are only a couple of streets away but suddenly such a walk feels too far. Standing up worsens the growing pain in your back. You call to one of the neighbourhood children playing nearby and send him to the nearest chemist with the promise of a coin for his trouble. See what there is for a cold, you say. No, say influenza. This can't be only a cold.

You receive a powder, and the bill from the boy, dose yourself and retire to bed. There you remain for days, feverish. The powder is doing nothing for you and your throat feels raw. Pushing up the sleeves of your nightshirt you notice spots on your skin. A fearful possibility has entered your mind. With all the strength you can muster you get out of bed to find your looking glass. With a little prayer you raise the mirror to your face, opening your mouth. The bursting sores you see inside leave you in no doubt. There are no other disease rashes like this. You have smallpox and within days there is a one in three chance that you will be dead...

Few diseases were the source of such terror as smallpox or "the dreaded pox" as it was known. Those that didn't die from it frequently bore deep scars on their faces for the rest of their lives to the degree that some covered their faces in public or refused to go out at all. The marriage possibilities of numerous young women and even some men were felt to have been destroyed by the pox's ravages on their complexion. Scarring also occurred elsewhere on the body as the pox spots would spread from the initial mouth area to much of the body including the soles of the feet and palms of the hands. These spots started flat before hardening and filling, bursting open, and then scabbing over.

In 1837 nearly 100 people died of smallpox in Marlow. Two years later the town suffered another outbreak which killed 164 people and infected many more. Periodic smaller outbreaks occurred regularly in the 1800s. In the closing years of the 1800s a Marlow magistrate recalled a time within living memory when as many as a third of those you met in the streets carried smallpox scars. At the time of his speaking you would still meet similar people but nowhere near as regularly. 

The above magistrate was speaking well after the introduction of a smallpox vaccine. Marlow was a place known throughout the Victorian age and into the 1900s for vaccination reluctance. In 1859 Marlow doctor Robert Colbourne lamented that forty nine out of fifty children he met had not been vaccinated against smallpox. The vaccines were suitable even for babies. This was critical as at least half of the children under the age of one who caught the disease died from it. In some outbreaks that figure was even higher. A foetus could, it was reported, contract the disease from the mother in utero and thus be born with it.

Vaccine refusal was usually on the grounds of safety concerns but perhaps was also sometimes on religious grounds, as local non-conformist Christian families seem especially likely to have refused all vaccinations, not just the smallpox one. They may have felt vaccinators were wrongfully "playing God". Vaccination did not necessarily prevent smallpox infection, far from it, but it made death less likely. Also counting against the arguement for vaccination was the fact that some of those who received the vaccine came down with a form of pox as a direct result of it. This was not typically fatal but it could still cause disfigurement and days of illness (and thus unemployment) which poor families could not afford to endure. 

In 1920 in a council meeting it was stated that about 1 in 7 Marlow children still had not had their available childhood vaccinations, smallpox or otherwise. Councillor Harvey said that he thought vaccines were largely a money making scheme for doctors, which caused the present Dr Dickson, a smallpox survivor himself, great offence. Smallpox vaccines were free to the patient but doctors received money from health authorities for giving them out. They would come to your home to inject you and also visited places such as schools. 

While Drs Dickson and Colbourne were firm advocates for vaccination the efficacy of the smallpox vaccine received a more lukewarm response from other local medical men. In 1894 the Wycombe Union district number one chief medical officer said that he couldn't really say whether smallpox vaccines worked to prevent smallpox though he thought they were worth persisting with until they were conclusively proved to be ineffective. This was just after the town's last major outbreak of the disease in the 1800s, when 28 people were infected. Thankfully this was by a milder form than usual and no deaths were recorded.

As a survivor Dr Dickson would have got reasonable though not absolute protection from reinfection. For this reason women who had pox scars to prove that they had been infected were much in demand to nurse the newly infected, saving members of the patient's household running the risk. Even if there was no active outbreak in their home area some people in the 1700s and 1800s decided to employ smallpox survivors as servants as a matter of routine as they were unlikely to bring the pox into the family.

Families also liked their doctors to have had smallpox previously if possible. You didn't want to arrive at his house with indigestion and go home with the pox. There is evidence that during outbreaks people held back from consulting doctors on other matters for fear of infection. This had a bad effect on their businesses. Dr Culhane during the 1893 outbreak was estimated to have lost £50 of his expected income through his, heroic and dedicated, serving of patients effected by smallpox and the reticence of others to be seen by him as a result. The authorities compensated him slightly over half of his losses which is all he asked for. This was somewhat begrudgingly given by the local poor law union, especially by one member who asserted that smallpox was a big fuss over nothing and could be cured by the application of cream of tartar!

A two month closure order on the schools also brought unintended financial consequences for the town's educational staff. Teachers were unable to collect the usual fees from their pupils if the children weren't allowed to come to school and to add insult to injury the dim-witted education authorities threatened to cut funding from Marlow schools for their "poor attendance rates" during the time they were officially closed. The mistress of the Bovingdon Green School didn't know how she was going to keep her school going.

Who got the pox?

Children often seem to have brought smallpox into the home of affected Marlow families. Once there it spread easily between people by way of shared bedding (most children shared beds with their siblings), or by the affected person talking in close proximity to, coughing near, or otherwise being in close contact with others. The responsible variola virus wasn't sufficiently contagious to affect those not in very close contact and contagion usually flowed from patients who had reached a stage of feeling quite ill (and thus not likely to be out and about) rather than from those still in the earliest stages of smallpox.

It was understood that isolation of patients should occur but that was a hard ask for families living in one or two room homes which was the case with some Marlow households in the early and mid Victorian era and of course earlier. 

Being in the overcrowded workhouse also increased your smallpox risk. Marlow Workhouse in Munday Dean Lane had no ability to isolate the sick from the well. Skin infections and lice were a routine problem as a result and in 1841 came smallpox to add to the woes of the inmates. The Wycombe Union houses where Marlow paupers were sent after our own workhouse closed in 1843 suffered their own regular outbreaks. Fourteen inmate children were found to have smallpox in 1864. The workhouse used two rooms at the top of the main building to contain the infected and all inmates were banned from leaving the premises for a fortnight as a precaution. It isn't known whether any Marlow children fell ill during this outbreak though Marlovians were at several other times blamed for bringing the pox into the union house.

Infected domestic homes would be disinfected, the patient's clothes burned and everyone within the household offered vaccination. As I stated above, vaccination did not bring complete protection from the disease. It was thought wise to re-vaccinate someone every time they were suspected of having come into contact with the disease, rather than trust to the continued effectiveness of any previous vaccinations that they had been given. Some people's arms became so marked with vaccination scars that they joked that they were more disfigured by the cure than the disease. Vaccination within 4 days of exposure was considered best for protection. 

Supplies of lymph from calves infected with cowpox were sent from London at a cost in 1893 of two shillings for a tube that could vaccinate three against the related smallpox. Those three people were then used as human wells for vaccine and the next three people to need it were vaccinated using lymph drawn from their arms once the initial vaccination was thought to have sufficiently "taken". The bodies of the second lot of people would then be used as a source of vaccine for three more people and so on. This "arm to arm" programme was cheaper then using bought in calf lymph for each potential person to be vaccinated but it could be fiercely resisted. Outside of times of outbreaks the main people to be vaccinated were very young children and many parents took a dim view of this repeated cutting of their children. It was painful and left scars. 

Technically from 1852 receiving vaccination against was compulsory for children who did not have poor health or whose parents did not get an exemption on the grounds of ethical beliefs against vaccination. This was little enforced before the 1870s and even then parents often secured exemptions if they wanted them and a great many local authorities simply refused to prosecute refusers right into the 1900s.

Eventually a permanent isolation hospital was built for the Wycombe district at Booker. A temporary hospital had been erected earlier at Marlow Common in order to contain the 1893 Marlow smallpox outbreak. On that occasion a milder form of the disease predominated and of 28 infected Marlow people (all from Dean Street) sent to the hospital, none died. Dr Culhane treated the 28, plus 2 sent from Wooburn, and monitored the families of the patients who had to isolate in their homes with the help of nurse Mary Menday, sent from the Wycombe Board of Guardians.

Servants living in the homes of their employers stood at great risk of being dismissed or at least temporarily sent away if they were so much as suspected of having the disease. In 1870 smallpox suspect Miss Jones was paid off and told to leave by her panicking employers when she began to feel unwell at her job in London. She did indeed have the disease and her return to her parents in Bovingdon Green caused an outbreak in Marlow. The poor girl almost collapsed with exhaustion in trying to reach the care of her parents. She walked home to Marlow from Bourne End station after catching the train from London Paddington where she had had to endure a five hour wait, alone and unwell, for the right train. Understandably this abandonment of a young, very sick girl by her employers caused outrage. Not all employers were so unfeeling. The girl's father worked for Wethered's Brewery* and they continued to pay him during his enforced isolation at home with her. Without such payments rental obligations could not be met and eviction and homelessness was a very real possibility for families stricken with the disease. The local guardians of the poor promised to cover the rent of some families while they isolated but there was, with good reason, often distrust that sufficient money or any money at all would indeed be given to them. A case in point was Mr Bowles of Marlow who suffered illness for six weeks during the 1893 outbreak. His wife did not become ill but couldn't go out to work as she was required to isolate and the family were pushed to the brink. They had been promised in front of witnesses money to cover their rent and to replace the contaminated clothes they had burnt but received nothing. 

Miss Jones wasn't the only person to bring smallpox home from London. The same month Jones returned, a man with smallpox did the same and started his own small outbreak in Marlow. A decade earlier five female rag sorters at Temple Mills fell ill with smallpox after handling London rags which were noticed too late to "smell of smallpox". The peculiar and distinctive smell which clung to smallpox patients, their clothing and bedding, mostly in the late stages of the disease, was reported quite often by ordinary people but medical journals rarely mention it.

The 1893 outbreak in Marlow also began when a rag sorter handled contaminated rags. She passed infection on to her little daughter who then unwittingly spread it further. The little girl and her mother had the last name Ford but lived in the household of the mother's employer Mr Simmonds, the rag and bone man. 

The perception was that smallpox in London began most often in the autumn and then spread out to the nearby counties by way of travellers packed tight into stagecoaches or, later, railway carriages. There seems some evidence to suggest infections were at their most severe around April and May. 

We can't blame London for all Marlow infections. You can bet the severe outbreaks at High Wycombe in 1870 and at Reading back in 1772 affected Marlow too. 

There was a belief that rubbish and dirt could harbour the pox and that bad smells could make you more vulnerable to infection. James Beckett in complaining to the Marlow Urban Council council in 1898 said that he believed that the piles of refuse dumped in an old gravel pit next to his marlow home had caused a smallpox outbreak in the immediate vicinity. 

Treatment 

Symptom management was the best that could be hoped for from doctors. Either your immune system could cure the disease or it could not and there was nothing that anyone could do about it. 

Cooling drinks such as chilled milk and lemonade (non fizzy in those days) were recommended for those in the grip of the fever which was such a prominent early symptom of the disease. Eating wasn't easy for small pox patients so liquid strengthening foods like the ubiquitous "beef tea" (the water beef has been cooked in, no tea involved) or gruel had to be resorted to. Opium was proscribed for pain. Severe back ache in the lumbar region was one of the diagnostic features of small pox. A lesser known complication of the disease is blindness so the eyes of sufferers needed careful bathing and care if the conjunctiva became inflamed. The rest of the body was gently sponged to clean the patient and to soothe them. Olive oil was dabbed onto your skin sores if the person nursing you was a gentle soul, carbolic acid if they had more a more savage approach to patient care. Both the oil and the acid had their advocates as means of decreasing smallpox scarring.

You will note that too many of these remedies were well out of reach for the poorest patients, the very ones most likely to suffer the disease. Beef, lemons for making lemonade and olive oil were all rare luxury items for them. If they had no well or water supply at home (and during the earliest most severe outbreaks most would not) they would be dependant during their isolation period on kind neighbours bringing them water with which to wash the patient or make up gruel. In cases where diarrhoea and vomiting accompanied the disease maintaining the hygiene of the patient without a domestic water supply must have been impossible.

Once isolation hospitals, temporary or permanent, became available, life for the affected poor became somewhat easier as while in hospital they were fed and treated at taxpayer expense not according to their own meagre means. If room ran out in the hospital the patients forced to isolate at home instead were delivered the necessities that they would have received in hospital. 

Smallpox is now extinct worldwide so that vaccination occurs only with those working in places such as research labs. The last cases locally were apparently in the 1920s. 

Written and researched by Charlotte Day. ©Marlow Ancestors. You are welcome to use my research for family or local history purposes with credit to this blog .

*A biography of Miss Jones' characterful mother Emily is available on the blog here

You may also interested in=

The 1890s flu epidemic in Marlow here Romantic troubles for Doctor Culhane here. Dr Dickson biog here

Selected Sources=

The World Health Organisation.

A Treatise On The Theory And Practice of Medicine by John Syer Bristowe of London. 1879 edition. Published by H.C Lea.

Transactions Medico-Chrirugical. The Journal of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, London. 1896. Volume 79.

The Lancet, April 2nd 1870. Google Books.

Reports to the Medical Officer of Privy Council 1866.

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/10855-smallpox

Bucks Free Press 15th April 1859, 5th February 1864, 22nd Dec 1893, 11th April 1894, 30th December 1898 and 7th May 1920. Bucks Free Press Archives.

Buckingham Express 28th January 1871. South Bucks Standard April 13th 1894. British Library Archives accessed via the BNA.

Life for the men of Bovingdon Green camp in WW1

 As many people whose ancestors passed through the First World War troop camps at Bovingdon Green have contacted us to find out what life for their relatives was like there, here's a post to give some more information. The camps may also be described as Marlow Common  - they did not as you may think only occupy the actual green at Bovingdon. When you realise the camp sometimes accommodated as many as 2000 men plus hospital tents, messes, etc you will see how they could not all squeeze onto that patch of land. They occupied farm fields around the area and did their training activities over a wider area still. 

For the detailed timeline of who was occupying the camps and when please see the timelines linked below. 

1914

1915

1916

1917

1918-19. 

Familiar spot for some

Troops came from various parts of  southern and eastern England. Some stayed weeks, others months. For many it was their last taste of sleeping in England before being sent to the front. The Bovingdon Green camp and land around Marlow and Temple had been used before the war for training camps by both the regular and territorial armies. So some of those attending may well have already been familiar with the area. And of course not all those in the camps or stationed at Marlow were non locals - the Bankers Battalion in particular recruited a number of Marlow area residents. 

Arrival

The men almost always arrived by train at Marlow station. This left them with a march through the town, up Oxford Rd to the small village of Bovingdon Green. Every single train bringing in troops was well known about in advance - and so the arrival was never allowed to pass unmarked. People gathered at the station even when technically they were forbidden to get in the way. Residents stopped what they were doing to watch the men pass. Most were proceeded by a band, or at least a drummer. Photographers captured many of these arrivals and turned them into postcards which were sold to the troops in camp as well as in local shops. 

The territorials had arrived for a regular training camp at Bovingdon Green just before the declaration of war in 1914. Their camp therefore broke up after less than 24 hours. The message bringing news of their mobilisation for war arrived at Marlow station. Station master Morgan was frantic as of course the moment the message came was exactly when all of his messengers were already out on errands. He saw Marlow man Vincent Timberlake who he knows has access to a car and asked him to take this "most urgent" message to the camp. Vincent's driving licence had just expired and so he initially said he could not go, but when told it was a subject of national interest he did. His reward was to be very unluckily stopped and arrested for driving without a licence! However the charges against him were dismissed when the nature of his errand was revealed. After the territorials aborted visit, Marlow was left without any troops billeted there for some time - much to their disgust. Some felt it was an actual insult for Marlow not to have received any - other local towns with less history of hosting had got them, so why not us they said. Marlow's General Sir George Higginson was asked to use his personal influence and connections to do something to remedy the situation. He said there was little he could do, but it was generally considered he was responsible for those first that did arrive - of the Grenadier Guards in May (advance party to erect camp) and June 1915. The result is that the troops that came appear to have been very much wanted and welcomed by the majority of residents. 

The area around the camp is rich with beech woodland, above. 

Camp facilities - post office and all

The majority of the men slept under canvas, with the officers mostly occupying other premises. Some of the officers temporarily rented a house in Marlow and bought their wives and children along. Others were sharing accomodation. 

As soon as the first men arrived at Bovingdon Green, a YMCA tent was erected. This was initially under the charge of vicars daughter Miss Audrey Light, who later was working as a nurse in military hospitals.  She lent on locals to furnish it with everything from trestle tables for the serving of refreshments to a meat safe, gramophone and a piano. The tent hosted concerts, lectures and sometimes religious services. Performances were not just by local enthusiasts but stars of the London music halls came down to offer entertainment. Another distinguished visitor was the Prince of Wales who motored over from Windsor in August 1915. And camp residents also put on their own performances in the YMCA tent - often for local Marlow charity appeals. 

Newspapers and magazines were gathered to provide the men with a "reading room" and there were also writing tables with free supplies of paper, envelopes and ink. Three thousand sheets of writing paper were given out every day at it's height! The makeshift post office even dealt with parcels. 

The local ladies at the YMCA tent helped the men organise transport when they were on leave and mended, washed and altered clothing free of charge. A fruit stall offered food at prices to suit soldiers meagre pockets - produce was donated by local farmers and greengrocers and sold at a loss. 

All members at the camp in 1915 were enrolled as free honorary members of Marlow Institute (now the town library in Institute rd). This provided access to a comfortable reading room, library and the ever popular billiards table. 

Officers outside their lodgings at The Old House, West Street. Image courtesy of Michael Eagleton. 

Obviously the majority of the men were there to finalise their training before leaving for the front, but time was still found for more fun activities that were also considered good for morale and skill building. Our visiting troops were very fond of water sports days and regattas and with the River Thames close at hand who can blame them? Marlow's own regatta was cancelled for the duration of the war so there was a ready audience to watch them. The officers were frequently seen on the river at weekends, enjoying the free use of rowing boats and punts that many offer them. The Marlow bathing place (a roped off part of the river backwater accessed from Quarry Wood Rd on the Bisham side of the Thames) was offered free of charge for soldiers use - outside of the time it was reserved for the ladies naturally. 

There are many reports of football and cricket matches played at the camp in the summer evenings. They also played in what is now Riley Recreation Ground againgst other military sides. 

When the Grenadier Guards were in camp their band visited about weekly, and the public were invited to attend. It was noted that the ladies of Marlow bought flowers for the visiting Guard musicians to take back to London with them. The performances were a very popular attraction. In fact the public were constantly joining events there. A grand 4,000 people attended the Grenadier Guard sports at Bovingdon Green in August 1915! Such sports days were a regular feature throughout the camps life. Events ranged from more serious sports to the definitely more fun - mounted wrestling matches, running races in fancy dress etc. In fact events involving dressing as a woman were perennial favourites! 

Once the Grenadier Guards left, Marlow's music lovers must have been disappointed but the Bankers Battalion did start a brass band when they were in camp in 1915. 

Above, The Royal Oak, one of then two pubs at Bovingdon Green.. unfortunately for the men both were periodically made out of bounds to them - but this was widely ignored. Marlow was a 10-15 minute walk down a footpath bordering Hanging Hill. 

News from the front

If you are used to reading heavily censored letters and materials from the second world war it can seem jarring to read the honesty of some of the republished letters from the front that appeared in local press in WW1. Copies of these papers were taken up to the camp and would have made sober reading for those waiting for their own turn at the front. Right from the start you can read descriptions of horrific mud, of men walking through woods with no room to place their feet except upon dead bodies, of men openly expressing the wish to be bought away injured in the face of such huge numbers of dead. Of course there was also very patriotic and jingoistic sentiments revealed too. As the war went on it's obvious that men are writing with the knowledge their thoughts and news would find its way into print, even if they recorded them in letters ostensibly to their parents.

The local papers also continued to report news about any groups of  soldiers that been billeted at Marlow after they left. It was definitely not the case that they were out of sight and out of mind once they had moved away even if they were not primarily local men. 

Training 

Shortly after their arrival in 1915 the Grenadier Guards were reported to have got stuck in to trench digging and field exercises in the woods to the North of Marlow. Some of the practice trenches dug during the war at Marlow common can still be seen today although they have become less defined and much shallower even in my lifetime. It is not certain whether those remaining were those dug by the Guards or were made by the Royal Engineers who followed them into camp. I think it's been the assumption that the latter were responsible as to quote many a local "digging trenches is what they do".  I think this is also partly because it was not realised that the Guards had definitely engaged in this activity at Marlow - and got there first. 

The sight of soldiers marching from camp through the town to the territorials long established shooting ranges under Quarry Woods was a familiar one. They often paused in Quoiting Square on their way in and out. There were complaints of the men using it as an outdoor urinal - and so Marlow's first so called "public" convenience arrived at a spot opposite the waterworks in Chalk Pit Lane. It was put up primarily for the troops but it seems anyone male could use it. This was the only real complaint I've ever seen about the soldiers behaviour in Marlow. 

Events of November 1915 and after

A gale in the above month and year flattened most of the sleeping tents at Bovingdon Green - and actually just about all the others such as the officers and sergeants mess tents. Only the beloved YMCA one plus a RAMC orderly tent and a couple used for storage in the ordnance depot were left standing - just about. The men did their best to shelter in what was left - and not for the first time. It was decided to secure accomodation in the various empty buildings in the town instead initially as a temporary measure. But in the end the majority of the men never went back there to live. They remained lodged in what must have been much more comfortable quarters in Marlow! However usage of the camp site was not immediately abandoned. It was decided to keep the ordnance compound tents, at least for a few weeks. And of course they could not be left unguarded so a few unfortunate guards were left camping there. 

The YMCA relocated to an empty shop in the High Street. 

When the Royal Engineers arrived later in 1915 they went into billets in the town too, and although they were also expected to re locate back to the Bovingdon Green camp after the winter, they did not. 

Some of the properties used for lodging for troops at some point include: 

Spinfield

Hillside (off Seymour Court Rd) 

Quarry Wood House (at junction Dedmere Rd and Victoria Rd)

The Old House, West Street 

Upstairs at The Institute 

The Public Hall (now the Masonic Centre, St Peters Street) 

The old boys school (aka the Church Hall, the Causeway)

Sunnybank (Riverside) 

The original cottage hospital (Cambridge House, Cambridge Rd) 

and many other homes, hotels, and former business premises. 

A certificate from The Overseas Club 1915 stating that a young Marlovian had contributed towards Christmas gifts to "our brave sailors and  soldiers who are fighting for honour, freedom & justice". 

Written and researched by Kathryn Day. 

Related posts: 

See links at top for info about Marlow in WW1 in general and info about troops billeted in Marlow after the camps break up. 

If you are interested in Bovingdon Green and Marlow Common in general see the post index here

© Marlow Ancestors.

Rough Music and Rag Sorting - the life of Emily Frith/Jones

 

The subject of today's post is one of those former Marlow residents whose name we pick at random to research and feature. We do this to tell the story of as many people as possible, rather than focusing just on the famous or wealthy.  It was all the interconnected lives of our past residents that made Marlow what it is today. As always, even someone picked at random proves to be interesting.

Emily Frith of Gun Lane

Emily was born in the early 1830s in the surprisingly populous Gun Lane, Great Marlow, to Henry and Susannah. Henry worked mainly as a sawyer and carpenter. (Properties mostly demolished, now known as Trinity Road.) The cottage the family occupied was on the side later occupied by the Victorian Police station and petty sessions court, and it is now under the Dean Street carpark. The family had at least three other Frith households in the lane. Their home was one of the smallest there, with a assessed value of £3 10s in 1833. It was a fairly crowded area, with a relatively poor population, and as such many newly married young working class people took the opportunity to rent a affordable if unglamorous property within it. There are not many long standing Marlow families that won't have a Gun Lane resident amongst their members if they stayed long enough! Henry was lucky though to have a small garden attached to his home. Later he moved to the Common Slough (aka Spittal Square, where Chapel, Spittal and Dean Streets meet). Emily however, stayed in Gun Lane and at the age of 19 was lodging with her sister and brother in law Fanny and William Stroud in Gun Place. Gun Place was a little court of houses, all now vanished, off Gun Lane, and now under the Dean Street car park on the side of Rookery park. This was even more compact than Gun Lane, and suffered not infrequent problems with poor sanitation. 

Rag Sorter

Around this time Emily was working as a rag sorter while two sisters she lived with were satin stitch workers. The girls were therefore employed in two classic Marlow occupations of the time for young Marlow women. Neither role was well paid but both were at least steady jobs. Emily was almost certainly working at the Marlow paper mills, as they employed a good number of rag sorters, as rags were required in vast numbers to make paper at the time. It was not the easiest job as rag sorting was regarded as a frequently dirty and smelly task but it was a very highly skilled one. They needed to sort rags by type, before they could be washed and pulped and were required to work at a furious pace. Emily's hand and eye co ordination must have been excellent as would be her ability to concentrate. Most of those employed with her were also young women as females were regarded as better suited to the skills involved! 

Working Mother

In 1852 she married agricultural labourer Job Jones (of Forty Green by birth, later Great Marlow and Bovingdon Green). Job was lodging  in West Street at the time of the 1851 census. Job had spent a month in prison with hard labour in 1850 for damaging a tree. This means Job was most likely supplementing his income as very many Marlow men did, by gathering wood for the purpose of skewer making. The skewers were used in the meat industry. Making them obviously wasn't illegal but cutting bits off suitable trees or bushes to use as raw materials was, if you did not have the right to do so from that specific tree. (You can read about the skewering / "skewerter" trade in Marlow here). Plenty of Emily's Frith relatives had similar convictions as did many others in Marlow. Her father Henry had found himself in court at least once charged with theft (of a duckling from a farm) but that case was dismissed when the prosecutor failed to turn up in court. And her teenage brother Henry was fined for a "gross assault" on a young woman on a country footpath near Marlow Bottom. 

In 1861 Emily and Job were lodging with three young children at the Jolly Maltsters in Dean Street. (AKA the Jolly Malsters). As is true of many of the properties that would have been familiar to Emily, The Jolly Maltsters has been demolished. It was one of the larger and older drinking places in Dean Street and took in longer term lodgers for much of its history. While it started life as one of the more respectable Dean Street pubs and beer houses, it's reputation declined in the 1860s and by 1872 was in trouble for harbouring "people of notorious character" including poachers and prostitutes. (You can read about the history of the Maltsters here) Most of the trouble related to those drinking there, rather than living in so let's hope Emily and Job got plenty of peace! Emily was now working as an embroiderer, a useful job that many mother's could do at home around their endless domestic and child rearing responsibilities.  I have noted that many Marlow women who were previously rag sorters go on to work as embroiders too. Job was still working as a farm labourer, usually for the Wethered family. This was possibly the reason the family moved a mile or so out of Marlow to Bovingdon Green a short while later. 

In 1865 Job spent a few days locked up in the police station on suspicion of stealing coal from the brick kiln at Bovingdon Green. He was caught crossing the Green with a lump of it under his arm. When accosted by a constable, he said he'd picked up the coal from the grass. This was enough for the arrest of Job, despite the fact that Mr Corby had not missed any coal. Corby said he certainly could not identify it as belonging to him and Job was released. The JPs were not impressed by the case having been bought before them especially as the coal had a value of 2d!

Rough Music

Rough music involves a group of people going outside someone's home and making a cacophony of noise and disturbance to register a protest at the conduct of someone inside. It's often associated with alerting cuckolds or those engaged in relationships when unmarried that the community knows what's going on. I've noticed that many protests were directed at those suspected of violence towards their wives or habitual drunkenness but some also to those who had dobbed in someone else for committing an offence. It was getting to be a little old fashioned in 1874 and associated more with rural communities but it was not abandoned in our area for some time - especially around Bovingdon Green, Marlow Common and Lane End. 

In 1874 Emily was involved in just such an incident as a "musicker". A member of the household of Joseph Meade(s) in Bovingdon Green had "turned approver" in a court case relating to stolen corn. This means the "approver" had confessed to his involvement in the crime, and gave full information as to others involved, in exchange for a full pardon himself. The community of Bovingdon Green was very upset at this, and decided to let the Meade / Meades family know (or rather some members of it as some Meades were actually performing the music themselves!) Emily, along with her sister in law Eliza and several others created a hubbub outside the Meades home over two nights. Two policeman from Marlow tried to disperse them but they just came back repeatedly in circumstances described as "almost amounting to a riot". In the end 4 women including Emily and 3 men were arrested and charged with "unlawfully, wilfully and maliciously damaging the house and property" of Joseph Meades. Emily had to appear before the magistrates at the Marlow police court. Luckily for her, the magistrates were baffled as to why the charges bought were relating to property damage for which they felt there was no evidence, rather than "tumultuously assembling of the disturbance of the public peace". So the case was dismissed! It was alleged that Eliza had kicked the boards of Mead's pigsty and that all the women threw buckets of water at and into the house and banged on the window shutters with stones.

Smallpox

In 1870, one of Emily's daughters returned from London where she had been in domestic service. The girl had felt ill before leaving and, because smallpox was feared, dismissed, and shortly after arriving back in Bovingdon Green she developed unmistakable  smallpox symptoms. Another case was reported around the same time, also in a young person who had recently returned from London. Job's employer Mr Wethered was saluted for continuing to pay him while he was unable to work due to staying in precautionary isolation and helping to care for his daughter. The victim appears to have made a recovery although it is not stated if she was disfigured in any way by this dreadful disease. 

Death at the Brewery

In 1884 tragedy would intervene in the life of Emily. Husband Job was still working for the Wethered as a farm labourer but he was sometimes also employed by them to do casual work at their brewery. On one such day, poor Job would suffer a fatal accident in the yard. There was  loaded dray there, awaiting a horse, along with a cart loaded with a couple of barrels. Reports on the event contain some contradictory information as to what exactly happened but it seems most likely that Job tripped over the shafts of the dray and in attempting to steady himself grabbed the tailgate of the adjacent cart. This then tipped up crushing him with two barrells falling down. His son John was present and along with another lifted the cart off Job. He was placed on a horse blanket until the yard clerk David Rush told someone to fetch the stretcher from the armoury along with Dr Culhane who worked from  the High Street close by. He was taken into the Brewery office before the decision was made to take him home to Emily, with Dr Culhane accompanying the injured man. Sadly his internal injuries were severe and Job died the following day. He had according to his wife remained conscious to the last and had prayed unceasingly. 

At the inquest the verdict was accidental death but recommendations were made to the brewery to improve their procedures for immobilising loaded drays and carts. Some of those present said the wheels of the cart had been properly "scotched" that is wooden blocks or stones had been put under them to prevent movement, but others could not remember if it had been done and also it was admitted the stones were often slippery and wet and could easily be dislodged. It was also said by some that a two barrels had been placed under each end of the cart to prevent tipping up, or that one had been placed under the centre of the cart, and that the shafts were also resting on an empty hogshead for the same purpose. This last point was strongly denied by other witnesses and it's obvious from the questions asked at the inquest that some felt sceptical that a barrel placed under the cart could have been dislodged when Job stumbled given the weight of both that and the cart. At other times it was said the shafts were held by men while the cart was loaded which does not sound very safe either. Job was just 52*. His son John who was present at the Brewery was only 17. 

Goodbye Emily

A death notice for Emily, wife of the late Job Jones, appeared in the South Bucks Standard in May 1895. It tells us she was then living in Cambridge Place in Marlow. This is yet another entirely demolished address, which was previously located between Eton Place and Oxford Road, off Queens Road. I hope the last year's of her life were peaceful. 

NOTES:

There was another Emily Jones in Marlow of a similar age to our featured Emily. She was married to William Jones, who also worked at the brewery and lived in Bovingdon Green at times. This "other" Emily is most likely the one who took to casual nursing in the 1890s, working as an uncertified midwife. Uncertified was not the same as illegal, it meant she had not received formal training or qualifications which she was not bound to do at the time. 

Related Posts:

To find every mention of a family or individual here, use the A-Z Person index in the top drop down menu. There are thousands of people listed there with more names added weekly. We do try and indicate which families will soon be featured in published content, but the order can change if requests are made. 

Another death of a brewery employee in 1884 features here

To find other posts relating to Bovingdon Green see here 

Written and researched by Kathryn Day. 

Sources include:

1833 Parish Assessment - our transcripts from the original notebooks in our possession. 

Census transcripts from the microfilm by Jane Pullinger and Charlotte Day. 

Bucks Herald, April 1850, January 1874 and November 1884 -  British Library Archive. 

South Bucks Standard November 1884, May 1895 and clippings related to the Job Jones inquest, courtesy of Miss Morton. 

Berkshire Chronicle November 1884, British Library Archive. 

Buckingham Express November 1884, as above 

Bucks Advertiser and Aylesbury News April 1850. 

"England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837-2007," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2JGT-KGC : 31 December 2014)

 Emily Jones, 1895; from "England & Wales Deaths, 1837-2006," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing Death, Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, General Register Office, Southport, England.

© MarlowAncestors

 

Bovingdon Green and Marlow Common Parochial Assessment 1833

 Updated August 2023, with additional research notes.

The next part of my gradual transcription of the original handwritten working notebooks used to compile this assessment along with related correspondence. These faded notebooks are in the possession of my family, and also contain some pencilled in corrections from the later 1830s, though not in this section. The assessment was compiled Autumn 1833 and was to be used to calculate tax rates for Marlow for the following year.

Transcribed by Charlotte Day.

©Marlow Ancestors. You are welcome to use this transcription with credit to this blog.

Bovingdon Green

Each occupying a cottage and garden with annual value of £4 10 shillings:

Thomas Frith [still in Bovingdon Green 1838]

Richard Fletcher

Thomas Jones

*****

Ephraim House

House and yard 

£5

*****

William Davies

House, yard, garden and woodhouse 

£10

*****

Marlow Common

Each in cottage and garden with annual worth of £4 10 shillings:

John Swadling

Thomas Mead [Described as in Bovingdon Green 1838]

William Howard [see below for another man of this name]

James Winkworth

*****

Henry Higgins [a Mr Higgins, poor man, was threatened and burgled by two men who forced themselves into his cottage home at Marlow Common in 1840. This may well be the same Higgins as here. If so his cottage was on the edge of Wolmer Heath "some three or four hundred yards from the other cottages on the Common"].

Cottage and garden

£4

*****

Each in a cottage and garden with an annual value of £5:

John Rose

Jesse Collins [ Will coming up on the blog in the next few months]

*****

Joseph Keep

Cottage and garden

£3

*****

John Blackwell [he was a blacksmith]

House, shop [this would mean workshop], garden and orchard

£9

Piece of ground on the Common

10 shillings

*****

William Howard

House and garden

£6

*****

Edward Collins [more on him including will notes here]

The Royal Oak House [pub, actually in Bovingdon Green]

£9

*****

James Martin

Cottage and garden

£5

Note: a "Mrs Butler", probably Ann,  died at Marlow Common a few weeks before the assessment. She was perhaps the widow of the "Mr Butler" who died there in 1825. Mrs Butler may have lived in one of the households above, or it may have been that one of those households was one that has just moved in to Mrs Butler's property after her death.

For more posts on either place see here

To see more of the 1833 assessment for individual streets in Great Marlow see this index

All mentions of any individual on this blog can be found on the A-Z Person Index on the top menu. Thousands of people are mentioned.

Pay For My Funeral You Miser! Will Catherine Allnutt

 The will of Catharine Allnutt. Written 1819. Proved 1820.

Says she is in ill health but of sound memory. 

To dear brother Zachary now of Henley Upon Thames her one third share in three cottages and gardens in Bovingdon Green which was left to her by her friend Mary Stevens. They are in the occupations of James Wheeler, Mary May and Thomas Frith. If it is not in her power to leave this to Zachary as it is supposed to descend to her dear sisters Ann and Martha then he does not need to give the £20 mentioned below to her sister Ann after all.

If Zachary can inherit the cottage share then he must pay their sister Ann £20. 

Also to Zachary the £100 navigation bond left to her by her dear friend Mary Stevens which is in her father's possession. Tells Zachary to give £20 to "my poor Aunt Argles" and £10 to Miss Sarah Fields and £10 to Miss Ann Fields who were her dear and loving friends in her painful illness.

Dear sister Ann all wearing apparel, poultry and the few books and goods she had of Miss Stevens.

Brother Zachary appointed executor as doesn't want her dear and aged father to have the trouble. She hopes Zachary will not grudge her funeral expenses as they are the last thing she will ask of him and she has for years been a faithful servant to him for pay not sufficient for necessaries in her station in life. He has plenty of property himself and a long life ahead of him in which he will enjoy it so need not take any out of the little estate she leaves behind to pay for her funeral.

Topaz pin and best earrings to "my sister Zachary Allnutt of Henley or Charlotte the wife of my brother" [Possibly meant to say "my sister MRS Zachary Allnutt also known as Charlotte the wife of my brother Zachary"].

Witnessed by Sarah Puddifant, Ann Bond, Mary Gibbons.

Notes:

Ann Bond was the wife of William Bond senior the builder. More about her and her family here.

Biographical post on Sarah Puddifant here.

Catharine and Zachary etc were children of Henry Allnutt who died not long after Catharine herself.

Transcribed and summarized by Charlotte Day from a copy of the PCC will obtained from the National Archives, Kew. Additional research also by Charlotte Day.

© Marlow Ancestors. You are very welcome to use this post content for family or local history purposes with credit to this blog.

Artists in Marlow History

The riverside setting of the town and the nearby Quarry Woods have long made it a beacon for roaming artists (including no less than JMW Turner, see my post on the history of Marlow Bridge for more). Some decided to stay on.

Below I have outlined some of those I have found to be connected to Marlow. 

On the 1841 census portrait painter Giles Blake, originally from Bisham, can be found living Chapel Street Marlow with his brother Richard, a frame maker. Earlier records show that Richard was also a carver and gilder. The two men lived 1841 with their mother Eliza. 

A couple of years later Giles had left Marlow for Marylebone, where he married Louisa Newman and remained. He later described himself  as a colour man or oils man. I see no evidence of Giles achieving any fame but clearly he was accomplished enough to make a living from being a portrait painter for at least a few years. His brother Richard continued to live in Marlow, latterly in West Street. He worked as a gilder and a photographer. His wife Rebecca ran her own photography business from their West Street home doing portraits but also street and country views. More on her here

Those who wanted to learn to draw themselves could pay for lessons at the Marlow Institute when it opened its permanent premises late in the 1800s.

The drawing professor of the Royal Military Academy in West Street 1802 to 1808 was watercolorist William Alexander. He was trained at the Royal Academy and later worked in the Antiquities section of the British Museum.

Exhibitions of art were held in the town centre from at least 1893. A Marlow Artists Society was founded 1895. Though it had a male-dominated leadership, the Society also had female members such as Maud Henderson  who had a minor artistic career in drawings. She was staying with her mother at Old Wharf Cottage Marlow when the Society formed and so joined.

Perhaps the best known of the professional founder members of the Society was Frank Percy Wild. Of Northern origin he initially visited the area as a summer holiday maker. He and his new wife Beatrice seemed to make Marlow their permanent home circa 1893. They lived at the Eyrie which was renamed Gossmore House in 1899*. He had a studio in Chapel Street known as Dial Studio. The studio was periodically open to the public, especially before Frank sent works up to the Royal Academy. Marlow saw them first. Small local exhibitions combining both amateur and highly regarded professional artworks were an interesting feature of late Victorian Britain. Royal Academy artworks in your local town centre with a chance to meet the artist in person, at the same time as admiring your neighbours enthusiastic daubs. For all our modern efforts to make art accessible we don't really compare! Frank taught art part time at the private Convent Higher School in St Peters Street from 1894.

Frank specialised in portraits but also painted many Marlow riverside scenes. Do a Google and you will easily find them. The most amazing of his portraits was probably a miniature on ivory of Nina Poore , the size of a shilling, and painted as a wedding gift to her from her future husband the Duke of Hamilton. It was set in a jewelled case bearing her family arms. 

Dial Studio was initially used by animal portrait painter Basil Bradley. Obviously not worried about getting his hands dirty, Basil was also one of Marlow's volunteer firefighters. He lived in Marlow from at least 1888 to circa 1892. He was born in London but most closely associated with the Manchester School.

After Frank Percy Wild relinquished Dial studio another artist Carleton Grant took it on.

An amateur artist who had her picture displayed at an exhibition at the Royal Academy exhibition in 1892 was Florence Hannam of West Street, daughter of a jeweller.

Bovingdon Green (and around Marlow Common) was something of an artists colony in the Edwardian and Pre-War era attracting both British and European artists in various media. Most were temporary visitors but in the 1915 Kelly's trade directory sculptor Conrad Dressler was still listed at White House Bovingdon Green (or Marlow Common). A founder of the Medmenham Pottery Company, in the 1890s with his wife, he hired a house in Glade Road, The Limes, before later moving up to Bovingdon Green where the pottery was expanding to. More about the Pottery here

Following a disagreement with his secretary Conrad was accused of violently attacking him with his walking stick dark night on Bovingdon Green leaving the victim lying briefly unconscious with a head wound. 

Conrad as you might have guessed from his name was of German descent, though London born. A full post about the pottery at Marlow Common is available here

Suffragette and artists Mary Sergeant Florence of nearby Lords Wood, Marlow Common and Edith Hayes of Bovingdon Green are discussed more fully in my Groundbreaking Women in Marlow History post published last year here

Edward John Gregory lived more in the heart of town, at Brampton House. The painter was also the president of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists. He and his wife Mary are both buried in Marlow.  I will add a photo of it to the blog in future.

Artist George West Cope RA had a very unhappy time at school in Marlow in 1818 at Prospect House but was not of local origin. More on that school in a dedicated future post. 

Separate longer biographical posts on artist Martha Higginson here and photographer Rebecca Blake here

To find every mention of a person here see the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu.  

Some research sources:

Kellys Directory Buckinghamshire 1915 from the University of Leicester archives.

Census transcription my own from images of census pages provided by the LDS church at a family history centre except for London censuses which were via the Familysearch website operated by the LDS, accessed July 2020.

Bisham baptismal register, digitized by Google Books accessed July 2020.

Tate.org and National Portrait Gallery online for information on Dressler.

Bucks Herald 23rd May 1896. Copy at the British Library accessed via the BNA August 2020 [For Dressler's assault case]. Bucks Herald 30th April 1892 as previously. 

A Dictionary of Artists of The England School by Samuel Redgrave 1874. Copy from the Bavarian State Library. Published by Longman, Green and Company. Digitized by Google. Accessed September 2020.

Wikipedia article on Edward John Gregory, accessed October 2020.

©Marlow Ancestors. If reusing this work, please link back here so my research sources remain linked to the work and properly credited for the information they gave me.

Blounts / Blunts Farm Marlow

Historic occupier list. Occupiers are not necessarily the owner. Dates given are where I find firm evidence of someone being in occupation at the farm, they may have been present earlier or later too. 

Note= the name of the farm may spring from William Blount who was present in Marlow in the early 1400s. Perhaps he or his family owned or rented land that was or would become this farm.

Updated April 2026.

1587 Thomas Ponde sold it to Brinkhurst of Lane End, his relative. The later will of Thomas is on the blog here. 

1640 - John Langley.

1783 & 1788 William Brookes. Tenant to Nathaniel Micklem of Hurley. 

1815-18 Joseph and William Brooks. Probably brothers.

1833-1850 John Gibbons. Tenant to a Mr Micklem in 1833. Blounts then consisted of 173 acres. John also occupied Copy Farm in 1833. He retired from Blounts in 1850. Also at Widmere Farm. See here. At the time of John's retirement, there is a grand sale of stock. The animals on offer include "7 short legged powerful cart-horses", a 4 year old "well bred brown nag" who is a good roadster and hunter, and two handsome heifers. Also available to buy are 4 market waggons, 3 strong dung carts, a market cart, plough and cart harnesses for 8 horses, and the usual selection of ploughs, ladders, troughs, hurdles, turnip and chaff cutters etc. 

1854- Richard Blackwell, bailiff to the non residential owner who I think was still a Micklem.

1857-60 "Messrs Hewett", that is John and William. In 1857 sheep and corn stolen from them in different incidents. In 1859 their ploughman was charged with horse cruelty. William died aged 68 in 1860 on the farm. 

1860-67 John Hewett above. John died age 67 in 1867. Wife Sarah. Their daughter Sarah later married James Curtis of Wood Barn Farm, Little Marlow. Sarah senior died in 1893.

1869-76 William Thomas Bird. In 1871 summoned his carter John Edwards for allegedly stealing a pint of beer from him [Henley Advertiser 8th April 1871]. William moved to Abbey Farm Little Marlow but went bankrupt 1878. Note that earlier occupiers Joseph and William Brooks were related to the Bird family.

1883- Thomas Elliott? Kept sheep on the farm but was he the farmer?

1886- J and E Micklem owners but not living there. Bailiff Richard Sumner.

1888-89 Farm and the stock on it up for sale.

1889- 1899. Dr Francis Laking. Knighted 1893.  Resident only during the summer. Runs very exclusive West End doctors practice, with royal clients. In 1892 bailiff is John Warren. In that year a temporary worker on the farm George Cellam died from his burns after a fire there. George came from a Mr Mitchell of Burnham with a threshing machine hired to thresh barley at Blounts. He and other workers went drinking in the Royal Oak Bovingdon Green in the evening then returned to the farm to sleep the night up against the barley rick. Some of them had pipes and it was thought later that hot ash from one of those must have ignited the rick. That and the threshing machine were destroyed. George was taken to the Royal Oak and from there in a cart to Marlow Cottage hospital but died. [Some details from South Bucks Standard 26th February 1892]. There was no water sufficiently nearby to douse the rick and without that the Fire Brigade could not assist. In 1894 mains water was ran up to the farm for the first time. 

In 1893 Francis hosted a children's athletics sports event, with "useful" prizes such as cruet sets and teapots which perhaps does not strike us as the most exciting gifts for the youngsters. However each also recieved  a silver coin minted that year. Guy Laking is the starter. Over 200 children enter the races. A sumptuous tea is provided thanks to Mr Carter of Marlow and the Town's Drum & Fife band also attend. 

Dr Laking also raised pigs and heifers and grew oats and wheat on the farm. He purchased Clarefield, Maidenhead Thicket, on leaving Blounts. 

Gardener to Dr Laking  - Alan Axten 1894. (Lived Blounts Cottages.)

1899-1926. Walter Wethered. His farm manager and gardener was James Platt from at least 1903. James was still the farm manager in the late 1930s but I am unsure if this was for Walter or someone else.

1940- Mrs Heath. Lives with a butler, cook and other servants so property perhaps more of a home with land now.

Farm occupancies are compiled by me from advertisements, trade journals, censuses, court cases, property records and more. As I sort my research notes mountain I will probably add more information.

To search for other farm posts like this see the Specific Shops Streets Etc option on the top drop down menu. To look for a particular person use the Person Index.

© Marlow Ancestors. If using this research credit this blog and link here but you are welcome to do so. 

Jolly Cricketers Bovingdon Green

UPDATED BY CHARLOTTE May 2026

Historic list of landlords for the Jolly Cricketers AKA the Cricketer's Arms Bovingdon Green near Great Marlow.

Gathered from adverts, censuses, wills, court cases etc.

For more on this pub and it's people see my post Bovingdon Green in the 1800s here.

Other Bovingdon Green linked posts are indexed here

1843-44 James Jones.

1853-55 William Davis. Possibly already there 1851. There was a man in Marlow of this name who was a beer seller in 1831. Could be the same man in different premises. William must have died sometime between 1855-61.

1861-83 Hannah Davis, widow of the above. Read about William & Hannah's son in law here.

1883-88 George Robinson.

1888- 1901 Frederick Coleshill, who had moved from the Sadler's Arms, West Street Marlow. Wife Lottie also served behind the bar. In 1900 Frederick donated 2s to the Marlow Transvaal Relief Fund which was organised in conjunction with the Red Cross amongst others. The fund helped the families of soldiers fighting in South Africa, and injured soldiers.

1902 briefly widow Lottie Coleshill as above then Thomas Willis.

1905-16 Francis William Styles. In 1905 Francis was assaulted by two troublesome customers who entered the pub without his permission and then refused to leave. Francis was one of those who gave evidence when the nearby landlord of the Royal Oak killed his brother in a fight. For this case see here. In 1915 Francis was fined £5 because he served convalescing soldiers with alcohol. These men were on an outing from a military hospital to nearby Hooks Farm where they were watching athletic sports and a pony gymkhana. As military patients they were dressed in distinct blue uniforms that Francis was supposed to recognise. Notices of this has been sent to all local pubs and he admitted that he had had one.

1916-33 Walter Simmons. Walter and his wife had moved from Spinfield Lane Marlow.  Their son rifleman W.H Simmonds of the Hampshire Regiment (Isle Of Wight Rifles) was listed as presumed dead in 1918, having been previously listed as missing.

1933-34 Richard Arthur Milliard.

1934 pub force to close by local authorities who were trying to dramatically cut the number of licensed premises. A protest petition by a large number of Bovingdon Green residents demanding the pub be spared was ignored. Landlord Richard Millard had hoped to live out his days there. He said the pub might not do a huge amount of trade (this was the key excuse officials made to shut down a pub) but it was enough for him so why did they have to interfere? Remember he would be losing his home and his business in one go. He would receive compensation but not a huge amount. At this point it was a Wethered's Pub.

©Marlow Ancestors. You are very welcome to use this content for family or local history purposes with credit to this blog and a link here.

Men Who Built Marlow Part Two

Thomas Corby Senior and Junior of Great Marlow.

The elder Thomas was born circa 1785 in Medmenham according to the census.

Thomas Senior in partnership with Theophilus Clifford the stonemason in 1829 won the contract for brickwork and masonry for the new suspension bridge at Marlow. More on the extremely fraught building process here.

That bridge is the bridge you see today in Marlow.

In 1833 Thomas and his son lived parts of the same building in the High Street, shown below as it is today. Their builders yard, workshops and offices were a little further along the High Street in buildings demolished in 1969. 

Thomas Senior's part in that year had an annual value of £14 and consisted of his part of the house, a storeroom, lofts, yard and garden. His son's property consisted of his part of the house, and a garden with a total value of £11. There was only one entrance doorway for the premises. This fact when revealed to investigators in the 1840s would lose Thomas Junior his vote in elections as a separate householder even though his part of the property was valuable enough to qualify him otherwise. Thomas did not marry and always lived in the family home.

Thomas the elder in 1833 also owned and occupied 67 acres of farm land at Munday Dean just outside Marlow worth just over £55 a year. The Corby family had occupied land there for some years. He also had a kiln, shed and other buildings up at Marlow Common where he made bricks. (The fraught history of the brick kiln there will follow separately). 

In 1846 he and his son built the Catholic Church in St Peter's Street. They also built a Catholic chapel at Danesfield.

In 1851 he appeared on the census as a builder employing 30 men.

Thomas Senior died in 1853. (See his grave here ) In his will he left two houses in Staines Middlesex in trust for the benefit of his grandchildren. These were the children of his daughters Mary Ann (by marriage Rogers) and Emily (by marriage Croxford). His then unmarried daughter Charlotte received the furniture he had already given her to use when she kept a school, his bed and bedroom furniture, 3 cottages at ...(Swelley?) Place Great Marlow, 3 cottages at Bovingdon Green and £1000 which was invested. There was also money invested for his grandchildren, the children of his dead daughter Catherine Reeves and his son Henry Corby. 

Thomas Junior was left 5 cottages in Hambledon and a cottage in West Street Marlow. After his father's death he took over the business full time. On the 1861 census he was a builder and brick maker employing 47 men and 3 boys. His brickmakers went on strike in 1860 to demand a pay increase of a shilling per one thousand bricks made. Other local workers struck or asked for wage increases at that time due to price inflation of everyday goods.

Thomas Junior built Holy Trinity Church, the vicarage, the Roman Catholic School, the brick arch and stabling at New Court (1874) shown below (which involved first demolishing the two houses right next to his own home), the Little Marlow village school (1862), the novel wooden church at Handy Cross (1864) and the Primitive Methodist Chapel (now Liston Hall).

Thomas Junior was forced to retire in 1877 due to his health. The man he employed as overseer of his building operations, Young Lovell bought the business. More on him in future.

Shortly after his retirement Thomas died and was buried with his sister Charlotte Gibbs in All Saints churchyard in Marlow. I have a post showing his grave here

The Bucks Herald paid tribute to Thomas after his death saying he had shown "indomitable industry" and "unswerving honour and integrity".

Above: the arch leading into New Court built by Thomas Junior.

By Charlotte Day. Photos by Kathryn Day.

Further Information:

The Men Who Built Marlow Part One: The Bonds has already been posted here

Part three - The Lovells - here

Part 4: Frederick Plumridge here

To find all mentions of a family of individual here use the A-Z Person Index in the top drop down menu.

©Marlow Ancestors. 

Sources:

Bucks Herald 7th April 1877 [Obituary]. Copy held in the British Library archive. Via the BNA.

Bridge wardens accounts and papers at the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies.

Will Thomas Corby, held at the National Archives, Kew. Transcribed by me.

Original property records held by my family.

Census 1841-71 transcribed by me from microfilm.

Bovingdon Green In The 1800s

The 1833 parochial assessment notebooks which my family has records only 6 households in the village of Bovingdon Green plus another 11 at Marlow Common and more at Forty Green. During the day the population swelled however as workers from Marlow walked up to Bovingdon Green and near it for their work.

By 1851 the population was around 65.

Many of the male residents were agricultural labourers or workers in gravel pits or brick kiln. 

These thirsty workers were served by the pubs the Royal Oak and the Jolly Cricketers. The latter was sometimes referred to as the Cricketer's Arms. There was also a newly built beer sellers called the Coach and Horses in 1836 which does not seem to have lasted long unless it eventually morphed into the Jolly Cricketers which did not yet exist in the mid 1830s. The Coach and Horses was said to enjoy a good trade and had the advantage of a garden well laid out with fruit and nut trees. 

Inevitably with drinking came some trouble. Convictions for being drunk and disorderly on the green happened frequently. More seriously, in 1843 two men who had been drinking in the Royal Oak fell out and went out onto the green to settle their differences. As an added incentive the men put down several shillings between them as a prize for the victor. William Wakefield died after nearly 20 rounds and two hours of fighting. Investigations found that he had suffered a brain hemorrhage. His opponent James Davis was tried for manslaughter but found not guilty. Marlow surgeon Robert Colbourne said that William's alcohol intake that evening could have caused his final fall to the ground and that fall itself could have caused him to hit his head on the ground and hemorrhage [as his energy flagged in the fight he had been plied with brandy to revive his spirits]. While this was only a possibility the suggestion was enough to raise reasonable doubt as to James' responsibility for the death.

In 1894 Frederick Coleshill landlord of the Cricketer's Arms was assaulted when he went for a drink at the rival Royal Oak. The assailant was customer George Todd who accused Frederick of informing the police that his brother had stolen moss and rabbits. Poaching was endemic in the area and the Todd family of Marlow and Bovingdon Green was amongst the most involved families in that. If Frederick had snitched on one of the Todds it was a bit rich of him as he was a poacher himself!

Two years earlier Frederick's wife Lottie was summoned for assaulting fellow Bovingdon Green resident Sarah Sawyer after a falling out between them. She was found not guilty. The magistrate said that he was fed up with the women of the village airing their "dirty laundry" in public and Marlow's courts having to deal with it!

The village did have a rough reputation for much of the 1800s and the Royal Oak tended to be the epicentre of much of that trouble.

It had respectable functions too being sometimes used to hold auctions and often for coroner's inquests concerning village residents. The saddest inquests I have seen were those of toddler Esther Swadling who burned to death when her clothes caught fire in 1830, and of the unnamed newborn baby girl whose body was found wrapped up in a parcel in a field near the village in 1878. An open verdict was returned on the baby. 

The Royal Oak was unusual in having a Sick and Dividends Club just for women. It was established 1898/99. Later there would also be a traditional Slate Club based at the pub.

Bovingdon Green had a small school from the 1860s onwards. It suffered at times from lack of money. This combined with the necessity of teaching children of too wide a span of ages all together at once meant that the level of education was sometimes inadequate through no real fault of the teachers. Sir George Higginson of Marlow helped by paying for an extra classroom in 1892 in memory of his mother Frances. By 1894 the school could accommodate over 100 pupils, though the average attendance was a little over half that. Greater funding came from the authorities in the early Edwardian era. These factors led to inspectors' reports praising the school's much risen standards. The great affection felt for Bovingdon Green by Sir George Higginson and his wife meant that the pupils of the school had, courtesy of them, more than the usual number of organised treats. From a child's perspective I'm sure that it was THE local school to go to. On New Years Eve 1885 General Higginson himself waited on the children of the school who were enjoying a special tea with cake, and a magic lantern show thereafter. His wife and daughter also helped serve the tea. 

By 1888 there was also a Sunday School in the village.

Residents of all ages benefited from the kindness of the Higginsons. During a severe winter in 1895 much agricultural work and general labour ground to a halt for weeks. Families in Bovingdon Green faced destitution. Lady Higginson distributed coal and money to the worst affected families and organised with Marlow's vicar for local children to have a free breakfast every day. 

Others also came to the aid of struggling villagers, organising extra work at Mrs Allam's gravel pits or by providing jobs helping to widen the road near Seymour Court.

The men and youths of the village had fun by playing cricket on the green. The spot had long been a place for it, hence the name Cricketer's Arms / Jolly Cricketers for one of the pubs. Illegal playing of games of coin tossing and dice for money took place on the green and in the lanes nearby too- before the constables chased everyone off each time.

Those constables did not often have burglaries to deal with in the village but both pubs suffered break ins.  The Royal Oak landlord was relieved of a gun, bread, cheese and bacon in 1841 while two years later the family at the Jolly Cricketers lost a pair of shoes, some drinking glasses and bacon in a raid on their premises.

Bovingdon Green traditionally held May Day sports and in the 1840's it had its own fair (June) - nothing like as big as that at Marlow of course but animals were sold, and sports were again a big feature. Chief among these was donkey racing. This was taken seriously - a large number of locals kept donkeys in this era, especially those engaged in the skewer trade. In fact the sight of a cavalcade of donkeys leaving Marlow early in the morning was considered a feature of the neighborhood.  

For more on Bovingdon Green look at the Nearby Places option on the top drop down menu.

A list of the landlords of the Royal Oak can be found in our post here and of the Jolly Cricketers here.

©Marlow Ancestors. You are very welcome to use this content for family or local history purposes with credit to this blog and a link here so that the sources listed below also retain credit for contributing information.

Some sources:

Report of the committee of Council on Education, HMSO 1894, UNI of Illinois. 

1833 parochial assessment working notebooks of the assessors owned by my family, transcribed by me.

Newspapers:

Reading Gazette and Oxford Journal 19th November 1843. Bucks Herald 11th November 1843. Windsor and Eton Express 23rd October 1841. South Bucks Standard 8th January 1892.

All copies held in the British Library and accessed through their partnership with the BNA.

1851 census Great Marlow, my transcription from microfilm.

 

Marlow's Own Cape Town

The exotically named Cape Town, Great Marlow sprang up by 1856 in a site off Spinfield Lane. The location was first known as Forty Green Place but had the name Cape Town by 1882. In 1895  magistrate George Higginson expressed horror that families could be allowed by the landowner William Clayton to rent the mostly two room, single storey properties which were in a disgraceful state and "unfit for habitation". Other references to the homes there suggest that they were virtually shacks. 

The site stretched over 20 acres and contained at different times between 4 and 8 residences. Though the Marlow Water Works were said to be on the edge of or within Cape Town I find no evidence of anyone living there employed at those works. It's likely that some of the shacks were originally erected for or used by the 40 navvies employed in 1884 to sink the first well and lay piping at the Chalk Pits for the Marlow water company. A variety of occupations are given for Cape Town residents - workers in the brick kiln at Bovingdon Green a short walk away, labourers at Blounts Farm ditto. Hooks Farm would also have been near. Domestic servant Isabella Mitchell censused at Cape Town in 1891 might have been a daily servant at nearby Spinfield House. Her husband had once been the gardener there. Isabella, a widow, was one of Cape Town's longest residents, present 1871 as a charwoman with her children and still there 1901. By then she lived alone. For more on Isabella see her biographical post here.

Most Cape Town households consisted of no more than two people because of each property's tiny sizes but as said above some whole families squeezed themselves in like Isabella's had done.

Also potentially working at Spinfield House were 1871 census gardeners George Roberts and James Swadling.

The local chair making industry was represented by chair seat maker Owen Blewitt. Owen was guilty of a savage attack on his wife Sarah that left her unable to walk for weeks. Her "crime" was failing to stop eating her own supper when he decided she should make him a pancake. Cape Town neighbour Mary Ann Platt came to Sarah's aid and gave evidence against Owen in court. The judge called his behaviour "unmanly". He was sentenced to 6 months hard labour, increasing to 8 months if he could not find sureties for his good conduct. Given that his personal surety level was set at £10 (plus £5 from someone else) he was going to serve the 8 months*. 

His son Owen grew up to live at Cape Town too.

Other Cape Town residents to get in trouble were husband and wife Henry and Sarah Stroud. Sarah stood accused of stealing the key to the neighbouring Stacey family's home, letting herself in with a duplicate key and taking potatoes from a sack in their bedroom, no other storage being possible in a two room home. She received a 21 day jail sentence after pleading poverty. She was suspected of having stolen potatoes in similar circumstances. Henry was jailed for stealing a huge quantity of wood (from over 100 trees!) and tree saplings from William Clayton's nearby woodland. It was his third such conviction.

The last reference I found to Cape Town was 1903 when a William Gates of that address put out ads locally for a job as a groom. I think Cape Town was probably still inhabited 1904 or even later however .

To find all mentions of someone on the blog see the Person Index option on the top drop down menu.

*Update by Kathryn - Unfortunately Owen Blewitt was convicted at least  twice more for assaulting Sarah who said she was constantly in fear of her life. Despite this, the prejudices of the time meant Sarah's application for a separation order (so she could live legally apart from her husband) was refused after the third assault in 1891. And Sarah was given the advice by magistrate Sir George Higginson to try and "do her best" with her husband so they might live peacefully going forward. She said she'd rather live in the workhouse than with him. To be fair to Sir George, he often heavily dressed down domestic abusers in court, attacking their lack of manliness, and more than once pushed for maximum penalties for the accused. Why Sarah was not given a separation order when those with fewer convictions against their abuser were is hard to say. It may be the accusations made by Owen against his wife that she often came home drunk coloured the bench against her - although her son and daughter denied ever seeing their mother drunk. 

Sources:

Census my transcription from microfilm.

Newspaper copies held by the British Library and accessed by me via the BNA October 2020: Bucks Herald 5th May 1885. Bucks Herald 26 May 1883.

Newspapers held at British Library:

Berkshire Chronicle 25th October 1884. 

South Bucks Standard Jan 22nd 1891. 

Property records in my family.