Life in 1930s Marlow Part Four- Style and Annual Events

Part one dealt with employment, homes and general shopping here. Part two covered sport and leisure plus transport and is available here

Part three dealt with childhood and religion and is available here

Post by Charlotte ...

Looking Swish 

Hair and cosmetics:

The hairdresser's in the town in the thirties was Maison George in the High Street. One of the hairdresser's trained there Miss Edith Neighbour ended up trading on her own account as a private hairdresser, offering the trendy permanent wave. You could write to or telephone her for an appointment. In 1935 a whole head permanent wave by Edith would set you back 15 shillings.

A 1930s permanent wave. Picture by Louis Calvete. Creative Commons Licence.CC BY-SA 3.0.

Maison George were agents for Ineco hair dye and "lady's beauty aids". 

There were at least five other hairdressers in Marlow apart from Maison George during the 1930s. Maison George gained a serious competitor in 1936 when Milady (as in "my lady") opened at 72 West Street. This was a beauty parlour which also offered high class hairdressing for women and children. It's opening "special offer" was a full head permanent wave for 15 shillings, the same price as Edith Neighbour above charged as her standard price for a full wave so Edith was good value, especially as she would come to your own home to wave your hair.

Perfumes and early cosmetics could be bought from Marlow chemists, though by no means all women routinely wore any makeup let alone a full face look. It was considered especially likely for "country" girls to go make up free. In the 1930s Marlow was still considered to be a country town. Cheap make up was not so easily available as it is today so cost constraints also played a role in determining how many cosmetics if any a woman could wear. The most commonly worn cosmetic product in the 1930s was face powder, usually in a pale shade. Eyebrows were severely plucked into a high arched shape and often darkened. Over plucking meant that a reasonable number of women lost their eyebrows and instead had to draw them on. Lip colour was available in various shades but red won out. Mascara was still applied by brush from a palette. Hollywood glamour looks encouraged fashionable women to exaggerate their lashes as much as possible. 

So Who Did Eat Puppy Pie Under Marlow Bridge?

If you wanted to hear a choice selection of expletives in Victorian or Edwardian Marlow all you had to do was call out to a passing bargeman "Who ate puppy pie under Marlow Bridge?"

You didn't need to be in Marlow- the phrase was used not only upon the whole stretch of the Thames but on other stretches of water in England, and was known in Ireland too.

The angry response came from the question being a reference to an alleged incident where an unwitting bargee had stolen a pie only to discover after he had eaten it up "under Marlow Bridge" that it was made from the flesh of unwanted, drowned puppies. The pie's owners was said to have been fed up with their pies being stolen so set the pie thief up, breaking the news as to the pie contents only when it was too late and the last crumb eaten.

It is likely some such incident did happen as there are too many references to the tale for it to be otherwise but the circumstances are not consistent across different versions of the story and nor is the time period given for the incident.

The nature of the person whose pie had been stolen varies too. Not all versions even agree that it was Marlow Bridge involved though by far the greater number do.

The earliest print reference to this story which I have found dates from 1846 and says that the awful pie was consumed under Maidenhead Bridge, not Marlow (The Era 14th June, British Newspaper Archives). The Pall Mall Budget newspaper in 1872 also set the scene in Maidenhead as did the Saturday Review in 1867. One later Victorian memory recalled bargees being asked who ate the puppy pie under Waterloo Bridge in London.

The earliest reference to Marlow being the scene of the crime was in a newspaper of 1848 but the author there said the pie question was a "hidden taunt" and he did not personally know any particular story behind this odd question routinely thrown at bargees.

Francis Francis the elder (yes that was his name) in 1854 thought the incident had happened at the "beginning of the 18th century" and gives a version not matched by any later versions. He says that a gentleman of Marlow was the pie owner. This cook used part of an unwanted litter of poodle puppies (only in this version is a specific dog breed mentioned) for the pie filling and left it wrapped in a blue cloth down under the bridge where all the bargemen had left their lunches for later, in the expectation that one of them would surely eat it. This version has more detail than most others with the breed of dog which was victimized given, plus the colour of the cloth, and the detail that it was wrapped at all. It was of course normal for working men to carry their lunches in knotted clothes or handkerchiefs, and the different colours and patterns of these helped the men to tell whose lunch was whose. It is possible that the gentleman pie owner had observed that a particular thief used a blue cloth for his lunch and was thus specifically targeting an individual for vengeance. He might even have swapped out the correct lunch for the sabotaged one, rather than left matters to chance.

In 1856 Bell's Life In London thought that the pies stolen by the bargees were the lunches of the men building Marlow's new suspension bridge (which happened between 1829-32). This building was beset with problems which caused Marlow to become not just a local but nationwide laughing stock. People specifically came to Marlow to ask the locals where their new bridge was as it didn't seem to have been built yet and to witness the embarrassed local reactions. You can easily imagine the passing bargees joining in the teasing and becoming resented as a result. A perceived theft (we can't be sure in any scenario that any bargemen were actually guilty of stealing any pies only that they were believed to be guilty. Itinerant people were pretty much always blamed rather than locals for any unsolved crimes in the past) of some lunch by them might have been the final straw and a plan of revenge hatched. Remember too that the effect of the new suspension bridge on river flow was a cause for concern for commercial river users and this would have lead to increased tensions between them and the bridge builders and townspeople responsible for thst. The works themselves must have created disturbance to the nearby wharves too.

The Preston Pilot newspaper in 1860 also  thought the legendary pie owner to be a gentleman. It mentioned that in other parts of the Thames the usual question to annoy bargemen was "Who ate the cats?" with no mention of Marlow Bridge. Was there another historic occurrence of revenge baking this time involving cats????

In the same year the journal Littell's Living Age stated that it was a Marlow publican who had been targeted by light fingered bargemen and that the bargees thought they had stolen a rabbit pie when they picked up his puppy one.

In the magazine Temple Bar of 1865 the aggrieved cook was given as the landlord of the Ferry Inn along the river at Medmenham though the puppy pie was still regarded as having been eaten at Marlow under the bridge.

Various different references to the "who ate puppy pie under Marlow Bridge?" question in the mid Victorian era regarded it as an old or ancient one and the originating story possibly a myth.

In A Drive Through England in 1885 James John Hissey agreed that the pie had been baked by the landlord of an unspecified Medmenham pub. This landlord had heard that some bargees on their way to the village had hatched a plan to raid his larder yet again and placed just the puppy pie in it to teach them a lesson.

Henry Jones in The Way About Buckinghamshire written 13 years later also thought that a landlord was inspired to bake the infamous pie upon hearing that a plan to attack his larder was afoot. But the author thought that the landlord was that of the Compleat Angler in Marlow. I'll deal with that possibility below.

In 1912 the Sunderland Daily Echo attempted to explain the well known Marlow puppy pie question to it's readers. It claimed that the bargees were in the habit of using a Marlow baker's ovens for their own pie baking. When they came to fetch their pies they would falsely claim the biggest pies there as their own, leaving the smaller ones they had in fact baked behind for other customers. It was indeed normal for people to pay to use a bakery's ovens to cook their pies in, as many people had no oven at home, or only a very small one. It is not very believable however that the bargemen could claim other pies as their own as each pie would have had a mark or sign cut into the pastry top in order to distinguish it from others. You also have to wonder if the bargemen really had the capability on their barges to make pastry. It is possible their wives at home had made the pies for their husbands to carry along with them but if so why give them raw uncooked pies which would, unrefrigerated, soon spoil rather than already cooked ones which would last longer?

The Marlow bakery involved was said to be a small one near the river. There would be at least two possibilities for such a bakery in early Victorian or late Georgian Marlow if that is the correct era to be looking at. 

In the 1914 editing of The Gourmet's Guide To London thought that the keeper of the Compleat Angler at Marlow had baked the puppy pie at the time of the old Marlow Bridge which was sited differently to our modern one. The Bisham side of it ended just by the Compleat Angler before it was condemned in 1829.  No time frame is given but the Creswell family had the inn in the early 1800s and were in part barge masters so it may not be particularly credible that they would wish to enrage the bargemen, or that the bargees who wish to enrage a potential employer. 

In 1939 in A Few Naval Customs etc Napier Thomason Beckett thought that the pie thefts had occured from an unnamed, but no longer existing, inn by the bridge, so not the Compleat Angler which still existed. This could be the former Waterman's Arms by the river or the Bowl and Pin which was demolished so that the new church could be built in 1833. Read more about the controversial church build in this post.

Also in the 1930s historian Francis Colmer thought that the pies originally stolen were cooling on a bench at Mr Rolls Wharf which was indeed at the foot of the bridge. He guessed that the pies came from the nearby Waterman's Arms but he probably didn't know about the Bowl and Pin. I'm not sure why they would choose a busy wharf as a place to cool their pie though!

A letter written to the Daily Mirror in 1949 by a Mr Walker of Mitcham Surrey placed the original incident "70 or 80 years" ago which was clearly far too late. He said the puppy pie was baked by the cook of the Compleat Angler and that game pies were the ones previously stolen. 

That's all clear as mud isn't it? Various of the story versions above have some plausibility as to time and place or situation but many have implausible aspects too and none seems without question the right one.

There is one curious thing about all versions of the story. Namely that the prankster pie maker gets the last laugh. As a group bargeman were protective of each other and quick to take offence on behalf of any of their number whether known to them personally or not. When the boys of the Marlow based Royal Military College 1800s annoyed the bargemen it led to months of running battles between the two groups. Bargees angered by a Marlow man's behaviour in the 1760s (seemingly beating a boy, whose relationship to the bargees if any is unknown) rioted and robbed the town over 3 days. There was clearly a secondary motivation of anger at local corn and wheat prices behind that riot, which also involved the ladies of the town. Farmers, millers and bakers were particularly targeted. The bargees took food and either gave it to the women or sold it to them for the price they thought should have been charged in the first place, were it not for the greed of the producers. I wonder if the beaten boy had been caught stealing food in desperation or had complained about Marlow prices. The bargees also joined in with the rioting women of Marlow who, incensed at unaffordable food prices in the town, pulled down three bakeries in 1800. It doesn't seem very credible that anyone could feed a bargeman a trick puppy pie and there be no reaction from their fellow bargemen. Unless the thief stole their pies too and they were also fed up with him!!

Still, those merely mentioning the pie to a bargeman years later were not uncommonly ducked into the water, given a black eye or bombarded with missiles. The pie baker was taking a huge risk in upsetting the bargemen.

It is interesting to note that the 1760s riot incident involved larders in the town being ransacked. Innkeepers were amongst the many targeted. Did this lead to a lingering association in the town between thefts from larders and bargemen? Does the incident of the puppy pie actually come from some misremembered act of revenge after these larder raids? The town was said to have been almost emptied of food by the angry boatmen and the women who supported them at that time.

The question of "who ate puppy pie under Marlow Bridge?" was previously used as an example of a question to which no possible answer could be given. If someone asked you a question anywhere in England which you felt unable to answer you could shrug and say, "Who ate puppy pie under Marlow Bridge?". It was equivalent to our "How long is a piece of string?" So clearly very early on the identity of the unfortunate pie thief was forgotten or was never known by anyone but the few people present at the eating.

It was, by the way, believed in Victorian England that Chinese people routinely ate puppy pies, and according to some missionaries puppy pie was also a dish in Zanzibar. I'm not sure about the typical kitchen set up in Zanzibar but Chinese people at that time didn't do any baking so that legend is a non-starter.Nevertheless the unsafeness of puppies if any Chinese visitor was nearby was a running joke in England. 

People would also use the expression "I could eat a puppy pie" to express the fact that they were so hungry that they could eat anything.

In case you are wondering whether anyone could actually eat a puppy pie and not realize that something wasn't quite right, the flavour of dog is apparently just like game. That information comes from those Zanzibar missionaries, we promise. No animals were harmed in the production of this post. 

Honestly, I'm a vegetarian.

Written and researched by Charlotte Day.

Related posts= Creswells of Compleat Angler here  and here. Detailed post about the history of Marlow bargemen here, the 1780s built bridge here and of the current Marlow Bridge here

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

Additional sources quoted above=

The Real Salt by Francis Francis the elder, 1854.

The Gourmet's Guide To London by Nathaniel Newnham Davis.

The Living Age vol 67 . Google Books.

The Preston Pilot 28th January 1860, Sunderland Echo 7th June 1912, Daily Mirror  5th January 1949. British Library Archives. Via the British Newspaper Archive.

Will Summary John Rolls Proved 1857

 John Rolls of Great Marlow, coal and timber merchant. Written 1854. Proved 1857. See codicil below too. I found this will quite hard to read. I have done my best but recommend you obtain your own copy from the National Archives if this will is particularly important to your family.

Wants just debts and funeral expenses paid.

John Rolls Hoare and Thomas Rolls Hoare sons of my sister Ann Hoare 1 shilling each to mark my ....e of their....

My brother and I occupy a freehold property at the foot of Marlow Bridge in the parish of Bisham Berkshire which formerly belonged to our father. It comprises grounds, warehouses, ....., a meadow and gardens bounded in the North by the River Thames, and in the East by the Compleat Angler's Inn and in the South partly by the road to the Compleat Angler's Inn and partly by the old road called Bisham Lane and in the West by Church Meadow or land belonging to ...Davenport Esq. This property is being used by the brothers in their joint business partnership as coal and timber merchants. This all to my brother's use for his life, him keeping the buildings in good repair. Afterwards estate to go to Reverend Green of Shepton M...w in Gloucestershire who was the son of Mary Green who used to live in Great Marlow and his heirs. If he has none then estate to Osmund Rolls Green another son of Mary Green. If Osmund has not disposed of the said property in his life or in a will and has no legal heirs then property to the eldest of my bothers or sisters then living.

Dial Cottage on the Causeway which is in the occupation of Frederick Berger under a lease assigned by me to Robert Collins is willed to "the said" John Green (the Revd?). If John has no heirs, and has not disposed of it in his lifetime or by a will then to Osmund Rolls Green and his heirs. If he too has no heirs and has not disposed of the property in his lifetime or by way of a will then property to the eldest then living brother or sister of mine.

£10 each to brothers Thomas, Charles and George Rolls. Thomas's is in addition to what he is left as a thank you for being an executor of the will.

Sisters Ann, wife of John Hoare, and Jane Rolls £10 each.

£10 to be equally distributed between the sons and daughters of my bargeman Thomas Sparkes late of the Barge Pole pub. [More on Thomas here]

Executors £10 each as thank you.

My residual estate to the said John Green with one moiety of it left to Osmund Rolls Green.

Executors brother Thomas, John Green as above, Osmund Rolls Green as above, Edward Mason of Thames Side Windsor, coal merchant.

Witnessed by MJ Rippingham Great Palson Street London and Charles Tompkins of 20 Colet Road, Commercial Road, East London.

CODICIL. WRITTEN 1855.

John Green my gold ring and the rest of my jewellery to Osmond Rolls Green.

The legacy given to the children of Thomas Sparkes to be divided equally between John and Osmond above.

Codicil witnessed by Ralph Spicer*, solicitor of Great Marlow, and William Weaver, clerk to Mr Spicer.

The will was proved by three executors only. Edward Mason had renounced his role as executor.

Transcribed and summarized here by Charlotte Day from the original will at the National Archives, Kew.

*biographical post on Ralph Spicer here

©Marlow Ancestors.

Creswell and Cresswell Graves, Parish Church, All Saints, Marlow (also Gudgin)

John Creswell, 1843, age 66 years, 

AND 

William Creswell Died 1869 age 92. (This is William formerly of The Compleat Angler. John on the grave above is his brother, a husbandman and race horse owner etc. Read more on William here)

CWC 1842, MAC 1843, AEC 1855, M C 18?? - these initials represent people marked on the larger grave below. 

 

The Creswell area, some graves unreadable now.

J C 18(43?) and W C  - date unreadable.  

JC 1873, above. Footer of James Creswell grave below. 

Above, grave of :

Charlotte Winifred Cresswell d. Sept 13 1842, age 17

ALSO  - Mary Ann Cresswell d. Jan 6 1843 age 7. 

ALSO - Ann Esther Cresswell d. Jul 16 1855 age 17 ( The monumental mason forgot the second Cresswell S and had to put a mini one in at the last by the looks of it! )

ALSO - Martha, Wife of James Cresswell Feb 11 18?7 age 42. 

Above and below, nestled next to John, is the grave of Charlotte Winifred Gudgin, nee Cresswell. She is his married sister. Her husband Robert worked in the paper mills and the couple lived in St Peter's Street.

Charlotte Winifred Gudgin. D.Jul 21 1872 age 82. 

James Creswell, above d. 1873 age 72/3. James was the nephew of the John, William and Charlotte above. There were several other names on this grave but they have now vanished. 

In a separate area to the above graves can be found this grave "In loving memory of my dear parents - Eliza Ann Creswell d Jan 25 1903 aged 73 and Henry Creswell d. June 9th 1913 age 79 years. [Henry was the son of George and Charlotte Creswell of The Swan and would later run The Cross Keys for a few years himself]

Rear of the grave: Also Ellen Creswell, date unreadable. Likely the daughter of the above Eliza and Henry who was known as Nellie. 

**Some Creswells converted to catholicism so are buried at St Peter's Church in Marlow**

Post on William Cresswell junior, the notorious miser, farmer, and barge owner - and son of William above can be found here

More graves for Marlow, Little Marlow and Hurley indexed here.

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

©MarlowAncestors. 

Bellows, Bricks and Brandy - Reviving the drowned

 People have always bathed in the Thames at Marlow. But many have also lost their lives doing so. The Black Hole, with a reputed depth of 25ft, in the river past Quarry Wood, was an extreme example of a sudden drop in the river bed. But there were other spots where the gently shelving floor fell away, as well as currents, weeds and underwater obstructions.

The task of fetching a body from the river, or looking for a lost swimmer usually fell in practice to someone from one of the boat houses (or the lock keeper) - Shaw's by Marlow Bridge is the one mentioned most frequently. They had a dredger which enabled them to search where human eyes and probes could not. The bodies were usually taken to a nearby inn which would also hold the resulting inquest. The Compleat Angler, and Two Brewers saw a large number of such events. As time passed, the bodies were usually held elsewhere but the inquests were still often in the nearest pub to the place of recovery. (From 1907 the coroner's were requested not to use a public house for an inquest unless absolutely nowhere else suitable could be found.)

Mr Shaw had to use his dredger in 1901 to find the body of one of his own employees, 21 year old William Button of Reading.  William was employed as a waterman. He was bathing after work with two colleagues, from a raft under Marlow Bridge. He suddenly disappeared, presumably after suffering from cramp. A "very good" swimmer, he could not be found by his companions and the dredger was called for. 

Some of the dead were among Marlow's very many visitors who came to enjoy riverside camping or some gentle punting or fishing. Perhaps the saddest case was that in 1906 of Chiswick/Kew Schoolmaster John S Gilbert, and his two adult sons (Frederick 20, an electrical engineer, and Frank 22, a clerk in the Stock Exchange). They had come to the  Marlow area for a short holiday and spent the night camping on the riverbank near Medmenham Abbey. (One source says they were on a small island there.) Frank, a strong swimmer, decided to have a bathe while the others prepared breakfast. But he became tired fighting the current and sank. His dad leapt into the water to save him, but did not resurface. The second son then followed his father into the water - and also failed to come back up. Two  friends of the family who had joined them on the trip witnessed the scene, and one (G A Ackerman) entered the water to assist and briefly managed to get the fathers head above water but ultimately needed rescuing himself. The other, Harry Kentfield, on the riverbank could not swim and  shouted for help. It came too late however. A quantity of weeds in the water tangling limbs was regarded as a possible explanation for such a tragedy. The farm bailiff from Medmenham who recovered the bodies (Robert Keene) however said he could see no significant weeds and thought the men had panicked "and lost their heads". 

Stories of those entering the water and not regaining the surface alive are common. In many cases the reason why could only be guessed at. Some sort of heart attack was a possible cause of death for East Dulwich accountant George Frewin Pinnock who came to Marlow to do some business for grocer A E Howard. George was staying at the Compleat Angler and decided to enjoy a quick swim in the back waters there. He took a dip and almost immediately came up face down in the water. Sadly his wife had died of heart disease just a few weeks before. (1902)

The area to the front of "The Anglers" next to the old Marlow bridge also caught many victims. Another Compleat Angler guest that died there was minor poet and Pigots Directory representative William Rowlinson in 1829. William was from Manchester and was in the area gathering information in order to compile the next Pigots Directory, a listing of businesses etc. He was staying at the Compleat Angler and went swimming with one of the proprietor William Creswell's young sons. It seems Rowlinson got cramp because despite being a strong swimmer, he sank and Creswell could not find him in time. The dead man may not have lived in Marlow but the expression of grief at his accident suggests he had made a strong impression and many friends during his visit (s) here. The Quakers of Wycombe began to raise a subscription for his young widow (he was 24) and his small son and daughter. They also intended to pay for a stone to be erected over his grave at Bisham church. Forty years later it was said the grave was not marked. Perhaps not enough was raised or the money may have been used for a memorial closer to his home. (See note 1 below for more on Rowlinson)

Given the toll of victims, it's not surprising the Royal Life Saving Society visited Marlow Lock in 1910 to give demonstrations about how to save a person from drowning.

Once ashore the methods used to revive someone recovered from the water usually involved rubbing the person over to stimulate circulation and if they came round, issuing them with some alcohol such as brandy. In 1783 the Royal Humane Society issued instructions on how to deal with a person feared drowned. In the accompanying directory of surgeons listed residing within riverside areas, George Trash of Marlow is included. The recommended actions for George to follow include removing the victims clothes should they be wearing any (male river swimmers usually were nude) and then taking the victim to the nearest inn or failing that somewhere else that could offer a warm bed and a large fireplace. A sort of CPR was suggested with artificial respiration and a slight press to the chest when it could be seen the lungs had inflated. The use of small bellows up the nostril in preference to mouth to mouth respiration does date the advice a little! Attempts to stimulate the patient included giving them a vigorous shake of the limbs, applying hot bricks or tiles to the palms and soles of the feet and rubbing the skin with salt or flannels sprinkled with rum or other spirits. You could also try tickling the nose with a feather, rubbing a heated warming pan up the spine, and in the case of a child laying the little soul between two healthy adults in the hope of gently warming them back to life. Another reason to chose a pub to take the victim to was the strong chance they had a brew house (as it was still the era alcohol was made on the premises). This was needed as the last step if all the other methods to revive the swimmer had failed. The body should be surrounded by warm grains or placed in a deep warm bath in the sort of container a brew house might have. They would then wait several hours in the hope of what must really have been a miracle recovery. It's interesting that the Society in local branches raised funds to reward those who made the effort to search for the drowned or drowning and those who took the unfortunates in. The surgeons who were members of the society would attend those retrieved from the water free of charge. This encouraged those in charge of the victim not to delay in summoning medical assistance. 

Moving forward a century to 1880 - the Rev Charles Voysey  did a demo in Marlow of the New Patent Life Preserver. "For complete convenience in wearing and perfect efficiency in buoyancy power" it was said.  This was perhaps not the most quick to use life saver. It relied upon having the opportunity to "carefully" mix an acid and alkali powder which was then put into pockets held within 3 waterproof sacks. These were stitched inside someone's clothes or strapped on to a webbing belt, 2 on the front, the other to the rear of the wearer. When the mixed powders touched water, the reaction released a gas. This inflated the sacks and kept them up for some 50-60 hours or so it was claimed. The set of 3 pouches and powder cost 10s 6d. 

A Selected few other victims

NB This post does not include information on suicides in the river, or probable suicides. 

1836 - Frank Faulkner, eldest son of school master William Faulkner, age 21. Faulkner senior often took the boys of his school to bathe in the Thames. On this occasion, Frank was visiting Marlow having recently started a physicians practice in London. He went swimming with his brother and a friend. It seems his strength failed, and his two companions very nearly died too trying to save him. 

1861 - Ellen Leary, age 59, hawker of cotton, stay laces, needles etc, lodging at Marlow. Her basket was found floating between near Bisham. She is believed to have slipped off the tow path when "not quite sober."

1868 -  John Frederick Nolan of Ireland, house painter working for a London builder employed at Thames Villa. He could not swim and intended to bathe only but he did not realise that the gently sloping river bed gave way to a sharp drop and he tumbled out of his depth. 

1888 - Helen Frances Warner, married daughter of Mrs Haig of Marlow Place. Drowned near Temple while bathing with her two sisters. She got out of her depth. 

Researched and written by Kathryn Day. 

Related posts:

Little lives lost in the Thames - Child drowning victims here 

Bargemen of Marlow here

Biography of Robert Shaw who recovered a huge number of the drowned here

Floods in Marlow History, and plans to "embank and canalize" the river between Marlow & Henley here

History of Compleat Angler here

Avert your eyes, bathers about! Victorian nude bathing at Marlow and swimming races here here

To find all mentions of an individual here use the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu where you will find over 2,700 people currently listed. Other posts about everyday life in old Marlow can be found here

SOURCES

Harland, John (ed) - Lancashire Lyrics, (Whitaker, 1866)

Smith, James - The Mechanic Or Compendium of Practical Inventions vol 2 (Caxton press 1809.)

Royal Humane Society - The reviving of Persons apparently dead by drowning (- RHS London, 1783)

Medical Times Gazette, Vol 2, 1873. Digitised by Google. 

GRO Death registration index. 

Maidenhead Advertiser August  1 1906, British Library Archive. 

Windsor & Eton Express, 26 September 1829 as above

Reading Mercury - 9 November 1861. As above

Berks Chronicle - 27 Jun 1829 As above

Bucks Gazette 20 July 1901. As above

Bucks Herald 14 August 1880, As above

Slough, Windsor and Eton Express August 4 1906

Notes 

1. Rowlinson (Rawlinson) had contributed poems to the Literary Gazette and regional publications, including some written in what was described as East Lancashire dialect. One was called "Remember me". He had started work as the clerk in Messrs Cardwell & Co cotton warehouse in Manchester ("Newmarket buildings")

©Marlow Ancestors

Charles Miller Foottit And The Scent Of Success?

 

Charles Miller Foottit was born circa 1847 the child of Ann and Robert Foottit (of whom more in future). Robert was a chemist who ran a shop in Marlow High Street close to where the Sainsbury's Local is today. Later the business moved to the opposite side of the High Street. You can see a photo of the site of the original Foottit shop and read about it's inhabitants from the 1810s to the time of the Foottits in this post. Note that the building shown is on the site of the shop but is itself a later Victorian replacement. The family lived on their commercial premises as was the  usual practice at that period and so Charles was born there in the High Street too. 

As a young man he was fined for poaching with a friend - an unusual example of a middle class youth prosecuted for this offence as opposed to a working class one.

This misdemeanor put behind him, Charles grew up to be one of Marlow's pillars of the community. Like his father he trained as a chemist. Initially he helped Robert out but after Robert died in 1870 Charles took over the business as his own. He also operated as a dentist. Busy as his medical services would have kept him Charles still found time to captain the Marlow Fire Brigade for 17 years, found what would become the nationwide Fire Brigade Union and be one of the biggest supporters of the Marlow Institute. Charles donated books to the Institute library and indeed sent some historic medical and pharmaceutical related books much further afield in 1872. The recipient then was the Chicago College of Pharmacy which had suffered the loss of its library and museum contents in a devastating fire. They appealed via the British Pharmaceutical Society to get their library restocked again.  

Charles was passionate about river sports, sponsoring numerous events at Marlow Regatta and elsewhere on the Thames. He was a vice president of the Rowing Club which he helped to found and for whom he rowed for himself. After his death he left money for conducting various events at the Regatta including an aquatic tug o'war.

The riverside Complete Angler hotel was ran by Charles from 1883 and was very popular with rowers, anglers and other leisure users of the Thames. He took over that business from his wife's family the Comperes. Charles was honorary secretary of the Angling Association so an appropriately named business for him! 

He also was one of the founders of and first players for the Marlow Football Club, a wicket keeper for the Cricket Club team and a competitive shooter.

As a firefighter none could know more than Charles the importance of adequate water supplies in the town so it is no surprise he was one of those behind the founding of the Marlow Water Company which bought piped water in for the first time. (Read a more detailed post about Charles and his distinguished work with the fire service here

I might also mention he was one of the founders of the Great Marlow Railway Company which bought trains to the town and the Gas and Coke Company that brought us a gas supply. Oh and the Marlow St John's Ambulance Brigade.

Charles was a prominent Conservative supporter and as such his premises were targeted during the mass election riot in Marlow in 1880. The damage was extensive but he failed in his lengthy legal bid to be awarded much compensation by the authorities. This was on the grounds that the rioters hadn't tried to COMPLETELY pull his shop down (?!?!?), just badly damage it. More about the riot here, including the damage he suffered. 

With his wife Ann née Compere (married Paddington All Saints Church London 1870) he had at least two daughters- Mary and Lillian. Perhaps a third daughter Fanny too who died in infancy.

Charles died in 1896, six years after his wife. He by then lived in Maidenhead, where he moved after he retired from being a chemist and dentist the previous year to concentrate solely on the Compleat Angler. He was by then in failing health. His estate was worth £843 gross.

His legacy in Marlow was enormous when you tot it up- without him there would might not have been the Regatta, Football Club, Rowing Club or railway line at all and any ancestors in the town would have waited even longer for the basics of gas and water supplies without his energy in pressing for their provision.

Foottit's chemist shop was taken over by William Baxters after Charles retired. As executor of the late owner, Charles had also supervised the running of John Dean Hall's former chemist shop in High Wycombe. The man he employed to run that other shop on a day to day basis was a Mr Banbury who would later move to Marlow on his own account. Relations between the two men quickly soured when Charles discovered ingredients he had paid for were being used by Banbury to make perfume sold in the shop under Banbury's name and patent. Part of the job of a chemist was to make up perfume, people would often come with their own recipe for them to make up for instance and for an employee to invent a perfume for the shop was not abnormal either. Banbury was not I think profiting separately from the perfume sales but he was labelling every bottle as coming from him not "Foottits" and wasn't willing to give Charles the recipe. In other words Banbury was using Charles' time and shelf space to build future demand for his personal perfume business, demand which Charles would be beholden to Banbury to meet as could not produce the scent himself without a recipe. Protocol at the time was what you invented in the course of your paid job (Charles had told Banbury to make perfume when he first employed him) was the intellectual property of your employer, not you. The case was complex however. Banbury claimed to have invented the perfume before he was employed by Foottit. When the two parted ways both continued selling the perfume. When he ran out of what Banbury had made up, Charles made up a similar scent of his own invention and labelled them with the name of Banbury's perfume. This was named in honour of Lord Carrington, Charles' landlord. Banbury insisted he had gained permission from Carrington to use that name before he even met Foottit. Charles said no it was afterwards, and Lord Carrington had told him he was giving permission for Charles' employee to make the perfume to sell in Charles' shop on the specific grounds that Charles was his tenant in that shop so deserved the favour.

The matter went to court where it was decided that Charles was entitled to sell what was left in the original scent as it was made with ingredients he paid for on his time. He was also entitled to sell his own version of the scent after Banbury left but not with the labels Banbury had designed before he worked for Charles and had since copyrighted. There was injunction made to stop Charles doing so any more and token compensation was given to Banbury.

You'd think as an inventor of an internationally patented lemon squeezer Charles would be more sensitive to the feelings of other creators!

For a short period Charles ran his own Marlow business in partnership with Charles Dye but that agreement came to an end in 1891. Mr Dye later successfully partnered with Mr Page to run a chemists' shop in the High Street.

Charles died in early 1898 after suffering a long period of ill health, a month or so short of his 50th birthday. He had moved to Glan-Y-Fford, Market Street, Maidenhead the previous summer. His wife had died 6 years before. He is buried with her in Bisham churchyard. 

All mentions of a person on this blog can be found under the person index. To find more sport related history content for Marlow choose "General Marlow History" on the menu and then look under the Sport heading. For links to other pub / hotel landlords featured on this blog see "Pub Related" on the menu.

MORE READING:

You may also be interested in this post about early Compleat Angler landlord William Cres(s)well as  it covers the eventful early history of the inn here

The famed Compleat Angler landlady Mary Ann Parslow here

List of Compleat Angler landlords here

History of Compleat Angler in 1900's here

More sports related posts can be found by looking at the General Marlow History option on the menu and then the Sports subheading. Posts include the 21 other football teams Marlow has had apart from the Marlow F.C team. 

More posts on those men and women involved in the medical side of life- chemists, apothecaries, midwives, surgeons, nurses etc can be found on the General History on the menu under the Medical History subcategory.

Sources Included:

Fishing Gazette, 17th November 1883, London, England via the BNA.

Census my transcription from microfilm.

Death registrations at General Record Office.

South Bucks Standard 7th February 1896. Maidenhead Advertiser February 1896. 

London Metropolitan Archives, parish registers.

US Patents Office.

Contemporary advertising.

The Pharmaceutical Journal 1876, published by J Churchill digitized by Google from a copy in the University Of Chicago.

The Pharmaceutical Journal, January 1872, Vol 2. (John Churchill, 1872) Available via the WellcomeLibrary/InternetArchive. 

The Dentists Register 1880.

Kelly's Directory Of Chemists and Druggists 1885 (Kelly's Directories Ltd)

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

Picnics And Punts - Victorian Summer time in Marlow

  

This post is about summer in late Victorian and pre First World War Marlow. The season obviously meant different things to different people. For some it was a period of hot intense labour in the fields. For others it was time to leave Marlow altogether and holiday elsewhere. A surprising large number of Marlow houses were let out for the "river season", and then there were the houseboats that arrived, some staying for weeks. In good weather, the hotels and lodging houses were full, and visitors could find themselves staying in more unconventional places such as above shops (Or more pleasantly perhaps, they could cadge a room at Hambledon Lock). The arrival of tourists affected even those not in position to enjoy much leisure time themselves. It meant busier streets at the very least. And there may be an annual Sunday School treat or Slate Club or works outing to look forward to. 

Enthralling Beauty

The beauty of nearby Quarry Woods was known far and wide.

It was a popular spot for campers, if sometimes a crowded one. The fact that some set up camp wherever they decided to stop for the night caused tension with riverside home owners who complained of opening their shutters to find campers on their lawns! Most kept to more secluded spots - though some were still technically trespassing on the larger estates when they did so. The stretch of river between Marlow and Henley was also celebrated, and there was a standing joke that you could always find at least a couple of artists set up opposite Bisham church trying to capture the scene. This part of the river was described by John Greville Fennell in his 1867 Thames guide as one that brought a "constant succession of scenes of sylvan beauty" that struck the gazer and left him or her marvelling with "enthralled imagination" at the loveliness of the scene. And that was not the most fulsome of descriptions by any means! 

Official picnic parties apply here

Day trippers from London at least didn't need to find somewhere to stay. These '"Harrys" as they were often dismissively known, were usually the ones blamed for any sort of misbehaviour. Cheap day excursion tickets were available to Marlow from London stations  - valid for travel on certain trains only from 1st May - 31st October. In 1880, one of these excursion tickets, third class, from Paddington to Marlow would cost you 3s 6d.  If you could demonstrate you were a "genuine" picnic or other pleasure party, of at least 10 persons, (6 if all travelling first class) you could also get lower train fares. Perhaps you had to let the station master examine your picnic hamper! These lower fares were no good for a spontaneous large family outing as you needed to apply for them in advance and in writing. 

For most the river was the focus of their trip so luckily Great Western Railways would transport your boat for you should you be fortunate enough to own one. This was at an added cost of course. If your craft was small enough to fit in the guards van or if it could be strapped to the top of an ordinary passenger carriage, it would cost you 2d a mile with a minimum charge of 5s and reductions were possible if at least 4 crew were traveling on the same train. Larger boats had to travel in expensive coaches of their own. For most, hiring a boat was much more practical. The boat houses such as Haynes, Shaws, and Meakes and Redknapp offered all kinds of river craft from punts and canoes to steam launches. Alternatively many inns and hotels could provide you with the smaller vessels (sometimes by partnering with one of the same boathouses).

 Advertising the fact that you could provide facilities for boating parties and fisherman was a way for hotels and inns to cash in on these tourists who may have just wanted somewhere to eat or someone to provide them with a picnic. If you were on a big group outing or a "beanfeast" , perhaps organised by a workplace, then some establishments turned their nose up at serving you. They did not want the reputation of somewhere where guests looking for a little genteel rest would be disturbed by a large noisy group. So at times the Fishermen's Retreat and the Crown Hotel advertised they did not accept "beanfeasts" but on the other hand, the Railway Hotel (later the Marlow Donkey) welcomed them. For longer stays, Dickens's Dictionary of the Thames (1889 edition) said the numerous hotels and accomodation providers in town catered for "tourists of all classes". 

Some of our visitors came some way to enjoy the riverside. In 1899 Great Western formed an alliance with Great Central Train company to bring visitors in from the Midlands area. The first train was an excursion one from Leicester which arrived in early July, bringing a large party for a day on the river. Or whatever part of the day was left after the time taken to travel here.

The boating parties were described as frequently "noisy and half drunken" and their habit of landing at the parish churchyard and "tramping over the graves" lead to many complaints. 

Fishing with Mr Shaw

Marlow was known as a paradise for anglers, and the premier place to stay was the Compleat Angler, more commonly known as "The Anglers" or Anglers Inn. It started life as a couple of cottages knocked together and then rebuilt, and gradually extended and improved. But even in it's more humble looking state it was far from an obscure little inn. It recieved visitors from London, including well off ones, and it was consistently mentioned and recommended in national guidebooks. The 1832 fire there made the London papers because it was already a celebrated destination - "the great resort of fishing parties". When the Angler was improved, some visitors felt nostalgic for the old days but even they admitted it was now easier to actually get to stay there in the first place as there were more beds on offer. Guidebooks of 1877 and 1889 still warned would be visitors that they would need to give "considerable notice" if they entertained any hope of securing a bed at The Anglers. Members of recognised angling clubs could also get reduced price third class train fairs from Paddington, if they had a member's card to flash. (Full history of the Angler in the 1900's can be found here)

A number of Marlow men made their living as fishermen, that is fishing guides who would supply bait and take you in a punt to the best spots to catch whatever your quarry was. The Rockell and Shaw families were two that performed this role over a long period. (White, Rose, Creswell and Rosewell are other associated surnames.) Robert Shaw should get special mention as he features in very many books about the Thames written for contemporary visitors. He was clearly someone that many people felt a lot of affection and respect for. In his role as Water Bailiff for the local Anglers Preservation society, he had a role to play in seeing off illegal fisherman and poachers and so no doubt he had his enemies. But to others he was the good looking Bob Shaw, always polite, "intelligent and reliable" and a highly skilled boatsmen. 

Tumbling for tourists

Marlow Lock naturally saw many visitors, not all of them passing through in a boat or watching those that were. The boaters waiting to pass in or put of the Lock were something of a captive audience for the Victorian equivalent of the "chugger" and chancer. Some of the activity sounds mostly charming in our eyes. Children sometimes performed tricks and tumbles on the towpath, hoping to get a few coins for entertaining the passers by. The authorities regarded this as begging, and children caught in the act could find themselves up before the magistrates. In June 1906  four "small boys" were charged with begging on the tow path around Marlow Mills and Lock. The boys had stood on their heads to amuse the passers by. They were Amos Moody, Henry Turner, Leonard Carter and Henry Allen. Those travelling on steam launches and larger vessels were nevertheless in the habit of responding to the children's gambols by throwing coins onto the bank. This lead to tragedy in 1914 when a little girl aged about 4 is believed to have drowned trying to retrieve coins tossed from a passing launch ("The child of  Carter", of South Place).

Marlow Lock as it is now  - the Lock keepers house is not the Victorian one. 

Charity collections at the Lock were also a regular feature. But when the more persistent adult beggars and sellers of knick knacks began to congregate there in greater numbers, some causes such as the Marlow Cottage Hospital decided not to collect funds at the Lock in case they became associated with a common nuisance. Touts are also mentioned as a regular annoyance, offering to help with boats, or with finding accomodation or punts for hire.

The more widespread issue of begging from visitors to the town, whether they arrived by boat or train, was discussed several times at Marlow council meetings in the early Edwardian period in paticular. They requested the police keep a close eye on things, with varying degrees of success it seems!

As those passing through the Lock had to pay a fee, unless they had a sort of season ticket or annual pass, the numbers using it were recorded. The fee depended on the size of the boat, with steam launches up to 35ft long paying 9d for example, or  house boat's 2s6d. Over the August Bank Holiday of 1893, which was regarded as a little less busy than usual, 1,200 small boats passed through over Saturday to Monday and 120 steam launches. This won't be the absolute number of boats about Marlow as it was possible to bypass the Lock. Some of those using the small boats pulled their craft out of the water just before the Marlow Mills and either enjoyed Gossmore or carried their canoes etc past the Lock on land. They could also land at the Compleat Angler by approaching via the backwater behind the weir and using steps to get up on land, according to contemporary guidebooks. For comparison, over the same 3 day period in 1893, 1,500 visitors arrived by train, mostly from London, with 1,300 returning home on the evening of the Monday. 

The pound lock itself was regarded as both attractive and dangerous by some. George Dunlop Leslie -  mentioned above - definitely thought it was the latter as it was an "old" lock with "many jagged piles and broken woodwork about it's sides". 

Marlow Toast rack sir?

Visitors could return home laden with souvenirs, thanks to the likes of energetic advertiser Rowes the jewellers. They made all kinds of Marlow keepsakes such as brooches and swan shaped toast racks. There were no shortage of places offering postcards but perhaps stationer and book seller William Aviss in the High Street with his "photographic depot of neighbourhood views" offered the most. Those wanting to take their own photographs could get tailored local advice from photographic journals on where and how to take the most attractive and becoming pictures, as so many had made the Marlow journey before. Those at the Lock should wait for a steam launch to arrive in the foreground of their shot, for example. This "greatly improves the composition" providing it was not too near, advised a 1901 photographers guide. 

Regatta time

Those visiting during the annual regatta could also buy a memento from the "card men" or roving postcard sellers, although they actually offered views of previous events of course. Some of these sellers had the reputation for being "sharps" or not entirely honest in their dealings. Better check your change!

Marlow has had more than one Regatta and they've gone by various names  - the Marlow and Maidenhead Regatta, Town Regatta, Rag Regatta, Marlow Rowing Club Regatta, Amateur Regatta etc. The event most relevant to those who worked professionally on the water was the Waterman and Fishermens Regatta which attracted fewer crowds but plenty of entries. For the other events, even those not watching or competing in the rowing, found the town transformed. The bridge was crowded with spectators, sitting or leaning on every available surface including the chains and railings. Complaints were sometimes made that the parked carriages completely blocked the way across the bridge. Those who got through to Marlow then had to dodge the rides, stalls and visitors of the fair that set up on the Causeway. Many of these were the same proprietors who visited Marlow during Marlow Fair although there was fewer of them. They did manage to spread down Station Rd and Institute Rd at times though, and others set up in Crown Meadow. 

The evening of the regatta usually saw a procession of boats decorated with lanterns, or a "Venetian fete" or "Water carnival". The best decorated boat won a prize. They must have made a beautiful sight to behold, especially as many riverside properties were also decorated with lights for the occasion. 

Sunday School fun

Sunday school outings were part of the summer for many youngsters. Burnham Beeches seems to have been the number one destination, but sometimes the little ones just enjoyed a high day closer to home. In 1877 for example, "legions" of them enjoy a tea in Remnantz meadow as part of a summer festival. 

Watercress gathering

Watercress was a summer harvest that would have occupied a fair number of locals at times. The majority of the beds were at Little Marlow as tended by Timotheus Brown early on. George Dunlop Leslie, describing a trip to the "charming village" around 1881, said the watercress beds were "very picturesque with their islands, footbridges and summer houses". He added that the beds were fed from a spring with slightly warm water which meant they never froze in the winter. This made them especially productive. Watercress was also grown in the meadows around Red Pits hill running towards the river and near to Medmenham. 

End of the summer

Swimming in the river (clothes optional) and the harvest home and harvest festivals that marked the transition to autumn feature in posts of their own. 

Marlow must have seemed a little quieter when all the visitors had departed, although some better off Marlow residents also found their way home after enjoying the season elsewhere. Some people might be pleased the "Harry's" had left but as the South Bucks Standard said in 1901 "the trade and prosperity of our town of our town depend for the most part on visitors who came for pleasure and recreation". 

The train service was reduced outside of the summer period, but Marlow was not quite ready to hibernate. There was Marlow Fair to stir the town up in October, and winter was the season of lectures and entertainments at the Town Hall, Music Room and the Institute. 

1905. 

Meakes and Redknapp Boathouse, Berkshire side. 

Written and researched by Kathryn Day. 

To read other posts about everyday life in old Marlow, see a list here

SOURCES

Fennell, John Grenville - The Rail and The Road or Tourist Anglers Guide to Waters and Quarters - (H. Cox 1867)

Hall, Samuel and Mrs - The Book Of The Thames From It's Rise To It's Fall (Virtue, 1877 2nd Edition)

Leslie, George Dunlop - Our River (Bradbury, Agnew & Co 1881)

Taunt, Henry - A New Map of the River Thames From Oxford to London, (Taunt, 1872).

Parliamentary Papers vol 16, Great Britain House of Commons, (1884 HMSO) 

Dickens Dictionary of The Thames from Oxford to the Nore 1880 Issue 2 (Dickens, 1880) and 1889 edition issue 1. 

 

A yearbook of Photography and Amateurs Guide - 1901. Author unknown. 

The Royal River - The Thames from Source to Sea (Cassell, 1885)

The Art Journal Vol 45 (Virtue and Company 1883)

The Marlow Guide, 1905. 

Diss Examiner, 28 August 1899. Copy from British Library, accessed via the BNA, August 2020. 

Bucks Herald, September 27 

1873, July 18 1914 as above

South Bucks Standard - 25th September 1891, 14 October 1892, 11th August 1893, 13 April 1894, 14th July 1899, 22 June 1900, 5 July 1901, 10 June 1904, 6 July 1906 as above

Bucks Gazette - 3 November 1832, as above

 London Courier and Evening Gazette 8 November 1832, as above

©Marlow Ancestors

List Of Proprietors Of The Compleat Angler/Anglers Hotel/The Angler Inn

 

UPDATED BY CHARLOTTE February 2026

The Compleat Angler has gone by many slight name variations and has a historically fluid address. If you are searching for it in records, you may well find it more commonly listed as The Anglers - sometimes with "Inn" or "Hotel" added to end of that but not always. "Correcting" the spelling of Compleat to Complete is also common, and several sources list it as The Jolly Anglers for a brief period. In older records, the location is usually given as Marlow Bridge or Bridge End, or Marlow in general, although it's actually located on the other side of the River Thames from Marlow, in Bisham. Originally ran out of a pair of ramshackle converted cottages whose interiors were destroyed by fire in the 1830s, it's now rebuilt and much enlarged. Said to have existed in the 1650s as an inn of a different name in which Izaak Walton wrote his book The Compleat Angler, thus encouraging a change of name for the inn. Whether that is true I cannot say.

1766 - Mrs Stevens address given as  "Marlow Bridge foot".

1798 - "Compleat Angler Marlow" Mr Watkins

1810 "The Angler" Mr Cresswell [William]. Wife Ann does much of day to day running of business. Detailed post about them here including events at Angler during these years! Search the A-Z persons index in the top drop down menu to find more Cre(s)swell related posts including about son William, a colourful miser 

1815 - William Creswell 

1823 - "The Angler" William Creswell. 

1824 - location described as "Bridge End" and "Thameside"

1831 - William Cresswell

1839 - William Cresswell (For other Creswell family  premises see The Six Bells, George and Dragon, The Fountain Head and The Swan etc)

1844 - William Creswell "Compleat Anglers Inn"

1847 - As the Jolly Anglers - William Cresswell

1850- Hezekiah Parslow. 

1853 - Hezekiah Parslow (Name given as "The Complete Anglers") Previously timber dealer of the High Street. His second wife Mary Ann was the niece of William Creswell above. 

1854 - As The Anglers Inn - Hezekiah Parslow (Mr)

1858 - Compleat Anglers Inn. 

1863 - Anglers Inn - Mary Ann Parslow (wife of Hezekiah, née Creswell). Biography of her on the blog here.

1871 - Mary Ann Parslow dies age 67. "The Anglers"

1872 - Miss Compere. This was Frances. In any case daughter of Mary Ann Parslow above by her first marriage to Robert Compere.

1875 - Miss Compere (in one source spelled Compeer).

1883- Charles Miller Foottit. Biography of him in this post here.

1884 - Charles M Footttit. His wife Ann was the daughter of Mary Ann Parslow above by her first marriage to Robert Compere and the sister of Miss Compere above. She was also the great niece of William Creswell above.

1886 -  Charles M Foottit.

1888 - Charles Miller Footitt qv, then Henry Percy Kilbey. /Kilby.

1889 - Mr Kilby (spelt Kilbey in second source) Came from Cannon Street Hotel. Born Watford 1864. 

1890 - H.E Kilbey. Adds an extension at a cost of nearly £2000. This extension housed a luxury billiard room downstairs plus a bar while upstairs were 12 bedrooms with the luxury of each having their own toilet! These rooms had a separate entrance from the other hotel rooms. 

1891 - "Anglers Hotel" 

1893 - Robert Kilby.

1895 - Anglers Hotel - Mr Kilby, the existing licencee, purchased the hotel from Colonel Wethered. He plans major work to expand accomodation and deal with flooding.  Mrs Kilby actively involved in running the hotel.

1900 - Mr R B Kilby 

1901 - Robert Kilby b1862 Watford. Wife Laura. 

1910 - Robert and Laura Kilby. 

1927 - Laura Kilby. Electric lighting and customer garages advertised. Has upwards of 50 bedrooms. Private sitting rooms available.

1934- Mr A.C Burrows.

1963- manager Michael Pitts.

Compiled by Charlotte Day and Kathryn Day.

Related Posts:

A history of the Compleat Angler in the 1900's can be found here

Other posts you may be interested in: 

Picnics and punts - summertime in Victorian Marlow here

History of bargeman in Marlow here

Information for other Marlow hotels/inns/pubs can be found under the Pub Related menu here. To find every mention of your ancestor see the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu. More than 4,000 individuals connected to Marlow are listed there as of April 2022. New posts added daily.  

Posts related to Bisham: here

Marlow floods a plenty here

Researched and written by Kathryn Day and Charlotte Day.

These landlord  posts list only the licence holder. It's clear from original sources that much of the day to day running of an establishment was done by a licence holders wife. When we see evidence of this, we try and add the spouses name.  It makes sense when you consider the range of technically secondary occupations the male licencees had. For example, a man working as a carrier whose job takes him away from home 4 days a week can't be serving at a bar at the same time. Where other staff are known they are also included in the listing. These listings focus on pre WW1 info but we sometimes add later information if it ties in with research we are helping with. All spellings are as in original sources, uncorrected. 

SOURCES INCLUDE:

1853 Mussons and Cravens Commercial Directory (Compiled 1852)

Pigots Directory 1823, 1831,1844

Fishing, Fish Culture and Aquaria Journal May 1886, Harvard University Archive, digitized by Google and accessed April 2021

Taunt, Henry - A New Map of The Thames from Oxford to London (Taunt, 1872)

Cresswell and Parslow genealogical research by Charlotte Day. 

Numerous licence hearing reports, property transaction information and advertising. 

Bucks Herald, July 1895, from British Library Archive and accessed via the BNA. 

Oxford Journal, 17 May 1766, as above. 

Maidenhead Advertiser October 1 1884, August 15 1900, as above

©MarlowAncestors. You are welcome to quote from or use this research for family or local history purposes if you credit this blog and link back here. 

The Indomitable Mr Cresswell. Gives a good thrashing!

William Creswell of Wycombe Road farm was a man of many talents. In his youth he was said to possess "almost unequalled strength". Then there was the fact that "almost everything he touched turned to gold". He was equally good at saving money as earning it. And above all he enjoyed a stubbornly independent spirit that made him clash swords with those in authority who had different ideas about land rights and ownership than he did..  

Gives a good thrashing

There are a number of William Creswell/Cresswells in Marlow's history. Our subject today is the son of William Creswell of the Compleat Angler /Anglers Hotel in Bisham. (You can read about William of The Angler here ) William Junior was born at the Angler in 1811. In his youth William  quickly became known for the fact he was a tall and "finely built" man. He tested his strength in a number of sporting competitions and also less officially - he was said not to be shy of giving someone a good thrashing if he thought they deserved it. On one occasion he was fined 10s for throwing George White into the River Thames! 

William was also a proponent of the "noble art of self defence", better known as boxing, and he must have made a formidable opponent. He was also famed for his punting skills on the river, winning prizes for this - for example 10s in 1860. 

William was a professional boatmen too. He ran The Swan barge with his brother George (of the Swan pub later), and like his publican father, dealt in coal and timber at times. He also worked as a fisherman, in this instance meaning a fishing guide who took visitors to his parent's inn out on the river to the best angling spots. The Compleat Angler as we know it, was already a famed place for fishing and boating parties despite it's more modest size compared to later incarnations. William's parents hired punts, and guides such as William to cater for the visitors. Later on William appeared before a Royal Commission of 1866 on the subject of pollution in the Thames, which also discussed things such as flooding and how the character of the water had changed. As both a farmer with riverside land that flooded, and a former barge master he was in a unique position to provide information to the inquiry. 

William amasses land

While still young, William Junior began to lease numerous small pieces of land throughout Marlow, for example at Red Pits (off Henley Road) and within Marlow Fields (off Wycombe / Little Marlow Roads in this instance). These holdings he gradually expanded by purchase and he also inherited other land. His big opportunity came in 1850 when the existing landowner of much of the farmland around Wycombe Road sold it and the new owner that came next sharply increased the rents. Many tenants quit out of necessity, and there was an opportunity for someone else to move in. And that was William. The pieces of farm land were scattered as they in some cases previously formed part of the common fields, some bits of which were already in private hands at the time of the Enclosure Acts. The Wycombe Road farm came together piecemeal and without a historic farm house, but William was already living in "Marlow Fields" -probably in Wycombe Road itself as he did later - so he had a suitable house by default, with a barn and yard a little separated from it. William would later own much of this land himself, as well as High Rews (Ruse) farm, in addition to leasing Hawkins Farm from 1877. William's golden touch allowed him to go from farming a few acres in the 1830's to 50 by 1851, 100 in 1865, 160 in 1881 (employing 7 men and 3 boys) and 200 by the time of his death. 

Above, from a map drawn by William Francis in 1839 showing some of William's holdings in Marlow Fields off Little Marlow Rd. The road marked out between land labelled lot V and lot III is what we call Dedmere Rd while the road running top downwards is Glade Rd. 

William pushes the boundaries

Not that this satisfied energetic William. He was always happy to try and inch the boundaries of his land a little further outwards if he saw an opportunity. His first offences were minor, and related to trying to plough over or diverting the footpaths going through his Wycombe Rd holdings in the 1860's. Some rumblings about William attempting to tweak the path of Wycombe Road itself surface. But his more serious run ins with the likes of the parish surveyor were in the 1880's and early 90's and related to land around the Frieth Road and Marlow Common areas. The 1884 case probably sums Williams story up the most. He was summoned for digging up and "subverting" the course of the Frieth Rd near his holdings at Hawkins Farm. He had removed a hedge and fence boundary at the edge of his field, and put up a new fence and gate further out, so incorporating some of the common land adjoining the highway into his own fields. He had also removed some fencing that had previously enclosed an old chalk working known as Gipsy's pit near Chisbridge Cross, and yes the area was a traditional place of encampment for Gypsies. The parish surveyor Frederick Plumridge wrote to William a polite if optimistic letter asking for his co -operation at returning the highway and surrounding areas to its original place and state. He did not reply. Frederick also attempted to talk to William on the subject and recieved an earful of abuse in return. So a special parish vestry was held to decide how to proceed. The sage Walter Lovegrove, elected to the chair, thought dealing with William was likely to be an expensive and difficult affair and they should proceed with careful consideration. Walter was right. A summons was issued for William, and he was bound over with a £30 recognizance to appear at the Quarter Sessions. He did not turn up, but sent his eldest son also William, on his behalf. The court said they could not possibly try a sort of deputy in this way. His poor son said his dad was unfortunately suffering from an attack of gout and couldn't make it. The court said William could have submitted medical evidence in that case and his recognizance would be called in. But while the court adjourned, the son was able to get a telegram sent from his father's doctor confirming he did indeed have gout. They decided to raise the recognizance to £50 and make him find two sureties of £30 each from other people, sums that would be lost if William did not make an appearance next time. A bench warrant was issued and William eventually made it before the court the following year. He was fined £20 with the threat of 6 weeks improvement if payment was not forthcoming. He paid. 

An extravagant pile of manure

William also occupied the courts by blocking roads by parking his farm waggons there, letting his horses stray on the highway, having an offensively large manure pile in his yard, and for having a quantity of night soil at the farm likely to be damaging to human health. Night soil is human waste and William had it from a cleared out cesspit. He had overloaded the cart taking it away and broken the shafts as a result. This was his excuse for not removing it sooner. Luckily for William the inspector of nuisances investigating the noxious aromas coming from the yard had not inspected the cart to see if William's story was true so the court decided to give the offender the benefit of the doubt and let him off without a fine. I suspect the poor parish inspector was keen to make a quick getaway to sweeter smelling air. 

William the miser

William's obituaries all agree on one point - he was very good at making money, and even better at not spending it unless he could really help it. One praised his "plodding indomitable industry and economy of the most niggardly description". Another, by the Maidenhead Advertiser said "reckless extravagance was not one of Mr Creswells weaknesses". It seems many people had stories to tell on this theme but the most amusing is perhaps the one from the solicitor William asked to draw up his will. William said he didn't think he ought to pay for this legal service, as it was just the sort of thing a good lawyer should do for their client as a sort of favour, which would be repaid by some other persons act of kindness to the solicitor. William himself did not actually promise to do this good deed however! It seems the solicitor was so amused by this he did actually accept no fee for his work. William does seem to have been thought of with respect and affection despite of his terrorising those in authority, or perhaps because of it! 

It is not surprising perhaps that getting William to pay his taxes was not an easy task. He was summoned in 1882 for failing to pay poor and lighting rates. He then sent payment - minus the court costs added on top of the original sum of course. So it was back to court to extract some more. 

William was said to have accumulated great wealth. Initial reports were that he left £12000 in cash at his death with the final estate value of £16,000-20,000. He was also noted for expecting his sons to work on his farm without sharing in the profits or having any say in managing the estate - or their own affairs! 

William died in 1893 at home in Wycombe Road, after a few days illness believed to be bronchitis. His wife Mary nee White had predeceased him. His son Abraham inherited the Wycombe Road house and farmland, but lived less than a year to enjoy his inheritance. A post about him and another son Edward is available here

To read about Marlow bargeman and bargemasters see here. 

Written by Kathryn Day, researched by Charlotte Day with additional research by Kathryn. 

SOURCES

1841,1851,1861,1871,1881, 1891 census transcribed from microfilm by Charlotte Day and Jane Pullinger. 

1833 Parish assessment transcribed by Charlotte from the original notebooks owned by our family. 

GRO death index. 

Report of Royal Commission on avoiding pollution in the river, Great Britain Parliament, 1866, digitised by Google. 

Kelly's Post Office Directory 1881 (Kelly's Directories Ltd)

Will of John Creswell (Williams uncle) from the National Archives, transcribed by Charlotte Day. 

Undated land sale notes, relating to George and William Cresswell owned by my family (circa 1833) 

Harrods Directory 1876, (J.C Harrods & Co)

Bucks Herald 20 May 1878, 5 Jan 1884, from British Library Archive and accessed via the BNA June 2020. 

Reading Mercury 11 May 1846,  11 & 18 October 1884, as above

Grantham Journal 11 April 1885, as above

South Bucks Standard: 19 May 1893, as above

©Marlow Ancestors

Food in Victorian Marlow.

The food eaten by different sorts of Victorian Marlovians can be reconstructed from court cases where food is stolen from larders, gardens and fields as well as businesses; reports of local celebration meals and wedding feasts; adverts put out by shops, hotels and restaurants; coroner's inquests  and crime reports that describe the meals eaten by those mentioned if it is relevant; postcards; Poor law records and many more sources.

 

Fish / Seafood:

Of course the river offered some opportunities to catch your lunch. Eels were amongst the possible wildlife that could be ensnared but they became increasingly rare during the Victorian era. The landlady of the Complete Angler Hotel, Mrs Parslow, always kept some in reserve when she could, strictly for her favourite customers.

For up to about a dozen men at any one time catching fish was not a hobby but a trade. Very few did so to sell the fish commercially, most via a boatbuilder or pub go between, hired themselves and a boat out to visiting "sportsmen" who wanted to fish for 'sport' and benefited from a Marlow fisherman's expert local knowledge. The Two Brewers and Compleat Angler both retained their own fishermen for guests in season.

Changes to the river flow caused by the new bridge as well as growing pollution and over fishing meant salmon were rare by the mid century. Other fish were still present however and few professional fisherman were still working at the end of the Victorian era. It is not usually possible to know whether those late examples were ever selling catches or only selling their expertise to allow tourists to catch their own. Another question is were other Marlovians eating any commercially caught fish from Marlow? The first fishmonger shop I've so far definitely located was in 1831 ran by George Draper in Chapel Street. Elsewhere in the country the majority of local fish caught tended to be rushed up to London or other major centres rather than be sold to locals. In the same way some country people complained that if they lived within transport distance of London they struggled to buy the fruit and vegetables grown in their home area because the London market consumed everything. Even access to fresh milk could be an issue. 

So we can't say for certain that any commercially caught Marlow fish was available to buy here. Possibly a certain percentage could be bought from a fisherman at the riverside. Apart from the Marlow eels at the Complete Angler no reference to local fish being available at any local pub or hotel has been found by me. That doesn't mean that it wasn't served only that the proprietors didn't consider it desirable or unusual enough to bother advertising its availability.

Someone was selling herrings out of barrels in town mid century, probably a grocer. These certainly sold fish sauce and salted fish.

Oyster stalls were a popular feature of the Regatta. At the time oysters were not as expensive as now. On an everyday basis fish could be eaten at any meal. What surprises a modern person today who reads cookbooks and menu planners from the Victorian age is just how frequently fish was eaten for breakfast- fried or in pies especially. One well off Marlow man in 1885 celebrated the start of perch fishing season with a breakfast of just caught fried perch dressed with parsley.

Fruit:

Commercial fruiterers resided very much on Dean Street in the Victorian age. All seemed to have been involved in the wholesale trade, some also retailed to the public. The Benning family in the late Victorian High Street were grocers, ironmongers and fruiterers. As well as fresh fruit they sold canned fruit such as pineapple. More about them here. At Christmas time fresh oranges and grapes were also sold in Marlow grocers for those that could afford them. It was also to grocers you went for dried fruits for your Christmas pudding or general baking. You would need to stone and stalk your own raisins at home then which renderd cake making very laborious.

Apple pies and cherry pies are mentioned multiple times as being stolen from Marlow and Little Marlow homes. Cherries were grown commercially at a small scale around Marlow and on a large scale at Flackwell Heath. You might have bought your cherries from visiting gipsy sellers too, who were common in the area and set up at most summer fairs and events that they could. Cherries not strawberries were the archetypal summer fruit of the Victorian era.

The fruit grown by the gardeners of the wealthy residents of Marlow can be seen from the local horticultural show results. These were already in full swing by the time Victoria ascended the throne. It took until the early 1870s for ordinary people to feature in these competitions if they were not professional gardeners. Fruits grown by rich Marlovians were: apples, plums, peaches, nectarines, pears, greengages, melons, strawberries, rhubarb and grapes. Melons were grown in special pits heated by decomposing horse manure. Lovely! So popular were these that the fact that a house had a melon pit could be featured in the sale particulars for that property (such as was the case for Spinfield House).

Ordinary Marlovians according to the show results were more likely to be growing: apples, pears, redcurrants, whitecurrants, blackcurrants, plums, gooseberries and raspberries. Note the greater amount of bush fruit grown by ordinary people.

From the hedgerows poorer residents gathered blackberries, mirelles, haws, sloes and crab apples (and young hawthorn leaves to snack on, until at least the 1940s!)

Vegetables:

Greengrocery hawkers were also centred on Dean Street in early times. They sold predominantly vegetables and salad leaves with fruit more likely to be sold at fruiterers. Many of those I find mentioned as involved in the green grocery trade turn out upon examination to have no shop but to be itinerant sellers going door to door or selling in the street. These were catering by and large to the poorer residents of Marlow and nearby areas.

The poorest of all could afford to buy very little. Women and children routinely stole into farmers' fields to pull off turnip and swede tops to cook as vegetables. The court reports of the 1800s are littered with prosecutions for this. Marlow Bottom because it was lonelier was a hotspot for this kind of activity. Some of the court cases are truly heartbreaking as the families prosecuted were absolutely destitute.

Swedes themselves by the way were usually grown in southern England as animal feed and not for human consumption. A World War 2 propaganda campaign by the government convinced us to give them a try as they were cheap and easy to produce en masse at a time of food shortages. The few cases of Marlow folks stealing swedes not just their tops would have been cases of the most dire desperation. Public prosecution for this would have been utterly humiliating. It was the social equivalent of being caught stealing grass or dog food to eat. 

Nettles were certainly eaten as a nutritious soup and stew ingredient, especially by gypsy families but others too, not necessarily out of poverty. Cookbooks of the era which were aimed at middle class families sing their praises as a blood strengthening food. Giant puffball mushrooms were once common in fields near the river and provided a large feast for those who found them. Mushrooms as a whole were much loved by Victorians, with mushroom ketchup a popular homemade condiment.

Watercress was grown by early Victorian times between Marlow and Medmenham as well as at Little Marlow. It was a very popular vegetable throughout the era both cooked and raw. So much so in fact a plate of it might be included on the breakfast table in season as a dish in its own right alongside the toast, pies and other dishes.

The vegetables and salads grown by the gardeners of the wealthy residents of Marlow are described in reports of local horticultural shows throughout the era: cucumbers, carrots, potatoes, celery and cauliflower feature most highly. Not often entered into shows but highly fashionable throughout the era was sea kale.

More ordinary citizens entered such shows from around the early 1870s. Women as well as men were then growing prize winning crops. Vegetables grown by these more humble householders were: lettuce, marrows, peas, turnips, onions and carrots. Probably, judging by seed stock advertised by Marlow seedsmen (stand alone businesses or a sideline for ironmongers) we can add beetroot as well as brussel sprouts and broccoli to that list.

Allotments arrived in Marlow in the 1880s.

Herbs, Spices etc:

Wild garlic leaves could be picked (sneakily) in Marlow churchyard as well as in the countryside around town.

Exotic spices were easily available at the grocery shops in the town centre, if you had the cash to spare. Preserved ginger was a favourite in Victorian England eaten as both a sweet and used in baking, especially around Christmas.

Seed Cake made with caraway seeds was almost an obsession throughout the country and was sold ready made by Marlow bakers.

Meat=

The most popular foodstuff to steal from Marlow household pantries was bacon, followed by cheese and pies*. These pies might be sweet or savoury. What meat was in the "meat pies" is almost never specified.

The most common meat stolen from shops after bacon was pork.

Any local, personal or national event celebrated by a dinner in the Victorian age tended to be centred around feasting on roast beef. Marlow records show here was no different than elsewhere. By far the most usual Victorian Christmas dinner given in ordinary family homes, workhouses and in places hosting workplace, charity or Sunday school festive dinners was roast beef and plum pudding not the turkey or goose of popular imagination. Actually beef and plum pudding was the standard year-round celebration meal for Victorians. The "plum pudding" became "Christmas pudding" for a few weeks every year when it was served at Christmas time aflame with some holly on top. So Marlow celebration dinners throughout the year featured plum pudding.

In 1884 a poor Marlow man was mentioned as having had a supper of "hog pudding and chitlets". Most sources say that hog pudding was a very peppery sausage made in Southwestern England rather than Buckinghamshire but perhaps it had a local variant. I did find a contemporary recipe that gave a sweet dessert made with hog fat the name "hog pudding" too so there's room to doubt. The "chitlets" that Marlow man ate was perhaps a dialectal way of saying chitterlings, sausages made of hog entrails a sign of poverty.

On the other end of the price spectrum the "Excelsior pork pie" was a speciality of Death and Son bakers of Marlow. They operated in both West Street and the High Street in later Victorian Marlow. What made the pie so superlative is sadly not specified.

It is likely that some Marlow people are "Buckinghamshire Badger", a speciality of nearby Stokenchurch which was a savoury suet pudding of bacon. Bedfordshire clangers, the local equivalent of Cornish pasties, were certainly eaten in rural Buckinghamshire as well as Bedfordshire but I have not seen as yet any Marlow specific references to that.

Butcher's shops were in the High Street, West Street, Spittal Street and Chapel Street. A biographical portrait of Rachel Hall a butcher of West Street has previously been published on this blog here See also my posts on butcher Jason Povey, who got involved in political bribery here and Emily Carter a Victorian butcher of Spittal Street here.

Some of the Marlow butchers had stalls at Marlow Market in Market Square once a week. This had become solely or mostly for meat by the 1870s. The meat sold on these stalls was the poorer quality, cheaper options.

By the 1880s some meat could also be bought from grocer's shops. They had long sold bacon which they might cure on their own premises but to sell other meat was something of a stepping on the toes of the butchers.

Baked Goods and Desserts:

Marlow had no shortage of bakers. These all sold flour for home baking as well as their own baked products. Some also functioned as corn dealers. Most were also pastry cooks selling sweet baked goods ranging from little penny sponge cakes for one person to large celebration cakes. Only the wealthy could afford to buy the latter. Marlow bakers advertised ready made birthday and iced Christmas cakes by the 1880s. Early Victorian Christmas cakes were not alcoholic and  usually not iced or served with marzipan either. They were intended as a plain, easily digestible dessert alternative to rich plum puddings for children. If Marlow bakers or confectioners supplied the Twelfth cakes that were popular in the early and middle 1800s for Twelfth Night parties and balls I cannot discover it, though it would have been unusual if they did not, at least to order.

Confectioners mainly sold sweets but sometimes functioned as pastry cooks as well and so also offered cakes and pastries, especially in the pre Victorian era. They might be grocers too!

In Victorian times home cooks could pay to bake their own pies and breads in the bakers' ovens after the bakers themselves were finished for the day. You have to remember that many early Victorian, and some later Victorian families had no oven at home or only a tiny one. 

Gingerbread stalls featured every year at Marlow Fair and the Regatta. They were a magnet for children.

Death and Sons bakers produced their own biscuits called the Marlow Pioneer Biscuits [South Bucks Standard 22nd February 1895, advertising accessed via the BNA March 2021]. Our grocery shops also sold ready made biscuits and cakes by the 1880s.

A biographical post on the Sawyer family bakers of Marlow is on the blog here.

Desserts in general in Victorian England were eaten daily by those that could afford the ingredients. You could buy ice from fishmongers such as Allams in Market Square in order to make your own icecream or sorbets, the standard centrepiece desserts of Victorian dinner parties. Otherwise trifles, steamed puddings, fruit tarts, syllabubs featured highly. Give a Victorian cook some bread or cake crumbs, cream and jam and she could whip you up about a hundred different desserts each with a slightly different name and method. Though I have found no reference to one being served in Marlow at least two Victorian cook books contain recipes for desserts called Marlow Pies. One of these books has two quite different recipes within its pages for Marlow Pie. These two recipes are also quite different again from the recipe in the other book. I have tried the latter and it is like a very sweet puff pastry treacle tart. I intend to investigate these Marlow Pies and their origin more fully.

Dairy Products:

Most Marlow grocers were also cheesemongers. Stand alone cheesemongers seem to have no presence though they did in earlier times. Advertised cheeses in Marlow were all hard cheeses and none were said to be locally produced. Stealing cheese from householders was quite common.

Bread and cheese was THE working class packed lunch of the 1800s. Poor little Thomas Lunnon aged 7 had just such a lunch stolen from him right from off his school premises in Little Marlow in 1892 [South Bucks Standard 7th October 1892]. He had carried it there in a basket.

Ice cream was usually made at home but those not able to do so could enjoy a portion from one of the several ice cream sellers who pushed their special barrows around the streets in the summer. Most of these were not local men. Many regarded the ice cream men a nuisance because they tended to attract a street-blocking crowd of children and adults. One such seller from Reading found himself in court after he was accused of causing traffic chaos on Marlow bridge with his barrow. The police observed 40 people gathered about him. Let's hope supplies held out! 

If you wanted to make your own you could buy ice for your churn from the fishmonger. Homemade iced desserts because they were difficult to produce were very much a status symbol. Vanilla ice cream was the most common but brown bread ice-cream made with toasted sweetened brown breadcrumbs was also a huge favourite in this era. I made some myself and I can only say it left me cold!

Milk was available from several town dairies or directly from some farms. 

Poultry and Game:

Both were typically bought from poulterer's and in poultry's case sometimes directly from local farmers. The farmer's wife typically had charge of this side of the business. For more on the early Victorian poulterer John Way of the High Street see here.

Stealing fowls from farms and homes was very common in Victorian Marlow. Reports of thefts which are not also accompanied by reports of the successful arrest of the guilty parties are unusual so perhaps the Marlovians responsible weren't very good at it.

Poaching for pheasants was a Dean Street speciality! These however were usually sold rather than consumed by the poachers. The illicit catching of rabbits or hares however kept many a Dean Street area family from going hungry. It also cost them heavily in terms of fines and lost income from jail time when the poachers were caught.

Nuts:

Walnuts were grown as a crop on almost every Marlow farm. They were much loved by Victorians who pickled them while still green and made walnut ketchup as well as utilising them in ways we would be more familiar with today. As they were valuable they were targeted by thieves.

From the countryside filbert nuts could be gathered in places. While beech nuts are edible if  cooked and plentiful around the town I have not found any reference to their use by Victorian Marlovians.

Almonds were very popular in Victorian cooking and found at the grocers, who also sold chestnuts in the winter. I have yet to find any reference to hot chestnut street sellers in Victorian Marlow.

For visitors:

The Compleat Angler, the Greyhound Hotel in Spittal Street, the Two Brewers in St Peter's Street, The Fishermen's Retreat and the George and Dragon on the Causeway all specialised in catering for the picnic and boating parties that came to visit Marlow.

By the 1870s the mess left behind by picnickers on the banks of the river was already considered a nuisance [Bucks Herald 18th August, page via BNA February 2021].

Great Western Railway offered special picnic party fares to Marlow from London and elsewhere. Favourite nearby spots were the fields near Gossmore in Marlow, Quarry Woods at Bisham, Winter Hill and Bisham Woods. All those places were at times haunted by begging children pleading for food.

Picnics in the Victorian era were very substantial affairs. A tea kettle was usually brought along and a spirit stove (coffee was not the done thing). A typical picnic contained multiple joints of meat, savoury pies, cold desserts (including the beloved plum or "Christmas" pudding), salads, fruit fresh or stewed or both perhaps with biscuits to dunk in the latter, fruitcake and gingerbread. Yes all of that. There might be sandwiches, though not always. Picnickers might just take bread rolls as an accompaniment to the other dishes. If they did take sandwiches it wasn't the cucumber ones we often associate with the era. They were for afternoon tea and considered too insubstantial for a picnic. A cucumber to be cut into cool chunks and offered as a snack usually went along however. Cucumber sandwiches weren't insubstantial in calories though  as they were often spread with both butter and cream!

*****

* my calculation. Thieves must have felt it was their lucky day when they broke into William Suthery's Little Marlow home in the 1850s and found all three ripe for the taking!

Written and researched by Charlotte Day.

Related Posts=

Food in 1700s Marlow here

Historic cost of living in Marlow, including the cost of many food items from different specific Marlow shops in the Victorian era here

The Poaching Perrys here

The temperance movement in Marlow here

A Victorian Christmas in Marlow here

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

Thank you to Jane Pullinger for her family's information.  

Also of use= 

Royal County Directory for Beds, Bucks and Berks, 1876. [Marlow market information]

South Bucks Standard 23 September 1898.