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.

High Rews Farm /High Ruse Farm Marlow

A small farm.

List of the historic farm occupiers and history timeline.

Gaps in dates represent gaps in our knowledge. Gaps we will endeavour to fill!

1794 - the freehold farm was advertised in the Reading Mercury 10th March 1794 as up "very pleasantly situated on an eminence". It included then a farm house, yard, barn and 55 acres of arable land. James Webb leased the farm then though his term was up that Michaelmas. Many Webbs farmed in Marlow in the 1700s and 1800s. Search the A-Z Person Index to see all mentions of Webbs on this blog. 

1838-51 Henry Webb the sub-tenant of here (actual tenant was James Deane of The Deanery Marlow and Tunbridge Wells Kent). Henry also leased Wymers Farm and perhaps was also the Henry Webb who was renting Triphooks Farm near Ragman's Castle just outside Marlow as a yearly tenant in 1840. Henry actually lived at Wymers most of the time though both other farms had farmhouses. Wymers and High Rews farms were put up for sale by auction in 1844. Henry left High Rews and eventually the town following his bankruptcy in 1851. There is more on him in my Wymers Farm post here. 

1853-unknown end date Henry Mickling. This name also occurs as Micklem and Micklem. There were a lot of them in the Henley/ Hurley area for centuries. Henry was himself of Henley, and a non residential farmer. He also held Copy Farm in Marlow at this time. During the 1860s and 1870s and quite possibly in the 1880s too there continued to be no residential farmer at High Rews though some of farm's carter's and agricultural labourers and their families lived in two dwellings there. It is hard to be certain whether one of these was the actual farm house. During this time the woods near the farm were sometimes the site of poaching and wood stealing activities.

1893 William Creswell. The farm once again has a residential farmer. William died at the farm in 1901 aged 60. There is already  biographical post about him on the blog here. His brother's widow Jane continued to live at High Rews after his death and was then the farmer in her own right. In 1903 Jane's son Alfred Cresswell aged 11 was severely injured when his brother in playing with a gun accidentally shot him in the arm. This family had astonishingly bad luck when it came to accidents as is detailed in this post, which also gives more family background for them.

1901- at least 1911 Jane Creswell. From late 1907 George Eaton, originally from the West Country was also farming at High Rews. Whether this was in partnership with Jane, or whether he had taken over part of the land is uncertain. By 1911 Jane's twenty year old son Cyril also calls himself a farmer there. He lived with his mother in the farmhouse. There was a small fire at the farm in 1906. 

1907-1918  George Eaton as above. His wife was Agnes nee Young also of West country origin. Their marriage record is available free on Familysearch- Link. George was at the time of his marriage a gardener though Agnes as the daughter of a farmer must have had plenty of useful knowledge as to all things agricultural. The Eatons arrived in Marlow with several of their children. One of those Private Ernest Eaton died of wounds received in war service and is buried in Marlow Cemetery. At the time of his death he was a married man aged 33. At the time of his enlistment he had been living in Tring. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission record for him says that his parents lived in Queens Road Marlow at the time of their son's burial. This must have been a recent move as they were not present in that street in 1915. His father was still farming at High Rews after this date. It would have been a walkable journey to work for George from Queens Road to High Rews. Link to CWGC record for Ernest here. When George decided to leave in 1918 all his farming stock was auctioned off.

1920- Phillip Morris and George Tylor both farming at High Rews. In 1923 a Captain George Tylor was at High Rews raising turkeys.  In 1925 the farm was up for sale now only listed as 40 acres not 55 as it had been in the late 1700s. There seems to have been some division of the property either before or after this sale. Phillip Morris continued until at least 1939 to be listed as the farmer (dairy and arable) at High Rews Farm while George Tylor was now referred to as farming at "End Farm" next to it. Tylor's wife was Lorna, while Morris was married to Harriett.

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

Some Sources:

The Agricultural Gazette and Modern Farming. United Kingdom, n.p, 1923

Kelly's Directory 1883, 1903, 1907, 1911, 1915, 1920 and 1939. By Kelly's Directories.

Mussons and Craven's Commercial Directory Of Buckinghamshire and Windsor 1853.

South Bucks Standard April 17th 1903, British Library Archives. 

Reading Mercury 21st September 1918. British Library Archives. Bucks Herald 25th July 1925.  These editions accessed by me via the BNA.

Personal interview.

Life for the Marlow children at the Union school at Bledlow

This is part 2 of a post dealing with the life of Marlow's residents when they spent their time at either the Union workhouse at Saunderton or the residential school for school age children at Bledlow. 

Life for the children at Bledlow 

In 1891 the master of Saunderton said he took the children out for a walk once a week. When it was suggested a daily constitutional would be better for them, he stated that he did not have enough staff to do this. The little ones were allowed time to play outside when the weather allowed but they had no dedicated playroom as such for use during poor weather. The children were occupied at lessons and their "work" between 8 and noon and between 2-4pm, Sundays excepted. Dinner was 12.30 pm. The "work" was obviously dependent on age, but typically included helping tend the vegetable garden or pump water for the boys, and assist with the laundry or mending for the girls. They had a certain amount of donated books and toys and the master allowed them to make mud slides in the yard. The girls also had a swing as provided by a local benefactor in 1880. 

They wore a sort of uniform all the time they were at the school. It was either a plain grey or dark coloured cord trouser suit for the boys with a matching cap or dresses for the girls of the same material. 

Entertainments 

As monotonous as daily life may have been for the young "inmates" I'm pleased to say they were not forgotten during the "high days and holidays" of the year. 

In the 1880s and 1890s in particular visits were made by groups of singers and minstrels who were given permission to entertain the youngsters. The Marlow "Loyal Duck Lane Minstrels" were once such troupe who travelled to the main work house at Saunderton several times in the late 1880s and early 1890s. The children of Bledlow were bought along in hired brakes and waggons to enjoy the show. They were given an orange and some sweets before they headed home. All residents young and old were provided with a special tea abundant in cake, as paid for by Marlow residents. 

At Christmas the youngsters could look forward to a number of treats provided by local men and women year after year. Oranges, nuts and sweets always featured in these, and often a magic lantern show or similar entertainment followed. Christmas dinner was a special one by the standards of the normal fare and the general daily routine was relaxed.   

The lady visitors come calling 

In 1895 a committee of lady visitors was established for Bledlow. Thereafter it's noticeable that many improvements were made in favour of the children's comfort. In the same year a Band of Hope was established at Bledlow for the boys. This was a Christian temperance focused sort of youth club. Also the children were allowed to join a Sunday Bible class at Bledlow itself, which was also open children not resident in the house. This was in addition to an agreement that the juvenile inmates could attend the Wesleyan Sunday schools in the village. The children were marched there and back and their "industrial teacher" took one of the classes at the chapel. Some of guardians complained the lady visitors were constantly making suggestions, and some were dangerously close to letting the little ones be treated better than the offspring of the labouring poor in the outside they feared. (For example the ladies idea of providing night clothes for the boys so they didn't have to sleep in the same clothes they wore all day. The matter was dropped on cost grounds officially.) But the ladies were successful at securing donations of  footballs (from Marlow Football Club) and cricket stumps, bats and balls (courtesy of Marlow Cricket Club) all collected by Marlow's Walter Lovegrove. The fairly new master and mistress Mr and Mrs Quint were also responsible for improving the atmosphere at Bledlow in the 1890s. It was noted that since their arrival the children had had better spirits and were more animated, especially when Mr Quint joined in their games.

Where were their parents? 

Some of children at Bledlow were orphans, some had parents in the Saunderton workhouse, some were children abandoned by their families (who would face charges of leaving their dependents "on the parish" if traced)  and a few were admitted on a special case basis while their parents could not care for them eg because they were widowed and needed to travel to seek work (but these parents were required to contribute to their children's maintenance.) A few were admitted because the widowed parent could not support all their offspring and so a difficult decision was made to put some in the workhouse while others stayed at home. 

The decision to house the school age children separate from the adults was not just for space reasons. Many thought it desirable the children should be kept free of "polluting" and "contaminating "influences even if they were the youngsters own family! Poverty, idleness and criminality were considered by some Victorians to be inevitable bed fellows so poor adults needed to be kept at a safe distance. This was one reason an 1881 plan to move the children from Bledlow into an extended Saunderton workhouse were not proceeded with. It's interesting that in 1891 when the idea was mooted again, those in its favour said that it was impossible to keep the children entirely away from potentially bad adults already as their parents could visit them every day if liked. Obviously those at Saunderton could not just walk out to pay their offspring a call - they required permission from the master to leave and he may not have been willing to grant it day after day in practice. Any other family wanting to visit the youngsters would also require permission from the Bledlow master to do so. The board considered Saunderton then had enough room to keep the children reasonably apart from others but they stayed at Bledlow. Some children were of course at Saunderton too, mainly because of their young age. 

Children under 10 years were  routinely boarded out within the community from 1891 unless they were considered unsuitable for some reason. Some of those caring for the children were Marlow and Little Marlow families, but their young guests were not necessarily from those places. They were provided with a suit of clothes and their foster parents could apply for more as needed. This boarding out meant the Bledlow premises were not as full as the early years before the boarding out began. In 1891 there were 36 little residents. A relative lack of crowding was considered to be one reason why the children had less outbreaks of infectious conditions such as conjunctivitis or head lice than was usual in such institutions. 

The Premises

By the 1890s the Bledlow buildings were considered to be in poor condition. A group of guardians visiting making their customary fortnightly visit in 1893 were alarmed by the state of the stairs which had holes at the corners large enough for one gentleman to poke his umbrella through. The water pump was stiff and heavy too. Repairs were made slowly but it doesn't sound like an especially warm and draught free place to grow up! 

Leaving Bledlow 

The youngsters were sent to be apprentices or into service for training or employment when considered old enough, unless of course a family member was able to claim and house them. It seems that some of the wages were subsidised. Those going out into the world were given an outfit to go away with.  Anyone interested in taking on one of the teenagers would apply to the board. It was not a given that the request would be granted or that the boys and girls were allowed to go with just anyone. The employers were interviewed and some applications were refused altogether. If accepted in principle, they would be invited to select in person from a choice of three boys or girls chosen by the masters as most likely to be suitable. For, example in 1892 Mrs William Creswell at High Rews farm in Marlow chose 12 year old Amelia Webb from Thame to come to her.  Sometimes the children refused to go and while some pressure might be exerted, they were not actually forced to. They could also be "returned" if the arrangement didn't work out. I saw that one girl had come back three times while they were despairing of placing a 14 year old would be servant who had had no offers. (Girls had to leave Bledlow at 16.)

They made special efforts NOT to place the children in "advantageous positions" as opposed to putting them in a situation considered fit and at a  "proper level" for children of the labouring class. This was yet another way to prevent the idea of abandoning children to the parish to "better their prospects" appearing attractive. I wonder how many children might have been lifted out of poverty if those willing to give them a head start regardless would have been allowed to do so. 

In 1894 the Grimsby North Sea Trawling co asked if they had any lads desirous of going to sea.  There were three boys age 14 & 15 who the master approached but the only one who fancied life as a fisherman was considered too short!

Some children (before the boarding out began) spent their entire childhoods at Bledlow. How strange they must have found life "on the outside". 

Written and researched by Kathryn Day. 

For sources, see part one.

Related posts: 

The Wretched - poverty in Victorian and Edwardian Marlow  here

Marlow workhouse keepers the Reeves here

The life of James Croxon - friend to the poor here

From the workhouse to convict ships - the Brothers Frith here

Marlow hero John Langley here

General posts about everyday life in old Great Marlow here

 

© MarlowAncestors. 

1833 Parochial Assessment Great Marlow High Street East Side Part Two

 I am slowly transcribing the original handwritten assessment working notebooks which are held by my family. Additions and corrections were made to some of the records up to circa 1840 in the same notebooks.

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

Format for transcription:

Name

Property occupied

Annual value of property

Square brackets hold any comments or further research by me

High Street East Side continued

David Nichols [aka Nicholls. David later crossed through in pencil and the name James substituted faintly. This was in 1851 the home of James Nicholls blacksmith who probably worked for Burrells blacksmith and ironmongers, a near neighbour. James was probably already in occupation of the property in 1835 when he is recorded as an independent voter of the High Street. Frederick the son of James later took over Burrells]

House £7

*****

Ralph Clark [a tailor and independent  viterin 1835, this property later John Collins Clark / Clerk the tailor]

House and garden £11

*****

? Haynes [first name altered and illegible as a result, looks like James after alteration, possibly formed from original entry "Francis". A James Haynes / Haines was a carpenter - see here for a biography. He did later than the assessment live definitely in this house]

House and garden

£11

Workshop, garden and yard at wharf

£5 (occupied part of the old "tithe barn" by the bridge.) 

*****

Elizabeth Palmer

House, garden, lawn, stables, coach houses, offices and yard

£50 (Palmer House/Palmers)

*****

Josiah Clark [a grocer. Robbed of bacon and butter the previous year. More about his illustrious family here and a photo of his grave here]

House and garden

£15

*****

Thomas White

House and garden

£8

*****

Charles Clark

House and garden

£9

***** 

John Cozens [a John Cozens senior died 1836 aged 81. Had moved to the town from Oxfordshire]

House, yard, chaisehouse, stable, garden and house and garden adjoining

£25 (A beautiful stucco and bow fronted house now demolished) 

*****

Late Charles Wethered

House

£18

*****

Thomas Hardy 

House, garden and yard

£14

*****

George Creswell [barge owner, inn keeper, constable and farmer. Long post about him here]

House and garden

£10

*****

Henry Badger (the Parish Clerk) 

House and garden

£10

*****

End of High Street East Side

Transcribed and researched by Charlotte Day.

Post Office Blues

 This is a brief run down of the post offices in the 1800s and early 1900s in Great Marlow. 

The Regency Post Service 

At the start of 1800 Marlow was looking forward to its first official "cross post" between Marlow and Maidenhead and certain other places in Berkshire and Oxfordshire. A cross post means letters between the two places didn't have to go up to London and then back down to the intended recipient but instead went direct which obviously saved a lot of time. I say the first official cross post because unofficially letters had been taken by carriers and coachman and other commercial travellers. It makes sense for these people to take post but it undercut the post service so was not officially allowed. After the cross post for Marlow actually started in 1801, adverts were placed in the newspapers threatening dire consequences to these unofficial letter carriers if they continued. They faced a £5 fine per letter carried and £100 for every week the practice continued. A very high price to pay. The official letters were left at the post masters who then saw them distributed to the actual recipient. 

From at least the 1820s the Post Master at Marlow was James Field of the High Street. With only one post delivery and dispatch to deal with, posting did not occupy all of James time. The family ran a school, and James also worked as a tailor and insurance agent. Latter people would remember the post office was almost an afterthought, a cramped room with the school room up a somewhat rickety staircase. (You can read more about the Fields school here  and read their wills here). James died in 1849 and it seems his widow continued to be in charge for a little while. 

Early and mid Victoria post office

A common complaint was Marlow didn't get frequent enough deliveries of mail. But in 1848 after much effort, the town secured a second post as the mail coach running between High Wycombe and Maidenhead would now stop at Marlow in both directions. John Moss the High Street iron monger, inventor and agricultural machinery manufacturer was credited for a relentless campaign to secure this benefit. He considered improved postal communication essential for a successful businessman like himself to operate - and compete with those in other better supplier towns. At this point the post office was in West Street with the Tyler family in charge. The premises tended to change when the postmaster did. 

In 1852 the post from Maidenhead arrived at the very precise time of 5.10 am and 2.15pm and left at 10.45am and 8pm. If you wanted to send a letter after that you had to go to a town with a later dispatch and people really did trouble to do so which shows how important the post service was. When I say the post arrived I mean it came by mail cart. Later the train would bring in much post, but it had yet to reach Marlow. Even then letters were still brought by mail cart from Wycombe. The post arrival times were subject to change over the years and so therefore was the time you might get your post delivered at home. 

In 1860 the mail cart contractor between Marlow and Maidenhead, Mr Hall suffered an accident near Pinkneys Green. His horse was startled by shooting in a farmers field, bolted and crashed. The cart was smashed to pieces, mail scattered  and Hall was much injured. In fact a cart wheel was supposed to have passed over his head which if true makes the prognosis that he'd be able to resume work  seems quite miraculous. They did not mention how long the poor man's recovery was expected to take. In 1875 it was announced that the midday mail to Marlow would now arrive by train from Maidenhead rather than cart. No mention is made of a change in transport method for the other delivery yet so either it was already bought by train or there was going to be two ways it came to town.

The next milestone was probably the opening up of telegraphic services at the Great Marlow Post Office from 1870. This meant recruiting more people to deliver the messages. And in 1877 Marlow got it's long awaited third post arrival and dispatch, thanks to the 4.15pm train to Maidenhead. 

In 1880 it was possible to officially use a rival parcel delivery option in Marlow. Sutton & Co promised a cheap service through local agents, and the Marlow one was Banbury's the chemist. The Victorian equivalent of an Evri parcel stop! In the following decade there were still three post deliveries a day to the town, and one on a Sunday. The post boxes were cleared in time to get the post to the station at the right hour. If you realised you'd left it too late to post your letter in the usual way, you could go to the West Street post office and pay an extra fee to have it placed directly in the mail bag, up to around 20 minutes after the official time the bags were made up. After that you'd have to wait until the next dispatch.  In this decade the mail cart contractor was John Creswell who employed others to actually drive it (I think they were mainly bringing post from High Wycombe). Time keeping was taken very seriously and this lead John getting into trouble in 1881. His horse fell and cut its knee. He tried to secure another one in time to take the mail out at the right hour but could not. So unfortunately he decided to allow his driver Charles Shephard to take out the injured horse. This was reported to the police, and so John was bought before the magistrates and given the maximum fine of £5 for cruelty to the horse. 

 Snow drifts and other difficulties 

Everyday difficulties in the town for our Victorian postman included vandalism of the post boxes (the enamel tablets giving the collection times were constantly removed), the occasional theft of mail bags and complaints at the posties spending too much time waiting at the door for someone to answer when not all had letter boxes. Then there was the possibility of the Wycombe mail cart getting stuck in a snow drift as happened in 1893 at Borroughs Grove. The dedicated driver abandoned the cart and bought what mail he could on horseback, but it arrived a day late. 

The 1890s

 At this time our main post office was still in West Street, and John C Butler was postmaster. It opened from 7am-8pm and on Sundays from 7am - 10am for letter or telegraph business. But if you wanted to take advantage of one of the other services offered over the counter, such as buying insurance or a money order, or a licence you had to wait until after 9am and couldn't buy these at all on a Sunday.  By now the post was dispatched from the town 4 times a day, while post arrived three times. The boxes were emptied either 4 or 5 times a day and actual household deliveries were usually twice daily. You could however call at the post office to collect a letter possibly waiting for you if you were really in a hurry to receive it. And it was still possible to pay extra and slip your last minute letter across the counter if you'd just missed the last posting time. The main boxes were described as positioned at Thames Lawn (not the house currently known as Thames Lawn, this one was adjacent to the lock and you will still see a little wall box there in Mill Road), near the parish church, (may be referring to the wall box currently at the church hall but photographs show one at this period in a wall opposite Station Rd on the other side of the High Street), in York Rd (gone), Station Road (gone), and in Chapel Street (gone). 

The distant outpost known as Institute Rd...

In the mid 1890s the increased trade at the Post Office made some in the town question whether we didn't need a bigger and more modern building to host it. It had been slightly enlarged in 1883 to accommodate an increased parcel traffic but this wasn't enough. This issue would rumble on a very very long time. The post authorities agreed the existing building was not only too small for current demand, but "unsanitary". They had secretly planned to find an alternative for several years they claimed. This claim would infuriate post master John Butler. He said he'd constantly complained in private letters to his bosses about how dire the conditions were in West Street. The health of his staff had suffered he said. But he'd been rebuffed as the Post Office said the income at Marlow didn't justify the expense of either finding a bigger premises or making good the old. After two years of threatening to resign as his health was worth more than any lost income, he did so in September 1897. He saw out his 3 months notice and wrote to remind the Post Office that the lease there expired in a few weeks, and he wondered what exactly they planned to do about that. This was all happening behind the scenes. 

 One proposal was to build a purpose built premises in Institute Rd where there were plenty of undeveloped plots available. The Post Office went as far as to draw up a plan of how the building might look but if they hoped the locals would be impressed they were wrong. They said Institute Rd was not central enough, despite running directly off the High Street. If the post office had to move, it should be in the High Street itself they said. A vote at a public meeting in 1894 condemned the Institute Rd site as unsuitable. They said the 30 or so commercial travellers who came to the town each week usually put up at The Crown at the other end of the High Street to Institute Rd and would be inconvenienced by having to walk to the new site. It's slightly baffling that a walk of probably 3 minutes would be considered something that would put off these commercial men from visiting Marlow but the residents of West Street were also unhappy that their convenient branch would be lost to the very slightly further away High Street let alone Institute Rd. (Three times as many people signed a petition for the office to stay in West Street as signed one to move it to the High Street.) One advantage of the new Institute Rd site was considered to be that it would be (slightly) nearer Shaw's boat house and that as a large number of letters and telegrams came their way relating to the hire of boats, it would save some delivery time. But the needs of the locals should come before tourists it was declared. 

There were more public meetings and an unofficial group of local citizens were tasked with finding a possible High Street site that would suit the Post Office but without initial success. Some locals were sceptical that the local committee would make  any progress anyway because they said the gentleman could shortlist any site they liked but it would be no good if the owner didn't wish to sell.  And knowing the town was desperate the owner would probably charge a high price for the building. A deputation even met the Post Master General. He agreed to stay the Institute Rd plan to give time for a more locally supported alternative to be found. The Post Office would be willing to rent somewhere they said, if the rent was reasonable. (They eventually said they'd only be willing to rent an existing building and would not fund a purchase or a new build after all.) An alternative plan to improve the existing West Street premises were considered but this was found to be too difficult and expensive. A proposal to raise a private subscription to pay for a new build in West Street never got off the ground. 

So what would the never to be built Institute Rd alterative have looked like? It would have had a resident for the Marlow post master next to and connected with the main post office building. You'd have entered through a spacious lobby in which all the post office notices would be displayed. Then proceeding through some swing doors, you'd enter the main room 22ft square with polished mahogany counters. Leading off this would be an office for the Marlow post master and a 40ft long 22ft wide sorting office fitted with "swing seats" for the postman. Then there were rooms for the telegraph staff and various other offices and a separate entrance for parcels. Sounds very efficient and much different to the "cribbed, cabined and confined" West Street premises. (Or as a letter writer to a local paper called it, "a miserable excuse for a post office".)

A home at last

The list of potential properties on West Street or the High Street considered as a potential site is indeed long. It included the old malt house and Langston's original boot stores, both in the High Street as well as numerous residential properties. Many of these look no more spacious than the existing post office, and the residents were not usually very receptive to the idea of being turfed out. Someone had the idea that the new stables of New Court that fronted the High Street (next to what's now W H Smith) should be demolished as an eye sore and affront to the town and the post office put up there. 

Finally, after three years of public meetings, protests and indignant letter writing, Cromwell House in the High Street became available, almost opposite old Mr Fields premises.  At first the fact the drawing room was on a different level to the front room was considered to scupper the plan to use this part as a sorting office. But after a little more investigation it was felt the levelling of the two would not cost as much as initially feared. Still it seems the Post Office originally rejected Cromwell House when it first became available. The reminder sent by retiring  Marlow post master John Charlton Butler that the lease on the West Street premises was due to run out in a matter of weeks seems to have panicked them into action. A deputation came to John and asked him if he'd allow the premises to be used for longer under a new post master but he utterly refused. It was against his conscience to allow what he considered a dangerously unhealthy place to continue in use. 

So alterations were made to Cromwell House and a nice new lamp was affixed outside.  John Charlton Butler later revealed that the move there from West Street was done at such speed that it was chaotic and a lot of property had been left behind with him. After a few weeks and more reminders a frustrated John said he'd begun using the left behind papers as fire lighters and would continue! He was very bitter at both his former bosses and members of the town council - "parasites" as he referred to them - who he said were taking credit for getting a new premises. The new post master was John William Langdon. 

Still the Post Office was satisfied. The residents of West Street were not, and successfully petitioned to get a sub post office in their Street which opened in June 1898. This was described as nearly opposite the old one, and in the premises of clothier A E Sutton. (Sutton occupied three different premises in West Street, the last was the former Sycamore House boarding house which he took over in 1901.) I should mention that there was also a sub post office at this time in Station Rd at the corner of Mill Rd in a grocers. It was proposed that if the authorities thought Marlow a little over supplied this could be closed in exchange for allowing the West Street sub to open but it survived. I expect the poor post master general had had more than enough of Great Marlow by then and had no appetite for an avalanche of letters from disgruntled Station Rd residents! 

Edwardian Era  and beyond 

So did the post office live happily ever after? Hmm, some people are never satisfied. A 1904 visitor to the town said Marlow couldn't count as a modern sort of place as its post office closed at 8pm on weekdays and  5pm on Sundays. In Maidenhead you could visit the post office at 9pm he said, and at Wycombe you could still post letters to London at 11.30pm. What they would have thought of our current arrangements? 

The mail cart was still running between Maidenhead and High Wycombe via Marlow to supplement the use of the train at the time of the first world war. In 1911 the cart was struck by lightning at Pinkneys Green. Both horse and man were rendered senseless but amazingly after 30 mins they were recovered enough to continue onwards. The driver did admit to feeling "a bit queer" for sometime afterwards as well he might. 

As for additional sub post offices, the residents of Marefield petitioned for one in their area for many years but it did not open there until June 1939. (In the Dean Street grocery shop of Mr Porter). 

Written by Kathryn Day. Researched by Kathryn Day and Charlotte Day.

Related Posts: 

Victorian Postman Plumridge here (also covers workings of late Victorian post office here)

Will of postmaster James Field 1849 and his wife Sarah 1855 here

Life of the poetic postmaster, radical and friend of Shelley William Tyler -here

For biographies of other post office staff eg postmen/letter carriers see the General History index occupations section here

General posts about Marlow history here 

To find every mention of an individual here, use the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu. There's over 6,000 people listed there. 

SOURCES INCLUDE: 

Kelly's Directory for Buckinghamshire 1852, 1854, 1883, 1889, 1905, 1911, 1920, 1939. (Kelly's Directories Ltd) 

Notice - Changes to Postal Delivery - 1874, 1875, 1877. Thanks to James Purdsey for a view of these. 

Marlow Guide 1903 & 1905

Census, 1841-91 - Transcript from the microfilm made by Jane Pullinger. 

 Berkshire Chronicle 29th April 1848, Gloucester Journal 30th March 1801, South Bucks Free Press 27th October 1860, Bucks Advertiser and Aylesbury News 9th April 1870, Bucks Herald - 17th February 1877, 30th July 1881 & 3rd June 1911, and South Bucks Standard 24th April 1891, 18th & 25th May, 6th July & 31st August 1894, 15th Feb 1895, 6th August 1897, 12th Feb & 24th June 1898, 9th September 1904 - these copies via the BNA. 

Slough, Windsor and Eton Express Oct 31 1885 - Slough Libraries. 

Slater's Commercial Directory 1850

Maidenhead Advertiser 31st March 1880, 22nd November 1883 - Bayliss Media Archive. 

© MarlowAncestors

Hawkins Farm Occupiers and Timeline

 Mixed farm on the road to Frieth. 1833= 93 acres. There was a long history of gypsy families pitching their tents on a piece of rough grassland next to the farm and its environs were also a magnet for blackberry pickers coming up from Marlow in the 1800s. Hares were once abundant in this vicinity.

Occupiers of Hawkins Farm (who are not normally the owners) Gaps in dates are gaps in my knowledge. I will endeavour to fill them all in as I wade through my old research notes or do new research=

1574= Farm existed. The name seems to have come from a contemporary owner of part of the land. A Hawkins Lane was then close by, a now vanished address.

1833= RH Russell. Owned by Sir William Robert Clayton of Harleyford. 

1841= Richard Russell (census). His aunt Martha and sister Emma live with him. Note this is clearly the Henry Richard Russell mentioned below going just by "Richard".

1842= Henry Richard Russell. Henry seems to have owned the Coach and Horses pub in Marlow.

1851= Henry R Russell (census). Wife Susannah, aunt Martha Russell, sister Emma Russell and nephew Charles Russell also present and three live in servants.

1854= Henry Russell (Kelly's Directory).

1855-65= Richard Blackwell. Tenant. He may have given up Hawkins following a damaging fire in which two horses burned to death in his stables and buildings were damaged. [Reading Mercury 23rd September 1865, British Library Archives, via the BNA]. Does not appear to have resided in the farmhouse.

1865-77= Thomas Elliot who went bankrupt. Tenant. Wife Mary, who sold eggs from the premises. Thomas grew oats and wheat and raised cattle and pigs. In 1873 Giles Lawrence a long term employee on the farm, William Swadling who had been sacked from there the day before and 2 casual employees of Mr Elliott were accused of stealing oats from the farm. [Bucks Free Press 10th October 1873] In 1875 his 13 year old worker Stephen Higgs was killed by a runaway cart in his charge while gathering hay at the farm. The boy had apparently fallen off it and was then trampled. Strong comments were made at the inquest at the wisdom of leaving such a team under the control of such a young lad. He was tenant to owner Sir William Clayton.

1882-87 William Creswell / Cresswell tenant to owner Mr Crossman. William was a troublesome man himself and it seems that his workers weren't much better= William Swadling his carter was fined for being drunk in the Hand and Flowers (possibly the same man as the alleged oat thief above), Thomas Bird his carter was warned for prolonged blocking of the road with his cart in Marefield and John Jones his general agricultural labourer was fined for working a horse with an open pressure wound under its collar. Full biography of William Cresswell / Creswell here.

1901-02 (probably by 1897). Henry Brown, a cattle dealer. Wife Mabel. They moved to Harleyford Farm by 1911.

1924= Miss Potts?

1929= Mr S Keene.

1933= some of the land sold for building land.

1939= Sidney Keene. 

1944= Mr Keene. 

1954= Mr S Keene.

To find all mentions of any individual on this blog see the A-Z Person Index. Thousands are mentioned. Other Marlow and Little Marlow farm histories and occupier posts on this blog are indexed here.

Census information is my transcription or that of Jane Pullinger from microfilm. Census information remains Crown Copyright.

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

The Bell Ringing Beer Selling Bargeman

 Today's subject is the multi talented George Creswell (Cresswell), an imposing figure who could be found striding the streets of the town in the regency and Victorian period. If you wandered into the beautifully thatched Swan Inn in the Causeway, you may have heard licenced victualler George bending the ear of his drinkers on the subject of how the river and barging industry had changed. Going to the river itself, you may have seen George accompanying some eager anglers out on the water or perhaps you would spot him and brother William with their barge, also known as the Swan, starting out for London. Or perhaps you can see an particularly tall and well built parish constable guiding a miscreant to the parish lock up? That's George too.  Hear church bells ringing? George again. He's one of the ringers. You get the idea. 

There are many George Creswells to be found in the pages of Marlow history but our subject is the one born in 1808 to William and Ann of the riverside Complete Angler inn as we call it. His parents turned the somewhat ramshackle cottage conversion into an inn with a far ranging reputation for hospitality and fishing facilities. As such it attracted gentleman visitors from London, willing to rough it a little, and business boomed. The couple have their own dedicated entry here. 

Suffice to say George and his siblings grew up on the banks of the river. As a young man he worked as a fisherman, which in Thames terms of the time, meant someone who guided anglers out to find the best hunting grounds. The most sought after fisherman had their services in such high demand by visitors that their services were hard to acquire. George had the advantage of a steady stream of customers from the family inn. The two brothers would eventually lease extensive fishing rights between Bisham and Cookham Bridge. His father also maintained an interest in timber and coal dealing, and running the barges that carried goods up and down the river. George would also take up this role. 

At some point, he and brother William began to run the Swan barge on the river. Those described as "running a barge" sometimes owned it, often leased it, and sometimes were those captaining it up the river themselves. George and William seem to have combined the latter two roles at the beginning. As time went on, they did less work on the barges themselves, and more was left to employees. Although George was ultimately very successful in the barge industry, he certainly suffered some setbacks. Both his father and brother William were generally regarded as very shrewd businessman and definite misers. (You can read more about that infamous brother William, scourge of all in authority, here ) George it would seem was less one to frantically count his pennies, or perhaps he was unlucky. For in 1829, he found himself banged up in the notorious Whitecross Street debtors prison in London...

Debtors Prison 

Whitecross Street was used solely for the reception of debtors and it had arguably a worse reputation than the others so used. Sarcastically known as the "Cripplegate Coffee-House", it was often described as over crowded. The debtor's were housed in wards rather than individual rooms, men and woman apart. He is described as a fisherman formerly of Marlow at the time of his incarceration - "formerly" does not mean he had moved to London however. He is imprisoned at Whitecross because the action was taken relating to debts owed to someone operating in London or Middlesex who took a civil action against him there. I can't be sure how much he owed, but if a creditor insisted on it even someone owing a relatively small amount could find themselves behind bars at this time. And they were liable to stay there until the debt was paid, which may of course mean an indefinite stay. George's time however does not seem to have been long..perhaps his family stepped in and helped straighten his affairs. 

Happily, 1829 was not an entirely bad year for our subject. The Berkshire Chronicle of April announced the marriage of George Cresswell of Great Marlow to "Miss Bowles" of the same place. (Elizabeth). The Bowles were a very old and widespread Marlow family, one of the few to be present continuously from the Tudor period onwards and very likely before that too. The Bowles and Cresswell families were in charge of a large number of Victorian inns and beer houses at different times. 

By 1833 George and Elizabeth were living in the High Street. Their home was assessed at £10 for tax purposes so it was a reasonable size. Around now, George was one of the bell ringers at the old parish church*. In fact when that building was demolished, and replaced with a new one, George was one of the "first ringers". That is he was one of those who rang the bells for the first time in the new church in February 1835, a little time after it was completed. On the 60th anniversary of that occasion, the bells were rung again in honour of these early ringers all of whom had since passed away.  

The Swan Inn

Sometime between 1834 and 1839, George became the proprietor of the Swan Inn. Now demolished, this was a very old thatched building standing where the vicarage is now. It's proximity to the river means it's presumed to have had many bargeman amongst it's clientele although there were several beer houses on the river front itself around Church Passage and St Peters Street. And bargeman could be found drinking in any of Marlow's very very many houses of refreshment! However despite barge men having a somewhat fearsome reputation (often embellished later it must be said) events at the Swan rarely generated the sort of traffic to the Petty Sessions that many other licenced premises did. Was there a sort of self policing going on? Maybe, but George was regarded as running a respectable establishment in general. He in fact took a turn as parish constable on more than one occasion. Someone associated with crime would not get voted to this role. (You can find more about how parish constables worked in Marlow here) 

George's address in the 1840s is several times given as Sundial Cottage. It was the neighbouring property to the Swan, famed for the historic sun dial on an adjacent outer wall. Licenced victuallers were required to live in their premises but it seems George was also using the cottage and this was regarded as sufficiently the same. 

In 1845 wife Elizabeth died with such swiftness that expressions of sympathy were forthcoming from all quarters. She was "hale and hearty" one morning but was taken ill in the night. Surgeon Wilkinson attended but declared her life must be despaired of and she never recovered. Inflammation of the throat was considered the cause of death. George, with a young family,  would go on to marry a second time, to widow Charlotte of Bisham. 

George was the last landlord of The Swan. I'm not sure exactly when he chose to leave it but it was sometime between summer 1861 and December 1863 when the premises is described as uninhabited.  The site was ear marked for a new rectory by the Rev Milman who had many church improvement plans in mind. The Rev left the parish before most were realised but he did see the completion of his new home the year before his departure.  So The Swan and all its history was demolished in the 1860s. George and family moved just a short distance away to Brook(s) Street (now Station Rd). 

Farmer George, Timber Merchant

George primarily used his barge for transporting wood as time passed, as he was increasingly focusing on his timber dealing business. This developed into a substantial affair and by 1851 he employed 9 men. Timber lying at a wharf or in a yard was a frequent subject of thefts locally as it was relatively valuable. For example in 1856 20 year old John Stacey was sentenced to 3 months in jail for stealing some wood from George. He plead guilty and a previous conviction for theft increased his sentence. George also owned timber wagons which made the journey between Marlow and High Wycombe, centre of the chair making industry. 

In 1875 a man working for George was drowned in the Thames. James Rockell** had had charge of the horses towing the barge. When it stopped for the night in Staines, the crew went for food and drink in the town. A rowing boat was used to reach the spot where the barge was moored. James returned separately from the others but sadly his rowing boat was over turned in the dark. His fellow crew had already retired for the night and knew nothing of the tragedy. His body was found the following day. At least that is one version of events. Another later story says that the other crew had deliberately set a wonky gang plank up as a practical joke knowing James would use it last. He did and fell to his death. George had ceased to travel on the barge himself in those days. But he must have trusted James a good deal as the latter had worked for him since the age of 15, over 30 years it was said. 

 George knew all about his dangerous the river could be. He served on coroner's juries for the drowned and personally recovered at least one body from the water at Marlow. This was the badly decomposed remains of 73 year old George Joell, a Berkshire farm labourer of "unsound mind" who had been missing for 6 weeks. George collected a 20 shilling reward which had been posted for news of his whereabouts.

 He continued also to work as a coal merchant. He had however always had a farming interest. Even in the 1830s he was leasing farm land at Red Pits. Subsequently he would add to this holding with land at Lower Field farm (formerly part of the Great Marlow Common Fields, some of it purchased freehold by George in 1849 but still subject to common rights), "Merefield Common" (Marefield common field) and at Hill Farm amongst others. The Creswell Row cottages off Queens Road were built on his land. They were known as Cresswell's Cottages at first, although the family later owned many in the nearby area to which this term can also apply.

Goodbye George

George died aged 71 in 1879. He was still working as a farmer and timber merchant to the end. His beloved Swan Inn was fast becoming just a memory and many of the riverside properties around it were also demolished. The working river was increasingly making money out of tourists and houseboats rather than barges transporting goods. His death must have felt like the end of an era to many. 

The second Mrs Creswell, Charlotte lived to the age of 91, dying at the home of her daughter in law in 1898, Swilley Cottage, Little Marlow Road. She was said to have been as "sharp as a tack" in her old age. Her last illness was brief. She suddenly became blind 3 days before her death. She nevertheless apparently retained a healthy appetite to the end and died peacefully at the last. Of the couple's 4 children, only eldest son farmer and dairyman Augustus was still alive. 

Written and researched by Kathryn Day. 

**Sadly the widow of James Rockell would loose her second husband to drowning too - George Picton whose boat overturned while he was working for the Thames Conservancy in the 1890s. Two of the crew members of James' barge both drowned in separate incidents in the months after his death. You can read more about the rest of Mrs Rockell/Picton's sad life in a post here

More information:

Read about George's run in with a character known as Buffer the Hatch  - here

List of publicans at The Swan: here

A tribute to our bargeman - challenging the stereotypes here

Pub index: here

To find every mention of a person or family here use the A-Z Person Index in the top drop down menu. You'll find over 6,000 people listed there.  

Posts about everyday life for your ancestor in old Great Marlow: here

Sources include:

1833 Parish Assessment, transcribed by me from the original held by my family 

Undated letters and workings related to the above c 1834. 

Robson's Directory 1839

Slater's Commercial Directory 1852

Kelly's Directory 1847 & 1869

Dutton's Directory 1863

Bicester Herald 7 March 1879.

Berkshire Chronicle 4 April 1829, May 3 1845. 

Reading Mercury 29 March 1829, 26 May 1855.

Bucks Herald 15 May 1875, 12 Jan 1879. 

Bucks Advertiser 03 March 1849 & 25 January 1879

South Bucks Standard - January 14 1898. 

Great Marlow census returns as transcribed from microfilm by Jane Pullinger. 

Creswell family research by Charlotte. 

© MarlowAncestors. 

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. 

Emma Carter The Butcher

Emma Carter and her husband Thomas arrived in Marlow in the early 1870s to take over the butcher's shop in Spittal Street previously ran by James Creswell. Previously the couple and their children had lived in Fawley at Dobson's Farm. Thomas was farming 170 acres in 1871 and employing 4 men and 3 boys. He also operated as a butcher, or given how busy he would have been on his farm more likely Emma was behind the counter. Née Goss, she was the daughter of a butcher come farmer, Joseph Goss, of Waddesdon.

When Thomas died in 1876 Emma took over the shop in her own name. She was assisted when they were grown by her sons Thomas, Joseph and Frederick.

The first year few years after her husband died must have been a struggle. In 1878 the local sanitary inspector visited her shop and the slaughterhouse behind it. A rancid carcass of a diseased sheep which she had bought cheap was found dressed for sale. It was clear part of the animal had already been cut off and sold. The offense was so serious she faced three months in jail and a £20 fine but as it was a first offence Emma got a £5 fine plus costs and a heavy warning not to come before the bench again. 

Emma was in the right hand side of the above. 

She must have got on top of things sufficiently well as 1878 is the only time I find Emma in court charged with sanitary offences. Such charges I must say were not uncommon for Marlow butchers in the 1800s.

Emma raised her own sheep and fowls for her business. She lost one of her sheep, most likely to thieves, at Marlow Market in 1907 and another from a field where it was grazing at Handy Cross in 1904. She offered rewards for the return of both and described her animals as being marked with a red C to identify them. Whether Emma got her animals back is unknown. 

For the first few decades of her business Emma was renting her shop from the wealthy Williams family but in 1905 the premises came up for sale and she scooped them and the small cottage next door up for £615 in a local auction.

By 1920 it was her son Thomas who was running the shop and he remained there many years. Emma died in 1925.

Emma also appears In this post about the sad death of one of her neighbours.

Find more Spittal Street or general historic shops content on this index.

Find more Victorian women in business or other interesting historic Marlow residents on the Biographies of Individuals index here

Written and researched by Charlotte Day. 

Related posts:

For other posts about specific shops/businesses and other content related to Spittal Street see the index here

Information on daily life in Emma's Great Marlow here

Index of biographies of other individuals connected to Marlow here

For every mention of an individual or family here see the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu. There's more than 4,000 people listed there. 

©Marlow Ancestors. Reproduction of research for family or local history purposes welcome if with credit to this blog and a link here.

Thanks to Jane Pullinger for seeking out the 1871 census and Waddesdon marriage records. Census information always remains Crown Copyright.

More Sources:

Kellys Directory of Buckinghamshire etc, 1883, 1899, 1907 and 1920. Kellys Directories Limited. University of Leicester Archives.

1881 census Great Marlow, my transcription from microfilm.

South Bucks Standard 8th June 1900, 14th July 1905. Via the BNA / British Library Archives.

Bucks Herald 23rd March 1878. As above.

Marlow area Local Directory 1902.

A Triangle Used In Anger - Life In Eton Place, Marlow

While Eton Place survives as a place name in Marlow, unlike it's "twin" Cambridge Place, the old buildings are all long gone. As we have often been contacted by those with ancestors living in this busy little place in the Victorian and Edwardian era, this post will hopefully bring the old street back to life. 

Most of the housing was occupied by working class families, but it did not have the reputation for real poverty that some of the other nearby streets and rows did. This is not to say there were not some individuals there who were really badly off however. It's worth noting that Eton Place is in the general area known as Marefield and many people give that as their address as opposed to anything more specific well into the 1920s. Sometimes they may also describe their address as "Eton Place, Marefield(s). 

It's proximity to the very many public houses in Dean Street did mean a certain amount of drunk and disorderly behaviour spilling over there, not necessarily actually involving any of the residents! It's amusing how often those slightly worse for wear seem to end up wandering down Eton Place when it was not exactly part of their route home.  However there was one nasty brawl that did involve a resident, 37 year old bricklayer William Stacey, in April 1882. The victim was John Neighbour of Marefield and the weapon a rather unusual one...

A Triangle Wielded In Anger

Constable Birch was on routine patrol around midnight in Cambridge Road, just behind Eton Place. He heard a tremendous row going on so hot footed it to the scene. As he approached he heard John Neighbour call out several times that he had been hit, and what he took to be the sound of a bottle falling to the floor.  It was dark in the place but eventually he saw John leaning up against a wall with blood pouring down his face. It transpired that William Stacey had struck John on the head not with a bottle but a "triangle" which was in fact an iron cornice mould. Amusingly William had been using it as a triangle in the musical sense as part of an impromptu band celebrating a local wedding, I think in one of the Dean Street pubs. (Concertina, spoons..) He was returning home to Eton Place with his wife in what might be called a jolly state. It was at the corner of the Place and Queens Road that he met brothers John and William Neighbour also on the way home from an evening drinking. William Neighbour made a comment that it was time Stacey went home to bed, and especially his wife Elizabeth should do the same. Stacey took that as an insult, insinuating that Mrs Stacey was the sort of woman to stay out late, with the connotation of immoral character. He asked the Neighbours if they wanted to "start something" at which John Neighbour turned and asked him just what he meant by that. The end is not hard to predict and Stacey hit John on the head above his eye, knocking him unconscious briefly with the results we've seen. He was taken to Mr Atterbury, assistant to surgeon Shone, and then PC Birch returned and arrested Stacey who admitted the action. The doctor said the cut to Neighbour went to the bone and narrowly avoided destroying his eye. 

The background to this seemingly petty squabble is a little complicated. The Neighbour brothers were something of a terrible twosome, getting into no end of minor scrapes and brushes with the law.** They seem inseparable and rarely does a case involving one not involve the other. But they were not serious offenders, mostly troubling police with drunken and disorderly behaviour and silly nuisance offences such as kicking a door and then running away. It was for one of the last offences in February 1882 that saw Mrs Stacey testify that she had seen William Neighbour kick the door of William Smith in Queens Road, an action that resulted in him receiving a fine. It was insinuated that Elizabeth had lied about this as another man there "Potter" confessed to the action and yet another witness said it was in fact brother John who was guilty. It seems in the melee it was probably difficult to see what was going on. So there was bad blood between the Neighbours and the Staceys who also trouble the courts fairly often with drink related bad behaviour. The court found against Stacey noting that you could not be under the illusion that hitting someone with such an implement could do anything other than a nasty injury. But they also decided he had acted under provocation and counted the fact the weapon was not carried with the intention to do any harm. So a sentence of 4 months detention with hard labour came Stacey's way.* 

Most crime associated with Eton Place was minor thefts such as the loss of  George Rockell's ferret, lifted from his back garden. It was thankfully recovered alive and well! 

A Stranger Appears...

Although the number of people living in Eton Place was relatively dense, it's certain they all knew each other well and a stranger wandering about would attract attention, especially if he was discovered to be foreign. In 1902 one such person visited the Boddy family home. Ellen Boddy opened the door to a loud knock and found a well dressed man unknown to her standing there. He said (in a heavy foreign accent) that he had lodged with a Mrs Boddy in Station Rd about 5 years previously and wished to call on her. Young Ellen was clearly not this person so she took him to see her mother in law who had indeed lived previously at Station Rd but she did not recognize him either. Whether he himself thought Mrs Boddy senior was his former landlady is not clear. Regardless he left, having asked for no assistance or favour of any kind. A day later he was found floating face down in the river off the end of St Peters Street. He was spotted by Charles Woodley, who alerted the landlord of the adjacent Two Brewers, John Clark Truss. Truss recovered the body but the victim was not immediately identified. I do believe his identity was eventually established as a Frenchman who had been living in London but the circumstances of his trip to Marlow were a mystery. 

Tragedy for No.14

In 1939, resident of no 14 Eton Place, chauffeur Henry Samuel Batt, was killed on the sinking of the Dutch liner Simon Bolivar. This sank after coming in contact with a German mine. Henry was traveling aboard with his employer Sydney Preece of Maidenhead and the latters 3 year old daughter Elizabeth. He helped to put little Elizabeth in a wooden box to act as a sort of life raft for her, an action that undoubtedly saved her life. Preece managed to keep Elizabeth afloat and push her in front of him as he kept afloat in turn but he became separated from Henry. Henry is buried in Maidenhead cemetery. The horror for the Preece family was that Sydney Preece's wife and parents had all died in a car accident recently and so father and daughter had been travelling to visit her other grandparents who would be taking care of little Elizabeth for a while. 

Eton Place Gossip

Other events an Eton Place ancestor would have remembered and talked about were the scarlet fever outbreak amongst children in 1882. There were thankfully no fatalities. The Sanitary authorities ordered that the landlords of the affected properties should have them thoroughly cleaned out and disinfected. Predictably some landlords were less than forthcoming with work and at least one was fined for delaying the necessary actions. (He claimed he did not think the children really had scarlet fever and the house was already clean.)

Then there was the great stink of March 1887. A cart carrying barrels of waste from cess pits in neighbouring cottages was left standing by Eton Place for more than an hour, causing a sickening odour and obstructing the road. A brave soul ventured past the cart and summoned a constable to investigate. The cart was driven by William Burt but the case presented against him was dropped as he was only following orders of employer farmer William Creswell. 

I hope this gives you an idea of the events that impacted on the lives of our Eton Place residents of days gone by. There's many more we could mention..but if you are looking for a specific person or family, look for them in the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu or the Biographies of Families menu here

William Stacey's wife Elizabeth or Lizzie was nee Sadler and her little sister Ellen was the "Sleeping girl of Turville" - see here

To find other posts on specific streets see the menu here

Other posts about everyday life in old Marlow here

Written and researched by Kathryn Day. 

© MarlowAncestors. 

* Also present at the infamous Triangle fight was labourer George Jones of Marefield. 

**The Neighbour brothers were aged 23 (John) and 19 (William). Their sister Matilda features in a post to follow shortly.  The boys grandfather, a convict transported to Australia will also feature soon.