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 Bonnet O' Blue and Royal Standard

 

 The Bonnet O' Blue also known as the Bonnet So Blue or more rarely the Blue Bonnets was in West Street very close to Borlase School.

The first mention that I found of it was in the handwritten 1833 parochial assessment notebooks that my family has. In that the William Stratford occupies a house used as a beerhouse and a garden together assessed as having an annual value of £4 10 shillings.

William was born in the 1770s and had married at Medmenham Bucks in 1801 Fanny West. The couple seem to have moved to Marlow in the 1810s. Fanny died in 1840. The couple's children have links to a number of other Marlow pubs - daughter Almeria born 1809 married Henry Beckett in Medmenham 1829 who would go on to run the Queen Pub in Quoiting Square - see here; daughter Sarah married George Johnson and went on to run the Hand and Flowers in West Street / Henley Road both with her husband and later as a widow on her own - see here; son Robert took over the Bonnet O' Blue after his father's death in 1843.

William Stratford left a will. He wrote it a year before his death. In the will he left all his household goods, plate, linen, wearing apparel, stock in trade, implements, utensils and all other property to his son Robert and nephew Henry Stratford. His son in law Henry Beckett was the will's executor. Witnesses were "Henry Jones, clerk to Mr Spicer" [Ralph Spicer was a lawyer in West Street] and Nathaniel Gordon veterinary surgeon [an Irishman, also of West Street].

As I said above Robert Stratford took over the licence of the Bonnet O'Blue. He had married Keziah Tuckwell at Medmenham in 1835. Sadly Robert died in 1849. Keziah had also left the premises by the time of the 1851 census when she was living in Oxford Road Marlow, or Oxford Lane as it was then known, with her nephew George Cox. She was earning a living as a seamstress. Later she went to live with her deceased husband's sister Sarah Johnson who was running the Hand and Flowers. She was on the 1871 census as a charwoman but may have helped out in the pub too if needed. Certainly when Sarah died in 1877 Keziah took over the license of the Hand and Flowers until 1882 when Henry Carter took over.

In 1855 then landlord James Pattison was summoned before the magistrates for running a disorderly house and "encouraging music and dancing" but the case was not proved. Sounds like the place to be in Marlow at the time!

Very close to the Bonnet O'Blue in the sub-divided Albion House was the Royal Standard. This was a pub by 1856. It was occupied between 1869 and 1883 by John Jeffrie / Jeffreys. It was also known as the Standard of England. It's location is shown, far left in the picture at the top of the page. It is possible that this was a new name for the Bonnet O'Blue, whose exact location is uncertain but was clearly very close to the same spot, if not the same premises. Albion House was of course the former home of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his writer wife Mary. The pub premises contained a room believed to be either their dining room or drawing room. Percy's study was in a portion of the building not part of the pub. The Royal Standard had a "taproom" but this just contained seating for the customers, the beer being fetched from the landlord's stores as required. There was not a bar. Such an arrangement was common in the small, humble beerhouse.

The Royal Standard shut down in 1890 as the site was due to be taken over by the nearby Borlase school to use as extra capacity, with a classroom below and rooms above for teachers as well as a few boys to stay in.

More former uses for Albion House in whole or in part:

Flint family home (embroiders) here

Royal Military College junior branch here

Breakaway worshippers from Congregational Church after Rev Thomas Styles marriage - here

Mrs Tylecote's school here

Other related posts:

For more pub posts see Pub Related on the menu.

All mentions of someone on the blog can be found on the Person Index.

Fuller list of Bonnet O'Blue landlords here

More West Street content can be found by choosing "Specific Shops, Streets...etc" on the top drop down menu. 

Index of posts related to everyday life in old Marlow: here

Written by Charlotte Day, additional research and photograph by Kathryn Day.

Sources: 

Medmenham Parish Registers.

GRO Death and Marriage Registration Indexes online from the GRO.

1833 parochial assessment notebooks, original items held by my family and transcribed by me.

Bucks Herald 23rd June 1877, copy held in the British Library Archives. Accessed by me March 2021 via the BNA.

South Bucks Free Press 22nd December 1882. As above.

Reading Mercury 13 Oct 1855

Pub licence transfer research of Kathryn Day. 

1851 and 1871 England and Wales census, transcribed from microfilm by Jane Pullinger. Thanks Jane.

The Journal Of Education in Upper Canada, Volume 9, Egerton, Rev, - Ryerson, Lovell and Gibson, 1856

©Marlow Ancestors. You are welcome to use this research for family and local history purposes with credit to this blog and a link here so that the sources listed above do not lose credit for the information that they provided.