Sunday 29 April 2012

Ongar: An extract from the Commonplace Book of Edward Reeve c1860


A Highwayman well mounted stopt a Carriage in which was a gentleman alone, the highwayman with a diamond ring upon his finger, presented a Pistol at him from the window and politely said to him, “The price of this Pistol is five guineas”.  As soon as he had received the money, and delivered up the pistol, the gentleman exclaimed: “Now you rascal, unless you immediately return me the five guineas, I will assuredly blow your brains out”.  “Fire away Sir”, was the answer, “it is not loaded and I wish you a very good night”.

Another Highwayman stopt the Carriage of a Nobleman and said, “I have heard my Lord you have frequently declared you never would be robbed by a single highwayman”.  “Nor will I,” he said, “there are two of you”.  When the highwayman looked back he shot him dead.

Sunday 22 April 2012

Ongar: An extract from the Commonplace Book of Edward Reeve c1860


The Secret of Warm Feet

Many of the colds which people are said to catch commence at the feet.  To keep those extremities constantly warm therefore is to effect an insurance against the almost interminable list of disorders which spring out of a “slight cold”.  Never be tightly shod.  Boots, or shoes when they fit closely press against the veins of the foot and prevent the free circulation of the blood.  When on the contrary they do not embrace the foot too tightly, the blood gets fair play and the spaces left between the leather and the stocking are filled up with a comfortable supply of warm air.  Never sit in damp shoes.  It is very often imagined that unless they be positively wet, it is not necessary to change them when the feet are at rest.  This is a fallacy, for when the least dampness is absorbed into the sole, it is attracted further to the foot itself by its own heat, and thus perspiration is dangerously checked.  Any person may prove this by trying the experiment of neglecting the rule, and his feet will certainly feel cold and damp after a few minutes, although, on taking off the shoe and examining it, it will appear to be properly dry.  Did every one follow these rules, there would be no more cold feet and bad colds.

Saturday 21 April 2012

Blackmore: Diamond Jubilee Walk


A new booklet will be released about Blackmore next weekend (28 / 29 April 2012) to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.   Copies will go on sale at the Priory Church of St Laurence, Blackmore, when the Friends of St Laurence hold their Art and Photographic Exhibition.  The walk booklet will cost just £2. 

This self-guided walk originated as a guided tour around the historic centre of the village.  For the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee it has been adapted it as a contribution and celebration of this great event. 

Two circular walks – one short, the other slightly longer - start at the parish church situated at the end of Church Street but can be begun at any suitable point.


It also is appropriate to announce the release on the booklet today - it being our Queen's birthday.  Happy birthday ma'am.

Sunday 15 April 2012

Ongar: An extract from the Commonplace Book of Edward Reeve c1860


Lines on going to Church

Some go to Church, just for a walk,
Some only go, to laugh, and talk,
Some go there for speculation,
Some go there for observation,
Some go there to meet a lover,
Some attend their faults to cover,
Some go there to meet a friend,
Some go there the time to spend,
Some go there to learn the Parson’s name,
Some go there to resound his fame,
Some go there to doze, and nod,
But few go there to worship God.

Friday 13 April 2012

Blackmore: Crickett family


Received 9 March 2012
(via Church Office)

To whom it may concern and Greetings from New York. My name is Ron Giacone, I am the grandson of Robert D. Crickett, who once resided at 500 Mawney Rd., Romford. Robert was born in 1892 in Tottenham, died in 1982, in West Hempstead, New York. I am in possession of a small pamphlet entitled "The Priory Church of St. Laurence" A Short History And Guide 1973, compiled by Ms. Constance Simmons (I would add here that I also knew Connie, as she lived across the street from my grandparents’ house, on Mawney Rd. She also visited with us here in New York on several occasions through the years).

There is a small comment in the pamphlet, listed under the heading "The Chapel" which details that " In July 1900, Mr. Robert Crickett gave permission for the coffins of his relatives to be placed below the floor of the Church. The North-East corner of the Church had been a sealed vault - the Crickett vault. With Mr. Crickett's permission, the vault was opened, the coffins buried, a window opened at the east end of the north wall and the side chapel was furnished". I am curious as to;

1.   Who is the Robert Crickett that gave permission to move the bodies, as my grandfather would have been only 8 years of age at the time.

2.   Can you advise the names of the relatives who are buried below the floor of the church

3.  Is there any marking or headstone for these bodies

4.  Are there any existing Church records of the Crickett family that you could copy and email to me.

Additionally, if you could give me any information regarding Connie Simmons; when she passed away and where she may be buried.  Connie was a lovely person and a close family friend to my grandparents and my mother, Eileen (Crickett) Giacone. Eileen is still living and is now 89 years of age. She resides in Maryland with my older brother Michael.

Any information you can provide regarding the Crickett family will be very much appreciated.

Sincerely,

Ron Giacone

Replied  10 March 2012

Hello Ron

Thank you for the e mail sent to the Vicarage.  I am the church’s local historian and have come across the Crickitt family during my research.  I will look up the information requested and let you have a response as soon as I can.

I have a separate blog www.blackmorehistory.blogspot.com and website www.blackmorehistory.co.uk which may be of interest to you.

Regards

Andrew Smith

Received 10 March 2012

Andrew. Thank you for your response. I look forward to hearing from you with additional information, at your convenience. Should you require any information to help in your search regarding the Crickett's, please advise and I'll do my best to provide it.

Looking through the two linked blogs, one thing I find of interest is the spelling of the name. It is spelled both as Crickitt and Crickett in various places through the documents. Could this have been just a common spelling error over time.

Best regards,
Ron 

Replied 12 March 2012

Hello Ron

Please find below the answers to your questions gleaned from my notes.

1.   Who is the Robert Crickett that gave permission to move the bodies, as my grandfather would have been only 8 years of age at the time.

A note on the Crickett family mausoleum appeared on the blog in December 2010: http://blackmorehistory.blogspot.com/2010/12/blackmore-crickett-family.html.  The area was converted into a Side Chapel in 1901/02. 

The letter giving permission for the removal of the bodies reads as follows:

Copy of a letter received from Mr Crickitt respecting the Vault in the Church

Rozelle
Lansdown Road
Cheltenham
15 July 1900

Dear Sir
I quite agree with you that it would be much better that the coffins of my relatives should be placed below the floor of the Church instead of above it for sanitary reasons not regarded in past days …

Rob E Crickitt


2.   Can you advise the names of the relatives who are buried below the floor of the church

Please see above.

3.  Is there any marking or headstone for these bodies

Wall plaques exist for members of the family on what was previously the wall of the mausoleum, now the church vestry.  These read as follows:

To the memory of
Charles Alexander Crickitt
of Smyths Hall Esquire
many years one of the
Representatives of Parliament
of the Borough of Ipswich
who died the 16th Jany 1803
aged 65 years
also to the memory of
Sarah the widow of
Charles Alexander Crickitt Esq
who departed this life
the 29 day of July 1828
aged 84 years

In memory of
Harriet Alexander Crickitt
the last surviving child
of the late
Charles Alexander Crickitt Esq M.P.
formerly of
Smyths Hall in this parish
she died
the 16th of November 1868
Aged 79.

4.  Are there any existing Church records of the Crickett family that you could copy and email to me.

Church records are preserved at the Essex Record Office in Chelmsford. 

5.   … Any information regarding Connie Simmons; when she passed away and where she may be buried.

Constance Simmons died in May 1988, aged 82.  At the time of her death she was living in York.  She is buried with her late husband, Albert, in Blackmore churchyard.

6.   Any information you can provide regarding the Crickett family will be very much appreciated.

The final burial entry for a Crickitt, perhaps no relation, was ‘Percy Scott Hill Scott-Crickitt [of] 19 Campbell Road, Croydon [buried] 26 April 1919, [aged] 53 years’.

According to genealogical notes (dated 1908) held in the Essex Record Office [ERO T/G 82/1], the Crickitt family “were bankers at Ipswich, Colchester, Chelmsford and Maldon. They started the Old Bank, Ipswich in 1798. They represented Ipswich in Parliament for 50 years. They owned several manors, among them Smyth Hall Blackmore, pulled down by Miss H Crickitt, it was an old Elizabethan Hall”.

The family is mentioned in the following records:

Crickett
…, Esq
1766
Patron to Church
GLM 9558
Crickett
Charles Alexander, Esq
1778
"Two families of note". Visitation
ERO T/A 778/20
Crickett
Miss
1863
Smyths Hall
White's Directory
Crickitt
Miss
1846
Home Cottage
Kelly's Directory
Crickitt
Miss
1848
Smyth Hall
White's Directory

See also Suckling’s’ Memorials and Antiquities of Essex’ (1845): http://blackmorehistory.blogspot.com/2009/06/blackmore-revd-suckling-memorials-1845.html

Regards

Andrew

Received 13 March 2012

Andrew, Thank you so much for your effort and response to my inquiry. I am starting to think this is much more a situation of coincidence than family ancestry. As far as I know, my grandfather’s family had nothing to do with the banking industry and I'm sure I would have heard about any relative (even distant) being a member of Parliament, as detailed in your records. They were all working-class people from Tottenham, London. My grandfather was in the jewellery business and worked in a small shop in Hatton Garden, London.

Additionally, Ms. Connie Simmons may also be a coincidence, as I do not believe she ever married and lived in Romford on Mawney Rd.  from at least 1954 until her death. So, unless her husband Albert died prior to 1954, this too seems to be a different Connie Simmons.

Again, I am not sure of why the different spelling of the last names Crickitt & Crickett, but both spellings seem to be used interchangeably when describing the Crickett family graves at the Church in Blackmore.

Thanks again for your help.  I will continue to read through your forwards to see if I can find more definitive connections to my grandfather’s side of the family tree.

Best regards,

Ron Giacone

Monday 9 April 2012

Ongar: An extract from the Commonplace Book of Edward Reeve c1860


Who says too much, says nothing.


Persons who are good at excuses are seldom good at anything else.


Gold wins its way, where angels might despair.


Seldom abandon your ground as long as you think yourself right, and never perversely maintain it, when you know yourself wrong.


A person speaking to a very deaf man, and getting angry at his not catching his meaning said, “Why it is as plain as A.B.C.”.  “That may be, Sir,” replied the poor man, “but I am D.E.F.”.


One way to avoid failure, is not to try it.

Sunday 8 April 2012

Ongar: An extract from the Commonplace Book of Edward Reeve c1860

Verses written in the first leaf of a Bible

Blessed is the man who by temptation tried,
In wisdom makes this holy law his guide,
Serene and undisturbed moments flow,
He does no wrong, and therefore feels no woe,
What tho’ adversity with powerful sway,
Clos’d for a time the sunshine of his day,
And o’er his head, while life’s horizon hours
Affliction, dark’ning, all her tempest pours
Calm is his breast, with conscious virtue warm
He bears, unmoved, the fury of the storm,
Taught by these flowing precepts from on high,
Learns how to live, and having liv’d to die.

Saturday 7 April 2012

Fryerning: Writtle Forest

Inspired by David Hockney exhibition.  Felled trees in Writtle Forest

Friday 6 April 2012

BLACKMORE HISTORY NEWS - April 2012


Welcome to this month’s round-up of local history and heritage in and around Blackmore, Essex.

Blackmore Ancestors

My booklet, previously called ‘Hatched, Matched and Despatched’, has had a makeover and is now available again as ‘Blackmore Ancestors’.  The 24-page booklet “does not regurgitate the contents of the [Baptism, Marriage and Burial] Registers [of Blackmore, Essex] but uses two late Victorian sources – one written appropriately in the year of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee (1897) – to comment on the social changes of the parish over the past 400 years”.  It is available from Megarrys and the local church, priced £2, and sold in aid of funds for the Priory Church of St Laurence, Blackmore.

Titanic connections

An event which cannot be avoided on television at the present time is the maiden voyage and sinking to the SS Titanic one hundred years’ ago on 15 April.  The Catholic Priest of St Helen’s Church, Ongar, was one of those who perished.  Father Andrew writes in the Spring 2012 edition of the Stondon Massey News (follow link http://www.stondonmasseypc.co.uk/local-information/parish-magazine/ ) how Father Thomas Byles helped women and children get into the few lifeboats which were available and how he ministered to those who would likely perish by giving absolution and blessings.  “he then began the recitation of the rosary”.  Many times Father Byles was asked to board a lifeboat, but he refused.  A survivor recalled that he could distinctly hear the priest’s voice as his craft left the stricken vessel.  Father Byles is commemorated in a stained glass window at the church: “Pray for the Reverend Thomas Byles, for eight years Rector of this Mission, whose heroic death in the disaster to SS Titanic, earnestly devoting his last moments to the religious consolation of his fellow passengers, this window commemorates.”

Scott of the Antarctic

Less has been made in the media of the expedition by Captain Scott and his comrades one hundred years ago – which is a shame.  The party were just a few days too late to be the first to reach the South Pole and all perished on their return journey.  Captain Oates, whose family lived at Gestingthorpe in the north of Essex, is famously recorded as saying “I am just stepping outside for a moment … “.

Miscellaneous

Blackmore:  ‘Antique Road Trip’ televised 21 February 2012.  Megarrys in Blackmore village green featured.  http://www.antique-teashop.co.uk/?p=638
High Ongar:  British Legion branch closes after 82 years. http://www.thisistotalessex.co.uk/post-British-legion/story-15351662-detail/story.html
Ingatestone:  Old bottles discovered on High Street fire station site.  Former dump.  http://www.thisistotalessex.co.uk/Old-bottles-unearthed-builders-dig-deeply/story-15587726-detail/story.html
Stondon Massey:  William Byrd article ahead of Cardinall Musick’s tour.  http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/73e967be-597c-11e1-abf1-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1qfnHxThM .  For more visit http://www.williambyrdfestival.blogspot.com
Writtle:  Lead stolen – again.  It is part of a major problem in which thieves target historic buildings for personal gain, which caring one jot about the consequences on the local churchgoers and community.  Hands off I say!!   http://www.thisistotalessex.co.uk/Writtle-church-victim-second-lead-theft/story-15295682-detail/story.html

Links
For an extensive list of links to other sites go to: http://www.blackmorehistory.co.uk/externallinks.html  

Sunday 1 April 2012

Ongar: An extract from the Commonplace Book of Edward Reeve c1860


A Mr Page, a gallant old bachelor, picked up a young lady’s glove, which he restored with the following extempore effusion:

“If but from glove, you take the letter g.
Then glove is love, which I devote to thee”.

Upon which the clever young lady immediately replied

“And if from Page, you take the letter p
Then Page is age, and that won’t do for me.”
It is better to do a wise thing, and say a foolish one, than do a foolish thing and say a wise one.