Billericay: Aftermath of the Zeppelin

Photograph not published before.
After the Zeppelin: Snails Hall Farm, Billericay

On 24 September 1916 a German Zeppelin brought down in flames landed in a field of Snails Hall Farm, South Green, Billericay.  John Maryon told how thousands visited the site (see elsewhere on this blog).  This photograph has recently come to light and was kindly shown to me by a family member and scanned for publication.   It shows where the Zeppelin landed, the charred field boundary and the barn, in the background, where the German crew - all dead - were placed.  John Maryon, tenant farmer, is photographed with his wife.  

BLACKMORE HISTORY NEWS: September / October 2012

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

Essex Society for Archaeology and History

One of the County’s oldest societies turns 160 this year.  Founded in 1852 in Colchester the Essex Archaeological Society, as it was originally known continues to this day arranging excursions / visits for its members and producing annually its Transactions, titled ‘Essex Archaeology and History’.  In April 2012 the 1^st volume of the Fourth Series was published (cover illustrated).  Articles of very local interest include ‘Roman Billericay: excavations by the Billericay Archaeological and Historical Society, 1970-1977’ (by M Medlycot et al) and ‘Revd. John Howard Marsden: rector of Great Oakley and first Disney professor of archaeology at Cambridge University’ (by Michael Leach) – the Disney referred to here was John Disney of The Hyde, Ingatestone, during the mid-nineteenth century.  To buy a copy of the 384 page publication, go to http://www.blackmorehistory.co.uk/esah.html .

For information about the Society itself and membership – we are always looking for new members – go to the website: http://www.essex.ac.uk/history/esah/

The Essex Society for Archaeology and History has a number of surplus books for sale, which are not required for accession to the Society’s Library hosted at Essex University or are duplicates of items already held.  As a member I am hosting on this sister website a book sale on http://www.blackmorehistory.co.uk/esah.html.

Why am I a member?  As an amateur enthusiast it is good to meet like-minded people who are professional or keen historians, archaeologists, researchers etc.  I have found membership very interesting indeed.  The Society’s objectives are:

-          To promote and encourage the study of the archaeology and history of the historic county of Essex.

-          In furtherance of the above, to publish the results of such studies in its journal and to disseminate information on matters relating to archaeology and history in Essex through appropriate media.

-          To organise conferences, lectures and visits for the benefit of members of the Society and interested members of the public; to educate the wider community in the archaeological heritage of Essex; to co-operate with other bodies on matters of common interest and concern

-          To provide library facilities for Society members and approved members of the public.

Blackmore Village Website

Blackmore Village Website (BVW) has had a major revamp and re-launch under a new author – under a new domain name.  The site (http://www.blackmorevillage.com/p/home.html ) went live on 28 August.  At the core is a copy of the old website but with a blog attached and a promise of Facebook and twitter links.  Of interest to local historians is the ‘History page’ (http://www.blackmorevillage.com/p/history.html ) which make reference to the sister website to this blog, Blackmore Area Local History (http://www.blackmorehistory.co.uk/ ), referring to it as “an absolute must”.

Deal Tree Medical Centre

The former Doddinghurst Surgery closed its doors on 17 August, moving across the road that weekend to newly built premises at Deal Tree Corner on the Blackmore Road by Hook End.  The building lies just within Doddinghurst parish adjacent to the boundaries of Blackmore and Stondon Massey.

‘Demolished’ Victorian Letter Box

When I passed Ship Road in West Hanningfield on 1 September 2012 I noticed a pile of bricks surrounded by red and white tape.  Clearly some mishap had happened with the Victorian Letter Box. http://blackmorehistory.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/west-hanningfield-victorian-post-box-3.html

Links

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

John Maryon autobiography (5)

John Maryon as bus driver -
at Wilson's Corner, Brentwood

The Political Conversion of John Maryon – Part 5. Post War

By John Maryon, at the request of his sister.  [Copied with the permission of his son, Tim Maryon.]

So I returned from this to my home in Billericay, to find my father was out of his farm, it having been sold over his head, with vacant possession.  In fact he had notice to terminate his year lease soon after the farm had become a shambles from German aircraft and attendant crowds the year previously.  I was home in time for the farm sale and there I met pre-war acquaintances, men who, although fit and of military age, never felt the urge to defend King and Country, or if they did, they lay down until the urge went.  Some of them acknowledged me, but had little interest in my experiences.  They had come with eyes open wide for a bargain.  In fact, horror stories from the front were becoming boring.  The farm had been bought by a Billericay horse dealer, farmer and corn, hay and horse buyer for the government.  This latter was most lucrative of them all, for there was considerable scope for fiddling.  He interpreted his new overlordship harshly, and when my father asked for certain justifiable compensations, he was threatened with farm dilapidations.  My father, wherever he resided, always planted a few fruit trees, and grafted apples and roses, and he was seldom in a place long enough to get any fruit.  He had planted perhaps a dozen apple and pear trees when he first took the farm, which the new owner promised to pay for, if they were left.  He received nothing.

He went off to live in a house vacated – for the duration of the war – by my uncle, and I went back to the war, where I served until the eventual armistice. There is little doubt that my experiences at Ypres, together with the reduction of my father, or anything to come back to after the war had a deep effect on me, together with the callous attitude to the returning soldier, by both government and populace.  The difference is the promise of grand reward, if it went – two packets of cigarettes weekly which was quickly forgotten – in my case, and the mean interpretation by the medical authorities toward disabled soldiers.

I was demobilised in Jan 1919, with a bounty of 14 Pounds, and from this I had money deducted for the loss of army clothing.  The woollen socks we were issued with, shrunk through being on my feet immersed in water for days, and to get one pair off my feet, I had slit my socks down the front.  I paid!  I purchased a civilian outfit ready made, and of imperfect fit for 10 Pounds.  This left me very near bankruptcy.  In March, my father got a job with a man who was a wool broker, and farmed a small area of land as a hobby.  He bought this to avoid army service.  In spite of being described as a farmer, it cost him 100 Pounds in bribes to a Hornchurch builder, who was on the tribunal.  I learned afterwards that he cleared 20,000 Pounds on the London wool exchange during the war.  He would speak of farming with contempt, and spoke about making 1,000 Pounds at the stroke of a pen.  I was lousy for at least two years of my army service – on 1/- per day.  ‘Tis true we were fed and clothed – thank you for the food and clothing.  They also caught us on the rate of exchange – paying us in what were known as army francs, at the rate of five a week.  It would be interesting to know the cost of printing these.

Our woolbroker was a pig to work for, and I soon rejoined the army (but not in the infantry).  There were about 2 million ex-servicemen on the dole, and It was pointed out to those lucky enough to have a job – how lucky they were.  So I served in the Mechanical Transport R.A.M.C. for a couple of years, and came home again and worked for a heavy-haulage firm.  My instinct from early life was to eschew any form of trade unionism of the joining of sick clubs.  My father always said, “Be your own trade union”.  Well, I was sacked from this transport firm, mainly because the foreman disliked me because, having heard I was applying for work as a driver on the London buses, he said, “You can now have the time to seek a job at your leisure”.  I got the job, and after a month’s tuition and pass out by the London police, I became a busman.  The bus company informed all new recruits that, although a man could please himself, they preferred him to belong to the appropriate union.  My previous foreman and other factors prepared my mind to join my fellow workers to protect our interests in the union.  But I only became a card member at 9d per week.  I never attended any meetings until after the General Strike of 1926.  The strike generally, the unscrupulous propaganda against the strikers, of which I was one, the shameful settlement by phoney leaders, leaving the miners on their own, brought me to political consciousness.  Before this time I loathed all politics – but voted Conservative.  By 1928, I was a member of the Labour Party, and enthusiastic.  After the betrayal of this party by its leaders, at the great depression, I abandoned all support of any of the political parties and became a devotee for the abolition of the system, which has one small section owning the means of production and distribution, and the majority having only their brain-power to sell for a wage.  This set-up produces the terrible crisis and war, associated with the present economic situation, which is known as Capitalism.  Whenever I was on strike, I felt I was in combat with the men who profited by the war while we, the in general dispossessed, struggled, fought and suffered to protect the status quo, which persecuted and exploited us both in peace and war.  Millions of contemporary young Europeans took the same road for the communal ownership of the means of production and the ending of the wages system, the accumulation of great wealth in the hands of the minority – in fact capitalism – and it started with me in Flanders mud and will end in the crematorium.

JM

John Maryon autobiography (3)

John Maryon (father) -
Snails Hall Farm,
Billericay

The Political Conversion of John Maryon – Part 3. Early War Service. The Zeppelin

By John Maryon, at the request of his sister.  [Copied with the permission of his son, Tim Maryon.]

In October, my father, to produce more food, broke up a further 16 acres of grassland, and we spent the winter cutting the overgrown hedges round it and clearing the ditches.  When the spring came, I had the heavy job of breaking up the grass furrows of the old pasture.  I could hear, while engaged in this back-breaking, leg-straining task, the soldiers at nearly Warley Barracks practising on their machine-guns, and began seriously to consider myself in the wrong job.  Especially, as schoolmates younger than me were becoming soldiers, which news was promptly disseminated by the floosies, and others.  At last, after the hay-making had finished, I left home and attempted to join the London Scottish, but their MO smelt a rat and told me that if could produce a birth certificate to prove I was 19 years, he would pass me for military service.  This, I couldn’t do, so I went along to Holborn, and joined one of the guard regiments, and was, sent the same day to their depot in Caterham, Surrey.  Here, I was with others, mainly from Scotland, broken into the idea of blind obedience to those put in authority over us, and one of the methods of the instructors was to tread on your toes, while bawling obscenities in your face.  This was a totally new experience for me, and I expect my fellow recruits, but we were prepared to bear this and more to be ready to fight for our King and country, and defeat the designs for world domination by the Kaiser and his bunch of “gentlefolk”.  Fancy thinking of challenging our far-flung empire, covering at that time a quarter of the earth’s surface.  They had a nerve!  We finished our breaking-in period and among other things changed my weight from 10st.7lb on enlistment to 12st.7lb all in three months.  No doubt heavy work on the farm contributed to the former weight, while with four parades a day, of say 6 hours’ total, with about half of it I exercise and the other half lectures with fair periods in between for rest, we gained weight.  This may not have been so marked among the mature recruits.

Then we moved to Wellington Barracks, London, where the regime was not quite so vigorous and stringent.  Here, at least, 50% of our training was devoted to ceremonial mounting of the palace guard.  This was very important, and one reason a certain Regimental Sergeant Major was kept from overseas service was his imposing physical appearance, voice and knowledge of the “drill”.  Here it was in March 1916 I contracted rheumatic fever and I was removed by stretcher to King George Hospital, which was only completed as a government stationery office as war broke out.  It stood at the southern foot of Waterloo Bridge, and was very handy to receive the wounded coming in from Waterloo Station.  I lay quite helpless there, and had to be hand-fed, with considerable pain for about 7 weeks, after which I slowly regained mobility.  During my 5 months of hospital treatment I was told that my disease had had such a bad effect on my heart that I was on the hospital list for discharge from the army physically unfit.  And from the wounds I saw dressed every day of men who had been to the front, together with their tales of it, made me view discharge with pleasant anticipation.  There were two patients in particular, which horrified me, and they were about my age.  Both had been shot in the back and were paralysed from the waist down and were continually the victims of bed sores.  Another, wounded by shrapnel through the knee, had to have tubes in the wounds taken out and washed daily.  The pain he suffered from these dressings daily, were not only terrible for him, but distressing for other patients.  He gradually got weaker, and fell away physically.  Finally, the medicals decided to amputate above the knee.  Their reluctance to do so, before this young soldier showed definite signs of physical collapse and probably death, was the pension consideration for disability.  The longer the limb stump, the less pension, and much less if one could retain an elbow or knee joint.  Army surgeons were instructed accordingly.  But, the Battle of the Somme occurred, in which the British army sustained nearly half a million casualties.  Two battalions of my regiment had 800 casualties.  So, cannon fodder getting scarce, any soldier who could walk was returned from hospitals and convalescent camps, given a month’s hardening course and packed off to the Front.  I was given 5 days’ draft leave, which I spent at home.  During the weekend a Zeppelin was brought down and the debris fell into one of our fields.  There were the crew of 26 men (all dead and mostly burned).  They were put in our adjacent barn, with a lane running hard by.  It was here I saw a disgraceful scene.  Thousands of people had come down by all means of transport, and they were standing 5 deep in the lane outside the barn, wherein lay the German dead.  The front rank had torn the boards off the barn to get a better view and a brisk trade started with the R.A.M.C. and the sightseers for parts of the airmen’s furlined clothing.  This was being cut off by the orderlies laying out the dead, in exchange for money.  My father had about 4 acres of potatoes, which were overrun and looted, and 9 acres of barley trodden flat, and for the remaining year of my father’s lease, he was mending fences to keep his cattle in.  Long after the war, he received a derisory sum in compensation from the government.

John Maryon autobiography (2)

Snails Hall Farm, Billericay

The Political Conversion of John Maryon – Part 2. At Snails Hall Farm, Billericay

By John Maryon, at the request of his sister.  [Copied with the permission of his son, Tim Maryon.]

So we became tenants of the 120-acre holding in Sept 1910, and my father promptly set about changing the derelict run-down nature of the farm.  He plowed up 15 acres of derelict grassland after debushing it, and I remember seeing the rushes being plowed in, as the pasture was disrupted by the plow.  He began to secure more grazing and corn-growing land by cutting back overgrown hedges.  Some of the wood removed from the hedges was used in bush drains he had dug through wet places in his recently-made arable.  He cleaned out several ditches, which had been level full for a generation or so, and gave a hedge or two away to be cut out by working neighbours, whose reward was to log wood, pea-sticks and bean poles that they got out of it.  He applied basic slag, (a bi-product of the steel industry) on as much of the pasture as he could afford, and in two years the holding looked much more husbandlike.

Just before my birthday in 1911, I left school to work full-time with my father, who was continually telling me how lucky I had been in comparison to him.  For he was working full-time when he was 10 years old – thatching, sheep shearing, horse clipping and rat catching.  My mother really, having a Scottish appreciation of education, would have liked me to go to a better school.  But they really couldn’t at the time afford it, which I realised.  I already had done much farm work (part time) before I left school, retailing our milk supply with a horse and cart before school from the time I was 11 years.  I took especial interest in the horse work on the farm, and only milked cows on sufferance.  We joined a partnership with another farmer, whereby he bought 50 breeding ewes.  My father provided the pasture and attention, clipping the ewes after lambing, for half the resulting lambs and half the wool.  Come 1914, by which time I was doing all the horse work on the farm, besides other chores, and was cutting and traving wheat, when my father came into the field, and broke the news that our “gentle” betters had declared war on Germany, but our minds were so prepared for it, and being sure we British were right, we felt a thrill of anticipation.  I bemoaned the fact that I was just two years too young for army service, and from my careful induction of anti-German propaganda, and British superiority, I knew for certain that the war would be terminated in six months or at most a year.  Terminated in our favour – of course.

One thing I was thankful for and that was my military-type training in the Church Lads Brigade, and there was something contradictory in the Christian church’s interest in military matters.  For didn’t I learn, in my three weeks’ experience as a choir boy at the parish church, that our Saviour had commanded the belligerent soldier to sheath his sword – before he did anyone any mischief.

Within a month the 6^th Warwicks (territorial) came to our district, and six of them were billeted with us.  On the first Sunday they were paraded to church, and nearly every civilian in the district attended church that Sunday.  The service was terminated (as we were at war) by the singing of the “Gawd Save”.  As we became upright at the first notes of our national anthem, the two senior officers (sitting in the front pews, with our country gentry – such as it was) drew their swords, and assumed an on-guard position, and at the termination, saluted with their weapons to the holy cross over the altar.  There were some who regarded this action as a bit of braggadocio, but the majority approved – being “woolly” minded.  Soon, pressures began to build up against men still in civilian clothes, for a big recruitment campaign was afoot – for the first 100,000 volunteers.  This was carried on by all the newspapers, from pulpits, from hoardings and never behind in support for the “powers” who order the life of every citizen, especially in wartime, the majority of music-hall artists.  Patriotic songs were composed and sung, such as “We don’t want to lose you – but we think you ought to go” and the rather melancholy ditty our soldiers sang as they marched to meet the Hun. “It’s a long way to Tipperary” became a best-seller and still 60 years after, sung at ex-servicemen and British Legion rallies and other patriotic assemblies.  Later in the war, where the spirits were sagging a little, an inspired song came out in “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, boys, smile”.  Later on, when death and mutilation touched nearly all British families, came the inspired lament “Keep the home fires burning”.  But, that was four years hence.  The local floozies took a hand at the applied pressure (what a pressure they can have on young men – and also on old men for that matter).  They went about giving white feathers to young civilians, who they considered should be in the army.  I was a well-grown lad, thanks to country life and good, clean food, and I was as big and strong as two of our billetees of the Warwicks, who were only slightly older than me.  I was walking one evening in late September 1914 across a footpath and met the octogenarian local squire and MFH. (?)  He had with him a young wife of 30 years he had recently married, and on me touching my hat to the “gentlefolk”, he stopped and asked when I was going to join the armed forces – damned cheek!  Being in awe of such people, I mentioned my immaturity in age.  “Nonsense”, was the reply, “It was reported today that a British soldier had been killed at the front aged 15 years.”  (In this connection, I was shown the grave in a military cemetery on the Paschendaele ridge in 1967. The stone said that the soldier, killed in 1915, of the Irish Fusiliers, was 14 years of age. Next to him was a fusilier, born in 1868.  They are still there, near the village of Poelcappele, if you require proof.)  I should have offered to look after his young wife, while he went to risk an overdue ending.  With a little practice, I would have made a better husband.

Even a female relative of mine offered me two packets of ten cigarettes weekly if I became a soldier.  That she would be depriving my father of nearly 50% of his labour force, and possibly the complete loss of his and her older sister’s son was, lost in patriotic fervour.  When I eventually did join the army, she kept up the cigarette bribe for about a month. At that time it would have cost her 1/- per week. 

Billericay: Farm Workers at South Green

Scythers

Farm workers

This photograph was taken in a field near South Green, Billericay, and came into my possession on the death of an old farm worker.  Apparently on handing it over just before his death in 1967 to the person from whom I procured it he gave the names of the individuals in the gang.  Unfortunately this information has been mislaid.  Before it is too late, perhaps some of your older readers may recognize the agricultural heroes in the photograph.  They will be over eighty years of age if they can.  JOHN MARYON … Hornchurch.

“Left – Right.  Whittaker, Laver, Willis, George Coleman, Jack Carter, Sam Broughtwood, and ‘Little’ Tommy Reed.”

Billericay: John Wheal, a maker of boots

John Wheal, a maker of boots

“He married Emma Argent, sister of my grandmother and came to Billericay at about 1860-1 and lived in cottage behind ‘Rising Sun’ on the Laindon Road, where John Wheal was a boot maker and mender. Took him 14 hours to make a pair of farm workers heavy boots which were waterproof, and needed no repair for a year of constant wear. Died 1900 and buried with his wife at Gt. Burstead.”

BLACKMORE HISTORY NEWS SPECIAL - 11 November 2008

We are today where history and current affairs meet.

Welcome to a special edition of Blackmore History News commemorating the end of the First World War. This is the first of two summaries containing recent items of interest. (The second summary will appear on 1 December).

Blackmorehistory.co.uk

The new website has a number of pages associated with the First World War. These include:
- Great War Gateway (an index of items within the mini site plus themed links to this blog)
- Blackmore Remembers – those from the village who gave their lives
- Blackmore Remembers – those who returned from war
- Stondon Massey Remembers – those named on the War Memorial Tablet
Visit: http://www.blackmorehistory.co.uk/

Items from the ‘Blackmore Area Local History’ area
Billericay

A book remembering those of Billericay who gave their lives during the First World War has just been released. It is the painstaking work of Mrs Karen Dennis who has looked at government records, newspapers and death certificates to track down the stories behind those on the War Memorial. For more information go to:
http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/3825143.My_mission_to_honour_men_lost_to_history/

Chelmsford

To mark 90 years since the Armistice, Rachel Duffett will be giving a talk on the Western Front today at County Hall with a further presentation at the Essex Book Festival in March 2009. Follow link:
http://www.chelmsfordweeklynews.co.uk/news/3820658.Talk_on_First_World_War_in_Chelmsford/

Epping

Epping Forest Guardian has re-published a poem written by a soldier in World War One. It was unearthed during research into the names of those on the War Memorial at Epping. John Duffell has compiled a record of newspaper articles shedding new light on the period. I do hope that Mr Duffell will publish his work, either on the Internet or in classic booklet form. (James Gosling, born Blackmore, is remembered on this Memorial – see entry 5.11.08).
http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/3809534.EPPING__Poem_from_the_Western_Front_unearthed/


Other items of interest
Bonfire Night suspended during WW1
Read more here:
http://edwardianpromenade.com/?p=353

History magazines: November 2008
BBC History magazine (which should be purchased for the striking cover alone!) includes a special supplement linked to the ninetieth anniversary of the Armistice with particular emphasis on the final days of the First World War. Follow this link for more … http://www.bbchistorymagazine.com/Default.asp?bhcp=1
BBC Who Do You Think You Are? magazine also covers the Armistice and celebrity stories of their ancestors taken from the BBC series ‘My Family At War’. There is also a supplementary pocket book entitled ‘Trace Your First World War Ancestors’ written by Martin Purdy. This gives the family historian all the background information he or she needs to know in order to do their own WDYTYA research. Follow this link for more … http://www.bbcwhodoyouthinkyouare.com/
Family History Monthly (December 2008), again covers “the day peace broke out” but provides advice to genealogists guide to searching for their World War One soldiers on the Internet. It’s banner “90 Years of Peace” is, alas, misleading.

Sidney Lucas
One of five remaining war veterans, Sidney Lucas, died on 6 November.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/one-of-five-remaining-first-world-war-veterans-dies-998208.html

Wilfred Owen

Wilfred Owen, war poet, was killed on 4th November 1918. Amid the celebrations for the Armistice, at noon his mother received a telegram telling of his death. His poetry is dark, vivid, stark and somewhat disturbing. Links to other sites are given below.
War Poems
http://www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/jtap/warpoems.htm#4
‘Anthem for doomed youth’ has reference to ‘sad shires’ and ‘bugles’.
http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen2.html
‘Dulce et decorum est’ is perhaps his greatest poem.
http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html

Poppies

Later we commemorate the events of 11 November 1918, 1919 and 1920 but it was on 11 November 1921 that the first official Poppy Day was held, organised by the British Legion. The symbol was inspired by the poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ written by John McCrae. Follow this link to the poem:
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/flanders.htm

Western Front Association
The Western Front Association, Essex branch, was present at the recent Essex Record Office conference ‘Sad Shires and Bugles’. The group hold two monthly meetings, one at Hornchurch the other at Hatfield Peverel. I asked whether their interest was confined to the Western Front. He representative answered to the negative. Other campaigns such as the Dardenelles were also covered. Formore information follow this link:
http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/

Ypres
From News Statesman
“Amid the war graves of Belgium, Tom Farrell finds a family story tangled up with the birth of modern Ireland”: ‘Side by Side They Fell’.
http://www.newstatesman.com/books/2008/11/war-belgium-ireland-british

How We Remember The Great War Today

Contributions and reflections from across the net:
Dan Todman, senior lecturer at Queen Mary College, London.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/how-we-remember-them-the-1914-18-war-today

Daily Mail article that mingles the current Remembrance with extracts of Richard Emdon’s new book, ‘The Soldier’s War’. Essex interest is contained in this article with reference to Brentwood and Southend.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1084298/In-words-The-unpublished-photos-letters-frontline-90th-anniversary-Armistice.html

Coverage of Cenotaph proceedings at Whitehall on 9 November 2008. The writer noted a noticeable increase in numbers attending.
http://www.the-two-malcontents.com/2008/11/10/wars-may-come-and-go-but-our-debt-to-those-who-sacrificed-their-lives-remains-for-ever/

Blogspot break

After this significant date in history, blackmoreblogspot will be taking a break. We will be back on 1 December.

Vaughan Williams and Essex

Fifty years ago, on 26th August 1958, the famous British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams died. Whilst he never lived in Essex we can claim that this locality had a major influence on his musical output.

Vaughan Williams was born in 1872 in Down Ampney, Gloucestershire. He studied at the Royal College of Music at a time when English music was popular in “the organ loft and the festival platform rather than the stage” [Day, p8]. His tutor Charles Stanford had failed at opera whilst Arthur Sullivan was succeeding at operetta, but then this was not considered serious music.

Looking for a musical style, Vaughan Williams became interested in folk song. The Folk Song Society had been formed in 1898 but was struggling despite Stanford being its Vice President. Cecil Sharp declared in 1904 that it was necessary to “get out into the field and listen to what the country folk had to sing” [Day, p18] rather than endlessly discuss the merits on folk song in London.

Vaughan Williams heartily agreed with Sharp’s views and had already been working separately from the Society, giving lectures on folk music across England and at the Montpelier House School for Girls (later renamed Brentwood County High School) in Brentwood (Essex). He described folk music in 1902 as “real music”. “What we need in England, is real music, even if it be only a music-hall song. Provided it possess real feeling and real life, it will be worth all the off scourings of the classics in the world” [Heffer, p22].

Vaughan Williams’ lectures at Brentwood had inspired one of the pupils, Georgina Heatley. After the final lecture she handed him a piece of paper with songs sung by one of the housemaids at her home, which was the Rectory at Ingrave. Georgina suggested that much folk song was rendered, but was unrecorded. With it came an invitation from her father to attend a Parish Tea, which he accepted. At the tea was a 75 year old labourer (a shepherd) by the name of Charles Potipher, dressed in his Sunday best, and probably not comfortable with attending such functions above his station in life at the Rectory. In any case “the old songs he knew were about young love and sex, taboo subjects in the oppressive Victorian atmosphere of the rectory” [Kent, p161]. He was reluctant to sing to Vaughan Williams at tea but promised that if the composer visited his cottage the following day he would sing for him.

So it was that on 4th December 1903 that VW collected – that is noting down the words and tunes – his first folk song, ‘Bushes and Briars’, from the voice of Charles Potipher. This visit to a humble labourer’s cottage ignited the composer’s passion for folk song. In 1904, Vaughan Williams came on a 10-day cycling tour of Ingrave, Willingale, Little Burstead, East Horndon and Billericay collecting further examples. In January 1905 he collected songs from around the Kings Lynn district of Norfolk and whilst on holiday in Sussex and Yorkshire later that year. In 1906 he visited Samuel Childs at the Bell, Willingale, noting down ‘Sweet Primroses’. Vaughan Williams earnestly believed that if these songs were not noted down they might be lost forever. Vaughan Williams became one of the greatest folk song collectors of the early twentieth century. It inspired the writing of his three ‘Norfolk Rhapsodies’ and ‘In the Fen Country’.

Ralph Vaughan Williams jotted the folk songs using pencil and paper. He later made some wax cylinder recordings. One singer was Mrs Humphries, also of Ingrave, who recorded ‘Bushes and Briars’. She had heard her father and grand-father sing this while a youngster living at Blackmore (Essex).

While this mammoth project was in its early stages, Percy Dreamer approached Vaughan Williams to edit a new hymn book. His name had been recommended by Cecil Sharp and Canon Scott Holland. Intended to be a short task it absorbed VW who spent £250 out of his own pocket and took two years. The result was the ‘English Hymnal’ published in 1906. Folk song tunes were included as musical accompaniment to sacred words: ‘Monks Gate’ was a tune Vaughan Williams had collected from a place near Horsham. He used it in the setting of the famous ‘To Be A Pilgrim’.

The English Hymnal draws on a wide range of musical styles but as he wrote in the Preface, “where there is congregational singing it is important that familiar melodies should be employed”. Tunes were written based on folk songs collected: ‘I think when I read the story of old’ was set to a tune named ‘East Horndon’; ‘There’s a friend for little children’ to the tune ‘Ingrave’ and, the most familiar of the three still sung today, ‘It is a thing most wonderful’ set to a tune ‘Herongate’.

“On 4th August 1914 war was declared on Germany, and Vaughan Williams, like the heroes in many of the folk songs he loved so much, felt his duty to enlist as a soldier” [Day, p29].

Charles Potipher died in 1909 and is buried in an unmarked grave in Ingrave churchyard. In early 2001, Brentwood Borough Council decided to commemorate him in the naming of a road on the then new Clements Park estate – Potipher Way. Other roads were named in remembrance of the Vaughan Williams connection, for example, Vaughan Williams Way, Pastoral Way (after his third symphony).

Three years before his death, in 1955, Vaughan Williams revisited Brentwood and recalled his first visit to the town which had had such a profound effect on his music.

In 2003, to mark the centenary of Vaughan Williams’ visit to Ingrave, the Essex Record Office mounted an excellent exhibition entitled ‘That precious legacy’ commemorating the composer and folk singing. The exhibition led to the publication of a book by Sue Cubbins, sound archivist, and is highly recommended for further reading.


Bibliography

The English Hymnal (1906)
Cubbins, Sue. That Precious Legacy. Ralph Vaughan Williams and Essex Folksong (Essex Record Office, 2006)
Day, James. Vaughan Williams (Dent & Sons, London, 1972)
Heffer, Simon. Vaughan Williams (Phoenix, 2000)
Kent, Sylvia. Folklore In Essex (Tempus, 2005)
Brentwood Gazette. 4 January 2001. 8 August 2003.

Other sources

BBC Radio 3 broadcast Twenty Minutes, a Proms Interval programme, entitled ‘Fantasia on a Theme: Bushes and Briars’ on 24 July 2008. The Promenade Concerts featured a whole day devoted to Folk Music, reflecting the musical legacy begun by Vaughan Williams, culminating in sets by Bella Hardy, Martin Simpson and 11-piece band, Bellowhead. Bella Hardy sang a Christmas carol – ‘Down In Yon Forest’ - collected in her native Derbyshire (Castleton) by RVW.

BLACKMORE HISTORY NEWS - July 2008

A round up of all things history in our locality.

Barleylands Agricultural Museum: farm machinery for sale

Report of the big sell off of the former ‘Barleylands Farm Museum’
http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/local/display.var.2334811.0.years_of_farming_history_goes_under_the_hammer.php

Galleywood Heritage Centre

The Essex Chronicle reports that councillors have approved a plan to convert part of the former grandstand of the Galleywood Racecourse into a Heritage Centre which will be used to display exhibitions on the history of the parish.
Read more by local historian Keldon: http://www.historyhouse.co.uk/history/

Ingatestone Hall on the map

Quite literally! This is a plan of nearby Ingatestone Hall, seat of the Petre family since 1540 and featured recently on television.
http://www.elizabethan.org/compendium/map-ingatestone.html

Ongar Union Workhouse

I came across a list of staff and inmates in the Ongar Union Workhouse at Stanford Rivers in 1881. Follow this link
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/ESSEX-UK/2002-01/1011002149

The Times Archive

Keldon says that “For an unspecified period of time, The Times archive 1785-1985 is available for free. This will be welcome news for those unable to gain access to the archive through Gale International.

“The archive can be searched on http://archive.timesonline.co.uk/tol/archive/. Registration is required to view the extracts. It is not known how long it will remain free, so grab it while you can".

BLACKMORE HISTORY NEWS - June 2008

Welcome. Summer’s here and the time is right for dancing in the street!!

William Kemp

He danced through Brentwood and Chelmsford in 1601 on his way to Norwich, so Will Kemp deserves a mention. Go to: http://www.villagecoop.com/events/kemp/kemp.htm

Blackmore Morris Dancers

A friend of mine suggested that I should publicise the Blackmore Morris Men Dance Programme for 2008. On Wednesday evenings until 3 September, when they return to the Leather Bottle at Blackmore, the group can be seen performing at various country pubs in our area. Follow the link to:
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/blackmoremorris/wheretosee.htm
For more about the side, see
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/blackmoremorris/index.htm

Number One on Google search engine

I typed in the words ‘blackmore history’ into Google only to find that ‘Blackmore Area Local History’ is number one!

Copped Hall

Recommended this summer is a visit to Copped Hall near Epping. The Hall was destroyed by fire in 1917 but is now under repair, thanks to the Copped Hall Trust. But one has to marvel at the garden which is in the course of restoration, rescued from a mass of overgrown trees and brambles. The transformation over the past ten years has been amazing. It is a labour of love for Trust members who tend their own patch. In the large walled garden you can see the newly planted orchard and restored glasshouses. However, the house and, separately, the grounds are open to the public only on rare occasions. Follow these links for more information. http://www.coppedhalltrust.org.uk/
http://www.eppingforestdc.gov.uk/community/history/Copped_Hall_Part_I.asp

Barleylands Agricultural Museum: farm machinery for sale

Seems like this is possibly the end of a second era. A collection of bygone farming machinery goes under the hammer at Billericay. The auction is on 7 June 2008. Lots will include “around 500 artefacts from its museum, including bygone farm machinery and tractors”.
http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/local/display.var.2291125.0.farm_history_for_sale.php

Byrd Books fly off the shelves!

‘William Byrd: Some Notes’, released to coincide with the BBC TV Series ‘Sacred Music’ and ‘Through Changing Scenes’ at Stondon Massey Church, is selling surprisingly well at £1.50 a time. It is available from Blackmore and Stondon Massey churches. An order has also been placed by Ingatestone Hall Gift Shop. Byrd lived in Stondon Massey between 1593 and 1623 and was composer to the Petre family of Ingatestone.

Libraries: Where Have All The Books Gone?

Libraries have changed. More space is given to surfing the net with a consequence that less space is being given over to books on shelves, either for loan or reference. One of the more alarming changes in the past two years is a contraction of the areas devoted to Local Studies. I am told at Colchester the Local Studies Section is a shadow of its former self, and know that at Brentwood ad Chelmsford, for example, precious books are now locked away in a store-room. The problem with this is that the casual browser does not know of the existence of complete runs of Essex Review (1892 – 1957), the Transactions of the now Essex Society for Archaeology and History (1852 to date), Essex Recusant, Essex Life which was formerly the Essex Countryside (1952 to date) etc. The thing about these books is that often the writers have first hand accounts of events: Zeppelins over Essex during the First World War; the hailstorm over Essex in 1897, memories of Victorian life etc. In the tidy world of the Essex Libraries Service, these are hidden gems to the local historian. You need to ask for them – and be determined. Once the staff member knows of their existence they are only too happy to help. At Brentwood, Essex Review etc are in the store-room in the corner of the Library. Whilst researching William Byrd in February I was allowed into this secret room of antiquarian pearls. You can, of course, photocopy the pages you want. At Chelmsford, they are stored on locked but moveable shelves. My concern is that someone in a few months’ or years’ time comes along, taking the view that because no one looks at them and decides to flog them off alongside the trashy fiction. I am concerned that this might become a race against time.

Ninety Years On

I will be commemorating the First World War (the ‘Great War’ as it was then known) on this site beginning on 4 August – the date when war was declared in 1914 – and ending on 11 November – the date of the Armistice in 1918. The end of this great struggle was 90 years ago this year.