< Back William Luff By Karen Smith My husband’s first ancestor to come to Australia was William Luff (1795-1852), a convict from Stamford, Lincolnshire. This paper outlines William’s life and seeks to understand the meaning that William gave to his convict experience. At first glance, this is difficult as there are no surviving oral, written or pictorial accounts from William himself. The want of his ‘voice’ therefore necessitates an outside-in approach, which is accomplished through online records. These records enable informed assumptions about how William’s convict experience impacted his life. William was baptised in 1795 at St John’s (Church of England), Stamford, Lincolnshire. He was the son of Thomas Luff, soldier, and Ann. [1] It is likely that Thomas Luff served in the British Army during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. In the first few decades of the nineteenth century, standards of living in the rural areas of England had fallen. When harvests were bad, farm workers and small tenants were the first to suffer. This caused a migration towards towns where work was easier to be found. Then, following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, Britain was in considerable turmoil with returned soldiers and others involved in war production suddenly finding themselves out of employment and in competition for jobs. It was into this turmoil that twenty-year-old William Luff, labourer, found himself. On the night of Thursday 16 November 1815, the White Hart Inn at Ketton, Rutland, some three miles south west of Stamford, was subject to burglary. The objects stolen included “a considerable sum of money” and two silver watches. [2] Suspicion quickly fell on William Luff and Joseph Briggs as they had been seen in the vicinity. Image of the White Hart Inn, taken in 2009 Image of the White Hart Inn, taken in 2009, from: White Hart, Ketton ( closedpubs.co.uk ) William was apprehended by the Stamford town sergeant on 13 January 1816. He went through two trials before his case went before the grand jury at the Rutland Assizes, held at Oakham Castle, on 7 March 1817. The delay was due to the hope that Briggs would be apprehended, as it was thought he was the instigator, but he evaded capture. [3] At trial, the sergeant testified that William had freely confessed to the crime without coercion, to which William interrupted, “Yes he did [coerce me]: he said I should be hung if I did not ‘peach”. [4] William’s confession was read out: Briggs identified the White Horse as a good mark, and said he would commit the burglary if William would keep watch. After listening to evidence, the jury found William guilty, and Judge the Hon. Baron Richards passed the sentence of death, saying that only God’s grace could save him from the gallows with the reprieve of transportation, upon which William interjected with, “I hope not, my Lord, I would sooner be hanged.” It was subsequently reported, “Nothing so thoroughly hardened and wicked as this man’s behaviour in Court is remembered before in Rutland.” [5] God’s grace must have shone down, because William’s sentence was commuted to seven years transportation to New South Wales (NSW). [6] On the prison coach’s journey from Rutland to Portsmouth, it stopped at Stamford, where two of his brothers and their wives visited William and lamented his fate. [7] On 20 May 1817, at Portsmouth, William was placed on the prison hulk, Leviathan, a 74-gun ship used at the Battle of Trafalgar. [8] The hulk’s register describes William as 5ft 11¼ inches tall, with black hair and grey eyes. [9] Whilst on the hulk, William and his fellow inmates were required to work at Portsmouth and Langston harbours. [10] William was one of 180 convicts transported to Australia on the Ocean , under Master Samuel Remmington. [11] The ship was also carrying 12 bales of wool, 3 tons of coal and 4 head of horned cattle, an indication of the paucity of industry in Australia at the time. [12] The ship’s surgeon and superintendent was George Fairford, whose journal tells us that the ship departed England on 24 June 1817 and arrived at Sydney on 16 January 1818. On the journey the ship stopped at St Helena, where one of the convicts, James Barnes, aged 21 years, was taken off the ship after an episode of “high delirium” during which he confessed to murdering a woman in Scotland two years prior. [13] William Luff was not amongst the 30 convicts and soldiers who received medical treatment on board ship. It should also be noted that there was no loss of life on the journey, a result of the Redfern report, which led, in 1815, to the Naval Transport Board assigning a qualified naval surgeon to accompany every convict ship arriving in Australia. [14] On the day of the Ocean’s arrival at Sydney Cove, John Thomas Campbell, Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s then Secretary, wrote to Reverend Samuel Marsden JP, Parramatta, listing convicts for distribution. Campbell specified eight convicts be assigned to his 1,500-acre Bringelly property, Shancomore , including William Luff. [15] It is likely Campbell selected William and his cohort on the basis of their good health and productive potential. It has been argued elsewhere that nepotism in the assignment period of convict history (1788-1839) led to inconsistencies in the application of penal policy and practice. Nonetheless, it is generally agreed that a convict’s progress from primary incarceration, transportation, assignment, and reintegration through ticket of leave and tickets of freedom largely depended on their behaviour, reformative goals and the value placed upon their skills. [16] At the time of William’s arrival, the colonial population of NSW was around 13,000, made up of government and military officials, soldiers, ex-convicts and their families, and a few free settlers. The colonial population regularly came in contact with Aboriginal people visiting and trading with settlers. Shancomore is in Dhurug country, and in May 1814 it was reported that around 400 Aboriginal people attacked the property, spearing the overseer in the shoulder, killing several pigs, and stealing grain and other provisions. [17] In July 1815 James Daley’s 40-acre Bringelly property was approached by a number of Aboriginal people. James was away at the time, and his wife, Maria, shot at them as a deterrent, then ran in terror from the house leaving behind two children and her three-day old infant. When she returned the two children had been murdered, but the infant was unharmed. It was thought this was payback for two Aboriginal children shot two months earlier. [18] Shancomore was not an easy assignment for convicts. [19] Another letter from Campbell to Robert Lowe Esq JP, Bringelly, also dated 16 January 1818, sought to have eight convicts at Shancomore removed as they were found to possess “bad conduct”. [20] Earlier, in February 1816, convict Andrew Coultra drowned in the Nepean while escaping, and in January 1818, almost as Willian Luff commenced work on the property, another convict, James Pestill, escaped by stealing Campbell’s horse and other property. [21] Regrettably, by November 1819, William had run afoul of Campbell, and was working at Sydney’s Brickfields. [22] A gang of eight men was expected to make 3,000 bricks a day at this site. [23] William would have been there for weeks or months depending on the severity of his offence, and would have been wearing ‘party dress’ as a public mark of disgrace. [24] 1820 - Day in the life of a convict Image from: 1820 - Day in the life of a convict ( mhnsw.au ) William was back with Campbell in 1820, and in 1821 was assigned to Sir John Wylde, Judge Advocate, who owned Cecil Hills, Cabramatta. [25] It is likely William’s work at both properties involved clearing land, fencing, building, tending stock, and ploughing. [26] Every Sunday he would have been required to attend church. There are no records of William ever committing another offence either as a convict or after his emancipation on 6 October 1825. His Ticket of Freedom record shows that William’s convict experience was written on his body: he was an inch shorter, had greying hair, and ruddy complexion. [27] In 1828, William was working as overseer for George Wentworth, son of D’Arcy Wentworth, at Greendale near Bringelly. [28] In 1835 the property was described as 7,000 acres, 35 miles from Sydney, and, “On the Farm is an excellent Cottage, containing eight apartments, with detached Kitchen, Stabling, and commodious Sheds. The whole is enclosed with a three-rail fence, and divided into eight Paddocks…” [29] It is likely that William, as overseer, was responsible for the management of convicts in this role. William next appears in the records in 1834, when he was a landholder for free inhabitants of the Illawarra (Tharawal country) who signed a petition to the Governor of NSW, Major-General Sir Richard Bourke requesting the construction of a road to the district. [30] There is a dearth of information about William from 1834 to 4 September 1837, when he married colony-born Catholic, Catherine Devlyn (1824-1895), at St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney. [31] Catherine was 13 years old, the age of consent for women being 12 years, and for men, 14. [32] We can only speculate why theirs was a Catholic marriage. Marriages between those of the Church of England faith and Roman Catholics were recognised by legislation passed in 1834. [33] Perhaps the Reverend Samuel Marsden’s ‘flogging parson’ reputation diminished William’s Church of England allegiance, or perhaps it was a condition set by Catherine’s parents. [34] By October 1838 William and Catherine had made their way from Sydney to Tumut (in Ngarigo Wiradjuri country). William was working for John Archer Broughton (1818-1878), who owned a property named Mundongbeggey , which was located some four and half miles east of Tumut. [35] We know this because William placed a newspaper notice advertising the stud services of his three-year-old horse, Jupiter, who won the hurdles at the Yass races, earning William £20. Moreover, Jupiter was related to Hector, once the property of the Duke of Wellington. [36] This advertisement allows us not only to establish William’s location at a specific date, but also the circles he was moving in and his personal interests and abilities. It shows us that William was coming up in the world. William and Catherine commenced having a family in 1839, with Thomas born that year, Ann in 1841, and Catherine in 1844. [37] While these births were unregistered, five subsequent births were registered at a Catholic church in the Yass mission, possibly St Augustine’s Church, Yass, which was built between 1838-1844. [38] St Augustine's Catholic Church Image of St Augustine’s Catholic Church (foreground) from: Lovat-Chapel-Memorial-Booklet.pdf ( staug-yass.org.au ) By 1841 the family was living in a wooden home at Gobarralong, alongside the mighty Murrumbidgee River, some 30 miles north of Tumut (Ngarigo Ngunawal country). [39] Between March 1840 and September 1845, William applied for seven licenses to depasture stock at their property, Courah , Gobarralong. [40] At the time the property was a modest 1,280 acres, with grazing capability of 280 cattle and 17 horses. [41] Image of "Courah", Gobarralong, taken by author 2023 In June 1849, William sponsored the immigration of his niece, Mary Ann True (nee Luff) and her husband Samuel to Australia on the ship, John Bright . Mary Ann was the daughter of William’s older brother George Luff (1793-1862). Mary Ann, dressmaker, was aged 24 years, and Samuel, stone mason, 34. The ship’s passenger list says she has an uncle, William Lough [sic], on the Murrumbidgee. [42] After their arrival in Australia, the Trues made their way to Gundagai, no doubt stopping at Gobarralong on the way. One of Mary Ann and Samuel’s descendants shared the following: “Story comes from Alice Jones (True) about her grandparents travelling from Sydney to Gundagai by bullock wagon in 1849. They came upon some Aboriginals roasting an animal by the side of the track, probably taken from a settler’s herd of cattle. Mary True became quite frightened and upset as she was convinced the Aboriginals were cannibals and they were cooking humans! She wanted to turn around and immediately return to England! The journey from Sydney to Gundagai in those days was quite perilous and difficult with the journey taking up to three months. The road was nothing more than a rough bush track made by the wheels of the wagons travelling through the never-ending scrub.” [43] Mary Ann’s arrival in Australia shows that William was in touch with his Lincolnshire family: he managed to retain close family bonds despite transportation. Sadly, however, William Luff’s story ends in tragedy. William was in Gundagai on the night of 25 June 1852, when the town was washed away by the flooded Murrumbidgee and at least 78 people lost their lives. William happened to be staying overnight at The Rose Inn when the flood occurred. He and twenty-seven others climbed on the roof hoping to escape the water, but to no avail: “William Luff, a squatter from Gobarralong…was amongst those drowned. James Gormley said that Luff was a strong man in the prime of life . He was an ex-convict from Stamford, Lincolnshire, who had arrived in the colony on board the Ocean in 1817 [sic].” [44] William Luff was only one of 171,000 convicts transported from England and Ireland to Australia. We don’t have access to William’s reflections on his experience. However, we can see that following his sentence he lived a law-abiding life. In addition, by relocating from Sydney to Gobarralong he was able to shed the convict and emerge the squatter, racehorse owner, uncle of an assisted immigrant. His legacy remains in Gobarralong, where Luffs work, worship, and prosper to this day. Bibliography Allen, Matthew, ‘The Myth of the Flogging Parson: Samuel Marsden and Severity of Punishment in the Age of Reform,’ Australian Historical Studies , 48, 2017, pp. 486-501. Allport, Gordon W., ‘The Nature of Prejudice,’ 1979, Reading, MA, Addison-Wesley, 97F5FE75CF9A120E7DC108EB1B0FF5EC.holocaust-the-nature-of-prejudice.doc ( live.com ) . Ancestry.com , 1841 New South Wales, Australia, Census. Ancestry.com , England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975. Ancestry.com , Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1828-1896. Ancestry.com , New South Wales, Australia, Certificates of Freedom, 1810-1814, 1827-1867. Ancestry.com , New South Wales, Australia, Returns of the Colony, 1822-1857. Ancestry Library Edition, Australian Convict Transportation Registers – Other Fleets & Ships, 1791-1868. Ancestry Library Edition, England and Wales Criminal Registers, 1791-1892. 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British Broadcasting Commission, ‘Crime and Punishment In Industrial Britain, c. 1750- c. 1900,’ British Broadcasting Commission website, n.d., Crime and criminals - impact of industrialisation - Crime and punishment in Industrial Britain, c.1750-c.1900 - OCR B - GCSE History Revision - OCR B - BBC Bitesize . Cumpston, J. S., Shipping Arrivals & Departures, Sydney 1788-1825 , Roebuck Society Publication No. 22, 1977, Canberra. Cunneen, Matthew & Malcolm Allbrook, ‘Understanding convict lives: A historiographical and methodological reassessment,’ Australian Journal of Biography and History , No. 7, 2023, ANU Press, Canberra, 1-21. Dodd, Ian, ‘Marriage Law in Colonial New South Wales: C. H. Currey Revisited,’ Journal of Colonial Australian History , Vol. 20, 2018, 1-23. Drakard’s Stamford News. Foxall, Katherine, ‘From Convicts to Colonists: The Health of Prisoners and the Voyage to Australia, 1823-53,’ The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History , 2011, 39:1, 1-19. French, Reverend J. D., Tumut and District Historical Society, Discovery and Early History of Tumut Valley , 1965, Discovery and Early History of Tumut Valley - J. D. French - Google Books . Gibbs, Martin, Tuffin, Richard, Roe, David, ‘An Historical Archaeology of Labor in Convict Australia: A Framework for Engagement,’ Historical Archaeology , 2023, 57: 1008-1030. Maher, Rev. Brian, Memories of Yass Mission St Augustine’s Parish, Yass, N. S. W. Sesquicentenary 1838-1988 , St Augustine’s Parish Sesquicentenary Committee, Yass, 1988. Museums of History New South Wales, ‘Convict Sydney Sandstone Bricks,’ n. d., Sandstock Bricks ( mhnsw.au ) . Museums of History New South Wales, ‘Depasturing Licenses Index 1837-1851,’ n. d., Depasturing licenses index 1837-1851 ( mhnsw.au ) . Museums of History New South Wales, ‘Treatment of convicts by private employers,’ n. d., Convict assignment records ( mhnsw.au ) . 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The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser. The Sydney Monitor. The Sydney Morning Herald. Watson, Frederick, Chapman, Peter & Australia Parliament Library Committee, 1914, Historical records of Australia, Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, Sydney Historical records of Australia ( nla.gov.au ) Wikipedia, ‘List of British Prison Hulks,’ Wikipedia website, 2024, List of British prison hulks - Wikipedia . [1] Baptism record for William Luff, England, Select Births and Christenings, 1538-1975, FHL Film No. 1450474, Reference ID: -2:3Q8FMVV, Ancestry.com , accessed 2 June 2024. Keith Hansell (Stamford and District Local History Society) to Karen Smith [email], 30 May 2024 original held by author. [2] “BURGLARY,” Drakard’s Stamford News , Friday 17 November 1815, p. 3. [3] “Rutland Assizes,” Stamford Mercury , Friday 14 March 1817, p. 4. [4] As above. [5] William Luff, England and Wales Criminal Registers, 1791-1892, England, Rutland, 1817, Accessed online at Ancestry Library Edition, 4 June 2024. [6] Hulk record for William Luff, Leviathan Register 1801-1836, UK Prison Hulk Registers and Letter Books, 1802-1849, p. 8, Ancestry Library Edition, accessed 15 May 2024. [7] ‘Domestic News,’ Drakard’s Stamford News , Friday 23 May 1817, p. 3, The British Newspaper Archive, accessed 15 May 2024. [8] Record of the Leviathan , Wikipedia, ‘List of British Prison Hulks,’ Wikipedia website, 2024, List of British prison hulks - Wikipedia , accessed 14 June 2024. [9] Record for William Luff, p. 8, Leviathan Register 1801-1836, UK Prison Hulk Registers and Letter Books, 1802-1849, Ancestry Library Edition. [10] The Navy,” Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser, Monday 3 February 1817, p. 2. The British Newspaper Archive, Brass Ornaments In The Roman Style. No Buttons Ar e Seen On The New Jacket, The Front Being Secured By Hook* | Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser | Monday 03 February 1817 | British Newspaper Archive [11] Record of transportation for William Luff, Australian Convict Transportation Registers – Other Fleets & Ships, 1791-1868, 1810-1817, record of convicts aboard the ship, Ocean , p. 178, Ancestry Library Edition, accessed online 7 May 2024. Frederick Watson, Frederick & Peter Chapman, Australia Parliament Library Committee, 1914, Historical Records of Australia, Series 1, vol. 9 (January 1816 - December 1818), p. 749, Series 1, vol. 9 (January 1816 - December 1818) ( nla.gov.au ) , accessed 2 June 2024. [12] J. S. Cumpston, Shipping Arrivals & Departures, Sydney 1788-1825 , Roebuck Society Publication No. 22, 1977, Canberra. [13] Museum of History New South Wales, “The convict impact on Aboriginal people: Impacts of the convict system on Aboriginal Country and communities,” accessed online 7 June 2024: The convict impact on Aboriginal people ( mhnsw.au ) [14] Katherine Foxall, “From Convicts to Colonists: The Health of Prisoners and the Voyage to Australia, 1823-53,” p. 3, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History , 39:1, 1-19 (2011). [15] Letter concerning assignment of William Luff, New South Wales, Australia, Colonial Secretary’s Papers, 1788-1856, Copies of Letters Sent Within the Colony, 1814-1827, Ancestry Library Edition, accessed 15 May 2024. Map of the Parish of Bringelly, County of Cumberland, sheet reference 1, undated, Historical Parish Maps, NSW Land Registry Services, Historical Land Records Viewer, NSW Land Registry Services | HLRV ( nswlrs.com.au ) , accessed 6 June 2024. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, The AIATSIS Map of Indigenous Australia , 1996. [16] Martin Gibbs, Richard Tuffin and David Roe, “An Historical Archaeology of Labor in Convict Australia: A Framework of engagement,” Historical Archaeology , 2023, 57: 1108-1030, p. 1012. [17] The AIATSIS Map of Indigenous Australia, 1996 ; The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser , Sat 7 May 1814, p. 2, Sydney: accessed online at: 07 May 1814 - Sydney. - Trove ( nla.gov.au ) ; The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser , Sat 1 Sep 1821, p. 2, Classified Advertising, accessed online at: 01 Sep 1821 - Classified Advertising - Trove ( nla.gov.au ) [18] Stephen Gapps, The Sydney Wars: Conflict in the Early Colony, 1788-1817 , (2014), New South Publishing, p. 127, accessed online 7 June 2024: ProQuest Ebook Central - Book Details ( utas.edu.au ) [19] State Library New South Wales, ‘The Convict Experience,’ State Library of New South Wales website, n.d., The convict experience | State Library of New South Wales ( nsw.gov.au ) , accessed 13 June 2024. [20] New South Wales, Australia, Colonial Secretary’s Papers, 1788-1856, Copies of Letters Sent Within The Colony, 1814-1827, p. 1272, accessed online at Ancestry Library Edition, 6 June 2024. [21] The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser , Sat 3 Feb 1816, p. 2, Sydney, accessed online 6 June 2024: 03 Feb 1816 - Sydney. - Trove ( nla.gov.au ) ; The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser , Sat 28 Sep 1816, p. 2, SYDNEY, accessed online 6 June 2024: 28 Sep 1816 - SYDNEY. - Trove ( nla.gov.au ) ; The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser , Sat 10 Jan 1818, p. 1, Classified Advertising, accessed online 6 June 2024: 10 Jan 1818 - Classified Advertising - Trove ( nla.gov.au ) [22] 1819 population muster record for Will Luff, New South Wales, Census and Population Books, 1811-1825, Population Muster, 1819, p. 86, Ancestry Library Edition, accessed 23 May 2024. [23] Museums of History New South Wales, ‘Convict Sydney Sandstone Bricks,’ Museums of New South Wales website, Sandstock Bricks ( mhnsw.au ) , accessed 13 June 2024. [24] Frederick Watson, Frederick & Peter Chapman, Australia Parliament Library Committee, 1914, Historical Records of Australia, Series 1, vol. 9 (January 1816-December 1818), p. 518, Series 1, vol. 9 (January 1816 - December 1818) ( nla.gov.au ) , accessed 13 June 2024. [25] Record for William Luff in 1820, New South Wales, Australia, Settler and Convict Lists, 1787-1834, New South Wales, Male K-Y, 1820, Ancestry Library Edition, accessed 14 June 2024. Record for William Luff in 1821, New South Wales, Australia, Settler and Convict Lists, 1787-1834, New South Wales, Male K-Y, 1821, Ancestry Library Edition, accessed 4 June 2024. Australian National University, Australian Dictionary of Biography , Sir John Wylde , accessed Biography - Sir John Wylde - Australian Dictionary of Biography ( anu.edu.au ) , 4 June 2024. Parish of Cabramatta, County Cumberland, Parish Cabramatta, Sheet Reference 1, Historical Parish Maps, New South Wales Land Registry Services, accessed 4 June 2024. [26] ‘Classified Advertising,’ The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser , Sat 4 Sep 1813, p. 1, 04 Sep 1813 - Classified Advertising - Trove ( nla.gov.au ) , accessed 6 June 2024. ‘Classified Advertising,’ The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser , Sat 19 Sep 1814, p. 1, 19 Feb 1814 - Classified Advertising - Trove ( nla.gov.au ) , accessed 6 June 2024. ‘Classified Advertising,’ The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser , Sat 1 Sep 1821, p. 2, 01 Sep 1821 - Classified Advertising - Trove ( nla.gov.au ) , accessed 11 June 2024. Crops and stock of John Thomas Campbell Esq., New South Wales, Census and Population Books, 1811-1825, New South Wales Land and Stock, 1819, p. 23, Ancestry Library Edition, accessed 13 June 2024. Stock of John Wylde Esq., New South Wales, Census and Population Books, 1811-1825, New South Wales Land and Stock, 1819, p. 88, Ancestry Library Edition, accessed 13 June 2024. [27] Certificate of Freedom for William Luff, Number 43/4395, New South Wales, Australia, Certificates of Freedom, 1810-1814, 1827-1867, Ancestry.com , accessed 1 May 2024. [28] ‘Family Notices,’ The Sydney Monitor , Sat 22 Sep 1832, p. 3, 22 Sep 1832 - Family Notices - Trove ( nla.gov.au ) accessed online 30 May 2024. [29] The Sydney Herald, Thu 7 Mar 1833, p. 3 “Advertising”: accessed online 27 May 2024: 07 Mar 1833 - Advertising - Trove ( nla.gov.au ) [30] The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, Thu 1 May 1834, p.2, accessed online 7 June 2024: p2 - 01 May 1834 - The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 - 1842) - Trove ( nla.gov.au ) [31] Marriage certificate for William Luff and Catherine Devlyn, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, New South Wales, registration no. 641/1837 V1837641 128. [32] Birth register entry for Catherine Develyn [sic], Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, New South Wales, registration no. 519/1824 V1824519 125. Parliament of Australia, House of Representatives, House Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, Inquiry into the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2012 and the Marriage Amendment Bill 2012 , Chapter 2: History of Marriage Laws in Australia, section 2.6, https___aphref.aph.gov.au_house_committee_spla_bill marriage_report_chapter2.pdf , accessed 8 June 2024. [33] New South Wales Government, An Act to Remove Doubts as to the Validity of Certain Marriages Had and Solemnized within the Colony of New South Wales and to Regulate the Registration of Certain Marriages Baptisms and Burials , 4th July, 1834, act-1834-7a ( nsw.gov.au ) , accessed 12 June 2024. [34] Matthew Allen, ‘The Myth of the Flogging Parson: Samuel Marsden and Severity of Punishment in the Age of Reform,’ Australian Historical Studies , 48, 2017, p. 491. [35] Reverend J. D. French, “Discovery and Early History of Tumut Valley,” (1965), p.8, accessed online 25 May 2024: Discovery and Early History of Tumut Valley - J. D. French - Google Books . Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, The AIATSIS Map of Indigenous Australia, 1996. [36] ‘Advertising,’ The Australian , Thur 13 Dec 1838, p. 4, p4 - 13 Dec 1838 - The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 - 1848) - Trove ( nla.gov.au ) , accessed 25 May 2024. ‘Yass,’ The Australian , Sat 27 Oct 1838, p. 4, 27 Oct 1838 - YASS. - Trove ( nla.gov.au ) , accessed 8 June 2024. [36] ‘Magistrate for the Ensuing Week, John Piper, Esquire,’ The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser , Thu 1 Jan 1824, p. 2, 01 Jan 1824 - MAGISTRATE FOR THE ENSUING WEEK, JOHN PIPER, ESQUIRE. - Trove ( nla.gov.au ) , accessed 20 May 2024. [37] Unregistered births: Thomas in 1839, Ann in 1841, and Catherine in 1844. [38] Birth register entry for Alice Luff, born 1845, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, New South Wales, 1887/1845 V18451887 62. Birth register entry for Sarah Luff, born 1846, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, New South Wales, 1891/1846 V18461891 63. Birth register entry for James Luff, born 1848, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, New South Wales, registration no. 1743/1848 V18481743 65. Birth register entry for William Luff, born 1850, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, New South Wales, registration no. 415/1850 V1850415 67. Birth register entry for Jane Luff, born 1851, Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, New South Wales, 2057/1851 V18512057 68. Rev. Brian Maher, Memories of Yass Mission St Augustine’s Parish, Yass, N. S. W. Sesquicentenary 1838-1988 , St Augustine’s Parish Sesquicentenary Committee, Yass, 1988, p. 18-23. [39] Census record for William Luff, 1841 New South Wales, Australia, Census, Abstracts, Murrumbidgee, p. 4, Ancestry.com.au , accessed 3 June 2024. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, The AIATSIS Map of Indigenous Australia , 1996. [40] Depasturing licenses for William Luff, Murrumbidgee District, Depasturing Licenses Index 1837-1851 , Museums of History NSW, Depasturing licenses index 1837-1851 ( mhnsw.au ) , accessed 10 June 2024. [41] Description of the holding capacity of Courah, New South Wales Government Gazette , Sat 16 Feb 1850 [Issue No. 22 (SUPPLEMENT)], p. 263, 16 Feb 1850 - SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF CLAIMS TO LEASES OF CROWN LANDS BEYOND THE SETTLED DISTRICTS. - Trove , accessed 15 May 2024: [42] Assisted immigrant passenger list for Mary Ann and Samuel True, New South Wales, Australia, Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1828-1896, 1849, February, John Bright, p. 2, accessed at Ancesty.com 1 June 2024: Ancestry.com.au - New South Wales, Australia, Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1828-1896 [43] Marcia McIntyre, shared on Ancestry.com , 6 April 2012. [44] Cliff Butcher, Gundagai: A Track Winding Back , published by A. C. Butcher (2002). By Karen Smith 59 Market Street Boorowa, New South Wales, 2586 Australia Email: karenjanesmith@gmail.com A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back October 31st 1940 – The Luftwaffe Comes to Stamford Chris Hunt 2021 Today St Leonard’s Street is a quiet part of the town, far enough away from the High Street and Wharf Road to get little or no traffic, other than motorists trying to find a parking space. However, on Thursday October 31st 1940 the War came to this area when a large bomb which was reported at the time to have weighed close to a ton fell on Cornstall Buildings. A low flying lone German plane, possible a Heinkel 111, dropped a bomb which took off the roofs and chimney stacks of No 2 and 3 Cornstall Buildings before passing through No 17 Cornstall Buildings and demolishing a coal shed at the rear of the property. One side of the house had gone and there was a hole above the front door where the bomb had hit the building. Luckily the bomb did not explode. The occupier of No 17, Mrs Elsie Griffiths and her daughter Doreen had a very lucky escape as although in the house at the time sitting on the sofa, it was however reported that if they had been standing they would not have been so lucky. Immediately the emergency services were on hand to clear the area., which stretched from Maiden Lane to Brazenose Lane, and from St Paul’s Street to Wharf Road. Stamford School could only be accessed from Elm Street. The plane had come from the general direction of Wothorpe, spraying bullets over the Town before dropping the bomb. It was suggested at the time that the pilot had been aiming for the gas works which was only a hundred yards away on Wharf Road. The Town Council erected market stalls on Ironmonger Street so that those shopkeepers who had had to close their shops could continue trading, allowing their ‘registered customers’ to buy their rations. People evacuated from their houses found refuge in relatives and friends house across the town and others were found accommodation, bedding and food was provided from reserve stores held at the Fane School. Payments were made to householders under the Government Evacuation Scheme and those who had left their ration cards in their homes were issued with emergency ones from the Town Hall, and supplies of second-hand clothing was made available to those in need. The local bomb disposal team at the time was based in Ketton and they began the job of making the bomb safe. It was found to have a ninety-six-hour fuse which could have resulted by the Monday of destroying a large area at the eastern end of the town. Luckily for everyone it was defused on the Sunday and people were then allowed to return to their homes. A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back Ketton Gas and Coke Company (limited). Chris Hunt 2021 Today, unless you live in a very rural village, you take a gas supply as the norm. Of course, it has not always been the case. In September 1965 forty-odd miles off the Lincolnshire coast Natural Gas was discovered and so began a speedy decline and demise of the Coal Gas industry, which was colloquially called Town Gas. The production was of course not dependant on the size of the settlement, but more on the ease of obtaining cheap coal balanced by customer demand, or should that be a population that could afford the cost of the product. It was not until the first decade of the 19th century that the technology for the safe production and distribution of gas was available. This led to the world’s first gas company in 1812, the London and Westminster Gas Light and Coke Company. Initially outside of Britain’s coalfields the only places where cheap coal was available, were ports, riverside sites and towns supplied by canals. A major factor was that the use of gas for street lighting was so much cheaper than the use of oil lamps or candles. In Stamford’s case it was not until June 1823 that Royal assent was given for a Company for lighting the streets of the town which were first lit in March 1825. Locally to Stamford there were gas works at Easton on the Hill, King’s Cliffe and Ketton. Cheap coal only being available with the coming of the railways to these villages. The Ketton Gas and Coke Company (Limited) was incorporated in 1862. The Company was capitalised at £1,250 made up of 250 £5.00 shares. In November 1862, it was reported in the Stamford Mercury that a few shares were still available from the Company Solicitor, a Mr. John Dabbs of Stamford, and it further stated that ‘there is reason to believe that an ample Dividend of a permanent character will be realised’. The chosen site close to Ketton Railway station had been purchased and a contract had been entered into with Mr. George Bower of St Neot’s to provide the engineering equipment. The Directors of the Company had plans and specification drawn up for the building work which were made available between November 7th and 14th 1862 The tenders to be in the hands of the Secretary at the Office in Stamford by 1.00pm on November 15th or by 6.00pm on the same day at the White Hart Inn, at Ketton. Notice was given that the Directors would be meeting at the Inn on the same day to consider the Tenders and that those Tendering were invited to attend. Mr. Bower had also entered a Tender for the building work as on November 21st 1862 the Company announced that his Tender had been accepted, that the work would commence immediately with completion in ‘about two months’. George Bower, 1826-1911, was an industrialist and developer of gas appliances, whose products were sold at home and abroad from his iron foundry in St Neots. By 1880 he had also provided Gas Work equipment locally to gas works at Easton on the Hill and Kings Cliffe, and locally to the Marquis of Exeter at Burghley House, the Great Northern Railway at Essendine, Apethorpe Hall and Shillingthorpe Hall. The Ketton Gas and Coke Company must have initially been seen as a successful venture for in June 1865 five of the £5.00 shares were sold at auction by Mr. William Langley at the Assembly Rooms in Stamford for £6 2s 6d per share (a profit of 22.5% over three years). This success was short lived as at auction held by Mr. Richardson in March 1867 at the George Hotel, twenty fully paid up £5 shares went unsold as they only achieved £4 7s 6d and were bought in. If share prices are a guide to business success it would seem that the Company was not seen as a firm investment for when sixteen fully paid up £5 shares were offered by auction in January 1869 they sold for prices varying from £3 6s 0d to £3 10s 0d. In comparison shares in the Stamford Gas and Coke Company which had a face value of £50 were selling for £83 or £84 each. Clearly by 1891 the Company was in difficulty as in the August of that year the then Company Secretary, a Mr. H. B. Barnett, issued a notice that a meeting would be held on September 1st to consider the ‘Financial and General Position of the Company, and determine whether the business of the Company ‘shall be continued or wound up voluntarily or otherwise, and to transact such other Business as may be necessary’. The decision was made to issue a Winding-Up Petition for the Company which was duly advertised in the London Gazette on September 25th 1891. On October 20th 1891 the Ketton Gas Works and Plant were offered for sale by auction. This included the Gas Manager’s House, Retort and Purifying Houses, Purifier, Scrubber, Condenser, Meters, Mains, and other Effects, on a site of approximately 600 square yards. It therefore comes as a surprise to discover that the sale of shares in the Company were still being advertised in the Stamford Mercury in May 1899 when thirty fully paid £5 shares were offered at auction. Clearly Ketton still enjoyed a gas supply for in May 1908 the Gas Works and Plant were again offered for sale as a going concern. The site was described as having a Stone-built and Slated Manager’s house, Stone-built and Tiled Retort and Purifying Houses, Gasometer, Purifier, Scrubber, Condenser, Meters, Mains, and other Effects. The purchaser was Mr. J.H.Silcox, the managing director of the Pontardawe (Swansea) Gas Company for £360. New ownership under new management resulted in a degree of investment for when finally the ‘fixed and loose plant’ was sold in April 1916 some of the equipment was relatively new. What effect the Great War had on the supply of coal, a labour force to run the plant, or the demand for gas is uncertain. Messrs. Richardson, the auctioneers, split the machinery into Lots, including a Gasometer in excellent condition with 6,000 cubic feet capacity, a new 3¼h.p. 1915 Gas Engine by Crossley with fitted water cylinder, a Gas Engine by Robinson of Manchester, a new 1914 Exhauster by Bryan, Donkin & Co., a Scrubber, a set of Condensers, a 1914 Station Meter by Willey & Co., a Winch for raising the Purifier Box Top, two Retorts Beds (one of three beds and the other of one bed) with lids, a Boiler, two Water Tanks, eighty nine new slot and ordinary Gas Meters, and thirty one Gas Cookers (1914). Along with other numerous Gas Fittings and other effects. The site was sold separately and in 1923 the cottage, retort house, outbuildings, along with about three miles of gas mains; was bought by Mr. Sivers of Ketton for £250. So ended Ketton’s gas supply until the arrival of natural gas sixty odd years later. Ketton Gas Works 1886 A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back Brazenose College, Stamford Nicholas J Sheehan 2024 Brazenose College in Stamford was reputedly a house occupied by disaffected students and masters from Oxford University during the Stamford Schism in 1333-35, when the rebel academics defected from Brazenose Hall and Merton College. [1] Tradition has it that one of the students took a brass nose-shaped door knocker from Brasenose Hall to Stamford, thereby providing a name for their new abode in the Lincolnshire town. Apart from its alleged association with the secession, little is known of this building. The designation of Brazenose College as an academic secular college or semi-collegiate hall [2] owes more to supposition than to hard fact. The first mention of a property in Stamford called Brasenose was in a lease in 1559, when a tenement belonging to the Corporation was known by this title. [3] A reference to ‘Phillip le maniciple atte Brasenose’ in 1335 [4] cannot necessarily be taken as evidence of occupation of the house by the migrant academics since Oxford antiquary Anthony à Wood added the words ‘in Stanford’ much later, [5] which may have been an unfounded assumption. Nonetheless, the surviving gateway indicates a thirteenth century date. [6] [7] After 1335 there is no indication that the Stamford property was used as a place of study. [8] Thomas Blore speculated that Brazen-Nose College was attached to the Grey, or Franciscan, Friars’ monastery ‘from the scite of which it is separated by a lane only.’ [9] The lane in question is most likely the modern-day Brazenose Lane but debate continues as to whether the identities of the Whitefriary and the Greyfriary were erroneously transposed by historians. [10][11] Fig.1 (a) Brazenose College and Gateway as depicted by John Speed in about 1600 (Extract of Stamford town plan inset in Speed’s map of Rutlandshire with Oakham and Stanford, 1611); (b) Drawing of College and Gateway based on Speed’s sketch Details of the structure of Brazenose College are literally sketchy. The Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England) surmised that it was a large stone building around a courtyard but it offered no evidence for this. [12] No doubt it had undergone many changes by the time it was described in the sixteenth-century lease as ‘a messuage called Brassen Nose in St. Paul’s [parish], with all houses, barns, stables and other buildings.’ [13] There are no formal images of the property and the only known illustration is the simple drawing on John Speed’s map of about 1600 (Fig.1(a)), which shows it as standing back from the street (now St Paul’s Street). The drawing depicts a L-shaped, two-storey building with a tower at its northeast corner and a detached gatehouse to the north affording access from the public thoroughfare (Fig.1(b)). Fig.2 Extract of a later version of Speed’s map showing the Brazenose Gate aligned with the boundary wall of the College grounds (Reproduced from History of Stamford by Rev C Nevinson) Speed’s illustration has been described as a generic representation and possibly an imaginative reconstruction. [14] However, credence is given to it by the illustrations of the town’s churches, where St Michael’s, St John’s, St George’s and St Martin’s churches are correctly depicted with towers and All Saints and St Mary’s with spires; also Browne’s Hospital which is shown with a bell lantern centrally on the roof as was the case before the almshouse was altered in 1870. [15] Sited centrally in front of the main college building, the freestanding gateway to the street appears to be recessed from the northern boundary wall. The rear of the College abuts the town’s east wall, close to where the latter veers away from Brazenose Lane before continuing southwards to St George’s Gate. Different versions of Speed’s map generally reproduce these characteristics of the central building faithfully but some show the gatehouse as being in line with the boundary wall (Fig.2). [16] Certain features of the College can be verified. Based on the visit of Brian Twyne, the Oxford antiquary, to Stamford in 1616, Wood recounts that the building retained its old name of Brasenose [sic] and that it had ‘a great gate and a wicket; upon which wicket is a face or head of old cast brass with a ring through the nose thereof.’ It also had a sizeable refectory. [17] Twyne stated that there was by then an alehouse in the hall and that ‘ye other rooms are put to other uses.’ [18] He did not mention any annexes, outbuildings or other auxiliary buildings. In 1673, when the College was in a very poor state of repair, Anthony Markham was given a building lease instructing him to spend £300 on the property within three years [19] but he paid to be discharged from the lease before any work was done. In 1688 Alderman Richard Burman was awarded a grant towards ‘flooring such roomes and glaseing soe much of ye windows as hee shall thinke necessary’ [20] but the building was instead pulled down in that year. Thirty-seven years later, in 1725, Alexander Morris, a workman involved in the demolition, told Stamford antiquary Francis Peck that the refectory, or hall, was a strange wide place with a fire hearth in the middle, adding that there were many little rooms and apartments about the rest of the house, with stone stairs leading up to them. [21] William Stukeley embellished this by stating that the house had ‘a fine hall or refectory and spacious lodgings with stone staircases up to the chambers.’ [22] Perhaps its use had changed again since Twyne’s visit. It is debatable whether there were sufficient grounds to justify Peck’s contention that the building was a typical university hall, or the supposition that the multiple little rooms were the students’ lodgings. [23] Nothing is known for certain about the use of the building. Fig.3 William Stukeley’s drawing of Brazen-Nose College* (Designs of Stanford’s Antiquitys, 1735) [*referred to herein as Brazenose Hall] After the medieval property was demolished, a new building, Brazenose Hall, [24] was erected close by on the site using recycled materials from the old college. [25] Stukeley’s drawing of this building in 1735 (Fig.3), [26] four years before it became the town workhouse, [27] indicates that it was erected immediately to the west side of the ancient gateway. The gateway is now incorporated into the front wall of the garden of the current Brazenose House at number 28 St Paul’s Street. James A Knipe’s plan of Stamford, from a survey carried out in 1833 (Fig.4), confirms the location of the original Brazen Nose College. It shows the northern boundary of the College site extending eastwards along St Paul’s Street to Brazenose Lane from the smaller of the two listed barns (A1, A2) flanking the entrance to what is now Stamford School’s car park (Fig.5). Fig.4 Extract of James Knipe’s map of Stamford, with the site of Brazen Nose College circled Fig.5 Site of Brazenose College (Drawing based on Knipe’s Plan of the Borough of Stamford and Saint Martin’s Stamford Baron, 1833) Unlike Speed (Fig.1(a)), Knipe does not show the east wall cutting sharply into the college site. The course favoured by the Royal Commission (Fig.6) corresponds to the present wall along the southern boundary of the car park and the ditch below it now occupied by cottages and gardens.[28] Fig.6 Line of the medieval town wall with its suggested course across the Brazenose site (A. is the site of St Paul’s Gate and B. the site of St George’s Gate. ‘scarp’ marks the present wall and ditch) [Drawing based on RCHME map] It has been queried whether the Brazenose Gateway was originally the entrance gate to the college, or alternatively whether it might first have been a doorway inside the building. [29] Twyne’s description of the brass knocker on the wicket door suggests that it was indeed the entrance gate. It has also been questioned whether the gateway now stands in its original position. Based on the information that he received from Alexander Morris, Peck tells us that the gateway ‘stood formerly more backward than it does now; but, when pulled down with the college, the corporation.....ordered it to be set up again, though not in the very same place where it stood before, yet as near as might be.’ [30] However, Markham’s lease in 1673 implies that the gate already stood alongside the street and the Royal Commission found no structural indication that it had been moved. [31] Stukeley’s drawing shows it directly alongside the new Brazenose Hall and opening on to the street (Fig.3). The gateway was left intact when this later building was itself razed to the ground in 1822. [32] Fig.7 Sketch map combining details from the maps of 1600 (Speed) and 1833 (Knipe) showing the possible location of the college buildings (From Clark, M. Archaeological Recording at New Carpark Stamford School, Stamford. Site of Brazenose College Stamford, 1995) An archaeological evaluation of Stamford School in 1992, and subsequent ground works in 1995, revealed the remains of walls which were thought to have been part of Brazenose College. [33] One of the walls, comprising irregularly-sized and rough-faced limestone blocks with a rubble core, was approximately 0.4 metres in width and mainly dry stone in construction. Roof tiles and a stone-lined well shaft were also discovered. Although lying within its precinct, no evidence was obtained that the well had existed in the time of the College. However, after the demolition of the college buildings there was no substantial building in that area of the site that might have warranted the construction of a new well. [34] Because the 1559 lease described an extensive range of buildings to its east, it has been surmised that the college may have been located slightly further to the west on the site than shown on Speed’s map (Fig.7). [35] Fig.8 Brazenose Gateway in Stamford The Brazenose Gateway (Fig.8) is now the only vestige of the putative medieval college. One of the oldest surviving architectural structures in Stamford, it was scheduled as an ancient monument in 1951 and was listed Grade I in 1954. [36] The gateway has been rebuilt on several occasions [37] but the general design has been retained throughout the various restorations. [38] Acquired by Brasenose College in 1890, the original Brazenose Knocker holds pride of place above the high table in the hall of the Oxford college (Fig.9(a)), while the present knocker in Stamford is a replica (Fig.9(b)). [39] Fig.9 (a) Original Brazen Nose Knocker on display in Brasenose College, Oxford (The iron ring has been replaced eccentrically); (b) Replica knocker on Brazenose Gate Brazenose College is integral to the story of Stamford’s ephemeral medieval university. Of all of the supposed colleges dubiously linked with the university, it has the strongest claim to a semblance of the truth. A print version can be downloaded HERE References [1] Sheehan N J (a). Stamford University: the stuttering dream. Stamford, 2012. pp.28-46 [2] Knowles, David and Hadcock, R Neville. Medieval Religious Houses England & Wales. London: Longman, 1971 (first edition published 1953). pp.455-56 [3] Hartley, John S and Rogers, Alan. The Religious Foundations of Medieval Stamford. Stamford Survey Group Report 2, 1974. Published by University of Nottingham. pp.76-7 [4] Hartley and Rogers [5] Wood, Anthony à. Historia et Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis, 1674, Vol.1. First published in English by John Gutch. Oxford, 1792; I: 432 [6] Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England (RCHME). An Inventory of Historical Monuments. The Town of Stamford. London: HMSO, 1977. p.144 [7] Madan, F. The Name and Arms of the College, including the Brazen Nose and the Stamford Migration. Brasenose College Quatercentenary Monographs. Vol.1. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909. pp.15-20 [8] Madan [9] Blore, Tho. An Account of the Public Schools, Hospitals, and other Charitable Foundations, in the Borough of Stanford in the Counties of Lincoln and Rutland. Stanford: Drakard, 1813. pp.23-24 [10] RCHME, pp.32-34 [11] Ball, Linda. Grey Friars or White Friars?: In search of Stamford’s Friaries. North Chailey: Chalybeate Books, 2021 [12] RCHME, p.144 [13] Hartley and Rogers [14] Smith, John F H (ed.). Stukeley and Stamford, Part II. Tribulations of an Antiquarian Clergyman, 1730-1738. Lincoln Record Society. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2023. p.82 [15] RCHME, Plate 67 [16] Nevinson, Rev C. History of Stamford. Stamford: Henry Johnson, 1879 [17] Wood [18] Twyne, Brian. Stanforde in Lyncolnshyre. Bodl. MS Twyne 22. fol. 92r (p.152) [19] Hartley and Rogers [20] Simpson, Justin. Stamford Parish Registers. (Extracted from the Reliquary Quarterly Journal and Review). p.216 [21] Peck, Francis. The Antiquarian Annals of Stanford (Academia tertia Anglicana). London, 1727. XI VII [22] Hartley and Rogers [23] Peck [24] Sheehan N J (b). The Brazenose Site in Stamford. http://stamfordlocalhistorysociety.org.uk/brazenose-site-stamford [25] Hartley and Rogers [26] Stukeley, William. Designs of Stanford’s Antiquitys, 1735. Plate 70; Designs, 75 [27] Hartley and Rogers [28] RCHME, pp.4-5 [29] Hartley and Rogers [30] Peck [31] RCHME, p.150 [32] Drakard, John. The History of Stamford in the County of Lincoln. Stamford: Drakard, 1822. p.609 [33] Lincolnshire Historic Environment Record. Site of Brazenose College, Stamford. HER number 30625. www.lincstothepast.com . Accessed 11.12.2011 [34] Clark, Michael. Archaeological Recording at New Carpark Stamford School, Stamford. Site of Brazenose College Stamford, SAM 256. Lindsey Archaeological Services, 1995 [35] Clark [36] British Listed Buildings. Brazenose College Gate. Retaining Walls of College www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en-193786-brazenose-college-gate [37] Rogers, Alan. The Medieval Buildings of Stamford. Stamford Survey Group Report 1, 1970. pp.42-43 [38] Sheehan, N J (c). Stamford’s Brazenose Gateway. Lincolnshire History and Archaeology. Volume 50 (2015). December 2018. pp.105-16 Previous Next

< Back The State of Stamford's Housing at the end of the Great War Chris Hunt 2022 At the General Election held in 1918. Lloyd George, a Liberal politician, and Prime Minister of the War Coalition Government, called for "a country fit for heroes to live in". If not fully accepted by all political parties, it was one that none could argue against. It was therefore not surprising that the resulting elected Coalition Government of which nearly two thirds were Conservatives Members of Parliament, followed this ethos by carrying out a number of reforms championed by their junior partners, the Liberal Party. One of these revolved around improving the housing stock for working class families. A commissioned Parliamentary report on housing was produced by the Tudor Walters Committee in November 1918. This led to the The Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act of 1919. The recommendation of the committee and the subsequent Act set the standards for council house design in the inter-war years. It was in this atmosphere that the Borough of Stamford Medical Officer of Health, Mr E.A.Hutton Attenborough M.B. B.S. presented his 1918 report to the town’s Health Committee in March 1919. Housing was a major concern and he stated that he would like to see upwards of 200 houses built to replace those he wished to see closed. And that these new houses should be built as a Garden City, either singly or in pairs, and not to be more than eight to the acre. Once built he stated that he would ask the Council to close every court in Stamford and also numerous streets. Not only closed, but demolished, thereby improving the ‘supply of air’ to adjacent properties and also allowing the widening of some roads in the Borough. As to the list of streets to be demolished in whole or in part: 1) Water Street. 2) North Street, including Belgrave Terrace and School Terrace. 3) East Street and Hope Terrace. 4) Elm Street. 5) Gas Street, Stokoe’s Buildings and Milner’s Row. 6) Welland Street and Tenter Lane. 7) Wharf Road, from St George’s School House to St Leonard’s Street. 8) North side of St Leonard’s Street, except Cornstall Buildings. 9) Brazenose Lane. 10) Bath Row. 11) Sheep Market, Castle Buildings. 12) Austin Street and Austin Friar’s Lane. 13) Eight Acres and Foundry Road. Besides these streets the Medical Officer of Health stated that there were numerous other houses dotted around the town which needed to be closed, and that there were some betterclass houses in the ‘condemned streets’ which his remarks did not apply to. Concerns were also expressed over the sewerage system in the town and the supply of fresh water, neither were adequate, even by the standards of the day. As to the sewerage system, this had been improved before the Great War, but was still far from perfect and some expensive alterations and additions were necessary. The report also raised concerns over the Water Supply, both in quantity and quality and that fresh steps were needed to provide the town with a pure and plentiful supply. It was his understanding that the Stamford St Martin’s and Wothorpe Water Works Company, whose proprietor was The Most Hon. The Marquess of Exeter was consulting experts on this matter. The Medical Officer of Health was of the firm opinion that the Borough Council should now procure powers from the Local Government Board to build at least 200 houses and that as these were built, then an equal number of the worst houses should be closed (and demolished). And that under such a State-aided housing scheme the first too benefit should be those who were living under conditions dangerous to health. The then private sector developers were continuing to build private housing after the War on the eastern edge of the town along Doughty Street and Rutland Road and subsequently Drift Road, Drift Avenue and Drift Gardens. But, it was the Borough’s Council House Policy with the development of the council house estates north and south of New Cross Road and the gradual condemning of the slums in the centre of the town, that so radically changed the shape of the town in the 1920’s and 1930’s, and improve the living conditions Aided by Government Legislation and the Medical Officer of Health’s Report presented to the Council in 1919 kick-started the post-war expansion of the town. A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back Uffington’s road block defences in World War II Nicholas J Sheehan 2023 Road blocks manned by local Home Guard units were important to British anti- invasion strategy and obstacles of different shapes and sizes were built in large numbers in the early 1940s. Anti-tank barriers were generally made of massive reinforced concrete blocks. These were often cubic and generally came in two sizes, with sides of 5 or 3ft 6in. They frequently had loops at the top for the attachment of barbed wire (Fig.1). According to an unpublished document in the Defence of Britain Gazetteer (1), an anti-tank block lies beside the main road (the old A16, now the A1175) through Uffington (2). Described as a rough cube of concrete, it is situated to the immediate south of the entrance to The Coach House (Grid ref: TF 064 075). Fig.1 Example of anti-tank cubes The object in this position is a large solid ‘cube’ (Fig.2) which measures 3ft x 2ft 8in at the top and stands just under 2ft high but is partially sunk into ground. Fig.2 Heavy solid cube close to the entrance to the Coach House on the A1175 through Uffington village A minimum of two such obstacles would be needed to obstruct the highway against invading tanks and indeed fragments of a second similar block can be seen a third of a mile away on the north bank of the River Welland, on the west side of Uffington Bridge (Fig.3(a) and (b)). (a) (b) Fig.3 (a) Fractured stone block near Uffington Bridge (March 2021); (b) Smaller fragment close by: a chip off the old block? However, the roadside cube appears to be comprised of natural stone rather than manufactured from cast concrete and it has no loop, holes or slots on any of its visible surfaces. Moreover, Uffington residents have no memory of a roadblock there during the war or of the cube being present in its immediate aftermath. It is thought to have appeared only after that section of road was diverted through the north-east corner of Uffington Estate in 1967, suggesting that the blocks might be remnants of the fabric of Uffington House which was destroyed by fire in 1904. Regardless of whether this was truly an anti-tank obstacle, Uffington was not without anti-invasion defences. As well as temporary timber barriers on the approaches to the village, simpler roadblocks against lighter vehicles were formed with concrete cylinders. One such example, measuring 2ft tall by 2ft in diameter, can be seen alongside the A1175 outside the entrance to Copthill Farm (Fig.4). Fig.4 Cylindrical concrete obstacle by the entrance to Copthill Farm (2013) Stocks of these concrete cylinders were also stored beside Uffington Bridge on Barnack Road, from where they could be manoeuvred into place across the road. A different type of roadblock was deployable at the south end of the bridge where sockets were cut in the road (Fig.5), into which steel girders or railway lines could be inserted vertically and old tyres passed over them and set alight. The road has been resurfaced many times since then and no trace remains of the sockets. Fig.5 Example of sockets for a ‘vertical girder’ type of roadblock Many road block defences were dismantled during the war and the rest soon after. Today, little remains of Britain's anti-invasion preparations and the provenance of Uffington’s putative anti-tank block is open to question. References (1). Osborne, Mike. Unpublished Document. Defence of Britain Gazetteer, 1999, p.7 (2). Monument record ML183582 – Anti-Tank Block, Uffington Acknowledgement I am grateful to Tom Francis (1928–2018), Paul Genever and Malcolm Towell for sharing their thoughts on Uffington’s wartime defences and the origins of the cube. A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back Town Bridge, Stamford By Nicholas J Sheehan The Town Bridge spans the River Welland, connecting the ancient burhs of Stamford and Stamford Baron. The stone bridge is the only vehicle crossing over the river and it carried the Great North Road (A1) through Stamford before a by-pass was built to the west in 1960. There may have been a bridge over the Welland since the early tenth century. Richard Butcher’s assertion that a stone bridge was erected by Alfred the Great, when he rebuilt the town after it was destroyed by the Danes, was disputed by Francis Peck and a more likely candidate is his son, Edward the Elder, when he established the settlement on the south side of the river in 918. The mention in Domesday Book of a bridge at Stamford confirms that one existed by 1086 but it is not until the twelfth century that there was definitely a stone bridge on the present site. Constructed of Barnack stone, the medieval bridge had five arches. Possibly it was rebuilt to a similar plan several times. When finally replaced by the present structure in the mid-nineteenth century, two of the central arches were higher and of a later date than the two on the northern half and their matching arch at the south end. However, the general appearance of the bridge may have remained substantially unchanged for over 600 years. The blocked surviving twelfth century arch has a span of about 21 ft. Drawing of the medieval Town Bridge based on a picture by J H Buckler, 1804 (Reproduced from Martin Smith’s Stamford Then and Now, 1992) In 1558, alderman John Houghton built a Town Hall and gaol over the bridge gate at the north end of the Town Bridge. Lord Burghley’s Hospital was founded on the south side by William Cecil in 1597, replacing the Medieval Hospital of St John the Baptist and St Thomas the Martyr which had been there since about 1174. Town Bridge and Bridge Gate with Town Hall above (from W Harrod’s The Antiquities of Stamford and St. Martin’s, 1785) Bridge Gate was demolished in 1777 when the Wansford Road Turnpike Trustees improved the road and provided a new town hall on St Mary's Hill. Even without this obstruction, the bridge’s single carriageway was described as the ‘narrowest and most dangerous nuisance between London and Edinburgh’. Able to accommodate only one carriage at a time, accidents, near misses and altercations for right of way were a frequent occurrence. Pedestrians had to retreat into triangular recesses in the parapets to avoid carts and horse-drawn vehicles. The bridge was owned by the Marquess of Exeter, who evidently found the responsibility of maintaining it onerous as evidenced by his offer in 1834 ‘to transfer to the Corporation, or to any other persons, the right of taking toll at Stamford Bridge in return for being relieved of the obligation to repair the bridge’. Lord Exeter was also responsible for repairing the potholed road for 100yd on either side of the bridge. Deemed to be ‘an extremely bad bargain’, the offer was rebuffed. In 1842, at the Marquess’s expense, the bridge was paved with large blocks of Aberdeen granite and a raised foot pavement of between two and four feet wide was added on each side, narrowing the carriageway further to only eight feet in width. While the upgrade may have enhanced the appearance of the bridge and the safety of pedestrians, it did nothing to improve the flow of vehicular traffic, allowing as it did for the passage of only a single carriage at a time. Condemned as ‘shamefully narrow and dangerous’ and a ‘great nuisance’, the fate of the bridge would be settled with the coming of the railway. The proposal by the Midland Railway Company to route the Syston to Peterborough Railway through Stamford was initially strongly opposed by the Marquess. The original intention was to build a station on the north side of the Welland and to lay the track on a level with the road at the end of the Town Bridge, where trains would stop and then proceed at a speed no greater than 4mph. The Parliamentary Railway Committees stipulated that the Midland Company should commit a sum of up to £5000 towards widening the bridge, which could be paid to Lord Exeter to carry out the work himself under the supervision of the Company’s engineer and surveyor. Eventually, the Marquess dropped his opposition to the railway, subject to the line being brought to a station on the south side of the river, where he could offer land for the purpose at upwards of £800 an acre. Faced with little choice, the Midland Company yielded to his demands, offering him £35,000 for the land in addition to £5000 to replace the Town Bridge. When the Syston and Peterborough Railway Bill was passed in the House of Commons in 1846, the contract for building the new bridge, to a design by local architects Edward and Henry Browning, was awarded to Robert Woolston, who was to use stone from Bramley Falls near Leeds and to complete the work by summer 1848. The new bridge, in a modern style, would consist of three arches (each of 30 feet span), with a 30-foot-wide carriageway and two footways, each of four feet in width; the parapets would be plain in appearance. To preserve access across the river throughout the duration of the work, a permanent causeway was constructed over the Meadows above the flood level and new bridges were installed at the sites of the George and Lammas bridges. A temporary footbridge was also erected from Mr Harper’s wharf to Water Street. The new roadway from St Martin’s to Sheepmarket was completed in July 1847 and demolition of the old bridge began that month. However, work was bedevilled by setbacks and progress was quickly halted by bad weather causing repeated flooding of a coffer dam, which necessitated driving fresh piles and creating a new watercourse before workmen were able to resume the task of removing the foundations of the old bridge. The delays and extra costs were financially crippling for Woolston and by March 1848 he had made a loss of £2,000 on the project. Despite negotiating a contract extension, he declared himself bankrupt the following month and Edward Browning then assumed direct control of the building operation. The bridge was eventually finished in March 1849 but its opening was postponed until 1 May pending completion of the Toll House at the north end. The final cost was about £8,000, which, after subtracting the Midland Railway Company’s contribution of £5,000, left the Marquess £3000 out of pocket. Toll House Front door of Toll house with date stone above (Photos N J Sheehan) With the opening of the new bridge, the Marquess provoked outrage by extending the scope of the pre-existing tolls to include the livestock and loaded vehicles of inhabitants and non-resident freemen of the town. The legality of this was questioned as no tolls had been taken in living memory from the townsfolk, who were believed to be exempt under the charters of Edward IV and James II. This cut no ice with the Marquess and, in the face of defiant resistance, the tolls were sometimes violently imposed. However, with increasing opposition to payment, the tolls became less attractive to potential bidders each time the lease was put up for auction. Unsuccessful in his attempts to pursue payment through the courts, the Marquess finally admitted defeat and abolished the tolls in 1868 in return for the Corporation undertaking responsibility for the maintenance and repair of the bridge. The toll house duly closed. The Victorian bridge comprises three low arches with cutwaters and solid parapets. It partially incorporates the blocked southernmost arch of the medieval bridge, which survives next to the substructure of the twelfth-century hospital of St John and St Thomas. Town Bridge (Photo John Daffurn) After assuming responsibility for its upkeep, the Corporation erected two ornamental gas lamps, one on each side of the centre of the bridge, which were later increased to four to provide sufficient light and achieve a satisfactory appearance. In 2017 when the lights were rusted and encrusted with grime, their columns were restored and repainted and new lanterns with LED lighting were installed. Town Bridge (Photo N J Sheehan) The Town Bridge has been the scene of serious flooding when the Welland has burst its banks. After a flood in 1570 damaged the north end of the bridge it was rebuilt at the expense of William Cecil. Other major floods occurred in 1641 and 1880; a plaque on the bridge records the flood line on 15 July 1880 when the river reached its highest level for two hundred years. The crossing over the Welland is still a pinch-point for vehicles approaching the town centre from the south. Measures to reduce traffic across the Town Bridge have included the imposition of a 7.5 tonne weight limit for HGVs. Nowadays, tail-backs still build up on either side of the bridge but three-phase traffic lights impose a degree of order on the flow of conveyances. Town Bridge is Grade II listed. Bibliography Mahany, Christine and Roffe, David. Stamford: The Development of an Anglo-Scandinavian Borough. Anglo-Norman Studies 5, 1983 Peck, Francis. The Antiquarian Annals of Stanford, 1727 Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England. The Town of Stamford. London: HMSO, 1977 Lincolnshire HER. Building record MLI94679 – Town Bridge, Stamford Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury 1834-1859, 1868, 1994, 2006 Historic England. The Bridge, Stamford - 1062178 A printed version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back Sufferings of the Early Quaker Community in Stamford Chris Hunt 2023 Hidden amongst Quarter Sessions Records are cases against the non-conformist religious communities between 1662 and 1689. With the restoration of Charles II, Parliament introduced a number of Bills which when enacted allowed the courts to challenged the rights of religious dissenters. The established Church saw the Quakers as a challenge, not just a threat to their religious primacy, but also due to their refusal to pay tithes and ecclesiastical taxes. Starting with the Quaker Act in 1662 and the Conventicle Act in 1664, there began a period of official persecution in England and Wales. The persecution of Dissenters was relaxed after the Declaration of Indulgence in 1687 and 1688, and finally stopped under the Act of Toleration in 1689. Unfortunately, the Stamford Quarter Sessions records from the 17th century which have survived suffer from water damage that make them in most cases unreadable. However, Joseph Besse, published in 1753 a detailed nationwide account, entitled, ‘A Collection of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers’. This work has been re-published in recent years, understand the title of the ‘Sufferings of Early Quakers’. Within it are recorded two entries for Stamford. ANNO 1682 In November was a Meeting at a Place called St. Martin’s belonging to the Town of Stamford; to which came an Informer named Hawkins, of Market Deeping, and another Person whom he had hired to assist him. These brought with them some Parish Officers, and without producing any Warrant carried those that were met before a Justice, and made Oath, that William Collington, of Stamford, preaching in that Meeting, when indeed he had not, but the Meeting was held throughout in Silence: However the Justice certified the Mayor of Stamford according to the Information sworn before him, whereupon the Goods of the said William Collington were seized to the value of £20. ANNO 1683 Jane Redsmith, a poor Widow, for a Meeting at her House in Stamford, had all her Goods in Stamford, had all her Goods taken from her to the Value of £10 0s 0d. Taken also from William Collington and Elizabeth Moll, for being at the same Meeting, Goods worth 15s 0d. Are there any other Court Cases? Clearly until the damaged rolls are restored these two entries remain our only court records to the Quakers in Stamford in the 1680s. Chris Hunt (February 2023) A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back John Flowers Bentley (1810-1884): Stamford Polymath John Daffurn 2024 When Richard Newcomb gate-crashed the opening of the new, Bryan Browning designed, home of the Stamford Institution in 1842 he wanted to highlight the origins of the Institution four years earlier. Standing amongst the nobility and gentry of Stamford he stated that the Institution was “…originally projected and established by those who did not occupy the highest stations in life…” ( Lincolnshire Chronicle [ LC ] , 25.3.1842). That was indeed the case, as the provisional committee of the yet to be formed Institution, established at a meeting at Standwell's Hotel on 3 April 1838, comprised mainly of local shopkeepers ( Stamford Mercury [ SM ] , 6.4.1838). The interim chairman of this committee was Frances Simpson Jr, a soap-maker, and Thomas Fricker, the young editor of the Lincolnshire Herald and probably the most erudite amongst the group of grocers, ironmongers, curriers, jewellers and drapers, became its interim honorary secretary. The provisional committee pushed for a public meeting at the Town Hall which was held on 5 June 1838 where motions were passed to create an institution, with its attendant officers and committee. One motion thanked the provisional committee for promoting their cause and Francis Simpson, its chairman, responded: “…I feel Mr Mayor that it is a duty particularly incumbent upon me to make known to you the names of those of whom this provisional committee was composed; because, whatever good or ill may accrue from the institution we are about to form, (and I trust there can be none of the latter), will be attributable to those who had the moral courage to take the first steps towards its promotion and therefore their names shall not remain “ in umbra ” –shall not sink at once into oblivion– but, with your kind indulgence, I will now read them. First, let me mention that of Mr John Flowers Bentley, whose indisposition (which I hope will be of short duration) accounts for his absence from this meeting. He, it was, who first agitated this question, or, at least first mooted it to me…” ( LC , 22.6.1838) From instigator, to honorary secretary, to committee member, John Bentley’s association with the Stamford Institution spanned twenty-five years. John Flowers Bentley was baptised on 27 May 1810 in the village of Haconby, near Bourne. His father John Bentley Sr, the son of a farmer, was born in Swinstead, and his mother Sarah Flowers was born in Haconby. Within four years of John’s birth the family moved to the hamlet of Guthram Gowt, midway between Bourne and Spalding. There, Bentley’s father ran the New Inn and farmed some adjacent land. From 1815, John’s siblings were baptised in Bourne and, without a church in Guthram Gowt, that is the likely location of John’s schooling. There is no evidence of John Bentley’s education or early employment, but the life of Robert Sandall and a newspaper advertisement in 1863 provide clues for a hypothesis. Sandall was born a year later than John, in the neighbouring village of Rippingale, and was also a farmer’s son who eschewed work on the land. Sandall, who may have also been schooled in Bourne, became apprenticed to the bankers Eaton, Cayley & Co, and later joined Bentley on the provisional committee of the Stamford Institution. Many years later, in 1863, when John Bentley left Stamford, it was noted that he had been associated with the Eaton, Cayley & Co bank for almost forty years ( SM , 25.12.1863). If that statement is true, it might also place Bentley as an apprentice with the bank at the same time as Sandall. Were they also childhood school friends? After completing his apprenticeship, Sandall, at the age of twenty, moved to London before returning to Stamford to join the Northamptonshire Bank, on Stamford’s High Street, as a clerk. Bentley, on the other hand, if indeed working at Eaton, Cayley, may have remained with the bank for a while longer. However, by 1834 he was trading as a tobacconist on St Mary’s Street (Pigot & Co Directory , 1835). Within months of the publication of that directory, Bentley moved to the High Street where he had bought a property two doors away from the post office ( Stamford Borough Rate Book , 1836). He transferred his tobacco business, selling the finest Havana cigars, to the new shop, but also in March 1835 opened a glassware and crockery business on the same premises ( SM , 20.3.1835). The business seemed to prosper as Bentley regularly advertised his wares in the Stamford Mercury , but later in 1836 a curious advertisement appeared regarding the sale of shares in Reeth Consolidated Mining Company, a copper-mining company in Cornwall, stating that those wishing to buy shares should apply to J F Bentley ( SM , 30.9.1836). Is it possible that Bentley was also an investor? A year later, it was discovered that the managers of the mining company had issued a fraudulent prospectus and subsequently the shareholders lost their money. It may be a coincidence, but in 1837 Bentley discontinued his glass, china, and earthenware business, auctioned his stock at the Assembly Rooms, and advertised his property on the High Street to be let or purchased ( SM , 21.7.1837). Soon after the demise of his business John pushed for the formation of a scientific and literary society in Stamford, either because he wanted access to more information for himself or because he was driven to provide knowledge to a wider audience. The latter is more likely the case as is evidenced in his later life. Despite knowing that John spent a lifetime acquiring an extraordinary range of knowledge in science and nature through self-learning, the catalyst for this educational drive is unknown. Was he a star pupil at Bourne with a thirst for knowledge? Did he borrow books from Mr Rooe’s subscription library on the High Street? After the Stamford Institution was formed and its first home was established in Broad Street in 1838, John Bentley became its honorary secretary, taking over from Thomas Fricker who had always intended to stand down. Although Eaton, Cayley brought John back into the bank and provided him with an income it is possible that he resided at the Institute’s premises for at least eight years: at Broad Street (1841 Census) and on St Peter’s Hill (White’s Directory , 1846). Fig 1. First Stamford Institution site at 49 Broad Street (right) Fig 2. Stamford Institution, St Peter's Hill In 1840, Samuel Sharp, the stepson of Richard Newcomb, was elected to the committee of the Stamford Institution and became a close friend of John Bentley, especially in the field of geology. By 1842, Sharp had given up the idea of succeeding Newcomb as proprietor of the Stamford Mercury , instead taking over the bookshop and subscription library of Matthew Rooe, and later becoming an important Stamford geologist and antiquary. Evidence of John Bentley’s attained knowledge, his wish to absorb more current thinking, and his self-confidence came in 1844 when, either as a representative of the Stamford Institution or in a personal capacity, he attended the annual conference of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) in York ( Yorkshire Gazette , 28.9.1844). This prestigious association was formed in 1831 with the objectives of acquiring scientific knowledge, disseminating it through discussion, and furthering science by removing obstacles to progress. The BAAS met annually, for almost a week, at different British locations where papers were read, presentations given and debates held. Whilst John had some credibility as the Honorary Secretary of the Stamford Institution he was in the presence of, and certainly not equal to, a heady mix of the cream of British and European science. These noblemen, doctors, British and overseas professors, Fellows of various societies, together with amateurs interested in science, attended the various lectures split into four distinct groups, each with its own committee : Physics (including Mathematics), Chemistry, Geology, and Natural History ( Old England , 8.7.1832). On those committees sat some of the greats of British science, mathematician Babbage, astronomer Herschel, chemist Faraday and naturalist Darwin. Fig 3. Schönbein (left) and Faraday (right) at 1846 BAAS conference Bentley continued to attend these gatherings until 1850 when the conference in Edinburgh was his last (Reports of the Annual Conference of the BAAS, online at https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/ ). In Southampton, for the 1846 conference, Bentley was expecting to see Professor Schönbein of Basle demonstrate his, as yet unpatented, gun-cotton. The opening of this conference, attended by eight hundred persons, on Thursday 10 September was graced by the presence of Prince Albert who had sailed across from Osborne House. After the formal proceedings, the prince was introduced to Prof Sch önbein who privately demonstrated his gun-cotton by exploding some in the hand of Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary ( Hampshire Advertiser , 12.9.1846). John had to wait until the following Tuesday to see this for himself, but Prof Schönbein did not appear, as he was in London trying to patent his invention. In his place, W R Groves Esq demonstrated a sample of the new explosive material, although the process of manufacturing the gun-cotton remained vague pending patent approval. On returning to Stamford, John recreated his own version, and gave a demonstration which was witnessed by the Stamford Mercury . The paper commented that Bentley “… (whose self-acquired knowledge of the principles of chemistry is as honorable [sic] to him as it is interesting to those who have the advantage of his acquaintance) …” had been experimenting and succeeded in mixing proportions of sulphuric and nitric acids to coat the cotton so that, once dried and lit, it exploded with a greater force than gunpowder and without giving off smoke or leaving a residue ( SM , 6.11.1846). He was not the only scientist in Britain or Europe that succeeded in such replication, but John pleaded in the Stamford Mercury article that Prof Sc hön bein be credited as the originator of the idea. Another of John Bentley’s interests, which he shared with Samuel Sharp, was fossil collecting and he would regularly visit the quarries around Stamford, especially those at Ketton and Collyweston. It was at a slate quarry in Collyweston that he discovered the fossil of a rare gastropod which was unique to the area. In 1851, the famous geologist John Morris and pal æ ontologist John Lyell registered the fossil’s name as Phyllocheilus Bentleyi , after its discoverer. In their later publication Morris and Lyell said that the name of the Collyweston gastropod “is complimented to J F Bentley Esq of Stamford who has enriched our knowledge of the fossils of that locality” ( A monograph of the Mollusca from the Great Oolite , p.15). Later variations were named Pteroceras Bentleyi and Malaptera Bentleyi . Fig 4. Phyllocheilus Bentleyi fossil The census of 1851 shows that John was no longer living at the Institution, but in Bath Row, next door to the public bath (probably no. 15), with one servant and with the stated occupation of bank cashier. Later that year the Great Exhibition was opened in London, housed in the Great Shalimar, a purpose-designed building erected by Brunel (later removed and renamed Crystal Palace). Six million people visited the Great Exhibition during the six months it was open, with towns all over the country running special excursions to satisfy the interest. Amongst its exhibitions was an “exceedingly fine specimen of honey in its comb” by Mr J F Bentley of Stamford ( SM , 13.6.1851). Whilst the breadth of John’s interests seemed to know no bounds, he was also a generous man with both his time and money. In 1836, he donated to the repair fund for the re-building of St Michael’s church and in 1853 for the repairs and re-pewing of All Saint’s church. Later in 1853 he was appointed as joint auditor of the Stamford Burial Board together with his friend Robert Sandall. To the Stamford Institution he presented two maps (1854), and two glass cases of stuffed birds (1860). This was in addition to the numerous presentations he gave to the Stamford Institution and to other societies in later life. Fig 5. Oxy-Hydrogen Microscope In 1856, after eighteen years of service as Honorary Secretary to the Stamford Institution, John Bentley decided to resign . During those years, he had organised meetings and talks, sought donations of books and artefacts, and given lectures to its members. His tenure was greatly appreciated and the committee arranged for a testimonial where he was presented with an oxy-hydrogen microscope ( SM , 4.1.1856). These microscopes enabled objects to be magnified up to two million times and displayed on a wall or screen, enabling John to present his collection to a wider audience. Bentley was then a forty-five-year-old bachelor, and after leaving his honorary position he remained an active member of the Institution, being elected to its committee in 1859, where he continued to influence the society, as he had done since its formation. In Stamford, John would have known Richard Yates, either through the bank, the Institution, or by visiting Yates’s draper’s shop next to the Portico on the High Street. In 1860, Richard’s wife died in childbirth at the age of twenty-nine, and a year later Richard married Anne Lovell in her parent’s town of Wells, Somerset. Anne’s sister Emma was a draper’s assistant, and it is possible that Anne, with similar skills, had been recruited to work at Yates’s draper’s shop where her relationship with Richard grew. Bentley’s possible connection with Richard Yates may have influenced his later life. In 1863, Bentley’s station in society moved up a gear. The Midland Banking Company (not to be confused with the Midland Bank) was expanding and J F Bentley Esq was appointed manager of its Peterborough branch together with its satellite branch in Ironmonger Street, Stamford ( SM , 25.12.1863). This was ideal for John who, although having moved to Peterborough where he lived at the bank’s premises at 25 Long Causeway, continued to have strong social links to Stamford. Bentley’s mind was always active and his drive consistent. In 1868, he applied for a patent for “improvements in the mode of sinking or forming wells and in the apparatus to be used therefor, part of which improvements are also applicable for the sinking of cylinders or caissons for other purposes” ( London Gazette , 20.4.1869). Later that year, at a meeting of the Peterborough Agricultural Society John demonstrated another invention, a portable steam engine water filter, that he had patented a few months earlier. Within a year a company, Coulson & Wear on Wharf Road, Stamford, was advertising ‘Bentley’s patented water filter’ as sole agent ( SM , 15.3.1870). Also in 1869, Richard Yates, the draper, died leaving his wife Anne as a widow and son Richard Lovell Yates without a father. Anne subsequently moved to Rose Cottage in Tinwell. Behind the scenes in Peterborough, John must have been working to form a new society, as in May 1871 the Peterborough Natural History and Field Club (later the Peterborough Natural History and Archaeological Society, and now the Peterborough Museum Society) was founded, and Bentley became its first president. Besides John Bentley, the other founders may have included Dr Thomas Walker, a Peterborough surgeon and past secretary of the British Archaeological Association, and Henry English who was appointed as the society’s first honorary secretary. Another person linked to the early days of the society, and whose name remains most associated with it, is John William Bodger. When the society was formed Bodger had just turned fifteen and was little over a year into his chemist apprenticeship. In the autumn of 1873, he replaced Henry English as honorary secretary and soon after also became the society’s treasurer and curator, holding at least one of those positions until his death sixty-six years later. In his obituary he was credited as being “the principal mover in the founding of the Society”, however, one wonders if this was an embellishment of a revered gentleman and so-called ‘Father of the Peterborough Museum’ , almost seventy years after the event ( Peterborough Standard , 17 February 1939). Would a fifteen-year-old in the Victorian era really have pressed the likes of Bentley and Walker into founding such a society? Or, was his father, who presented a paper on “Oxford Clay” to the society in 1872, the adult driver, with his son, who was already collecting geological specimens, in tow. It must be assumed that even if not a founder the young man was one of the original members and, in Bodger, Bentley may have recognised his younger self, taken him under his wing, and supported him as the replacement honorary secretary when he was seventeen. Fig 6. Former Midland Banking Company office at Church Street In what must have been one of the society’s first field trips, members took a train to Ketton on Whit Monday 1872, and from there walked to Collyweston, Easton, Wothorpe and Burghley Park. Some visited the slate quarry at Collyweston, where Bentley had discovered his gastropod fossil, while others concentrated on the botany of the area. After the morning session they retreated to the Blue Bell Inn at Easton-on-the-Hill where they had an “excellent luncheon, kindly given by the esteemed president of the society, Mr Bentley” (SM , 24.5.1872). The afternoon session took longer than expected and the party had to cancel their proposed visit to the museum within the Stamford Institution. At the Midland Banking Company, in 1872, Bentley called for tenders to build new banking premises at the junction of Church Street and Cross Street in Peterborough ( SM , 21.6.1872). After it was completed in the spring of 1873, it also became John’s home. Between 1870 and 1875, John Bentley’s workload increased dramatically due, one assumes, to his willingness to take on additional responsibilities and to those promoting his energy and skill. During this period, he seems not to have shirked any approach for his time. Besides his day job as a bank manager, covering Peterborough and Stamford, he assumed many other roles: Chaired monthly meetings as president of the Peterborough Natural History Society Committee member for the Peterborough Workman’s Exhibition Treasurer of the Peterborough Literary Society Chaired meetings of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Workers Chairman of Peterborough Gas Company Committee member of the Peterborough Science and Arts Classes Member of Peterborough Improvement Commissioners Member of Peterborough Urban Sanitary Authority On 5 February 1873, Samuel Sharp Esq, FSA, FGS presented the second part of his important paper on the “Oolites of Northamptonshire” to the Geological Society in London together with a large collection of fossils and other geological specimens ( SM , 7.3.1873). Sharp was praised for the collection by Mr Etheridge FRS, the Government pal æ ontologist, and Mr Woodward of the British Museum commented how valuable the collection was compared to others as the fossils were linked to their stratigraphical location. In reply Sharp stated that the collection was not solely his own, but also that of his friend and former co-worker Mr Bentley, of Stamford. A couple of months later on consecutive days, two significant events changed John Bentley’s personal life and shaped the town of Stamford. Firstly, on 8 May 1873, at St Clement Danes church in London, sixty-three-year-old bachelor John Bentley married thirty-year-old widow, Anne Yates of Tinwell. It is assumed that John knew Anne through her late husband Richard, but what was the motive for marriage by this confirmed and extremely busy bachelor? Was it romantic?... there were no subsequent children from the union. Or, was it a logical relationship based on mutual need? Busy John, now a pillar of society, wanting support and home management, and Anne desiring financial security and a father-figure for her nine-year-old son Richard Lovell. Secondly, a day later on 9 May 1873, at a meeting of the newly formed Stamford Freehold Land Society (SFLS), J F Bentley Esq was appointed as its president ( SM , 16.5.1873). It is possible that, as the Land Society’s first president, he was also its founder, continuing to demonstrate the leadership he had shown when instigating the Stamford Institution in 1838, and founding the Peterborough Natural History Society in 1871. The formation of the SFLS was a direct result of the impending enclosure of the Stamford open fields. It had been a long time coming and was one of the last local enclosure acts in England, receiving its Royal Assent in 1871. The fields totalling 1,700 acres ran in a semi-circle around the north of the town from Tinwell Road in the west to Deeping Road in the east. However, the enclosure did not occur until the allocation of land, the preparation of deeds and their conveyance was completed in 1875. The SFLS was formed in anticipation of the enclosure which would free up land for building domestic properties. Land societies were a form of building society: members joined for a fee and bought shares, the income from which was accumulated to buy building plots. The plots were then sub-divided and allocated to members by a ballot for priority. The advantages to its members were lower costs for the land and legal fees, and the ability to become a freeholder which secured the right to vote. Eight acres of land were allocated to St George’s church in an area called the North Fields. Although the conveyance of this land was not completed until 11 August 1875, an agreement was reached in 1874 for the SFLS to purchase the North Fields site for £220 per acre ( SM , 13.11.1974). There was some committee dissent regarding this acquisition due to the extravagant price demanded by the church and the distance from the town. However, under the chairmanship of John Bentley it was passed narrowly with a majority of eight to seven. Fig 7. Conveyance indenture for Northfield's plots An early conveyance (November 1875) for several of the plots can be seen in Fig 7, with an enlargement below it, showing the Northfields area split into 107 building plots. Over the years these plots were sold by the SFLS in what is now known as the Northfields Conservation Area and a variety of terraced houses and larger villas gradually filled the available land. Fig 8. Plot allocation on Northfield's estate After his marriage in 1873, John Bentley and his wife lived temporarily at Bank House in Peterborough. However, at the end of that year John rented Balcony House in Glinton, a substantial 17th century house, largely rebuilt in the 18th century, and now listed Grade II. The house was owned by the Giles farming family who worked the land attached to the house. This new location was convenient for John’s interests in Stamford and Peterborough, being roughly equidistant between the two. Fig 9. Balcony House, Glinton Bentley’s involvement with the SFLS, and in particular the Northfield’s development, gave him an insight into land management in that area. And, in 1876, when the heirs of James Torkington Esq decided to sell the site of a former brickyard John took the plunge and bought it at auction. In 1873, Stamford Corporation had named the rough roads around the brickyard as Recreation Road, New Cross Road and Conduit Road, bounded to the south by the already named East Street. The brickyard had ceased operating in 1874 and remained undeveloped until Bentley acquired it, knowing that it could provide housing between the new Northfield’s estate and the Eastgate entrance to the town. By 1881, two terraces (Templar’s Cottages and Woolston’s Row) and four villas had been built on the land. One of the villas (probably Merriott Cottage) was occupied by the builder Thomas Woolston, who one assumes built Woolston’s Row (1881 Census). Woolston later, in 1886, built a larger house (Laurel Villa) for himself on Recreation Road and adjacent to Woolston’s Row, but he was not a good businessman and in 1889 was adjudged bankrupt. Fig 10. Houses built on the brickyard site prior to 1881 The new buildings in the brickyard, especially Woolston’s Row, were built at a low level because of all the clay that had been removed from the site for the bricks. As a consequence, the houses were prone to flooding and in 1880 the Council was petitioned to solve this “pressing nuisance” ( SM , 3.9.1880). As the discussion between Bentley’s solicitor and the Council were held ‘in camera’ the outcome is not recorded, but in December 1880 two advertisements were placed for tenders to lay drainage pipes. One by the Council for Recreation Road and the other on behalf of Bentley for Woolston’s Row both running down to the main drain at the junction of East Steet and Eastgates. Between 1886 and 1888, and unfortunately after Bentley’s death, the roads of the old brickyard were adopted by the Corporation. One was named New Street but the other, which replaced Woolston’s Row, became Bentley Street, after its late owner J F Bentley: a lasting reminder in Stamford, even though nobody has recently been aware of the connection. Fig 11. 3-5 High Street, Leicester, after being taken over by Grand Clothing Co. The resignation by John in 1877, due to ill health, from his positions as Treasurer of the Peterborough Literary Institute and President of the Peterborough Natural History Society may have been the first sign of him slowing down. However, he was still a bank manager, active with other societies, and also a property developer in Stamford. It is not known exactly when John retired from the bank, but it probably coincided with its acquisition by the Birmingham, Dudley & District Bank in 1881. This is supported by his move away from the area in March 1882, when Balcony House was advertised to let by William Giles ( SM , 24.3.1882). The change in location away from both Stamford and Peterborough suggests that all work, public service and extramural activities had ended and that his body and mind were starting to decline. Anne and John Bentley joined Anne’s sister Emma in the centre of Leicester where Emma owned a substantial draper’s business, E Lovell & Co, at 3-5 High Street (the impressive Marlborough House). It was a large property in the heart of the city, later taken over by the Grand Clothing Hall Company (see Fig 11). On 10 February 1884, in the presence of his sister-in-law Emma, John Bentley died, and the cause of death was later given as senile decay. Anne Bentley continued to live in Leicester after John’s death, remaining close to her sister. Later she moved to Rothley, a village near Leicester, where her sister joined her, after retirement from her drapery business. It was from Anne’s Rothley residence, in 1914, that she presented an enlarged photograph of her late husband, John Flowers Bentley FLS, to the Peterborough Natural History Society. It is assumed that FLS signified his fellowship of the Linnean Society, which would make sense given his interest in nature and fossils, but the Linnean Society archivist is unable to verify his membership. The presentation photograph of John Bentley cannot be located, but it is possible that Fig 12 is a copy of the original. Fig 12. John Flowers Bentley Esq F L S © Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery Anne’s son, Richard Lovell Yates, emigrated to Australia sometime before 1889, where he married and had two sons. The first, Richard, was killed in action in Gallipoli during WWI. In what may signify more than anything about John Bentley’s character is that Richard Lovell, who was John’s stepson throughout his formative years between nine and nineteen, named his second son John Bentley Yates. John Flowers Bentley, a farmer’s son, had been involved in banking for almost sixty years, from possible apprentice to bank manager. In addition, he had been a shopkeeper, a public servant sitting on various committees, and a property developer. However, for almost his entire life he was driven by a search for knowledge across a wide range of subjects. He was a chemist, fossil collector, apiarist, geologist, naturalist, botanist and inventor: a polymath. John Bentley’s drive to acquire knowledge was matched by his wish to imbue others with that which he had learnt. This is demonstrated by his push for the Stamford Institution and the founding of the Peterborough Natural History Society, where he often shared information through presentations, at times using his testimonial oxy-hydrogen microscope. Now, in Stamford, his name lives on in the form of Bentley Street, and globally geologists know of him for the rare Bentleyi fossils. © John Daffurn 2024 A print version can be downloaded HERE Other articles about Stamford Institution: The formation and first home of the Stamford Institution (1838-1842) The Stamford Institution Previous Next

< Back John Clare and Bull Running 1819 Chris Hunt 2018 John Clare’s Autobiographical Writings which are preserved in the archive at Peterborough City Library leads us into the early life of the poet. In manuscript A32 (p18-22) after stating that he left employment at the New Inn at Great Casterton, he continues with: - ‘I left Casterton on the Bull running day at Stamford and on calling on Drury I fell in with John Taylor whom I found was the Editor of my poems then in the press and nearly ready for publishing, he was visiting at Mr Gilchrists and in the evening they sent one of the servant maids to Drurys to invite me to go.’ John Clare’s first collection of poems – Poems, Songs, and Sonnets, Descriptive of Rural Life – was published in January 1820. Bull running day in 1819 was a Saturday. The previous day on Friday November 12th 1819 the Stamford Mercury published two of Clare’s poems. ‘To A Primrose’ and ‘The Setting Sun’, under the by-line ‘Sonnets by J.Clare, An Agricultural Labourer, of Helpston, near Stamford. These poems, are ones that he had revised again and again having starting them back in 1807/1808 when he was only fourteen or fifteen. The versions published in the Mercury are slight variants of the ones that appeared in print the following year. On the adjoining column was an anonymous anti-bull running letter to the Editor of the Stamford Mercury. A view strongly supported by Richard Newcomb, the then owner of the paper. Perhaps Clare read the paper on the Friday at Casterton and then walked into Stamford on the Saturday feeling flushed at seeing his name in print. Stamford’s famous, or should that be infamous, annual bull running taking place on November 13th would have been a further draw to Clare as it must have been to others of his class from surrounding villages and towns. It can be best described as being a local public holiday and a day when the judiciary was powerless to control what could become an unruly mob. Between 1809 and 1834 we are lucky to have in Stamford two local newspapers of very differing political views. Drakard’s Stamford News and the Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury. Although, it would be true to say that the Mercury was more a regional paper than a local one. At this time the Mercury supported the Burghley interest whose Members of Parliament followed the Tory line. The 9th Earl of Exeter in 1788 having supported the Borough Council in its first attempt to outlaw bull-running. Drakard on the other hand was pro bull-running, and took every opportunity to highlight hypocrisy amongst the nobility and his paper supported radical causes. On one occasion he was horsewhipped in his own Office by one of the Brudenell family, he was taken to court by Newcomb for libel, and spent time in prison for an article published in his newspaper on corporal punishment in the British Army. John Drakard’s view of the 1819 bull-running was that: - It grieves us to acknowledge that the sport was unusually bad. The bull did not face one of his followers, and dishonoured the character for courage and ferocity which he had obtained in his native pasture, and which, as usual, caused his selection. We regret this, because we like the sport, and, more especially, because the want of spirit in the animal encouraged the mob to load his horns, and press upon it, and give an appearance of cruelty to the diversion, from which we affirm no amusement is, broadly speaking, more exempt. We say this advisedly, and are prepared to stand up against all contradiction to the assertion, ‘like Atlas unremoved’. The Stamford Mercury however took a different view, stating: - The lower orders of Stamford had their annual uproar, the bull-running, on Saturday last. It is creditable to the town that the taste for this sport seems to be dying away: it was with difficulty that a sufficient subscription could be raised for the purchase of a bull. A person of Pickworth for £9 delivered his poor animal for the torture. The manner of the bull’s death, after it had run about the town for several hours, was, extremely savage and shocking: at the back of St Paul’s Street it was stuck, but before the life was out of it, numbers of persons, each eager to have his shilling’s worth of the flesh, cut pieces (hide and all) from the lacerated and reeking carcase, and bore them off in triumph for their feasts. One fellow in his haste, actually fell into the paunch of the animal, and was nearly suffocated. Whatever was happening on the streets of Stamford that Saturday it would be true that John Clare was at a turning point in his life? The previous day he had had two poems published in the Stamford Mercury which would be picked up by other regional papers around the country. He had met his London editor for the first time and whilst with Edward Drury he wrote some more poems that appeared in his first volume. Talk of the forthcoming book of poems resulted in Drury’s advert the following week in the Mercury including the line: - Shortly to be published by E.Drury, Poems, Songs, and Sonnets, Descriptive of Rural Life by John Clare a Northamptonshire Peasant. TO A PRIMROSE Welcome, pale primrose starting up between, Dead matted leaves of oak and ash that strew, The every lawn, the wood, and spinney through, Mid creeping moss, and ivy’s darker green, How much thy presence beautifies the ground, How sweet thy modest unaffected pride, Glows on the sunny bank and wood’s warm side And where thy fairy flowers in groups are found, The schoolboy roams enchantedly along, Plucking the fairest with a rude delight While the meek shepherd stops his simple song, To gaze a moment on the pleasing sight, Overjoyed to see the flowers that truly bring, The welcome news of sweet performing spring THE SETTING SUN This season how beauteous to the musing mind! That now swift slides from my enchanting view. The sun, sweet setting you are hills behind, In other words his visit to renew, What spangling glories all around him shine, What nameless colours cloudless and serene, (A heavenly prospect brightest in decline), Attend his exit from this lovely scene. So sets the Christian’s sun in glories clear, So shines his soul at his departure here, No cloudy doubts nor misty fears arise. To dim hope’s golden rays of being forgiven, His sun sweet setting in the clearest skies, In safe assurance wings his soul to heaven. Source Stamford Mercury November 12th 1819 A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back The Social Impact of the Church in Victorian Stamford John F H Smith Lecture for Stamford Museum’s Winter Lecture Series, given 26 March 1998. (The transcript of the lecture has been edited by Dr N J Sheehan. with the author’s permission, for publication on the SLHS website) Editorial comment – This article contains references applicable and relevant to around the year 1998. Readers should take account of this and make the necessary allowances. To historians it is one of those well-known facts that until the present century, church and state in England were inextricably mixed so that any discussion of the social impact of the church can cover the whole spectrum of social, personal, civic and political life. Tonight, I am going to consider two aspects of the social impact of the Church: . how the church system was integrated into the secular social administration of the town; . the social side of religion itself: the various charitable works it undertook or stimulated, and a look at how the different denominations and sects within the town saw and reacted to each other. The emphasis will be on the 19th century but I shall be taking examples from earlier as well as the 20th century. I chose the 19th century because it was an age of transition; a time when the old medieval institutions that had governed the country for hundreds of years were seen to be inadequate for a country undergoing the massive upheaval of an industrial revolution. And of course, we were the first in the world to undergo this; there were; no guidelines; no precedents! The upheaval was not less because Stamford was a small conservative country town on the sidelines of such changes. If anything, it perhaps made it more difficult; the need for change was less, yet was demanded by the spate of new legislation. It was perhaps the native conservatism of our town fathers, and a subtle adaptation of the nationally imposed legislation, that helped retain Stamford's character and uniqueness. Today, unless one lives in a Muslim state or in Northern Ireland, we have a problem of perception and understanding as to how church, state and social life could be so inextricably mixed. Curiously, we quite accept it with secular institutions - could anything be more medieval than parliament? - but in this post-Christian age we do not extend the same tolerance to the Church. We have less sympathy for, and certainly less understanding of, medieval church institutions done up in new, sometimes not so new, clothes playing such an important part in social life. This is particularly so since most of these roles have long been taken over by the state or purely secular charities. 1851 RELIGIOUS CENSUS There is no doubt over the statistic that today well over 95% of the population does not regularly go to church, and I think we are well above the average in Stamford with about 3% church attendance. It is most probable that a majority of the country does not even believe in the traditional Christian view of God. It is therefore very hard for us to imagine today the impact the Church had on everyday life, say 100 years ago, where virtually everyone believed in the Christian idea of a personal God and well over 50% of the population were regular churchgoers. As this average figure included the large new industrial cities where the churchgoing habit had largely been lost, it shows how solidly churchgoing were the smaller traditional towns such as Stamford. We are lucky in that we have some precise figures to substantiate this claim, as right in the middle of the century, at perhaps the apogee of Queen Victoria’s reign, 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, a unique religious census of England and Wales was undertaken. Every Anglican incumbent, every Roman catholic priest, every dissenting minister was asked to fill in a return for attendances on Mothering Sunday, 30 March. The report, published in January 1854, concluded that 54% of the nation attended a church of some sort on that day, though modern historians have modified this figure to between 47% and 54%. While we think this an amazingly high figure, the Victorians thought it low and were shocked at the number of people who were not going to church. They were also shocked by how many dissenters there turned out to be, almost two thirds of Anglican numbers; particularly as before the fear had been of Roman Catholics, who turned out in fact to be fairly thin on the ground. One may argue about the accuracy of the census: the method of collecting, that the adjustments to account for people going to church more than once were extremely crude, that Stamford presented its own special problems - censuses being always held during fair week distorted the numbers of people in the town - but all these do not detract from the value of the survey and what it tells us about the church in Stamford. It shows us, for example, that church attendances on that Sunday were 79% of the population – 6776 out of a population of 8933. While, of course, this does not mean that 6776 people attended church, even using the census report's own crude calculations for double and triple churchgoers, it gives us a figure of 59% - 5% above the national average - which is what I suppose we should more or less expect. Actual figures may surprise us. Remembering that the town's population was only half what it is today, it was recorded that 850 people attended the evening service at St Michael's and, if one includes the Sunday school, well over 500 attended the morning service at St Martin's. Isn't it interesting that these are the most poorly attended churches today? In fact St Michael's was so poor that it was closed during the 1960s. It is also interesting to note that over 1,700 children attended the town's Sunday schools on that day, 500 of which were in the non-conformist schools. This is an extremely high proportion of school age children and probably reflects a number of reasons: piety (possibly more on the parents' part than the children themselves), getting the children out of the way for a while in crowded home conditions, and the patchiness of day school education - we mustn't forget this was 20 years before the Forster Education Act and 30 years before compulsory state education. The report also shows the relative support for the various denominations in the town. Roman Catholics were fairly thin on the ground at 3-4% of churchgoers, as the Stamford Mercury had also noted when the first RC chapel was being built in All Saints' Street in 1825, but this was about the national average. Dissent was much less strongly represented in Stamford than nationally - 29% of the churchgoing population as opposed to the 44% national average. This meant the Church of England was stronger - 67-8%, rather than the national 52%. Again, this confirms what we suspected: that Stamford was a very traditional and conservative town, with traditional beliefs, following the national established church. This, then, is the background. Let us now take a closer look at the church's influence upon town life. Just as we cannot appreciate fully the impact of Christian belief and strong churchgoing habits on the community, we are even less able to comprehend the part the church played in the civil administration of the town. The Anglican parish was the hub of the community and at the beginning of the 19th century carried out a wide range of duties that today we should see as the province of local government. It was: · the centre of the Poor Law a dministration and after the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act was the basis of the groupings that made up the Poor Law Unions, · responsible for road maintenance and attendant paving and lighting (though it had the main arterial roads taken away from it during the 18th century with the establishment of turnpike trusts), · had the power to charge a separate church rate for the maintenance and repair of the parish church, · the basis for collecting tithes to pay the stipend or salary of the parson, · usually the stimulus for and controller of parishioners, and · generally ran a number of charities that had accumulated through the centuries. One of its major functions, therefore, was that of a statutory body with the power to raise taxes and, as such, was the centre of the civil administration of the town. Developed to administer a late medieval community, when there were no such things as dissenters (that is, non-conformists) and we were all part of one national church, there was no problem; but from the Reformation onwards society was not so homogeneous. There were considerable numbers of dissenters and Roman Catholics in the town who would grumble like the rest of us over the Poor Rate or Highways Rate, but would have a much more substantial and stronger objection to paying tithes for the stipend of the Anglican parson or paying rates for the repair of the parish church. THE VESTRY On the other hand, the system for its day was quite democratic. Parish administration was carried out by means of the vestry, a meeting of all parish residents with property qualifications (that is, a ratepayer but after 1869, merely an occupier) and was a very direct form of government. One did not elect members to represent you, but as a qualified parishioner you went along to take part directly and vote. It was almost an Athenian form of democracy. From the huge number of Stamford Mercury reports of vestry meetings, in Stamford they seem to have varied in size from a handful to over 200. From 1831 onwards legislation made it possible to streamline the system and elect smaller ‘select vestries’ to undertake parish business, but this opportunity was not taken up in Stamford. It seems to have been aimed at the larger towns and cities. This vestry was chaired by the rector or vicar (which of course gave him considerable power in addition to his right to appoint one of the two churchwardens) and met annually and as occasion demanded to elect officers and officials, and set parish rates. For example, in the early years of Queen Victoria's reign Stamford parish vestries were electing churchwardens, overseers of the poor, poor law guardians, surveyors of the highway, turnpike trustees, improvement commissioners and trustees for the various parish trusts, as well as appointing various officials, such as the parish watchmen, to carry out parish duties and fulfil legal requirements. As many of these posts carried a salary as well as to authority, the commissioning power of the vestry itself was considerable. The other side of the coin of Catholics and dissenters having to pay for things they didn't want - tithes and the church rate - was that they were equally represented on the vestry. As long as they fulfilled the residential and property qualifications, it didn't matter whether parishioners were Anglican, Roman Catholic, Dissenter or even atheists (though there were not many of these around at the time). All parishioners had their rights and could vote on the full complement of subjects, including the purely ecclesiastical. We therefore have the curious anomaly of Catholics and dissenters electing Anglican churchwardens as well as setting parish rates and the like. This right remains even today in vestigial form; any parish resident has the right to be on the church electoral roll and vote for the churchwardens at the annual vestry, a meeting that still precedes the parochial church council AGM. The powers of the parish were gradually eroded during the 19th century. I have already mentioned the removal of arterial roads maintenance to turnpike trusts, but in the 1830s came much larger inroads into the parish's powers. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was the first large dent and removed the ultimate responsibility for the "care" (I put that word in inverted commas) of the poor and destitute. From then on parishes were formed into unions, which in Stamford's case stretched from Clipsham to Stibbington, and while individual parishes still elected guardians to sit on the general board, parishes thereafter were hardly more than tax assessment and collecting areas. Sweeping in on the coat tails of the Great Reform Act of 1832, the Municipal Reform Act of 1835 made a formation of the borough council possible. This in turn led to further inroads in the secular powers of the parish with the creation of the Stamford Improvement Commission in the early 1840s. This removed from the parish things l ike roads, lighting, paving and embryonic planning controls. The demise of the parish as a secular body came in 1894 when an act established secular church councils as a further part of local government reform. Thus, within a space of 60 years the parish had been transformed from being the administrative hub of local government to being a secular irrelevancy. The situation is summed up by the position of the incumbent; he was demoted from being ex officio chairman of the old parish vestry with powers of both patronage and appointment to not being even a member of the new parish council unless standing for the election like anyone else. In Stamford, this demise should have been felt more strongly as there were no succeeding secular parish councils, the remaining powers devolving onto the more distant borough council. It is telling of the gradual decline of the old parish system that this was hardly noted at the time. ADMINISTRATION OF THE POOR LAW I want now to look in a little more detail at some of the functions of the parish in its heyday. Perhaps the largest social function the parish played in the life of the town was in the operation of the Poor Law. At the beginning of the 19th century the system of poor relief was based on Elizabethan legislation passed to deal with a very different society - an agrarian economy and with problems quite different from those of industrialisation three centuries later. One of the major problems in the 16th century had been caused by dissolution of the monasteries carried out by Elizabeth’s father, Henry VIII. The monasteries had been an important source of relief for the poor, not only in direct aid but by sheltering from the world large numbers of monks and lay brothers. The end of direct relief, together with the release into the wider world of the large numbers whom the monasteries had previously sheltered, caused huge problems. It was also complicated by the change of farming practices in many parts of the country , that is, the turning over of large tracts of countryside to relatively labour free sheep farming, the practice that Thomas More railed against in his Utopia . This dispossessed many and added to the problem of able bodied, or “sturdy” vagrants as they were called, wandering the land. They were the phobia of the Elizabethans and one of the major stimuli behind their poor law legislation. The basis of this poor law administration was the church parish – thus the problem was transferred from one church organisation to another – and it was charged only with looking after its own poor and destitute. The problem of "sturdy vagrants" was merely shunted on to the next parish. Unfortunately, not all the wandering poor were "sturdy vagrants' and the old poor law could not cater for the truly destitute stranded away from their birthplace. It was therefore a great disincentive to the mobility of labour by the poor in a changing world. The other great debate in the early 19th century was that of outdoor relief. The old poor law allowed support to be given to families living in their own homes, who though possibly working still were too poor to support themselves - the parish workhouses were reserved for the destitute and homeless. This had led to the depression of wages and pauperism as employers saw that they would be made up to subsistence level by the community. This sort of abuse was patchy throughout the country and it has been claimed that the East Midlands suffered from it less than many other parts. However, the figures I shall produce in a minute show a different picture. There was therefore a very strong case for reform but like so much legislation, today as well as in the 19th century, it was a case of trying to save money as much as reform the abuses. The new poor law, that is, the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, reformed the administration by grouping parishes into unions, and, for the first time in centuries, Stamford became the centre of a sensible administrative district, the Stamford Poor Law Union, a union of thirty-seven parishes stretching from Clipsham in the north to Stibbington in the south; from Tixover in the west to West Deeping in the east. Parish workhouses were replaced by a single union workhouse, built on the Barnack Road in 1836 at a cost of £3,645, situated where there is now a turn-of-the-century terrace set back from the road, a little before you come to Newage's. This workhouse was demolished in 1902 and replaced by a new one in Ryhall Road. This was, until recently, the St George's Home and the site is now occupied by the Whitefriars old people's homes. The other great change was the prohibition of outdoor relief and the establishment of the principle that life inside the workhouse must not compare with that of the poorest who were surviving outside. Arguably conceived from the best of motives, it left a pretty stark choice for those unfortunates who had to choose between starvation and the workhouse. I come from a generation old enough to have heard first hand tales that illustrated the horror of going into the workhouse that still persisted at the end of the century. Having said this, o utdoor relief was not entirely abolished in Stamford and there are a number of references to it in the Stamford Mercury , though as a report in 1851 [23.5.51:3.1] notes, “the check on vagrancy” (that old bugbear) “continues”. It was, as I said before, a case of our town fathers adapting national legislation to local needs. There are numerous literary illustrations of the harshness of the operation of the new poor law, Oliver Twist , for example, but real-life examples, I think, have more poignancy. I shall give only one to set the problem at our own doorstep. In September 1838, Catherine Whaley of St George’s parish received little justice from the system. Three weeks previously, her husband had run off leaving Catherine and their five children destitute. The Whaleys had been married eight years, but then it was discovered that the marriage had been bigamous. Mr Whaley had previously married another woman, with whom he had lived for three months! Catherine’s children were therefore “bastardised” (as the Mercury delicately puts it) and were dealt with accordingly by the law. The three children born before the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act had to be sent to the parish of their birth, so one was sent to Little Gonerby near Grantham and the other two were put in the charge of St George’s parish in Stamford. The other two children born after 1834 took on the birth parish of their mother and were sent with her to St John’s. Gonerby was in the Grantham Union so that child was sent to the workhouse there. There was only one workhouse in the Stamford Union, the new one on Barnack Road, so it is possible the two St George’s parish children may have had a little more contact with their mother, but this would have been severely limited. Ah, but the system did save money. In March 1839 the Stamford Mercury [1.3.1839:4.6] reported that nationally the new system was saving 36% upon the cost of the former system: £4,808,735 in 1837 as against £7,511,219 in 1834. In the Stamford Union the saving was much greater at 45%: £3,609 against £6,599, with the six Stamford parishes averaging 42.5%: £1,508 against £2,621. In the Mercury piece on the national picture stress was placed upon the savings made in administration and employment of officers and, additionally, the Stamford figure is probably distorted by proceeds from the sale of the former parish workhouses put up for auction in the second half of 1836. But the Mercury explanation doesn’t account for the bulk of the saving which was almost certainly due to the elimination of outdoor relief. Isn’t it strange that no reference is made to this by the contemporary report when it was one of the major reasons for the legislation. Perhaps the world wasn't so old fashioned then, the official explanation only containing one half of the story, and that the unimportant half. It shows what a long training our modern politicians have had. As an aside, it is not clear where all the former parish workhouses were. The site of the St Martin's one is known because it survives in Water Street, until a few years ago occupied by Hopkins the electrician and recently converted to a house. It still retains on its south side the large windows by which the inmates were able to see to carry out their prescribed work. For others we know the street or area, for example, the St John's workhouse was in Scotgate, but not the precise location. Let us then recap on the Church's position. As we have seen, the parish first administered the poor law totally and then, after 1834, elected guardians to the general union board and acted as a poor rate raising and collecting unit. The parish's responsibilities were diminished, but it hit the incumbent even harder. Instead of having to deal only with his parish overseers over whom he could exert influence, he now had to deal with a large organisation of 37 local parishes, from Clipsham to Stibbington, which appointed their own full-time officials as well as relying on the parish overseers. Having said this, such were the mores at the time that it is unlikely that any parson would have disagreed with decisions such as given over Catherine Whaley. It was in keeping with thinking of the time which in turn was in accord with the contemporary Christian principles and interpretation of theology. But practically, it did remove the direct dealing with problems from the local community and substituted bureaucracy for personal contact. THE CHURCH RATE One area of great concern to everyone in the early 19th century parish was the church rate. This was the right of the parish to charge a general rate for the repair of the parish church. In a homogeneous society where the whole population supported the national church, it would have been a sensible system, but when there were considerable numbers of dissenters and Roman Catholics about – and if you remember, between 30 and 35% of the churchgoing population in Stamford was non-Anglican (or just over 13% of adults in the town’s total population [using Mann’s calculation]) - then it was bound to cause trouble. The dissenters and Roman Catholics had a legitimate grievance in resisting paying for the repair of a building they disliked intensely, was the home of a national church which they felt to be doctrinally wrong and which they only entered unwillingly (before their own registration) to be married or buried from. There was also a feeling that the whole matter of quarrelling over the church rate or tithe (which I shall come to) was unseemly and un-Christian. It is interesting to note that in November 1838 the Mercury printed a long extract from the London Globe on this very subject stating that the feuding and wrangling over these things was promoting a general spirit of contention and animosity in congregations. Despite this, there are numerous examples of the church rate being levied in Stamford to repair our six (as there were at the time) medieval parish churches: for example, St Mary’s called emergency vestry meetings in 1841 to levy a rate to deal with the huge split that had appeared in the church causing the chancel to separate from the nave; and the church rate was used to help finance the various repewings of Stamford churches that took place during the 1840s and 1850s. But there were also moments of levity in the vestry meetings. At a St Mary’s vestry in April 1852 a dissenter complained that he was being charged for payments made to the church organist and choir as part of his church rate. These were not part of the fabric and therefore illegal. Some wag pointed out that this individual’s house had a rateable value of £11 when it was worth well in excess of £20 and as the Mercury says , “It was resolved...to make him pay one way if he would not another”. Other oddities, but of a more generous nature, can also be recorded, as in May 1851 when the St Mary’s vestry voted itself an additional and voluntary church rate to allow a young girl in the parish to emigrate to New Zealand. The rector was himself emigrating and was to escort her. If one were really cynical one might wonder if this might have been a cheap way of getting the fare of the rector’s personal maidservant paid, but the Stamford Mercury , normally quick to pick up such things, made no such comment. For many years the church rate had been stoutly resisted, especially in the towns, not only by the dissenters and Roman Catholics but also by many Anglicans who had accepted that the situation was unfair. There had been a great outcry in St Michael’s parish over the rebuilding of the church which had collapsed in 1832. The rector’s attempts to enlist help f rom the parish for rebuilding was met by strong resistance, and in the end it was rebuilt totally by subscription. This, however, is a special case as the parish felt, not without reason, that it should not foot the bill for rebuilding as the responsibility for the church's collapse lay firmly at the door of the rector. If you remember, he had had the “brilliant” idea of enlarging the church's seating capacity by pulling down every other one of the medieval columns, not apparently realising that columns have a structural significance. Church rates staggered on until 1868 when Gladstone abolished them, but there is one interlude in between which, if it had succeeded, would have had major repercussions today. The church rate had been abolished in Ireland in 1833 and an attempt was made the next year by Lord Althorp to do the same for England. Althorp's bill placed the responsibility for the cost of repairs to England's ancient parish churches at the door of the Treasury. Though the bill passed comfortably through the House of Commons, it got lost in the dying days of Lord Grey's Whig government and was never resurrected. But what a change it would have made! It was not until 1977 that state aid was made available for church repairs and even today the roughly £10 million pounds given to churches by the state is rather more than counterbalanced by the £17 million taken back in VAT (just to keep the lecture topical!). Gladstone's approach in 1868 was quite different from Althorp's. In the intervening years, the growing unpopularity of the church rate had led to the principle of church repair by voluntary subscription or contribution, as at St Michael's, being widely accepted. All Gladstone did was to capitalise on this. It was very sensible at the time, with well over half the population committed to the Established Church, and additionally let the government off an extra financial burden, but it makes it very hard for us today when a tiny proportion of the population bears almost the whole cost of this major part of the nation's heritage. Actually, to be technically correct, Gladstone did not abolish church rates, he just made them voluntary instead of compulsory. Every Anglican parish still has the theoretical right to levy a church rate, but you can refuse to pay. That’s why they’re never levied! TITHES The other great grievance of non-Anglicans was having to contribute towards the stipend, or salary, of the Church of England p arson through the payment of tithes. Again, this was a medieval custom that ultimately derived from biblical Judaic practice and meant that a tithing, or tenth, of all gain that the land produced was to be given to the church. Originally this had been in the form of produce and was the reason for the great medieval tithe barns that still dot the land. Tithes had always been unpopular and people would go to infinite ends to under-declare or get out of paying. The general attitude is summed up in this late 17th century song from John Dryden’s play King Arthur, and set to music by Henry Purcell. One particularly rumbustious song sung by a chorus of yokels has a verse: We’ve cheated the parson, we’ll cheat him again, For why should a blockhead have one in ten. One in ten, one in ten, For why should a blockhead have one in ten. In Stamford the amount paid in tithes depended on the holding in the open fields. The position was regularised with the Tithe Act of 1836 which allowed the commutation of tithes in kind for a cash payment, a tithe rentcharge based on the average price of wheat, barley and oats over a period of seven years. After the act these sums were generally assessed at about two thirds of the real value of the tithe, but incumbents were happy as previously they had been lucky if they had been able to prise half out of unwilling land owners. The tithe rentcharge, being set by a tithe commissioner, saved a tremendous amount of unseemly wrangling between land owners and incumbents. In actual practice, cash payments had been made for some years and it was in May 1828 that James Torkington, the Stamford Town Clerk, came to an agreement for a cash settlement with the Rev Thomas Wilkinson, vicar of All Saints’, the largest and most influential parish in the town. It was then agreed that the vicar would receive £370 per annum in lieu of the great and small tithes. This was based on about 1,200 to 1,300 acres of the Stamford open fields lying in All Saints’ parish and a tithe of about 6/- per acre (or 7/6d when the poor rate, highways rate and land tax were added). Accordingly, in May 1839 All Saints’ became the first parish to be assessed under the new system. The tithe commissioner, Mr Rawlinson, accepted the principle established by Torkington and Wilkinson and set the tithe at the same level, £370, though based on a more recent set of averages. I imagine the new vicar, Nicholas Walters, was delighted, not only because £370 per annum was a handsome salary in those days, but because he had scored a personal victory over the Town Clerk. He had secured the small tithes of £30 (for potatoes, clover, etc.) that Wilkinson had been persuaded to forego. Other parishes were not long in following All Saints' example, but as the century progressed tithes gradually fell into disuse. However, it was not until 1936 that the tithe rentcharge was finally extinguished after some civil disobedience by East Anglian farmers. It is not within the scope of this lecture to explain how this was compensated for; suffice it to say that sorting out Anglican clergy stipends was a very long process involving the Ecclesiastical Commission and Diocesan Boards of Finance. They were only finally sorted out, if anything can ever be said to be finally sorted out in the Church of England, as recently as 1976 with an Endowments and Glebes Measure . REGISTRATION The other major area where the established church became an arm of the state was that of registration - births, deaths marriages - and as before it became a grievance of Dissenters and Roman Catholics. At the beginning of the 19th century they were not allowed to be married or buried from their own churches (unless you were a Quaker or a Jew who had had special acts of parliament passed for them). The need of the modern state to have more information about its own people led in 1812 to an act of parliament in an attempt to get the information in the parish registers recorded more formally. From now on registers had to be given proper protection and quarterly returns of births deaths and marriages had to be made to the diocesan registrar. Dissenters and Roman Catholics were deliberately excluded from this process because, as the church historian Chadwick says, "their ministers were of insecure tenure, their chapels impermanent [and] their registers chaotic". That, as far as the last criticism is concerned, the same applied to many Anglican churches did not make any difference, and so for another quarter of a century Dissenters and Catholics had to use the parish church for marriage and burial. But 1836 was not 1812 and during the intervening period the restricting Test and Corporation Acts had been repealed and the Catholics emancipated. The situation was resolved in the latter year with a series of registration acts. From then on Dissenters and Catholics could be married from their own churches, as long as they were licensed. The Star Lane Independents were licensed in July 1837, as were the Roman Catholics at about the same time. The acts also relieved pressure for burials in the already overcrowded parish church graveyards, but this problem in Stamford was not solved for another twenty years, until the new town cemetery was opened off Little Casterton Road in 1854. EDUCATION/SCHOOLS It was, I think, the Jesuits who said, "Give me the child for the first seven years and I’ll give you the man.” They were. of course, talking about education; more precisely education into a particular mode of thought. The churches at this time were certainly not slouches in putting this axiom into practice and were the great stimulus for the advancement of education. There is no doubt they were doing this for altruistic reasons, but there is equally no doubt they were each operating their own agenda. In this age, before universal state education, schooling was given to those who could afford to pay for it, and for those who couldn't, it was provided at a profit by the supplier - the commercial profit of the private schools, or the profit to society of a better educated people who emerged from schooling as sympathetic or an adherent to your particular brand of Christianity. In either case, the promotion of social order and the habit of obedience to one's social superiors was also an essential ingredient. You probably have a vague memory from your schooldays that the first schooling for the poor was provided by Sunday schools, popularised and put on a national footing by Robert Raikes from 1780 onwards. While this interpretation is generally correct, like so many things we learnt at school it is a little simplistic. In Stamford, for instance, the Stamford Grammar School, or Radcliffe's School as it was then known, was founded in the 16th century to provide education for a number of poorer boys; and the Wells Charity or Petty School was endowed and established in St Peter's Street in 1604 to educate as many boys as his old house would accommodate, according to the will of Stamford shoemaker Edward Wells. Bluecoat School was founded in 1704 and was able to educate and clothe about 40-50 poor boys. The first Stamford Sunday school, on the other hand, seems to have been St Martin’s, founded about 1785. By 1801 it had about 270 children attending, though this is in conflict with the opinion of William Wilberforce, the famous reformer, who passing through Stamford in 1798 commented, “At Church, miserable work. Remnant of Sunday school, eight children! I have never seen a more apparently irreligious place”. However, it was not long before other parishes had set up their own Sunday schools and the Dissenters were quick to follow. While religious instruction would be given in all schools, instruction in the three Rs would also be given in the Sunday schools. There is a note in 1822 that the Independent Chapel (now URC) Sunday school in Star Lane was giving reading and spelling instruction to about 100 children. For the majority of these poor, the Sunday school would be the only formal education they would receive. By the early 19th century, schools were being set up by the dozen . A longside the large number of tiny dame schools, for example, Miss Bee in Barn Hill, the Misses Lowe in St Mary's Place, or Miss Wakefield in Broad Street, more substantial establishments were set up either by the parishes directly or with strong religious connections. In 1815 money left over from a lying-in charity helped establish the National School for Girls (later St George's School) which with the Bluecoat school for boys became one of the major schools for the poor of the town. The name National is significant because it meant the school had almost certainly accepted a grant from the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church, and therefore had a particular religious affiliation. The National Society was founded in 1811 but three years later a non-denominational society, the British and Foreign Schools Society, was founded to counter this established church influence. Though claiming to be non-denominational, it inevitably had strong Dissenter influence. In 1838 when the Bluecoat School was rebuilt and expanded on St Peter's Hill (now the Masonic Centre) to cater for 150 boys instead of the previous 40-50, it stated its education would be according to the British and Foreign Schools Society system. They had presumably accepted a grant from them. In this case there was no inevitable Dissenter connection, for only sixteen years before the author of Drakard's History of Stamford had been fearful that Bluecoat, like the girls’ National School, was going over to the Madras system, which had Anglican associations. However, the result was that it attracted large numbers of Dissenters’ children and went down that path. Because of the mix of its children, it decided not to teach the catechism which aroused the fury of the Anglican clergy. They were so agitated that they refused to attend the first public examination at the school in 1839 which led the Stamford Mercury , a paper itself with strong liberal/nonconformist leanings, to accuse them of bigotry. It was inevitable there would be a school in the town under dissenter influence to counterbalance the growth of the Anglican parish schools. St Martin's day school was founded in 1833 and the new building of 1855 by the London architect Henry Clutton still survives today as the Stamford High School music school on the corner of Kettering Road. Later there followed St John's School on the corner of Scotgate, All Saints' School in Austin Street and St Michael's School on the corner of Recreation Ground Road (now the site of the Salvation Army). As well as this, the Anglican parish would have considerable influence in the other schools. The vicar and churchwardens of All Saints' awarded the lease of the Wells Charity School and this same triumvirate of incumbent and churchwardens in St George's parish dominated the National School. Side by side with the day schools the Sunday schools flourished to give the number of 1,700 attending on a typical Sunday as we saw earlier in the 1851 religious census figure. As we have seen, they taught the same subjects as at the day schools and in many cases the same day school masters and mistresses taught the Sunday schools in the same buildings. From the 1830s the government made small grants available for school building and during the 1840s these expanded hugely. It is most likely that the Stamford parish school building programme benefited from them. From 1840 grants were conditional on the schools accepting independent inspection and management, but as we have seen from the Bluecoat case above, and numerous other earlier examples, Stamford was already doing this. In other ways Stamford was conventional and followed accepted practices - the monitorial system of teaching in the earlier part of the century and the discredited 'payment by results' system in the 1850s and 60s. When the Forster Education Act was passed in 1870, Stamford was so well endowed with schools, all the major ones with strong religious connections, there was no need to establish new Board Schools. The result today is that of five primary schools in Stamford, three of them are Church of England schools, and of the other two, one of them, Bluecoat, has strong religious associations. LIBRARIES Alongside the schools we must not forget the libraries, for again, the church was the first institution to provide such facilities. Church or parish libraries go back to the Middle Ages and there survives today a medieval chained library in Hereford (All Saints, recently moved to the cathedral). St Wulfram’s at Grantham also has a surviving chained library, and a library was established at St Mary’s Stamford in the early 17th century by Richard Bannister, churchwarden but better known as an eye surgeon. Not all the works in the parish libraries were religious but naturally they were what we should call rather heavyweight, with a preponderance of theology and the Church Fathers, plus a smattering of commentaries, philosophy and the natural sciences. The library at St Mary’s, which still survives in the church, is distinguished because by the early 18th century it had been reformed and in 1721 had become one of the earliest lending libraries in the country. At least one book remains there that retains its contemporary list of borrowers on the flyleaf. This lending library predates considerably the first public subscription library in Stamford which was established in 1770. Wider public readership was only attained by the establishment of the Stamford Institution in 1842, but this secular library was rivalled by a parish library set up by All Saints in 1846, where the poor of the parish could borrow books every Monday morning for their edification - from Mr Maxey's establishment in St Peter's Street. It was, of course, not until 1906 that the present public library was established in a refurbished Portico, High Street, where it still remains. GENERAL CHARITY I said I was going to talk about the social side of the general charitable nature of the various churches in the town. Obviously, what we have just been considering - the poor law, the rates, tithes, education – all were important in a wider social context and there is evidence to show that Stamford followed national movements inspired by Christian and humanitarian concerns. For example, in June 1832 the Stamford Mercury records a proposal to establish an anti-slavery society here and s imilarly notes celebrations in the town when abolition of slavery in the British colonies was achieved the following year. What I wish to avoid now is merely a list of good works or individual charities run by the various religious groups. It would take a whole lecture just to run through the annual Stamford social calendar listing things like the regular charity balls - Lying-In Charity just before Christmas, Dorcas Charity just after, etc.- or the annual appearance of the soup kitchens in winter. These do not seem to have been treated as emergencies at the time for they were so regular as to be part of the annual calendar. The only variation was their number, which depended on the severity of the weather. Another important feature of the social round was the religious lecture. They were extremely popular, though to our eyes hardly distinguishable from sermons, and individual lectures regularly attracted audiences of well over a thousand. It rather puts into the shade what we consider the undoubted success of these museum lectures. To show how far this extended, during the 1830s and 40s even the smallest parish in the town, St Mary's, not only had a curate but also a separate lecturer (just as Boston retains today). The Victorians still have a very bad press today and one of the most serious charges against them is that of hypocrisy. Nowhere, apparently, is this better illustrated than in contrasting, say, the establishment of the Church of England Temperance Society tea-room in Broad Street (now the dry cleaner on the corner of Ironmonger Street) with the alcohol problems suffered by the clergy themselves: for example, MacDougall of St Michael's who had to be protected by his friends after becoming 'tired and emotional' in church one day, or Micklethwaite of Little Casterton being found staggering drunkenly up Nags Head Passage one day in 1907. But this is as much our hypocrisy as theirs. In making these judgments, we are ignoring the equally blatantly obvious cases of double thinking that pervade our own society, but at the same time we wilfully misunderstand the Victorian epoch, which was grappling with changes in society that were the equal of anything we see today. And they were doing this, unlike today, in a world less used to change. Also, until numbers become statistically significant, individual cases can only be anecdotal. We may also find it difficult to understand the feelings of guilt felt by the Victorians - they would call this contrition - but can we imagine today state sponsored national Days of Humiliation and Fasting? There w ere at least four of them during the 19th century: 1832 and 1853 for cholera, 1854 for the Crimean War, 1857 for the Indian Mutiny. Man made wars perhaps need contrition, but for Acts of God such as cholera we find this a little harder to take. The days themselves were commemorated during the week and, as the Stamford Mercury remarked in 1854, they were “not marked by large church attendances but all businesses (were) suspended”. These days also illustrate what an age of transition the 19th century was. The stimuli for the days were perhaps feelings left over from less rational ages, but as the Mercury shows, they were not generally well supported and other sources tell us that they were actively opposed by the more advanced. This opposition included Roman Catholics and Dissenters who were protesting against the established church connection, and within the established church itself, Anglo-Catholics who saw the days as government interference in church affairs. The categories I've illustrated show the major concerns of the Victorians: education and the care of those less fortunate than themselves, spurred by strong religious convictions but tinged with a primitive sort of guilt. We can certainly say that what they did was patchy and ineffective, even that they were being hypocritical and selfish and paying lip service to good works, or that they were not living to the biblical standards they set themselves. We may even take a Marxist view and see the Victorian Bourgeoisie doing just enough to protect itself from the unbridled disaffection of the urban poor. All these criticisms may be true in part but they fall into the trap of judging a previous generation by our own standards and are therefore not very useful. It is much more fruitful to judge them on their own terms and then we can see how the age reacted to the severe problems they were facing. THE DENOMINATIONS For the final section tonight, I said I would look at the different denominations in the town to see how they interacted with each other, or more accurately, how they were viewed and reacted to by the townspeople. I shall start with the Dissenters. Since the second half of the 17th century dissenters, that is, all the Protestant non-conformist groups, had been barred from public office, particularly from standing for parliament. During the 18th century and the Age of Enlightenment there had been a growing toleration, so that by 1828 the removal of the legal barriers of the Test and Corporation Acts was little more than a formality. The Independents (later the Congregationalists, now the URC) had a chapel in Stamford before 1680 but this was burnt down by the mob on the death of Queen Anne in 1714. A new chapel in Star Lane replaced it in 1720, and the present chapel in almost the same position was built in 1819. The Methodists first built here in 1803 on their present site, and that chapel, with the lovely carvings of Faith, Hope and Charity on the gable, still survives behind the present 1880s Gothic chapel. The General Baptists, who had good 16th and 17th century antecedents, were recorded in Stamford during September 1829 holding a mass baptism by general immersion in the River Welland; the first time this had happened in Stamford for 100 years said the Stamford Mercury . This became a regular event the novelty of it attracting ever growing crowds, up to 1,800 a few years later. Flushed by their success the Baptists were able to build themselves a chapel in 1835, significantly on the banks of the Welland in Bath Row. It survives as the pair of buildings that come down to the street front just west of the Bath House. However, the General Baptists did not fare well as they were recorded in the Mercury as having gone by 1846, and there is no trace of them in the 1851 religious census. I think I may know why. Some years before, two young Church of England curates, William Tiptaft and Joseph Philpot, serving in parishes near Oxford, became great friends and after studying and praying together grew so disillusioned with the Church of England that they seceded. They became itinerant preachers in the John Wesley mould, but were, what we should call today, Strict Baptists. William Tiptaft, who was a natural if fiery preacher, came from the east Midlands and had two sisters living in Oakham and Stamford. His Stamford sister was married to the brewer Joseph Phillips, and who, reading between the lines, was caused endless embarrassment by her brother. On one of Tiptaft's frequent visits to Stamford he met Dr Merveilleux (pronounced Mirvilow), doctor at the infirmary and a strong Independent of Star Lane Chapel, who actually lived on this very site [Stamford Arts Centre] - his front room is now the booking office. Merveilleux was so impressed with him that he arranged for him to preach in the Assembly Rooms next door in October 1831. With his local upper-class connections, Tiptaft drew a large and miscellaneous audience including the cream of society. Unfortunately, his normal open-air-from-the-back-of-a-farm-waggon preaching style didn't go down too well with the cream of society, especially as he was not only haranguing the Church of England but the general dissenters as well. Many walked out and the rest stayed to shout. His sister, Mrs Phillips, is reported as commenting “William is mad!” The uproar was such that the Assembly Rooms could never again be hired for Tiptaft, but Merveilleux was so impressed he immediately left the Independents and determined to build a chapel for the strict preaching of the gospel. This was more difficult than imagined for, after the uproar, it would be difficult to get a site and the intention must at all costs be kept from the ears of the Marquess. Merveilleux secretly acquired a piece of land on the waste to the north of the town and the chapel, built entirely at his own cost, was erected in 1834. This is the North Street Particular Baptist Chapel. Tiptaft’s friend, Philpot, became minister – perhaps Tiptaft was too restless a soul to settle yet in one place – and such was the fervour of the preaching that numbers grew, and a gallery had to be added in 1838. This is perhaps why the general Baptists disappeared; they faded away or were absorbed by the competition. It is worth adding that Joseph Philpot, who married Tiptaft's niece and settled in 10 Rutland Terrace, became famous in his own right as editor of The Gospel Standard which we are told circulated widely among the troops during the Crimea. Perhaps beyond the scale of dissent are the Mormons, or the Church of the Latter- day Saints. This new sect, only founded by Joseph Smith in America in 1830, had established a chapel here in Gas Lane as early as 1836, eleven years before Brigham Young led the Mormons on their mammoth trek to establish Salt Lake City. Though seating only fourteen people, the Stamford chapel was exclusively a religious building. People were very suspicious of such groups and typical is the case at Ryhall in May 1849. While holding a total immersion baptism ceremony in the River Guash, they were set upon by the local rowdies and received a severe ducking, and a second attempt two weeks later met with the same fate. However, today, they are still firmly established in Stamford at 16 Broad Street, having moved there about 15 years ago from what is now the museum education room and store. As I hinted when outlining the 1851 religious census, there was a traditional fear of Roman Catholicism in England, and this went back to the 16th century. There still lingered the old Elizabethan concept equating Roman Catholicism with treason and as late as 1780 London had been paralysed for four days by the anti-Catholic Gordon riots. Like the Dissenters, Catholics were penalised and could not hold public office, but while removing barriers from Dissenters was relatively easy, removing them for Roman Catholics was a much thornier problem. However, with the development of an industrial society it was quite clear that it would be impossible to continue sanctions against large sections of the population on grounds of religion, and Catholic emancipation in the long-term became inevitable. It was finally achieved in 1829 by the Duke of Wellington, Prime Minister, helped by the conversion of Sir Robert Peel to the cause, though it was the final nail in the coffin of the old Tory party already in its death throes. On the local scene, there had been enough toleration in Stamford for the Roman Catholics to build a chapel in All Saints Street as early as 1825 and by 1834 this had been rebuilt. On the other hand, the run up to emancipation had seen a petition presented at the town hall opposing concessions to Catholics and at the same time the British Reformation Society "to educate Catholics in Protestant beliefs" visited Stamford. In 1837 further diatribes against Catholicism are recorded in the Mercury , but what is more surprising is that this anti-Catholicism continues all through the 19th century, though now the debate turns on purely religious arguments rather than political ones. For example, in one of the winter lecture series in the 1850s (these are the sort I mentioned before as attracting audiences of over 1,000), two of the lectures seem to be devoted entirely to anti-Catholic propaganda, while as late as 1877 Roman Catholicism was controversial enough to provoke public disorder. In January of that year a visiting lecturer to the Oddfellows Hall, a Dr Hammond, a recent convert to Rome, provoked "a scene of the wildest disorder and confusion" and had to be escorted back to the Midland Railway Station surrounded by a mob of several hundred people. [Waterfield's, Annals of Stamford , 26 January 1877.] But it was not just against the other denominations that hate and vituperation were directed in the 19th century. The Church of England was just as happy to turn on itself and hand out harsh criticism to fellow members whose behaviour did not accord with their own. The introduction of the Tractarian ideas of the Oxford movement from the 1830s onwards is a suitable case in point. There had always been a tension within the Church of England between high and low, Catholic and Protestant; and while Protestantism had dominated the church since t he reign of Elizabeth, its Catholic nature had never been forgotten. It received fresh impetus under the influence of Newman, Keble and Pusey. The idea of the transcendence and mystery of God expressed in worship, a Church with authority, together with a dash of Romanticism looking back to the Middle Ages and the Gothic Revival in architecture, made Tractarianism very attractive to the younger more progressive clergy, especially those who worked in the urban slums. The same sort of dissatisfaction that had pushed Tiptaft and Philpot to extreme Protestantism pushed these other priests towards Catholicism. Unfortunately, the fear of Roman Catholicism was so great that it extended to any perceived Romanising tendency within the Church of England itself. Not that it expressed itself in Stamford very early. The Reverend Dennis Edward Jones, who came to St John’s in 1833 (and stayed 50 years), was accused by the Stamford Mercury in 1845 of introducing Puseyite practices into his church, but upon examination it seems that he had only taken to preaching in a surplice and had introduced chairs on each side of the communion table. But even this was seen to be Romish in an intensely Protestant town. Eleven years later when the architect Edward Browning restored St John's and painted the medieval angels on the roof in bright colours, the Stamford Mercury , still on the offensive, attacked this for making the church as gaudy as continental Papist ones. However, despite this and other hysterical outbursts, one in 1879 directed at the 'tin tabernacle' in Water street - an offshoot of St Martin's erected to take the poor excluded from the main church because of the appropriated pews - and another in 1882 screaming that "Ritualism or semi-Romanism (was) creeping into Stamford", Anglo- Catholicism did not really come to Stamford until 1890. It was then introduced to St Mary's by an aristocratic young incumbent who immediately instigated a major restoration of the church by the famous London Arts & Crafts architect John Dando Sedding. He paid three quarters of the cost of this himself. It is interesting that this young rector, Carew Hervey St John-Mildmay, came to Stamford just at the same time as his Bishop, Edward King of Lincoln, was being prosecuted in the courts for Anglo-Catholic practices, for such outrageous things as making the sign of the cross and having lighted candles on the altar during the communion service. Internecine warfare of this sort was getting the Church a very bad name. But Mildmay was a very forthright young man who did not mind stirring up controversy and his antics at St Mary’s had the town stirred up for years. By this time there was another newspaper in Stamford, the Stamford and Rutland Guardian , a paper that would give The Sun a run for its money in tackiness and pandering to the basest instincts, and it had a field day over what was going on at St Mary’s. Surpliced choirs were a high church novelty at this time and the Guardian thought it highly amusing to see Mildmay driving his surpliced choir down the aisle “like a flock of sheep”, and at the archdeacon’s visitation poked fun at the “meek and gentle way” the assembled clergy “glowered at each other during certain ritualistic practices”. More seriously the journal The Protestant Observer thundered, “No Evangelical churchman can look to the future without anxiety. The ritualistic ornaments are intended to teach those false doctrines to the eye which in due course may be heard from the pulpit. Where will Mr Mildmay end? Having started with his face towards Rome, will he ever reach the end of his journey? (In Mildmay’s case, the answer was yes, though not without a bit of dabbling in Spiritualism first!). But what Mildmay was chiefly remembered for outside the church was the non-religious impact of his work. He was the man who got rid of the carillon that had played hymn tunes on the St Mary’s bells since the early 18th century, and had stopped the centuries old practice of ringing the curfew bell each evening. St Mary’s continued to cause controversy in the town, for after the brief interlude in the first few years of this century when one of the rectors suddenly declared himself to be a socialist and was forced to leave town by the Marquess, there was a great deal of fuss when the church began to use incense in the 1920s. When this was done at a joint service, it provoked intense letters of protest to the Mercury by other Anglican clergy of the town. This was perhaps the last time when this sort of inter-church rivalry showed itself so openly, and while similar attitudes simmered under the surface until the 1950s, there has been a marked sense of co-operation and ecumenism since the 1960s. But it is at just this time that the general public found the churches to be less relevant in their lives and stopping the inter-church bickering perhaps came too late. What then are we to conclude from this individual, perhaps idiosyncratic, trip through the social aspects of church affairs in the 19th century? The biggest changes affected the Church of England as it had to come to terms with the change from being an arm of the secular administration to being a purely ecclesiastical organisation. All the churches had to adapt to living in a new industrial age, and the transition was putting a strain on all sections of the community. How did they do? Well, first of all they were largely reactive to change rather than pro-active. With a few notable exceptions they reacted to change by battening down the hatches. The churches were worried by the 1851 religious census and saw that they were not getting to church as many people as they imagined or hoped for. However, the census was an isolated and unique event and a single point on a graph is no use for predicting trends. Even so, there was a general suspicion among more intelligent churchmen that numbers were on a downward slope and an appreciation that the Churches were not being effective, especially in the larger industrial cities. The Evangelicals, and later the Anglo-Catholics, had made some inroads here, but were under-resourced and the Church at large did not, or perhaps could not, capitalise on these initial moves. This led some Anglo-Catholics to go down the road of Christian Socialism (which in one of its wilder manifestations saw the red flag flying from the tower of Thaxted church during the 1920s), but their efforts were small compared with the size of the problem, and were anyway overtaken in this century by state involvement. Typically, the Anglo-Catholic movement came late to Stamford - at the very end of the century – and, being Stamford, was concerned more with ceremonialism, church restoration and personal piety than with mass evangelism or social reform. The brief flirtation with Christian Socialism in the first decade of the new century was soon brought to an end by the combined hostility of the parish, town and Marquess, and the personal inadequacies of the rector. The other great debate, that between Christianity and science, is hardly visible in Stamford. I stand to be corrected in the light of future evidence, but all the indications are that if one looked at church affairs during the second half of the 19th century one would not know that Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution even existed. The Stamford Institution did a little on him but this merely emphasises the growing gulf between the secular and church worlds. In general, the Church was largely at a loss as to how to come to terms with the changing situation it faced during the 19th century. The removal of the secular powers from the Church of England was a marvellous opportunity to redirect its energies to tackle the problem of falling church numbers and develop a new spirituality in an industrial world increasingly dominated by science. That it failed to do so and was content to retreat into internecine warfare was a huge missed opportunity. It has only been since the Second World War that remedial action has been applied. All we can hope is that it is not “too little, too late”! John F H Smith. A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back Stamford Library Rules and Regulations 1906 By Chris Hunt Stamford Free Library was formally opened on January 25 th 1906 by the Lord-Lieutenant of Lincolnshire, Adelbert Brownlow-Cust, 3 rd Earl Brownlow; also present on the day were other members of the local aristocracy and their wives, the Mayor, Mr George Higgs; members of the Council, their Officials, and members of the public. Although at first there was some opposition on the Borough Council to a Public Library in the town, the actions of Major Henry Hart swayed its members along with the gift of £2,500 from Mr Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. The Library was funded by the Borough Council providing the site, a small addition to the town rates, and by public donations, after which borrowing was free to those on the Borough Burgess Roll. The rules and regulations that established Free Libraries were governed by Acts of Parliament. The most different ones to us here in the 21 st century are the punishments laid down in statute, which are repeated in the Rules and Regulations which were drawn up by the town’s Library Committee in August 1905. Which are: - “Whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously destroy or damage any Book, Manuscript, Picture, Print, Statue, Bust, or Vase, or any other article or thing kept for the purposes of Art, Science, or Literature, or as an object of Curiosity in any Museum, Gallery, Cabinet, Library, or other repository, which is either at all times or from time to time open for admission of the Public, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and being convicted thereof, shall be liable to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding six months, with or without hard labour, and if a male under the age of sixteen years, with or without whipping” And that:- “Any person who in any Library or Reading Room to which this Act applies (Libraries Offences Act 1898), to the annoyance or disturbance of any person using the same: - (1) behaves in a disorderly manner: (2) uses violent, abusive, or obscene language: (3) bets or gambles: (4) or who, after proper warning, persists in remaining therein beyond the hours fixed for the closing of such Library or Reading Room. “shall be liable on summary conviction to a penalty not exceeding forty shillings.” Chris Hunt January 2026 Notes The opening days of the week and times vary between the Reading Room and the Free Lending Library. The following document is r eproduced by kind permission of Lincolnshire Libraries. The original was printed by Dolby Brothers in 1907, and is part of the local studies reference collection at Stamford Library, www.better.org.uk/library/lincolnshire/stamford-library Page 5 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next