Volume 01 Number 07
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
CAKE & COCKHORSE The Magazine of the Banbury Historical Society 7 Vol. I, Nos. 5Z 1960/1961 Issued four times yearly, September, November, January, March Price CO non-members, one shiZling and sixpence Chairman : J.H. Fearon, Fleece Cottage, Bodicote. Nr. Banbury. Oxon. Hon. Treasurorr A.W. Pain, A.L.A. c/o ~croughLibrary, Ean3wy. (Tel: ?anbury 2282) Hon. Editor 8 Dr, C,F.C. Beoson, Westmy Cottage, Adderbury, Sm3ury. (Tel. Adc?er$q 272. ) Hc2. -*.-..ck._eeo 1 o gi c al Dir actCT : V. Eronley, Hail. Rcsearcli Adviser: E.B.C. Brink.mrtin, &Aa F.R.Hist.Soc. 81 CAKE AND COCKHORSE 0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 The Magazine of the Banbury Historical Society Issued to Idembers four times a year. For the New Year three meetings have been arranged, including an additional one for February. We have been very fortunate in securing three speakers who are all leaders in their own fields. It is hoped that members will respond by attending in large numbers, to give them the audience thcy dcserve. All meetings are held at 7.30 p.m. in the Court Room of the Town Hall. -Tuesday, 31st Jmuary _y'IPzrish Govornmcnt in the 18th Century 2 Wi,Tginton and its Records" Nr. by F.D, Price, Dean of Kzble College.I Although this talk concerns Tligginton, it is just as applicable to any local village. Mr. Price, who spcnds his vacations in Vigginton, has brought to light many fascinating glimpses of ordinary rural life and conditions as they were two hundred ycars ago. Tuesday, 28th February "The Civil in North Oxfordshirett by Miss Margarot Toynbee. Those who cane to Edgehill in May, 1959, will have pleasant memories of the last time Xiss Toynbec visited us. Edgehill was by no means the oylly event of significance in this area during the Civil Far. The sicGC of Banbury Castle, and the inportant Battle of Cropredy Bridge form only part of a subject in which Niss Toynbce is one of the forenost experts. Tucsdzy, 28th Nlnrch_wI 13srrow Diggers of the 19th Century" by Nr. Hwnphrey Case, N.A. ,F.S.A. Nr. Cssc is Scniiir Assistant Keeper, Department of Antiquities at the Ashmolean E~~uscw:, and this summer hcadcd a joint Anglo-French cxcavnticn in 3rittany. His account of the beginnings of interest in archaeology znd the somewhat surprising methods used is sure to be both interesting and amusing. 82. R E .S E A R C H -t PARISH REGISTERS Mr. Gibson is now copying the registers of the Chapelry of Epwell, formerly in the parish of Swslcliffe. Nlnrrizges have been copied completely from 1580 to 183T9 and Baptisms and Burials in the two voluiies covering the 16th and 17th century. The complete registers of the parish of Swalcliffe itself and the other chapelry of Shutford have already been copied. The marriages from the first and second volumes of Cdardington registers, at present deposited in the Bodleian Library, for 1 the period 1603-1694, have a1 so been copied. OXFORDSHIRY CLOCKIUXERS I In response to the appeal made on p067 of the November number information haa been given by Mrs. E. Gillett, Bedford, IfreM.L. Dix Hamilton, Lindfield, Dilr. F.D. Price, !'Jigginton and Elrs. KO Taylor, Elsfield, for which me are most grateful. Apropcia of Dr. Brinkworth's article in this number it rnw be interesting to note that Tnomas Gainsborcugh' s brother the Rev. Humphrey Gainsborough, Congregational Minister at Henley on Thames, 1748-1776, was an engincer of note and the inventor of an unusual kind of rolling ball clock. Humphrey's accomplish- ments obtained public notice through the efforts of Philip Thicknesse and particularly by a letter abcut the clock which Thicknesse wrote to the Gentleman's Magazine on 14 November, 1785 under the pseudonym r'Polyzena't. After Humghrey diod Thomss gave the clock to Thicknesse who presented it to the British IItIuscum on 6 December 1788. Unfortunately it has since disappeared but a drawing of it by Thicknesse and later descript- ions have been preserved. Ancther tine-keeping device based on a sundial, also constructed by Humphrey Gainsborough, passed into the possession of Tkic'messc, was presented to the British Nusewn in 1784 and was duly lost. C.F. C.B. 83 9 REVIEW OXFORDSHIRE CLERGY, 1777-1869. A study of the Established Church and of the role of its Clergy in local society, by Diana IvTcClatchey, (Clarendon Pressg 1960. 45/-). For all who are intsrested in the ecclesiastical and social history of Oxfordshire this book is quite unusually rewarding. It covers a century of ferment and chan~,which transformed a remarkable and largely medieval set-up surviving into the nineteenth century, and realised the Unitarian ideal of a priest resident in every country parish, however small, and comfortably housed in the mansions, which now litter the countryside like white elephants. But the scope of the book is limitad to a study of the men who lived in the parscn- age houses rather than the priests ministering before their altars, The readcr must therefora not be surprised to find little direct refercnce to the Evangelical and Oxford movcrnents and only rare allusions to the spread of High Church practices, which were bsginning to cause alarm in parishes like Bloxharn totvctrds the end of the period, In the earlier chapters the evils of pluralities and absentoeism are carefully analysed. In 1793 it was still considered quite pmper that the Master of Dr, Radcliffe's School at Steeple Aston should serve the churches at Duns Tetv and Barford St. Michael, and that John Francis, officiating minister at Swinbrook should live at Rurford and serve in addition the churches at Shilton and Westwell. Richard Pretyman, rector of Niddletcln Stoney survived until 1856, enjoying an income of M9006 derived from his Chmrch preferments, but giving active unpaid service to the community as a magistrate. Orders in the Church of England were regmded as a profession until a changing climate of opinion, assisted by legislation and fostered by Bishop Wilberforcz with his newly founded training college at Cuddesdon, raised them to a vocation. Incid-entally a fuller account migbt have been given here of the Whig reform in the 1830%, and there is no mention at all of the outstanding services rendercd to the Church in this connection by Bishop Biomficld of London. But the zeal and bustling energy of Samuel Wilberforce are evident in all that was achieved for improving the status and siccerity, the inccmo and the influence of the country clerg, A chapter devoted to educational advance disclosed the astonish- ing fact that about half the schools in ths county were either built or enlcrged in the 1840% 2nd 1850's. And these, of course, were all Church schools. Bor was the activity of the clergy as teachers of 84. their €locks ccinfincd to church and day scho2l. Many c village must still retain its Roading born (a revealing title), where in Unitcrisn tints, 3s a-t DoJJinglytm, evoliing classes and lihrarics l;Tert? ,r,-anised and the local clara wcrc wont tc give 1:m.tcrn lecturzs on any subject from China to Peru. ban; other rclics of this era can cny'sody now pr55uce a specimen of the Tlixks- Giving Papcrs ,3ven to discharged potients tc be presented to their awn ministers as a teken of &retitnde to God for the mercies they had received in the Radcliffa Infirmary? Eany other aspcts of clerical lifc in the Oxfordshire parishcs ara LLscri'ucd in this notcblc: book, b~dthere is a scnsitive agv-aren3ss to the &\;per issues involvod. (E.P. Bcker) PIiILIP TIIICli7\TTSSSE iJTD TRC STEME CIRCLE By E.R.C. BrinlsimAh, M.A. Some time ngo I was &ven a copy Jf Eorclce's Ohs, edited by David 7Jetsnn and printed at Lon&n in 1709, which turned out to have m intcrcsting lccctl assscintion. For at page 138 is the sipaturc of Pl-iilip Tliicknessc, tho notzble 18th czntury vriter ad eccentric whc w3.s bmn at his fztbzr's rzct:\ry at 7nrthin;;hoe on 10 Lupst, 1719. HG W~Seducated at ignhoc Free Grammr Sch?ol and at 2estninster. Intended for the melical prL,fossimhe sOon care it up for tho amj 2nd evcntunll-y, in 1753, bsccme licutenant-gmernor of Landgnrd Ibrt in Essex. Tkickmsse c3inbined a militsry c-recr with gezt intcrcst in the erts. He it was wh persunclod the ysung G9,insborouZh to lcavc Ipsvich for fashicnable B-th, and for same twenty years was his p-.trcn, In 1766 Thickncsse resipcd his commmd and henceforward IA.the life of a dilettante, with frcqucnt chan@s of abode in 5is c-,untry interspcrsed by tJurs zbroad. Iiis sitpr,turc in my 3racc. is fcllovxd by the words, "Celcis, 1771tr9and I h2ve v\?rifid tl-.-,t hz w2s thzro in that y3:r. (Ke vcs iict tke first r l-st tr, pxk "the lzyaan's breviary" as a travdlinl;. c;mpmi;n. ) Thicknzsse merried, as his t!iird wife, 1m.n Fwd, a yrung lady of graat bceuty, wit and outstandin; talent 2s a write2 and musician. GainsSorough' s portrait (ncw in the Cincinatti Art GaliEry.) shows her sitting with a guitar in her hand and a viol de gamba in the beckpourid. R constant stream of boaks and pamphlets poured frm Thicknesse's pen : cn travel, chess, "singular pcrsms now living", cyphcrs, mn- midwifery, the city of Bath, and his omn life. Dr. Ji.hnson told Boswell that he thought them entertaining 'to read once'.