Church Broughton Parish, Derbyshire
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Church Broughton Parish, Derbyshire: An oral history, 1900-1940 Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Janet Arthur De Montfort University June 2019 Abstract This study is an oral history of a Derbyshire dairying parish during the first forty years of the twentieth century. The aim was to discover the nature and cohesion of society in a parish with no resident lord of the manor, the effects on the parish of changes in agricultural practice and the impact of government interventions on the lives of individuals. The lives of residents were affected by the history and layout of the parish, based on the geography and previous ownership. Having no resident lord of the manor generated a social structure with three layers: firstly, seven key people, outsiders who did not own land, secondly, networks of small landowners and artisans, who had lived there for generations, finally, labourers, many also families of long standing. Religion was important in supporting this social structure. Being an ‘open’ parish had enabled a chapel to be built and the provision of a school, though not all children attended this school. Through widespread ownership, there was a freedom to live and work without being beholden to neighbouring estates, as alternative employment could be found elsewhere for any surplus workers. Mechanisation improved farming practice, but, though government intervention during the First World War helped, the downturn afterwards and competition between farmers meant dairying was precarious, until the foundation of the Milk Marketing Board in 1933 to control production and price. The sale of the Duke of Devonshire’s farms in 1918 to the occupiers and the County Council removed the prestige that his tenants had enjoyed. The retirement of key people, headmaster, church warden farmers and vicar, in the 1920s and 1930s, weakened ties and put greater reliance on government provision. Relationships were further disrupted when entrepreneur Basil Mallender bought Barton Blount, in 1925, and tried to align Church Broughton with his estate and impose his authority, generally against the wishes of villagers, who were accustomed to a cooperative community. i Collecting oral contributions and letters from parishioners began in 1972 and was supplemented with documentary evidence from the church chest, Derby Local History Library and Derbyshire County archives. This research is unusual, following the earlier oral history method of George Ewart Evans and Raphael Samuel - open-ended interviews over time, with seventy contributors, that uncovered the feelings people had about their situation - but is also original, because small ‘open’ parishes have not attracted research in the same way as estate parishes. It revealed relationships that showed an ordered and tolerant community enjoying the social aspects of religion and willing to defend itself from Basil Mallender. However, progress in agriculture and greater intervention from government, meant that the experiences contributors described proved to be, in George Ewart Evans words, a ‘prior culture’ on the point of disappearing. ii Acknowledgements I am grateful for the patient assistance I have received from staff at De Montfort University, particularly my first supervisor Professor Robert Colls, for giving me the opportunity to begin this study and his encouragement and guidance throughout, my second supervisor Professor Matthew Taylor for his support and constructive criticism and Professor Martin Polley for wise advice. I acknowledge the help I have received from staff at the Derby Local Records Office and the Derbyshire County Records Office, who found relevant documents and offered their expertise. I am indebted to George Ewart Evans and Charles Underhill for their advice, without which I would not have undertaken this research. I remember the pleasure my oral contributors gave me, while recording their information and the enthusiasm they had for the project of saving their memories, which have proved so illuminating regarding their life experiences. My children have been a great support and inspiration and I thank them. iii Contents Abstract i Acknowledgements iii Contents iv Illustrations v Introduction 1 1. Place 21 2. Religion 72 3. School 135 4. Work 183 5. Living in Church Broughton 243 Thesis Conclusion 298 Appendix 303 Primary and Secondary Sources 312 iv Illustrations 1.Map of Derbyshire. 20 2. Part of a map of Derbyshire Ecclesiastical Parishes. 20 3. Diagram to show streams and relative positions of places in 1900. 21 4. A copy of a map of 1626 held in the library at Chatsworth. 23 5. A map of the Manor of Church Broughton 1775. 24 6. Sudbury cottages. 29 7. Church Broughton cottage, Etchells farm and school, in 1970. 29 8. White House/New Inn. 34 9. Sapperton Lane. 34 10. Forge Hollies and Allen family. 35 11. John Prince Bull’s map of the central part of Church Broughton village. 46 12. Old Hall farm. 47 13. A view of Etchells farmhouse painted by Edith Auden, vicar’s wife. 48 14 -16. Tenant farmers at Etchells farm. 49 17. Holly Bush Inn. 51 18. Royal Oak and cottages. 54 19. Cottage on Main Street. 56 20. Old Bakery. 58 21. Cooking facilities. 63 22. Church Broughton Church 1878. 72 23-25. Church Broughton church, interior and exterior. 77 26. Post card of church interior. 78 27. William Auden with his son Walter. 80 28. Chapel Lane 88 29. Vicar Alfred Auden and family. 94 v 30. Farmer R.J. Bull and family. 94 31. Day School Treat. 104 32. Church Army Van. 105 33. Girls Friendly Society 108 34. Boys Brigade. 108 35. Church choir at Rhyl, 1924. 109 36. Audens and Atkins at Bent House. 111 37. Great Sale for the bells. 113 38. Lignam Vitae tree. 118 39. Vicarage. 118 40. Church Broughton school. 135 41. Plan of school. 135 42. Reading Room diagram. 149 43. Arthur Jones headmaster and family. 154 44. Joseph Cresswell headmaster and children. 165 45. Arthur Jones headmaster, Ethel Bannister and children. 176 46. Glyngarth preparatory school. 176 47. Ernest Tipper and Harrison brothers. 191 48. Trevor Allen and Peter. 213 49. Stevenson’s team of horses. 230 50. Trevor Allen’s diary pages. 233 51. Eddie Stevenson on their tractor. 234 52. Motor cars belonging to Bull, Atkins and Stevenson families. 249 53. Cissie Johnson’s wedding, 1907. 252 54. Vicar Alfred and Edith Auden with his mother Sarah Auden, 1912. 254 55. Ann Tipper of Heath House Green farm. 258 56. Children helping Alfred Auden 266 vi 57. Christie Minstrel Show 267 58. Tunstall family brass band. 275 59. Church Broughton guysers. 276 60. Programmes for entertainments. 279 61. Tennis club players. 280 62. Memorial card. 287 Photographs were lent by David Allen, Ruth Auden, John Prince Bull and Evelyn Stevenson. vii Introduction This oral history is of a Derbyshire agricultural parish during the first forty years of the twentieth century, begun soon after I heard George Ewart Evans lecture at a Conference held at Leicester University in March 1972. George Ewart Evans implored the audience to go out and record experiences of ‘the old prior culture’ before it was too late, as agriculture and rural life were changing rapidly and those who remembered earlier times were dying.1 It was a pioneering era for oral history. George Ewart Evans recorded life in Suffolk. Here was an opportunity to capture the dynamics of a Derbyshire parish community that was disappearing, and my experience had prepared me to undertake the task. Although I was a relative newcomer, unrelated to local families, over seven years I had become known and acknowledged as being interested in the history of the parish and its people. As a child, I was introduced to the idea of oral history, my grandfather having recorded and published Berkshire ballads in 1904. My father took me, aged about twelve, to visit my great- aunt, for her to tell me about her childhood, her mother’s family farm and her cordwainer father’s shoe shop in Reading. My father encouraged me to record her account in a notebook, a practise I continued when recording my children’s sayings and then small encounters in Church Broughton, after we moved there in 1965. I realised that exact wording was essential to gain the flavour of what was said, so I became good at listening and recalling precise words. Formally interviewing parishioners would simply be a more open and acknowledged recording. Church Broughton’s church chest was a treasure trove of old parish papers, somewhat mouse-eaten, which included the school log. I copied them for possible future use and wrote leaflets about the past to be sold for the church. I was becoming an archivist of not only the written but also spoken record. I joined the Derbyshire Archaeological Society and contributed a paper about the Cokes of 1 George Ewart Evans, Thea Thompson, Tony Green, Theo Barker and Patrick Saul, The Leicester Conference on the problems of Oral History, in ‘Oral History’, Vol. 1, No. 3 (1972), p. 12. Snell, K.D.M., Annals of the Labouring Poor, Social Change and Agrarian England 1660-1900, (Cambridge, 1985, 1995), p. 194. 1 Longford2. I wrote to Paul Thompson and he suggested I attend the conference at Leicester University, which was at the beginning of the Oral History Society and confirmed my interest in oral history. Regarding my situation in the parish, only three years after our arrival, David Prince’s death led to the need for a replacement District Councillor. Gordon Barnett, a businessman, was standing unopposed. I felt strongly there should be an election. After failing to persuade others to stand, I decided to oppose him myself as an independent, with the sole purpose of upholding democracy. I had posters printed and drew in as many people as possible, regardless of whether they would vote for me.