SUNDAY'S CHILD -+- From Victoria to Elizabeth 11 with a Unitarian background Catharine T. Herford To my sister Ruth for endless help and encouragement and all the typing. SUNDAY'S CHILD written and published Catharine T. Herford Frontigpiece. Wateryeat, coniston Water. c. 1902. Group I - Back Roy: 'Boy Dick', Richard Hutton Osler. 'Mimi', Em'ily Christian Osler, Mrs. Harry Creaton. "Robbie', Robert Olsler Herford. 'Uncle Travers', Ro'bert S Travers Herford. '.Lizzie', Rylands, friend and helper. , . ..Middle Row: 'Ruth', Ruth Hefioird. 'Hetty', Henrietta Maria Qsler .(Mrs. Clive RiGiere). 'Grandpapa', Timothy Smith Osier. 'Aunt 'Meg' Margaret Herforld . - (nee Osler) with Margaret Roscoe Herford on her lap, 'Maddeine', Amy ,. ,- . , Madeleine Renold (Mrs. Erk .Hunter). In front: 'Catharine', katharine Taylor Herford, 'Rip', Irish terrier, 'Dickie', . 'Richard Hugh Herford. Taken from -a snapshot by 'Charleg (Sir) ~harlesReno1.d. Dttributed with kind arrangement by The Lindsey Press, Essex Hall, I - 6 Essex Street, , ,. Strand, London, . .. WC2 SHY. -,.(" 0. \ ,\ . ...* :. 8' I ' . , '-' -v- , .I .. , , . , , -.-J . I-.,,.. ,- ,, - .. :"..,. :, ,,.,,,.:, .; . , .' 1 . .. .. ' ..m;-., - , . , -- ,, .., . .. '*. / .... .lI., 2 *, _ .:. 8. '. ~ - ' ,-I,.. ,_ ,,., . - " . ' - , .. .. .. , . .. , . '. ( I,. i, ,, :. + , ,.? f - < ;-. '. I.. ._ . , ,- *. , ,', , , , . , - . , :, .. 8, ... ' . FOREWORD By Sir Adrian Boult One of my earliest recollections, as a membw of a Unitarian family, was to see my father and uncle8 reading 'The Inquirer". When I grew up I too became a regular reader and, as I open the paper, my eye often catches a well-known Unitarian surname and I am happy to read some report about the doings of a member of the family concerned. Herford is one of those names and its connec- tion with Chester (my birthplace) specially brings it to my attention when it occurs. It is thus a particular pleasure to accept Miss Catharine Herford's invitation to write a foreword to her book with its reminiscences of life in many parts of Eng- land and Wales, always with a Unitarian &avwr, as well befits a 'Daughter of tb Manse'. 1 WAS BORN early on Sunday morning, February 9th 1896, the fourth child of a busy country parson and his wife-quite the most tactful time to arrive. Their other children had all chosen Sewing Meeting Wednesdays for their arrival, useful for spreading the news but Sunday was of course the best for that. I had long, black, straight hair which covered my face entirely and which our dear Scottish family doctor opined needed 'straking' (or parting). This my father did and ever after afErmed (I will not say 'swore') that I winked at him. It seems to have PREFACE been an auspicious occasion. This is in no way an historical 'documentary',- To grow up over the turn of the century was in itself rather, it is a running cornrnwtary, or series of footnotes an achievement. For those who are unaware of the term to such monumental works as C. Woodham Smith's 'Five Mile Act Chapel' it is best to look up the years 1662 'Florence Nightingale' and Jo Mwton's 'Mary Carpenter", onwards in a reputable English History Book, to gain some glimpses into the interior life of Victorian and Edwardian idea of the significance of an address such as ours was, England and the later Georges. My grandfather Osler namely, 'Stand Parsonage, Whi tefield, near Manchester. maintained that it took three generations for an idea to In those days postage for a letter was Id, and for a post- bear fruit;-we of the 1970s are the outcome of the toil, card id. A letter from Holland, written somewhere about sweat and tears of the 1870s, growing indeed out of -the 1900, directed simply to Miss Herford, at her father's parsonage near Manchester,' reached my elder sister quite tribulations of the 1770s and the persec'utions of the 1670s. easily without missing a post. And a 23d. stamp without Whether the world still needs the work and witness of been those referred to by Charles Lamb, (himself of their any post-code had all sufficient. Those were the days! 'One It was a region north of Mmchester, some eight miles number) as Godders' is as yet to be revealed. At least out and about five from Bury, five also from Bolton, and the children of Great Britain no longer run barefoot in the known nowadays as a 'grey area', but it never seemed grey streets, unless by choice, and perhaps another century to us. Of the old Parsonage there will be more later but it will achieve it for the world had a good front garden 'mostly set to lawn*,as the estate agents would say, surrounded by flower-beds and flowering shrubs; the sort of flowers that looked after themselves, larkspurs, nasturtiums, eschscholtzias, with a good laburnurn for climbing, a Gloire de Dijon rose behind the garden seat, melovely old lime-trees at the back of the rhododendrons along the road, prolific holly and pink hawthorn down the side, along the lane to the Grammar School playing field. A tree had been felled at some earlier date at the top of the lawn and the stump, built round with white rockery stones, had been planted with lilies of the valley and a precious Osmunda Fern, brought from the Scilly Isles, before 'family' holidays had to be considered, and this was our mother's pride and joy. A "side yard", chiefly remarkable for an outside %on- renience' of a type never seen before or since, of the bucket and tip variety, led to the Back Garden. This began with a stable yard complete with coach-house and loose box on one side and a magnificent coal shed on the other. Somerset and the spelling was probably Werefullid. Doctors, Coal, (11/- per ton at the pit head,) was never delivered at lawyers and wine-merchants produced the stock, working up less than two or three tons at a time, but the occupier had through the Midlands to Manchester, to emerge taburing to arrange for cartage, so the nett result was not as cheap mightily for the Reform Bill of 1832 and producing Unitarian as it might sound. Down the middle beyond the yard ran ministers, or marrying them, for seven generations or so. Of a path with.a good piece for ,kitchen garden on either side, these my father was the last, with four uncles and four with apple trees, rhubarb and gooseberry bushes. There cousins simultaneously in the field. was also a patch of uncontrollable polygonum, which we My mother, Margaret Osler, seems to have come from called "pliglum" for many years, *re we had a hiding Somerset roots also, based largely on Bridgwater and place with a box to sit on. Beyond the kitchen garden was intimately connected with the Blakes, but again converging the playground and summerhouse, with more shrubs and on the developing region of Birmingham, where her grand- elder- bushes. father met and married one of the four daughters of Timothy Beyond our demesne the meadows, (later to become Smith, "King Tim" as he was known for his labours in the a golf course) fell away to Chapelfield and Radcliffe, but development of the new incorporntion of contiguous villages these were lost in the valley; not even a mial chimney that was to emerge as "Birmingham" in 1836, two years after showed because of some trees and the steep hill, Stand his death. Here was a hot-bed indeed, since the penal laws Lane. The real limit was Rivington Pike with Grant's excluding association for religious purposes within five Tower to wave to. Sir Robert Grant, (1785-1835,) was the miles of a corporate town did not run. Labour was cheap author of the hymn "0 worship the King, all glorious and work scarce, and throughout the Eighteenth and Nine- above." He was always reputed to be one of the Cheeryble teenth Centuries far-seeing folk from Roman Catholic, Brothers, celebrated by Charles Dickens. Dickens lodged Quaker, Jewish and Unitarian stocks had settled in and for years among the Unitarian connection of Central developed factories of all kinds, banks, and business houses. London and many of his characters were more than re- Unfettered Higher Education, predominantly Technical and cognisable to my mother's generation. ,One likes to think Scientific, brought together men like Michael Faraday, that the Cheeryble Brothers were not only typical but James Watt, Joseph Priestley, and Matthew Boulton, to were drawn from life, with love. pick out only a few from a burgeoning outcrop, and a sponn A wonderful county, Lancashire! Who said "Grey"? taneous upsurge for comprehensive, civic devel~pment Indeed! produced the first purpose-planned water supply and sewage To have seven or eight generations of educated fore- disposal systems in the country. bears on both sides of the family was remarkable in the My mothm's people made magnificent cut-glass ware, days when neither Public Schools nor Universities in the notably chandeliers for Indian Princes, but her father, British Isles, except Glasgow, were available to other than Timothy Smith Osler, (1823-1905) migrated to London, professing or supposedly practising members of the where he read for the Bar, married Henrietta Roscoe Established Church. Even now it is hardly understood that (1821-1899) from Liverpool, and became absorbed in a Higher Education became generally available, even at a literary and legal entourage into which my mother was born price, only to those who so desired it, during the nineteenth in 1861. century. For girls, barely a century ago. Uncle Richard Hutton, Editor of The Spectator married To gain academic qualifications Glasgow was the successively to two Roscoe cousins and living at Englefield nearest, then Holland, Paris or Germany, or if possible, Green, was a continuing source of strength and comfort Harvard, because there language raised no barriers.