- CROPREDY HISTORY - 3
- Copyright (c) Pamela Keegan 1992.
- First published August 1992.
- Reprinted November 1992.
- WWW August 1999.
- Originally produced and printed at Ty Gwyn,
- Pilton, Rhossili, Swansea.
The Pettifers of Creampot Lane. By Agnes Gertrude and Dorothy Marjorie Pettifer. Edited by Pamela Keegan. |
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Mrs. Pettifer, Dolly and Gertrude. |
The Cottage in Creampot Lane. |
Copyright ¢ Anne Pamela Keegan 1999. Anne Pamela Keegan has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be acknowledged as Author of this work. While she is happy for anyone to use this work for personal research, any commercial use or any use in future publications must first have written permission from the Author. INTRODUCTION "I was born down the Lane. I'm a native of Cropredy." Agnes Gertrude Pettifer was the middle child of five, who lived in a stone and thatched cottage in North Oxfordshire. Her parents, William and Edith Pettifer had returned, after a short spell in Birmingham, to settle down in their own village. Here Gertrude was born on the lOth of May 1896 in their cottage down Creampot Lane. The Brasenose College, Oxford, had long owned the old farm house, which a former tenant had turned into two or three cottages at the beginning of the century. The Bursar's contact in Cropredy was Mr William Anker who had recommended the family as "Very respectable and tidy," in 1895 [,see p.ix]. The Pettifer's cottage was larger than most for a further bay of building next to theirs, was used as an outhouse or scullery. Gertie's mother Edith asked for a small galvanised washing furnace to be installed. This would enable her to earn a contribution to the household budget by taking in washing, Another convenience was the College water supply which reached Creampot Lane in 1894 and supplied two outside taps for the use of their tenants. Fifty years before, in 1847, each cottage was provided with a drain outside their door [2]. One annoyance, which was never cured, was the overflow from the old farm pond. This passed through the scullery, which may be the reason this one room single storey cottage became just an outhouse. These were two very pleasant cottages, but the structural repairs often took a while to be seen to. The College repaired the plaster, whitened the ceiling and repapered the walls for tenants [3]. Yet no amount of decorating could prevent the south facing windows from shrinking and letting in draughts. Although the sun warmed the cottage by day, the screen by the door and shutters at the windows, barely kept the fresh air out after dark. In those days all the heating had to come from the living room fire. When most farm houses were converted into cottages, each new dwelling consisted of one bay of about sixteen feet deep, by eleven feet across. Out of this was taken the stairs and pantry at the rear. The Pettifer's was lit by a small window. A door closed off the winding stairs up to the landing bedroom, which was without a window until 1897 [4]. The upper floor was divided by a partition along the spine beam, and lit at the front by a three light window. The King's cottage next door had the old farm inglenook fireplace on the west gable wall. Gertrude's Father, William Pettifer, found work on the Lawn Farm, where his father John and Grandfather Edward had worked before him. Edward Pettifer came from Charlton and married a Cropredy girl, Mary Gardner in 1837. At that time the Chamberlins still farmed Cropredy Lawn, which was the largest farm in the parish. He employed a shepherd, Thomas Beecham, who left in 1840 and later succeeded in opening a factory in St Helens, Lancashire, where he manufactured Beecham's Pills. An earlier shepherd was William Cherry who was sacked for entertaining a Methodist minister. Although reinstated the injustice lingered on [see appendix two p.125 & 126]. Edward Pettifer's son John, and William Cherry's grandson William, were to play their parts on the first Parish Council in 1894, for which they had the highest number of votes [5]. Mr William Anker, a staunch Church man, must have thought very highly of their capabilities for he spoke for them, even though he was not in favour of liberal thinking or methodism. In 1872 Thomas Beecham wrote to Thomas Giles, who had once worked alongside him on the Lawn farm. Giles left to find work as a maltster in Banbury and put by enough to emigrate to Australia, where he prospered. "I was happy to hear you was doing well and that you turned your talent to a better account than being satisfied in a most miserable condition such as all are placed in who work their lives out on a farm for a paltry few shillings a week"[6]. In Australia Giles built a stone mission hall, a doctor's residence and a row of cottages still called "Joel's Row." Edward Pettifer remained and so did his four children who married and brought up their families in Cropredy [p.121]. His eldest son John had nine children, one of which was William, Gertie's Father. They were brought up to attend Chapel and William was an active member all his life. He left politics to his Father and a Brother George, but did become a committee member of the Cropredy Club and Reading room, which almost all the young men of the village attended, and although the Vicar had the last say in the running of the club, many progressive thinkers were members. The employers still owned the cottages, controlled the education, charities, and took part in the administration of the Banbury Union. Employees must keep their place or loose their work and cottage. The Vicar, though respected, still had his way over a political issue at the club for the Liberal County Councillor Major Slack had lent papers and underlined certain points to be brought to the members attention. This was approved of by a majority of the members, but stopped by the Vicar who referred back to the club rules. [7]. Cottagers must be tough to endure the poverty brought about by low wages. Fortunately their honesty, patience and courage, brought forth the best in most of them, though Gertrude's parents could not afford to be soft hearted. Women and men had no one but themselves to fall back on. Mrs Edith Pettifer must rely on her own resources to keep the family going. Besides washing she used her talents to deliver babies, to sit with those who were ill, and lay out the departed. Dr Jasper Bartlett came to rely upon Mrs Pettifer, or Mrs French, to take charge, knowing he would be called in if necessary. At that time untrained midwives were often blamed for the high death rate in babies, yet Edith lost none of the hundred she delivered, not even the Tasker twins. Her patients found her friendly, reasonable and less likely to embarrass them with their lack of equipment, as a stranger would have done. In 1902 an Act allowed communities to collect for a trained nurse. Edith carried on. Having more time, or just one patient on her hands, she always hesitated to hurry the baby along, unless things were going wrong She would be there patiently waiting, which was something the busy professionals could not always afford to do. By 1930 people throughout the British Isles were astonished to learn that the death rate was rising in spite of the increasing number of trained nurses. Before the first World War, everyone co-operated at child-birth, illness, death and even unemployment. There was an expected code of behaviour in a population living in an uncomfortable state of poverty. From Edith's extra earnings, her five children took precious weekly pence to the Band of Hope Clothing club, as she had done as a child. There amongst the yearly totals are Lizzie, Emily, Gertrude, Samuel and Kathie, and later her grand-daughter Dolly. This club helped towards keeping them as warmly clad as possible. Apparently the money was spent at the Banbury Cash Drapery Store [8]. Other savings were made by buying at the village Co-op the few items that had to be purchased. Mrs Pettifer took upon herself the repairs of the weekday boots, but Sunday boots went to George Pargeter's. Gertie recalled having dry boots because of her Mother's skill, but also because Cropredy had good pavements, higher than the muddy lanes, almost down to the school. Other children who had to trudge across wet fields and down muddy roads, sat all day with wet feet and clothes. Village children suffered from damp related illnesses far more than their town cousins, as some research has shown. Both William and his wife Edith also believed in home cures and preventative medicines. Mrs Pettifer was very aware of the care needed when someone was ill. She had been rescued as a young servant through the timely intervention of her employer insisting on good nursing. Whether she was encouraged, while in the Horton Hospital to one day try to help the sick, or later from necessity, she certainly saved her daughter Gertrude from pneumonia by very careful nursing. William had all the skills and understanding of farm work, but none of the capital to start up on his own. In his father's and grandfather's time milk was replacing corn. Butter was sent weekly to Banbury market by basket, but this was costly in labour and soon more profit was made by sending milk on the new railway to London. Then by the time William returned to Cropredy profits from milk and calves had been falling for some time. Mr G.J.Griffin, who had three College farms in Cropredy, said cows were not the answer. "The very low price we have now to take for milk in London, and fat cattle and sheep paying but a trifle for grazing, compels me to ask for a reduction in rent...after paying Railway charges milk realises a little under 5d a gallon and a fraction over 8d in winter"[9]. This meant further staff were laid off who had little choice, but to leave the village. It was at this time that the Pettifers were starting to bring up a family with no chance of an increase in wages. The experts were beginning to point out that wages were too low and keeping the family below "mere physical efficiency" [10]. The only way the Pettifers could make this up was to spend even more energy growing food for themselves. Fortunately Cropredy had allotments and some even grew enough corn, which supplemented by leazing, could be taken to the mill to be ground up for pudding flour. Bread however must still be brought. It was a real disaster when the mill at Lower Cropredy burnt down. The headmaster recorded in his log book on January the l2th 1905: "Mr Hadland's flour mill is burnt to the ground during the night. Although there is great excitement and the mill is very near the school, the children were in their places punctually! The mill is still burning and the Banbury fire Brigade here all day"[11]. After this flour had to be purchased. The years of the Boer war sent up food prices and the depression deepened during Gertie's time at school. The poverty line was just over a pound. William's wages never reached much above 15s [75p]. Out of this had to come the rent of his cottage. The struggle for better wages continued until during the war they rose to £2, but were still 13s below the new poverty line, due to a sharp increase in prices. Soon after the 1914-1918 war the nation once again began to forget the food producers. Mr McDougall who was able to let Prescote Manor and economise in a smaller house (Andrew's Farm or Little Prescote as he called it), wrote to the Bursar in October 1922 "I feel that I would not economise in pleasanter surroundings. Farmers are undoubtedly facing a difficult situation just now, and to my thinking no possible legislation will relieve the immediate danger. Only two things are of any use. Economise living and High farming" [12]. Those farmers who could economise survived, but many were not able to. Farm workers had to take cut backs in wages and work longer hours. They had no guarantee of work on wet days and over the winter could loose several weeks pay. The threat of the workhouse had hung over the village since the 1830's and continued to do so. Pensions had been introduced, but when Edith's father Samuel applied for a pension in 1916, he was told his yearly means exceeded £31- lOs and so was not eligible [13]. The 1920's with few employment prospects grew worse in the 1930's, so that some had to very reluctantly apply for help. Gertie fumed over the injustice of the Parish Means Test Officer. In 1931 a Means Test was introduced by a struggling parliament. No-one seemed to consider what this cost in terms of human dignity. In exchange for a small amount of dole, they had first to give up a proportion of their furniture and even clothes. An official could decide they had too many chairs, shirts, shoes and even saucepans. Anyone who stood by and watched a relative so humiliated would never forget it Gertie exploded with wrath, just to think about it. The Means Test produced an even meaner spirit in the authorities, which spread out to destroy good neighbourliness and family co-operation. Once receiving help any gifts became a liability, as informers made the recipients life miserable by tale telling. As the 1930's depression grew worse, many men sat at home totally unable to cope with it. The wives had to do all the allotment work to provide them with food, as well as continuing to work if some could be found. Like so many women they had to see first to their children's needs before their own. Many became exhausted and "their health suffered through undernourishment, worry and shame, caused by circumstances beyond their control." Influenza combined with poor health, brought some to a tragically early death. William and Edith moved eventually into an Addison House on Chapel Green. When these new parlour houses were first put up they unfortunately had higher rents than the falling wages of the farm worker could reasonably afford. This meant that other higher wage earners moved in causing great resentment amongst those they had originally been intended for. The old two bedroom thatched cottages, inadequate for decades before the war, were much discussed amongst those in better circumstances. Lord Addison who tried to improve the housing stock in England was instrumental in insisting on acceptable standards after the war. In Cropredy these were the parlour-type house with three bedrooms built on Chapel Green. Large gardens were thought essential, as apparently in England only one in six cottages had more than an eighth of an acre available to grow food. By 1939 though, Addison sadly found that it was doubtful if the provision of good cottages for farm workers, since the war, had "kept pace with the increase in dilapidation of those which although occupied, are in fact unfit for habitation" [14]. Since the last war these cottages have in many cases been saved, which given capital earlier, could have been achieved sooner. Cropredy was fortunate in having a good stock of stone dwellings. Their only fault was the need for constant attention to keep them weather proof though they were all much more spartan than most could endure today. Incoming capital, aided by grants, has rescued cottages, some two or three being made into roomy dwellings for small nuclear families. The original housing stock had been built by tenant farmers and cottagers at the end of the sixteenth century. Each cottage had rights of commonage giving them an independent status that enabled them to work along side the farmers, rather than as employees with few rights. After the enclosure of the fields few cottages retained any rights of grazing, or fuel collecting. Without a cow, or land to plant corn, or furze to heat their oven, they soon had to seek employment for the essentials previously provided by themselves. 'Their skills remained and were still wanted, as indeed were their descendants, but the advantage was now the employers. If one farmer could recognize the Pettifers value, even in a patronizing way, his ancestors ad worked alongside similar men as equals. When families can be traced back, their ancestors frequently had rights of commonage. Some like the shepherd William Cherry who was dismissed for his religious views, came from a local farming family. In the sixteenth century another shepherd could rent a small holding like Monkeytree House, and leave a will to be proved in the Court of Canterbury. Some shepherds left more goods than farmers. Other local people with ancient cottage rights attached to their copyhold dwelling, grew barley, kept a pig, a cow and a few sheep. They made butter to pay the rent, kept hens in the cottage close and grew vegetables. Extras came from helping with the harvests, or from cottage industries. Like the farmer, younger sons could attend the Williamscote Grammar school and advance up the ladder. A hundred years after enclosure and the loss of their rights of commonage, the village had become a two tier society, the employers and the employees. Gertrude attended school with more enthusiasm than most. Only a few obtained a silver watch as she did for five years constant attendance. She also leant to think and not to say what she really thought at the time. These harboured thoughts, some quite bitter, constantly errupted in her conversations when talking about her former employment. Only to her mother did she once risk retaliating. Mrs Pettifer asked her, "Where have you been?" although Gertie was over twenty years of age. She refused to say. The glee in retelling this traumatic event came from beating her mother at her own game, for before that Edith had taught her daughter to 'Bite your tongue and keep it to yourself." So she did. Mrs Pettifer taught her too that cleanliness was next to godliness, but on other important matters Gertrude remained in ignorance, for any sex education was totally taboo. It was decided to divide this book into two parts. Part 1 was told to me by Agnes Gertrude Pettifer who was born in 1896. She spoke about her parents and her early life in Cropredy. This section we have called Down the Lane from 1896. Part 11 is made up from conversations with Gertrude's niece Dorothy Marjorie Pettifer, born on the l2th of August 1912. Dolly brought forward further information about her Granny and Grampy from 1912 onwards. This begins Down the Lane from 1912. As in Book One and Two the Appendices include the family tree, this time of the Pettifer family, and a Whos Who of people mentioned in the text. In addition there are two pages of William Pettifer's poems. He wrote many, of which three are included in this book. Gertrude had a great store of poems in her mind, but also some written down to refresh her memory. Just a few have been printed out in Appendix Four. In Five further information is given about the photographs. For the Poems and photographs we have to thank Mrs Dolly Monk for giving permission to use them. Also to members of the Historical Society for the use of the Society tapes and photographs. Finally an Index has again been included to help any further studies being undertaken. It is hoped the three plans will clarify the text for those not so familiar with Cropredy. Any misinformation is entirely the fault of the editor. Every effort has been made to remove material unsuitable for publication. I trust none has been left. Mrs Gertrude Mold spoke her part over numerous visits mostly as set pieces. She told of her life up to her second marriage, and a little about their time in North Aston. Later they moved to Middleton Cheney. As a widow Mrs Mold returned to Cropredy to live in one of the Vicarage Garden Flats. Unfortunately only a little was tape recorded, for talking to an audience brought out the best of her talents. Gertie was a natural entertainer and excelled at reciting poems, songs and stories. Some of these she kept written down, but most she had retained for well over sixty years, as fresh as when she first learnt them. Wishing to know more about Cropredy before the First World War, I began to search for lists, references and photographs all of which seemed to please her enormously. They also stimulated her memory. A little controversy extended her recall, as I read aloud Mrs Mabel Durrant's letters. Providing the visits were not too long, never once did Mrs Mold complain. Usually she had something ready to tell me, and if it had been said before, it enabled me to recall it more accurately. It was always a pleasure to visit her. After we left Cropredy in 1985 her poor eyesight ruled out letters and I missed our meetings very much. Agnes Gertrude died on the 27th of December 1986 and I would like to dedicate Part 1 to her memory. Part two was more difficult, for Mrs Dolly Monk's concern has always been with Cropredy's present and future welfare. No special tape was made, though the Cropredy Historical Society meetings which were recorded, provide some additional material, for Dolly's part was intertwined with the rest. This did provide the opportunity to include other member's contributions. I would like to thank them all for the enjoyableand illuminating discussions quoted here. The rest of Mrs Monk's came from various conversations and are just the gist of what was told to me, for it is not always possible to recall everyone's opinions word perfect, without the use of a tape recorder. It is not easy to say yes to someone printing your tales about Cropredy, when you did not intend to ever write them down yourself. Mrs Monk has been very patient with me, and I am quite sure would much rather they had not been made into a book. However having kindly given permission and help in correcting the proofs, it must be understood that any mistakes or unintentional offence must be laid entirely at the editor's door and not hers. The book based on Creampot Lane brings out so many different facets of Cropredy, not brought out in Book one or two, that I hope you will agree with me, Mrs Monk's and Mrs Mold's contributions make very enjoyable reading, besides adding to our knowledge of life in an Oxfordshire village. PK.1992 References:-
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