Folk in Essex: Part Two

Following on from his first blog post, MA placement student Callum Newton explores the history of folk revival in Britain, through the Essex folk movement oral histories and recordings held in the Essex Sound and Video Archive.

It may appear as though there is a dichotomy between the emphasis placed on the importance of folk music in the extensive archives at the ERO, and the lack of prominence it is afforded in the British popular consciousness. To many in Britain, traditional folk music has been considered a niche interest – somewhat ignored compared to its popular cousin, pop folk. Morris dancing has often been viewed as eccentric and alien, while folk clubs have had no place within most people’s daily lives.

Yet, this limited perspective did not detract from the detailed, vibrant and quite living world those interviewed for the Essex folk movement oral history project inhabited. In many ways, it was a universe of their own, as conservators of a tradition as well as practitioners of it. It was their culture, and still is today [1]. There should be no doubt that this is a legitimate reason for capturing the folk movement, and Essex’s role within it. If preserving the tradition, practices and knowledge is integral to folk itself, then preserving the history and making it accessible within an archive is integral to the movement too. After all, Morris sides often keep their own archives and have a designated archivist for this very same task [2].

Daniel Fox on the role of archives in Morris [SA 30/7/1/25/1]. Read a transcript here.
Poster for Morris Dancing at Westminster Abbey. The top section features the text in white and black on a red background. The bottom section features an illustration of a Morris dancer on a background of a Union Jack.
Poster for Morris Dancing, a considerable part of the folk movement [SA 30/2/3/4].

However, to fully understand the intricacies of the Essex folk movement, and the traditions practitioners incorporated into their lifestyles, one cannot ignore the wider context in which Essex’s folk music collection exists.

Where did folk music come from?

Folk, ultimately, means people. Folk music, then, must mean a music of the people. The history of the folk movement in Britain is one arranged around a question of how that definition might be interpreted. There is no clear concept behind what ‘folk music’ is, as it is one that has evolved over the last two centuries with social, political and technological impositions [3].

The story starts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with the first ‘folk revival’, where amateur historians began their collections of folk songs and ballads by going out into the world and making a record of them [4]. These pioneers, like Sabine Baring-Gould, Frank Kidson, Lucy Broadwood and Cecil Sharp, were limited by technology – their writings, rather than recordings, would go on to begin the collection later housed at the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) [5], based at Cecil Sharp House [6]. Rooted in antiquarianism, the EFDSS assumed an authority over all English folk scholarship, enjoying a monopoly on “promoting vintage musical and dance styles” [7]. It existed primarily as a vehicle for an academic style and rejected popular folk music, leading to a historiographical perception of gatekeeping folk music from “rowdy” people [8]. In their own words, they were ‘protectors’ and ‘preservers’ of folk [9]. The legacy of this philosophy would repeatedly come into conflict with the practices of the second folk revival from the 1950s and 1960s. Performance became the driver of the tradition, but the purpose of performance became hotly contested [10].

Excerpt from ‘A Bicycle Ride With Vaughan Williams’ by Tony Kendall, which presents the story of the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams’ first visit to Ingrave, where he recorded his first folk song [SA 30/1/7/1]. Read a transcript here.
Front cover of 'That Precious Legacy: Ralph Vaughan Williams and Essex Folksong' by Sue Cubbin. The text is in red over a map of Ingrave, with a large photographic portrait of Vaughan Williams to the right.
That Precious Legacy, by Sue Cubbin (2006) [C/DR 1/136] . Vaughan Williams is often extolled as the best source of Essex folk songs, due to his collecting in the country in the early twentieth century.

A history of the second folk revival in England cannot be complete without touching on the lineage of folk song collecting in the USA. The two nations were interlinked in the early movement, with collectors and performers travelling across the Atlantic. With the release of American Ballads and Folk Songs in 1934, John and Alan Lomax “set the standard for folk song collecting” globally [11]. The USA had always been more receptive to folk music generally, allowing various collectors to rise throughout the early twentieth century to cover the huge range of popular American folk songs. In contrast, the British collections largely began and ended with the EFDSS [12], although a generation after the likes of Cecil Sharp, private collectors did exist, with individuals like Ralph Vaughan Williams collecting in Essex from 1903 [13]. Yet the lack of popularity of English folk meant collectors were few and far between, or concentrated at Cecil Sharp House, while the popularity of American folk meant collections across the Atlantic were in vogue [14].

David Occomore on researching Essex folk music at Cecil Sharp House and beyond [SA 30/7/1/5/1]. Read a transcript here.

These worlds would start to collide during the second folk revival, particularly during Alan Lomax’s travels to England [15]. American country music became popular during the 1940s, as American soldiers stationed in Britain began broadcasting through the American Forces Network [16]. Eventually the British interpretation of those country folk songs became skiffle, inspired by Lonnie Donegan’s number one hit cover of ‘Rock Island Line’, in a very homemade fashion due to the relative expense of instruments [17]. Alan Lomax arrived in Britain in 1950 and further propagated the skiffle scene by broadcasting American folk songs and collecting the English songs where he could. During this time, Lomax became the inspiration for the left-wing actor and writer, Ewan MacColl [18]. MacColl saw folk music as a platform for the working people of Britain, to give the ‘common man’ back his music. After Lomax introduced him to A. L. ‘Bert’ Lloyd, this became a reality with the six-part radio series Ballads and Blues – though MacColl’s professional career had only really just begun [19].

Red and Myra Abbott discuss Alan Lomax’s radio show [SA 30/7/1/20/1]. Read a transcript here.
Newspaper cutting titled 'New folk club launched'. The text - about Benfleet and Canvey Folk Club - sits above a photograph of the folk club, a group of ten men and women gathered around a violinist.
Folk clubs were founded for many different purposes. Some, like the Hoy, were offshoots of other clubs due to disagreements on song policy [SA202].

Lomax predicted that skiffle would be a short-lived phenomenon, and that many American-inspired skiffle musicians would turn to their own folk tradition for new inspiration. After all, argued Lomax, ‘Do it Yourself’ music was, by definition, folk [20]. MacColl accepted Lomax’s vision, but saw skiffle as only a means to an end. Despite his politically socialist internationalism, in 1958 he instituted a policy of national restriction at his Ballads and Blues club; only Americans could sing American songs in his club, he argued, in order to protect the English tradition from being replaced [21]. To MacColl, folk music remained an image of unity for working people. This began his relationship with Topic Records, a company under the umbrella of the Worker’s Music Association based in the United States. Alongside the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which made use of skiffle and folk as a rallying cry, MacColl became the face of political folk music, and introduced many on the left-wing spectrum to folk [22].

Poster for 'The Windmill Folk Club' at Old Windmill Hall, Upminster. The poster is a relatively simple design in cream and brown.
London’s folk scene was integral to the development of the second wave of folk music – particularly in the case of its connection to Essex [SA 30/2/3/4].
Colin Cater on the influence of Ewan MacColl [SA 30/7/1/7/1]. Read a transcript here.

As Lomax had predicted, when skiffle music began to fall out of favour, the performers turned to folk. Skiffle clubs became folk clubs and began to attract a new generation of performers with an interest in the English tradition. These names included Martin Carthy, Shirley Collins and Bob Davenport [23]. They arrived at folk clubs housed at a temporary location, usually in a pub, and performed for or with each other [24]. At the height of the movement, there were hundreds of these permanent and semi-permanent clubs in London, and possibly at least one in every major city in England [25]. There was little financial incentive for these clubs to run; often they barely broke even [26]. And what was played in these clubs was never static, as popular folk of the Donegan strand, propagated by touring American folk artists like Ramblin’ Jack Elliott or Bob Dylan, continued to be played alongside more English traditional songs straight from the EFDSS library [27].

Peter Chopping tells an anecdote about Ramblin’ Jack Elliott visiting Dartford Folk Club [SA 30/7/1/22/1]. Read a transcript here.

In some cases, this resulted in schisms over the legitimacy of the songs performers adopted, as with MacColl’s ruling over national songs, and also in divisions over ‘electric folk’ and ‘popular folk’ [28]. The latter is most prevalent in the case of Bob Dylan, who was infamously jeered by a folk audience by changing his persona and style, sensing a possible decline in folk [29]. With the professionalisation of the folk movement, particularly by bands like Fairport Convention, folk no longer existed in the vacuum of the folk clubs where everyone participated in singarounds led by a performer [30].

Poster for 'Gardner and Christian Harmony Duo'. The text encircles a black and white photograph of two men with long hair and guitars, kneeling on some grass.
Poster for Art Gardner and Rick Christian [SA 30/2/3/4]. Pop folk was viewed as both a benefit and drawback to folk as a whole – with disagreements about watering down the tradition versus finding a wider audience for folk.
‘These Things Happen’ by Rick Christian [SA 30/1/24/1], originally published in 1996 on an album of the same name. Read a transcript here.

By the 1990s, folk was largely seen as being in decline. The nature of folk had changed over the decades, and the original practitioners no longer held a monopoly over the practice. As folk had become a genre rather than a lifestyle, folk festivals came to replace the folk club. JP Bean cites BBC radio’s transition to ‘fresh’ artists, with an appeal to a younger generation, for the decline in ‘traditional’ English folk [31]. Elsewhere, folk continued to be inherited by the children of the older practitioners of the 1960s onwards, who grew up with folk and the lifestyle. The tradition, in this sense, does live on [32].

Jim Garrett talks about his musical daughter [SA 30/7/1/24/1]. Read a transcript here.

[1] Folk Singing in Essex from the 1960s, Sue Cubbin SA 30/7/3/37

[2] Essex Record Office, Interview with Daniel Fox, 6 April 2000, SA 30/7/1/25/1

[3] Britta Sweers, Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music, (Oxford University Press, 2005), p.25

[4] Ronald D. Cohen and Rachel C. Donaldson, Roots of the Revival: American and British Folk Music in the 1950s, (Illinois, 2014), p.7

[5] For the purposes of this section, the activities of the English Folk Song Society and English Folk Dance Society are being combined under the label of EFDSS, although they did not merge until 1929. In principle, though, the organisations had identical aims and goals when it comes to preservation.

[6] Jacqueline Simpson, and Steve Roud, A Dictionary of English Folklore, (Oxford, 2003) and Frederick Keel, “The Folk Song Society 1898-1948”, Journal of English Folk Dance and Song Society, 5.3 (1948), p.111

[7] Cohen and Donaldson, Roots of the Revival, p.61

[8] Sweers, Electric Folk, pp.31-32 and Billy Bragg, Roots, Radicals and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed the World, (London, 2017), p.235

[9] Frederick Keel, The Folk Song Society 1898-1948, p.111

[10] Bragg, Roots, Radicals and Rockers, p.253

[11] Cohen and Donaldson, Roots of the Revival, p.14

[12] Ibid, p.17

[13] Tony Kendall, “Through Bushes and Briars: Vaughan Williams’ earliest folk-song collecting”, in Ralph Vaughan Williams: In Perspective, ed. By Lewis Foreman, (Tonbridge, 1998), pp.48-55

[14] Cohen and Donaldson, Roots of Revival, p.21

[15] Ibid, p.40

[16] Cohen and Donaldson, Roots of Revival, p.19

[17] John Robert Brown, A Concise History of Jazz, (Fenton, 2006), p.142 and JP Bean, Singing from the Floor: A History of British Folk Clubs, (London, 2014), pp.1-2

[18] Bean, Singing from the Floor, p.1

[19] Cohen and Donaldson, Roots of Revival, p.44 and Bragg, Roots, Radicals and Rockers, pp.252-253

[20] Cohen and Donaldson, Roots of Revival, p.96

[21] Bragg, Roots, Radicals and Rockers, pp.367-368

[22] Cohen and Donaldson, Roots of Revival, pp.20, 40, p.130 and Interview with Myra and Red Abbott, 9 February 2000 [SA 30/7/1/20/1]

[23] Bean, Singing from the Floor, p.2

[24] Julia Yvonne Mitchell, “Subterranean Bourgeois Blues: The Second English Folk Revival, c. 1945-1970”, (unpublished doctoral thesis, University College London, 2014), p.62

[25] Bean, Singing from the Floor, p.xiii

[26] Mitchell, “Subterranean Bourgeois Blues”, p.63

[27] Bean, Singing from the Floor, pp.3, 18-19, 30, 56, 68

[28] Folk Singing in Essex from the 1960s, Sue Cubbin [SA 30/7/3/37]

[29] Bean, Singing from the Floor, p.31 and Sweers, Electric Folk, pp.23, 30

[30] Sweers, Electric Folk, p.23 and Bean, Singing from the Floor, p.3

[31] Bean, Singing from the Floor, p.350

[32] Ibid, p.326

Folk in Essex: Part One

Each year the ERO offers a placement to students on the MA History course at the University of Essex, jointly funded by the university and the Friends of Historic Essex. Last year, we were lucky to be joined by Callum Newton, who catalogued the Essex folk movement oral history project, conducted by Sue Cubbin between 1998 and 2002 (SA 30/7). Over the next three blog posts, Callum delves into the oral histories and chooses some of his personal highlights from the folk collection held in the Essex Sound and Video Archive. In this post, he explains the background to the collection and explores some of the issues discussed in the interviews.

Photograph of an office, with a corner desk and pinboard in the background. A woman, Sue Cubbin, is sitting side on at the desk, looking at a piece of paper in front of a reel-to-reel tape machine.
Sue Cubbin pictured in 1999 [C/DR 6/84].

In 1998 Sue Cubbin began an oral history collection that can only be described as a passion project. Inspired by the everyday lives recorded in the Colchester Recalled project (SA 8) she encountered through her work with the Essex Sound Archive, Sue set about conducting interviews with individuals involved in a lifestyle that she herself was deeply enmeshed with: the Essex folk movement.

‘Essex Folk Theme’ written and performed by the Jack Forbes Band [SA 30/3/6/1]. The recording was one of several played on Essex Radio’s Essex Folk programme in autumn 1981.

Sue’s belief was that the people involved in preserving the English folk tradition had their lives completely and utterly transformed by their relationship to folk. It was not simply a hobby for those involved; many committed every day of their week to participating in different folk clubs like Blackmore or the Hoy at Anchor. These clubs were home to a dedicated group of singers and musicians, like the Folk Five, Mick and Sarah Graves and the Grand Ceilidh Club. Every year, Essex also became home to folk festivals, most famously at Leigh-on-Sea.

‘Get a Little Table’ performed by Sarah and Mick Graves, recorded by Jim Etheridge at Chelmsford Folk Club on 18 July 1982 [SA 30/6/402/1]. The song was originally a music hall tune and is known by several names – including ‘The Lincolnshire Wedding Song’ (or ‘The Lancashire Wedding Song’). Read a transcript here.
Newspaper cutting dated Wednesday, November 11, 1970, showing a photograph of a group of people gathered around a guitar. The photograph is captioned 'Last Sunday at the Fitzwimare School the Rayleigh Society of Folk Dance and Song held a very successful musical evening."
Myra Abbott (left) started the Southend and the Hoy at Anchor Folk Clubs in the 1960s [SA202]

Over the next few years, this archive grew beyond the oral histories to include music recordings, video, photographs, scrap books and all kinds of other assorted materials, all preserved by Sue at the ERO.

Sue Cubbin explains the oral history project to Myra and Red Abbott [SA 30/7/1/20/1]. Read a transcript here.

From the beginning, Sue saw the project as an opportunity to help protect Essex folk by keeping a record for future generations to be inspired by. This idea is parallel to the oral nature of the folk tradition itself, in which music and dances were inherited generation after generation, by communities for future communities. The nature of this tradition in a modern world, however, was not without question. In a world with commercial records, big-name artists, and large festivals, one might ask what place a folk club might have. As we will see, many interviewees who were patrons of folk clubs asked this same question, suffering a kind of existentialism about the nature of folk and what place their lifestyle and tradition had in a country that often seemed to soundly reject it.

The front cover of a bright yellow programme. At the top is the emblem of Chelmsford Folk Club, a bridge, and at the bottom is an illustration of a man playing a violin and the text 'folk for enjoyment'.
Programme for Chelmsford Folk Club, which ran from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s [SA 30/2/3/4]
‘I Sowed Some Seeds’ performed by Martin Carthy, recorded by Jim Etheridge at Chelmsford Folk Club on 17 October 1982 [SA 30/6/425/1]. The song is based on the traditional song ‘The Hostess’s Daughter’, documented by Sabine Baring-Gould. Carthy released ‘I Sowed Some Seeds’ on his 1982 album, ‘Out of the Cut’. Read a transcript here.

This series of blog posts will explore how the individuals involved interpreted their commitment to the movement, and to the folk revival overall. For the rest of this post, I shall briefly spell out the main themes of the interviews: definitions of folk; the issues posed by commercialisation; and how to keep folk alive. The second and third posts shall explore the story of the folk revival and the nature of the folk movement in Essex.

What is folk?

The definition of folk is not a simple one. To many of us, folk music is often associated with singer-songwriter artists like Bob Dylan or Judy Collins, or perhaps even American country music. Yet many of the interviewees in the collection describe folk as something more: a lifestyle that they commit entirely to, a tradition they have inherited from ‘ordinary people’ of the past. There was not one idea of folk, however. It appears everyone involved had at least their own interpretation of the philosophy.

Some describe it as a continuation of that tradition, a very tangible lineage, rather than something separate or new. But others – like Colin Cater – view this lineage as not necessarily linear.

Colin Cater proposes his circular theory of inheritance within the folk tradition [SA 30/7/1/7/1]. Read a transcript here.

Others felt strongly that folk was a living tradition, rather than a re-enactment, the ‘folkies’ of Essex often deriding the English Folk Dance and Song Society for aligning with the latter. Folk clubs came under especial scrutiny. Did the music enjoyed locally and communally within these clubs constitute a living tradition? Was having guest performers, on a stage, being watched in silence, contrary to the spirit of a communal folk tradition? Does folk belong to one economic class?

Paul Kiff explains why he is principally against performance-centric folk clubs [SA 30/7/1/11/1]. Read a transcript here.

Or, as Paul O’Kelly suggests, is folk for personal enjoyment? Does it need to be communal at all?

Paul O’Kelly talks about individuality in folk music [SA 30/7/1/18/1]. Read a transcript here.
Poster for 'Touchwood: Electric folk & soft rock', with a white background and text in pink and green. To the left is an illustration of a tree, an imp, and a frog, and to the top right is a moon with a hat and face.
Poster for Touchwood, electric folk and soft rock [SA 30/2/3/4]. Folk had many definitions for the people who practiced and played it. Some rejected more popular forms, instead arguing that folk music was an older tradition of inheritance.

Popular folk and commercialisation

Popular folk music has a fundamental connection to the definition of folk. As the folk revival progressed, many folk practitioners became professional musicians. These artists were writing music, producing records, and gigging under the guise of folk music, very often in folk clubs but certainly within the popular sphere as well. To some of the local folk practitioners, however, this was seen as a degradation of the tradition. Many practitioners thought folk should stay true to its traditional roots, as a communal activity. Putting artists on a stage, separate from its audience, was not considered within their definition of folk, and was even treated as damaging to traditional interpretations of folk music.

Paul Kiff explains why commercialisation is anti-folk [SA 30/7/1/11/1]. Read a transcript here.

This debate also raged within Morris dancing. Those who were lucky enough to be given television appearances were accused of, in the words of Peter Boyce, ‘prostituting’ the tradition, because their costumes were experimental and unique, rather than by the book.

Peter Boyce explains the split between Chingford and Albion Morris over ‘electric Morris’ [SA 30/7/1/14/1]. Read a transcript here.

On the other hand, some viewed commercialisation positively. It provided opportunities for those with unique song-writing talent the opportunity to make a living from what they loved and gave folk a platform to present itself positively. Popular folk introduced many of the interviewees to folk clubs in the first place.

Sarah Graves explains the benefits of commercialisation [SA 30/7/1/19/1]. Read a transcript here.
Poster for 'Folk Concert'. The text is in blue on a white background and reads 'Folk Concert for The Linda Sargant Disneyland Fund in The Brentwood Odeon at Midnight - 2.30 on Friday December 7th. Featuring Touchwood, The Riggers, Dave Royall, Tony Maloney.". There are also small illustrations at the top and to each corner.
Poster for a folk concert [SA 30/2/3/4]. The Essex folk movement was not immune from commercialisation. Many viewed the potential to make a living from their lifestyle and practice as a positive element of folk music.

Keeping alive and communicating a folk tradition

Unlike the other issues discussed, the interviewees all agreed that more could have been done to keep the folk tradition alive, and that a lack of communication and pride in folk was to blame. Many felt that English people were ashamed of their folk roots, seeing a snobbery or embarrassment that was not present in Irish or Scottish folk traditions. Others tried to encourage the tradition, by writing new dances and songs, as a method of keeping it active and alive, instead of rehashing the older music that some had grown tired of.

Jill Palmer-Swift on how the folk tradition was still alive by virtue of new dances being written [SA 30/7/1/4/1]. Read a transcript here.

Many suggested that young people simply had no interest in folk, with many alternatives for entertainment in a modernising world; none more so than Tony Kendall, who envisioned a revival based in teaching the folk tradition in primary schools across Essex and Britain.

Tony Kendall on his plans to encourage young people to respect and participate in the folk tradition [SA 30/7/1/13/1]. Read a transcript here.

While folk music and dance was certainly still alive when the interviews were recorded, there was an acceptance amongst practitioners that folk was in decline by the 1990s. Some feared this would lead to the folk tradition disappearing altogether, without fast acting documentation.

Ivy Romney on her fear of losing traditional dances to the decline of the folk movement [SA 30/7/1/8/1]. Read a transcript here.
Black and white photograph of a group of people gathered at a party, next to a handwritten yellow label. The label reads 'Ivy Romney 80th Birthday Folk Dance Party at Alresford Village Hall. Guests from many Essex Dance Clubs'.
Ivy Romney (centre) played an important role within the English Folk Dance and Song Society – particularly in advocating for recognition for international folk dances [A14095]

While the Essex folk tradition does live on, preserved by a dedicated group of practitioners, some twenty years on from when she began, the interviews and the folk song and music collection held at the Essex Record Office acts as an insurance for Essex folk. Forever can the sounds and dances of the movement be experienced and inherited, and the lives attached to the golden age of the folk movement be remembered through their own experiences, in their own words and on their own terms.

‘Bonny Ship The Diamond’, performed live by the Skinners Rats, formed by Peter Chopping [SA 30/1/24/1]. The recording was published in 2001 on ‘Folk Festival’, a CD produced for Walton Folk Festival. The song is a traditional whaling tune. Read a transcript here.

Find out more about folk archives preserved at the Essex Record Office in this guide: Sources on Folk Music.

#WorldBeeDay – bee boles and the Essex Beekeepers’ Association

To celebrate #WorldBeeDay on 20th May, we take a look at the the Essex Beekeepers’ Association archive held at the Essex Record Office.

Before the invention of the modern wooden beehive in the mid-nineteenth century, bees were often housed in bee boles – a row of recesses each large enough to hold a coiled-straw hive called a skep. These bee boles were typically built in to south-facing garden walls.

In 1967, the Epping Forest Division of the Essex Beekeepers’ Association repaired the bee bole at Tilty, near Dunmow in Essex. Their Annual Report for the year includes an account of the work carried out by their volunteer construction team made up of a retired schoolmaster, a draughtsman/artist, a joiner/carpenter, a police officer, and a postman. The bee bole is flint with brick arch supports and the top storey of the structure was almost entirely rebuilt by the team. They left a time capsule inside the bee bole containing some monthly circulars published by the Division and some mead with a note reading: “We believe that the structure was part of a Priory known to have existed here before the dissolution of the monasteries, and we hope that it will be as long again before this honey jar and contents are discovered”. The Priory mentioned is the Cistercian Abbey of St Mary at Tilty. The nearby Church of St Mary, originally the Abbey chapel, has flint and stone chequerwork below the east window. The front cover of the Annual Report (pictured below) is beautifully illustrated by Mr H. C. Moss and depicts the repaired bee bole.

EBKA and The Essex Beekeeper handwritten in capitals with black ink, above a black and white drawing of the Tilty bee bole with six recesses, in two rows of three, all in boxes surrounded by a black and white 3d cube design
Front cover of the Essex Beekeepers’ Association Annual Report for 1967 (ref: LIB/638.142).

The annual report is held at the ERO as part of the Essex Beekeepers’ Association archive. The collection includes their first minute book covering 1880-1910 containing the minutes of their inaugural meeting at 90 High Street, Chelmsford on 14 July 1880 and a label for a jar of honey. The label was selected on 12 April 1897 when it was agreed that 20,000 should be printed by Mr A D Woodley at a cost of £5.

A thin cardboard label designed to wrap around a glass honey jar. Heraldic design with The Essex Beekeepers' Association" and "Pure Honey" written in banners around the Essex county coat of arms
County honey label, 1897 (ref: D/Z 142/1).

You may also be interested in a previous blog on the changing pattern of land usage and the historic value of meadows to the Essex landscape which is available to read here.

Of leprosy and cucking stools

The documents that ERO look after are like windows on the past, offering snapshots and vistas of lost worlds. For so many of our predecessors, a brief mention in an official document might be the only occasion that their names were recorded. For many, probably the majority before the introduction of parish registers in 1538, they remain nameless. For anyone considering that the early-modern or medieval eras offered some bucolic ‘golden age’, then it can be a salutary experience to realise that living in our own imperfect age is much preferable.

A recent example of this was when Dr Herbert Eiden, one of the researchers for the People of 1381 Project (http://www.1381.online/) was in the Searchroom chasing up the post revolt lives of some of the rebels, when he happened upon some interesting entries in manorial documents relating to Harlow, the first within a view of frankpledge recorded on 22nd June 1400:

[In the margin:] ‘M[emorandum] viii d

Item quod Johannes Wryght iiiid and Alicia Torples iiiid sunt leprosi et manent’ in villa apud le Cherchegate inter comunitat’ ville ad detrimentum vicinorum et contra legem. Ideo ipsi in misericordia. Et preceptum est ballivo et constabular’ amover’ eos extra vill’

This translates as:

Remember 8d

Also [the chief pledges present] that John Wryght, 4d, and Alice Torples, 4d, are lepers and live in the town next to Le Cherchegate inside the community of the town and to the harm of the neighbours. Therefore, they are in mercy. And the bailiff and the constables are ordered to remove them from the town

Alice reappears at the end of a court leet for 4th May 1406 when

‘It is ordered to move outside the town Alice Torples, a certain leper woman, under pain of 20s, until the next court.’

By this time John has disappeared, perhaps he had died. We can only try and imagine the social stigma that Alice must have suffered, let alone the symptoms of leprosy.

Such is the nature of these documents, that directly under this entry appears one that demonstrates one of the features law and order in the medieval world:

‘The bailiff is ordered to make a new ‘cokyngstoll’ [cucking stool] until the next court under pain of 20s.’

Engraving of a woman being ducked on a 'cucking stool' or ducking stool.

Our venerable 1930s OED records ‘cucking stool’ (‘an instrument of punishment formerly in use for scolds, disorderly women, fraudulent tradespeople, etc, consisting of a chair, in which the offender was fastened and exposed to the jeers of the bystanders, or conveyed to a pond or river and ducked’) as being first recorded in thirteenth century. We can only guess how often that was used.

So, there you go, we’re so much better off in our own times and, if you have a moment, do remember poor John Wryght and Alice Torples who didn’t have all the advantages in life that we have.

ERO is very grateful to Dr Herbert Eiden for sharing this fascinating snapshot.

All Along the Church Tower

Archive Assistant Robert Lee takes a look at one of the many small interactions that went into the creation and updating of the Ordnance Survey maps that we know and love.

I/Mb 6/1/1 - Ardleigh Church from the South.
I/Mb 6/1/1 – Ardleigh Church from the South.

Between 1791 and 1845, The Board of Ordnance had commissioned a mass triangulation survey of Great Britain; endeavouring to produce a “grand meridian line, thro’ the whole extent of the Island” (Roy). Such an endeavour would fine tune the latitudes and longitudes of the country, and allow for more accurate mapping. Approximately 300 obelisks, all ostensibly placed on some high point, like hills and mountains, were plonked around Britain, upon which triangulation would be undertaken. Not all of these points were natural, however.

I have uncovered a letter (D/P 263/6/26), sent on behalf of the Ordnance Survey Office, to a church in Ardleigh, Essex. The letter warns vehemently, yet with a hint of irony and sympathy, of the need to occupy the church’s roof once more for a re-triangulation survey in 1938. “[I]t will be necessary”, the correspondent expounds, “to carry out most of the observations by night from and to small electric projectors”.

There is something beautifully modernist about the vignette of several Ordnance Surveyors perched atop a church tower in a small county parish, operating a heavy laser projector between old stone pinnacles. No more apparent is the imminent crossover between old-time religion and contemporary science.

New Series Ordnance Survey map Sheet 29.5 1923 - Ardleigh Church sporting a triangular mark on it's tower signifying the "Trig-point" or "Triangulation point" at the top of it's tower. These triangular marks can be seen all over Ordnance Survey maps, but always somewhere high up.
New Series Ordnance Survey map Sheet 29.5 1923 – Ardleigh Church sporting a triangular mark on it’s tower signifying the “Trig-point” or “Triangulation point” at the top of it’s tower. These triangular marks can be seen all over Ordnance Survey maps, but always somewhere high up.

Playing to the Whistle: The Holden F5 Project

There are still tickets left for our forthcoming conference, Playing to the Whistle: the Railways of Essex and East Anglia, which is being held on Saturday 1st April. This will cover several aspects of the history of railways in our area along with a talk on how to make a steam engine in the 21st century. Graham Rowlands of the Holden F5 Steam Locomotive Trust, who will be speaking at our conference, shares some information about the project:

One of the last surviving F5's GER No. 789
One of the last surviving F5’s GER No. 789.

“The Holden F5 Steam Locomotive Trust was formed in 2003 with the objective of constructing a replica of the Great Eastern Railway’s M15R (latterly LNER/BR F5) Class of locomotives. With examples to be seen throughout East London and East Anglia, the last members of this type were withdrawn and scrapped by 1958. In their last years of service, they became synonymous with the Epping to Ongar branch where they operated push-pull services until November 1957. 

The Holden F5 under construction in 2022.
The Holden F5 under construction in 2022.

The Holden F5 Steam Locomotive Trust was a spin-off from a preservation group, who had the aim of preserving the Ongar branch in Essex, after the realisation that suitable locomotives from the Eastern region barely existed. Whilst not the grandest of locomotives, upon completion the engine will be well-suited to the needs of many heritage lines; with modern engineering practices and design work being coupled with original drawings, GER 789 will be more than capable of all but the heaviest loads.

To date, The Holden F5 Steam Locomotive Trust has had a number of components manufactured including: cylinder block, smokebox, chimney, machined wheels, plus much more besides. The main frames have been assembled at the Tyseley Locomotive Works in Birmingham and support the finished coal bunker and smokebox. Major progress WILL be made in 2023.”

For details of the running order of the day, and how to book, please visit: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/playing-to-the-whistle-the-railways-of-essex-and-east-anglia-tickets-503455969357. Don’t forget, the ticket price includes lunch and tea/coffee.

We look forward to seeing you at what should be an extremely interesting day.

“I got out of bed, and when I looked outside, I was in the sea” 

As described in our earlier blog post, this week marks the 70th anniversary of the 1953 North Sea flood, one of Europe’s worst peacetime disasters in the the twentieth century. As communities along the Essex coast gather to commemorate the lives lost, amongst them will be people who still remember the devastation caused by the flood, although most were just children at the time. But how will we remember the flood when it fades from living memory?

At the ERO, we are fortunate that the voices of many of those who experienced the flood are now preserved in the Essex Sound and Video Archive. The quote above comes from a recording of Mrs Rudge, interviewed a few days after the flood by Sir Bernard Braine, Canvey Island’s MP. In the recording, Mrs Rudge recalls waking up in the small hours of Sunday morning to find her bungalow in Newlands overwhelmed with water, after the tidal surge overcame the sea wall at Small Gains Creek. Nearly 80 at the time, she spent three days trapped on her dining table before being rescued, without being able to access even the “nice little bottle of whiskey” in her dressing table drawer:

Florence Rudge interviewed by Bernard Braine in 1953 [SA 1/656/1]. Read a transcript here.

The interview with Mrs Rudge is one of a precious few recordings we hold from the immediate aftermath of the flood. In the decades since, oral historians, community archives, and radio producers have continued to preserve people’s memories of that night, complementing the abundance of personal testimony woven through Hilda Grieve’s The Great Tide. To mark the 70th anniversary, we wanted to share some of those recordings, telling the story of the flood through the words of those who were there.

Rising tides

Interviews with people who had to escape their homes often begin with the moment they realised that they were flooded. As the tidal surge came with very little warning, in the middle of the night, many recall being woken up by the sound of the water in and around their homes. Interviewed in 1988, Audrey Frost described hearing:

“The sound of all this rushing water, it sounded like. And I just sort of tapped Derek, and I said, ‘Sounds as though we’ve got an awful lot of rain coming down.’ And with that he said, ‘My god, it ain’t rain – the sea’s come over!”

Audrey Frost interviewed in 1988 by the Clacton and District Local History Society [SA 16/759/1]. Read a transcript here.

Audrey and her husband Derek lived on Gorse Way, one of the worst affected areas of Jaywick. Although it initially seemed that the sea walls had protected most of the town, the tide had breached the wall at Colne Point and swept across the marshes, surging into Jaywick from behind just before 2 AM. By the time that Audrey and Derek realised what was happening, the water was higher than the gutters of their bungalow. Thankfully, they managed to swim out of one of their windows with their eighteen month-old son, Michael, and spent the night on their roof in bitingly cold conditions before being rescued the following morning.

Like Audrey and Derek, many people in Jaywick and Canvey Island lived in bungalows, making it difficult to get above the freezing water that poured in through their letterboxes and window frames. A common theme in the interviews is the speed at which the water rose, leaving people no time to get dressed or gather possessions. Those who couldn’t make it up to their roofs climbed into their lofts, or – like Mrs Rudge – even onto their furniture as it floated on the water.

One unexpected detail mentioned by many of the interviewees was the challenge posed by lino flooring as it floated up on top of the water and became near-impossible to cross, jamming doors and windows shut. Interviewed in 1993 for the Breeze FM documentary, ‘The Great Tide’, Bill Rowland recalls trying to rescue his son’s brand-new bike at home in Parkeston Quay, Harwich:

“In those days I had a lino runner down my hall, and unthinkedly I came down the stairs, and I could see this bike standing sort of submerged in water. And I could also see the lino runner. And like a silly man, I trod on the lino, and of course, you can imagine, I did a complete somersault, because the lino was just resting on the top of the water. And I finished up in this absolutely icy water. Frozen to the bone I was.”

While some had no option but to stay put and wait for help, others made the difficult decision to try and get through the water to safety. On Canvey Island, Thelma and Donald Payne found that they couldn’t get up into the loft as a gas pipe had been laid across the hatch – and, being seven months pregnant, Thelma couldn’t fit either side of it. Although they found a temporary refuge in the external staircase of the house next door, when Thelma started having pains, they decided to make a break for it in their bath.

Donald and Thelma Payne recorded in 1999 by Stephen Hussey, as part of the ‘Headline History’ oral history project [SA 13/6/4/1]. Read a transcript here.

Others were lucky enough to have boats that hadn’t been carried away by the flood. In this interview from 2019, Malcolm MacGregor described how he managed to row his family away from their farm in Lee-over-Sands, with his sister’s Exmoor pony swimming behind them. Many of those who had their own boats, like Malcolm, were the first to help their neighbours, rescuing people from their lofts and roofs through the night.

Malcolm MacGregor recorded by Carol Dawson in 2019 as part of the ‘Tides of Tendring’ oral history project [SA 84/5/1]. Read a transcript here.

The rescue effort

Co-ordinated rescue efforts varied across the county. The policeman Kenneth Alston arrived in Harwich at 2.30 AM, five hours after the harbourmaster raised the alarm. In the intervening time the tidal surge had inundated the town, cutting it off completely. Interviewed in 1990, Ken recalled that:

“Although the water ran over the quay, the break came from the marshes at the back, what we call Bathside. There were just earthen ramparts. Those ramparts broke and water just poured into the back of Harwich. Overwhelmed all the properties there, the schools, over the railway, into the street behind the police station. And there were panic stations I can tell you.”

While the police and the fire brigade did all they could to help people get up above the water, into the upper storeys of buildings, Ken set about getting in touch with local boat owners and fishermen, the naval training ship HMS Ganges and Trinity House, who all contributed their boats to the rescue effort the following day, when hundreds of people were evacuated out of first and second-story windows.

In Jaywick, the force of the water that surged across the marshes washed away the only police car with radio equipment, hampering rescue efforts. PC Don Harmer – who hadn’t even been to Jaywick before – crawled a mile along the sea wall through the flood water to telephone for help from Clacton. Astoundingly, once he’d delivered his report, he followed orders to crawl all the way back again.

Don Harmer recorded by Anton Jarvis for the Breeze FM documentary, ‘The Great Tide’, broadcast in 1993 [SA 24/827/1]. Read a transcript here.

Any available boats along the coastline arrived to help as the morning went on, manned by emergency services, fishermen, and local residents. The following day, Monday 2nd February, the BBC journalist Max Robertson talked to some of those who had been involved, who were accompanied by a cat they’d rescued:

“Well we first pushed off from Grasslands in the boat. We hadn’t been rowing many yards when we heard a woman calling for help. So we immediately made for this bungalow, and reassured her that help was on the way.”

Down on Canvey Island, Reg Stevens, Canvey Urban Council’s Engineer and Surveyor, started co-ordinating the rescue effort at around 1.25 AM, when it was clear that the sea walls would not hold. Stevens tried to warn residents using the wartime air raid sirens and sent the policemen and firemen on the island out to reach as many people as they could. As Stevens recalls, the “heroic” telephone operator stayed sitting in the floodwater until his equipment ceased to function. Fortunately, one of the ambulances on the island had been fitted with a radio the previous week, and they managed to get a message out to their MP, Bernard Braine, who helped with the rescue effort from the mainland.

Reg Stevens, also recorded by Anton Jarvis for the Breeze FM documentary, ‘The Great Tide’, broadcast in 1993 [SA 24/827/1]. Read a transcript here.

As Canvey remained cut off, the rescuers had to make do with whatever they could find. Geoff Barsby, one of eight part-time firemen on Canvey at the time, recalls using collapsible canvas dinghies to help rescue people from their homes, and then a boat from Peter Pan’s Playground in Southend.

Geoff Barsby recorded by Ted Haley in 1983 [SA 20/1138/1]. Read a transcript here.

More boats from Southend, Grays, Tilbury and Thurrock arrived as the morning went on, and by 5.30 AM the army and RAF had arrived to help. Thirty-five years later, one of the borough policemen recalled arriving on Canvey early that morning:

“The thing that we noticed as soon as we got out of the van were the cries of help from people who were stranded nearby, plus the noise of the wind, and you know, the shock of seeing so much water in a residential area.”

Many of those involved in the rescue effort recount the practical difficulties of rescuing people. A common theme was the impossibility of using motor boats when there were so many obstacles under the water, forcing rescuers to row. Even that wasn’t straightforward – one interviewee who went out to rescue people from Canewdon and Foulness Island commented that:

“We hadn’t realised that there were so many underwater obstructions, because every now and then there were these ominous bangs coming from underneath the boat. We’d probably hit some farm machinery or a tree or a hedge or something like that and I thought any moment now we’re going to have a hole in our boat and we shall all be sunk.”

Another challenge was getting people off their roofs into the boats. In addition to the strength of the tide, there was always the risk that people would miss altogether, capsize the boat, or in the case of the canvas boats, go straight through the bottom. In one interview, Sammy Sampson describes how he rescued several residents of Great Wakering by encouraging them to slide down his back into the boat.

Once on dry land, survivors were taken to rest centres, co-ordinated by the WVS (Women’s Voluntary Services) and the local chapters of the British Legion, amongst others. As one interviewee recalls, rescued residents of Canewdon, Foulness Island, and Wallasea Island were taken to the Corinthian Yacht Club in Burnham-on-Crouch to be given tea and support. As many of those who escaped were still in their cold, wet nightclothes, the rest centres also co-ordinated collecting and distributing clothing.

Interview broadcast on BBC Essex in 1988 as part of the programme ‘Tide on Tide’ [SA 1/313/1]. Read a transcript here.

On Canvey, those who had escaped their homes initially gathered at William Read School. With the arrival of army lorries, they were taken onto the mainland and to South Benfleet School. By midday on the 1st February, journalists and photographers had started to turn up to document the ongoing rescue effort. One of the most publicised photographs at the time shows PC Bill Pilgrim carrying a child onto a lorry. As he recalls in this interview from 1988, he was just doing his job:

PC Bill Pilgrim interviewed for the 1988 BBC Essex programme ‘Tide on Tide’ [SA 1/313/1]. Read a transcript here.

The rescue effort went on for days. Families were scattered across hospitals, rest centres, relatives and friends. Canvey resident Shirley Thomas (née Hollingbury) recalled becoming separated from her parents after her mother was taken to hospital:

“Being twelve years old, I had not noticed that everybody was writing their names on the paintboard in the schools that they were taken to, and I hadn’t done it. So for a couple of days my father hunted in vain for his two girls… Eventually somebody in Benfleet remembered seeing two little girls. Luckily my sister was a redhead, so it had stuck in their mind… And I can still remember my father crying– I never saw him cry again, in his lifetime.”

Despite the disruption, businesses like Jones Stores continued to operate. Interviewed by Ted Haley in 1983, Albert Jones recalls the support of the army and Southend Grocers Association in keeping them going. In the following weeks, residents slowly returned – under the watchful eye of the police, to ensure that looting didn’t take place – to see what was left of their homes.

The famous bear outside Jones Stores, with a sign reading ‘Bear up! Canvey will rise again’

Many had lost everything to the flood. Yet, alongside the loss, people also recall the generosity of their communities and people across the country who donated clothes, food, and furniture to help the survivors rebuild their lives. There was much press coverage of the attempts to rescue pets and reunite them with their owners, led by the PDSA. One interviewee, Alan Whitcomb, recalled how he was reunited with his tortoiseshell cat after seeing him on the television:

Dr Alan Whitcomb recorded in 2004 for the ’12 Foot Under’ project [SA481]. Read a transcript here.
People holding pets and other animals rescued from the flood

Another interviewee, Winnie Capser, received an RSPCA award for Gallantry and Services on Behalf of Animals for her work. Interviewed in the early 1980s by radio producer Dennis Rookard, she commented that:

“You know, you just can’t imagine it. But I always say now, if you lived through the flood, you could live through anything.”

While it might be difficult for us to imagine the flood, seventy years on, hearing the voices of the people who lived through it – their intonation and emotional cadence – brings the scale of the tragedy closer. In listening to the detail, we bear witness to the human cost of that night – and the human perseverance and courage.

Further listening

You can listen to all of these clips – and more – at the listening post in our Searchroom. We’ll also be at Canvey Library on Wednesday 1st and Thursday 2nd February, and at Harwich Museum on Saturday 4th February. Find more information here.

You can access many of the full recordings in the Playback Room at the Essex Record Office. To explore the archives we hold relating to the 1953, see our source guide.

The story of the floods on Canvey Island was told in a film made by Essex County Council’s Educational Film Unit that same year, ‘Essex Floods’ (VA 3/8/4/1). You might recognise some of the audio from the documentary ‘Learning From The Great Tide’, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 earlier this week. The new interviews recorded for the documentary will be preserved in the ESVA for future generations.


‘The Great Tide’ remembered

Arial Photograph of Tilbury (D/Z 35/15)  (Photo: Southend Standard)
Arial Photograph of Tilbury (D/Z 35/15) (Photo: Southend Standard)

On the night of Saturday 31 January 1953, a severe storm coincided with a high spring tide in the North Sea. The resulting tidal surge caused devastation along the east coast of England. 307 people were killed, 120 of them from Essex. The worst hit communities in the county were Canvey Island, where 58 people died, and Jaywick, where 37 people lost their lives.

October 2018 seems like a long time ago. Our events team was busy planning our ERO Presents series of monthly talks. As our attention turned to booking in a talk from Janet Walden from the Canvey Community Archive about the 1953 floods, we recalled that there had been some local demand to re-print a book called “The Great Tide” – and wouldn’t it be a good idea to ask Janet what she thought, and whether she could find us anywhere to have a small, understated book launch on Canvey.

The ERO team arranged for one of our library copies to be dismantled, scanned, and for the PDFs to be sent to the printers. We were aiming for the book to be launched in the February of 2020. I’m sure that we don’t need to relate what happened next.

In 2022, with the world re-opened, we started planning the launch of “The Great Tide” for February 2023, to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the events that it describes. Alongside that launch, we aimed to commemorate the event more widely with the communities who were at the heart of it.

The new edition of "The Great Tide" by Hilda Grieve alongside the original 1959 edition.
The new edition of “The Great Tide” by Hilda Grieve alongside the original 1959 edition.

But what is so important about this book, “The Great Tide”?

“The Great Tide” was written and researched by Hilda Grieve, then Senior Assistant Archivist at the Essex Record Office. It was commissioned by Essex County Council shortly after the flood, with the intention of documenting the “complete story” of the disaster. Essentially this would be Essex County Council’s official report into the floods, but in the writing, it became so much more.

Published in 1959, “The Great Tide” told the story of the county’s relationship to the sea, the meteorological conditions preceding the flood, the events of 31 January and 1 February, and the subsequent rescue, relief, and restoration efforts in meticulous detail, drawn from six years of careful, patient research. It has since been described by the writer Ken Worpole as “one of the great works of twentieth century English social history”.

'Hilda afloat' (A14391) On Shrublands Close in Chelmsford during a river flood in the late 50s.
‘Hilda afloat’ (A14391) On Shrublands Close in Chelmsford during a river flood in the late 50s.

The Essex Record Office is privileged to hold Hilda’s original notes and early manuscripts, along with many of the documents that she would have had access to. Robert, one of our Archive Assistants, has pulled together a selection of these documents to display in our Searchroom.

As he found, there is substantially more in the archive than can be displayed. Hilda’s typescript itself comprises about eleven or twelve foolscap folders, full to capacity with her timetables and diagrams, all hammered out by typewriter and then reorganized in scraps on the page – the original Word formatting. Also illuminating were the more exacting records of people who lived through the flood. Still beautifully preserved in the collection of the South Benfleet branch of the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service are their case cards of missing persons, evacuees, primary school children, all meticulously accounted for, along with the faded newsprint clippings and telegrams of thanks from flood victims.

Since the publication of “The Great Tide”, the Essex Record Office as well as our partners like Canvey Community Archive and Harwich Museum have continued to collect material to add to the wealth of knowledge about the events of the evening of 31 January 1953, including photographs, radio broadcasts, and oral histories.

As we’ve explored in another blog post (as well as previous blog posts, here and here), the reminiscences of people who survived the flood and took part in the rescue effort across the county are particularly moving. You can listen to recordings preserved in the Essex Sound and Video Archive at the listening post in our Searchroom.

Listening post with headphones and touchscreen. On the touchscreen is a map of the areas affected by the flood.

And so, to the events we have planned for February 2023.

Wednesday 1st February: We will be at Canvey Library alongside the Canvey Community Archive, the Town Council, and representatives from the Environment Agency, Essex County Council and the National Coastwatch to commemorate the 70th anniversary. We will have a display with us including audio, video and maps of the area at the time of the flood. As part of the commemoration, a new plaque will be unveiled in memory of the victims at 2:00pm. We will also have copies of our re-print of “The Great Tide” available for sale for the first time at a special launch price of £15.00.

Thursday 2nd February: We are inviting pupils of the primary schools on Canvey to visit us at the library to view the displays and to talk to members of the Community Archive team. All of the schools on Canvey have been provided with a specially produced education pack looking at the floods.

Saturday 4th February: We will be taking our display to Harwich Museum for the day, alongside their 1953 exhibition. Local schools have been invited to visit us again on the day and have been provided with their own specially developed education pack. You will also be able to pick up your copy of “The Great Tide” from us on the day.

Copies of “The Great Tide” are available to purchase from our online shop while stock lasts https://museumshops.uk/product/the-great-tide-the-story-of-the-1953-flood-disaster-in-essex/

If you would like to find out more about the 1953 flood disaster and Hilda Grieve’s book ‘The Great Tide’, listen to the recent BBC Radio 4 documentary, Learning from the Great Tide.

Beef for Christmas

In time for Christmas, Archive Assistant Neil Wiffen looks at a nineteenth century list of gifts of beef.

Christmas is almost upon us; the shops are busy and hopefully everyone’s cupboards and fridges have been provisioned ready for the festive day. Mid-winter, the bleakest, darkest and coldest time of the year has, for at least the past two or so millennia, been a time when people come together to feast and celebrate and to look forward to the return of the sun. Today we’re used to shops full of pallets stacked with tubs of chocolates, boxes of beer and so many mince pies and panettones that’d they probably reach the moon placed end-to-end. However, in a pre-industrial age life was lived very much more precariously.

A wintery scene from the Whitmore family scrapbook D/DWt Z2-12

For instance, a ‘fairly’ recent example of dearth occurred at the end of the eighteenth century. A run of poor harvest in the 1790s caused much unrest and consternation through the kingdom This led to the government surveying agriculture across the country as way of finding out what was being grown and what the forthcoming harvests in 1800 and 1801 might yield. Further spells of bad weather in the late 18-teens saw another series of poor harvests. The spectre of famine was only a poor harvest away.

A home-grown and seasonal diet must have become fairly monotonous, and it is to be assumed that all sorts of pickling and preserving must have gone on to eek out and make more interesting, stored food stuffs. Any form of ‘boost’ was surely very welcome and even more so at Christmas. A gift of some form or other to employees was often received at Christmas and in one of the Record Office collections there are lists covering several years, of the distribution of beef to what must be the agricultural labourers and their family members (the Tabor family of Bocking, D/DTa/A33A).

D/DTa A33A Lists of those who received beef in 1851 and 1881
D/DTa A33A Lists of those who received beef in 1851 and 1881

In 1851 there were 24 doles totalling 135lb of beef, while by 1881 the number of distributions had risen to 26 but the total of beef given had fallen to 96lb. In 1851 the first dole or distribution of beef is to ‘N[?]. Strait, wife & 2 ch[ildren], Jon[athan?] Strait, 7lb’. A family group of five, so just over a pound of beef per person. This could be the family of Nathaniel Straight who was recorded as living in Hall(?) Farm Cottages, Bocking, in the 1851 census (TNA, HO 107/1785, p.39). Nathaniel, the head of the household was listed along with his wife Mary and children Jonathan, Henry, Ann and Elizabeth. They were all locals, each listing Bocking as their place of birth and all, except the girls who worked in the local silk trade, were agricultural labourers.

The entry from the list gives a household of five, but the census shows six. The census was taken in the spring and this list is from the end of the year. Had one of the children left home? If Jonathan was still at home, as suggested above, could it have been Henry, who at 18, might have moved on?

We can perhaps assume that those listed were all employees on the Tabor farms. However, the list from 1881 suggests that this might not have always been the case for a ‘Wid[do]w Rogers is listed having received 3lb of beef. Was she the relict of a now dead employee receiving some form of alms? Does this show compassion on behalf of the Tabor family?

I have just scratched the surface with just these two lists. How much more can be discovered about the lives of those listed – what connections might be uncovered? So, if you’re looking for a project for the New Year, what better than to take up this task. Do you fancy uncovering some ‘lost’ lives? If so, do get in contact for a chat. Also, there are some other documents if you search Essex Archives Online for ‘Christmas’ and ‘beef’, and I’m sure there are many other examples of gifts of food and drink waiting to be found. How about an expanded piece of research for this time next year? You know it makes sense.

For the time being, let us leave the recipients of the Christmas beef in Bocking (and we can only imagine how much they enjoyed their Christmas beef) and look forward to the next few days. Have you decided upon a large fowl, a chicken, duck or goose, a shoulder of lamb or bit o’ mutton, pork, gammon or ham, a plant-based nutty alternative, perhaps a ‘turkey’ made out of tofu (yes, they do exist!), or a meal of roasted root vegetables, sprouts and onion gravy? Whatever it is that you sit down to on December 25th, with family, friends and loved ones, we wish you all a very Happy Christmas and peaceful New Year and look forward to welcoming you to the Record Office in 2023 – maybe even to start research on these lists from Bocking!

“Exactly like a hundred other November Sundays”

After almost three years of war, apart from victory in the Battle of Britain, there had not been much good news for the British public. In particular, the end of 1941 and most of 1942 had been particularly bad with the Japanese entry into the war and their subsequent rapid advance in the far east, including the loss of Singapore and the shocking sinkings of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, while closer to home the fall of Greece, Crete and Tobruk, witnessed further terrible losses for British and Commonwealth forces.

THE CAMPAIGN IN NORTH AFRICA 1940-1943: EL ALAMEIN 1942

THE CAMPAIGN IN NORTH AFRICA 1940-1943: EL ALAMEIN 1942 © IWM (E 18513)

Although earlier campaigns in north Africa had brought about some spectacular advances against the Italian army, the entry of German forces under Erwin Rommel, the famous ‘Desert Fox’, had seen these wiped out, with Egypt and the Suez Canal being threatened. The re-equipping of the Eighth Army and their stand in prepared positions in later 1942, along with the appointment of Bernard Montgomery, or ‘Monty’ as he became known, along with the exhaustion of the Axis forces, gave the Allies a crucial opportunity to strike back. The second battle of El Alamein was fought between 23rd October and 4th November and resulted in a victory for British and Commonwealth forces. Churchill famously summed up: ‘This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps the end of the beginning.’

Why then is the Essex Record Office writing about an event that took place 80 years agon and a couple of thousand miles away. Well Churchill wished to have a victory for which he could order the ringing of church bells to raise the spirits of the nation. These had been silenced at the beginning of the war, only to be used as a warning of invasion. It was ordained that on Sunday 15th November 1942, the church bells were to be rung to mark victory at El Alamein. Eric Rudsdale recorded what must have been a very emotional event:

Dull morning, overcast. Carted hay to mill, and then went up to Barn Hall for a truss of straw. As I came back I heard St. Peter’s bells begin to chime, slowly at first, then bursting into a peal – The “great victory” celebration. This is the first time for 2½ years that we have heard bells, and I do not suppose we shall ever hear them again. Soon I heard St. Leonard’s Hythe begin, and the noise of the bells coming over the radio from a house in Bourne[?] Road. As I went home, the other bells began to call to service. The solitary cracked[?] bell of St Mary Magdalen clanging slowly, just as it did when I was a child. Few people in the streets going to church, and some children delivering newspapers, exactly like a hundred other November Sundays, a reminder of all those lovely chaps that will never return.

D/DU 888/25/3, diary of E.J. Rudsdale, pp.540-41
D/P 30/1/56, St Nicholas, Witham, Service register

Eighty years on, while the sands of Egypt are once more the centre of world attention, although this time for the battle against climate change (COP27, 6th – 18th November 2022), we can try and imagine how emotional it was to hear the bells ringing out over Essex on a dull and overcast morning in 1942, and spare a thought for ‘all those lovely chaps’ who did not return.