For Home and Country: more from the Broomfield WI

Our Document of the Month for March is a record of the first Women’s Institute meeting to take place in Essex, which was in Broomfield, near Chelmsford, on 12 May 1917.

Spying the piece we wrote about this record, one of our regular searchers, Pat Bruce, contacted us to say that her great-grandmother, Emily Crozier, had been one of the original members of the Broomfield WI in 1917, and that she had Emily’s original membership card, which she has kindly lent to us to add to our display.

Broomfield WI Membership Card Emily Crozier 1917

Emily Crozier’s membership card for the Broomfield Women’s Institute, 1917 (Temporary Accession 4346). The card includes the motto ‘To do all the good we can, in every way we can, to all the people we can; and above all to study household good in any work which makes for the betterment of our home, the advancement of our people, and the good of our country’.

The logo at the top of the card is that of the Agricultural Organisation Society (AOS), which promoted the formation of Women’s Institutes during the First World War as part of its work to increase food production and save waste. The card is signed by Emily Crozier, and Dora M. Christy, the Secretary. Dora Mary Christie was described in her obituary in the Chelmsford Chronicle in 1947 as ‘a pioneer of the Women’s Institutes in Essex’. She was actively involved in the Essex WI from its earliest days, and was remembered as ‘a vital personality’, whose name ‘will be woven into the history of Women’s Institutes in Essex’.

Along with Emily’s membership card, Pat has also lent us a photograph of the Broomfield WI. Emily is sitting in the front row second from left.

Broomfield WI inc Emily Crozier at Q

(Temporary Accession 4346).

Emily Crozier’s daughter Ethel was also a member joining in 1931 and her membership card, together with a programme for 1945, have also been lent to us.

Broomfield WI Membership Card Ethel Crozier 1931 1 crop

Ethel Crozier’s WI membership card, 1931 (Temporary Accession 4346). The motto by this time had altered slightly but maintained the same principle seen in 1917.

Broomfield WI Membership Cards Ethel Crozier 1945 3

An extract from the 1945 programme of the Broomfield WI, including on 7 March a talk from Antony Minoprio on the Chelmsford Area Planning Survey, which was a proposal to demolish most of the town centre. (Temporary Accession 4346).

We thank Pat Bruce for loaning us this charming collection of records. They will be on display in our Searchroom alongside the Broomfield WI minute book for the rest of March 2017.

Document of the Month, March 2017: Jam and Jerusalem come to Essex

Our Document of the Month for March 2017 has been chosen by Archivist Katharine Schofield, who has selected the earliest record of the Women’s Institute in Essex, the minutes of the Broomfield WI who began meeting in May 1917.

The Women’s Institute can trace its origins back to Ontario, Canada in 1897.  In Britain the WI was created in part to cope with food shortages during the First World War and to help rural communities generally.  The first British meeting was held in Anglesey in 1915.

In Essex there were twenty-two WIs in existence by the end of 1917, with minutes surviving for the County Federation of Essex Women’s Institutes (Accession A8980 Box 1) and for the WIs at Broomfield (Accession A11304 Box 1), Epping (Accession A13888 Box 1) and Woodham Ferrers (Accession A11292 Box 39).  The earliest record of a meeting was at Broomfield on 12 May 1917, followed by Woodham Ferrers on 6 June and Epping on 13 September.

Minutes from the first meeting of the Broomfield WI on 12 May 1917 - the earliest  WI meeting in Essex for which we have any records

Minutes from the first meeting of the Broomfield WI on 12 May 1917 – the earliest WI meeting in Essex for which we have any records

The WI was promoted by Mrs Alfred Watt, one of Canada’s first female university graduates.  Madge Watt had been widowed and in 1913 came to Britain with the intention at least in part to establish the WI here.  The First World War and the need for increased food production gave her the opportunity, working in partnership with the Agricultural Organisation Society (AOS).

Mrs Watt and a representative from the Society toured the county addressing prospective groups.  In April 1917 Mrs Watt spoke to a group of women at Chelmsford and presumably this inspired smaller groups to invite her to speak in their villages.  She was too ill to attend the first meeting of the Broomfield WI so Mr Nicholson from the AOS spoke instead.

It was proposed that a WI be started ‘to help food scarcity’, and Mr Nicholson described the WI as ‘a centre round which a group of women banded themselves together to help themselves and their country’.  They would be able to do this ‘1st by releasing men from the land, 2nd by increasing food supply by cultivating vacant land, 3rd by preventing waste’.  There would be co-operation in buying seeds, tools, cooking and preserving utensils.  The WI also made war savings collections and helped village schools and industries.  The meetings themselves offered women the opportunity to work on home-made clothing, see demonstrations and hear about keeping livestock, goats, bees, rabbits and poultry and conserving fruit and vegetables, as well as an opportunity to enjoy ‘the social element’.

In Woodham Ferrers the rector had arranged the meeting and spoke about the ‘beneficial advantages’ before introducing Mrs Watt.  By the time that the Epping WI was started the County Federation had been established and the speakers were Lady Petre and Mrs Watt.

Most of these initial meetings were then given over to the practicalities of setting the group up and electing officers for future meetings.  By 1917 there was an established national organisation to provide guidance, suggestions for talks and demonstrations, as well as supply badges and other items.  Both Woodham Ferrers and Epping WIs purchased a book for their minutes stamped on the front ‘Agricultural Organisation Society’ at a cost of 6s.

The first organised meeting of the Broomfield WI was held on 6 June.  The minutes record that the first competition, making cakes or biscuits without flour, had ten entries with two prizes awarded and the first talk, arranged for the next meeting, was to be a demonstration of fruit bottling.  The Epping WI talks for 1917 were on the subjects of ‘parcels for the Front’, sugar substitutes and the care of children in winter.  The first competition in Epping was the best home-made Christmas gift, cost not to exceed 6d.  At Epping there was some discussion about the membership fees ‘amongst the poorer people’ with a suggestion that these might be paid at a rate of 2d. per month.  It was also agreed ‘by large majority’ that members could bring their children to meetings and that a volunteer would look after them in a separate room.

Minutes from the second meeting of the Broomfield WI on 6 June 1917. A competition was held for baking cakes and biscuits without flour, and a demonstration of fruit bottling was organised for the next meeting.

Minutes from the second meeting of the Broomfield WI on 6 June 1917. A competition was held for baking cakes and biscuits without flour, and a demonstration of fruit bottling was organised for the next meeting.

The singing of Jerusalem was not associated with the WI until the early 1920s, but the first meeting at Woodham Ferrers concluded with the singing of the National Anthem.

In September the County Federation met for the first time at the Shire Hall in Chelmsford, with Lady Petre subsequently serving as the first president.  The County Federation minutes record an organisation which grew rapidly from 1917.  By the end of 1918 the number of groups in Essex had more than doubled.  There had been classes on basket and glove making, boot mending, cobbling, rush work and straw plaiting, as well as lectures on housecraft, including mending leaks and repairing taps.

Although the WI was established with the aim of helping the war effort during the First World War, the organisation was keen that they should continue after the war.  In December 1918, only a month after the Armistice, the County Federation’s half-yearly report reiterated that while the production of food was of primary importance, ‘due weight’ should be given to the subject of Housecraft and the promotion of local handicrafts or industries.  The WI should ‘arouse interest in local history’ as well as teach the ‘principles and duties of citizenship’.  It should be a ‘valuable means to promote businesslike methods among women of all classes.’

The minutes of the first meeting of the Broomfield WI will be on display in the ERO Searchroom throughout March 2017.

Document of the Month, September 2016: History of Wormingford with illustrations by John Northcote Nash

Carol Walden, Archivist

September sees the opportunity to visit a huge range of locations across England through Heritage Open Days. Here at Essex Record Office we will be open 10am-4pm on Saturday 10 September and we’ve taken the theme of creativity in the archives to inspire our choice of activities and displays.

The current document of the month in the Searchroom is a history of Wormingford compiled by the Women’s Institute (WI) in 1958. The village is located approximately halfway between Colchester and Sudbury to the south of the River Stour. The history records the creation of Wormingford WI in 1926 saying that early talks included ‘How to keep a husband happy’ that decided ‘food and tobacco did the trick’! Due to the lack of a venue for meetings the WI petered out. It was re-started in 1949 when a village hall was built and C1046 and A11292 contain various records of the group.

The history draws on a number of sources to tell the story of the village from Palaeolithic times with copies of original records, photographs and illustrations. The latter are of particular note as they are reputed to have been sketched by local resident John Northcote Nash CBE, RA.

The information we have is that the illustrations are by Nash, but they are unsigned and there is no contemporary note in the typescript that they are by him. This could potentially be explained by the fact that none of the individual contributors to the history are named. A published edition of the history names his wife, Christine Nash, as the author of a drawing used on the front cover, but doesn’t attribute the other illustrations to anyone. We are attempting to make contact with art history specialists to confirm whether the information we have that the sketches are by John Nash is correct.

Wormingford history book with illustrations

History of Wormingford with illustrations reputed to be by John Northcote Nash (A11292)

Nash was certainly part of the local scene at the time the history was being compiled. From 1929 he spent the summers in Wormingford and in 1944 bought Bottengoms Farm in the village. He painted several scenes of the local area, such as this one of Melting Snow at Wormingford (1962) which today is at the Beecroft Art Gallery in Southend.

Nash, John Northcote; Melting Snow at Wormingford; Southend Museums Service; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/melting-snow-at-wormingford-2708

Nash, John Northcote; Melting Snow at Wormingford; Southend Museums Service (from Art UK website)

Nash was born in London in 1893 and later moved to Buckinghamshire. He began to train as a journalist but switched career path to follow his brother, Paul Nash, as an artist. Paul enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, which opened opportunities for both brothers; they went on to hold a successful joint exhibition of their work in London in November 1913.

In the autumn of 1916 John joined the Artists’ Rifles, fighting on the western front for nearly two years before becoming an official war artist, as his brother had already done. Much of his work from this time, including Over the Top (1917), is today held at the Imperial War Museum.

'Over The Top'. 1st Artists' Rifles at Marcoing, 30th December 1917
‘Over The Top’. 1st Artists’ Rifles at Marcoing, 30th December 1917© IWM (Art.IWM ART 1656)

After the First World War Nash continued to paint in oils and watercolours as well as doing drawings and woodcuts for book illustrations, especially related to botany. From the 1920s to the end of his life Nash taught in Oxford at the Ruskin School of Art and in 1940 he was commissioned into the Royal Marines as an official war artist. Between the wars he had travelled extensively across Britain filling sketchbooks with drawings and notes to later be developed in the studio.

Nash was a founding member of the Colchester Art Society in 1946, serving as president between 1946 and 1979. He also taught at the Colchester Art School and held plant illustration classes at Flatford Mill in Suffolk. He continued to paint until his death in Colchester in 1977 and was buried at St Andrew’s, Wormingford.

The village history displayed in the Searchroom contains a number of sketches purported to be by Nash of views around Wormingford, including the ford, the old workhouse, the Queen’s Head and the mill. It is open to the pages showing a drawing of Mr William Sac, the last carrier, along with his horse Sturme and another of his cottage. The carrier departed Wormingford at 9.30am and arrived at The Bull, Colchester at 12 noon. It left for the return journey at 4.30pm arriving back in the village at 7pm, all for the cost of 6d for adults, 3d for children and parcels at 2d.

Wormingford history book with illustrations

Illustration of ‘The Last Carrier’ in history of Wormingford (A11292)

Other entries in the document mention the appearance of a ‘beast’, possibly a crocodile, in the valley (1400); visits by Elizabeth I to the village; accounts of witches, such as ‘Old Jemima’ (1880); bombs dropped by a Zeppelin in Metland Field (1914); and the Americans manning the airfield who ‘taught the village to chew gum’ (1939).

The typescript will be on display in the ERO Searchroom throughout September 2016.

Join us for our Heritage Open Day on Saturday 10 September, 10am-4pm – full details here.