An Annual Bulletin about Local History and the Trust – Issue No. 55 November 2023
Be honest now. How many pairs of shoes do you own and what do you do with them when they wear out or they are no longer fashionable or they have got too small or too large for your feet? I have had favourite ones repaired over and over again until they fall apart and are thrown out. Other shoes I have given to charity shops. What I have not done is conceal one or more of them around the house. This, though, is what happened to the well-worn child’s shoe on display in the Cabinet of Curiosities in the Research Room of Emsworth Museum.
The much repaired child’s shoe was among several items donated to the Emsworth Maritime & Historical Trust by George and Emily (Fenella) Cassedy.* Mrs Cassedy has recently given the items to the Trust as an outright gift. In 1991 her late husband began to restore the striking old house on the corner of Queen Street (No.1) and King Street (No.2). George had retired and, with more time to spare, he set out to learn more about the house, its history and the way it was built.
A well was found under the kitchen floorboards and tricorn hats (also in the Museum) were found in a bedroom. The leather shoe was found squashed flat beneath loose panelling under a window seat. Like the tricorn hats, the child’s shoe is thought to date from around 1790/1810.
Why was it concealed? Surprisingly enough it is not unusual to find a hidden shoe, usually well worn, in an old building that is being restored. Shoes belonging to both adults and children have been found in chimney breasts, within walls, under window sills, over door lintels, behind wainscoting or beneath floorboards. The practice appears to have been quite widespread throughout the UK and overseas in Europe, Australia and North America. No one knows the exact reason for the concealment. If found near an entry point to a home, the intention may have been to ward off evil spirits. A child’s shoe may have been seen as a fertility or good luck symbol or as a grieving parents’ memorial to a lost child. A well-worn shoe holds the imprint of the wearer’s foot and may have been thought of as holding a spiritual presence. A find can be of one or a group of single shoes. Such shoes can be of different dates suggesting several concealments often years apart. Shoes were very expensive and were handed down, repaired and altered. Their life was prolonged as far as possible.
*Note: The child’s shoe on display in the Museum is not that found by George Cassedy. That shoe was returned to its hiding place. So whose shoe is on display in the Cabinet of Curiosities?
Who hid them? Were they hidden by builders, landlords or tenants? This practice appears to have primarily lasted from the early 1700s to the late 19th century. No contemporary written records have been found recording these concealed artefacts. June Swann, the former keeper of the Boot and Shoe Collection at Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, wrote in 1996 that she “eventually realised that….the secrecy continually encountered suggests that the superstition, if disclosed, ceases to be effective”.
The Northampton Museum collects concealed shoe find information to add to an index which helps researchers into this fascinating field of historical superstition and dress. To date the collection has recorded more than 3000 finds.
Sources:
- 1 Queen Street/2 King Street – Unusual House – Unusual ‘Finds’ by Emily Cassedy and Dorothy Bone in The Emsworth Echo, Issue No. 45, November 2013
- Concealed Shoe Revealed, Northampton Museum and Art Gallery Blog, The Mystery of Concealed Shoes, National Museums Scotland
Whilst researching for material to include in my talk Barmy in Wonderland, I raced down many rabbit holes in the search for information that would link my two authors – Lewis Carroll and P G Wodehouse. Many links were unfruitful or tenuous, but then I struck gold! – a poem I read about whilst reading Norman Murphy’s book A Wodehouse Handbook that showed Wodehouse knew and understood the work of Carroll, and illustrated his own skills as a parodist.
The poem called Avenged was published in Punch magazine on 11th February, 1903 when Wodehouse was 21 years old, and working as their staff writer. Both authors were keen readers of Punch, with Lewis Carroll using their political cartoonist John Tenniel to illustrate his best selling Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland published in 1865, and Through the Looking Glass published in 1871. Carroll also made sure his Oxford College, Christ Church, was a subscriber.
The poem Wodehouse pastiches is The Walrus and the Carpenter from ‘Looking Glass’, which is thought by some to be a parody of an earlier poem by Thomas Hood called The Dream of Eugene Aram published in The Gem magazine in 1829. Carroll, however, said “I had no poem in mind. The metre is a common one…”. It is also surmised that he may have gleaned the idea for the poem of the oyster’s sad demise from a Punch cartoon of 1862 (25th January) entitled Law and Lunacy: Or, A Glorious Oyster Season for Lawyers.
Bernard Partridge’s excellent cartoon (imitating Tenniel) is one of many using Carroll’s characters, even during his life time, to lampoon the undeserving – most commonly politicians. Partridge created another Carroll inspired cartoon for Punch with Tweedledee and Tweedledum fighting each other as warring Bulgaria and Greece; this use of Alice characters to satirise still continues today.
Both writers were better known for their fiction, but were prolific poets too. Carroll had a poem Atalanta in Camden Town published in Punch in 1867, and he also sent them humorous anecdotes. He began writing poetry whilst living at home with his ten brothers and sisters, publishing their own family magazine entitled Useful and Instructive Poetry. He included poetry in his novels – most famously Jabberwocky, The Mock Turtle’s Song, You are old Father William…, and The Walrus and the Carpenter, but he also wrote stand alone poetry books such as Rhyme? And Reason?, Phantasmagoria and other Poems and The Hunting of the Snark. He wrote his own parodies of medieval verse and Scottish ballads, and some on university politics were published anonymously.
Carroll mostly wrote his poetry for fun, but could succumb to Victorian bathos. He had an excellent ear for scanning and metre, and embraced cheerful violence – “Speak roughly to your little boy”, as well as dripping sentimentality – “Seek ye Love, ye fairy–sprites?” with equal skill. His creativity – whether it was aimed at poetry, photography, logic or fiction – was unbounded, and his aim was to entertain, challenge and delight his audience.
P G Wodehouse also began writing poetry from an early age. When five years old he wrote a gory verse about a battle field, writing beneath it “this is a bit of poertory I made up”. It was reproduced in The Captain in1907.
Much of his early verse is clearly influenced by W S Gilbert and Edward Lear, but I feel Lewis Carroll contributed to his sense of the absurd and creative use of language.
The bulk of his poetry was written for The Globe and the Daily Express newspapers, and Punch magazine, where he worked whilst in his 20s. For both newspapers, Wodehouse had to write daily topical verses, which were humorous, and at short notice – no mean achievement, especially for a man disinterested in politics. The topics he chose tended to be peripheral to the main headlines – the weather, beards, and food and drink rather than the politics of the day or wars. He rose to the challenge, producing hundreds of poems to a tight deadline. His excellent abilities in rhythm and scansion, honed during these early years as a writer of poetry, served him well when he embarked on a later career as a librettist for stage and screen.
Wodehouse wasn’t averse to lampooning poets (despite his love of Shakespeare, Tennyson and Browning amongst others). He wrote a short article entitled The Alarming Spread of Poetry mocking vers libre (free verse which does not rhyme) and the increasing numbers of people writing volumes of poetry. He would distort well known quotations for humorous effect in his novels, poke fun at poets: “He can take Browning without anaesthetics” and wrote of “ … the unpleasant acrid smell of burnt poetry”.
Armine (one of P G Wodehouse’s elder brothers) also wrote poetry. In 1911 he went to India to become Professor of English at the Central Hindu College, and was a creative spiritual man. In 1914, at the age of 35, Armine joined the Army. He wrote and published poems about his military experiences in the Great War.
As readers of this bulletin, many of you will know about the sad tale of ‘The Emsworth Oyster Scare’, but briefly, for those of you who don’t, in 1902 the harvesting of oysters from Chichester Harbour was banned due to the contamination of the oyster beds by untreated sewage. This was evident when a large consignment of oysters consumed at banquets in Southampton, Winchester and Portsmouth left two diners dead, and many others seriously ill after consuming them. This was covered by the national press, and as we know, Wodehouse was well acquainted with Emsworth and very fond of the area, so he seized upon the story for one of his topical verses using Carroll’s useful poem from Through the Looking Glass, The Walrus and the Carpenter, which embraced a similar theme.
The poem Avenged! is preluded by Wodehouse with some Carrollian type text. The Tweedles had already begun the sorry tale of the Walrus and the Carpenter, and when there was a pause, Alice, who was keen to continue on her journey rather than listen to their poetry, comments on them being unpleasant characters, which leads to a typically tetchy interchange with the twins, who continue with their story. The darkly comic ending, is completed perfectly, but the final surreal phrase “the isthmus of sewage” was doubtless lifted from a recent press report. Wodehouse manages to recreate the tragi-comic poem, and contextualises it as part of a larger tale, with ease. His knowledge of Carroll’s literary style, brand of humour and characterisation show his skills as a parodist are second to none. He references the Alice stories via quotes and situations in a number of his novels, showing he had a wide knowledge of even Carroll’s lesser known characters.
This poem is a perfect marriage of both Carroll and Wodehouse’s marvellous comedic skills.
With thanks to all those at Emsworth Museum and Emsworth Maritime & Historical Trust for their help and support in compiling this article.
Avenged! by P G Wodehouse
After a pause ALICE began, “Well, they were both very unpleasant characters -”
“De mortuis -” said TWEEDLEDEE reprovingly.
“I don’t know what that means,” said ALICE.
“You don’t know much,” said TWEEDLEDUM, “and that’s a fact.”
ALICE did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought it would be as well to introduce
some other subject of conversation.
“If you have really finished -?” she began, as politely as she could.
“Nohow. And thank you very much for asking,” said TWEEDLEDUM.
“So much obliged,” added TWEEDLEDEE. “There are four more verses.”
He smiled gently, and began again: –
“O Carpenter,” the Walrus said,
“Life’s joys soon disappear.
There seem to be no oysters left,
We’ve swept the table clear.”
The Carpenter said nothing but
“I’m feeling precious queer.”
“Oh, I’m so glad!” said ALICE.
“O Carpenter,” the Walrus said,
“I sympathise with you.
You say that you feel rather odd,
I doubt not that you do,
For, curious as it may appear,
I feel peculiar, too.”
“The time has come,” the Walrus said;
“To talk of doctors’ bills,
Of pulses up to fever height,
Of medicine and pills.
I would not for the world alarm,
But – shall we make our wills?”
“O oysters!” moaned the Carpenter,
And that was all he said,
As on the coolest piece of rock
He laid his aching head.
The Walrus, too, refrained from speech,
He was already dead.
“And did the Carpenter get well?” asked ALICE.
“Nohow,” said TWEEDLEDUM.
“Contrariwise,” said TWEEDLEDEE; “he died.”
“Well,” said ALICE, “thank you very much, But I don’t think the
last four verses nearly so good as the others.”
“Ah,” said TWEEDLEDEE, “perhaps not. But they’re much truer.
You see, those oysters were near the isthmus of sewage.”
Sarah Stanfield is a member of the Lewis Carroll Society and has served on the committee as both chairman and secretary. Her current interest in Lewis Carroll has been to find other authors inspired by his writing – hence, P G Wodehouse.
Olive, known as Olivia, was baptised in St Thomas à Becket Church, Warblington, on 24th September 1783, the daughter of Joseph Holloway, a member of an Emsworth seagoing and merchant family, and Ann his wife (née Hendy).
Holloways had been living in the Emsworth and Prinsted area since at least 1495. A fisherman, John Holloway, left a will in Warblington in 1559, and there are intermittent records for the next century. A succession of Holloway ship masters, mostly engaged in coastal trade, appear in the records from 1650 onwards. Joseph, Olivia’s father, was a ship master known as ‘the Captain’.
During a famous storm in October 1775, as Master of the Charming Mary, carrying coals from Chester to Newry, he managed to save his ship when many others were wrecked. In thanks for his superb seamanship, the ship’s owners presented him with a silver salver. This treasure was passed down the family. It is mentioned in the will of his daughter Elizabeth who died in 1867 at Saxted House in Tower Street.
Saxted House is one of the most prestigious properties in the town. It was built by, or more accurately for, Olivia’s uncle Benjamin, and was very nearly demolished by a German magnetic mine in 1941. From 1820 until Elizabeth’s death in 1867 this house was occupied by various members of the Holloway family who also occupied the equally impressive Trentham House. These purchases give some indication of the family’s central position in the story of the town.
Olivia’s younger son Frederick wrote a biography of his brother Thomas. I am indebted to it for much of the information I have managed to glean about this indefatigable lady. As a girl, brought up in the Church of England, Olivia was noted for her piety. She was confirmed in Chichester Cathedral and is described as a beautiful, young teenager. From that time onward and throughout her life, what her son describes as “this saintly woman” laboured for the love of her Lord.
She had a personal calling to serve as a Christian and seems to have had, and very much desired, a personal relationship with the Almighty. The relatively new and exciting non-conformist doctrines prevalent at the time, clearly attracted her and she wished to bring her religious zeal to the ordinary working people of Emsworth.
Nile Street Independent Chapel Initially, Olivia Holloway had been holding meetings in her own home, then she hired a room in which she ran a school for a number of village girls. This venture was popular and successful, the numbers seeking instruction grew and it became necessary to fund raise to build a small chapel in central Emsworth for religious teaching and prayer. The Nile Street Independent Chapel was completed in 1808. Olivia began to preach the Word to adults as well as the children and her popularity, or perhaps her notoriety, grew. She is reported to have been a formidable orator, but not necessarily popular perhaps because of her firm but fair approach to sin.
At this time she began to be known as the ‘lady preacher’. On one occasion a number of Naval and Military officers came over from Portsmouth especially to see and hear “the lady preacher”, whose appearance and manner, when preaching, was considered to be singularly impressive. It is reported that she was always dressed from head to toe in white while she preached. One of these officers who dined with the Holloway family after the service is said to have remarked that “we came, just for a lark, expecting to hear a ranting fanatic, but found an angel who spoke heaven-inspired words which none of us will forget, as long as we live”.
During the course of her future husband’s training in Gosport, the Reverend Thomas Helmore occasionally assisted at this little meeting house. The couple married shortly after his ordination on 26th July 1810, in Warblington. Thomas took up a position at the Baxter Independent Chapel in Kidderminster, later moving to Worcester, before finally taking up a living at the Rotherham Street Independent Chapel in Stratford upon Avon from 1820 until his death in 1845.
Thomas Helmore had been born on 8th March 1783 in Titchfield, where his father, also Thomas, had been a congregational minister. Whilst her husband ministered to the religious and broader educational needs of the community to which he had been called, running very active Sunday and later the British day school, Olivia Helmore was ministering to the sick and needy.
They had five sons and two daughters, all but the youngest couple being born in Kidderminster. Thomas the eldest, named after his father, was highly musical. He established and ran the choir at his father’s church in Stratford and also taught in the school. Following graduation from Magdalen College Oxford, he was ordained in the Church of England and took up a curacy at St Michael on Greenhill, Lichfield and very shortly was appointed a priest-vicar in the Cathedral there.
In 1842 Thomas Helmore was appointed Precentor and Vice-Principal at St Mark’s College, Chelsea. Four years later, he was appointed Master of the Choristers and Priest in ordinary to the Chapel Royal in St James’ Palace. In his time he was acknowledged as the recognised authority on plainsong in the Anglican Church and arranged a number of very well known carols including Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel and Good King Wenceslas. He collaborated with the noted lyricist the Reverend John Mason Neale in creating the two volume, well received works: Carols for Christmastide and Carols for Eastertide and then on his own, although using Neale’s translation of the lyrics from the Latin, his highly received Hymnal Noted.
Holloway, the fourth son, named after his mother, was born on 14th December 1815. He studied at the Homerton Academy, a non-conformist college in London founded in 1768, now part of Cambridge University. Holloway worked for the London Missionary Society at Hope Fountain Mission, the second oldest mission station in Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia. He served as a missionary from 1839 (first in South Africa) until his death in 1880 from yellow fever in what is now Botswana. His tragic story is told in No Cross Marks The Spot by Stella Kilby.
Olivia died in 1844 and is buried in Stratford. Her husband, the Reverend Thomas Helmore, died the following year.
The Foster surname and its association with local coal and timber supply first appears in the 1852 Hunt & Co Directory under Havant but listed as Packer & Foster of King Street, Emsworth. By 1880 the business minus Packer – and flourishing – was run by William Foster who was listed in Kelly’s 1880 Directory as a ship owner & timber & coal merchant of King Street, Emsworth. It is to this William Foster that much of this Emsworth Museum collection refers.
Broadly speaking, the collection features requests to the business for the supply of coal and timber not only to a variety of local venues but interestingly to some further afield. For example, to the Army & Navy Lamp, Signal & Binnacle Works, London Docks; the Harbour Dockyard, West Hartlepool and Earle’s Shipbuilding and Engineering Co. in Hull. With a small fleet of coasters working out of Emsworth these must have represented good business opportunities for the company assuming that the vessels were laden with other supplies as well.
However, my personal interest lies in the local dimension with requests for supplies to two local manor houses, Lordington at Racton and Little Green at Compton both owned by the Phipps Hornby family.
Lordington House was built around 1500 with Sir Geoffrey Pole listed as an early owner. Other owners have included Hugh Speke in 1609, Sir John Fenner in 1623, Phillip Jermyn in 1630 and Richard Peckham c.1689 and his descendants. In 1734 the estate passed to Sarah Peckham who married Thomas Phipps in 1742. It then passed to her son Thomas Peckham Phipps, who died unmarried, but had bequeathed the estate including Little Green to his godson Admiral Sir Phipps Hornby (1785-1867).
One of the Admiral’s sons was Sir Geoffrey Thomas Phipps Hornby (1825-1895) who as a junior naval officer saw action at the capture of Acre in November 1840 during the Egyptian-Ottoman War.
As a captain, he was assigned to Vancouver Island with a naval brigade where he found a unit of United States troops ready to take over the San Juan Islands in a dispute that became known as the Pig War. Hornby used his powers of diplomacy to facilitate a peaceful handover of the islands to the United States.
He went on to enjoy a glittering career serving as Commander-in-Chief of the West Africa Squadron, the Flying Squadron and Channel Squadron. Later he became Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, President of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich and finally Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth.
Edmund John Phipps-Hornby, one of Sir Geoffrey’s sons, was born at Lordington in 1857. He was to emulate his father’s stellar career, this time in a military capacity with the Royal Artillery receiving the Victoria Cross along with four others for their action at Sanna’s Post during the Second Boer War (1899-1902).
Following his return to the United Kingdom, Phipps-Hornby served as aide-de-camp to the Commander-in-Chief Lord Roberts and served during the First World War seeing action at Mons and at the battles of the Aisne and Armentières. He was granted the rank of Brigadier General upon his retirement in 1918 after 40 years of service and died in 1947.
Lordington was sold to Sir Michael Hamilton in 1960 and it is now run as a Bed and Breakfast facility under the management of the Hamilton family. West Sussex County Council bought Little Green in 1948 and it was used as a children’s home until it closed in 1956. Three years later it opened as Little Green Academy which it remains to this day.
During the 1850s, there was great concern about the vulnerability of Great Britain to invasion by France. The resulting Francophobia rumbled on until it exploded in 1858 during the Orsini affair – when an Italian terrorist attempted to assassinate the Emperor Louis Napoleon. France believed that Britain was implicated in the plot. In February 1858, Disraeli went so far as to warn that war was a matter of hours away.
In that same decade, mounting concern had been expressed about the ability of Britain to defend itself. In 1851, Lord Hardinge who commanded the army claimed that after garrisoning Portsmouth and Plymouth he could only put 10,000 men and 40 guns into the field. The subsequent response to the crisis in Crimea and to the Indian Mutiny, reinforced the general awareness that all was not well in the Armed forces.
Eventually, in August 1859 the then Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, set up The Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom. The Commission was formed to enquire into the ability of the United Kingdom to defend itself against an attempted invasion by a foreign power, and to advise the British Government on the remedial action required. The recommendation that a defensive ring of forts around Portsmouth and Plymouth should be constructed, is well known – as is their colloquial name of ‘Palmerston’s Follies’ after the Prime Minister of the day.
Another impact of the public concern was a demand to establish volunteer military regiments to defend the country. The volunteer groups were envisaged as lightly armed skirmishers to support regular troops. For most of the 1850s the military and the political authorities campaigned against the volunteer militias, thinking that they would waste resources that could be more usefully used to bolster the regular forces.
However, in July 1859, Sidney Herbert then the War Minister, took a different view. He considered that military feeling was largely confined to lower and upper classes of society. He saw the volunteer bands as a way of getting “the middle classes imbued with an interest in our own defence” (Rose, 1959).
Against the background of this febrile atmosphere, in 1859 the War Office issued a circular authorising Lords Lieutenant of counties to raise volunteer corps under the Act of 1804. The enabling Act of Parliament used to raise these volunteer corps was the same as that used to raise Volunteer corps during the Napoleonic wars, and had fought at Waterloo. “Men joined primarily for patriotic reasons, but there were also many social activities which made enlistment attractive, especially rifle shooting” (Anon., 1982, p.68).
The War Office circular of 1859 had particularly identified the need to instruct volunteers in the handling of the rifle. It recommended that sites for firing at a target should be established.
While initially the recruitment drive was aimed at the middle classes who could fund their own equipment by 1863, upon fulfilling certain conditions, financial aid was given to all. As a result, the enrolment of the middle classes fell away, recruits were drawn from a wider social group. Nevertheless, the middle classes continued to provide the majority of the officers.
The Havant and Emsworth Volunteer Rifle Corps were formed in November 1859 (Fig. 1). The company was given a number of designations becoming the 3rd (Duke of Connaught’s Own) Volunteer Battalion, The Hampshire Regiment Territorial Force in the First World War (Anon., 1982, p.69).
Given the focus on rifle handling and marksmanship, once formed, the Havant and Emsworth Volunteer Rifle Corps established a rifle range east of Warblington Church. This is shown in the Ordnance Survey maps of the 1870-80 series, based on surveys 1870-73, so the rifle range must have been established by 1873 at the latest (Fig 2).
The map shows the firing points set at distances of up to 900 yards from the targets set up near the edge of Chichester Harbour. The rifle range was constructed along the line of a stream that ran down into Chichester Harbour. Clearly, the idea was that stray bullets would fall harmlessly into the harbour. Initially the shooting was done with the Snider Enfield rifle (Fig. 3). As time went by, the Snider rifle was replaced with rifles that had a longer range, and the range at Conigar Point had to be abandoned. In 1911, an indoor brick-built rifle range was erected at Potash Road, Havant (near the site of the present-day Wickes store) (Anon., 1982, p.71).
Today, little is visible on the Conigar Point site – some isolated lumps of brickwork are all that is left of a local response to a national panic about the intentions of the French towards the British. Today, it seems a strange period, because as we now know, Britain and France found themselves fighting together as allies in the First World War – barely 50 years later.
Sources:
Anon., 1982. Local Volunteers and Territorials. In: The Making of Havant, Publication No 5. s.l.:Havant Local History Group, pp. 4-74.
Rose, B., 1959. The Volunteers of 1859. Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, 37(151), pp. 97-110.
When asked what three things epitomise the Emsworth area, most people would probably say oysters, sailing and P G Wodehouse! Sadly, very few would think of BRICKS. But in reality, brick and pottery making has been a pivotal industry in and around Emsworth since Roman times.
Brickmaking is thought to have originated in the Middle East, several thousand years ago. The Romans brought the practice to England around 50AD, and were quick to leverage the potential for brickmaking in the Emsworth area. Brickmaking needs a reliable source of material, and the Reading Clay deposits that extend along this coastline are particularly rich under Hayling Island, Emsworth, Chidham and Rowlands Castle.
Clay is heavy and bulky, so brickmaking is usually concentrated around locations where the deposits are to be found. We see the evidence of Roman bricks – which are typically much smaller and narrower than modern bricks – in the walls of local churches like St Thomas à Becket at Warblington. Those at Warblington were most likely quarried from the ruins of the local Roman villa.
The practice of brickmaking largely died when the Romans departed. The resurgence started in the early Medieval period, spurred by the inward migration of Dutch and Flemish master masons who brought the skills with them. But in Hampshire and Sussex, the demand for bricks as a building material stayed low due to the abundance of alternative materials like flint and wood. Building with brick only became fashionable again during the Tudor dynasty, epitomised by magnificent buildings like Hampton Court Palace. The Great Fire of London in 1666 demonstrated the inherent weakness of towns built largely of wood with open hearths, which led to early government legislation that drove demand for brickmaking. The industrial revolution generated an immense wave of demand.
This included not just the new factories and mills, but also the infrastructure to maintain them. So the creation of the canal network, followed by the even larger railway network, were huge markets for brick production. T R Gourvish (in 1980) calculated that during the 1840s, at least a quarter of all British brick production was consumed by the building of the railway network itself. Yet another stimulus came from the abolition of the unpopular brick tax in 1850. The brick tax was introduced in 1784, to help recover the cost of the American War of Independence, and partially compensate for the loss of North American tax revenue. Condemned throughout its short life, the Brick Tax disincentivised builders to create elaborate and high quality buildings, and forced many brickmakers into liquidation.
Cottage Industry Emsworth’s own brickmaking industry developed largely as a cottage industry, usually practised alongside other professions on a seasonal basis. Noel Pycroft recalls a Hayling Island brickmaker named Robert Barber who doubled up as a saltmaker – probably by using the heat from the brickmaking kiln or clamp to evaporate brine. Farmers would often run a small brickmaking business on the side. They would dig clay in the autumn, when the harvest was over, and then leave this over the winter to weather. Brick moulding would happen during the spring, and the firing of the bricks (which could last several weeks) would take place while everyone was busy at harvest time. The additional benefit for farmers was the ready source of building material for barns, walls and other immediate needs.
During the 1800s, multiple small brickworks sprang up in the Emsworth area. Around Emsworth, at least eleven brickyards were created between 1814 and 1894. But all remained small and largely limited to servicing the needs of the immediate community.
Meanwhile, Hayling Island saw a huge surge in brickmaking capacity. Figure 1 shows a map reproduced from Noel Pycroft’s book, entitled Brickmaking on Hayling Island. The squares show lime kilns, the ringed circles show brick kilns and plain filled circles show yards where firing clamps were used.
The ability to transport bricks by sea was a natural advantage for Hayling Island brickmakers. Many buildings on Thorney Island, and further afield as far as Worthing, were built from Hayling Island bricks. derelict in Langstone harbour. For many years, the Langstone transported brick cargoes from both Tournerbury and the Bursledon Brickmaking Company dock at Swanwick.
The Pycroft brickworks was – by far – the best known brickworks on Hayling Island, thanks largely to the multiple generations of an iconic family who created it. The Pycroft family had been brickmakers in the Portsmouth area since before 1750. The first family-owned brickworks opened in the late 1870s, at Velder Avenue in Eastney. But by the turn of the last century, the family had relocated to Hayling Island, and the first yard was started in 1911 in Copse Lane by the grandfather of Noel Pycroft. Noel’s father opened the better known Northney site in 1934, and they produced hand-made bricks using very traditional methods until 1989. Instead of using one or more purpose-built kilns, Pycroft would fire the bricks using what is known as a clamp. A clamp is just a form of mobile kiln, and has two advantages. They can be built anywhere there is level, dry ground. And they can be as large as physical limitations allow. Pycroft clamps typically held about 50,000 bricks, and the largest they ever built (in 1947) contained 140,000 bricks. But the clamps used in some other brickworks could hold over a million bricks. Figure 3 shows a typical clamp built at the Pycroft facility.
At first glance, this looks to be a flimsy and ramshackle affair. But a huge amount of effort – and experience – went into the creation of these structures. The unfired bricks inside – known as ‘green’ bricks – were carefully positioned to create air channels for the hot air that would circulate for several weeks after being lit. The whole structure would be covered by corrugated iron, which helped protect the bricks from the rain and helped contain the immense heat. This could reach over 1100˚ centigrade!
Noel’s memoirs relay some fascinating anecdotes about the challenges they faced when procuring both clay and the all important ash. The seam of clay at the Northney site was only about one metre deep, and was soon exhausted. So bricks were made from brick earth transported to the Pycroft site from numerous sources, including house foundations, graves and even sewage trenches. The sources of ash were even more eclectic. To quote from Noel’s book “I have dug out from the ballast hole, Havant Road, the bricks fired with this ash, burnt a lovely colour due to the ammonia of rotted contents from the toilet buckets, which had been emptied on it from the gun site guardhouse for five years. This produced a stronger smell when burning but lovely bricks.”
A 1974 short film about the working of Pycroft Brickworks is available online, courtesy of the British Film Institute.
Meanwhile, Noel’s uncle – Albert Pycroft – created his own brickworks at Cot Lane, Chidham just after WWII. Albert was a wildfowler during the winter, and only produced bricks as a summer activity. The Museum possesses a self-published book, written by Graham Fielder in 1974, and donated by Albert’s grandson Aaron, which details the story of the Chidham brickyard. Figure 4 shows Albert and his team preparing bricks ready for firing at the Chidham facility.
Chidham bricks were considered exceptional quality, and were a popular choice for the wave of council house, school and other civic building that took place post-war. But the Chidham brickyard eventually succumbed to the economic pressures that faced all small brickyards. Albert’s brickworks now lives on as Maybush Copse community woodland, where numerous clues to its industrial past can still be observed.
In the next edition, we will continue to explore the history of brickmaking in the Emsworth area, with a visit to the largest and most successful brickmaking operation at Rowlands Castle.
Sources:
- Figure 1 Noel Pycroft, Brickmaking on Hayling Island
- Figure 2 Bursledon Brickmaking Museum
- Figure 3 Bursledon Brickmaking Museum
- Figure 4 Graham Fielder Hand Brickmaking
From 1971 until his death Sir Alec Richard Rose (1908-1991) and second wife Dorothy Mabel née Walker (1913-2002) lived in Eastleigh Road, Havant. Woodlands Cottage still stands and is occupied. One of Sir Alec’s grand-daughters, Jacqui recalls the home with fondness. She remembers the driveway being smaller and there was a lot more shrubbery.
Sir Alec and his wife Dorothy lived close to Emsworth. It is no longer a mystery, therefore, why this Southsea grocer, born in Kent, had Warblington cemetery as his final resting place, as related in The Emsworth Echo 2022.
Jacqui kindly supplied the photograph of the greengrocery shop in Osborne Road, Southsea 1968. The premises serve as fast-food outlets now. There is a commemorative blue plaque.
Alec Richard Rose married Hannah Barbara Kathleen Baldwin in 1930. Their sons were Alec George (1932-2010) and Michael Stuart (1934-2006) [who welcomed him to Melbourne in December 1967 during his circumnavigation]. Daughters were Anne Barbara Bushell née Rose (1942-2021) and Jane M Wesseley née Rose (b.1944) There were grandchildren who remember Woodlands Cottage with fondness.
If you have information about the relationship between Sir Alec Rose and Emsworth we would be delighted to hear it. Please email the editor of The Emsworth Echo christine.bury@ntlworld.com.
Tony Yoward wrote an article in the 1991 edition of The Emsworth Echo describing the local ropemaking industry. His article mentions the ropewalk that ran alongside what is now the A259, which was known as the turnpike in the 19th century (Fig. 1). The ropewalk ran from Thorney Road to the entrance to Prinsted Lodge (now the entrance to the One Church).
Recently, a number of newspaper articles referring to this ropewalk have been found. They reveal both details of the ropewalk and a fascinating story of its operations.
In 1836, a 60-year lease of the ropewalk was granted to Adolphus Miller. We know Adolphus was something of an entrepreneur because in the Hampshire Telegraph and West Sussex Chronicle, on 22nd January 1848, he was advertising Lymington salt, rock salt and 200 tons of soap ashes (potash) for sale.
However, his various business ventures could not have been profitable and on 23rd November 1850, a notice of a sale of his stock in trade was issued (Fig. 2) because he had filed for bankruptcy. This notice reveals the scope of his business interests.
In The Hampshire Independent dated 19th April 1851, the property related to the business was auctioned. The details of the whole property included the ropewalk 1200 feet long and 12 to 18 feet wide, tar house, yarn house, rope house and dwelling house and other assets. The benefit of this newspaper report is that it explains exactly where the ropewalk was located and how long it was.
To place this ropewalk in context, the Chatham Dockyard ropewalk is 1135 feet long – slightly shorter. Ropewalks of this length produce rope that is a cable (just over 600 feet) long, after allowing for the reduction in length inherent in the ropemaking process.
There must have been no bids for the business, because the next record on 19th March 1867 in The West Sussex Journal is the report of a court case. Adolphus Miller (senior) has now died and left the property to his older son, George, who is now in Australia and who has in turn let the ropewalk to his younger brother Adolphus Miller (junior). Adolphus becomes embroiled in a dispute with Andrew Bone Hatch who farms the land to the south of the ropewalk, concerning access to the land while ropemaking was in progress. The court report helpfully again details the exact location of the rope walk – the turnpike road (now the A259) is to the north and Gosden Green to the south. Adolphus wins his case.
Adolphus continues to be sensitive about access to the ropewalk. On 6th November 1867, he was accused of assaulting Alice Willis (aged 13) who was sweeping leaves from the garden in front of her mistress’ house across the ropewalk. The case was considered by the County Bench in Chichester who fined Adolphus 2s. 6d., with costs of 11s. 3d.
Further newspaper reports imply that this ropemaking business was not a success. During this time, sail was giving way to steam and the demand for rope must have been falling. There is no mention of this ropewalk on the 1908 Ordnance Survey map, although the Tatchell ropewalk next to the Sussex Brewery is shown.
My thanks to Ros Cheetham who, knowing my interest in Emsworth ropemaking, spotted these newspaper reports and so helped to uncover these fascinating historical details.
The 10th Earl of Bessborough, Frederick known as Eric (1913-93), a descendent of Sir John Ponsonby (1608-78) and his second wife Elizabeth ffolliot, was Emsworth Maritime & Historical Trust’s first President.
There is a belief that the Ponsonby family came from Picardy and it is reputed that the original Ponsonby came over soon after 1066 to the court of William I and was appointed to the office of hereditary Barber and Surgeon to the King. Three combs argent are still on the family crest. The family tree between 1070 and 1647 is sketchy but records show that the grant of arms was confirmed to Colonel John Ponsonby by Ulster King of Arms following his service to His Majesty, Charles I. At his own expense, Colonel Ponsonby took over 100 soldiers and officers to serve against the Irish rebels. He was rewarded with land and a knighthood.
Down the years there have been many colourful characters in the Bessborough family – and whilst some fought in battles, both army and navy, achieving great recognition for their gallantry others took up diplomatic careers. In the early 1920s Vere, the 9th Earl of Bessborough, decided due to increasing ‘troubles’ in Ireland to discreetly move his family and many possessions and find a new home in England. His home in Ireland was burnt to the ground in 1923 and Vere purchased the Stansted Estate in 1924.
He was succeeded by his son Frederick (Eric) who in 1983 recognised that times and economic realities had changed and gave Stansted to a Charitable Trust (the Stansted Park Foundation) so that it could be preserved for the nation in perpetuity. Eric was a Minister for Science and Technology in Edward Heath’s government. Following his death the title passed to a cousin, Arthur, with the present Earl succeeding his father in 2002. In 2022 Myles, the 12th Earl of Bessborough, hosted a gathering of more than 200 Ponsonby relatives at Stansted House.
Michael Ponsonby’s ancestors have had more ordinary careers often serving King and country. There are Ponsonbys through the female line in Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. Michael however is directly descended through the male line from the third grandson of Colonel John Ponsonby and his first wife Dorothy. Michael with Faith and their four children came to live on the Havant Road, Emsworth in 1979 after the IBM Headquarters moved to North Harbour, Portsmouth. It was later that Michael discovered that his great uncle, Douglas Ponsonby, had lived almost opposite for two years in Emsworth House School 79 years before. Douglas arrived in Emsworth in 1900 at the age of 14 to attend the naval crammers school just started up by Baldwin King-Hall. He was determined to become a naval officer and writes that he enjoyed his time there but failed to pass into the navy.
At that time the entrance examination into Osborne was taken between the ages of 14 years 6 months and 15 years 6 months and he tried twice. The first time he failed on medical grounds and the second time after an operation in London he passed the medical and obtained the qualifying marks but did not get a high enough place partly because he arrived an hour late for the first paper. The trains were delayed for four hours because of an accident on the railway line and the only motor car in Emsworth was being repaired so the journey had to be made by horse vehicle. Although the subject – maths – was one of Douglas’s strongest he was too upset to do himself justice.
He eventually had a long career in the army, was awarded a DSC in WWI and also served in an administrative post in the RAF in WWII.
Michael’s father Wilfred Montague Ponsonby, a Signals Officer in WWII, was taken prisoner and attempted to escape several times. He was awarded the OBE when he was returned to the UK in October 1943 in the one and only exchange of prisoners because he was suspected of having TB. This was a misdiagnosis thanks to several earlier riding accidents and the breaking of his shoulder bone which made his chest sound hollow.
After the war he was sent to the Sudan to set up a Signals Regiment and later to Paris representing the UK in the Western Union Defence Organisation a precursor of NATO. In 1953, as a Brigadier, he took command of SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers, Europe). One of his contributions was to standardise the phonetic alphabet as different ones had been developed. ‘W’ was one of the letters that was confused and to his family’s amusement he managed to change this from ‘William’ to ‘Whisky’.
Both the present Earl of Bessborough and Michael Ponsonby can trace their ancestry all the way back to Colonel John Ponsonby and Michael Ponsonby reckons they are tenth halfcousins to one another. Two special stainedglass panels containing the family crest by local artist Marian Forster were commissioned by Michael’s wife, Faith, and were moved from their Emsworth home to the front door of their new home in central Havant.
Faith Ponsonby was Havant Mayor in 2016/17 and opened the centenary exhibition in Emsworth Museum’s David Rudkin Room remembering those who died in the Battle of the Somme. She visited again later that year to open the U3A exhibition.
This article, written by Dorothy Bone, is based on information provided by Faith Ponsonby. More details and dates of the history of the Bessborough/Ponsonby family will be available in Emsworth Museum’s Research Room in 2024.
Some of the photographs from the Extreme Weather
exhibition held in the David Rudkin Room earlier this summer.
The question posed in EMHT’s August newsletter re more information about the unexploded WWII bomb on Bath Road resulted in several emails.
From Hilary Campbell
A quick check on the 1939 Register on Find My Past confirms that at that time the houses in Bath Road were numbered 1,3,5,7 etc. – perhaps the original builders expected to fill in the millpond at some stage to build down the other side of the road?
From Trevor Davies
I am pretty sure that the bombed cottages were today’s 7 and 8. From the North:
- Block of 2 houses Now 1,2 Then 1,3
- Block of 4 houses Now 3,4,5,6 Then 5,7,9,11
- Block of 4 houses, the most northern two were destroyed by the bomb Now 7,8 Then 13,15
Originally the houses at the Sailing Club end of Bath Road were numbered 2, 4, 6 etc. Later when the houses at the top / Main
From Julia Oakley
Road end were built they were numbered 1, 3, 5 etc. Eventually, in the 1960s?, all the houses in Bath Road were renumbered consecutively 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 etc. starting from the top / Main Road end.
From Gordon Braddock
Alfred Thomas MORGAN (born Fareham 8th December 1894), his wife Clara (born Gessing, Norfolk 5th March 1890) and son Jack Victor (born Fareham 25th July 1924) all inhabited 13 Bath Road at the time of the September 1939 Register. Two other inhabitants were blanked out for that address. Most likely, the two erased residents were Joan, Jack V Morgan’s twin sister, and Clare F Morgan, his much younger sister. When the register is published fully all will be revealed. Of course the register was taken three years before the bomb was dropped so inhabitants may well have changed.
The other bombed house, then 11 Bath Road, was uninhabited in September 1939. At number 15, almost unscathed, were the TEE family: Gladys (born Portsmouth 2nd December 1914), her husband, George J (born Havant RD, 3rd August 1913) and Brenda A M REEVES, (born Emsworth 19th June 1896, a spinster). Last in the block of four terraced houses at 17 Bath Road the DOLING family dwelled: Charles Samuel Beverley (born locally 11th July 1907), Olivia Jeanette (born South Stoneham 18th January 1906), son Paul Charles (born Gosport 20th January 1935) and one other blanked out, probably a sibling of Paul’s.
The enquiry from Helen Price which led to this research stated that her grandparents, Clara and Alfred Thomas Morgan moved to St James Road. It is understood that the bombed residents initially sheltered in the school in Washington Road. To where they then moved and when they began to dwell at 1 St James Road is not known. Records do show that grandmother Clara died in November 1975 and grandfather Alfred Thomas in June 1977, both at number 1 St James Road
