by Janet Newman
A fascinating insight in to some of the Bampton families whose names appear in the history of the town over nearly 600 years.
As the research is still in progress Janet welcomes any family photos or family tree information you may have. Tel: 01993 850755 email: janet.newman81@outlook.com
Introduction Page 6
The Edginton Family Page 8
The Woodley Family Page 9
The Butler Family Page 9/10
The Tanner Family Page 10/11/12
The Bunce Family Page 12/13
The Buckingham Family Page 13/14
The Brooks Family Page 15
The Portlock Family Page 16/17
The Hunt -Townsend Family Page 18
The Wheeler Family Page 18
The Daniels Family Page 19/20
The Radband Family Page 21
The Whitlock Family Page 21/23
The Sheppard Family Page 24
The Rouse Family Page 25/27
The Pettifer Family Page 28
The Lock/Shergold Family Page 29/31
The Eeles Family Page 32/33
The Dixey Family Page 34
The Cripps Family Page 35/36
The Constable Family Page 36/37
The Green Family Page 38/39
John Gould - Exile Page 40/42
For many centuries the culture and pattern of the population in Bampton did not change. Many Bamptonians were engaged in agricultural work. In 1861 it was recorded that almost 400 workers were employed in agriculture. Families of ten to thirteen children were not uncommon.
Infant mortality was extremely high resulting in unimaginable heartbreak for families. These deaths were as a result of lack of medical care, malnutrition and poverty conditions.
At a time when there was no state support or National Health Service, the fear of The Workhouse was always present in people’s minds.
Many young women were obliged to leave Bampton to go into service and work in more affluent homes across the country. This in turn, relieved the accommodation pressure on homes of large families with limited space. It was thought that it would offer opportunity to the young girls who were placed with more ‘well-to-do families’. However, these placements often led to unintended outcomes: single pregnant girls were often sent to The Workhouse or returned home for the child to be brought up by the grandparents. In those times it was considered a disgrace to have a child out of wedlock.
If there was no local employment, young men would leave their family homes for employment on farms which offered accommodation, although very few moved far from home, only returning home to marry a Bamptonian or bringing a bride from a nearby village.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century the nature of Bampton families changed considerably. After centuries of working the land and the uncertainty of employment, young men, eager to seek new opportunities and a better life, took advantage of the assisted passage scheme to Canada for agricultural workers. Clifford Sifton, Minister of Interior with responsibilities for immigration in Canada declared: “I think that a stalwart peasant in a sheepskin coat, born to the soil, whose forefathers have been farmers for ten generations, with a stout wife and a half dozen children, is good quality”
Assisted passages were offered to encourage migration to Australia with priority still being given to the British and Irish. When the Australian parliament was formed in 1901, restriction of non-European migration became a campaign issue in the country’s first election. Many Australians feared that they would lose their jobs if too many migrants were allowed in. This attitude began during the Gold Rush in Canada in the mid to late 1800s.They saw what happened when gold was discovered on Aug. 17, 1896, near the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers in western Yukon territory. By 1897 up to 30,000 prospectors had arrived in the newly created towns of Skagway and Dyea, jumping-off points to the Canadian goldfields several hundred miles away. Such concerns led to the introduction of the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, which prevented migration to non-Europeans.
With the outbreak of the First World War, many of the young men who had emigrated, returned with the armies of their adopted countries to fight in Europe. Many died along with 53 young men from Bampton – husbands, fathers, brothers, sons.
By 1930 Council houses – affordable homes – began to be built along New Road and Bushey Row. Employment opportunities followed the establishment of manufacturing industries. During the thirties, many young men would cycle from Bampton to Cowley, leaving around 4.30a.m., to work in the car factories. Industrial and agricultural mechanisation was finding its place and the nature of employment was changing. People were needing to re-locate for employment and the birth rate was falling.
The Second World War, as well as bringing new blood to the village via R.A.F Brize Norton, brought many more opportunities for women. Although the national employment rate for women increased during WWI, from 23.6% of the working age population in 1914 to between 37.7% and 46.7% in 1918, Bampton was not as greatly impacted because of its distance from major towns and factories.
However, on 9th September, 1938, the government decided to establish the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service. During the Second World War women served as office, mess and telephone orderlies, drivers, postal workers, butchers, bakers, and ammunition inspectors.
The British government introduced conscription in 1938. All men aged between 18 and 41 had to register with the government. Government officials then decided whether they should go into the army or do other war work. Most young men were recruited into the armed forces. This created a severe labour shortage and on 18th December 1941, the National Service Act was passed by Parliament. This legislation called up unmarried women aged between twenty and thirty. This later extended to married women, although pregnant women and mothers with young children were exempt from this work.
One vital need was for women to work in munitions factories. Other women were conscripted to work in tank and aircraft factories, civil defence, nursing, transport and other key occupations. This involved jobs such as driving trains and operating anti-aircraft guns, that had been traditionally seen as ‘men’s work’. Many women from Bampton, went to work in the De Haviland Aircraft factory in Witney. The transport system had greatly improved with a good train service to Oxford, connecting Bampton to London and elsewhere as well as buses from Bampton to Witney, Swindon and Oxford. Life for women changed considerably. Although blankets had been made in Witney for over four hundred years, it was mechanisation and the will and need for women to work following the war, that saw the Blanket Mills provide transport.in the form of work buses collecting people from the villages to work in the factories. Smiths Industries and Compton and Webb, uniform factory, followed suit, along with other emerging businesses in Witney such as Brazil’s sausage and pie factory, Crawford Collets and Wesley Barrell, furniture manufacturers, to provide much needed work for young women.
Council houses continued to be built right through to the mid-1960s, thus ensuring that families were able to live in the place of their birth and enjoy the support of families and community. However, with the Right-To-Buy policy of the government of the 1980s and the failure to replace the housing stock, young people had to move away to Witney, Carterton, Chipping Norton and to wherever homes became available. By the late 20th Century, most families owned at least one car, which meant it was possible to look for employment away from the ever-diminishing transport routes.
The end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty first century saw huge changes in demographics. Education, together with girls’ aspirations, meant so many more girls left villages to go to University or to higher paid jobs. Technology, communication and labour-saving devices meant that women no longer had to shop every day or spend whole days on washing and cleaning. Nowadays, childcare provision has meant that all 3 and 4-year-olds in England in 2018, are entitled to 15 hours a week, or 570 hours a year of free early education. From September 2017, 3 and 4-year-olds may be entitled to 30 hours free childcare, or an extra 570 hours of free childcare a year, so 1,140 hours in total. The additional 15 hours is available to families where both parents are working (or the sole parent is working in a lone parent family), and each parent earns a weekly minimum equivalent to 16 hours at national minimum wage or living wage, and less than £100,000 per year. This also includes self-employed parents.
The nature of family has changed: extended families have been replaced with nuclear families and single-parent families. Nuclear families are often referred to as separated from any extended family and thus self-reliant.
So, this begs the question, why now, has genealogy become so popular? Why do people want to know about their ancestors? Why do they feel the need to know that they belong to a much larger unit or community? Is it simply curiosity? Is it that history is much more relevant through a physical link?
Like many young girls, Annie Edginton went into domestic service at a young age and like many young girls, Annie came home with an illegitimate son, Albert William Edginton.
Life improved for Annie when she returned to Bampton where she met David Robert Woodley, a chimney sweep. They married in 1866, with David bringing up the young Albert as his own. The couple went on to have six more children. However, within ten years David had died, leaving Annie with seven children under the age of twelve years.
Within three years, Annie was married again. This time to William Clemens Butler, the son of the musician Edward ‘Deedlum’ Butler. Four more children followed. But Annie’s life was not destined to be without tragedy: her son Isaac Roderick was killed in action in France in 1915; her son Albert William Edginton, died in France in in 1917. Daughter Kate Louise Woodley was just thirteen years old when she died and granddaughter, Daisy Heather, lived for only two years, with Annie’s daughter-in-law, Rose Ann (Bunce) passing away just two years later. Annie and William Butler’s son, Harold, lived for just one year and as if matters could not get any worse, young Cyril Butler drowned in the Shillbrook when he was just five years old.
Albert Edginton was the illegitimate son of Annie Edginton who married David Woodley of Weald, Bampton and later, following David’s death she married William Butler. Albert’s wife, Selina, was a gypsy and twice before they married, her family fetched her back home telling her she was not to mix with commoners. After the marriage in Bampton church, they did not cause any further trouble. They probably kept in touch because Selina paid for her mother's funeral many years later in Chipping Norton. Albert and Selina had 3 children.
When war broke out, Albert joined the Army Veterinary Corps. 12th Vet. Hospital. Albert died in 1917 as the result of an accident at base camp at Etaples.
One story has it that he caught anthrax from the horses. Another story is that he fell into a vat of chemicals used to disinfect the horses. He is buried in Etaples Military Cemetery and his name appears on Bampton War Memorial Although his wife could not read or write, she managed to get to France and see her husband's body before burial.
The family has a letter from the Veterinary Corps telling Selina of her husband's few possessions which would be available to her.
The men of the Vet. Corps had a whip round and gave her 15 guineas as a gift when she left to go back home to England, which is quite astonishing when you think how many men died on the front and it was a huge amount of money. They must have thought a great deal of him and probably her too.
Selina married a Joseph Barrett after Albert died, and moved to Chipping Norton where her mother was buried.
Isaac Roderick Woodley was the step-brother of Albert Edginton and, in addition, had two other brothers who were also serving in the military: Frank Woodley and David Robert Woodley.
Isaac Roderick was married to Rose Ann Bunce (see Bunce Family). They had two children, George and Daisy. Isaac Roderick joined the Grenadier Guards, 4th Battalion. Sadly, Isaac Roderick was killed in action in 1915. He is commemorated on a panel on the Loos Memorial. To add to the heartache suffered by Rose Ann, two-year-old Daisy died the following year.
In 1919, following his return from war, David Robert (Bob), Isaac’s brother, married Rose Ann and helped to bring up young George. Rose Mary Woodley was born in 1920 but sadly Rose Ann died in 1922.
With two motherless children to bring up, Bob then married Hilda, the sister of his sister-in-law.
Edward 'Deedlum' Butler, so nicknamed for his habit of 'diddling' the tune while playing (as did William Wells at a later date), was born in Burford about 1813, and later lived at Asthall, where his son Richard was born in 1856.
The older Butler had a dancing booth which he used to take round and erect at fairs as far away as Blackwell in Warwickshire. William Nathan 'Jingy' Wells of Bampton spoke of Edward Butler's booth as a 'big tent,' suggesting a canvas construction. The cost and availability of suitably-sized material around the middle of the century is unknown, but it may be that the eight pounds repaid by Butler to the churchwardens at Minster Lovell on 6 September 1853, had been borrowed in order to purchase just such material. Peripatetic dancing booths were a specifically nineteenth century phenomenon. During the last two decades of the nineteenth century Edward Butler used to take his dancing booth to all the fairs for miles around, including Witney Feast. He was also known to travel regulary to Warwickshire. It has been suggested that, taking into consideration the number of dancers visiting the booth, the number of hours worked, that Edward Butler could have been earning up to eighteen times more than an agricultural labourer.
There was no charge for admission but a man paid a small sum (perhaps a penny) for each dance in which he and a partner joined. Country dances would, at that date, last for a considerable length of time, often until the dancers got too tired to continue. Another of Butler's sons, William, (1858-1843) would act as lead dancer, demonstrating how the figures were constructed and performed (perhaps after the manner of a modern-day barn dance caller), and then accompany his father on tambourine for the duration of the dance. Edward Butler was the musician for the Bampton Morris team from about 1876, being replaced by his son, Richard in about 1880.
The story of how Richard Butler ceased his nine-year association with the Bampton Morris Dancers has been frequently told. A variety of reasons have been cited as the main cause of the final rift. Most often the story is that either Butler got too drunk on the beer and cider given the men on their dancing route, because, unlike the dancers, he had no opportunity to sweat it out, or that he was dissatisfied with his share of the money collected during performance. The stories do, however, generally agree that on Whit Monday in 1899, Butler caught the neck of his fiddle in a drainpipe and it broke off. He was apparently relieved about this and used the opportunity to cease his involvement. Wells, who had acted as fool for the side since 1887, ran home to get his fiddle and they carried on dancing for the rest of the day.
In 1899, William Butler married the widow Annie Woodley, formerly Edginton. She was the mother of Albert Edginton and six Woodley children. She and William went on to have four more children. One of those children was Ada.
Ada Butler married Frank Herbert Tanner when he returned from Australia after the First World War. Ada was most definitely a twentieth century girl. She, together with Dora Townsend, joined the Civil Defence during WW2. Dora was an ambulance driver and Ada, the attendant. They even took their ambulance to Coventry and Southampton at the height of the bombing to help out as those cities, were short of nurses and ambulances. Liberated by the changes of attitude during the early twentieth century, after the war, Ada went to work at the Crawfords Collet factory in Witney. She became an inspector and worked there until her retirement. Her strength of character and independence was obviously passed on to her daughter, Vera Elward.
The Tanner family name dates back to the ancient Anglo-Saxon culture of Britain.. This occupational surname was originally derived from the work that the original bearer did. In this case the original bearer treated animal skins with tannin in order to prevent the skins from decomposing so that they could use the leather to produce various goods.
How long Tanners have lived in Bampton is not known but there is a record of John Tanner marrying Agnis Baston in Bampton Church in 1614 as well as a record of a William Tanner, mentioned in a will in Bampton in 1610. However, the family tree lodged here in the Archive, begins with Benjamin Tanner (1773-1796) and his wife Barbara Parker (1738-1821) who were married in St. Mary’s on 8th July 1770.
Lack of employment in Bampton in the early 1900s, convinced the seventeen -year-old Frank to seek his fortune in London, where he went to work at the Harvey Nichols department store as a delivery boy. For a country boy this was not the life he was looking for. He took advantage of the assisted passage scheme to Australia and secured himself a job on a sheep station, three days horse ride from Sydney. This life suited Frank and he probably would have remained in Australia had it not been for the outbreak of the First World War. When he heard that his brothers and relatives in Bampton had joined up, he joined the Australian army and came to Europe to fight alongside the allied armies.
Frank’s war effort came to an end when he was blown up at the time of The Somme. The Australians, convinced that he would not survive, left him in a ditch. Fortunately for Frank, the Red Cross found him badly wounded but still clinging to life and transported him by ambulance to hospital in St. Omer.
During the journey a wounded German soldier cared for Frank, keeping him comfortable, giving sips of water. Days later, when Frank enquired after the soldier he was told that the wounded German had not survived the multiple bayonet wounds he had sustained in battle.
Following a lengthy recovery, because Frank was British, he was sent back to Britain. As far as the Australian army was concerned Frank was dead. Consequently, when the war memorial was erected in the area where Frank had worked in Australia, his name was added to those lost in battle.
Following the war Frank made brief return trip the sheep station in Australia, He found the farmer had continued to bank his wages throughout the war. However, a Government directive meant that employers had to offer available jobs to Australians, so Frank returned to Bampton and married Ada Butler.
Morris Dancing was in the Tanner blood. When Frank left for Australia, five members of his family were part of the Morris Team: his father, Thomas (‘Buscot’), his brother, John, Uncle Charles (‘Cocky’), Charles’s sons, Jesse and Percy. Following the war, ‘Buscot’s’ other sons, Reg (‘Scudgel’) and Victor (‘Buller’) maintained the Tanner involvement with the tradition. When Frank returned in the early 1920s his family persuaded him to join the team. In 1926, it was again a Tanner team with Frank, Reg, Victor and their brother-in-law, Billy Flux making four of the six dancers. One of Frank’s favourite stories was to do with the ‘Bacca Pipes’ jig. He would recall how he learned the dance on the bridges in Weald by dancing over a cross drawn in the dust with a finger. One Sunday, he was up and practising the dance until midnight because he had to dance it on the Monday.
Whilst dancing in Oxford, some undergraduates asked if they could dance over the warden’s pipes and if so they would pay Frank and his brother ten shillings. The students fetched some long churchwarden pipes, crossed them in a similar fashion to they way in which swords are crossed for a sword dance, and Frank and his brother performed the jig. The students were so impressed that they said it was the best dancing they had ever seen. ’They thought we should break them, but we got close in – heel and toe,’ Frank would relate. Ten shillings was a lot of money in those days and it went straight into the dancers’ collecting tin.
With his wife, Ada (Butler) he contributed much towards the maintenance of the garland tradition, which accompanies the Morris Dance tradition on Bank Holiday Monday in Bampton, by helping children in the construction of the garlands. This tradition was continued by his daughter, Vera Elward. The Community Archive contributed enormously by making an instructional DVD of Vera preparing the wild flowers and making a garland.
Frank Tanner and his wife, Ada Butler
Vera, daughter of Frank Herbert Tanner and Ada Alexandra Butler, was born in Bampton in 1923. She was just 15 years old when she met her husband, Evan David Elward, a young Welsh airman who had been posted to RAF Brize Norton in 1939. A group of young airmen arrived at the W.I. Hall (now the Village Hall) for the local dance. They had sixpence between them; certainly not enough for an entrance fee. Mrs. Glenister, the Welsh lady on the door agreed to let them in, providing Evan David invited the little girl by the stage (Vera Tanner) to dance. Vera and David spent over fifty happy years together in Bampton.
Vera has always been greatly involved in village life. She ran the Sunday School for a period of time and, as an accomplished pianist, always provided the music for various village entertainment groups. The Drama Group, The Mothers’ Union and The Women’s Institute were important parts of her leisure time.
Vera worked all her life, spending her last twenty-five years at Bampton Primary School. Even in retirement, Vera was never one to while away her time. At the age of 92, despite two replacement knees and hips; a pacemaker; heart and kidney problems, Vera decided she wanted to do something really daring
in order to raise money towards the costly refurbishment of St. Mary’s Church organ. After being persuaded that sky-diving and wing walking were not to be recommended, Vera took her first sponsored flight in a microlight, spending almost an hour soaring at over 3000 feet above the Northamptonshire countryside.
This spirit of adventure emerged again when Vera reached her 94th birthday. This time a sponsored glider flight enabled her to add to the already substantial amount of money she had raised for the Organ Fund.
This time Vera even piloted the glider! During this amazing flight, she flew over Birmingham and Coventry and was quite reluctant to land!
Vera, now 95 years-old, has a plan for this Autumn to have a go at free fall sky diving in a wind tunnel to raise money for Bowel Cancer Research. The wind tunnel at Milton Keynes is an indoor, vertical wind tunnel. It is the largest in the world, measuring some 16.5ft in diameter and 35ft in height. This actually was Vera’s second choice as she really was aiming to fly the longest zip wire in Wales but, unfortunately, the company wouldn’t accept her booking on the grounds of health and safety!
Daniel Bunce obviously did really well for himself. At the time of his marriage, he was a labourer. Within a couple of years, he had become a shepherd. By the time of the 1901 census, he was recorded as an innkeeper in Shilton and by 1911 he was the innkeeper at The Horseshoe Inn in Bampton.
In 1902, Daniel and Rose Ann’s daughter, Rachel, married Thomas John Bishop whose occupation on the marriage certificate was recorded as Brewer. After Thomas died, when he was just forty-nine years old, his son Frederick rented the shop opposite the Methodist Chapel in Bridge Street. Fred was a preacher at the Methodist Chapel but sadly Fred contracted T.B. His sister remembers him being pushed along on a bicycle when he was too weak to walk. Fred died just three years after his father at the age of twenty-three.
Edward (Ted) returned home to run the shop but he also succumbed to T.B. Although he survived, he was not well enough to manage the shop so Rachel took over and eventually passed it on to son, George before Emmie took it over. Emmie’s son, Tommy Papworth, ran the shop until he retired. By this time, Daniel Bunce and Rose Ann were the innkeepers at The Swan in the Buckland Road.
This was passed on through the family to daughter Emily, who married Harry Sollis. They had one child, Rose, who married the farmer, Arthur Gerring.
Daughter, Rose Bunce, married Isaac Roderick Woodley. They had two children, George in 1910 and Daisy Heather in 1914. Tragedy struck, however, when Isaac Roderick was killed in battle in France in 1915. The following year Daisy Heather also died. In 1919, Isaac Roderick’s brother, David Robert Woodley, married Rose. They welcomed another daughter, Rose Mary in 1920. Sadly, David Robert lost his wife in 1922. David Robert later went on to marry Hilda Perchard, the sister of his sister-in-law. Together they brought up the young Rose Mary. Descendants of the Bunce family remain in the village: Mrs. Bishop, Tommy Papworth and the Broughton family.
The Buckingham Family Not forgetting the Woodleys & Harrisons etc.
Abraham Burt and Sarah Wakeley moved from Dorset to Meadow Farm, Buckland Road in 1920. They had nine children and eleven grandchildren.Their daughter, Margaret, married Shadrach Buckingham, son of Christopher and Ada Buckingham, in Bampton in 1921. Shadrach was one of eight children. The Buckinghams had moved to Bampton from Hailey. In 1911 Christopher’s occupation was listed as ‘stone digging’.
Hilda Jane Burt married Arnold Buckingham. She ran a fish and chip business for some years in Bampton between The Lamb and the garage in the Market Square - the site where Thornberry now stands. Arnold had a wood yard close to The Swan in the Buckland Road. In those days he was the clown for the Morris Dancers.
Hilda’s sister, Margaret Burt, was barely sixteen when she married Arnold’s brother, Shadrach. Margaret’s childbearing years lasted for almost a quarter of a century during which time she gave birth to eleven children. Her second child Ernest, joined the 5th Battalion of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.
Buckingham selling fish & chips
Just nineteen years old, he was killed in action in France in September 1915. He has no grave but his name is inscribed at Ypres on the Menin Gate. Although he was born in Hailey, his recorded residence at the time of his death was Bampton. Should his name be on Bampton War Memorial?
Christopher Buckingham taught his children the hard way. When Shadrach, with a young family, lost all his cabbage plants and then saw cabbages going to waste on his father’s garden, he asked if he could have one. The reply was, ‘yes, this time but in future grow your own’. Shadrach never asked his father for anything again. Shadrach’s name appeared as a winner in the Horticultural Society for a number of years.
Gertrude Buckingham married Frank Woodley and they were the parents of Frank, Arnold, Gerty and John Woodley. Frank, John and Arnold were Morris Dancers. There is a continuous Morris connection in this family.
Shadrack was a cake carrier and his brothers James and Arnold both danced.; Charlie joined in as clown. Jim Buckingham danced for over 25 years. Richard Buckingham, son of Charlie, has been a regular dancer. Steven Buckingham and brother-in-law, Philip Walsgrove, joined in 2004. Xavier James Walsgrove joined the team in 2013, making the 4th generation to dance for Bampton Morris. All three of Joyce Buckingham’s sons were also dancers.
Ernest Buckingham married Joan Hunt, daughter of ‘Tinker’ Hunt and his wife Em. Tinker got his name, not from his job but because he played the Tinker in the Bampton Mummers. There was one memorable time when there when there were twenty-four round the kitchen table in Spring Cottage reciting:
‘Here comes I, Old Tom the Tinker, I am no small beer drinker. I told the landlord to his face The chimley corner was his place….’etc.
Ernie and Joan were the parents of Josephine and John Buckingham.
One family member remembered Charlie Buckingham being immensely strong. When he was about fifteen, a house on the corner of Bridge Street and Cheyne Lane caught fire and burned down. When it was pulled down, Charlie carried the main roof beam home on his shoulder.
Arnold Woodley. was born, the second of four children, on 14 November 1925. His older brother Frank performed as a dancer in the Tanner set for two years, 1931 and 1932. Their uncles, Jim and Arnold Buckingham, had been in the young set raised by Wells during 1926, but by 1930 were performing with the older, Tanner set. Although he remembers watching the older men practice as a youngster, and indeed would step into the set on occasion when one of the dancers needed a break, Arnold did not dance in the performing set until Whit Monday 1938, as a lad of thirteen. He was then much younger than the men preferred (this was probably related to the quantity of alcohol consumed during performance), but his cousin Charlie Buckingham, only three years older, was also dancing that year, and his uncle Jim told the other men that without Arnold they would be turning out with only five dancers. Arnold continued to dance on occasion until 1943, when he was stricken with rheumatoid arthritis. It is often said that his finest hour as a musician may have occurred at the Fiddlers' Convention held in Oxford in March 1986, at which he was one of the guests. Having practiced hard beforehand for an event that was clearly outside his usual playing context, he performed brilliantly and with tremendous confidence. (It must be stated, however, that Arnold believes his greatest personal triumph was a tour of the eastern seaboard of America during the early 1980s.) It has been suggested that he was the finest traditional fiddler playing in the characteristic southern English style.
There were many Brooks families in Aston and Bampton during the nineteenth century. It is quite difficult to unravel the families as so many were called George, William, James and Joseph and so many of the females were Mary, Elizabeth, Sara and Ann.
It is known that Joseph Brooks married Mary Stallard from Faringdon. Joseph and Mary lived in Aston where Joseph worked as an agricultural labourer and then a hay trusser. They were blessed with six children, two of whom died at an early age.
Joseph and Mary’s fifth son, George, married an Aston girl, Rose Ellen Fox, in 1915. Rose Ellen was always in demand as a ‘layer-outer’ and a midwife. In 1943 their first daughter, Alice, married Thomas W. Peacock who had been born in Woodstock. Great joy followed when daughter, Olive, was born in 1944. The war was almost over and this family was looking forward to starting a life together with their young baby when Thomas was killed in action in Italy in 1945. Alice worked hard all her life to bring up her daughter alone. Olive married American, James McCabe, and returned to America with him where their son Andrew was born in 1964. Olive returned home regularly at Whitsun to enjoy the annual festivities. She was recently interviewed by her local newspaper about Bampton and Downton Abbey. (See Archive database).
George and Rose Ellen’s daughter, Kathleen, married Benjamin Tanner. Two Tanner daughters, Mary and Dorothy, went on to marry two Buckingham brothers. These two unions have been responsible for a number of the Morris Dancers dancing today. (See Buckingham family story).
Kathleen and Benjamin’s youngest daughter Liz, is known in her retirement for giving her time to help others. She helps at the Bush Club, the weekly lunch club in the village, and she also offers her time in the Charity shop.
This has been a difficult family to research since sometimes the surname used is Clarke, sometimes Clark, sometimes Portlock and sometimes Portlock-Clarke.
There is evidence that, in 1810, two illegitimate children of Lucy Clarke were baptised in Black Bourton, one of whom was Thomas. This same Thomas was later recorded as Thomas Portlock-Clarke. Thomas was born in 1801 in Black Bourton, Oxfordshire, the son of Lucy. He married Jane Hickman on 14 November 1829 in Witney, Oxfordshire. They had eight children in 20 years. He died in 1886 having lived a long life of 85 years, and was buried in Bampton, Oxfordshire.
Throughout the following centuries, the name seemed to be interchangeable. One family member, Michael Portlock, reported that his grandfather’s birth certificate records him as Joseph Walter PORTLOCK whereas he was baptised Walter Joseph CLARK. This is when genealogy becomes very confusing!
It seems that a common thread through this family has been farming and Morris Dancing. During the mid-nineteenth century there are records of Thomas, James and William Portlock dancing. Thomas Portlock, who died in 1936, was said to have been one of Bampton’s keenest dancers, dancing each Whit Monday for many years. The Townsend family has a long tradition of dancing with ‘Son’ Townsend (real name Albert) dancing for a record 65 years. His son, Jim was also a dancer.
Although he was known all his life as ‘Son’, ‘Sonny’, or ‘Sonner’, and he never answered to his proper name, he was christened Thomas Albert Townsend: born on 24th May 1914 to the landlord and landlady of The Elephant & Castle pub in Bampton in the Bush, Oxfordshire. At that time the public house was the headquarters of the Bampton Morris Dancers, and as a boy Sonny would watch at their practices and occasionally he was allowed to dance in. A few days after his eleventh birthday at Whitsun 1925, he was told he was needed to dance out with the team as one of the Tanner brothers was unwell.
Young Sonny wasn’t keen to get all dressed up in his white clothes, bells and beribboned bowler hat and join the Morris dancers in their traditional Whitsun festivities dancing round Bampton all day. But as they were one short, needed him, and it is a tradition that’s been going for hundreds of years, he received a
traditional persuasion – a clip across the ear from his grandfather. Mindful that his grandfather, Thomas Portlock, had once danced with the team, young Sonny forgot his shyness and joined in the Whitsun dancing.
When once questioned about it Sonny explained it: “One of the dancers dropped out at the last minute and I was told to take his place. I didn’t want to do it, but Grandfather soon settled that, and in those days, you did as you were told.” He admitted how much he had enjoyed that day, starting off the dancing at 8am, but the fun had started before that. He would relate about how everyone had come into his Dad’s pub – The Elephant And Castle – and enjoyed a drink or two before setting off. Beer was 2d and 4d a pint, and whisky 6d a shot. They danced all around the village until mid-morning when they returned to the Elephant and Castle for bread, cheese, pickles and more beer; then carried on dancing. The Radbands, who appear in the Portlock-Clarke family tree were also stalwarts of the Morris. Thomas Potrlock was married to Elizabeth, sister of Henry Radband, one-time leader of the team, and she was Aunt to William “Jinky” Wells. Son’s mother, Elizabeth was granddaughter of Thomas “Jingle” Radband, and who went on to lead the Bampton Morris for fifty years and was also their musician.
Albert Townsend had a horse drawn carriage service which he ran from Castle View Farm on Bridge Street. He particularly took people to and from Bampton railway station, which was about 2 miles outside Bampton, on the edge of what is now RAF Brize Norton. He was very enterprising having one of the first, if not the first, lorries in Bampton which he used to collect coal from the station for selling. This lorry would be scrubbed spotless, seats fastened to the floor and the children from the Methodist Sunday school taken for a day trip to Savernake Forest for a treat once a year. He also farmed, first keeping pigs behind the Elephant and Castle when he had the license there and then with other farming aspects when he moved across the road to Castle View Farm.
William Hudson (1896-1982) was married to Ethel May Townsend (1903-1936). In 1901, the Hudson family was living at Ham Court Cottages, Bampton. When he was just 14 years old, William Hudson was working on Ham Court farm in Bampton for Mr John White and his wife Annie, as a farmer’s boy and general worker. William’s family was then living at Plantation Cottages, Bampton.
William was in WW1 in Oxford Yeomanry but then transferred to 6th Battalion. Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry. This transfer is thought to have been due to the losses at the Somme, as well as the realisation that the cavalry was not suitable for trench warfare. Whilst in the OBLI, he was injured twice in the legs. In 1918, he was admitted to the 5th General Canadian hospital in Rouen, before being sent back to England on 8th April 1918. He was finally transferred to 5th Battalion. Royal Berks Regiment, eventually being invalided out after the second injury. William was awarded the MM with Bars for repeatedly carrying messages under heavy shellfire. After the war William worked for Albert Townsend and then later as a motor/agricultural fitter in Bampton. "Billy" was in the volunteer fire brigade in Bampton during and after WW2; he was the driver and pump handler. He was a very good centre half in the early 1920s for Bampton FC and it was said he could head a ball further than most could kick it.
William’s wife, Ethel May Townsend, died following childbirth in 1936. From then, he lived at 5 Victoria Cottages, Broad Street, Bampton where he looked after his invalid sister Elsie until she died in 1952. Frank Hudson, William’s son was brought up by Dora Townsend, Ethel May’s sister. When William died he was buried with his wife in Bampton cemetery.
Thomas Hunt (1861-1849), great-grandson of Jonathan Hunt (1770) and Mary Clack (1773-1749), married Harriet Townsend (1865-1955), granddaughter of William Townsend (1801) and Mary Ward (1802), thus uniting two families whose descendants were going to form a major part of the Morris Dance side in Bampton. Over the next twenty tree years, following their marriage in 1884, Thomas and Harriet had twelve children.
The Hunts appear in the history of Bampton Morris in their own right. A number of Thomas and Harriet’s children married into other village families connected with the Morris tradition. Both Thomas ‘Buscot’ Tanner and Charles ‘Cocky’ Tanner married two Hunt sisters, Sophia and Mary Ann. Brenda Hunt married married Arthur Dixey and Lillian Hunt married Bobby Wells, son of ‘Jingy’ Wells, with William Hunt’s daughter, Dulcie, marrying a Wheeler. This in itself reads like a Morris Dance family tree. Morris Dancing aside, many of the Hunt descendants have remained in Bampton and the surrounding area, with Joan Pearce, daughter of Ernest Hunt and Rosalie Beckinsale having spent her whole life in Bampton. In so doing she has been able to pass on valuable family history. Joan’s son, Steve is a valuable asset of Bampton C.E. Primary School where he is Site Manager along with his wife Sue, who fills multiple roles at the school, including Breakfast Club T.A. and Lunchtime Supervisor.
Edith Florence Agg, daughter of Ernest Billie and Louanna was one of a family of eight living in Eastleach. James Wheeler was born in Gloucestershire and worked on farms in the area before marrying Edith Florence in 1919. Life moved along peacefully until in 1945, James, who was recorded as being a shepherd at the time, passed away at the age of forty-five leaving Edith with nine children to bring up single handedly.
Because the family were living in a tied cottage, Edith had to move out. Very fortunately, when new council houses were built in Bampton, Edith was eventually offered a new house in Fox Close. This was a considerable distance from her family who could have been supportive at this critical time. However, Edith showed great stoicism. She moved to Bampton and brought up a family, that was a great credit to her.
Some of her children married into local families: Shergold, Brooks, Hunt and Daniels. Others, once married, settled with new partners back in the village they called home.
This family was not untouched by the Morris Dance tradition. The twins Rex and Pete were known to have danced when they were boys. Cyril Wheeler’s son Jamie, is the principal musician, on melodeon and fiddle, for Bampton Traditional Morris Men
Richard Daniels was born in 1814 in Broad Hinton, Wiltshire. Richard was a blacksmith so it is possible that employment opportunities brought him to Buckland where he met Elizabeth Constable, who had been born in Buckland around 1814. They married in 1835 and for the next few years they remained in Buckland where James, George and Richard were born. Two-year-old Richard died in 1841 and following his death, the family moved to Cote House, near Bampton, where Richard continued his trade as a blacksmith.
William Alfred left home to live in East Hagbourne, Berkshire where he secured work as a harness maker. It was whilst living there that he met Julia Street, who had been born in Blewbury. They married in 1889 but heartbreak was to follow. Alfred William, the first of their children was born in 1890 but lived for just six years. Albert George, born in 1892 lived for just two years. Jack, born in 1894 survived for just one year.
The census for 1901 sees William and Julia return to Aston where William is recorded as being a saddler and harness maker with an apprentice. Their three sons, Edward, born in 1896, Frank, born in 1897 and Sydney, born in 1899, were recorded on the same census. Tragedy was to visit againin 1903 when four-year-old Sydney died.
The next three years saw the arrival of three more sons, John, Frederick and Ernest. It must have been shortly after 1901 that the family moved to Bampton where they had a saddler’s business in Queen Street.
One must wonder at the resilience of Julia because in 1905, her husband also died. Being left with five children to bring up, in 1906, Julia married Joseph Cook, the young man who had been her husband’s apprentice. Julia gave birth to two more children. Husband Joseph enlisted in 1915, which once again meant Julia was bringing up six children on her own.
Frank, William and Julia’s son, born in 1897, enlisted in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, 5th Battallion. In 1915 he died as a result of war wounds. His grave is in the Boulogne Eastern Cemetery. I wonder if this is what prompted Julia’s second husband to enlist in 1915.
Lillian and Phyllis Dewe
In 1930, one of Julia’s sons, Frederick Daniels, born in 1902, married 21-year-old Phyllis Janet Dewe. She, too, had experienced loss in her life. When she was just six years old her father, James Dewe, a stone mason, fell out of a walnut tree, sustaining injuries, from which he died almost immediately. It was thought that he was gathering walnuts near the top of the tree when a branch, on which he was standing, broke. The tree was on the site where The Lanes are now.
It was said that the family had to take off a gate to use as a stretcher to carry his body home. Phyllis’s brother, Jack Dewe, was in the same regiment as Frank Daniels. Jack died in the battle for Delville Wood in July 1916. There is no grave, just a reference on a panel of the Thiepval Memorial.
In 1929, Ernest, the youngest of William and Julia’s children, also married a Bampton girl, Amy Fairclough. Many members of Ernest’s and Frederick’s extended families still live in Bampton. Frederick’s daughter, Freda Bradley, was a well-known member of the Bampton community. Her fascinating book, Bampton -The Way it Was –describes growing up in Bampton in the twentieth century. Freda’s daughter, Janet, is the artist who produced the beautiful pictorial map of Bampton
This family has been greatly connected with the Morris Dancing with Ernest’s sons. Bill Daniels took a full part in the life of Bampton.
He was a Morris dancer with Francis Shergold's side, the Bampton Traditional Morris Men. Just after WWII when he was 12 years old, he was one of the group of young boys, along with Ted Hunt, who got the Mummers up and running again after the break through the war years.
He took part in a moustache growing competition and won it.
He took part in the Dwile Flunk at The Eagle Inn in Church View and was involved with many other things. His ready smile is much missed. Bill’s brother, Frank danced; Bill’s son, Anthony, is a dancer as is Bill’s grandson David who has just celebrated his twenty-five years as a dancer. He has introduced his own son, Devon, to the tradition.
Amy Fairclough
Bill Daniels
Frederick Daniels, Phyllis, daughter Freda and Tom Bradley with Janet
When Thomas ‘Jingle’ Radband was born on 2 June 1776 in Bampton, Oxfordshire, his father, William, was 29 and his mother, Mary, was 31. He married Mary Puffett on 14 September 1806 in his hometown. They had six children in 15 years. The family of Thomas ‘Jingle’ Radband’ (1776-1854) had been evident in Bampton since the end of the seventeenth century. He was a significant figure in the early Morris Dance side from as early as 1800. Thomas went on to lead the Bampton Morris for fifty years as well as being their musician – hence his nickname, ‘Jingle’.
Thomas played the pipe and tabor. Since its recorded beginnings the Morris was danced to the accompaniment of the pipe and tabor. The three-holed pipe was very difficult to play. The pipe and tabor were two instruments played by a single player. The first instrument was the tabor, which was a small drum, and this was played with a drumstick in one hand. The other instrument was the pipe, which was a three-holed flute with a whistle mouthpiece of the same sort as on a tin whistle or a recorder. The drum provided a strong rhythm to enable the dancers to keep good time with their feet.
‘Son’ Townsend’s mother, Elizabeth, was granddaughter of Thomas “Jingle” Radband. (See PortlockClarke family story.) Henry Radband, grandson of ‘Jingle’ and uncle of ‘Jingy’ Wells, was the leader of the side when he invited Arthur Dixey to join the side.
The Whitlocks moved from Woodstock to The Poplars in Queen Street early in the twentieth century.
Harry was an insurance agent for the Pearl Insurance Company. He would be a familiar sight, cycling around the village, collecting the insurance money. One cannot imagine how such a large family could fit into such a small house!
Life must have taken its toll on Martha Whitlock, as she died in her early fifties. There were still young children to be cared for so daughter, Rhoda, had to return home to bring up her younger siblings.
At the beginning of 1936, Harry married Lillian Oakey, a widow. Daughter Rhoda also married this year. However, in December 1936, Harry died aged 55. Lillian went on to marry James Swinford in 1938.
Most of the Whitlock children remained in Bampton and the surrounding are. The boys who remained in Bampton became part of the Morris Dance tradition.
Harry and Martha would be very proud to see how their family has grown and blossomed!
Some people already know this story, some don't. I hardly talk about my tours to my friends and family. Why? No-one would ever believe what happened or what I’ve endured and seen. It's only recently I’ve started to come out and talk about it, and I just hope it doesn't spread negativity towards me or anyone else involved.
On the 27th August 2009 I had just recently got back on the ground with 1 Welsh Guards after repatriating three of my brothers. I was deployed to an area with my eight-man Afghan team to help as a recce force. We had just landed in the PB and I knew troops were in contact. I went to the OPS room to talk to the OC, and straight away I knew something was wrong. I listened to the radio to try and establish what was going on. That's when I heard: "Left leg amputation!" At that moment the lads were trying to square their mate away and deal with the contact. I said to the OC: "I'll take my team and try to draw fire away from them." He was more than happy for me to deploy. I don’t know why I did it, but I then smashed on my Reg t-shirt and got myself and team ready. Together with my team of eight Afghans we then deployed. I got myself into a position where I could get eyes on what was happening, at the same time talking to the Welsh Guard section OTG. At this moment a solider was shot and killed instantly (ANA). That's when I started to take fire from a Taliban position with what I think was a PKM and RPGs. I moved my team into a position where I could regain control because they were all over the place, and once this was done I flanked where I thought the Taliban were positioned.
I then spotted the Taliban, but I wasn't sure on the numbers and I wasn't going to sit around and count. I just got my Afghans up and ordered suppressive fire on their position, although not one Taliban fighter was hit! They then all ran into a compound and I knew then I HAD to assault it. The heli (PEDRO) was inbound and that would be the next target. I also knew it was a BIG risk and I had all sorts of reasons telling me not to do it. They won't have made the compound easy to get to. What about their main threat from IEDs or booby-trapped doors? This could go horribly wrong as I was the only British soldier in the team, and the Afghans aren’t as well trained as us in compound clearance. There were also many other reasons going through in my mind. However, I HAD to do it and I was confident in my ability to do it, as well as not wanting to bring shame to my cap badge in front of another unit.
I got on the radio and told the guys I was assaulting the compound and I didn't want any suppressive fire onto it. We had to try and sneak up to it and use the element of surprise: something which all Paras are well trained in! We got to the door way. I held the door for a moment and checked for any sign of a trap. I pushed one of my Afghans through the door and straight away I saw a Taliban fighter talking into a radio with his AK47 slung. I gave him aimed shots and he was down in an instant. My team then proceeded to assault, secure and search the compound, killing all seven Taliban fighters.
We’d executed the raid to perfection, and if it wasn’t for the Team’s efforts, the Welsh Guard soldier may not have survived. In the end he was taken to Camp Bastion and did survive. I had no casualties in my Team and as a result of that raid I was recommended for the Military Cross but in the end was presented with the MID for which I’m immensely proud.
To this day, I wear that MID for my Afghan team. They were loyal, brave and fought with immense honour. People ask me if I ever thought I was going to die on that day. Yes of course I did. I thought I'd get hit by an IED or something similar but I honestly didn't care as I was only scared about dying for nothing…I have huge respect for every Welsh Guard I was with on that tour and I'm proud to call them my brothers.
Pte Radband completed his third operational tour of Afghanistan between May and November 2009 spending the period on numerous and varied tasks from mentoring the afghan territorial force (ATF) as part of large ops patrols to operating as a mentor, to an ATF section attached to a BG, attached to 2 rifles BG. Op Rego is a task, delivered by the SFS, to recruit, equip, train and mentor an indigenous Afghan force. The mission is to conduct find, feel and understand operations in support of TFH and TF196 in order to isolate the insurgency and support sustainable GIROA governance in Helmand. The SFSG and Afghan Territorial Force (ATF) combine to form TF444. Pte Radband was involved in numerous high-risk patrols and large reconnaissance operations with TF444.
During the period from June to September Pte Radband operated with Blenheim com pany WG. Being the only asset of its kind with the company, the Tiger Team (TT) was attached to and at the forefront of nearly every patrol. This was during the height of the Helmand summer, a summer which proved the most lethal to ISAF troops to date. The recommended rank for this role is a full corporal. The pressure was relentless, nearly every day he was involved in SAF ( small arms fire ) contacts and IED strikes and was often found leading from the front when clearing compounds and fighting through insurgent positions – his resolve never wavered despite being detached from his unit and shouldering the additional responsibility or mentoring indigenous troops. As a Private soldier he was regarded as a full-corporal and often gave direction to and advise to patrol and platoon commanders. Many times, he took the initiative by following upon enemy ambushes resulting in a number of confirmed Enemy killed with complete disregard for his own personal safety. He maintained his resolve despite direct threats of capture, and threats to his life from insurgents. The brutal reality of IEDs, deaths and injuries to his fellow soldiers only strengthened his resolve and he continued to take the battle to the insurgent’s day-after-day without falter. On the 27th August 2009 Pte Radband and his TT were involved in a joint ISAF and ANP patrol when they came under heavy contact from a compound which resulted in the death of an ANP officer. Pte Radband had been patrolling on a flank to give depth to the patrol and allow the ATF to engage with local civilians. Making the decision to assist the friendly forces who had been fixed, Pte Radband and his TT pushed forwards to a position where they could engage the enemy. Seeing that momentum needed to be gained, he saw an opportunity to clear through the Taliban position. Following a relentless barrage of suppressing fire from his team, he made the decision to fight through the position. Leading his TT, Pte Radband cleared the enemy position and thus reducing the possibility of further deaths or casualties. His brave and selfless actions resulted in 7 enemy killed. His professionalism, social attitude and numerous acts of bravery, particularly for one so junior in rank were recognised and highly regarded by CO 1WG.
Pte Radband’s demeanour was always self-depreciating, there are many separate incidents that could be cited but what should be recognised is his persistent bravery and selfless-commitment for an extended period of time in a position well beyond his rank. His actions should be publicly recognised and commended as an example to us all.
When Percy George Sheppard was born on 21 June 1894 in Bampton, Oxfordshire, his father, William, was 28 and his mother, Susan, was 35. Susan (Susannah) Clark(E) was born in October 1858 in Bampton, Oxfordshire, to Fanny Garlick, age 28, and John Clark(E), age 27. He married Emily Kate Martin and they had five children together. He died on 17 November 1964 in his hometown at the age of 70. In the 1939 Register of England and Wales, Percy’s employment is recorded as ‘Gas Stoker and Fitter Heavy Worker’.
The Bampton, Aston, and District Gas and Water Co., later part of the Mid-Oxfordshire Gas and Water Co., established a gas works south of Aston road c.1907. Water was supplied from a 125-foot bore-hole and a 40-foot water tower near the gas works. Witney R.D.C. took over the water supply before 1939, and electricity, supplied by the Wessex Electric Co., was introduced c. 1934. Street lighting in Bampton was by gas from c. 1907 and electricity by 1939.
The gasometer was quite a landmark just off the Aston Road. Percy’s son-in-law, John Quick, took over the job when Percy retired. In the middle years of the twentieth century, every family would have a home-made wooden truck. On a Saturday morning there would be a ‘wagon train’ of trucks, usually drawn by children, on their way to buy coke from the gasworks for the open fires.
John Quick contributed a great deal to the community. In 1953 John Quick together with Paul Bovington, the village fishmonger, organised a 'Shirt Race' as a one-off event to celebrate the Coronation. The rules of the 'Shirt Race' were very simple. A team of two individuals each of whom were to be dressed in a night-shirt and with some sort of un-powered transport such as an old pram were to take it in turns to push each other from hostelry to hostelry pausing at each to down a half-pint of ale. For the race nurses from the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford were invited to attend and collect money for the hospital. Such was the success of the event however that John and Paul decided to hold it annually with the money collected going to the pensioners of the Village. The Society for the Preservation of Ancient Junketing (SPAJERS) was born!
In those early days there were some 11 pubs in the Village - at one time the Village had 13+ pubs! - but at the present time, the competitors have it a bit easier, as the numbers are now down to three, although many of the residents of the houses which are ex-public houses, still get a table out and offer the drinks! There are three races at present for juniors, intermediate, and seniors, the latter two normally being combined into a single event, with prizes for the winners and runners-up, and the races are held at the Spring Bank Holiday each year. While the rules remain basically the same, various types of dress attire are now accepted, since night-shirts are rare items these days, and a shortage of them some years back nearly led to the race's demise!
Percy Sheppard’s daughter Edie, John Quick’s wife, was very much involved with the Women’s Royal British Legion, while John was the secretary of the British Legion for over 30 years.
In 2010, Edie and John’s daughter, Fenella Gray, received an M.B.E. in the New Year’s Honours List for her services to the community in Bampton. Fenella helped to set up and run the Charity Shop in Bampton. In between her other voluntary work, she was still able to find time to help with the cooking at the weekly Bush Club for residents in Bampton.
Reg and Honor Rouse and their three children Terry, Donald and Valerie came up from Langford in Somerset in 1943 along with George Collins for whom Reg had done some part-time work in Somerset; George had bought Weald Farm. Reg was appointed as his farm manager.
In February 1948 Reg took on the tenancy of Home Farm which was in the High Street and was pulled down in 1960 to allow Lavender Place Flats to be built for the elderly. The previous tenant, Bernard Dafter, emigrated to Canada so Reg bought all the cows and calves and a tractor complete with all the implements. In the deal was a pedigree herd of Wessex Saddleback pigs that supplied many of the local residents of Bampton who kept pigs at the bottom of their gardens. During this time Reg maintained his role as Farm Manager for George and squeezed his own farming each side of these hours which meant milking his own cows at 4.00am and finishing in time to be at Weald Farm for the 6.00am milking of the cows there. At 4.00pm he would then start his own work milking and tending to his own animals with assistance from Terry and Donald who would go straight from school to the farm. This continued until the Autumn when Reg finally went on his own.
As various fields around Bampton came up for sale, Reg bought them and with the help of a modern portable milking parlour took his dairy cows to these fields which often involved walking the whole herd through the middle of Bampton. The land to the north of New Road had nothing built on it and Reg rented that land from the council, right through to Station Road. This land now has Pembroke Place, Bowling Green Close, Colvile Close, Chandler Close and the school built on it.
In 1954 Backhouse Farm with its house, barns and 38 acres of land came on the market and Reg bought it to make a viable farm along with the fields he’d already bought over the previous 6 years. With Terry, Donald and several other young Bampton boys working for him the business grew. They grew oats, wheat and barley, potatoes, sugar beet along with mangolds and kale for the animals. They ran two herds, one was a mixed herd that provided animals for beef production as well as a Guernsey herd that produced quality milk for a milk round. All of these enterprises involved the employment of a lot of casual workers especially Bampton ladies with whole families spending many hours working in the fields.
Up until 1952 Harry Pocock was the only contractor doing the thrashing of the corn on the farms around Bampton and had resisted the temptation to move forward into the combine era. So, Reg bought a combine of his own, one that not only did the combining directly in the fields, but was also capable of doing the same as Harry Pocock, the stationary thrashing of the corn ricks during the winter. So, during the summer of 1952 Reg sent Terry aged 18 and Donald aged 15 out on contract work to do combining on farms as far apart as Witney and Faringdon. Whilst the 2 boys were doing this, Reg and the rest of the team along with casual workers would do their own harvest with a binder, hauling the sheaves of corn to build ricks at Home Farm where they would be threshed in the winter. This whole operation was so successful that the cost of the combine was met in that first year. At this time there were only two combines in Bampton, they were owned by the Wilkins Brothers and the Barlow-Vaughans.
After the family came to Bampton, Colin, Teresa and Lynne were born. All three sons worked on the farm with the girls doing their bit as they grew up. When Lynne left school, she worked in the office dealing with the administration as well as running the mobile homes site. With talk of going into the Common Market and not knowing its possible effect on farming in the UK, Reg and the ‘boys’ felt another form of income must be sought and in 1956 the first 6 mobile homes were in place next to the Backhouse farmhouse; eventually the site was moved to where Saint Mary’s Trailer Court is now and was enlarged to accommodate 29 mobile homes. All of the building work was done by the family and staff with Reg in charge, including the building of a modern grain dryer.
When Don and Mary married in 1959, University Farm at Lew was bought bringing in more land to support a fast expanding enterprise. Mary worked as a secretary and bookkeeper before training to become a Handicraft Teacher at Bampton C of E School.
When the family came here from Somerset in 1943 Reg was already a very accomplished bellringer and two years later Terry learnt to ring; all 6 children eventually mastered the art as did Terry’s wife Janet; she was the last person Reg taught before a series of strokes left him in a wheelchair for 18 years. Janet has been a member of the choir since it was reformed in 2002.
Terry joined the choir at St Mary’s as soon as he came to Bampton in 1943 with Don joining in 1945; it was boys and men only at that time. Honor went to the Methodist church and eventually became their organist; Colin, a staunch Methodist is a leading member of the Bampton Methodist Church. Both Teresa and Lynne helped with the Sunday School at St Mary’s and Lynne played a leading role with the Bampton Guides. Over the years from 1943 to 2017, Terry has been a choir boy, bellringer, acolyte, treasurer, churchwarden and server at St Mary’s, a full 74 unbroken years of service. He was also a Morris dancer for 36, first as a dancer and then as the fool and he often drove the minibus for the side when they danced away.
Don lives at Lew and he has been their correspondent for the Contact magazine for decades and being ably assisted by several people at Lew he has made sure their delightful little church is kept in good repair and the grounds kept tidy. He started the Bampton Weight lifting club in 1956 in a barn at Backhouse Farm using a bucket of water on
each end of a broom handle before Reg bought him his first set of weights for Christmas. He still maintains an interest in the club and enjoys the role of being their President.
He was the South Midland champion for 14 years and competed at 3 different weight classes, holding area records in the Light, Middle and Light Heavy Weight Classes.
During the 1960s the Bampton Club was one of the most famous clubs in the country with 7 British Champions, 4 Schoolboys, 2 Junior, 1 English Native, and one British Champion who represented Great Britain in the Montreal and Moscow Olympic games.
Don has been involved with the Oxford Leiden twinning since 1963 and is now their Deputy President. He has been a driving force with the SPAJERS since 1967 and has been the voice of the Donkey Derby and the Shirt race for decades. He also writes an article for each issue of The Bampton Beam and works very hard for The Lions. In 2002 he was awarded the MBE by the Queen for ‘Services to Bampton. Val went to America in 1960 as a nanny, met and married Richard while out there and is still living in America. Lynne and husband Henry live on the edge of Cirencester and Lynne is very involved with breading and judging Cavalier King Charles Spaniels and with dog training. Teresa and Frank moved to the edge of Glastonbury to be closer to their daughter Faye and Jamie and their twins.
Today both Terry, 84 and Don, 81 are retired from farming. Colin along with his wife Pauline, still runs a beef herd with the calves happily growing up along with their mothers; they grow corn and forage for the animals as well as running St Mary’s highly commended mobile home site; like his father Colin has an aptitude for diverse forms of farming, with livery stables for renting as well as an exercise area for the horses. With their grandchildren showing a keen interest in farming the Family hopes that the Rouse family will continue the tradition that Reg established all those years ago.
With sisters Teresa and Lynne marrying into large families with strong Bampton connections, Don and Terry, who were not Bampton born, like to think that they are related to half of Bampton and often take time out to explain!
The first evidence of Pettifers in Bampton is the will of the widow Margaret Pettyver, It was transcribed from a copy of the original will dated 15 November 1588
I Margerie Pettyver widow of Bampton ... sick of body ...
I give to the poor of this parish 2s
I give Adam Carpenter my use of the team with all things belonging and two beyne? [kine?]
I give Crstey Carter the daughter of Robte Carter a black heifer of two years old and a coffer
I give Robte Carter my son 3 bushels of barley, one bushel of wheat, the best two platters, a cupboard and the basin.
I give Agnes Payne 3 bushels of barley and one bushel of wheat.
I give Amey Carpenter the daughter of Adam Capenter the greatest coffer of elm and one sheep
I give Christia Carpenter one sheep.
I give Robte Carter's children one sheep apiece
I give Robte Payne one candlestick and a saucer
I give Peeter Payne one candlestick and a saucer.
I give Ursula Payne one platter
I give Dorothy Mason and Alse Mason 12d apiece
I give Crstey Carter one ____, not the best nor the worst.
I give Hellen Pettyver a coffer of elm and a bedstead.
All my legacies are to be delivered within a year and a day after my decease.
All the rest of my goods and cattles I give to Adame Carpenter and Robte Carter whom I make my executors to see my debts, legacies and funeral expenses discharged
I ordain my overseers Thomas Warde and Humfrey Carter
Witnesses William Mason, Thomas Adams, Humfry Carter, Thomas Warde and Willm Wryght clerk
The predominant type of employment in Bampton for unskilled workers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was agricultural labouring. In the 19th century, the only other significant source of employment here was the building trade: in 1861 there were c. 19 masons, several of them pursuing an additional trade, 15 carpenters, 6 plumbers, glaziers, or painters, and a builder with premises on Buckland Road, New Road, and at Weald. Among prominent builders and masons, James Pettifer, who died in 1842, built the Town Hall and Sandford House. He also worked on Ham Court, at The Talbot and in surrounding villages. It is very difficult to trace the Pettifers because so many had the same Christian names: Edward, William, Richard, James, John, Sarah, Elizabeth and Mary.
The family tree displayed here in the Archive follows just one branch that is still in Bampton and the surrounding area today.
Alexander Richard Pettyfer is an English actor and model. He appeared in school plays and on television before being cast as Alex Rider, the main character in the 2006 film version of Stormbreaker; Pettyfer was nominated for a Young Artist Award and an Empire Award for his role. He has been seen as a model in several advertising campaigns for Burberry. His next two starring roles were in the 2011 films I Am Number Four, a science fiction action adventure, and Beastly, a modernised retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Pettyfer also cast in the 2012 film Magic Mike, and played another supporting role in the 2013 film The Butler. He starred in the 2014 romantic drama film Endless Love and two small independent films in 2016, The Strange Ones and The Last Witness. He is the son of Lee (Robinson), an interior decorator, and Richard A. Pettyfer, an actor. Alex’s patrilineal line can be traced back to an Andrew Pettifer, born in 1640, in Bampton, Oxfordshire, England, and to Andrew’s father, Alexander Pettifer.
Mandy Bowman and Jennifer Little, both of whom live in Bampton, are the great-great-great-greatgreat-great granddaughters of Edward Pettifer (1718-1801) and Sarah Broadest (1718-1768).
William and Alice Lock arrived in Bampton around the year 1904 when she took over the running of The Lamb, a pub situated in the Market Square, where the Thornberry flats are now.
Alice, born in 1869, was the daughter of Richard and Mary Simpson, farmers from Minster Lovell. William had been born in 1866 in Asthall and was a stone mason, sometimes described as a bricklayer. He was a talented brass musician, and family legend says that his mother would send him out into the Wychwood to practise, where, presumably, the sound would not disturb anyone!! As a young man he lived for some time in Wiltshire, (another stone area, so it’s possible that work had taken him there), where he joined the Wiltshire Volunteers. His musicianship caused him to be noticed, and he was chosen to play the E flat base with the Wiltshire Regiment at a Trooping of the Colour in Devizes to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee.
William continued to work “on the building” after the family had moved to Bampton. The family has a photograph of him and his son Herbert, born in 1889, along with other workmen, taken while they were working on Eton Villas, at the top of Broad Street. He also worked on the exten sions to Buckland House (the wings extending from each side as you view it from the front). However, those were the days of hard working and also hard drinking, as well as very relaxed licen sing laws ,consequently sometimes the gang of men from Bampton would only get as far as the Trout at Tadpole Bridge.
It is not known if William played with any bands after moving to Bampton, although his son, Herbert, remembered him leaning out of the window of the Post Office, (now Wheelgate House ), conducting, with a spanner, a German band of the kind which toured England before the First World War (and as featured in the music hall song, “Down at the Old Bull and Bush”).
Of Alice and William’s children, the eldest, Herbert, emigrated to Canada, only to return with the New Brunswick Regiment to fight in the First World War. He returned to Bampton to marry Marjorie in 1918 but was sadly killed in France, at Aulnoy, within months.
Archie, born in 1896, eventually became a window dresser for Elliston and Cavells in Oxford. Very little is known about him or his wife, Bea, except that she was the cousin of someone who had married a man with a cycle business that did rather well in Oxford, so well, in fact that she eventually became known as Lady Nuffield.
Alice and William’s only daughter was Louisa, born in 1898. She married Fred Ashfield, an Oxford bus-driver, and they had three children. One of her sons died in childhood and the second, John, joined the R.A.F. during World War Two, only to die when his plane crashed over Africa. Their daughter, Marjorie, was named after Louisa’s sister-in-law and married Ernest Silvester.
Alice and William’s youngest child was William John. After the second World War, William, known to everyone as ‘Bill’ set up on his own in the building business, which was later known as W.J.Lock and Son. Stone work was a speciality for the business, which is not surprising since William’s father was described as a stonemason in the 1881 census. It was obviously a craft which had been in the family for a very long time!! W.J.Lock and Son remained in business for over forty years until William’s son, Herbert, was forced to retire due to ill health.
The Shergold family, through Lucy Winfield (Shergold), and Lock families originate from the same ancestors: William Lock and Sarah Alder who were married in Minster Lovell in 1758.
George Shergold was born in 1880. He was a regular soldier in the 1st Wilts. Regiment. He met Lucy Winfield when helping with the harvest at North Aston. He was awarded the DCM for Bravery at Hooge. The Regiment earned 60 Battle Honours and many awards for gallantry were made. The 1st Battalion, alone, gained 6 MCs, 4 DCMs and 9 MMs in the last few days of fighting. Captain Reginald Hayward (already the holder of the Military Cross and Bar) was awarded the Victoria Cross in 1918 for continuing to lead his men and repel heavy enemy attacks on their portion of the trenches in spite of being injured several times, refusing to seek medical help until he collapsed from exhaustion. The cost in deaths was heavy with the Wiltshire’s nearly losing 5,000 men. How he must have enjoyed returning to the peaceful Oxfordshire countryside. When George was twenty years old he was on manoeuvres at Burford and Lucy Winfield’s father took her along to watch. Who would have imagined that eighteen years later, in 1918, Lucy and George would be married.
George Shergold (77) and Ted Hicks (70). The oldest competitors in the 1957 Shirt Race
Over the following twelve years. Lucy and George were blessed with four children: Francis, Roy, Phillip and Ruth. However, the family was touched by tragedy when fouryear-old Phillip drowned.
When Francis was a young boy the family lived at the toll-bridge at Swinford , near Eynsham, on what was then the main Oxford to Cheltenham road. Later, they moved to Standlake where brother Roy was born in 1925, arriving in Bampton a few weeks before Whitsun in 1932. Shortly after leaving school, Francis arranged a job at Weald Manor but since he couldn’t start until the horses were brought inside during the autumn, he worked for Constables, the local bakery, delivering bread. He continued at the Manor for the remainder of his working life. Initially he worked under the head gardener, later becoming head gardener himself.
For over fifty years Francis Shergold was the Squire of one of the Bampton Morris Dance teams. His brother, Roy, was also a lifelong dancer. Francis’s great-grand father, Robert Lock (1819-1907) was the youngest of three brothers who were dancers in the 1830s in the side at Field Assarts, a hamlet then within the Forest of Wychwood.
Francis had first appeared with the dancers on the traditional Whit Monday dancing tour in 1935, when he was the dancers' coat-carrier; in the afternoon "Jinky" Wells invited him to dance. Francis was also a good singer of folk songs, which he recorded on the Veteran label. He was a bell-ringer in the parish church, one of the most beautiful in Oxfordshire, and a barn dance caller. In 1996, he was awarded the gold badge of the English Folk Dance and Song Society.
Ruth’s son Jamie Wheeler, has become the side's principal musician, on melodeon and fiddle. Upon his retirement as squire, Francis became the honorary president, and a source of good advice to the new squire, Tony Daniels. Every Spring Bank Holiday Monday, Francis continued to wear his Morris kit and, even though his eyesight was failing and he needed a walking frame to get about, he accompanied the dancers all day long.
It is to Ruth Wheeler (Shergold) we have to be thankful that the flower garland tradition has continued into the twenty-first century. Ruth continues to organise the garland competition on Bank Holiday Monday and to encourage families to take part.
James Eeles, (born 1850 in Weald), son of William Eeles (1806) and Ann White (1827 of Weald), served an apprenticeship with Savage of Exmouth Street, London. On returning to Bampton he set up business in Broad Street, later transferring it to the Market Square where it occupied the site which is now The Co-op and the Coffee Shop. The outbuildings at the back were used for selling hardware and animal food and chickens were kept in the yard, now occupied by Electric Vehicles. Under the shop were vast cellars where the sausages sold in the shop were made. The family home was at the back and on the first floor of the property.
James Eeles eventually became bedridden as a result of arthritis and at that time was living in Folly House (left hand property), Market Square. He did not, however, lose touch with what was going on in the village; he watched in a large mirror all that went on in the Market Square.
James’s son Richard (1879) took over the running of the shop from his father. Many people will still remember Richard who stocked everything from groceries, to hardware, to corn for the chickens. A lasting memory are the glass-topped biscuit tins from which it was possible to buy half a pound of one’s favourite biscuits. There was even a tin of broken biscuits for the less affluent.
Internet shopping is nothing new! It was possible to leave an order with the shop and have it delivered to the door. Richard was joined in the business by his son Percival James (1906) - (known in the village as Jim and who was later to marry Grace Rolls Eeles)
Richard Eeles and his family were strict Baptists. On Sundays the family, together with supplies of food for the day, would be packed into the wagonnette and driven to the Baptist Chapel at Alvescot where they would spend the day. Eleanor Grace Eeles, who died of diphtheria at the age of 15, was buried at Alvescot Baptist Chapel.
When Richard retired, he sold the shop to the International Group who made alterations, including filling in the cellars. In order to gain the vote, Richard’s uncle, who owned a shop in Oxford, had, many years before, purchased the piece of land on the Station Road, Bampton, occupied now by the wood yard and mobile homes. Richard inherited the land and sold it to the Loveridges, a family of travellers. Richard then purchased, from the church, a third of an acre of land in Lavender Square. This land included six cottages, one of which was the home of Jinky Wells. On this land Richard built the bungalow that was to be his retirement home and later the home of his son, Percival James (Jim) and daughter-in-law, Grace.
William Eeles (1874) married Suzy Clare (1877), whose parents owned Clare’s Stores in Clanfield High Street. They had three boys, Walter, Robert and James all of whom died young due to a medical condition.
Suzy’s cousin, Eva Clare, was engaged to Frederick Eeles (1888), brother of William. However, when Frederick, together with brothers and sisters: Priscilla (1883), James (1884) Henrietta (1890) and Percival (1892) emigrated to Canada, Eva refused to marry Fred and instead married R. Widdowson of Home Farm, Clanfield.
Samuel Eeles (1881), father of Mrs. Grace Eeles of Lavender Square, together with his brother William (1874), worked for an Uncle and Aunt Beckinsale who owned the bakery at Clanfield. When the Beckinsales died, the house and shop was eventually inherited by Percival James Eeles (1906), son of Richard Eeles (1879).
Samuel Eeles married Florence Rolls, daughter of Edward and Agnes Rolls (relative of the Rolls of Rolls Royce) who lived at The Hollies in Clanfield. Edward’s father made a fortune manufacturing envelopes.
Edward’s father made him a handsome allowance which enabled him to travel the world. Edward married Agnes Keene (related to the Clanfield Keenes) and their daughter, Florence, was born in New York. Edward and Florence had three children, Douglas, Edward and Grace who was later to marry Percival James Eeles.
One only has to notice the beautiful clothes in the portraits of the Rolls family and the jewellery worn by the young Florence to realise that envelope manufacturing was an extremely profitable business. Edward and Agnes spared no expense for Florence’s 21st birthday present! For a 21year-old to have her own transport in those days would indeed have been a rarity.
Many young men left Bampton in the early years of the 20th century to seek a better life in Australia and Canada. James (1884) and Fred (1888) were already working in Manitoba in 1910 when they were joined by their nineteen-year-old brother, Percival (1892). The three of them headed west in search of land on which to settle. They built a 12’x16’ shack, and after buying a cooking stove, heater and household utensils, they had just enough money left to buy food for the coming winter. They melted snow for drinking water and reported that, ‘it tasted good after we acquired a taste for it.’
In the spring of 1911 the brothers took jobs on other properties to earn a little more money. Percy drove oxen for another farmer and earned enough to buy a walking plough. While working on this farm Percy experienced his first prairie fire. He moved on to another farm where he cut brush and dug stones before cultivating the ground. He and his brothers bought a horse and used it with the farmer’s three horses to plough a few acres for the farmer who then lent his three horses to the brothers to plough the land on their homestead.
In 1915 Jim married Teena, the daughter on of the farmer for whom he was working. The same year Fred enlisted and went to fight in Europe. He was disabled and discharged in 1917. When Fred came home he and Percy built a home on Fred’s piece of land and lived there until moving on to British Columbia. Fred was never well after his war years and in 1919 was stricken with sleeping sickness and died, after spending many months in hospital. The neighbours rallied round during this time and even planted the planting of the brothers’ crops.
Percy remarked of their early days in Canada: ‘I’ll never forget and I’ll never regret my early homestead years. My brothers and I were some of the last to homestead in our district. No one had much money so if we had a job to do that couldn’t be done alone we helped each other, dollars and cents never entered our minds. I think this was one of things about homesteading; we were neighbours in the true sense of the word.’ Priscilla (1883), together with husband Clifford Conway (1880), also settled in Canada where their son Jack (1911) was born. Sadly, Priscilla died during the birth of their second child. Clifford returned to England to bring back Priscilla’s sister, Henrietta (1890), to be his second wife.
Back home in England, both brothers, Samuel Eeles (1881) and Ebeneezer (1896) were involved with the war. Samuel joined the navy. Ebeneezer was wounded in action and consequently discharged.
There have been Dixeys in Bampton since the end of the eighteenth century.
Arthur Dixey (1880-1896), who lived at Fishers’ Bridge Cottage in Buckland Road , was one of ten children born to Henry Dixey and Jane Cockerman. In 1905, Arthur Dixey married Margaret Annie Pettifer. Margaret died and Arthur married local girl, Brenda Hunt (1898-1979).
There was an explosion of interest, both generated and sustained by the first folk revival, spearheaded by Cecil Sharp and Mary Neal, from about 1906 onwards. The Bampton Morris, as one of the few old sets still active, began to receive a considerable amount of attention and patronage from both outsiders and locals. In 1907 the Bampton Morris men managed to get replacement costumes; from 1909 to 1914 the technical advice of William Wells, Arthur Dixey, James Portlock and other old dancers was sought, as the dances and tunes were noted down, probably for the first time; and the team was invited to celebrations in places such as Reading and London.
By the time of the 1911 census, Arthur was working at Claywell Farm in Ducklington. This would not have prevented him from continuing with his dancing. The bicycle was the mode of transport at the time. It was said that on one occasion in September, when Cecil Sharp had come from London to have the side dance for him, Arthur Dixey cycled from Oxford, where he was then working as a diver’s assistant for the Thames Conservancy Board, recovering objects lost in the river. Afterwards, Cecil Sharp bought drinks for them at the Talbot Hotel, the only inn suitable for what, by then, was a national figure. However, the men had to drink in the harness room, as tradespeople, and certainly not labourers, were not encouraged to use the bar. On the way back to Oxford, Arthur Dixey was dazzled by the headlights of vehicles leaving St. Giles Fair and he rode into a deep ditch!
In 1912, Arthur was the first of the Bampton men, picked out because of the standard of his dancing, to be invited by Mary Neal to go to London to teach the dances to the Esperance Club.
Two of Arthur’s sons and his daughter remained in Bampton. For 63 years, his son Ted was a regular bell ringer. Ted never missed ringing for a service or, before and after midnight, to ring out the old and ring in the new year. Ted was profoundly deaf but he had a fantastic memory for names, dates and people. (See the Archive’s fascinating video of Ted talking about his bell ringing days. Ted’s brother Derek still lives in Bampton, as do Arthur’s granddaughter and great-grandchildren.
Cripps is an old Bampton name and parish records show there were Cripps living in Bampton as far back as the seventeenth century. By the 1881 census, there were five other Cripps families living in Bampton.
As the census reflects, it was not uncommon in the late nineteenth century for families to move, sometimes considerable distances, in the search for work. This Cripps family was no exception and sometime in the 1870s, George and Hannah took their family to live in Halifax.
A major industry in Halifax at the time was the manufacture of iron chains, so it’s highly likely that George’s skill as a blacksmith would have found him work there. However, the family did not stay in Halifax for long, moving on to Failsworth in Lancashire, before returning to Oxfordshire. George and Hannah lived and worked at the forge. It was situated where the Market Square meets the top of Broad Street, opposite what was the old George and Dragon pub.
At the time of the 1881 census, George and Hannah had seven children. As this census records ages rather than dates of birth, it is not possible to ascertain precise birth dates from this source alone. Their eldest child was Elizabeth Hannah, born in 1866 or 1867, then John Thomas, born 1867 or 1868, and William Edmund, born in 1869 or 1870. The three eldest children had been born in Shilton. Mary Maria, had been born in Brize Norton in 1871 or 1872. Rose Ann was born in 1875 or 1876 in Halifax, then Alfred Busby in Failsworth in 1878 or 1879. At the time of the 1881 census, the youngest child was Charles Edwin, aged four months. He had been born in Bampton.
By the time of the 1901 census, John, married and with a young family of his own, was himself working at the forge as a blacksmith. His wife, Elizabeth, had been born in Bampton and their children were John, 14, an errand boy, Elizabeth, 8, Alfred, 7, and Winifred, 10 months.
William Edmund married Emily Inwood in St John, Bethnal Green, Tower Hamlets, and was working as a Brewer’s labourer at the time of his marriage.
In 1901, Elizabeth Cripps was employed as a maid back in her father’s home village of Alvescot, as was her little sister, Abigail, born in 1888 or 1889.
Charles, born soon after the family’s return to Oxfordshire, was working as a gardener in 1901. During the Great War, he was to join the Devonshire Regiment, and was killed on 12th June, 1918, leaving a widow, Mary Ann Cripps of “Woodside”, Lower Wokingham Road, Wellington College Station, Berkshire. It was reported that, ‘Charles’s battalion had been ordered to hold the Bois de Buttes, near Pontavert and had done just that until the unit had been completely surrounded. Ordered by the Germans to surrender, the survivors had elected to fight on. The Colonel, along with twenty-eight officers and five hundred and fifty other ranks all perished, not one survived’. (Wikepedia). Charles’s grave is in the Eaquelbecq Military Cemetery.
Charles’s younger brother, James Thomas Cripps, who also worked as a gardener in Bampton, joined the Worcestershire Regiment and in September 1918 he took part in the Battle of the St. Quentin Canal. ‘The two leading companies were to capture the sunken ‘Gloster Road’’, then two supporting companies would pass through and take ‘Pigeon Trench’ beyond. This turned out to be a disaster as they were mown down by machine guns.
Of the four platoons which had led the attack, every officer and man was killed by the storm of bullets at close range and they lay, riddled with bullets but still in line facing forward, their dead subaltern a few yards in front’. (Worcestershire Regimental Records). His grave is in the Pigeon Ravine Cemetery, Epehy.
Within three months, the Cripps family had lost two sons and to add to the heartbreak Alfred, son of John Thomas Cripps, signed up for three years' service with the Grenadier Guards at Abingdon on 28 December 1914 and was posted to the 4th Battalion of the Grenadier Guards on 28 December, serving as a Private (Service No. 21365). He was evidently destined to continue with his skills as a blacksmith, as he passed a Course of Instruction in “Cold Shoeing” at Lords Cricket Ground on 18 August 1915. He arrived in France on 5 October 1915, and was probably among the draft of 290 men and four officers that joined the battalion at the front on 9 October. He survived just over two weeks: he was killed in action opposite the Hohenzollern Redoubt at the age of 21 on 25 October 1915 and has no known grave but is remembered on Loos Memorial. The family grief was compounded when, in 1919, George William, husband and father, passed away.
Isaac Constable was born in Lechlade in 1818. The 1841 census shows him to be an agricultural labourer. By 1851 he has become a grocer and by 1861 a greengrocer. His son, William, who was born in 1843, was recorded in the census of 1861 as a Journeyman Baker; in 1871 as a Baker Mealman and by 1881 he had succeeded in becoming a Master Baker. William and Susanna had thirteen children and William was determined that his sons were going to experience the success he himself had achieved.
He bought businesses in all the small villages in order for his sons to become bakers. For his fifth child, Thomas Augustus Constable, William bought a shop in Bampton.
Thomas Augustus did not disappoint his father. Thomas became an essential part of the community and a vital member of the fire service with the bakery horses pulling the fire cart whenever necessary. It was said that if they were in their field in Weald when the fire bell rang they would jump the gate and often be at the Town Hall ready for action before the firemen. This could cause a few problems if they were still harnessed to the bakery delivery cart when they heard the fire bell because they would respond immediately!
Constable children: Amy, Ivy, Lillian, May, Fred and Sid
Constable’s bakery was extremely popular in Bampton, with a daily delivery service. Real bread, lardy cakes, doughnuts, iced buns, cream horns! What memories! No one would even consider buying a wedding cake or christening cake from anywhere other than Constables.
Thomas Augustus and Florence had nine children. Sadly, three of them died within their first year of life. As they entered adulthood, the children became very much involved with the bakery business. Sidney and Frederick with the baking and the girls with the shop. Violet Eleanor probably less than the others since she married Fred Tongue, a young man who had arrived in the village from London with Mr. and Mrs. Thompson. Mr. Thompson had been the King’s Wine Taster. He came to Bampton and bought a shop- the premises that is now The Romany. It was known as Thompsons and was a high-class grocery business. Fred Tongue was an orphan and became Mr. Thompson’s apprentice. When Mr. Thompson died, Mrs. Thompson regarded Fred as her adopted son and the whole premises was left to Fred in her will. It remained a high-class grocer until, following Fred’s death, it was sold and became The Cotswold Grill. A further sale saw it become The Romany, as we know it today.
It was a very sad day for Bampton when the bakery business was sold in the early 1980s. It then became more of a Patisserie –which didn’t really work in Bampton at that time. Following that it became a Solicitor’s office before becoming Mark’s Kitchen.
Constable’s delivery cart following a mishap on the corner of Church Close
Thompson’s shop
Many members of the family have been employed in the building trade. James (born 1866), his brothers Harry and Edward and his father, also James, were all masons in the early 1900s. The family helped to build Bourton Cottages (the red brick houses opposite the church) and then helped to restore the Grammar School in 1911. You could say that they helped to build the Downton set!
At this time his three boys Jim, Harry and Fred (born 1893) would have been old enough to be part of this. They and younger brothers, Percy and Jack, all worked in the trade, Fred as a carpenter. The family must have built or restored so many of the buildings in Bampton throughout the 1900s and well into the 1960s when cousins Ray and Arthur Beckley were building several of those in Church Street and Buckland Road, to name but a few.
Edward (Ted), born 1878, ran the family firm, with the yard next door to James’ family home in Church Street. The family has one of his old ledgers. It shows the bills for work over several years in and around Bampton. In the early 1940s he offered Ray (born 1930), his great nephew, an apprenticeship. Ray’s great uncle Harry gave him his first set of tools. The apprenticeship took six years, learning ‘on the job’ in Bampton and through evening classes at Oxford. Ray had a ‘good eye’ when working with natural stone and apparently was often borrowed by other firms when they needed particularly neat work completed. He may not have attended Witney Grammar School, like his sister and brothers, but Ray still won the ‘Best Apprentice of any Trade in the southern region’ award.
Most of the builders in the family were also retained firemen. Edward was part of the crew that won the National Shield for the first time. His nephews soon joined him. At least two Greens were in the crew each time they competed for the shield. (I think they won three times altogether). Jim, Fred, Percy and Jack worked together as both firemen and builders for most of the first half of the last century. The next generation of cousins; Arthur Beckley, Ray and Harry Green, were all also in the building trade and retained firemen for Bampton Brigade.
During World War II, Jack became a full-time fireman and was stationed at Faringdon. Fred stayed in Bampton, volunteering as a Home Guard, as well as still being a fireman. At that time, Mr Constable the baker, was captain of the brigade. One night the firemen were called out. The next morning Bessie sent son Ray, then 12 or 13, up the lane to buy some bread and ask where the fireman had gone. ‘Mrs Constable says they’ve gone to Coventry’. Bessie clipped Ray round the ear. ‘Don’t tell fibs, go back and ask her again.’ But they had gone all the way to Coventry, the city badly damaged by bombing. On V.E. day, Ray was working with his uncles, Percy and Jack. When they heard the news, they downed tools and went for a drink to celebrate, taking a 14 year-old Ray with them saying he ‘deserved to celebrate with a drink like everyone else’.
Fred had survived the carnage of World War I, although his brother Harry had died and his brother Jim was badly injured. Fred seems to have made the most of being alive. He was a respected joiner/ carpenter, a National Prize-Winning fireman and a regular member of Bampton’s football and cricket teams as well as father to Bessie’s four children. He never spoke of his time in the army although he was obviously suffering from PTSD. He was ill for the last few years of his life and Bessie struggled to care for him. Ray would regularly sit up with him so that Bessie could sleep. He said it was the most frightening thing he ever witnessed, watching his father re-live his life in the trenches. The last few months of Fred’s life were spent in Littlemore Psychiatric Hospital where he, and many of his comrades were safely cared for.
Warren Green (born 1910) was well known as an organist, playing in many of the local churches. He became a music teacher working in a private school in Surrey. Warren’s house, ‘Gothurst’ in Church View, was always full of clocks, all tinging and dinging throughout the day. The organ filled one room of his house, all stoppers and pedals. He was always very good to Bessie (born 1895) who lived next door to him. They would often go off together in his Mini ‘to have tea with the aunties’. Warren’s father, Ted, was a member of the choir and the town band playing in concerts held at the church. Mathew Green (born 1960) is well known in the folk music world as a fiddle player; although many Bampton people probably think that he only plays at Whitsun for the Morris Dancers! Ma thew’s three nephews, Esther’s boys, are all musicians too. Playing music is a very important part of their lives. Esther Green (Hepworth) has played a regular part in Downton Abbey. The following comments are from Esther:
Dad/Ray had always loved to watch films, especially westerns or war films. In his later years he became fond of costume dra mas. In 2010 he kept reminding me to watch a new series on ITV. ‘We might see our Bampton.’ We saw Downton Abbey looking just like our Bampton and now it seems the rest of the world has too. Sadly, Dad only saw the first series but I think he was the big gest fan.He would also remind me that the filming people had been to Bampton before. In the early 1970s he often worked at the Countess Munster’s Bampton Manor. He built the first swimming pool there. His friend, Roy Holtom, was the gardener (also another fireman). The Countess’s garden was well known, so an episode of ‘Gardeners’ World’ was filmed there. Roy was happy to talk to Percy Thrower, the presenter, but wasn’t keen to appear on film. Percy asked Dad to persuade him to talk on camera, especially as he would be paid if he did so. A few
According to the 1841 census, John Gould was living in Chain Lane, Bampton, with his wife Ann (Gardner). He was an agricultural labourer. John was 39 years old and Ann was 32 years old.
They had a son Samuel (1833-1894), a daughter Mary Ann (1834-1894), Reuben (1837-1838), William Reuben (1839-1914), James (1842-1914), Charles (1844-1901) and Ambrose (1846-1888). Ann’s illegitimate daughter Sarah Gardner, also lived with them.
Life was obviously hard at that time with so many mouths to feed and sadly, James resorted to stealing. John made three separate appearances before the Oxford Court. In all of these cases, it was noted that he could neither read nor write.
The first case against him was brought in 1841. The warrant was dated 2.9.1841. He was charged with: ‘having on the 3rd day of July 1841, at the parish of Bampton, feloniously stolen one hog, the value of 20 shillings, the property John Arman’. He was acquitted. Another man had been charged with receiving the hog by sale and he was also acquitted.
In the second case brought in 1842 on a warrant dated 5.11.1846. He was charged with: ‘feloniously stealing half a peck of turnips, the property of Alfred Plummer’.
This resulted in six months of hard labour in the House of Correction after a previous conviction for felony.
On the 20.07 1846, John Gould was charged with: ‘having, at the parish of Faringdon, feloniously stolen one scythe, two whetstones, one leather strap and buckle, one rifle, property of William Horn.
The sentence was seven years transportation.
Transportation to Australia had been abolished but a public meeting in Port Phillip, Australia, decided that ‘exile’ prisoners who had served a probationary period in England and not been pardoned on condition of deportation, might be received in Port Phillip District. Later, in 1847, a proposal was advanced that, on certain conditions, 2000 exiles should be imported.
John Gould was included in a ‘Nominal List of Exiles from Pentonville and Parkhurst prisons’, who sailed on the ship SS Marion from Portsmouth on the 29th September 1847 and arrived at Port Phillip on the 25th January 1848. The voyage took 102 days. The Marion was a sailing ship built in Calcutta in 1834.
The following quotation is from a book ‘Convict Ships’ by Charles Bateson.
‘When a steamer took The Marion in tow to take her to sea in 1847, the noise and confusion of this operation had a severe effect on many of the Pentonville exiles. They were seized suddenly and fell in a complete state of insensibility which lasted from 10 – 30 minutes. It resembled a deep sleep. There was a large snoring but an undisturbed countenance and a placid tranquil pulse’. It is highly likely that this could have been caused by inhalation of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide from the exhausts of the steamer’s engines.
How Ann Gould managed alone with six children, one cannot imagine.
The following is a quotation from an enquiry into the treatment of the exiles:
‘The following is the manner in which the Exiles in question were actually treated. The day, or perhaps the second day after the Marion’s arrival, the people were mustered. Her Majesty’s pardon read to them with an admonition touching what their conduct should be in future, by pointing out to them the inevitable consequences of either good conduct or bad conduct. Each person was then handed his Certificate of Freedom and informed that they were privileged to remain a certain number of days on board the ship for the purpose of employment. After the expiration of a number of days on board, those who could not meantime find employment, could be received into the depot on shore’
The pardon reads:
‘Whereas the following persons are now under sentence of transportation on board The Justitia and The Warrior convict hulks at Woolwich, and in Millbank, Parkhurst and Pentonville prisons, they, having been convicted of Felony at the times and places hereafter mentioned ……..John Gould at Oxford in July………… We, in consideration of some circumstances humbly represented to Us are graciously pleased to extend Our Grace and Mercy unto the several persons above named and to grant them Our pardon for crimes for which they stand convicted on condition they shall continue under the same sentences until they arrive at Port Phillip aforesaid, when Our pardon shall take effect. Given at Our Court of St. James the Twentieth Day of September, 1847, in the Eleventh Year of Our Reign’.
It was noted on the shipping list that John Gould could ‘read and write imperfectly’ (Perhaps he had learned in gaol or on the sea trip). In the Disposal List of the ‘The Marion’ he was noted as being en gaged as a shepherd and hut keeper for 12 months by a Mr. Mitchell at Mount Macedon- about 40 miles north west of Melbourne. His wages were to be £22 for the year. In August 1849, an application was approved for John’s family, his wife Ann and six children, to be taken out to Australia at a cost of £37.10 shillings. The family was included in the ‘Convict Connected’ section of the shipping list of the ‘The Anglia’ which arrived in Sydney on 22nd February 1850.
After the family’s arrival in Sydney, the Principal Superintendent of Convicts wrote to the Superintendent of Port Phillip, informing that the family of John Gould would be proceeding by ‘The Antares’ on 10th March 1850. He also stated that, ‘if the husband does not apply for her within a few after disembarkation, she will be required to find employment as se and her children cannot be maintained for any length of time at the expense of the British Government.’
This was followed by a letter, dated 25th March 1850, from Mr. Mitchell, John Gould’s employer, saying,
’ I will be in Melbourne at the end of next week and I will bring John Gould with me. I shall probably have a dray coming out of the town and the family can accompany it. The foolish fellow has spent all of his earnings and I must therefore advance whatever is required towards his wife and children.’
The next letter, dated 17th May 1850, is as follows:
‘Sir, I had perceived a notice from your honour’s office respecting one John Gould, who arrived in this district on the ship The Marion in January 1848. This man was hired by me on his arrival and as he conducted himself properly, I wrote to the clergyman of his parish with a view to having his wife and family sent to join him. My application was successful. Gould’s wife and his six children arrived here two months ago ………..they are all in my service. The husband and wife receive 20 pounds a year. The oldest boy, who is sixteen years of age, receives 15 pounds. The younger lads, eight and ten years of age respectively, 5 pounds. A daughter, 14 years of age, I am soon to take into my own family, receives 10 pounds. The other children are too young to work. The family is thus in receipt of 50 pounds a year; a hut to reside in and food rations or a weekly supply of 40lbs of beef, 40lb of flour, 1lb of tea and 8lbs of sugar. A few years of steadiness with frugality will enable Gould to be himself an employer of labour: a position not the less remarkable that it is the consequence of his breach of the laws of his country.’
The Gould family prospered from then on. A seventh child, Jane, was born in 1851.
John Gould’s great-great granddaughter, retired headteacher, Wendy McLean, has visited Bampton on a number of occasions to research her family. Most recently she was able to witness the Spring Bank holiday celebrations in Bampton in 2018.
Copies of the family tree’s for all the families mentioned in this catalogue can be viewed on the Bampton Archive Website using the following links:
Benjamin Tanner http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/xtrb-bz4e-4mmd
Christopher Buckingham http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/6a88-rr4c-73ct
Edward Pettifer http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/psgm-7ytw-m9xz Emmanuel Bunce http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/xqay-nwk4-ew8z
Ernest Billie Agg & Wheeler family http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/2r36-p9qx-kdmq
George William Cripps http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/rwsq-a3c9-z3d7
Harry Whitlock http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/qd9s-bs4a-fgct
Isaac Constable http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/mkq3-pxq7-zgdc
James Charles Green http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/9t45-72n5-n5k2 John Dixey http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/796q-x5d3-xp9y John Sheppard http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/a6fq-x7t3-xfp4
Joseph Brooks http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/m6pn-cthb-w2eh
Richard Butler http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/3fb9-2qer-8qyd
Richard Daniels http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/wh6z-xwe2-mhr7
Richard Edginton http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/ysqs-xes2-x92e
Robert Radband http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/cze7-qefa-bkrw
Thomas Portlock Clarke http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/6www-a7rs-gked
Thomas Radband b.1680 http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/gxf5-sssk-nb86
William Eeles http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/knw4-yctc-rpbg
William Lock http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/bcdq-q3h2-ywxk
William Townsend http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/fcwe-664s-k6f7
John Gould http://atom.bamptonarchive.org/index.php/fp6h-5teh-msfy
Are you interested in the rich and varied history of Bampton and its residents?
The Bampton Community Archive maintains an extensive online database of local publications, newspaper clippings, historical artefacts, photographs, videos, audio recordings and much more. atom.bamptonarchive.org
Would you like to learn more about the Bampton Community Archive? Do you have a connection with Bampton and have something you’d like to share with us? Are you researching your Bampton family history? We can help!
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A Bampton Community Archive publication. First published September 2018 BCA-47 www.bamptonarchive.org
