In 2018 Village Historian Frank Hartley compiled a series of articles for the Village Magazine to bring together stories from the Villages past relating to the current month. This is the April article.
Traditionally April is the month when life renewed awakes from winter slumber in the hard cold earth. It is no longer winter but it is not yet fully spring. Perhaps it is fitting to describe April as the midwife of spring. Nevertheless, as experience teaches, the individual months often escape from their allotted stereotypes. As readers will recall, March indeed came in with the appropriate ferocity but less like a lion than a rampaging polar bear which, at the time of writing, seems to have taken up permanent residence.
Let us now unlock the ancient chest, shake the dust from the musty archives and find out what “the rude forefathers” (and mothers) of the village were up to in those April days of yore. (Readers are asked to interpret the term “evening” in the title to this piece, liberally, as encompassing the whole day; some authority for this is given in the full text of Kathleen Tynan’s poem, from which our title is taken, which begins “All in the April morning”). It was Tennyson who said that,” In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love” and it was on the 21st of April 1894 that John Smith of Bilton Hill walked down the aisle of Church Lawford church with his bride Miss Jessie Cullen of Mount Pleasant to the strains of the “Wedding March” played on the organ by the ever reliable Alice Worth Townsend.
Both bride and groom had been born in Scotland of Scots parentage. Her father, Alexander Cullen, farmed in Kilsyth, North Lanarkshire in April 1881 and moved south between then and April 1891 where he can be found in Church Lawford with his wife Mary and three of their grown-up children, including the then 18 year old Jessie. The groom was the son of James Smith of Bogside, Airdrie. The newspaper report tells us that the bride “was attired in a travelling dress of fawn tweed, with hat to match, and the only bridesmaid – Miss Brown, niece of the bride – was dressed in cream cashmere trimmed with primrose silk, and a white hat with large ostrich feathers. Both bride and maid carried bouquets of choice white flowers”. The bridesmaid would be 10 year old Jessie Brown born in Scotland and recorded as living at Mount Pleasant in 1901 in domestic service. We are told that, “immediately after the service the newly married couple left to spend their honeymoon in the south of England”, leaving the guests to enjoy a “recherche breakfast” and, unsurprisingly, “the evening was spent in festivity”.
The newspaper itemises the many presents received by the newly-weds which included silver-ware, dishes and fine china along with the names of the donors, a large proportion of whom lived in Jessie’s home-town of Kilsyth. Of local interest were gifts of silver toast rack, silver jelly dish and inkstand from the Meikle family of Brandon, drawing room bellows from Mr Thomas Meikle of Wolston and a silver-mounted oak tea tray from Mr. Mrs Wotherspoon of Church Lawford. The last named would be Alexander and Marion nee Longmuir who farmed at The Rookery and who were both born in the West Central Lowlands of Scotland. Another Wotherspoon family who lived in Monks Kirby gave a present of a timepiece. The couple referred to are almost certainly Alexander (yet again) and his Rugby born wife Ellen nee Betts. Alexander was born in Hamilton, Renfrewshire, as was his namesake, and farmed at Monks Kirby Lodge. I recall that he was formerly a Steward on one of the Duke of Buccleuch’s estates in Scotland. Readers will be interested to note that a young shepherd is recorded as living in Alexander’s household in 1911. The shepherd’s name was Arthur Cashmore, who subsequently lived in one of the two then separate cottages that now form part of our present dwelling, and who was killed at the Somme in 1916. And what did the future hold for our newly- weds? I do wish that I could report a happy ending but I fear that the facts get in the way. John and Jessie took up farming at Woodhouse Farm, Lea Marston, near Meriden and it was there in April 1901 that Jessie died at the age of 28. She was buried on the 4th of April at St John the Baptist’s Lea Marston. New life, however, sprang from the union forged in that Church Lawford spring of 1894 in the persons of her four children; Jessie, Agnes, James and Jennie.
Life goes on and in the April of 1827 the stables of Church Lawford and the surrounding neighbourhood were buzzing with the news that Banker was to pay them a visit. The mares were in a state of great excitement at the prospect of being introduced to this celebrity, whose fame had gone before him, for Banker was a professional stud with a proven track record. He is described as, “a Chestnut Roan, 16 hands high, with immense substance, excellent Legs and Feet, a remarkable fine temper, equal to 18st and a sure Foal-getter. His Stock are (sic) well-known in the Quorn … and have sold for enormous prices.” Furthermore, he came with an impeccable pedigree. He was the grandson of no less a horse than the celebrated Eclipse (1764-1789), the undefeated champion racehorse, whose top speed was attested to be 83 feet per second and who was immortalised in the phrase, “Eclipse first and the rest nowhere”. It has been recently estimated that 95% of present day thoroughbreds are descended, through the male line, from Eclipse. Banker’s dam was got by Wildair who was another prize winner. With such a pedigree, Banker’s services were not cheap at 2 guineas for each mare and half-a-crown for the groom, payable to his owner S Bradshaw a Veterinary Surgeon of Stratford. Banker’s schedule for the season was demanding but he was due to attend Church Lawford on Saturday April 28 1827 along with Wolston, Brandon and Long Lawford. He would then retire to the Green Man, Dunchurch, presumably for a well-earned rest.
The death was reported, in the Coventry Standard of 12 April 1844, of James Crofts of Church Lawford who had died on “Tuesday week” i.e. 2nd April at the age of 71. James Crofts farmed at Mount Pleasant. He was the one of the sons of William Crofts and Elizabeth Crofts nee Sutton. His brother, Thomas (1767-1840), farmed at Long Lawford Hill. James Crofts, as a tenant farmer with a qualifying interest in land, probably medium or long leasehold, was one of the nine electors from Church Lawford who could vote in the 1837 General Election which was called after the death of William IV. It was the last time that a mandatory dissolution of Parliament followed the monarch’s demise. As the Secret Ballot was only introduced in 1872 voting was therefore open and the elector’s choice of candidate was recorded in the Poll Book. There were two main parties at the time, Conservatives led by Sir Robert Peel and the Whigs, who had held office from 1830, led by Lord Melbourne. The constituency of North Warwickshire had been created after the Great Reform Act of 1832 and returned two MPs. Each elector had two votes and there were four candidates for the seats; William Stratford Dugdale of Merevale Hall, (Cons) who was a sitting member and loyal to Peel (the politics of the period were complex); Sir John Eardley Eardley-Wilmot (1783-1847) was what would be called today, a Liberal Conservative, who subsequently became Lieutenant Governor of Tasmania; Sir Gray Skipwith, a Whig with slightly radical leanings, who lived at Alveston and who fathered 20 children (not quite in Banker’s league but impressive), and Charles Bracebridge, a literary minded Whig. The two Conservative candidates won, although nationally the Whigs were the victors with a reduced majority. Church Lawford voted solidly for the two Conservatives apart from James Crofts who voted for Dugdale but also for Skipwith rather than Wilmot. This was a curious combination and interestingly also followed by his brother in Long Lawford.
Frank Hartley