Kibworth

History

Society

“Understanding yesterday, for the benefit of  today and tomorrow”

Read reports from earlier years © 2005-2018, 2019  All Rights Reserved  Kibworth History Society and W.G.Weston

7th SEPTEMBER 2017


The first meeting of the our season was a series of short talks by members which demonstrated how history is made more memorable and colourful when linked to personal stories.

The talks covered a wide range of topics. A seaside memento of a lighthouse was the starting point for a talk about Grace Darling and the remarkable incident where she and her father (a lighthouse keeper) set out in an open boat in a storm to try to rescue survivors from a wrecked paddle-steamer, the Forfarshire, which had run aground off the Northumberland coast. While contemporary Victorian accounts over-dramatised the events, it was certainly a very brave action and deserved to be remembered. The rescue took place on 7th September 1838; the date of the meeting was 7th September - a fitting anniversary.


A first and favourite doll, still treasured, brought to mind a story from 1939. The doll was brought from France (although its clothes suggest it was Dutch) and was a father’s gift for his daughter following a trip to France in the months before the outbreak of war. A photograph, also from 1939, was a reminder of days before the Second World War changed everything. The photograph was taken in a tea room in Wansford and showed a rather more formal approach to afternoon tea than is usual today: people had taken care to dress up for the occasion. Poignantly, the photograph was taken on 3rd September 1939, the day war was declared.


The discovery of papers and objects belonging to a much-loved grandfather was the focus for another talk. William Westhead was a pharmacist in Leicester at the People’s Dispensary in Bond Street and during World War Two he was an ARP (Air Raid Precautions) warden. Among the objects was a tobacco tin, specially designed to fit a hip pocket, containing his official warden identity card: a very real connection to the role of civilians in the war. An indication of William Westhead’s life as a pharmacist in the years before World War Two was the discovery of several, hand-written sheets recording his recipes (or formulas) for the various items he dispensed - a glimpse into the working arrangements of a practising pharmacist.


While history is often the record of changes it can also be a record of continuity. The unchanging moral dilemmas which have affected people over centuries was another topic. A thimble was the trigger for a memory of how close family relationships can lead to strong moral dilemmas. The thimble belonged to a relative who had been entertaining a cousin and noticed that, as the visit continued, more and more of her treasures seemed to disappear. But in any close family accusations of theft could cause a major rift. Is it easier to lose a few treasures than jeopardise family harmony?


Many social advances have resulted from deeply-held personal principles enthusiastically pursued and a gold wedding ring was a reminder of the impact an individual can have when following these principles. In the early 20th century in the mining community near Radstock in the Somerset coalfield (now long-gone and largely forgotten) the actions of a local headmistress in supporting families of miners and assisting them in their disputes with the coal mine owners were regarded as so helpful that when the headmistress married, the local miners arranged with Welsh miners to present her with a wedding ring made from Welsh gold. The headmistress’s daughter continued the work for social reform and the ring was passed between generations as a symbol of the constant need for social improvement.


Coal mining was the theme of another talk, about a visit to an English deep coal mine in the early 1970s, recalling how important this now defunct industry was to the British economy: in the early 1970s coal mining employed over 200,000 people and accounted for around 67% of all electricity production. The talk was a reminder that even in the early 1970s a deep coal mine was a dirty and dangerous place to work, with narrow seams and noisy and dusty conditions. A few months before the visit in 1973 an accident in a Yorkshire pit had killed 7 miners.


The final, very different, talk came from an American visitor to the History Society. Chris Iliff, with other family members, was visiting Kibworth to explore possible family connections in the village as Iliff is a family name with long associations with Kibworth. He told the story of James Iliff who was the son of an early settler. In the American Revolutionary Wars of the 1770s James Iliff remained loyal to the British Crown and even tried to recruit men to his cause. He was captured by supporters of George Washington and sent to Washington’s HQ where he was tried for treason and executed. An irony that by being loyal to the legitimate authority he was condemned for treason against a country which didn’t legally exist.  


Eric Whelan


5th OCTOBER 2017


Francis “Tanky” Smith by George Weston



“Top Hat Terrace” (pictured left) is on London Road in Leicester (opposite Saxby Street) and is a physical reminder of one of Leicester’s earliest and most celebrated policemen, Francis “Tanky” Smith.


As George Weston explained Leicester’s police force was established in the 1836 with around 45 constables, 5 sergeants and an Inspector (the equivalent of a Chief Constable). Smith was an early recruit and quickly rose through the ranks. He was appointed as a detective in 1840 and was famous for the number of criminals he arrested and particularly for the use of different disguises to infiltrate criminal organisations. On the front of Top Hat Terrace there are 16 medallions of heads wearing hats, mostly top hats, which are said to represent the many disguises adopted by Smith.


Smith’s methods of adopting disguises, allied to a study of human nature, was said by one Conan Doyle expert to have been used by the author in his creation of the character of Sherlock Holmes.


Smith’s most famous case involved James Beaumont Winstanley of Braunstone Hall, a former High Sheriff, who disappeared without warning in 1862. Winstanley’s family asked the police for help and Smith managed to track Winstanley’s movements to Calais and then through France and in to Germany but here the trail went cold. Before Smith had reached Germany a body had been pulled from the River Moselle and buried locally. Following a hunch, Smith persuaded the authorities to exhume the body. Although the body had no identification papers, it was later identified from some monogrammed cufflinks. It was Winstanley.


Winstanley’s family showed their appreciation for Smith’s dogged efforts with a financial reward. This enabled Smith to retire from the police force and set himself up as a private detective. It also allowed him to invest in property (hence Top Hat Terrace). He continued to thrive and was successful in his property business and lived in Albert Villa in Francis Street, Stoneygate, another property development.


Why the nickname “Tanky”? It was said that when Smith made arrests he often “tanked” or clubbed the suspect with his truncheon. A not very pc PC.   


Eric Whelan

2nd November 2017


Women of Leicestershire & Rutland - by Virginia Wright


The role of women in history is usually under-recorded, often unrecorded and rarely promoted but in her talk on Ladies of Leicestershire Virginia Wright sought to correct this situation. Leicestershire has many examples of the important roles played by women in English history.


The stories of 3 of these women illustrate why their stories should be better known:  Alice Hawkins, Elizabeth Rowley Frisby and Mary Linwood. Alice Hawkins and Elizabeth Rowley Frisby were both very active in the women’s suffrage movement at the beginning of the 20th century. Alice Hawkins was a worker in the boot and shoe industry and mother of 6 who was very committed to obtaining the vote for women. She was imprisoned several times for her suffragette activities and was instrumental in attracting Sylvia Pankhurst to visit the Leicester shoe factories to urge women to support the action of the suffragettes.


Elizabeth Rowley Frisby was equally committed to women’s suffrage and was involved in the burning down of Blaby railway station as part of the suffragette campaign and she was arrested several times but her later story was one of change from Activist to Establishment: she was involved in local politics, became a JP and finally was Leicester’s first woman Lord Mayor.


Mary Linwood’s story is largely forgotten although in her time she was nationally and internationally famous. Mary came to Leicester when her mother opened a school in Belgrave Gate (a school Mary continued to run until her death).


Mary’s fame came from her talent in a form of needlework. She was famous for reproducing copies of Old Master paintings in worsted or crewel embroidery, a technique using dyed woollen threads sewn on to “tammy” cloth (a worsted woollen fabric). Mary was meticulous: she used threads of different lengths and specially dyed (in Leicester) which were said to mimic the artists brush strokes and she produced copies of artists such as Raphael, Rubens and Gainsborough.


Her work was admired by Queen Charlotte (wife of George III), the Tsarina of Russia and Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon was such an admirer that he invited her to Paris in 1803 for a presentation. Her work was admired nationally and a permanent gallery of her work existed in London for over 30 years until her death in 1845. Despite her acclaim Mary remained in Leicester and ran her school.


When Mary died the local shops were closed and crowds lined the funeral route. However, fashions change and after her death her creations were no longer desired and many works ended up in museum store-rooms. She was largely forgotten in Leicester’s history: a school was named after her but this has since disappeared.


Eric Whelan


1st February 2018

WESTFIELD: a history of a private estate - by Eric Whelan


Successful people often choose to demonstrate their success through structures and the development of the small private estate of Westfield on the northern edge of Kibworth Harcourt is one such demonstration.


In 1895 Mr and Mrs Edward Teasdale bought 2 fields, measuring just over 4 acres, in what had been the old West Field of Kibworth Harcourt before Enclosure in 1779. Edward Teasdale was a successful hosiery manufacturer and a partner in the firm of Wooding and Teasdale which owned 2 factories, one in Churchgate in Leicester and a second factory in Fleckney.


Teasdale commissioned the Leicester architect Stockdale Harrison to design his small estate and Stockdale Harrison created a large, 7- bedroom dwelling house, along with an entrance lodge and a carriage house with stabling in the, then fashionable, Domestic Revival style. The buildings were set among gardens and were connected to the Kibworth Gas Company supply. The dwelling house was designed to keep the family and servant areas apart, with a separate door and staircase for each.


The 1901 census reveals the Teasdales had 2 sons, aged 4 and 16, along with 3 live-in servants. However, the Teasdales did not enjoy their new estate for long. In 1912 Edward Teasdale died aged only 59 and, with her children away from home, Mrs Teasdale decided to sell Westfield and move back to Leicester. Her misfortunes continued: both her sons were killed in the First World War, aged only 20 and 33.

The next owners of the Westfield Estate were to have an impact on Kibworth which extended beyond the boundaries of their private estate. In 1912 the Westfield Estate was bought by Mr W E Briggs, another successful Leicester businessman who had interests in the shoe industry and in the Harborough Rubber Company. The Briggs family settled in Kibworth and W E’s sons had houses in the village and became involved in community affairs. However, it was the interest in farming started by W E and continued by one of his grandsons which was to have an impact on the appearance of Kibworth. Land made available by the Briggs family has enabled some of the recent housing developments in the village.


The Briggs family lived at Westfield for around 60 years but in the early 1970s they decided to sell the estate. The next owner was another successful Leicester businessman, Michael Smith. His connections with the theatrical world brought a touch of celebrity to Westfield in the 1970s. Mia Farrow (then married to Andre Previn) was performing at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre and, rather than stay in a hotel, she stayed at Westfield for the duration of the play’s run, along with her younger children. On one occasion Andre Previn also stayed for one night.


In the early 1990s Michael Smith decided to move but at this time there was no interest in buying the whole estate and it was split up: the entrance lodge was made a separate property and the former coach house was converted into a family home with its own garden. The former private estate was now 3 separate properties.


The original Westfield Estate comprised 2 fields but only one of the fields was developed. The second field remains as grazing land, exactly as it had been since Enclosure in 1779. This field is a remarkable example of over 200 years of historical continuity.


Eric Whelan


5th April 2018


More Gems From The Archives - by Norman Harrison

Following the hiatus in March caused by the bad weather the Society was able to resume its regular meetings in April with a presentation from its chairman, Norman Harrison, which displayed some of the wide range of material held in the Society’s archive.


The talk was a timely reminder that history is more than an accumulation of facts but rather a collective memory which helps to place current events in a context.


The collection of maps showed not only how Kibworth and Smeeton have expanded over time but also how important land ownership was in determining the shape of the villages by highlighting the ownership patterns and which owners made land available for development.


Examples of archaeological finds showed that the area has been inhabited for thousands of years, from examples of the Beaker People found between Smeeton and Gumley (possibly 4000 years old) to the Roman artefacts found opposite Westfield in Kibworth Harcourt. A coin found on the site dates from around 300AD and a geophysical survey of the site has revealed evidence of Roman occupation built alongside an existing ancient ridge trackway.


Some of the photographs were a reminder of the importance of religion in the villages. A photograph from 1928 taken on the Munt in Kibworth Harcourt showed a large group who were enjoying a Sunday School Treat, a common feature of village life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.


The importance of dissenting religion in Kibworth was revealed by the information on the former Congregational Chapel. A tablet was raised in the chapel to Philip Doddridge who was a former pastor in Kibworth but also a leading figure in the English Non-Conformist movement in the 18th century and who ran an academy in Kibworth to propound the non-conformist version of Christianity.


The personal impact of World War One was illustrated by items in the archive. A collection of postcards from a soldier in France to his mother in Kibworth contained one which clearly showed the Censor’s stamp and illustrated the limited amount of information which could be contained in these communications. Photographs of soldiers and their medals was a reminder of the major impact the war had on small village communities.


While the villages were more self-contained in the past they were still witnesses to the impact of new technologies. In 1936 an extension to the Grammar School was due to be opened by the Assistant Bishop of Leicester but shortly before the ceremony it was discovered that the ceremonial key specially commissioned for the occasion had not arrived in Kibworth. The key had been made in Leeds but not despatched. There was no time to transport the key by road so an aeroplane was chartered to fly the key from Leeds to Stoughton airfield where it was met by a taxi and rushed to Kibworth, arriving just in time for the ceremony to proceed. The new technology of air transport had saved the day!


Eric Whelan

3rd May 2018


THE GREAT PLAGUE OF LONDON, 1665 - by Sally Henshaw


“Bring out your dead” is a phrase often associated with plague but as Sally Henshaw explained in her talk on the Great Plague of London this is, at best, a half-truth and is part of the popular imagination concerning the Great Plague.


Crucial facts regarding the Plague of London are few – even the estimated death toll of around 70,000 is regarded as tentative and may be an under-estimate by as much as 25,000. London at this time had a population of around 460,000 most of whom were poor and living in insanitary and overcrowded conditions: illustrations show narrow streets with the gables of houses nearly touching across the lanes.


The main reason for the lack of accurate records was that by the height of the outbreak in September 1665 the King and Court, the wealthy and many of the educated had left the city and those remaining were mostly the poor and illiterate. The death toll from the plague was so high that just keeping pace with burying the dead was a major task without worrying about accurate records.


When deaths occurred, rather than the bodies being brought out of houses, is was more usual for the Parish to employer “Searchers of the Dead”, whose role was to enter premises and remove the dead bodies. Most of these “searchers” were elderly women, often illiterate, so that recording the causes of death would be sketchy at best. Also, many non-conformist sects buried their own dead and these could be missed from the official statistics. Each parish published weekly Bills of Mortality showing the number and causes of death but these were a better guide to the mortality trend than actual numbers.


The death toll was relentless and high (7000 plague deaths were recorded in one week in September 1665) and normal burial practices were abandoned: the body collectors used hooks to drag bodies out the houses to avoid any contact with the corpses and large pits were dug for mass burials of victims which were covered with quick-lime to try to contain the spread of the disease. At this time the cost of the burials was borne by the parish and there were instances of bodies being dumped in neighbouring parishes to avoid these costs.


Plagues came in a variety of types but the Great Plague of London was bubonic plague, so named because the infections caused buboes or swellings to appear on the bodies of the victims. It is now known that the plague was spread by fleas which lived on black rats but at the time this was unknown and a range of theories was put forward. Some doctors believed that cats and dogs spread the plague and there was a cull of these animals. Ironically, this only worsened the situation since it reduced the number of predators who could destroy the black rat.

For the those unlucky enough to catch the plague the prognosis was usually fatal. Houses with plague victims were closed-up and marked with red crosses for 40 days followed by a further period of isolation of 20 days when a white cross was painted on the building. The mortality rate for those infected was between 60% and 85%.


The level of plague infections began to decline in the autumn of 1665 and the particularly cold winter of 1665/1666 seemed to halt the spread of the infection. By February 1666 the King and Court had returned to London. The Great Fire of London in 1666 also helped reduce the incidence of plague. The fire destroyed many lath and plaster buildings which were ideal breeding grounds for black rats and in the subsequent rebuilding of London new regulations stipulated that buildings had to be either brick or stone.


Plagues still occurred even after 1665 but on a reduced scale as living conditions improved but crucially the black rat population went in to sharp decline following the introduction of brown rats in the late 17th century. Significantly, the brown rat did not carry the fleas which transmitted plague.


Eric Whelan


7th June 2018


HISTORY OF TOYS & GAMES by FELICITY AUSTIN


Felicity’s engaging, lively and inclusive talk on the history of toys and games included a wonderful array of toys and games from the last 100 years. The history of toys and games is such a huge topic that, of necessity, it focussed on Western and British examples but an underlying theme was how social changes are reflected in the toys and games which were popular in any particular period.


The game of “fag” cards was popular 60 years ago. This game involved propping cigarette cards against a wall and using other cards to try to knock them over but with the changes in smoking and the way products are promoted these cards are now collectors’ items rather than playthings.


However, older games and toys have survived from ancient times and versions of snakes and ladders, ludo and draughts have been found in pre-Christian civilisations. “Snobs” or “stones”, involving 5 small cubes, was popular in the 1950s and 1960s but versions have been found among Roman artefacts.


Other social changes, such as new housing developments, particularly in the last 50 years, have seen many street games disappear: hop-scotch and hide-and-seek were very popular games in the days before widespread car ownership when the streets were play areas rather than routes for cars and vans. Skipping, especially using a long rope held by two people, involving a group of children and often associated with chanted rhymes, was common but is now rare.   


In many cases historical records of toys and games tend to show what was available to children of the wealthy since few toys or games of the poor survived or were recorded. For poorer families many toys were home-made or were common items used as substitutes, such as sticks for swords.


The major social changes came, as with so many other things, with the Victorians. The development of mass-produced products meant many toys were cheap and available to a greater population and the creativity of the toy industry exploded. This, combined with increasing wealth and leisure, made increasing numbers of new products available.


In parallel with the availability of cheap toys the tradition of hand-made toys persisted. Certainly until the Second World War, and often into the 1950s, many boys had pocket-knives which were used to make toys such as bows and arrows, pea-shooters and cricket bats. Changing social conditions mean knife carrying is now unacceptable.


Despite the huge increase and popularity of electronic games the fact that some of the traditional toys and games are still sold would suggest that they will still be available if the electronic games suffer the same fate as “fag” cards.



Eric Whelan