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The Bedford
Family - descendants of Kingston Bedford born about 1803
According to a
family story, when they were aged about 18 and 17, in around 1847,
sisters, Jane Smith and Sarah Smith, went to Chesham Fair to find
work. Jane subsequently became the mother of the probable author of
this piece, Daniel Bedford. The fair lasted three days and another
relative, Flo Oliver, remembered it from her own childhood - "it
only lasted one day then, ponies, horses, sheep, geese etc. being
sold in Chesham Broadway and at night the round-abouts and swings
and rock making stalls and sausage frying going on".
Daniel's story
continues....
This time Mother was
hired by a farmer from [The] Lee near Chartridge, and she told me
she remembered going there in a high dog cart with a beautiful horse
and thought how nice it was. Her greeting from the farmer's wife
was, "What have you got there?". "I was so thin", Mother said.
I don't remember
what happened to Aunt Sarah but she must have been alright because
she lived near us later on. She was roughish and noisy although my
Mother was always lady-like and quiet and gentle.
A few years later
Mother married Dad [James Bedford] who also worked for the same
farmer. Mr Jennings the farmer gave them a cottage on his farm, rent
1 shilling a week, and being a married man Dad now got 9 shillings a
week and a lot of extras, and of course they both worked for the
farmer and his wife. My mother plucked fowls and dressed them for
market etc.
The babies began to
arrive now; one every two years; 13 in all.
In the winter a man
used to come round the village with a horse and cart from Luton with
hat straw and we all used to plait it tight for hat making - it was
about 28 yards [25.6 metres] for 3d [equivalent to about 60p today].
Then Dad also went into Chesham in the evenings twice a week to
learn boot making. He learnt how to make them or part of them and
got 3 shillings [about £7 today] a pair and did two pairs a week
after his field work. We had plenty of food, rabbits and hares.
Mother made
waistcoats and rags out of the skins. She used to have two large
black iron boilers outside in the summer and cooked in them. She
would put four or five rabbits and four or five sheep's heads,
onions, turnips - about 14lbs [6.4 kilos] at a time, and potatoes in
a large net so she could get them out quick. In the other pot would
go long puddings about 24 inches [60 cms] long, treacle or jam or
what was going. I never remember her breaking any of them. Mother
went into Berkhampstead and bought three hens and one cock pheasant
and we started to breed them. None of us went to school in the
summer.
The boys and girls
were now growing up. The girls mostly went into service. Dad took
one farm at the top of Asheridge Hill [see note] on the left. It was
called Tyler's Farm, and Jess [James's eldest son] lived in a little
cottage higher up on the other side of the road. Later, when Dad
took two more farms, he used to do the ploughing for all.
It was great fun,
Mother said, when she moved, as they had hardly anything to move.
The farmer was a great help here again. He lent Dad a horse to start
ploughing until he could get his own.
Later we had
thousands of pheasants and they went all over England for breeding.
When we couldn't sit any more hens we used to sell some to the
butcher to pay for our meat and we ate some together with the eggs.
Mother put buckets of them in pickle for the winter.
Then Dad rented a
small farm in Chartridge which Arthur [James's third son] rand (he
later went to Canada). Then a year or so later he took another farm
at the top of Nashleigh Hill on the left going back from the road
which Fred [James's second son] ran (mostly for himself).
At this time things
were easy. Everyone was working together and Dad was breeding Shire
Horses. He used to get £60 or £70 [equivalent to around £3,000
today] for them. They mostly went to the London Breweries. We had
about two a year and we had lots of visitors to see them.
Oh, I must tell you
about those hens! If there is anything I hate it is messing about
with hens - they stink, especially after being on eggs for a time.
We would have about 300 sitting hens at a time. Dad used to go
around and buy up sitters about 2s 3d [about £5 today] each and they
sat twice a season. Every morning about 10 o'clock, it didn't matter
who was there, we all had to go out. First each hen was taken off
the nest and had to be tied to a wooden tent peg driven in the
ground and each one was given a dish of water and corn. When that
was done, the hens had 15 minutes off the nest then back they all
had to go. If you put the wrong hen on a nest you were in for it as
the hen knew. Next we had to take a pail and pick up all the mess
and then we had to water the patch to make the grass fresh for the
next day. I could only have been about five years when I started it.
We had a lot of pigs
and used to kill two big ones in a year and we had black puddings
and lots of home made lard for our bread.
About this time, Dad
hired four men to help. They were only allowed to eat in the kitchen
at a separate table from us until they learnt manners (which they
did). Dad paid them £7 10s 0d a year and a suit and boots. These
boys often stayed several years with us, in fact two married from
Tyler's Farm.
Dad had one sister
but no parents (I never remember hearing of them). His sister
Charlotte was very mannish; smoked a clay pipe and was as good as a
vet. She was widowed very young but had a large family of girls.
Once she came into the big kitchen one night where Dad was mending
boots. After a while Dad got up to see his cow which was expected to
calve. "Sit", says Charlotte, "It's a bull, quite alright. I've seen
to it and it will be two pints (of beer)". (I, Florence Oliver,
remember her. She lived to be 99 and died up at Asheridge).
The boys would cut
logs up for the fire and as Charlotte went home at night she used to
help herself more than she should. Fred and Arthur bored holes in
some and put gunpowder in them, and took them round and also took
her some home made wine and Shag [tobacco], and watched. Up went the
pot which hung on a chain [over the fire] and soot by the bucketful
came down and Charlotte chased them out with her stick and a few
swear words. She drank anything!
Mother and Dad
always went to Chapel on Sunday mornings near the park gate in the
dog cart. One of Dad's big mares was expecting to foal but just
before the time it caught a chill. The vet had been several times
but the horse got worse so Dad went to Chesham on horseback to get
the Chesham vet and the fever came again into their lives. It was
bad in Chesham and the patients were put into some cottages in
Bellingdon Road later known as the Pest Houses. These people were
allowed to open their doors at night and Dad was supposed to have
caught it in passing. He died within a few days.
Now things started
to go down. Fred had been going to London with a man named Bates, a
wooden-ware man. They drank and gambled a lot. To pay bills, things
had to be sold and one farm after another had to go, all within six
years or so.
Arthur went to
Canada, and his three did very well. I met them. One is a very rich
man. Of course all are retired and getting on. After the final sale,
Fred came to Canada, taking most of the money. He had a wife and one
boy, Bert, who some years back returned to England.
Fred came to
Saskatchewan in a terrible cold winter - snow 6 foot [1.8 metres]
deep. He had a log hut, one room, and a cow which lived next to the
hut to help keep them warm. He had Shire Horses when I got here but
always seemed to be travelling with them. I saw very little of him -
betting and drinking his money away, he took after the groom.
We moved eight miles
further south - still cold of course. Years later Fred died in the
middle of winter and he couldn't be buried for weeks, the ground
being too hard.
Probably written
by Daniel Bedford, son of James and Jane Bedford, from his mother's
memories, with additional notes by Florence Oliver (nee Bedford)
granddaughter of James and Jane Bedford.
Contributed by
Jeni Molyneux.
[Notes:
James Bedford was the son of Kingston Bedford. James was born in
1832 and died in 1887.
The original typescript spells Asheridge 'Ashridge'.
Tyler's Farm is now called Tile's Farm.]
More Memories
Old Cottage, Chartridge
by Dawn Lewcock (nee
de Fraine)
Old Cottage, as far
as we know, was a two up two down cottage with a cellar, next to a
large double doored barn, in the 1920s. My father took the barn down
and extended the house into that area. He and Ted Wells did most of
the work themselves. My first memory is of them building the
staircase. He always said the original cottage was Tudor or
Elizabethan and that the big beam that goes right across the kitchen
came from then and that the other beams had something to do with
ships' timbers, and/or the Armada. Not sure what he meant. He
enlarged the windows, and there was little of the original left
outside, except the brickwork, and of course at the time it was very
up to date, now it is clearly 1930s.
The army
requisitioned it for a time during the war, I don't think they used
the air raid shelter for anything but storage. But my father carried
on his business in the sheds and yard at the top of the drive,
commuting from Amersham every day.
Photographs courtesy
of Dawn Lewcock
www.lewcock.net
There are
more photos of Old Cottage in the
Chartridge Yesterday
photo gallery
