Diary 15 November 1886 - April 1888

2 Nov. Rev. Smithe showing William photographs of places of interest seen on his Italian holiday. "It appears photographs of this character are very cheap being only 4d each and of a large size"

10 Nov. Season of parish concerts began, "Mr. Moffatt presided - and in his opening remarks said that the object of these concerts were to relieve the monotony of the winter evenings"

16 Nov. "Mr. Griffith Junior was buried at Hucclecote today having a fancy not to be buried in our church yard on account of the numbers of people who go up to the church yard and who he said "would tread upon him" "

8 Dec. Mr. Yardley emigrating to Canada. William to take over parish concert organization

Programme given

14 Dec. "In the evening went to Lawyer Smith (it is reported that he is come into £40,000) - he gave 10 shillings to the W[omen's] Club and complained of the ingratitude of the poor"

19 Dec. Dr. Smithe feeling "very disheartened at the present state of the parish - the want of a proper church feeling in it and so on. I tried to cheer him up"

1887

5 Jan. Concert programme

24 Jan. Visited Mrs. Johnson who had been companion "to a lady who left her enough to buy the whole of the Manor House property"

2 Feb. Concert programme

10 Feb. Vestry minutes

12 Feb. Kate Taylor asked for £5 to go to London "to undergo an operation in order to cure her fits"

[So bad that William's mother had called on Kate's sisters to take her away and had taken another relative - Leah Pick - as housemaid]

13 Feb. Dr. Smithe's anecdote about site of battle of Tewkesbury - local man showing a visitor the site of his own brawl

3 March Dr. Smithe "related how Mrs. Child and Mrs. Thomas could do nothing for the poor of the parish as regards the Jubilee and that Mrs. C. was going to start a blanket club"

9 March New branch of the Conservative club opened in Churchdown

21 March Visited Devonshire Street School, Cheltenham, to look for a P. T. [pupil teacher] but Frank [Wheeler] said there were no boys that would take the office". List of masters from 1713 - 1865 (copied from school magazine) and list of Pupil Teachers and colleges where they trained

23 March Parish concert described in some detail. Opened with 'Rule Britannia'

25 March Annual vestry minutes: office of parish constable was discussed "the authorities would not give a police constable to reside here" as long as the parish appointed one

27 March Verbatim account of conversation between Thos. Merrett and Dr. Smithe given in imitation of "Boswell in the life of Johnson" (about the Wyndowes and Theyches, old families now died out)

29 March Adverts for pupil teacher answered. A very promising applicant [Fred. Langford] from Stonehouse "thoroughly respectable and wore spectacles"

3 April Names of recent confirmation candidate at Churchdown

8 April Names of the choir boys

9 April Concert at the Fine Art Rooms next door to the Plough, Cheltenham. Signor Marini singing

11 April Easter vestry minutes. Proposals for Queen's Jubilee celebrations. Committee included William

18 April 1st meeting of Jubilee committee. William one of collectors. "Only refused by J. Leaver who was in a bad humour because Lawyer Smith had threatened to summon him for his horses being on the highway"

21 April "Noticed a fine oak near J. Davis' because oaks are scarce in this parish"

25 April Jubilee Committee meeting, "Lawyer Champney advocated no beer at dinner but tea - and certainly no beer after dinner - but this was overruled - as it deserved to be"

25 April Talking of Susan Sly, the witch living in Buttermilk Lane at the beginning of the 19th cent. The orchard being still called Sly's Close

3 May Jubilee Committee's meeting

4 May Concert at the Assembly Rooms Cheltenham in aid of the G.W.R. widows and orphans. "Owing to the giggles of some girls behind us who were being tickled by some fellows, we could not appreciate the affair as it doubtless deserved"

13 May Discovered watch, money, etc. missing "we feel very much put out, not for the mere loss, but that it may be the boys - and the uncertainty in that case of their 'future'

18 May Turned out to have been James Cole, recently released from a six month imprisonment, found hiding in his mother's pigstye. Held the inquiry, immediately on the constable discovering him, at William's house (in great detail)

21 May Visit to Gloucester Police Station and Shire Hall magistrates' court; "felt truly sorry to see J. Cole without an apparent friend in his present miserable condition". Some badgering of parish constable Henry Morris "as there is a latent jealousy between the regular p[olice] force and the parish constables"

23 May Jubilee affairs

28 May Kate Taylor returned from London Hospital where she had not had a fit for 10 weeks; her sisters refused her lodgings. Hospital life had been "conducted on Church principles"

31 May Jubilee contributions (recorded in great detail, giving individuals' responses)

1 June Committee meeting

2 June At Cheltenham cemetery visiting Fr. Mills grave and then to N.U.E.T. (Cheltenham branch) meeting at Devonshire Street School

4 June Endowment for Bentham new church: £10,000 and site given by Mrs. Strangeways. "Parson Viner had not shown himself in the most amiable light over it

17 June Vestry and Jubilee meeting

21 June Jubilee Day - great detail and formal programme given

22 June Still eating up left overs next day - over 100 people ended up having lunch

29 June Attending Quarter Sessions (Cole pleaded guilty)

1 Aug. Account of Stonehenge given by son Arthur (Arthur and Reginald having cycled to Bournemouth and back on holiday)

"He committed an act of vandalism in getting a fragment [of stone].. by firing a bullet at an angle of one of the uprights"

6 Aug. To Lower Stone to visit relatives

8 Aug. "Dan [Pick] & I left to visit the reaping party [at "Tumppy Leas"]. Up over Sunday's Hill, Dan relating the doings of Farmer Werrett a most objectionable person who tytannizes over his wife - though very well off refuses her a servant and so forth"

10 Aug. Went up a new way to Stone "passing a spot where a house stood surrounded by a moat part of which still exists"

11 Aug. "Horatio Gibbins described the operation he had undergone performed by Dr. Awdry of Berkeley - which consisted of taking out a cancer of the groin and loosing the left testicle. At Mrs. Reeve's beer house, Stone, 2 tramps came in with a mixture of quicksilver and nitric acid which they used to give a silver sheen to metal

12 Aug. Visited Dr. Grace, the cricketeer, at Thornbury for medicine

13 Aug. First small shower after a bad drought, "as we descended towards Keeper Whitworth's our umbrellas being hoisted so astonished him that he missed his aim at some rabbits"

14 Aug. Visited a relation, John Kingscott, who rented a farm of over 100 acres at Paddington

16 Aug. Marriage of relative Annie Hambling and Ernest Carter at All Saints, Cheltenham

18 Aug. Mother had a gas stove erected in the scullery costing 10 shillings per year rent to the Gas Company

23 Aug. "Copying out the beginning of this Journal which began Dec. 31 1859"

29 Aug. Choir outing to Weston-super-Mare

30 Aug. Expedition to Sharpness on board the 'Lapwing' from Gloucester

31 Aug. Inquest on death of daughter, aged 15, of Mrs. Peart at the "Folly". "The Corner (Mr. Coren) made some strong observations to Mr. Vines respecting so many persons living in such short accommodation"

2 Sept. "Leonard related how one of their apprentices got a splinter of iron in his arm.. he went to the Infirmary - the surgeon overdosed him with chloroform"

18 Sept. Account of Mr. H. Lawrence "going to the bad"

24 Sept. A neighbour of the Booths "related a series of thefts of Emma Booth - who had taken a vegetable marrow of her mother's who discovering her loss threatened to apply to the "Wise or Cunning Woman for information as to the delinquent - (this in the 19th century)"

Emma later expelled from school 17/11/87

15 Oct. Performance of the Merchant of Venice by Mr. Benson's Company at Cheltenham. Cast list given

6 Nov. Bad state of repair at the church on the hill

16 Nov. School Board meeting "it was amusing to hear the Board ask if the old dustpan in use since '81 - whether or not it could be mended "William had asked for a new one!)

20 Nov. "The affairs of the Barn are at a low ebb - Champney to bribe the folk is going to establish a soup kitchen"

28 Nov. Sale of 3 doz. Citizens on account of the execution at Gloucester this morning