May and December
Child Okeford in the newspapers. A series of stories about a previous generation of villagers as related in the newspapers of the time.
1871 Child Okeford
MAY and DECEMBER
A marriage took place in this village on the 3rd inst., [June] which caused considerable gossip but, we suppose, may be considered in accordance with the weather. One Susan Savery, aged 20 was led or perhaps we should say, she led to the hymeneal altar, Thomas Ames aged 75 years. The marriage service was performed by the Rev. R Price the rector. The bridal party, on their way home were not quite so well received as is generally the case, as instead of their way being strewn with flowers, a weed of stinging qualities was thrown at them.
A second version was published by another newspaper,
SUMMER AND WINTER,- A marriage took place here a few days ago between a young woman 20 years of age and an old sire who is said to have seen 75 summers. Instead of strewing the path of the bride and bridegroom with roses as they left the church, some of the villagers exhibited their disapproval of the match by throwing sting-nettles at the couple.
As all good newspaper editors know, and our editor is an exceptionally good editor, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend”1. This was undoubtedly a good story; the prurient language and the fact it was reported in two newspapers is evidence of that, but was it fact? Luckily the 1871 census was taken in April of that year and allows us to disentangle legend and fact.
Susan Savory was born in the village in 1847 to George and Louisa Savory. In 1861, when she was 14 years old, she was working as a servant to Thomas Harvey, the school master in Shroton. At the time of the next census [2nd April 1871] she was 24 years of age, not 20 as the newspaper reported, she was unemployed, unmarried and had returned to Child Okeford, lodging with a shoemaker, Charles Matcham, who lived at the ‘Corner’ [the junction of Station Road, the High Street and Duck Street]. She had her 8 months old son, Arthur with her.
Thomas Ames was an agricultural labourer, a part of a large extended family of Ames’s in the village but whoever said he was “an old sire who is said to have seen 75 summers”, was wrong! In fact Thomas had been born in the village in 1811 and first appears in the 1841 census when we find him living with his wife, Leah, and their three sons. In 1846 the couple had a daughter, Elizabeth. Sadly Leah died in 1859 and by 1861 the boys had all moved away and we find Thomas living alone with Elizabeth, now aged 15.
In 1871 then Thomas was not 75, or anywhere like it – he was in fact 60; the gap in their ages is still wide, 36 years, but not as great as the 55 years the villagers and the newspaper thought it to be. In 1871 Thomas was lodging with one Edward Savory and his wife in Common Lane. The Savorys were another large, extended family and they were almost certainly relatives of Sarah. Thomas’s daughter Elizabeth is not with him but she may well have married in the meantime. The fact he was living with members of Sarah’s family suggests they were not too upset about the impending nuptials so why were the villagers against the match? We simply don’t know.
Unpleasant as it must have been the couple were at least spared the well known West Country custom known as the ‘Skimmington’ or ‘Skimmity’ Ride. Made famous by Thomas Hardy in the Mayor of Casterbridge it is portrayed here in a frieze at Montacute House.
When villagers disapproved of a couples’ behaviour they would dress up effigies of the pair, tie them to a pony or pole and then parade them through the street, all the while making a heck of a racket by banging old pots and pans. In the example at Montacute the husband has been beaten by his wife BUT it is the man who is being ridiculed by riding the pole as it was considered against the natural order for a man to be ruled by a woman!! The last recorded Skimmington in Dorset was 1884.
Thomas and Sarah’s marriage lasted 19 years until Thomas’s death in 1890. They had a daughter, Edith, in 1874 and in the 1881 census we find all four of them living in the village. Thomas is still working as an agricultural labourer and both Edith and Arthur are at school. The next census took place after Thomas’s death but in 1891 Sarah was living in Upper Street near Bartley House where she was having to work as a laundress. Her daughter Edith was now 17 and was also a laundress and her son Arthur was working as a stone mason. By 1901 Arthur has married and moved to Litton Cheney where he is now working as a ‘groom/gardener/domestic’, the couple have a four year old son Cecil and on the day of the census enumeration were being visited by Sarah. We do not know where Edith and Sarah were living at the time but neither of them are found in the 1901 or 1911 censuses for the village. In 1919 some forty eight years after being showered with stinging nettles Sarah died, the death being registered at Sturminster although exactly where she was living is not known.
1From ‘The Man who shot Liberty Valance’ starring James Stewart and John Wayne.
The original newspapers in which these articles appeared have been digitised by The British Newspaper Archive in association with the British Library. The transcription herein has been made by the author from images downloaded as a part of a paid subscription to the BNA. Further information about the archive can be found at www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk