The Growth of a Township
< < Chapter Twelve | Chapter Fourteen > >
The Growth of a Township - Chapter Thirteen - The End of an Era.
The death of Queen Victoria found Maltby still in its rural simplicity - and for most villagers still with a greater or lesser degree of poverty. The wagonnettes continued to bring day trippers from smoky Rotherham and Sheffield to enjoy the sylvan beauty of Roche Abbey and its valley and woods. Sandbeck continued in its rural and aristocratic splendour with its farms, estate cottages, Victorian Chapel and the new Chaplain's House. There was still the full complement of liveried servants. In the Chapel the family still occupied the gallery, their insignia of three popinjays draped over the balcony. There were deer in the Park. Walking across the Park in the dark, it is said, unwary travellers had been known to fall over the antlers of the sleeping deer!
The late Fred Kitchen, a Maltby local author, wrote a graphic description of the Estate and Sandbeck Hall. His father was a Sandbeck Estate worker, and Fred grew up on the Estate. In 1905 he was twelve and worked as a "scarecrow" for is. 3d. a week. In "Brother to the Ox" Fred has a vivid account of his boyhood love of Sandbeck with its 300 acres park, its vast woods. After the manner of the day his parents were strict Sabbatarians, so he became used to the Private Chapel services. On occasion, he says, his family (being Methodists) would walk the 2-3 miles to Chapel at Maltby. It was a lovely walk, "flowers all the way". The Estate school was at Stone a mile up the road from Sandbeck to Maltby. Kitchen says there were at the time about 60 scholars when all were present. He was still a boy when his father died of diabetes. The Earl provided a cottage for the family in Maltby village. Fred had to leave his beloved woods and fields of the Estate. He described his coming to the village: "It had about 300 inhabitants. I counted one grey church, one Wesleyan Chapel, two inns, two butchers, three grocers and four farms". Having left the Estate, the boy had to find work on a farm. He wrote of the hard work on the farm which began with "taking out the horses at 6.30 a.m." and continued through an eleven hour day!
In an article written for the Rotherham Advertiser in 1962 Kitchen describes rural Sandbeck at the turn of the Century. "A horse used to draw a big lawn-mower across the wide expanse of lawns in front of the House, the horse wearing leather shoes so as not to damage the turf. Between the Chapel and the House were, the servants' hail, the still room and the kitchens. The stable yard, with the stables all round and the grooms' and coachmen's quarters above, was dominated by a great well in the middle. Servants' hall, still room and kitchen are all gone. The post-box in the wall of the Estate office is a reminder of those days. In the mid-Twentieth Century it still defies the passage of time, and proclaims VR (Victoria Regina)."
The Estate Steward, Mr. Jones, cycled from Tickhill each day. Other staff were the grooms and page-boys. The Head Gardener, Mr. Summers, was a person of some distinction. He was a grey-bearded gentleman who drove in state to Doncaster every Saturday in a high-wheeled gig. The Head Gamekeeper lived in a fairly large house on the Estate, The Limes. He had a team of three keepers. Besides these workers there was a large team of servants, farm workers and wood men. The key figure was the 'Clerk of Works'.
The first full-time Sandbeck Chaplain was Charles Wollaston Mainwaring, MA. He was Chaplain in the 9th Earl's time from 1862-67. The last of the nine full-time Chaplains was Henry Worsley who left in 1920. In its heyday at the end of the Century Sandbeck indeed provided a fairly full-time job for the Chaplain. Apart from the Sunday Services (morning and evening, and Sunday School) there were the usual Church meetings and, with the large families, much visiting. Doubtless the Chaplain arranged social events and the Cricket Club. In the first decade of the Twentieth Century Henry Fanshawe, Chaplain, founded one of the earliest Boy Scout Troops titled "The Earl of Scarbrough's Own". The Misses Ellis and their father had their private school on the Estate, at The Grove nearer to Maltby.
Old residents at Sandbeck remember how until more recent economic changes the Chapel was full - the family in the Gallery, the Head Butler and Housekeeper and other senior servants in the front pew, the rest filled with the staff, with tenant farmers and Estate workers. There were social events for the Estate workers. Those who lived on the Estate in the nearby village of Stainton were collected each Christmas and taken by wagonnette to Sandbeck for the festivities. One old resident remembered how the Earl's daughter presented the children with Christmas presents when they had in joyful anticipation reached the end of their thrilling two-mile wagonnette drive! Others, now departed this life, remembered the wonderful children's party in the House, and the great Christmas Tree in the Ballroom. These, together with the joints of Christmas beef handed out to the families, were highlights in an otherwise unexciting way of life. Judging by the character of Sandbeck families who go back to the Nineteenth Century this kind of moral Christian expression was beneficial rather than detrimental. The Chapel, o course, upheld the status quo of a great Estate. At the same time there seems to have been a sense of commitment and grace, of dignity and care for others.
Many who, like Fred Kitchen, began life at Sandbeck have said in later years that there was an attraction in the security that Sandbeck gave. It was almost a feudal mini-welfare state. There was little risk of unemployment. Workers were provided with Christmas fare, their children with clothes at Christmas. There was an Estate school, a Chaplain who seems usually to have been pastorally minded. The family at the Big House cared for the Estate families and visited those who were sick.
Two miles up the road from Sandbeck a new community was about to be formed. In 1910 a new colliery village was being planned to house the miners who would come to the great new colliery planned to exist next door to Sandbeck Estate. For many young people at Sandbeck the colliery would prove to be attractive. It would provide a bigger wage than the Estate, even if security would be less. The Great War accelerated the breakdown of the Sandbeck Estate. In a way Sandbeck never recovered after 1920. Its farms and agricultural pattern remained, but the old community was declining. Those who left for the new mining Maltby took with them the graces and wholesome attitudes they had learned through Sandbeck.
The social developments brought better transport. Members of the "professional classes" were attracted to Maltby. Indeed Maltby with its beautiful valley and its better communications was an attractive place in which to live. A few houses had been built. The 1901 Census showed a population which had remained static over the centuries. It stood at 716. By 1911 it had declined to 700.
The new residents with their better means and initiative contributed a great deal to the village. Until this time Maltby and Sandbeck had been dominated by the Lords of the Manor, and the capitalist farmers and landowners. The end of the Nineteenth Century brought Dr. Crossley and his daughters to the parish. They lived in a large limestone house on Blyth Road. Up at Hooton Levitt lived Col. Winder and his family. At The Grove, Blyth Road, Mr. Ebenezer Ellis and his daughters Mary and Bertha had a school. Colonel Mackenzie Smith and his wife Lady Mabel (sister to the Earl Fitzwilliam) resided at Maltby Hall. Maltby Manor House was occupied by a Church warden of Maltby, Dr. Wade, and his family. Of these magnificent buildings in Maltby most have, like the limestone cottages, been demolished.
At the turn of the Century Maltby was still typical of the Established order whiCh depended on the disparity between the "haves" and the poverty-stricken "have-nots". But some at least of these in comers had a social conscience. Lady Mabel -.% Smith was a champion of the Workers' Educational Association. She was a political radical and a High Church Anglican. Through Lady Mabel's influence W.E.A. and Sheffield University Classes were held in Maltby at this early time. It was in such local classes that Fred Kitchen was able to learn about literature and to develop his gift for writing. The Misses Bertha and Mary Ellis of the Grove School were active in organising a Reading Room and classes including woodwork. Dr. Crossley's daughters worked more "within the system". Miss Mary was choirmistress at the Parish Church, and both of the sisters influenced the life of the village church. It is said that Mary Crossley gave each of her choir boys a new suit at Christmas. Perhaps Fred Kitchen's reaction was typical of the poor in Maltby. He took Jesus' comment on his Feeding of the Five Thousand - "you followed me not because you saw the miracle, but because you ate the loaves and were filled". But, in fact, the ladies were helping young people who were very unlikely to acquire a new suit every year!
Tragically the much revered Dr. Crossley was killed on St. Paul's Day 1906 by Fawcett's dray in the fog. Maltby had sinister fame at that time. The public hangman, John Askern, was a member of an old Maltby family. Other members of the family had been for generations Sexton and Verger of the Parish Church.
An old Maltby resident, the late Mrs. Winifred Bramall, left a fascinating picture of life in this small village now that the more affluent had descended on it. "There were rook shooting parties from Maltby Hall at the right season. The village women were employed in making rook pies from the unfortunate victims of the shoot. There was then a grand supper in the village school. The ancient inn, The White Swan, was kept by a lady called Mrs. Hartshorn.
I well remember the Church and in particular the Crossley family. Miss Mary was organist and choir mistress for many years until financial misfortune befell the family and she and her sister left Maltby. Colonel Winder of Hooton Levitt Hall always read the lessons. I remember him walking to the lectern from an area the Winders had made their family pew. The family was hidden from the rest of the worshipers by a large pillar!
The services were always well attended by the farming families. Lady Mabel Smith and her husband were regular attenders. Bertha and Mary Ellis walked their school the miles from The Grove each Sunday. And Mr and Mrs. Cadman of Roche Abbey House attended, driving up in a chaise with a white pony".
Splendid days indeed! Had Crossley and Askern lived but a few more years they would have witnessed the industrial development which was about to overtake Maitby's rural peace.
This period of Maltby's history is marked by two people of great interest. Each had particular gifts from which Maltby benefited. Though coming from very different cultural and economic backgrounds Fred Kitchen and Lady Mabel Smith had a great deal in common in their understanding of ordinary humanity and its needs.
Fred Kitchen grew up on Sandbeck Estate where his father was a coachman. When Fred was eleven his father died and the family moved to an Estate house in Maltby. His father's death meant, in Fred's words, that he could not now be "put to something". He had to find whatever job he could. This meant attending the hiring fairs to be engaged as a farm servant. His commitment to agricultural work lasted all his working life. In later life he was a school caretaker in Derbyshire. The combination of Fred Kitchen's apprenticeship in literature and his great gift of simple, descriptive writing enabled him to produce vivid stories of life in Maltby and Sandbeck. The chief among his works are "Brother to the ox" and "The Ploughman homeward plods".
Lady Mabel Smith was one of the most significant residents at Maltby Hall. She stood out even in comparison to Squarson Rolleston, Freeman Bower and Miss White, the Principal of the young ladies' college at the Hall. After Miss White left, the Hall was vacant for some time. Then at the end of Nineteenth Century Col. Mackenzie Smith bought it. As mentioned previously he was the grandson of Dr. Catty, the eminent Vicar of Ecclesfield. In August 1899 Mackenzie Smith married at St. George's, Hanover Square, Lady Mabel Smith, sister of Earl Fitzwilliam of Wentworth House, Rotherham, the largest private house in England! Lady Mabel was a true democrat. She was a faithful and practising Christian. She was, as well, an ardent political radical of her day; a socialist with a deep care for the common people at a time when they needed every champion they could muster. Lady Mabel was well-known as a social worker. She was an indefatigable leader in the Workers' Educational Association and organised classes in Maltby - from which Fred Kitchen and others in the new mining community benefited greatly. She was an authority on health matters. Her trenchant criticisms of the Health Authority arrangements in her own district and in others earned her a reputation for fearless honesty. She was in her day regarded as one of the greatest social democrats of South Yorkshire. In her later life Lady Mabel moved to live in the Parson Cross, a Sheffield slum clearance estate. She became a member of St. Cecilia's Church (staffed by monks from the Anglican Monastery of Keiham) where she was able co express her faith in the "High Anglican" worship she loved, and to be involved in the social needs of the parish.
< < Chapter Twelve | Chapter Fourteen > >
Telephone: 07930 343276 :: Fax: 07092 004104
E-mail: [Webmaster]
Hosted by Supanames