November 18th 2010: Gimson and Barnsleys

Dave Walton, a volunteer at Cheltenham Museum and Art Gallery and a committed Arts and Craft enthusiast, entertained over fifty members and visitors at the meeting on November 18th with a highly informative and interesting talk about the life and work of Ernest Gimson, aThe War Memorial was designed by Ernest Gimsonnd Ernest and Sidney Barnsley in the Cotswolds. They came to this area of Gloucestershire to escape from the industrial conurbatio

The War Memorial was designed by Ernest Gimsonns with which they were familiar and the rural Cotswolds were hugely influential on their designs.

The three men were all architects as well as craftsmen and designed their own houses in Sapperton as well as many other

buildings in the area. They employed many craftsmen and were able to use local expertise to aid them. Gimson carried out some decorative plasterwork at Upper Dorval House in Sapperton for Ernest Barnsley which was inspired by the C16 ceilings at Daneway house.

Eventually the partnership broke down, but they all continued to work in the area and there are many small local buildings which s

how examples of their influence.

Dave showed many pictures of their work, several examples of which are on show in Cheltenham Museum and Art Gallery. Unfortunately the Arts and Crafts Gallery has just closed for refurbishment, but FHS is planning a visit to Rodmarton Manor in the Spring for members. Ernest Barnsley designed the manor house which took over twenty years to complete Barnsley. The work at Rodmarton was continued after Ernest Barnsleys death in 1926 by his brother Sidney who died later the same year, and the project was then completed by Norman Jewson who was Ernest’s son-in -law. See Plan and signature below.

Plans for the War MemorialThe Plans signed by Gimson

In 1919 Ernest Gimson designed Fairford’s War Memorial originally intended for the Market Place, he died suddenly a few weeks later. The work was supervised by Norman Jewson and the cross made in Fairford by Farmer Bros, stonemasons. It was dedicated in 1920.

Peter Waals, who worked closelyy with Ernest Gimson and carried on the workshops at Daneway after Gimson’s death and subsequently Hallidays Mill at Chalford, married a Fairford girl, Ruby Dora Bryan daughter of a Fairford draper in Fairford Church in 1903.

If you would like to learn more about the Arts and Crafts Movement in the Cotwolds, please see below:
http://gimson.leicester.gov.uk/
http://www.owlpen.com/gimson.shtml
http://www.barnsley-furniture.co.uk/superbasket/
Gimson and the Barnsleys by Mary Comino. Evans Bros. 1980
By chance I did rove by Norman Jewson.. Privately published. 3rd ed 1973
Cotswolds arts and craft architecture by Catherine Gordon. Phillimore 2009
The arts and crafts movement in the Cotswolds by Mary Greensted. Alan Sutton. 1996

September 16th 2010: Swing Riots 1830

Thresher

On November 26th 1830 over one hundred agricultural workers stormed through Fairford with the intent to destroy ‘thrashing machines’. At workshops of John Savory and Richard Rose they caused about £85 worth of damage each and a chaff-cutting machine worth £3 was destroyed at the home of Joseph Jenkyns. Seventeen men were arrested and four of them were later sentenced to transportation to Australia. Similar events had been happening throughout neighbouring counties and on up to Norfolk. The government, after initially ignoring the events, decided to act quickly and rioters were tried and convicted all within the space of six months. The events were called the ‘Swing Riots’ as threatening letters signed by a fictitious ‘Captain Swing’ had been sent to the owners of thrashing machines. At this time most southern English agricultural workers were suffering from serious hardship; they were poorly paid, the cost of bread and rents were high, there had been two poor harvests, and increasing mechanisation reduced the amount of paid work available, particularly threshing which was the main task during the winter. This drove the men to this action.

Those that could be identified during the riot in Fairford were arrested and charged. Three men from Fairford were sentenced to seven years transportation: John Mitchell, Robert Cowley and Christopher Ponting, a fourth, Isaac Boulton, was also convicted but his sentence commuted.

Jill Chambers, the author of a series of county-based books who has been studying the subject for 25 years, gave an extremely interesting and informative account of the wider picture and the specific events in Fairford – see her website www.swingriotsriotersblacksheepsearch.com for further details and her book Gloucestershire Machine Breakers, a new edition of which is coming out soon.

FHS were very pleased to welcome two great-great-grandchildren of Christopher Ponting who made a special visit from Sussex to attend this meeting and afterwards presented FHS with a copy of the Ponting Family Tree.

From the Gloucestershire Archives
From the Gloucestershire Archives

June 17th 2010: AGM and Concorde

At the AGM on June 17th the Committee was elected as previously. Doug Newton gave an interesting talk. He was part of the Concorde Flight Testing team at RAF Fairford and is now the mainstay of the Concorde Association. Members enjoyed information from ‘behind the scenes’ and nostalgic photographs of a triumph of British engineering. The short film at the end of the talk was especially enjoyable as a reminiscence of the world’s most aesthetic aircraft.

Celebration of the completion of the restoration of St Mary’s Church windows June 11-14 2010

As part of the weekend of celebrations FHS mounted ‘A history of the Church’ exhibition which took place in the Heritage Room of the Community Centre. This recorded the historical timeline of the Church plus and other information and artifacts from the FHS Archive. Edwin Cuss supplied pictures of the 28 medieval glass windows in black and white taken by Henry Taunt in the late Nineteenth/early Twentieth century plus Church events that had taken place through out the years. See the Church Website.

Church ExhibitionA very interesting item was the ‘Fairford Booke’ lent by Gloucestershire Archives with permission of the Fairford Church Lands Charity.The book consists of copies of 17th Century legal documents relating to Fairford land transactions including church and charity lands (enfeoffments).The earliest document is dated 1601 and the book contains many references to Fairford people from 400 years ago including the Barkers, the Oldisworths, the Bettertons, and the Gearings. Several pieces of land are mentioned including Beane Lands and Swann Fields in Fairford and Butler’s Court in Lechlade.

Also on display were pictures of former vicars, one of whom, the Rev Loxley was portrayed in a particularly languid pose and many of the visitors thought that the present vicar ought to be similarly photograpVicarshed!

February 18th 2010: Ashmoleum Museum

At the February meeting Jude Barrett, an Education Officer from Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, talked to the society about their £61 million redevelopment project. The presentation covered a brief history of the museum and details of the refurbishment and also illuminated some of the highlights of their collections and the new ways in which they are presented.

The museum was first opened in 1683 to house the collection of Elias Ashmole, which consisted of his own original acquisitions and those of John Tradescant and son of the same name. The collection grew with additions from many sources until it was split in the late-19th Century with art and antiquities remaining in the Ashmolean on its present site.

Historically, the fabric of the museum and the things in it was shaped by Ashmole’s bequest and subsequent donations. However, the refurbishment has allowed the museum to be reshaped to fit the new display strategy of ‘Crossing Cultures, Crossing Time’. To achieve this, exhibits on the lower ground floor illustrate objects and activities common to different cultures. Following this the ground floor represents the Ancient World of Europe, China and North Africa. The first floor illustrates Asian Crossroads: Eastern Art, artifacts from India, the Islamic Middle East and the Mediterranean area. The second floor explores the topic West meets East, including European ceramics, Renaissance and Baroque art, more items from Japan and China and the ‘England 400–1600’ room where some of the items excavated from Fairford’s Anglo-Saxon Cemetery are displayed. The third floor houses modern art.

The museum’s frontispiece, the Cockerell Building built in 1845, and which also houses the University’s Modern Languages Faculty (the Taylorian), has not been replaced. A new building designed by architect Rick Mather has replaced other buildings added piecemeal over the museum’s long history. Excavation of the site allowed the basement level area to expand and, with the new building works completed, the floor space of the museum has greatly increased.

The redevelopment provided an opportunity for the site to be examined by Oxford Archaeology who uncovered some medieval pottery and waste pits. The refurbishment began in 2004 with museum items being placed in storage, which has provided an opportunity for conservation work to take place. Internal and external demolition followed from 2006 leading to the Museum’s ten-month closure before reopening in November 2009. Jude’s presentation highlighted the difficulties of construction and access in a city centre site. She also spoke about the new state-of-the-art environmentally controlled display cabinets designed to aid the conservation of exhibits.

Part of the Anglo-Saxon display including brooches from Fairford
Part of the Anglo-Saxon display including brooches from Fairford

The speaker’s highlights of the museum included:
the clay pithos with octopus design excavated from Knossos, Crete;
Powhatan’s Mantle, a deerskin decorated with shells that belonged to the father of Pocahontas; an early Cycladic figurine thought to be a votive offering;
Paolo Uccello’s Hunt in the forest an early renaissance painting demonstrating the use of perspective.

The speaker also brought replicas of Anglo-Saxon items the Alfred Jewel and the Cuddesdon Bowl which were passed around the room. The Museum anticipates the opening of study rooms with accessible storage of items, such as those from Fairford, that are not on general display.

The presentation was very informative and whetted the appetite of those in the audience for a trip to Oxford.

Further information
Ashmolean
Ashmolean – wikipedia

 

Part of the interior of the newly refurbished Ashmolean Museum
Part of the interior of the newly refurbished Ashmolean Museum
Zeus from Artemision (c.470) statue
Zeus from Artemision (c.470) statue
Runestone from Sweden
Runestone from Sweden

OP 6: Searching for Thomas

by Chris Hobson (FHS Occasional Paper No 6)
Click here to download OP6 Searching for Thomas paper

Thomas Morton was a curate of Fairford for Francis William Rice (5th Baron Dynevor) for almost three decades from 1851 to 1879. This paper traces the life of Thomas using a number of information research tools as an illustration of the wide variety of family and local history resources that are now available to the researcher. Continue reading “OP 6: Searching for Thomas”

OP 5: A Christmas Railway Tragedy

by Chris Hobson (FHS Occasional Paper No 5)
Click here to download A Christmas Railway tragedy

On Christmas Eve in 1874 a mother and her two children caught the train from Fairford station for a festive holiday in the West Midlands. Sadly, they never completed their journey. This occasional paper tells the story of one of the most dreadful accidents in British railway history.