Religion > Churches, Mosques, Synagogues and Temples

St Mary Magdalene's Church, Stockbury

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grandarog:
I may be wrong and stand to be corrected if so.
As far as I am aware in the old jobs recorded on Censii ,an Agg Lab. was a floating Farm worker who was not directly in the employ of one Farmer with little security or continuity of work.
 A Farm Wkr. or Farm Lab. had a permanent position with a Farm and probably a tithe cottage that went with the job.

johnfilmer:
Meanwhile, back at Stockbury...

I've had a look at some of the records that these names produced. It has been (as my old business advisor used to love to say) a quick and dirty rather than a slow and deeply considered operation.
There are a couple of points that seem slightly odd, firstly the date, 19th September 1889, as I have already mentioned is a Thursday. Secondly I am pretty sure that some of them were no longer of that parish, so a meeting of some past as well as current ringers seems a possibility. Could this explain the excess of ringers over bells?
I checked the Stockbury parish registers for births, marriages and deaths associated with the meeting date, but found nothing obvious. However many young men would take brides from other parishes, so an impending wedding is more difficult to track.

With only an initial rather than a christian name some of the identities are really speculation, especially when there were so many of that family, such the Hales, Hughes and others. The W Hales at the top of the list would, I presume, be the most important person, and if William, he would have been 68 years old. If so he was father to Charles and John Shirley Hales, and their older brothers Robert and Lawrence, which fits the list. Maybe he was passing on leadership of the group?
Whenever I look at local records chasing after obscure forebears I usually find a Clinch in the mix, and there is a J Clinch. I think that he was John, born in Stockbury in 1872, married at Milton on Dec 24th 1898 to Rose Mount, and in 1901 was living in Mill lane, Borden, next door to a George and Rhoda Clinch, who had been witnesses at this marriage. A little puzzled by that address it turns out to be the A2 end of what is now Borden Lane. This puts him very close to Walter Alexander in Victoria Road, just around the end of the road.
Also of note is that Herbert Pepper eventually married one Minnie Clinch.
Most of the group are, like the usual rural worker, described as either agricultural labourer, or farm worker. An interesting distinction that may have lost its meaning. The terms are used repeatedly on the same Census page, so its unlikely to mean exactly the same at that time. Others are farmers, by which I presume they worked their land for themselves rather than for others.

C Seagar could have been Cephas Seagar, born 1859, and is listed as a Grocer. He lived next to the Vicarage.
So I have not found why a group of mainly young men were writing their names on the backs of the panelling on what I suspect was a September evening. The church is not in the village itself and a gloomy walk back home awaited.
I will revisit this in a while, I often find mistakes and ommisions on a subsequent review.

MartinR:
(OT) A "grab" is a slightly dismissive term for a quick visit to a tower just to add it to your list of towers you've rung at.  More of a 20C phenomenon with the coming of motorised transport.  It's only churches with a ground-floor (or mezzanine) ring that you can really hear the bells (and then only if the blessed organist is kept under control).*  Upstairs ringing chambers are rarely heard or if so only quietly, the purpose of the bells is to announce to the world outside, not so much to those inside.

*You should ring by sound and not so much by sight.  There are blind ringers but no deaf ones!  I've rung from the ground floor for a wedding, and the striking was awful until the organist finished!

johnfilmer:
Not a ringer myself MartinR, but my late brother in law was first in Blisworth, Northamptonshire, then Winchcombe, Gloucestershire. I witnessed a couple of “away” ringings, were they called tower grabs?


His daughter rang with him and she still does, in and around Perth Australia. She was a guide to a tower there at one time. Her (English) partner is also a (serious) ringer.


As a choirboy many, many years ago we occasionally witnessed bell ringing practice, but avoided it if possible, too darn noisy! That was St Mary, Newington next Sittingbourne.

MartinR:
Currently they have no practice night listed, bu then we are 140 years, two world wars and a couple of pandemics later!
Ringers are a sociable lot and often try to visit other towers.  Perhaps the four lads walked or cycled over from Sittingbourne for practice night, a trip to the pub and a down-hill/flat cycle back home.  Quite a nice evening out.
BTW John, are you a ringer?

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