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.