“Maney cold Nights in your Woods and Plantations”
Written as part of Amy Johnson Crow’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks” challenge. This week’s topic: Work
William Kent (1801-1879), my 3G great grandfather, and his son, Edward (1834-1877) were gamekeepers. In the 1841 census William was described as a “woodman”, someone who worked in an estate wood, felling old trees for sale, pruning misshapen ones, planting new saplings etc. Later both William and Edward were recorded as gamekeepers.
The Woodman’s Return engraved by John Whessell 1780 (from woodsrunnersdiary.blogspot.com)
William lived with his family, at Box Common, Tilehurst, Berkshire. The manor house in Tilehurst, was for many years the home of the Blagrave family, whose members include the mathematician, John Blagrave, and the regicide, Daniel Blagrave.
The present Calcot Park was built by John Blagrave in 1755 and the family lived there for two centuries. It is a splendid seven bay, two storey red brick house with a beautiful pilastered facade and portico. The surrounding park once had herds of fallow deer.
Calcot Park, TIlehurst, Berkshire
While I cannot be sure that William worked for Colonel Blagrave, a news account in 1855 demonstrates that Edward certainly did.
Edward Kent, gamekeeper to Colonel Blagrave caught poachers with fish from Holy Brook at Tilehurst on April 22.
Reading Mercury 05 May 1855
Working for the landed gentry involved a rare degree of mobility compared to other rural workers, and ten years later the Kent family were at Bere Wood, Bere Regis, in Dorset, and both William and Edward were described as gamekeepers.
A view of Bere Wood found on Google maps, taken by Warwick Powell - Apr 2019
After William’s wife Elizabeth died in 1853, he wandered from place to place, finding work where he could. Edward, on the other hand, returned to Tilehurst for a short time and then moved, with his new wife Mary Ann Joy, to Monks Kirby, in Warwickshire, where their first child was born in 1856. The main estate in Monks Kirby is Newnham Paddox, home of the Earls of Denbigh.
Newnham Paddox http://www.lostheritage.org.uk/houses/lh_warwickshire_newnhampaddox_info_gallery.html (demolished 1952)
Two years later they had moved again to Wychnor in Staffordshire. Here Edward worked at Wychnor Park, “a handsome mansion, seated in a beautiful park of 300 acres, on the north bank of the Trent.” [From History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire, William White, Sheffield, 1851], a manor belonging to John Levett Esq.
Wychnor Hall, seen from across the River Trent.
Darren Tennant https://www.flickr.com/photos/daza_t/2618954199
The occupation of gamekeeper was in transition in the mid-nineteenth century and came to have “a special status within the rural community, outranking the local tenant farmers and the village schoolmaster.” The gamekeeper’s work could include breeding and training dogs, minding a herd of deer and raising pheasants, and he would need to be skilled at killing vermin, mending nets and snares, as well as being both a good shot and a gunsmith. In short, game keeping became a highly skilled profession.
And there were very real privileges. They received not only an annual salary, but a free cottage often with a smallholding attached as well as firewood. They were expected to wear a uniform, too, “consisting of a top hat, a green velveteen frock coat, leather breeches, leggings and boots,” all provided by the employer. And by the 1850s the gamekeeper were allowed to carry a shotgun.
The gamekeeper’s cottage would have been on the estate, not in the village. This is the path from the village to the estate, and I imagine my great great grandmother Mary Ann, walking along here often, with the 3 children.
The gamekeeper had a unique relationship with his employer, for he accompanied his master and others on a hunt. He was there to share his knowledge of the land and the whereabouts of game, but he was also a ‘minder.’
“Don’t forget the sandwich case,” admonished one gamekeeper’s manual, “and the flask of brandy, to hand to the gentlemen, when their nerves get a little affected.”
On the other hand the ‘comforts’ of the shoot were outweighed by the discomfort of night patrols. One Thomas Delahay complained to his master of lying out on
“Maney cold Nights in your Woods and Plantations Wen the Rest of your Servants Ware a Bed.” [1]
On the other hand, the gamekeeper would have had uneasy relationships in the village. Country people relied on catching game for food and income and did not accept that it was the property of the landowner. This led to battles between keepers and poachers resulting in injuries, even occasionally deaths, on both sides.
“[F]ew were more unloved than the gamekeeper. He would have been regularly damned at the village alehouse”
He had the power to search cottages, and would bring poachers before the local justice of the peace where ‘justice’ was often summary.[2] And it could be the case that
"the abuse lavished upon [gamekeepers] as a class often, it is to be feared, was too well deserved.”
Quotes from P.B.Munsche, “The Gamekeeper and English Rural Society, 1660-1830” in The Journal of British Studies, Vol 20 No.2 (Spring 1981) p.103.
How did gamekeepers get their positions? What explained the mobility of the Kent family, from Berkshire to Dorset, to Staffordshire and Warwickshire. According to David Jones (Gamekeeping, an illustrated history, Quiller 2014): While many positions were found by word of mouth, and sons would follow their fathers, as Edward did William, and some families remained on the same estate for several generations, during the early 19th century gamekeepers began to migrate, for experience or promotion. A landowner with several properties would transfer his keepers from one estate to another - being ‘from away’ meant that the keeper was unlikely to be too closely connected to local folk.
Gamekeepers were not likely to be popular in the village, having to arrest their neighbors, and quite likely to be on the receiving end of violence.
Derbyshire Advertiser and Journal 11 February 1859 and Derby Mercury 16 February 1859
Edward Kent, gamekeeper of Wichnor caught trespasser
Norfolk News 01 October 1864
Edward Kent, assistant gamekeeper, apprehended trespasser in pursuit of game on land at Bridgham, Norfolk, occupied by Hon C.S. Clements. Staffordshire Advertiser 20 November 1869
Staffordshire Advertiser 20 November 1869
Edward Kent and two other gamekeepers in the employ of Lord Vernon of Sudbury, Derbyshire, were assaulted by nine poachers on land occupied by Mr. William Ball.
Nottingham Journal 15 July 1872 – the court case which followed the 1869 affair
Poaching affray at Sudbury. Edward Kent, assistant gamekeeper to Lord Vernon, stated that he had been with the last witness on the night in question, when there were stones thrown at him; he was beaten with bludgeons and sticks, and kicked very badly.
Not an easy life for all its privileges.
Sources:
David Jones, Gamekeeping, an illustrated history, Quiller 2014
Richard Jeffries, The Gamekeeper At Home (1948). This is combined into one volume with The Amateur Poacherin the Oxford University Press, 1978 edition.
P.B.Munsche, “The Gamekeeper and English Rural Society, 1660-1830” in The Journal of British Studies, Vol 20 No.2 (Spring 1981) p.103.