Village life in West Dorset

Who Were We? is the fourth village book researched and written under the management of Village Voices, a voluntary group that uses the arts as tools for community development.

Village Voices was set up in Drimpton in 1999 in response to a village-wide survey, and in the past 10 years it has delivered a range of projects.

Among these have been two long-term ventures, Land Marks and Building Bridges.

These large-scale projects set out to deal positively with the many changes brought about by major house-building in our rural community.

The starting point of Who Were We? was John and Mary Chubb, agricultural labourers who also worked at the local flax mill for a time.

Very little is known about them, but author Andrew Pastor felt it was important to include them because they stand for the ‘everyman’ of 150 years ago.

“Theirs was one of the most decodeable gravestones in the parish church and the name Chubb has a very local echo,” he said.

“They stand for so many people. They were agricultural labourers who lived in the community for more than 75 years of their longer lives. But they were part of one of the core families of the community.

“Today, rural communities in West Dorset are pretty cute and cosy places, full of people who have retired and are looking for a comfortable life,” added Andrew.

“They’re not places of work or places of struggle, unlike rural communities 150 years ago where people were living labouring or in the case of the Chubbs, working in the flax mill.

“They did not leave evidence of their lives behind, unless it was their birth date or death date – maybe they won the village ploughing competition or suffered a tragedy, or needed to seek poor relief. So many people in the story are imageless.”

However, the middle classes – the tenant farmer, parish officials, curate and school minister – did leave evidence of their life, whether photographic or written.

“The Rev Francis Pareham is what I would call a ‘good egg’,” said Andrew. “He was parish curate from 1869 to 1883 and very socially aware. He wanted to do the best by people and set up a cricket club and entertainments.”

Not all the poor kept to the shadows of rural life though.

In 1875, Childhay milkmaid Elizabeth Crann gave birth to an illegitimate child whose father was Edward Wright, the son of the Childhay farmer who employed Miss Crann.

Edward had recently married and his wife, Mary, gave birth a month earlier than Elizabeth. In normal circumstances a young lass in Elizabeth’s situation would have had to put up and shut up.

But Elizabeth was made of stern stuff and she took Edward to court, looking for financial redress. Amazingly for those times, the court found in her favour and her wrongful seducer was forced to pay three shillings a week for 13 years plus costs.

“It is an astounding story,” said Andrew. “She pointed a finger at a parish bigwig whose father ran the biggest local farm – where she worked. Yet the tribunal, made up of people far above her in society, found for her – so what does that tell us about the defendant?”

What the Bridport News of the time tells us is that three months after the case the Wright family sold up and moved to New Zealand.

Life was hard for most living in rural Dorset 150 years ago. But how would we have fitted in?

“They would have had bare floors, flagstones, maybe some wood burning in the grate, but there would be single-glazed windows, damp, chill and shot thatch,” said Andrew.

“Would you settle for that life if you could have a choice property and a comfortable lifestyle? I think that most of us today are so much more comfortable and at ease with our lives than those people were. Yes, they had fun, but life was a struggle and many of them were living quite close to poverty.”

Who Were We? costs £14.95 and is published by Village Voices. Visit whowerewe.org