Felbridge & District History Group

Women’s Opportunities in Felbridge as a consequence of World War I

It had been our intention to discuss the Women’s Farm & Garden Association of Wiremill within the Handout, Felbridge Remembers their War Heroes, Pt. 3, published in 2017, as it was created as a direct result of the opportunities that had been afforded women during World War I through the necessity to use women in agricultural roles that had previously been the domain of male only workers.  However, it was felt that the story of the Women’s Farm & Garden Association of Wiremill, together with the many other single women that moved to the Felbridge area to pursue their interest in agriculture and horticulture after World War I, would provide more than enough material for a handout in its own right.  As such the story of the Women’s Farm & Garden Association of Wiremill is now included as part of the story of women’s opportunities in Felbridge that arose as a consequence of World War I.

 

Setting the Scene

At the turn of the 20^th century, with war looming, the British Red Cross and the Order of St John of Jerusalem were tasked with raising units of voluntary helpers, primarily trained in First Aid and nursing.   With the outbreak of war, the two organisations combined to form the Joint War Committee creating Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs) to administer the most effective, efficient and economical wartime relief work.  Women answered the call, working not only in Britain but also in many countries within war-torn Europe.  In 1915, in response to the falling numbers of men in Britain, a General Service section was established in which women were trained in a variety of jobs traditionally held by men and in 1917 the Women’s Land Army was established to help with food production, both actions opened up new opportunities for women resulting in a complete change in the dynamics of the British workforce for ever.

 

Local Voluntary Aid Detachments

As early as 1909, the British Red Cross had been organising units called Voluntary Aid Detachments to train volunteers in First Aid and nursing; their members being known as VADs.  In 1911, the Duke of Norfolk is known to have visited FelbridgePark to inspect the activities of a local group of VADs and during WWI, field training in stretcher-bearing, field hospital work and nursing was conducted under the direction of Clara Blount of Imberhorne.   During WWI, a large number of VADs cared for the sick and wounded soldiers shipped back to Auxiliary Hospitals and Convalescent Homes in Britain and several large properties in the local area were commandeered for this use, including Felbridge Park, The Lodge at Great Frenches Park, Snow Hill and Stildon House, London Road, East Grinstead [for further information see Handout, Felbridge Remembers their World War I Heroes, Pt. 2, SJC 09/16].

 

Women’s Farm & Garden Union, Women’s National Land Service Corps and Women’s Land Army

The Women’s Farm & Garden Union (WFGU), so named in 1910, was originally founded in 1899 as the Agricultural and Horticultural International Union (AHIU).  The objectives of the WFGU were to unite all professional land workers and those interested in outdoor work for women into a strong central association, to help and advise land workers on all matters connected with their profession and to influence public opinion in everything concerning women workers on the land.  In 1910, to help facilitate women becoming professional land workers, the WFGU established an Education Committee that was responsible for administering training and examinations in practical gardening and poultry management for women.  

 

With the outbreak of World War I, Mrs Louisa Wilkins, a founder member of the AHIU, realised that with the number of men volunteering to serve their country there would soon be a shortage of labour on the land [for further information see Handout, Felbridge Remembers their War Heroes, Pt. 3, JIC/SJC 07/17] and as a result of this foresight, the Women’s National Land Service Corps (NLSC) was launched that offered women training and work placements on the land.  Mrs Louisa Wilkins appealed to all women and girls between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five to consider whether they were doing the right war work, ‘whether, for instance, it was the most suitable for them to be engaged in putting sugar into cups of tea for Tommies’ or whether they should be engaged in providing food for a country that was about to run out of supplies.  The NLSC also went into small country towns and appealed to middle-class women, female relations of the local doctors, solicitors and merchants to assist on the land, thus providing, potentially for the first time, a workforce of intelligent and well educated individuals, backed up by some agricultural training, who had the aptitude to learn on the job.     

 

The voluntary organisation was so successful that it was eventually taken over by the Board of Agriculture in 1917, establishing the Women’s Land Army (WLA) [for further information see Handout, Felbridge Remembers their World War I Heroes, Pt. 2, SJC 09/16]; the WFGU being still involved as an agency to recruit labour and as a provider of practical training and help in the from of articles and leaflets giving advice on a range of agricultural activities; the following being two examples:

INEXPENSIVE FODDER – A Wrinkle from Italy (1914)

Every one has seen horses, when left waiting for rider or driver, under trees, stretching out to reach the nearest bough and munching contentedly at the leaves, till (all too soon) the master appears and tugs away the unwilling servant with opprobrium. As a child one wondered why and was told the leaves were unwholesome. A child once asked how it was that trees in a park or in fields near a house were so regularly grown and level under the boughs, as if trimmed neatly to that shape. The reply was that the horses and cows had grazed on all they could reach. Then, why, this inquisitive child inquired of itself, was the mare whipped yesterday because she nibbled at the hedge when waiting at the gate in the trap? There was no war "on" then; oats and good hay were plentiful. But now owners of horses and cows may be glad to learn that leaves are a wholesome, natural and desirable food for their beasts, and should be utilized for winter fodder as is done in Italy.

 

This refers, of course, to the leaves of deciduous trees — none of the so-called evergreens or firs being at all suitable or wholesome. Not only may leaves be given while fresh, but they should be dried for winter food.  They must be cut in September or October, according to the season, at the time they are about to take on their autumn colouring. At that period they are at their sweetest; after that they become too dry for the purpose.

 

On fine dry days in Italy they beat down the leaves with poles in the morning, let them lie to wither till evening, then get them under shelter before the dews come on. Or boughs are cut, when trees are not too valuable, hung up to dry and then stored in dry, airy places; tied together in bundles. When used they are put in racks for the cattle to strip off" the leaves for themselves, and the wood remaining serves for firing. The leaves which were knocked down are stored when dry in barrels or in trenches dug for the purpose, and weighted down with stones or covered with sand. Thus a sort of ensilage is formed, which has cost very little and is liked by the animals, especially if a little salt is added.

 

Analysts say elm leaves thus treated are equal in value to lucerne. These leaves boiled are fed to pigs in Italy. The cattle like ash, but it is better not given to milking cows, as it flavours the milk unpleasantly. Calves may have them, also bullocks and sheep. Hornbeam and birch are quite good for use in this way, and the coarse growing alder to be found everywhere on damp waste ground is good and greedily eaten when dried, though refused when fresh.

 

Willows, poplar, hazelnut, beech and lime are all useful in this way; oak leaves can be mixed with others, but are not readily eaten by themselves unless no other fodder is obtainable.

 

Now, about one hundred years ago Lancashire farmers regularly lopped the boughs of ash trees to feed their cattle in autumn, this being evidently the last place where the thrifty old custom survived. Long before it was the general rule, for in Queen Elizabeth's time a protest was raised against the increasing number of forges, to heat which brushwood and tree loppings were used, thus depriving cattle of "their only winter food." This proves that some method of preserving the boughs and foliage must have been in use at that period. Why not revive it?

 

WAR-TIME FEEDING OF POULTRY (1916)

In England, poultry farmers of old standing, who supply the London wholesale markets, say they must give up, and kill their birds, since food of a nature to foster egg-production, is not to be had, or only at famine rates.  Under these circumstances we asked Miss Gillett to say how her silage answered for food for laying hens, and, as is always the case, her reply is to the point, practical and helpful.

 

"In answer to your inquiries, my hens have had silage in their mash all winter, mixed with boiled meat, fish meal, middlings [the coarser particles of ground wheat mingled with bran] and mixed swedes or mangolds. They eat about two pounds per day to ten head, but I have not found it takes the place of corn to any appreciable extent, except that in addition to the silage, the hens like a considerable amount of cabbage, and of course it all lowers the cost of rations besides keeping the flock healthy. About two hundred of my older hens (three to five years old) were wintered for three months without any grain food. They had the above mash and a hopper of dry bran always available, and I was surprised to find that they came on to lay almost as well as the youngest birds that were having grain. For several years I have tried to rear chicks on as much bulky food and as little grain as possible, in order to be able to feed them with sufficient green food in after life; it seems to result in the chickens maturing more slowly, but they are profitable to keep over four laying seasons. For this reason I do not know whether my methods will answer for other flocks. We seem to require a breed of hens that can eat more green food, something on the line of the grazing pig. My birds are not allowed more than one and one-half ounces of grain per head in the height of the laying season, but I do not think my egg-yield is as high as on some farms; it is sufficiently high to make a dependable source of income. I have nearly 1,100 birds, of which rather less than a quarter are 1916 hatched, and we are getting about 600 eggs per day (April 26).

 

"Cutting off grain entirely will make a serious drop in the output, and I know from experience that increasing the meat ration to make up for the grain deficiency results in disaster. Probably we shall be able to get bran and middlings all through the summer while cattle are at grass, and at harvest there will be stubble corn. If I can obtain seed buckwheat, I hope to grow some in a field that ought to be fallowed. It is sown late in May and can be followed by a wheat crop. It is almost the sole poultry grain in some districts in France. Meanwhile I have drilled a half-acre with peas and oats, which will be cut green and chaffed for the mash. I do this every year and the hens do well on it. I also intend to experiment with a very little cod-liver oil in the mash, as it may possibly replace economically some of the carbohydrates of the grain feeds, by supplying fat for the yolk in a more direct form."

 

In February 1918, again to help educate women land workers, the WFGU opened a residential club at 81, Upper Baker Street.  Any woman working for a salary on the land could become a member for a subscription of 5/- a year, which would afford them all the advantages of the club including their library giving them access to the reading-room where members could consult reference and educational books on all aspects of the land.    

 

By 1918, more than 113,000 WLA women, known as ‘Land Girls’, were employed in every aspect of agriculture from food production, which included dairying, poultry and horticulture, to the maintenance of the land itself.  With the end of World War I, life in the countryside began to return to normality and men began to drift back from service.  This inevitably created a ‘redundant’ female workforce, a workforce of empowered women, many of them highly educated, who had enjoyed an alternative area of employment to that which had been open to them prior to the War, for example ‘service’ for the lower class women and ‘staying at home’ for the middle and upper class women.  In 1919, the Land Settlement (Facilities) Act was passed that allowed County Councils to purchase (with government assistance) land that was to be leased initially to ex-servicemen wishing to set up a smallholding, although the Act was quickly amended to also include ex-Land Army women who had served on the land for more than six months.  By 1922, some 16,500 ex-servicemen had taken up the offer but very few women.  However, there had been a few independent experiments and as early as 1917 the WFGU had been looking into the feasibility of women’s smallholding colonies or settlements and in 1920 after much searching for a suitable location, this idea was brought to fruition in Felbridge with the purchase of land in the Wiremill area.

 

The WFGU had clear ideas on how these pioneering settlements of women smallholders should operate.  In their view there was a need to supply small income cottages, each with an attached piece of land on which trained women could cultivate.  The WFGU felt that the cottages should be built in pairs, with each settlement being made up of between six and eight cottages, the settlement operating as a co-operative.  It was expected that tenants would buy and sell services amongst themselves, creating an interdependent community as the WFGU felt it made sound economic sense for one tenant to be in charge of, for example, horse power, another in charge of a dairy herd from which another would buy milk to make butter and cheese, whilst others would be in charge of poultry keeping and running market and fruit gardens.  The EFGU even considered the problem of appropriate clothing and in 1921 set up an outfit department to enable women to buy smaller sized clothes including boots, shoes, overalls and breeches in smaller sizes that were not available to purchase elsewhere.

 

Women’s Farm & Garden Association of Wiremill

The Women’s Farm & Garden Union, who in 1921 became the Women’s Farm & Garden Association (WFGA), purchased part of the Wiremill area (once part of the Felbridge estate) on 29^th September 1920 to create a women’s smallholding settlement.

 

The following is split into 7 sections covering various aspects of the WFGU/WFGA initiative at Wiremill.  Section 1 covers the purchase of part of the Wiremill estate, considered to be the ideal location by the WFGU on which to establish a settlement of women smallholders, known locally as the ‘Lingfield Colony’ (not to be confused with the Lingfield Colony established in 1897 by the religious charity, the Christian Social Service Union, for teaching agricultural skills to men with learning or physical disabilities, which has now evolved as St Piers School, Dormansland, Surrey, a centre for children with epilepsy and other neurological conditions).  Section 2 covers the development of the settlement and the provision of accommodation.  Section 3 covers the women’s smallholder settlement at Wiremill in its heyday.  Section 4 covers the decline in involvement of the WFGA and the outcome of the settlement at Wiremill.  Section 5 covers some of the pioneering women smallholders of the Wiremill settlement.  Section 6 covers women associated with the settlement at Wiremill who were not necessarily under the umbrella of the WFGA, and finally the last section highlights some of the other women who moved to the Felbridge area and grasped the opportunity to become smallholders and work the land as a direct consequence of World War I.

 

The Ideal Location – Wiremill

The land that the WFGU decided to purchase for the establishment of a settlement of women smallholders was part of what had been Wiremill Farm, once part of the Felbridge estate, which had initially been put up for auction by the East Grinstead Estate Company Ltd. on 25^th May 1911, as Lot 35 (for further information see Handout, Woodcock alias Wiremill, SJC 03/06). 

1911 Schedule for Lot 35

The only plots that sold were plots 60, 90, 91 and 93, purchased by Major Alexander Stewart Crum.  The unsold land was retained by the East Grinstead Estate Company and leased to Henry Smeed.  However, circa 1912 a second attempt was made to sell off land in the Wiremill area, this time as Lot 7.

1912 Schedule for Lot 7

Here there is a slight anomaly as the total acreage should add up to 116.507, but it was listed in the sale catalogue as 103.623.  It is known that Major Alexander Stewart Crum purchased plot 143 on which he built a dwelling house called Wire Mill House circa 1912, with three sitting rooms, eight bedrooms and central heating. So it is possible that either he purchased plot 143 at the same time as the plots purchased in Lot 35 in 1911, or he purchased it between the two auctions and the plot was not removed from the second schedule, although the acreage was.  However, in 1914, yet another attempt was made by the East Grinstead Estate Company Ltd. to sell off the remaining Wiremill area, again as Lot 7 [for further information see Handout, Woodcock alias Wiremill, SJC 03/06]. 

1914 Schedule for Lot 7

In the 1914 auction much of the remaining Lot 7 was purchased by four people.  Major Alexander Stewart Crum increased his interests in the area with the purchase plot 127, the roadway, mill, stores and a hut, the farm and buildings at Wire Mill; plot 103, the cottage and garden (known as The Cottage in the Woods, later The Old Cottage/Old Cottage, more recently as Ben Ezra and now known as Mill End House); and plots 124, 144, 145, 148, 150 and 151, the mill pond and adjoining marshland and part of plot 123.  The freehold arable plots 101 and 102, plus plot 126, together with the house, cottage and other buildings on plot 125, (now called Legend, formerly Garden Cottage and before that Wire Mill Farmhouse) were jointly purchased and occupied by Misses Laura Gertrude Whitfield and Hilda Maude Ransome; the whole of the property going by the name of Garden Cottage.  Finally, the freehold land to the southeast of the lake, plots 152 and 153 were purchased by Herbert Malcolm.  However, this still left 54.49 acres of the original Wire Mill area unsold, none of which became part of the WFGU Wiremill holding.  In 1919 the remaining land was put back up for auction and much of it ended up as part of Greater Felcourt Farm [for further information see Handout, The All Electric Farm at Greater Felcourt, SJC 07/13].

 

Although plots, 101, 102, 125 and 126 were originally purchased by two women, Misses Laura Gertrude Whitfield and Hilda Maude Ransome, they do not appear to have had any connections with the WFGU and they had sold the plots to Leonard Montague Pink by 1919, who was joined by his wife Ethel Mary née Griffiths in 1920.  In 1923, the Pink’s had sold the holding to Ivy Elizabeth Gordon-Hill and, again, there is no evidence that Ivy Elizabeth Gordon-Hill had any connections with the WFGA and plots 101, 102, 125 and 126 seem to remain independent from the WFGA for the duration of the existence of the settlement of women smallholders at Wiremill, although, Elizabeth Isabel Rayner [for further information see Handout, Felbridge Women’s Institute Celebrate 90 years, SJC11/14] (whose mother’s maiden name was coincidently was Elizabeth Bell) and Ivy Elizabeth Hill (frustratingly no evidence has yet surfaced to connect this Ivy with Ivy Elizabeth Gordon-Hill and they are definitely not the same woman) who both lived at Garden Cottage between 1924 and 1936 and 1925 and 1937 respectively, do seem to have had close connections with women of the settlement.

 

Major Alexander Stewart Crum appears to have established a fruit growing concern on the land that he purchased at Wiremill, being advertised in the Kelly’s Directory, as early as 1913, as a ‘fruit grower of Wire Mill’.  Major Crum’s fruit farm covered plots 90, 91, 69, 92, 93 and at least 6½ acres of plot 143, all planted with neat rows of assorted apple trees.  Also, as mentioned above, he built a large house, called Wire Mill House, at the western end of plot 143 in which he and his family lived.  It is also believed that he had a pair of cottages, known as Wire Mill Cottages (later nos. 5 & 6, Wire Mill Cottage), built circa 1912, on 1½ acres of land at the north-eastern end of plot 143,  adjacent to the site of an old pair of outbuildings (demolished post 1961) that stood on their east side.  The pair of older outbuildings is depicted on the sale plan for FelbridgePark in 1855 so potentially had been built prior to the mid 19^th century.

 

This then is the 91-acre holding at Wiremill that the WFGU purchased from Major Alexander Stewart Crum, on 29^th September 1920, to establish their pioneering settlement of women smallholders.

 

1920 Schedule

No. on Plan	Description cultivation	Area
69	Arable (Planted as an orchard)	05.854
90	(Planted as an orchard)	11.213
91	(Planted as an orchard)	10.193
92	Pasture (Planted as an orchard)	07.554
93	(Planted as an orchard)	05.849
103	Cottage and garden (The Old Cottage, now Mill End)	00.370
123 pt.		03.930
124	Mill Pond Water	14.263
127	Mill (and associated buildings) and Occupation Road	01.267
143	Arable and House (Wire Mill House, later Wire Mill Lodge, now Wire Mill Cottage)	10.202
144	Pasture	01.635
145	Pasture	01.570
148	Rough Grass	03.234
150	Marsh and Waste (Lake Cottage and Lake View Cottage built here 1926/7)	12.780
151	Plantation	01.109
Total		91.000

 

Development of the settlement at Wire Mill and the provision of accommodation

The purchase of the estate of Wiremill was financed through loans to the WFGU made by two prominent members of the women’s suffrage movement, Miss Margaret Ashton, founder of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, who went on to join the council of the WFGA in 1926, and Miss Sydney Renee Courtauld, a member of the Courtauld textile family and supporter of the ideals of the WFGU (later WFGA).   The estate at Wiremill was selected based on the professional criteria laid out by Roland Wilkins and his wife Louisa née Jebb, champions of women smallholders, and Miss Katherine M Courtauld, an established farmer of Essex and a cousin of Sydney Renee Courtauld.   The 91-acre estate of Wiremill was considered to be ideal and consisted of 22 acres of apple orchards, arable land, woodland and a 14-acre lake, presenting prospective women smallholders with diverse agricultural and horticultural opportunities, from market gardening and fruit growing to animal husbandry and even aquatic cultivation in the form of water lilies.  Initially there was a large house, three cottages and a mill and assorted outbuildings, with good road and rail links and easy access to London markets. 

 

The WFGU envisaged that the estate would be split into 13 holdings consisting of three or four smallholdings and two or three poultry farms, with the remaining holdings devoted to fruit growing and market gardening and that Wire Mill House would be let, offering board and lodging to three or four smallholders.  Initially it was expected that prospective tenants for a smallholding plot at the Wiremill settlement would be women with previous agricultural experience and a private income of at least £25 a year, with access to additional capital that could be invested into their plot.  Along with Wire Mill House, there was also an ‘old cottage in the woods’, known as The Old Cottage (later known as Ben Ezra and known today as Mill End) [for further details see Handout, Woodcock alias Wiremill, SJC 03/06] that lay adjacent to the east side of the lake in plot 103.  This cottage was leased to Margaret Turnbull Bell (for further information see below) by 1922 and purchased by her in 1926, where she remained for the rest of her life.

 

Besides The Old Cottage, the WFGU also acquired a pair of cottages that had been built by Major Crum (later nos. 5 and 6, Wire Mill Cottage) that must have had sitting tenants, as the two cottages were occupied by Henry James and Lillian Louise Hooper and Walter Charles and Emily Ann Jewell; both couples remaining in their respective cottage until 1922.  Initially, until the idealised pairs of cottages for the women smallholders could be provided by the WFGU, the decision was made to use Wire Mill House to provide accommodation.  Thus the WFGU leased the house to Misses Edith Stella and Muriel [Mariel] Williamson, a pair of sisters who had been born in Catterick in Yorkshire, in 1875 and 1881 respectively, both of whom had trained at The Horticultural College, Swanley, during World War I.  The Misses Williamson, in turn, rented rooms to prospective women smallholders and their first recorded tenants, so potentially the first women to take up smallholding plots, were Edith Drummond Sharpe and Marjorie Wake-Walker (for further information on both women, see below) who appear in the 1921 Electoral Roll for Surrey as residing at Wire Mill House along with the Williamson sisters.

 

By 1922, 1 and 2, Wire Mill Cottage had been built, which were let to Phyllis Gertrude Mattingly (for further information see below) and Annie and Mary Clare Haly (no further information).  Phyllis remained at no.1 until 1925 when she left the settlement and moved to Roundabout Cottage at Blindley Heath, Surrey.  However, Annie and Mary Haly appear to have been shorter-term tenants as they had been succeeded at no.2 by Elizabeth Drummond Sharpe by the autumn of 1922, and she too appears to have been a short-term tenant remaining for just a couple of years before leaving in 1924.  Unfortunately it has not yet been possible to gain any further information on Elizabeth Drummond Sharpe although she could potentially be related to Edith Drummond Sharpe.

 

By 1923, 3 and 4, Wire Mill Cottage had been built and no. 3 was in the occupation of Beatrice Nevett Taylor (for further information see below) who remained at the cottage for the rest of her life.  However, based on the 1923 Electoral Rolls for Surrey, no. 4 was empty and Henry and Lillian Hooper and Walter and Emily Jewell had vacated nos. 5 and 6, thus all three cottages were without tenants.  Without the expected value of rental, the WFGA began to foresee financial difficulties on the horizon, so in 1923 they took the decision to sell off Wire Mill House, which was purchased by Frederick Charles and Elizabeth May Creak, thus the property ceased any further connection with the women’s smallholding settlement.  With the money received from the sale, the WFGA were able to finance the conversion of the old mill into two flats, initially tenanted by Edith Drummond Sharpe and Marjorie Wake-Walker before they left the settlement and moved, to Young’s Farm, later known as Cherry Tree Farm, on West Park Road, Newchapel, being replaced as tenants at Wiremill in 1924, by Hilda Mary Bates and Beatrice Mould.  However, Hilda Mary Bates had moved to 5, Wire Mill Cottage by 1925.  However, Beatrice Mould continued to live in the old mill flat until 1928 when she was joined by Hannah Tate.  Both women remained as tenants until 1929 when the decision was made by the WFHA to sell the old mill, associated buildings and lake to John F Foster of 2, Bingham Road, Addiscombe.  Thus after 1929, the old mill and lake was run as a separate entity, ceasing any further connection with the women’s smallholding settlement [for further information see Handout, Woodcock alias Wiremill, SJC 03/06].

 

The purchase and establishment of the women’s smallholding settlement at Wiremill could not have happened at a worse time with regards to the country’s economic climate.  Agricultural land prices were falling and there was a serious agricultural depression brought about by a severe drought in 1921 that affected production, coupled with a general fall in produce prices.  These issues were compounded by the fact that a large proportion of the land at Wiremill was covered with fruit trees, leaving little workable land for alternative cultivation or production.  There was also an initial high turn-over of tenants and, for periods of time, reduced tenant numbers, which consequently led to a reduced amount of revenue needed to operate the settlement with regards to repaying loans and mortgages that had been used to finance the project, the cost of general repairs and covering ‘bad debts’ that were accrued.  It was also apparent that many women did not want to live communally, preferring their own individual dwelling.  In the light of these circumstances the WFGA had to make some major changes in order for the settlement to survive.  One of these changes was to grub out some of the fruit trees, thus releasing more useable agricultural land, and the other major change was to accept married couples, on the proviso that the wife had previous agricultural knowledge and had worked on the land.

 

The first married couple, Charles Benjamin and Lillian Hilary Payne, took up residence at 4, Wire Mill Cottage in 1924 remaining there until sometime between 1925 and 1926 when Hilda Mary Bates took over the tenancy, having moved from the flat in Wire Mill.  Hilda Bates was joined by Isabel Mary and Janie Gwenllian Henson for 1926 and 1927 and then all three were succeeded by Vera Silverlock, who lived there for just one year.  Between 1930 and 1932, 4, Wire Mill Cottage was home to Cyril Howard and Edith Anne Allport, before the decision was taken to sell the property, which was purchased by Ernest Edward Borer in September 1932.  Henceforth the property was run as a separate entity, ceasing any further connection with the women’s smallholding settlement.  Ernest Borer, his wife Edith Gwendoline and son Ernest continued to live at 4, Wire Mill Cottage until at least 1986, however, they did continue the ethos of the smallholding community and ran the plot as a market garden.

 

The second married couple to be accepted to live amongst the women smallholders were John and Rose Christine Gentry, who tenanted 1, Wire Mill Cottage from 1926; before her marriage, Rose Christine Wallis had worked in the office of the WFGA.  Between 1926 and 1931 the Gentrys were joined at no.1 by Rose’s widowed motherClara Jane Wallis, until her death in 1932.  By 1933, 1, Wire Mill Cottage, had been named The Homestead and in 1934 the Gentrys purchased the property from the WFGA and were living there until at least 1949. 

 

The first and only evidence for a bad debt that had to be written off by the WFGA was accrued by Captain Reginald Arthur Pearcey who held the tenancy of 6, Wire Mill Cottage between 1925 and 1927.  Reginald had left the Indian Army in 1922 and married Kathleen Alice Williamson of SandownPark, Knock, Belfast, at the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Albury, Surrey, in November 1923.  Reginald had been born c1898 (no further details available) and Kathleen had been born in 1901 in Belfast (currently there appears to be no link between Kathleen and the afore mentioned Misses Edith Stella and Muriel Williamson).  It is not known under what circumstances Reginald moved to 6, Wire Mill Cottage, except that there was a link between either him or his wife Kathleen and Miss Margaret Turnbull Bell of The Old Cottage (see above) who was a witness at their marriage.  What is known is that by 1927, the Pearceys had moved on as the rent arrears were written off in May 1927.  The Pearceys were succeeded at 6, Wire Mill Cottage by Hilda Frances Leddell, who was another short-term tenant, followed in 1928 by sisters, Sybil and Cicely Mart (for further details on both women, see below). 

 

In 1929, Sybil Mart purchased 6, Wire Mill Cottage, living at the cottage with her sister Cicely until 1933 when Sybil moved to Orchard Poultry Farm and Cicely went to lodge for a year with the Gentrys at no. 1, before leaving the settlement.  Between 1933 and 1935, Sybil Mart is recorded as living at Orchards Poultry Farm, Wire Mill, the property known today as Orchards Corner, part of what was plot 92.  Local memories suggest that Sybil had a bungalow built at Orchard Farm in which she lived between 1933 and 1935, being joined in 1934 by Gordon Robertson Henry and his wife Margery who eventually took over the poultry farm and who were still there in 1945.  During the years that Sybil was registered at Orchards Poultry Farm, 6, Wire Mill Cottage was tenanted by a succession of tenants including, Harold John and Louisa Williams in 1933, and Ernest Frederick and Alice Horton in 1934 and 1935.  Sybil appears back at 6, Wire Mill Cottage in 1936 and 1937, but was absent from the property for several years, during which time Leonie Vier is recorded as residing at 6, Wire Mill Cottage in 1938 and 1939, and then, after the resumption of Electoral Rolls in 1945, Margaret Mather.  However, in 1951, Sybil Mart was again registered at 6, Wire Mill Cottage but had left the area by 1960.

 

The second original cottage, 5, Wire Mill Cottage, like no.6, appears to have had a short break of tenancy between the departure of the Hoopers in 1922/3 and the first WFGA tenant in 1925, when the Electoral Rolls for Surrey record the occupier as Miller Mairn Livingstone/Miller Mcgregor Livingstone (sadly no further information has been established) between 1925 and 1931.  However, a nephew of Miss Beatrice Nevett Taylor (of 3, Wire Mill Cottage) recalls that a ‘Miss Miller’ lived at no.5 for several years at the end of the 1920’s.  This Miss Miller had trained at the first women-only collegiate centre for agricultural education founded in 1898 by Frances Greville, Countess of Warwick, the course affiliated with the University Extension College, Reading, before relocating in 1903, to Studley, Warwickshire, where it flourished as an independent, private college.  The training that Miss Miller had received obviously paid off, as she quickly established a successful market garden from her plot at 5, Wire Mill Cottage that enabled her to recoup her capital investment within 2½ years.  However, Miss Miller did not stay long and accepted a post in Africa and in 1930, no.5 was taken over by Ada Adelaide Owers (for further details see below) who was joined by her parents Frederick T and Rosetta Owers who moved down from Walton-upon-Thames, Surrey.  In 1933, 5, Wire Mill Cottage was sold by the WFGA to James Denyer who was Ada’s brother-in-law, and Ada remained at the property until her death in 1942.   

 

In 1925, the WFGA was donated an ex-Army hut that was erected alongside the main London/Eastbourne road (A22) from which the women smallholders could sell their produce to passers by.  There is evidence to suggest that not only the women smallholders of Wiremill sold their produce from the hut but that it may also have been used by Miss Enid Allen of Golards Farm, which was not part of the Wiremill estate [for further information see Handout, Golards Farmhouse, SJC 11/07].  Enid Allen had practised smallholding at Golards Farm since her arrival at the farm in 1922, specialising in poultry for eggs and meat.  Local residents recall that she had a ‘small kiosk’ along side the main London/Eastbourne road (A22) initially selling eggs and poultry and that she extended her range to include cut flowers, fruit and vegetables, although this produce may have been supplied by the women smallholders of Wiremill.  Enid Allen left Golards Farm in 1928/9, and her successor, Muriel Ann Chattey, the wife of William Bernard Chattey, continued the tradition, also selling eggs, fruit and vegetables; again, the latter two products probably supplied by the women smallholders of Wiremill.  According to local residents, Muriel Chattey also ran a Tea Rooms that they recall went by the name of the Yellow Teapot that was later taken over by her daughter Anne Coutts, being re-named Golard’s Barn Café. 

 

However, the minutes of the WFGA record that there was a Tea Rooms, adjacent to the main London to Eastbourne road (A22), that was run by Joyce Whittington, who lived at 2, Wire Mill Cottage with Elizabeth Drummond Sharpe in 1924 and then with Audrey Start between 1925 and 1926.  The WFGA record that Joyce Whittington also sold produce supplied by the women smallholders of Wiremill, on commission, from a hut that also operated as Tea Rooms that went by the name of the Yellow Teapot.  This could suggest that in the annals of time, perhaps local memories may have blurred the two Tea Rooms!  What is known is that in October 1926, when Joyce Whittington left the settlement, she took the ex-Army hut with her.  This action prompted the WFGA to build a further two houses, now known as LakeCottage (the northern-most cottage, adjacent to Golards Farmhouse) and Lake View Cottage (the southern-most cottage) and a Tea Rooms that also took the name of the Yellow Teapot, adjacent to the main London/Eastbourne road (A22) in field 150.  By 1928, Elizabeth Harriett and Dorothy Jane Kitson had moved into LakeCottage, being succeeded in 1931/2 by Reginald Charles and Gwendolyn Violet Ellis, who, by 1933, had been succeeded by Henry Vincent and Mary Gilbertha Naylor. 

 

By 1931, Mrs Clara Pyart had re-established the Yellow Teapot, which was run from a hut in the grounds of Lake View Cottage and in 1934, LakeCottage and Lake View Cottage were both sold by the WFGA to Clara Pyart.  The Yellow Teapot continued to operate until 1937 at which time Clara Pyart is recorded in the Electoral Rolls for Surrey, as living at Lake View Cottage, where she remained until her death in 1946; the cottage being taken over by her married daughter and son-in-law, Gladys and Charles Alexander Kirby.  Evidence suggests that Clara may have accepted lodgers at Lake View Cottage and leased LakeCottage out to tenants.  The Kirby’s remained at Lake View Cottage until at least 1958 when Charles Kirby died. 

 

In light of what had previously been established about Enid Allen and Muriel Chattey (later Botterell) of Golards Farm and the new evidence from the accounts of the WFGA the most likely scenario for the produce huts, the Yellow Teapot and Golard’s Barn Café is that Enid Allen used a ‘kiosk’ from which to sell her produce sometime between 1923 and 1928.  This is backed up by the fact that she commissioned Foster’s Pottery of East Grinstead to produce a series of bowls and vases, to her own design, to hold the various items of produce for sale.  This may have been just her produce and/or produce from some of the women smallholders of Wiremill.  Later, with a successful road-side market stall up and running, Enid Allen turned to breeding dogs and again she asked Foster’s Pottery to make dishes, to her design in two sizes, for dog food.  It is known that Joyce Whittington ran the Yellow Teapot from her ex-Army hut adjacent to the main London/Eastbourne road (A22), also providing space for the women smallholders to sell their produce, at a commission.  When Joyce Whittington left the women’s smallholders settlement of Wiremill in 1926, she took the hut with her and it was replaced by another donated hut and sited in the grounds of Lake View Cottage, where Clara Pyart re-established the Yellow Teapot in 1931.  When this Yellow Teapot ceased trading in 1937, Muriel Botterell (formerly Muriel Chattey) opened Golard’s Barn Café, operating from what had been Woodcock Forge at Golards Farm, now known as Tammy’s Thai (formerly the Thai Cottage, before that, Markey’s Diner and before that, Markey’s Restaurant).  Golard’s Barn Café was later taken over by Muriel’s daughter Anne Coutts [for further information see Handout, Eating and Drinking Establishments of Felbridge, Pt.3, SJC 09/09].  Just to add to the plethora of Tea Rooms in the Wiremill area, in 1928, Mary Arbuthnot Robertson is recorded as operating the Wire Mill Tea Gardens, the location of which is yet to be established, but could have been from the hut in the grounds of Lake View Cottage prior to Clara Pyart taking over and reverting to the name of the Yellow Teapot or, the Tea Rooms could have been operated from the old mill, prior to its sale to John J Foster in 1929.

 

As a summary of the accommodation supplied by the WFGA at Wiremill, women smallholders initially lodged communally at Wire Mill House until 1923 when the house was sold to Frederick Creak, the property ceasing any further connection with the smallholding settlement.  The sale released money to convert the old mill into two flats and build two pairs of semi-detached cottages, nos.1-4, Wire Mill Cottage.  By 1922, The Old Cottage, a dilapidated detached cottage that came with the Wiremill estate, had been renovated and was leased to Miss Margaret Turnbull Bell, but the pair of semi-detached cottages (5 and 6, Wire Mill Cottage) that also came with the initial sale had sitting tenants and did not become available to lease to women smallholders until 1923/4.  In 1926, the WFGA sold The Old Cottage to tenant Miss Margaret Turnbull Bell and in 1928, sold 6, Wire Mill Cottage to tenant Miss Sybil Mart, the money received from both sales going towards the writing off of Capt. Pearcey’s bad debt and the construction of Lake Cottage and Lake View Cottage, the last pair of dwellings to be built by the WFGA.  Then in 1929, the WFGA sold the old mill, associated buildings and the lake to John F Foster, thus this property ceased any further connection with the smallholding settlement at Wiremill.

 

With regards to the remaining dwellings, in 1932, the WFGA sold 4, Wire Mill Cottage, together with about 21 acres of land to Ernest Edward and Edith Gwendoline Borer, the property ceasing all further connections with the women smallholders’ settlement, although it was run as a market garden.  In 1933, the WFGA sold 3, Wire Mill Cottage to James Denyer, with his sister-in-law Ada Adelaide Owers as sitting tenant.  In 1934, the WFGA sold 1, Wire Mill Cottage to tenants John and Rose Christine Gentry and 2, Wire Mill Cottage to tenant Miss Ethel Vivienne Thorne.  As a point of interest, in 1929, Ethel had bought 4½ acres of land at the rear of her cottage through a mortgage with Miss Katherine M Courtauld, which she sold to William Spurrell in 1934 for part of the development of houses known as Wembury Park [for further information see Handout, Builders and Architects of Felbridge, Pt. 2 – William Spurrell and Cecil A Sharp, JIC/SJC 07/18].  Also in 1934, LakeCottage and Lake View Cottage were sold by the WFGA to Mrs Clara Pyart.  Finally, in 1938, the WFGA sold 3, Wire Mill Cottage to tenant Miss Emily Toundrow Bull, who, on her death in 1957, left the property to her co-occupier Miss Beatrice Nevett Taylor.

 

The Women’s Smallholders Settlement in its Heyday

Within six years, the women’s smallholding settlement at Wiremill had become fairly well established and was attracting attention from the media.  From the beginning of 1926, several articles began to appear in the national press that detail the achievements of the WFGA and, in particular, the women’s smallholding settlement at Wiremill.

 

In January 1926, the following article appeared Daily Telegraph and was also covered by the Irish daily newspaper the Northern Whig and Belfast Post:

Although the Women’s Farm and Garden Association has existed since 1899 to assist ladies who wish to obtain work on the land, the idea that educated women could earn a livelihood in this way occurred to very few until the land services were organised during the war.  A considerable number of women then discovered the fascinations of outdoor life, and when the war came to an end took posts for a time in order to learn how to manage stock or work a small-holding.  Today some thousands of ladies are working on the land in England.  They may be engaged as gardeners, but the great majority own small-holdings keep stock, run poultry farms, or are employed as dairy and farm workers and as poultry assistants.  This interesting development, which in the last two years has shown every sign of health and vigour, comes at a time when the problem of checking the drift of the rural population to the towns and getting people back on the land is universally recognised as of the greatest national importance.

 

Even the dairymaid is moving with the times, and educated trained women are now employed in this capacity on farms which supply Grade A milk, and also on quite a number of large estates, where a staff of two or three is required in the dairy.  A greater degree of muscular strength is required for stock work, and the well-trained girl who can milk, make butter, and undertake the care of stock can usually find a post on a small farm.  There is a big demand for good women milkers, and this is a side that every landswoman should know, particularly as women are usually more proficient than men.  Another kind of land work at which women have been shown to excel is the tending of pedigree stock – a most interesting occupation, in which the gifts of patience and intuition are of the greatest value.  The charge of a poultry farm or the post of a poultry assistant provides outdoor work of a light nature.  A fair number of openings occur in the early months of the year, and there are a good many calls for temporary workers, particularly for those who also have a knowledge of milking and dairy work.

 

It is sometimes objected that any form of land work is too strenuous for girls, but it may be pointed out that nursing is no less arduous a profession.  Land work is certainly for none but the strong and healthy, and brings no great return other than the delights of an open-air life.  No girl is likely to make a success of it who is not keen on her work, for her stock cannot go unfed or a sick animal untended in order that she may pay a visit or go to a play.  The employee is often able to live in the house, particularly in posts on small holdings or dairy farms owned by women.

 

It is essential to realise the importance of training, for there is little or no demand for unskilled workers, although at times there is a demand for girls with some knowledge who are prepared to give their services in return for experience and to pay something towards board and lodging.  At present a great many people are under the impression that training for outdoor work can be dispensed with, while the fact is that a good course at a recognised agricultural and horticultural college, or at a recommended private training centre, is essential.  Eighteen is not too early an age at which to begin.

 

An encouraging sign is that on seven occasions last year the Women’s Farm and Garden Association (London) has not had enough farm workers on its books to meet the demand, while prospects in the near future are even brighter than at present for stock-women and dairy workers.  In the higher branches such as instructing and bailiff’s work, the number of openings is not so great.

 

The president of the Association is Princess Louise Duchess of Argyll, who has for many years taken an active interest in a work which has during the past twelve months developed in encouraging fashion.  The Association has during the past year found employment for 158 gardeners and farm workers, and its experts have also given advice on technical matters to ladies who wish to start small farms and market gardens.  It has helped others find partners with a little capital and has run a most successful club at No. 29, Park Road, Upper Baker Street, London, where members may stay temporarily and obtain inexpensive meals.  The most interesting part of its work, however, is in the connection with small-holdings colony for women at Lingfield, on the Eastbourne Road.  There are two small farm-holdings and nine market gardens, and the produce is largely sold from a hut situated on the main road.  The delightful spot includes a mill, which has been converted into flats, and the whole colony is a fine example of what can be done by feminine enterprise.  Two of the tenants manage tea-rooms and do transport work.  One of the most interesting undertakings there is an Angora rabbit farm, with a stock of about 200.  The hobby of breeding Angoras is appealing to a great number of women, and, in view of the growing demand for the wool, is decidedly remunerative.  Ladies also prefer the Angora to any other breed because the coat is plucked, a process that causes the animal no pain.

 

It is known that Miss Joyce Whittington managed the tea rooms called the Yellow Teapot in 1926.  However, it has not yet been possible to determine conclusive information on the afore mentioned second tea rooms, although this could be the one of local memories run by Miss Enid Allen, or the Roadhouse run by Miss Margaret Fisher-Brown (for further details see below), who is also the tenant referred to with regards to the Angora rabbit farm.

 

Another article that appeared in newspapers across Britain was first published in The Times early in August 1926, but was subsequently carried by such diverse newspapers as the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette and the Women’s Freedom League newspaper The Vote:

The Times reports that in 1920, through the generosity of two of its members, the Women’s Farm and Garden Association was able to purchase an estate at Lingfield, Surrey, that could be split up into small-holdings for professional women farmers and gardeners anxious to farm or garden on their own account.  The candidates selected for these holdings were women with a good knowledge of horticulture or agriculture, who possessed a small private income in addition to capital invested in the undertaking.  The colony now consists of 11 holdings, two farms and the rest fruit, market garden and poultry.  One of the tenants has recently been allowed by the Association to purchase her cottage and holding.  One has a successful Angora rabbit farm, another breeds Alsatian dogs, and a third has established a tea hut on the main East Grinstead Road.  Last year the Women’s Farm and Garden Association provided the tenants with a produce hut on the main road, and during the summer months a good trade is done in fruit, flowers, vegetables and farm produce.  The colony is situated on the main road from London to Eastbourne, three miles from East Grinstead.  The total area of the colony is approximately 91½ acres, including a lake of 15 acres and four acres of woodland.  There are 36 acres of pasture, six of arable, and 18 acres of planted fruit land.  Each holding has its own housing accommodation.

 

The tenant referred to as having recently purchased her cottage and holding was Miss Margaret Turnbull Bell of The Old Cottage, the Angora rabbit farmer was Miss Margaret Fisher-Brown of The Bungalow, the Alsatian dog breeder was Miss Enid Allen of Golards Farm and Miss Joyce Whittington had established the tea rooms on the main East Grinstead road (A22) that went by the name of the Yellow Teapot. 

 

The Daily Graphic also visited the women’s smallholding settlement in 1926 and produced a short article with several photographs of the women, stating: ‘Members of the Women’s Farm and Garden Association are making excellent progress on their smallholdings at Lingfield, Surrey’.  The photographs were annotated: ‘Here is one busy with her fowls’ and a second photograph showed ‘Another of the women colonist at Lingfield conducts an Angora rabbit farm, and is here weighing some wool while the rabbit looks on’.

 

An unknown newspaper article from a similar period that appeared with photographs was entitled ‘WOOL FROM RABBITS: WOMAN’S ANGORA FARM’ and depicted ‘Miss Fisher-Brown (at spinning wheel) supervising the grooming of Angora rabbits for their wool at her farm at Lingfield, Surrey.  It accommodates 500 rabbits.  The wool is made into baby clothes and other garments.  Miss Brown’s rabbits have won over 400 awards, and she has supplied many farms overseas’.  Also, Caroline Scott in her book, Holding the Home Front: The Women's Land Army in the First World War, states that another of the women was ‘keeping horses and giving riding lessons’.  Unfortunately it has not yet been possible to determine which tenant this is referring to. 

 

Harvesting water lilies was another of the exploits practised by the women of the Wiremill settlement.  In 1929, a picture was taken of three women from the smallholding settlement.  They are in a boat on WiremillLake harvesting water lilies and the picture appears in an article about Princess Helena Victoria visiting the RhonddaValley in Wales so perhaps water lilies from Wiremill were sent there for processing.  In 1932, the water lily harvesters were featured again, this time in the Birmingham Daily Gazette, the photograph, again of three women in a boat, is annotated ‘Water lilies are used extensively in the manufacture of face cream.  A charming picture of the bloom gatherers on the backwater of a lake near Lingfield, Surrey’.  There is also a photograph in the Felbridge archive that depicts one of the women dressed in breeches, knee length socks, brogues, shirt and tie and a belted lightweight smock-coat, standing in a punt with a trug of water lily blooms. This photograph was taken on 8^th August 1932 and attached to the back was a short description that reads: ‘PICKING WATER LILIES FOR THE COMPLEXION.  On a beautiful lake near Lingfield, Surrey, a number of girls are employed gathering water lilies.  The majority of the blooms are sent to London to be made into face cream.  Manchester also takes a regular consignment for floral decorations’.  Judging from the date of the picture it was probably taken as one of the photographic shoot for the article in the Birmingham Daily Gazette, which never made the edition.  Also in 1932, a short film entitled The Lily Harvest was shot for British Pathé.  The film starts with the sub-title "Here's a quaint, little-known industry of England - harvesting water lilies - (at Lingfield), Surrey” and shows a woman leaving a timber framed cottage (The Old Cottage).  She is holding an empty trug and picks up a long oar that is propped up against the cottage.  The next sub-title details that "All you need is a nice calm day - water lilies refuse to open if the weather's cold and windy!"  Following this, the film shows a long shot of a small boat on Wiremill Lake and then pans into a close up of two women leaning out of the boat picking water lily blooms.  The final sub-title sates, "If ordinary flowers are "daughters of the earth" - these must be water babies!" This is followed by a close up of the lilies being bunched together by the women.  The film then shows the boat being manoeuvred through a channel in the reed bed, presumably to berth.  The film ends with a woman walking back to The Old Cottage with her trug full of water lilies.  Sadly it is not known who the women in the film are, but the older woman is the one in the photograph taken on 8^th August 1932 (see above).

 

Decline in the involvement of the WFGA in the settlement at Wiremill

On of the original pre-requisite for having a smallholding at Wiremill had been that the female tenants had to have had wartime experience on the land.  The Wiremill settlement enabled the women to practice smallholding activities, predominantly poultry keeping and fruit growing, although more diverse activities were also practiced, such the production of Angora wool and the cultivation and harvest of water lilies on WiremillLake for the production of face cream.  Unfortunately the timing for the establishment of the settlement of the women’s smallholdings was not ideal as the country was facing an agricultural down turn (see above) and the number of women applying for smallholding plots and settling was not as high as had been hoped for.  Thus, by the mid 1920’s the WFGA was left with an estate that had declined in value since its purchase and had a short-fall in the value of predicted rental income.  To attract more women to the settlement the WFGA accrued a further expense by embarking on the construction of several cottages, allowing for preferred individual habitation rather than collective living.  To off-set the building expenses, Wire Mill House was sold in 1923 to fund the conversation of the old mill into two flats and the construction of cottages 1 and 2, Wire Mill Lane.  The Old Cottage was sold to tenant Margaret Turnbull Bell in 1926 to fund the construction of cottages 3 and 4, Wire Mill Lane, but unfortunately, the cost of building and construction work had also increased during the first half of the 1920’s.  

 

In 1928, the settlement was valued at £6,759 and, sadly in January 1929, one of the two driving forces behind the venture, Mrs Louisa Wilkins, died.  Shortly after her death, in the spring of 1929, the WFGA smallholding sub-committee decided the settlement was no longer a viable proposition and that the experiment (as they deemed it) of women smallholding was over.  The sub-committee’s recommendation was that the land should be sold and over the next five years the WFGA involvement with the women’s smallholding settlement declined. 

 

The remainder of the cottages were gradually sold off starting in 1929, when 6, Wire Mill Cottage was sold to tenant Sybil Mart, followed in 1930 with the sale of the Wire Mill and the lake that was sold to John J Foster.  In 1931, 5, Wire Mill Cottage was sold to James Denyer, brother-in-law of tenant Ada Adelaide Owers and in 1932, 4, Wire Mill Cottage and 21 aces of land that was sold to Ernest Edward Borer.  In 1934, 1, Wire Mill Cottage was sold to tenants John and Rose Christine Gentry, 2, Wire Mill Cottage was sold to tenant Ethel Vivienne Thorne, and Lake Cottage and Lake View Cottage, were both sold to the tenant of Lake View Cottage, Clara Pyart.  Finally the last property to be sold was in 1938, which was 3, Wire Mill Cottage that was sold to tenant Emily Toundrow Bull.  Thus by 1938, the WFGA had ceased all ties with the settlement at Wiremill. 

 

It is interesting to note that, with the exception of John J Foster and Ernest Edward Borer, all the properties were purchased by their tenant, perhaps confirming their belief in the settlement and its ideals of women smallholders.  Also, whilst the 1930’s saw the gradual decline of WFGA involvement with the settlement at Wiremill, it is this period that sees the most accessible general public information about the settlement through contemporary magazine and newspaper articles, photographs and even a film.  These articles, far from painting an image of a settlement in decline, seem to promote the women’s confidence in their achievements.  What was deemed an ‘experiment’ appears to have created a community of well-educated, mostly single women that were generally able to make a living from their smallholdings, either through the practise of agriculture or horticulture.  Far from the perceived community of impoverished women smallholders, barely scratching a living, many left substantial effects at the time of their deaths, raging from just over £1,605 up to just over  £19,000.  

 

The major outcome of the women’s smallholding settlement at Wiremill, simply by their very being, was that it attracted other women of a similar social class and like-mindedness to the vicinity (see below), providing a supportive environment for them to be able to lead satisfying, secure and purposeful lives working on the land, opportunities for women that were unheard of at the turn of the 20^th century but that came about as a direct consequence of World War I. 

 

The Pioneering Women Smallholders of Wiremill

Despite the agricultural depression of the early 1920’s and the belief that there was a high turnover of women tenants, the smallholding settlement at Wiremill actually had a fair number of long-stay tenants, many of whom ended up purchasing their plots from the WFGA.  Unfortunately, being mostly single women who moved into the area and with only a name to go by, it has proved difficult, and, in some cases, impossible to conclusively find much information on many of them, and in a lot of cases no further information has been discovered save their name.  However, the following covers the family backgrounds and lives of some of the pioneering women who passed through or settled at Wiremill.   

 

Margaret Turnbull Bell (The Old Cottage, 1922-44)

Margaret Turnbull Bell was born at Hedley Hall, Lamesley near Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, CountyDurham, on 10^th February 1877, the daughter of Thomas Bell (farmer of 290 acres) and his wife Margaret Darling née Turnbull.  Margaret’s siblings included, Isabella Rutherford born in 1866 (became a Principal of a Girls School, never married and retired to Brighton), Anne [aka Annie] Bewick Hall born in1867 (ran a women’s hostel, never married), Catherine Brown born in 1869 (married and settled in Cheshire), Alice Emma born in 1871 (became a music teacher, never married), John born in 1873 (married and remained in Lamesley), Elizabeth May born in 1882 (married a Canadian and settled in Canada) and Veronica (aka Rona) Jessie born in 1884 (married George Herbert Bell in Japan, returning to England after his death in 1920). 

 

Margaret was educated as a boarder at a small school in Kettering, Northampton, run by Fanny Mursell.  By 1901, Margaret had moved south and was lodging at 2, Carysfort Road, Stoke Newington, London, working as a ‘2^nd class clerk, Post Office Savings’.  By 1911, although still in the same employment Margaret had moved to 11, Beaumont Crescent, West Kensington.  Details on Margaret’s life between 1911 and 1920 are scarce, but evidence suggests that she made a major career change.  In July 1920, Margaret appears on the passenger list for SS Metagama, arriving at Liverpool from Montreal, Quebec; her occupation given as gardener and her last permanent address recorded as Canada, implying that she had been living there for a period of time.  Unfortunately it has not yet been possible to determine when Margaret travelled to Canada but it is known that her sister Elizabeth also went to Canada where she met her future husband Lloyd Arthur Harris whom she married in Rock Creek, British Columbia, in November 1915, remaining there until her death in 1952.  It is possible that Margaret was returning to England after spending time with her sister or that perhaps Margaret and her sister had travelled out together and that after her sister’s decision to marry and settle there, Margaret decided to return to England.  Margaret’s forwarding address on the passenger list was given as a property [illegible] in Ashton-on-Mersey, near Sale in Manchester. 

 

In 1922, Margaret appears in the Electoral Rolls for Surrey as living at The Old Cottage, Wiremill, the old dilapidated cottage that had been part of the Wiremill estate purchased by the WFGU in 1920.  As the Electoral Roll is for the spring of 1922, this could imply that Margaret had taken up residence in late 1921.  For the first two years Margaret shared the cottage with Pattie (aka Patricia) Ellis Hanson, the daughter of Henry Hardman Hanson, a ‘Russian Merchant, Seed, Grain, Oil, Hemp’, but Pattie had left the Wiremill settlement by 1924 and had taken up the post of art mistress at a school in Keswick in Cumbria by 1939.  In 1926, Margaret bought The Old Cottage from the WFGA and remained there for the rest of her life. 

 

It is believed that Margaret is one of the women in the newspaper photographs and the Pathé film – The Lily Harvest (see above) and, from her age in 1932, Margaret is probably the woman in the photograph in the Felbridge archive, supplying water lilies for the production of face cream.  As a point of interest, Helena Rubinstein popularised a range of beauty products from 1925 that used extracts from the buds of water lilies.  The process started with the gathering of the water lily blooms that were then sent to be processed.  A water lily particularly prized by the beauty business was the Nymphaea alba because of its sweet fragrance.  To make the essence, the petals were removed and placed in large glass bottles to which a solvent was added to extract their fragrance.  Water lily extract had been used for sometime in the manufacture of beauty products but was popularised by Helena Rubinstein who, by 1914, had a string of beauty salons across the world including, London, Paris, New York and Melbourne.  In 1925, she launched Valaze Water Lily Cream, later known as Water Lily Cleansing Cream, the first of her water lily products.  The cream was marketed as the ‘Most delightful and luxurious of all face creams – cleanses wonderfully, enlivens and rejuvenates the skin’, through the ‘youthifying essence of the water lily buds’.  The face cream was followed by Water Lily Powder, Water Lily Compressed Powder and Water Lily Lipstick in 1927; Water Lily Foundation in 1928 and Water Lily Rejuvenating Mask and Water Lily Cleansing Lotion in 1930.  It is interesting to note that in 1929, the WFGA had sold the lake, together with the old mill and associated buildings, to John J Foster, and by 1933 the Wiremill Fishing Club had been established so Margaret must have come to some arrangement with the new owners to continue harvesting the water lilies on the lake.

 

Margaret spent much of her time as the sole occupant of The Old Cottage and after Pattie had left there is no documentation of another person residing with her until 1933 when Dorothy Wardle (no further information) is recorded in the Electoral Roll as living there.  However, four years later Margaret had two women living with her at her property, Ethel Ada Falkner (a retired Boarding House keeper) and Evelyn Mary Gardner (a school teacher).  In the 1939 nationwide register that was taken, Margaret is recorded as a ‘Supernumerated Civil Servant, Market Garden and Fruit Preservation’, this would suggest that her role at the settlement was, by 1939, growing fruit and preserving it, either in the form of jam, bottling or drying. 

 

In 1945, after the resumption of Electoral Rolls, Ronald Charles and Kathleen Beesley, and Richard C Sharp were living with Margaret at The Old Cottage.  Richard C Sharp had gone by 1946 and it has been impossible to establish any conclusive information on him.  However, a little is known about the Beesleys.  Ronald was the son of a gardener and had been in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I.  After the war he had become an Insurance Officer and married Kathleen Mabel Walmsley in 1926 in Manchester.  In 1939 the Beesleys were living at Amersham so must have moved to The Old Cottage sometime during World War II.  It is not known why they moved there but they remained with Margaret until her death, before leaving the area sometime after 1949.

 

Margaret Turnbull Bell died, aged just 67, on 28^th February 1944 at the Surrey County Hospital in Redhill, her effects amounted to £1,652 15s 8d and probate was granted to her sister Veronica.  Margaret had lived as part of the women’s settlement at Wiremill for over 22 years.

 

Emily Toundrow Bull (3, Wire Mill Cottage, 1927-57)

Emily Toundrow Bull was born in Borley, Essex, on 1^st January 1876, the daughter of Rev. Henry Dawson Ellis Bull and his wife Caroline Sarah née Foyster.  Emily’s siblings included, Henry Foyster, born in 1863, (educated at Oxford University, became a Reverend, married Ivy Prince in July 1911, no children), Caroline Sarah Elizabeth, born in 1864 (married John Alderson Hayden in 1895; no children; widowed in 1909 and served as a Red Cross nurse in World War I, receiving the British War Medal and British Victory Medal), Winifred Margaret, born in 1865 (never married), Alfred Richard Graham, born in 1865 (educated at Cambridge University, became a school master; never married), Basil Walter, born in 1866 (became a naturalised American, settled in Canada, served during World War I being killed on 1^st August 1917 at Elverdinge, Belgium, aged 55), Ethel Mary, born in 1867 (never married), Adelaide Myra [aka Mabel], born in 1869 (never married), Edward Gerald, born in 1870 (became a marine engineer, never married), Constance St. Clare, born in 1871 (never married), Hubert Ellis born in 1873 (became a commercial traveller, never married) and Alice Kathleen, born in 1879 (never married).  The siblings that never married seem to have lived out the end of their lives together at Chilton Lodge, Melford, Suffolk.

 

Emily received an education, appearing as a scholar in the census records at the appropriate age, and, like her sisters, there is no evidence of private schooling, although the brothers appear to have received an education at either Oxford or CambridgeUniversities.  Emily and her un-married sisters lived as ladies of leisure with their parents until their father’s death in 1892, when their eldest brother, Rev. Henry (Harry) Foyster Bull assumed the head of the household.  Unfortunately, it is has not yet been possible to determine the whereabouts of Emily between 1911 and 1927 when she comes to live at 3, Wire Mill Cottage.  It is known that her oldest sister served as a Red Cross nurse and her brother Basil served in the 3^rd Battalion Labour Corps in World War I so it is presumed that Emily may also have performed some sort of war work.  What is known is that by 1927, Emily had joined Beatrice Nevett Taylor (see below) at 3, Wire Mill Cottage.  It has not yet been established how the two women knew each other or the circumstances behind why Emily came to live there but it is known that it was run as a smallholding.

 

By definition, a smallholding is smaller than a farm but larger than an allotment and the piece of land is usually adjacent to the dwelling, which in the case of 3, Wire Mill Cottage, was behind the cottage, amounting to just short of 2 acres.  The term smallholding can either mean the breeding of farm animals, organically on free-range pasture or the growing of vegetables by traditional organic methods.  A smallholding offers its owners a means of self-sufficiency with any surplus produce being sold to supplement their income.  The smallholding at no.3, from map evidence, would suggest that a large proportion of the area was given over to fruit implying that if animal husbandry had been practiced it was poultry; both types of produce that would have been sold through the produce hut adjacent to the main London road (A22).

 

In 1938, Emily purchased 3, Wire Mill Cottage and its smallholding plot, from the WFGA and continued running it as a smallholding for many years.  Emily died aged 81, on 28^th October 1957 at Walnut Tree Hospital, Sudbury, Suffolk, leaving effects amounting to £19,070 3s 7d, and passing 3, Wire Mill Cottage to Beatrice Nevett Taylor (see below).  Emily had lived as part of the women’s settlement at Wiremill for over 30 years.   

 

Sybil Mart (6, Wire Mill Cottage, 1928-60 and Orchards Poultry Farm, 1933-35)

Sybil Mart was born in Trentham, Staffordshire, on 15^th November 1895, the daughter of William Mart and his wife Alice née Kirby.  Sybil’s siblings included, John Norman born in 1887 (became a teacher, married American born Maria Rodgers Doane), Alice Millicent born in 1889 (became a dairy maid at Whittingham County Lunatic Asylum, Preston, Lancashire (1911), then Manageress of a cheese and butter factory in Llanfyllin, Montgomeryshire, Wales (1939); married Thomas Sagar in 1959), Gladys May born in 1891/2 (no further information), Marjorie born in 1892 (became a Civil Servant clerk, never married), Cecily who was born on 8^th September 1897, (Cecily joined Sybil at 6, Wire Mill Cottage between 1928 and 1931 inclusively.  In 1933 she lodged with the Gentrys at The Homestead, 1, Wire Mill Cottage but had moved to Farnham by 1935.  In 1939 Cecily was living with sisters Alice and Sybil at Llanfyllin, Montgomeryshire, Wales, working as housekeeper and died on 9^th May 1978 of The Stocks, Wittersham, Tenterden, Kent, leaving effects of £19,487; she never married), Guy  born in 1899 (married, no further information) and Ursula born in 1903 (became a School Teacher, emigrated to America [date unknown]; married civil engineer and widower John William Bernard Blackman in Navada in 1959 [he had been born in Kent in 1878, and had married Edith Maude Probert who died in California in 1957; the couple had emigrated to Canada in 1907].  Ursula became a naturalised American in 1965 and died in San Diego, California in 1988).

 

Researching Sybil’s early life has proved to be challenging as there are very few records for her.  However, by 1909 Sybil had moved to Lancashire as it is recorded in the local newspaper that ‘Sybil Mart of Whitestake, Preston, Lancashire’, exhibited in the Junior Open section of the local County Council Scholarship awards.  In 1911, Sybil, a 15-year school girl, was visiting the household of Thomas Kittson and his family at Aiden House, Penwortham, Preston, Lancashire.  In August 1915, Sybil Mart of the LCC [Lancashire County Council] Dairy School, Hutton in Preston, was awarded a reserve in the Butter-Making Competition held at the Royal Lancashire Agricultural Society Show at Witton Park, Blackburn, and in September 1915, Sybil, again representing the LCC Dairy School, Hutton, was one of 23 that was awarded the annual National Diploma in Dairying.  The competition was in its twentieth year and was held by the National Agricultural Examination Board at the UniversityCollege and British Dairy Institute at Reading. 

 

It has not yet been possible to determine any further information on Sybil until 1928, when she and her sister Cicely move to 6, Wire Mill Cottage.  A year later, Sybil purchased the cottage and plot from the WFGA.  By 1933, Cecily was lodging with the Gentrys at 1, Wire Mill Cottage, and Sybil had established Orchard’s Poultry Farm at the Wiremill settlement.  It has not yet been possible to confirm if the poultry farm was run from the plot behind 6, Wire Mill Cottage or whether, as local memories suggest, from what is today known as Orchard Corner, where it was said Sybil had a bungalow built.  The venture must have proved quite successful as by 1934 she had been joined at Orchard’s Poultry Farm by Gordon Robertson Henry and Margery Henry (relationship not yet established).  In 1936, Sybil is again recorded at 6, Wire Mill Cottage and by 1938 the Henrys had left Orchard’s Poultry Farm and were living at Lyne House Cottage, Lingfield; Orchards Poultry Farm occupied by Robert Ernest and Martha Henrietta Freeman.

 

For the years that Sybil was recorded as living at Orchard’s Poultry Farm, 6, Wire Mill Cottage was occupied by Harold John and Louisa Williams in 1933, and Ernest Frederick and Alice Horton in 1934 and 1935.  However, in 1936 Sybil was back at no. 6 and would appear to have been running a diary herd as she is listed as being a member of the British Dairy Farmer Association in the Journal of the British Dairy Farmer Association, in 1936 and 1938; although in the publication her address was given as Orchards, Wire Mill.  However, by 1939, Sybil had moved to The Hollies, in the small market town of Llanfyllin, Montgomeryshire, Wales, living with her sisters Alice and Cecily, where Alice is recorded as being the manageress of a cheese and butter factory, Sybil as a the secretary for the creamery and Cecily acting as housekeeper.  During her sojourn in Wales, Sybil leased 6, Wire Mill Cottage, which from 1938 was occupied by Leonie Vier (no further information) who was joined in 1939 by Helen R Haynes. 

 

Helen R Haynes had been born Helena Rosalie Harrison in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, on 19^th November 1889, the daughter of Chafer [aka Charles] Harrison and his wife Annie Elizabeth née Austwick.  By 1911 Helen was working as a mental health nurse at The Derby Borough Asylum, Rowditch, Derby.  On 27^th April 1922, Helen married widower Horace Eyre Haynes, a Medical Doctor, 43-years her senior.  Their marriage was to last for just seven years before Horace died, aged 81, in 1927 of Greyfriars, Evesham, Worcestershire, and Littleton Hall, Brentford, Essex.  In 1939, Helen moved to 6, Wire Mill Cottage, and was listed as working in ‘garden construction and maintenance’.  Helen had left the Wiremill settlement by the resumption of Electoral Rolls in 1945, and died, aged just 65, in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings on 11^th January 1955.

 

In 1945, Margaret Mather (no further information) was living at 6, Wire Mill Cottage, followed by Clarence Henry between 1946 and 1948, but in 1949, Sybil returned and remained at the cottage until the summer of 1960 when she married Leslie Horsley Curry in Warrington, Lancashire.  Leslie had been born in Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk, on 13^th October 1892, and had served with the 2^nd Norfolk Regiment and 1^st Prince of Wales Volunteers (South Lancashire Regiment) during World War I, on garrison duty on the North-West Frontier in Quetta, Baluchistan; rising to the rank of Captain.  Sybil and Leslie lived at 10, Cinnamon Lane, Fearnhead, Warrington, during their five and half years of married life, until the death of Leslie, aged 73, on 15^th January 1966.  Sybil died, just four years later, aged 74, in 1970 and although she had left the Wiremill in 1960, Sybil had been associated with the women’s settlement for 32 years.

 

Phyllis Gertrude Mattingly (1, Wire Mill Cottage, 1922-5)

Phyllis Gertrude Barbara Mattingly was born in Great Cornard, Suffolk, on 17^th August 1889, the daughter of Robert Mattingly and his second wife, Gertrude Emma née Boggis.  Gertrude’s siblings included, half brother Robert Henry born in 1872 (followed his father into the Drapery business became a Woollen Dealer and then a Men’s Outfitters, married), Winifred Alice born in 1880 but sadly died 1882, Sidney William born in 1883 (educated at London University; became a journalist; served in WWI with 4^th  Suffolk, West African Regiment, married),  Harold born in 1884 (became a Civil Servant (British Museum coins and medals), married,  served with 28^th London Regiment, during World War I being discharged unfit on 28^th January 1916), Bernard born in 1886 (educated at a boarding school at Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, emigrated to Canada, served with the 8^th Battalion Canadian Infantry (Manitoba Regiment) Machine Gun Section during World War I and was killed in action 24^th April 1917, buried at Vimy Memorial Cemetery, Departement du Pas-de-Calais, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France),  Lilian born in 1890 (became a cookery journalist, never married), Cecil Harriet born in 1893 (became a journalist and ‘Editor of Woman’s Paper’, married) and Dorothy Grace born in 1898 (became a journalist, married).

 

Phyllis’s father, Robert Mattingly, was the Mayor of Sudbury in Suffolk, five times between 1883 and 1905.  He was also a JP and a woollen cloth merchant and outfitters.  On Robert’s death in 1906, his son Robert Henry took over the business and by 1909, Phyllis had moved to Avondale, Old Lodge Lane, Cousldon, Surrey, being baptised on 26^th January at the age of 19 in the parish church.  It is known that three of Phyllis’s brothers served in World War I and two of them never returned and it is believed that Phyllis volunteered to work on the land during World War I.  In 1922, and possibly as early as late 1921, Phyllis had arrived at the women’s smallholding settlement at Wiremill, where she took up residence at 1, Wire Mill Cottage until 1925.  Unfortunately it has not yet been possible to determine what Phyllis produced from her smallholding but, from map evidence, her plot of just over 2 acres was planted with fruit trees.   By the autumn of 1925, Phyllis was living at Roundabout Cottage, Blindley Heath and by 1937 she was an Assistant Boarding House Proprietor at 12, LydhurstGardens, Hampstead.

 

Phyllis Gertrude Mattingly died aged just 69, in 1958, at Amersham, Buckinghamshire, possibly living with or near to her younger sister Lilian who also lived at Amersham before moving to Hastings in Sussex, where she died in 1977.

 

Ada Adelaide Owers (5, Wire Mill Cottage, 1930-42)

Ada Adelaide Owers was born in Nunhead, Peckham, on 11^th February 1896, the daughter of Frederick Thomas Owers and his wife Rosetta née Tuffs.  Ada’s siblings included, Olivia Horton born in 1894 (became a shorthand typist and married James Denyer), Ernest Edward born in 1897 (became a Pumping Station Foreman like his father, married) and Winifred Rose born in 1908 (became a secretary to a Paper Making Company, never married).  Ada also had another brother who sadly died shortly after birth who was either Frederick Arthur, born and died in 1895 or Albert Charles born and died in 1907.

 

In 1911, Ada was living at home with her family at 3, Cambridge Villas, Terrace Road, Walton-on-Thames.  Although just 15 years old Ada was recorded as working as a ‘relief stamper’ (a person employed in stamping engraved or embossed designs, especially on stationary).  Unfortunately it has not yet been possible to determine what Ada was doing during the war years but in 1930, she took out a lease on 5, Wire Mill Cottage, which would suggest that she had been working on the land to qualify for the lease.  Ada ran the property as a poultry farm and was joined there by her parents.  In 1933, the WFGA sold 5, Wire Mill Cottage with Ada as the sitting tenant to James Denyer, Ada’s brother-in-law who had married her sister Olive in 1915.  James was a market gardener and son of a farmer and market gardener of Thames Field Farm, Terrace Road, Walton-on-Thames, but at the time of purchase the Denyers were living at Newlands House, Strood, Kent, where James was working as a farm bailiff.  The purchase appears to have been made to enable Ada and her parents to continue living at 5, Wire Mill Cottage.  It is possible that Ada acquired her experience of working on the land at the Denyer’s Thames Field Farm in the absence of her brother-in-law and any other male farm workers during World War I.  What is known is that Ada and her mother Rosetta both lived at, 5, Wire Mill Cottage until their deaths.

 

Rosetta died aged 73 in February 1940 and was buried at St John’s church, Felbridge, and Ada died aged just 46 in August 1942, again buried at St John’s church.  With the death of Ada, her father left the Wiremill settlement and died at Burrow Hill Farm, Frimley, aged 81, in August 1949.  Ada had lived as part of the women’s settlement at Wiremill for over 12 years before her untimely death.

 

Beatrice Nevett Taylor (3, Wire Mill Cottage, 1923-58)

Beatrice Nevett Taylor was born in St Pancras, London, on 24^th October 1872, the daughter of James Taylor and his second wife Ellen Jane née Kean.  Beatrice was baptised at St Lukes, Camden, on 25^th July 1875, although the baptism entry was made in the Baptism Book dated 25^th July 1884; this later gave rise to Beatrice recording her year of birth as 1884 in the 1939 Registry.  Beatrice had six half-siblings (the children of James Taylor and his first wife Emily Ann née Barr) including, James born about 1844 (no further information), Emily Ann born in 1847 (no further information), Frank Barr born in 1850 (became a pionaforte tuner/finisher, married Ellen Constance Pearson), Elizabeth Marion born in 1852 (married William George Baker in 1878), Rowland James born in 1855 (no further information) and Sydney Thomas born in 1858 (married Jane Elizabeth Roberts in 1879).  Beatrice also had six siblings including, Alfred Sampson born in 1862 (became a dentist, married Alice Davey in 1898), James Kean born in 1863 (became an accountant, married Margaret Adkin), Ellen Agnes born in 1865 (married Richard Stevens), Florence Mary born in 1866 (married Albert William Fuller in 1895), Gertrude Maud born in 1968 (became a fine art dealer) and Kathleen Martha born in 1875 (became a shorthand writer).

 

Beatrice’s father was a carver and gilder by trade but by 1891 he was an assistant to a picture dealer and by 1901 had become a fine art dealer.  The Taylor family had several addresses; in 1860 they were living at Southampton Terrace, KentishTown.  By 1871 it was 35, Victoria Road, St Pancras; by 1881 it was 72, Brecknock Road, Holloway, where they were still living in 1891.  However, by 1901, James, a widower, was living with his three youngest daughters, Gertrude, Beatrice and Kathleen, at 45, DigbyMansions, Hammersmith.   In 1901, Gertrude was working as a fine art dealer like her father, but Beatrice, together with her younger sister Kathleen, was working as a ‘short hand writer’.  It is interesting to note that in 1901, Charles Hersee, who gave his occupation as a ‘Professional Short Hand Writer (Reports)’ was living at 35, Digby Mansions, so may have been employing Beatrice and Kathleen.  Unfortunately it has proved impossible to determine any further information on Beatrice between 1901 and her arrival at the women’s smallholding settlement at Wire Mill in 1923; she simply vanishes from the records.

 

In 1923, Beatrice took up residence at 3, Wire Mill Cottage, being the eldest women (aged 51) to join the settlement.  Between 1924 and 1925, Beatrice was joined by Bertha Dunnell (no further information) at 3, Wire Mill Cottage and in 1927 Beatrice was joined by Emily Toundrow Bull (see above).  In 1938, Emily purchased the cottage from the WFGA and in 1939, Emily is the one recorded as the smallholder running the plot, while Beatrice, now nearing her seventies, was recorded as living on ‘Private Means’.  Between 1949 and 1956, Beatrice was living at Timber Cottage, a small cottage that had been built on plot 126 (see above), leaving Emily as sole occupant of 3, Wire Mill Cottage.  However, in 1957 Beatrice moved back to 3, Wire Mill Cottage and would remain there for the rest of her life.

 

As established above, in 1957 Emily Toundrow Bull died, leaving 3, Wire Mill Cottage to Beatrice who continued to live there until her own death, aged 85, on 26^th January 1958.  On the death of Beatrice, 3, Wire Mill Cottage passed to her nephews John and James Kingsley Fuller, sons of her sister Florence.  Beatrice had lived as part of the women’s settlement at Wiremill for over 35 years.  As a point of interest, John was a ‘Foreman Grower’ from Uxbridge and 3, Wire Mill Cottage would eventually be occupied by his son (Beatrice’s great nephew) Peter Fuller.

 

Ethel Vivienne Thorne (2, Wire Mill Cottage, 1928-38)

Ethel Vivienne Thorne was born in Tettenhall Wood, a suburb of Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, on 28^th July 1879, the daughter of Edwin Henry Thorne, a solicitor, and his wife Ethel née Underhill.  Ethel Vivienne’s siblings include, Gwendoline born in 1878 (married Harry Stevenson Denton in 1902), Harold Hatton Underhill born in 1880 (became Clerk of the Peace and Deputy Clerk to Berkshire CC, married Evelyn May Addenbrook in 1907 and was sadly Killed in Action on 9^th April 1917, serving as Acting Lieutenant-Colonel, 4^th Battalion (Territorial), Princess Charlotte of Wales's (Royal Berkshire) Regiment), Guy Stafford born in 1882 (educated at Wolverhampton Grammar School, became a Electrical Engineer, worked for the Canton branch of the China Light and Power Company between 1906 and 1914, married Mary Gwendoline Charlotte Hillman in 1916 and was sadly Killed in Action on 18^th March 1917, serving as Captain with the Royal Flying Corps) and Corisande Thorne born in 1890 (never married, died aged 74 in 1964, of 11, Leasingham Gardens, Bexhill-on-Sea).  As a point of interest, in 1882, the Thorne family home was Holbeach [aka Holbeche] House, Himley in Wolverhampton, where some members of the Gunpowder Plot had been either killed or captured in 1605.

 

Like so many of the above women, Ethel is mostly absent from the records after 1901 until her arrival at the women’s smallholding settlement at Wiremill, when Ethel leased 2, Wire Mill Cottage in 1928.  However, an article in the Gloucestershire Chronicle in 1918, records that Ethel was the County Organising Secretary of the Gloucestershire Woman Land Workers, when she presided over the distribution of ‘stripes’ awarded by the Government to women who had worked six months full time or twelve months part time on the land.  Reporting on the Northleach and Cirencester area, 370 women were eligible for awards, seven stripes given for three and half years complete service, down to one stripe for six months.  Of the nearly 3,000 registered women land workers by 1918, over 250 were from the Gloucestershire area, of which 218 were trained members of the Land Army and 40 women had been placed with farmers.  

 

Between 1929 and 1930, Ethel was joined at 2, Wire Mill Cottage by Elizabeth Foort (no further information).  In 1929, Ethel took a mortgage out with Miss Katherine M Courtauld to enable her to purchase 4½ acres of arable land from the WFGA and in 1933/4, Ethel sold the land to William Spurrell to enable him to complete the development of Wembury Park at Newchapel [for further information see Handout, Builders of Felbridge, Pt.2, William Spurrell and Cecil A Sharp, JIC/SJC 09/18].  With the money from the sale, Ethel was able to purchase 2, Wire Mill Cottage from the WFGA in 1934.  In 1933 and 1934, Ethel also has two people residing with her at the property, Geoffrey Macdonald Mallock Bond, a farmer, and his new wife Louise Marguerite née Houssemayne du-boulay.

 

Ethel remained at 2, Wire Mill Cottage until 1938 being succeeded in 1939 by Charlotte Capper (no further information) and Daisy Thekla Gabbey (born 1886, never married, died in 1982).  In 1939, Ethel was living at 10, Longridge Road, Kensington, and died, aged 93, of Lindsay Hall, 128, Dorset Road, Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, on 26^th May 1973. 

 

Edith Drummond Sharpe (Wire Mill House, 1921/22 and Flat in Wire Mill, 1923/4)

Edith Drummond Sharpe was born in Edgbaston, Warwickshire, on 6^th March 1876 (although the entry in the 1939 Registry records her year of birth incorrectly as 1882), the daughter of Charles James Sharpe and his wife Louisa née Warden.  Edith’s siblings include, Charles James Drummond, also known as Dammon or Drummond, born in 1870 (a Lieutenant in the Militia (Army), became a merchant, emigrated to New Zealand where he married Grace Emily Collins in 1937), Louisa Mary Drummond, also known as Daisy, was born in 1873 (married Samuel Dinsdale Balden in 1895 and died in Essex in 1952) and Hilda Drummond born in 1877 (became a school teacher; was interested in botany, became a member of the Moss Exchange Club; wrote What Shall I do with my Garden?; married Lawton Stilgoe Sedgwick in Scotland in 1918).

 

The Sharpe family originated from Edgbaston but by the late 1880’s, were living in Ewell in Surrey, which is where Edith father died and was buried in 1888.  By 1891, Edith and the rest of the Sharpe family had returned to Edgbaston and were living at 17, High Field Road.  In 1901 and 1911, Edith was still living at 17, High Field Road, along with her mother and sister Hilda. 

 

Edith was definitely associated with the women’s suffrage movement and by 1912, was the Secretary of the Warwick and Leamington National Union of Women’s Suffrage Society (NUWSS).  Members of the NUWSS were known as suffragists, not to be confused with the suffragettes.  In 1912 and 1913, Edith had left her mother’s home and was residing with Mrs A Hill at 20, Northumberland Road, Leamington, Warwickshire, and by 1914, Edith had moved south and was the Secretary of the West Ward Committee of the East London Federation of the Suffragettes (ELFS), campaigning alongside Emmeline Pankhurst.  Unfortunately is has not been possible to determine Edith actions between 1914 and her arrival at the women’s smallholding settlement at Wiremill in the early 1920’s.

 

Edith arrived at the Wiremill settlement in 1921, taking lodgings at Wire Mill House with the Williamson sisters (see above).  In 1922, Edith and the Williamson sisters were joined by Marjorie Ella Wake-Walker (see below) and after the sale of Wire Mill House in 1923, moved to a flat that had been converted in the old mill and henceforth Edith and Marjorie’s lives would be inextricably linked.  Edith spent two years at the flat before leaving the Wiremill settlement, and moving to Young’s Farm (sometimes referred to as Cherry Tree Farm) on West Park Road, Newchapel.  In 1939, she is recorded as living at Newchapel Cottage, the adjacent property to Young’s Farm, with Mary Ann Hooper, Gladys L and Joy M Wilson, Tessa Marianne Russell (married Glanydd Evans in 1944) and Marjorie Ella Wake-Walker. 

 

It is believed that Edith left Newchapel Cottage around 1943 moving to Twitten Orchard, Nutbourne, Pulborough, Sussex, where she died, aged 87 and unmarried, on 13^th March 1963, leaving effects to the value of £23,854 6/-; probate being granted to Tessa Marianne Evans, who was by then widowed.

 

Marjorie Ella Wake-Walker (Wire Mill House, 1922 and Flat in Wire Mill, 1923)

Marjorie Ella Wake-Walker was born in Ware, Great Amwell, Hertfordshire, on 21^st April 1885, the daughter of Frederic George Arthur Wake-Walker and his wife Mary Eleanor née Forster.  Marjorie’s siblings include, Charles Sinclair born in 1884 (educated at Haileybury College, Great Amwell, Ware, and who sadly died in 1902, aged just 18), Freda Evelyn born in 1886 (a gardener’s assistant in 1911, living with sister Marjorie at Hawkshills, Easingwold, York, later became a Guest House Proprietress in Dorset; never married and died in Wadhurst, Sussex, in 1953), William Frederic, later Sir William Frederic Wake-Walker, 3^rd Baronet KCB, CBE, born in 1888 (educated at Haileybury College, Great Amwell, Ware, entered Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, in 1903; married Muriel Jean Hughes in 1916.  Served in the Royal Navy in World War I, awarded King George V Silver Jubilee Medal in 1935, served as 3^rd Sea Lord and Controller of the Royal Navy in World War II taking a leading part in the destruction of the German battleship Bismark and in Operation Dynamo, the evacuation at Dunkirk; died in Chelsea in 1945), Joan Mary born in 1892 (married John Glendinning Bryden Shand MD, of the Indian Medical Corps, 94^th Infantry, in 1914; died in Northampton in 1965) and Ruth Barbara born in 1894 (educated at a Private Girls School in Hampshire, married Scotsman Dr. William Henry Lowe Watson in 1916 who sadly died in 1932; became an artist and gardener and died in London in 1988, aged 94).  As a point of interest, Marjorie’s grandfather was Admiral Sir Baldwin Wake Walker (1802-1876) 1^st Baronet Walker of Oakley House, Suffolk, and Surveyor of the Royal Navy.

 

During the early years of Marjorie’s life she is found living with her parents, first at Highfields, Ware, Great Amwell and then, in 1901, at 36, Rossette Mews, Chelsea, no doubt she was also well educated like her siblings.  In 1911, Marjorie and her sister Freda were both living at The Gardens, Hawkhills, Easingwold, York, where Marjorie was employed as a gardener and Freda as an assistant gardener.  During World War I Marjorie served in the Women’s National Land Service Corps (and later the Women’s Land Army) in Berkshire, which was the first county to institute an organised scheme for the training and placing of women milkers.  On 25^th November 1919, a meeting was held to mark the close of the work of the Berkshire Women’s Land Army.  At the meeting, Miss Gladys Pott (Women’s Branch of the Board of Agriculture) outlined a scheme for the formation of a National Association of Landswomen to be run on county lines.  The scheme had been formulated because all the advantages that had been offered to women as members of the Land Army during the war years would be withdrawn on 30^th November 1919.  At the meeting, the proposed aims and objectives were announced that included:

Advancement of agricultural efficiency among women

Social and recreative benefits  

Settlement schemes on land at home or even overseas

Clothing, uniform and boots purchased in bulk and sold at rates within reach of all

Individual and collective effort to uphold goodwill between employer and employees, and the prevention of hardship and unfair treatment

Advice as to conditions and possibilities of employment in agriculture and horticulture

Training facilities in all branches of agriculture and horticulture brought to notice of members

Institutions or hostels for those who have no homes to go to in times of sickness, temporary disablement or unemployment

Opportunity for raising the status of the worker

National comradeship of women land-workers - both at home and overseas.

 

The Association was to be self-governing and self-supporting and every member would have a voice in her own interest.  Membership would be 4s a year.  At the meeting, 143 women of the Berkshire Land Army joined up, including Marjorie Wake-Walker, who at the time was a foreman on a Government land settlement farm.

 

By 1922, Marjorie had moved to the women’s smallholding settlement at Wiremill, lodging initially at Wire Mill House, joining Edith Drummond Sharpe (see above) who had arrived a year earlier.  After the sale of Wire Mill House in 1923, Marjorie leased one of the flat that had been converted in the old mill but left the Wiremill settlement for Youngs Farm (known interchangeably as Cherry Tree Farm), West Park Road, Newchapel, Surrey, in 1925; being joined by Edith Drummond Sharpe.  From Youngs Farm, Marjorie ran a herd of dairy cows and a former resident of Wiremill Lane remembers her delivering milk to the lane in the 1930’s.  Although you find reference of men (generally married) residing at Youngs/Cherry Tree Farm in the Electoral Rolls, most of the names are female, including such names as Thezsa Mary Edwards, Constance Monica Ladyman, Virginia Purvis, Monica Mary Bampton and Mavis Alfredo Saies, presumably all women wishing to advance their knowledge and training of working on the land.

 

In 1939, Marjorie is recorded as living at Newchapel Cottage, the property adjacent to Youngs Farm.  The household consisted of Marjorie recorded as a dairy farmer, Edith Drummond Sharpe carrying out unpaid domestic duties, Tessa Marianne Russell (later Tessa Marianne Evans) recorded as a solicitors secretary and managing clerk, Gladys M Wilson (with two of her children) carrying out unpaid domestic duties, Beryl M Randall (later Beryl M Thomas) at school and Mary Ann Hooper carrying out unpaid domestic duties.  There are also four, currently, closed entries.  The adjacent property, listed as Youngs Farm, housed Walter Jones, a general farm labourer (heavy worker) and his wife Ellen, a ladies help, and son Douglas.

 

In September 1943, Marjorie, by then aged 58 and obviously the owner, advertised Youngs Farm for sale, the description stating:

YOUNGS FARM,

NEWCHAPEL, LINGFIELD

 

17 EXCELLENT DAIRY COWS AND HEIFFERS, 2 CALVES, 5 GEESE, 2 CART HORSES, IMMPLEMENTS & MACHINERY.  Horse Ploughs, Cultivator, Harrows, Land Roll, Albion Mowing Machine, Side Delivery and Horse Rakes, 2 Dung Carts, 2 Waggons, Trolley, Chaff Cutter, Root Pulper, Morris Cowley Motor Car.  A CONCRETE “GROWMORE” SILO.  Corn Bins, 2 Benches, 2 Milk Coolers, Milking Pails, Harnesses, Ladders, Waggon Cover, Usual Small Tools; also

 

TIMBER BUILT BUNGALOW

of three rooms, with bath and boiler.

STORE SHED.          3 POULTRY HOUSES.

 

The initial auction was to be held on 12^th September 1943 but the advertisement was still appearing in the newspapers after this date but it has not yet been possible to determine when the farm eventually sold.  However, it is known that the property was purchased by the International League for the Protection of Horses that established Cherry Tree Farm as a ‘Home of Rest for Horses’, which was opened on 26^th December 1949.

 

On the sale of the farm, Marjorie and her friend and colleague of over twenty years, Edith Drummond Sharpe, moved to Twitten Orchard, Nutbourne, Pullborough, Sussex, where they were to live out the rest of their lives together.  Marjorie died aged 77, at 19, Downview Road, Worthing, on 18^th February 1963, just twenty-four days before Edith.  Marjorie left effects to the value of £6,456 14/-; probate being granted to Tessa Marianne Evans (see above).

 

Women associated with the settlement at Wiremill

The settlement also attracted other independent, single women to the area that set up their own smallholding ventures alongside those of the WFGA, such as Miss Margaret Fisher-Brown.  Also, whilst not part of the Wiremill settlement, the ladies of Garden Cottage, in particular Elizabeth Isabel Rayner, identified with the ideals of the women smallholders, exchanging produce and meeting regularly for tea. 

 

Margaret Fisher-Brown (The Bungalow, 1926-30, Lingfield Poultry Farm, 1930-35, Lingfield Angora Wool Farm, 1936-37, White Rabbit Roadhouse, 1937-43 and White Rabbit Cottage 1943-48)

Margaret Fisher-Brown was born on either 16^th March 1889 (taken from the Death Registry) or 15^th March 1891 (taken from the 1939 Registry).  Unfortunately it has not yet been possible to determine any family members as information on the early life of Margaret Fisher-Brown is very illusive.  What is known is that by 1926 Margaret had succeeded Nancy Grant at The Bungalow, Wire Mill. 

 

There is no mention that the WFGA had The Bungalow built and its probable site, now the site of the Peacock Lodge [for further information see Handout, Eating and Drinking Establishments of Felbridge, Pt.3, SJC 09/09], adjacent to the main London road (A22), was not part of the purchase of the Wire Mill estate, thus it must have fallen outside of the jurisdiction of the WFGA and the women’s smallholding settlement at Wiremill, yet despite this, the agricultural exploits of Margaret Fisher-Brown are frequently referred to in contemporary articles about the settlement in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s.  The first listed resident of The Bungalow, Wire Mill, was Nancy Grant (no further information), who lived there in 1924 and 1925.  However, by 1926, Margaret Fisher-Brown had taken up residence at The Bungalow and, although there is no evidence that the property was within the bounds of the settlement of women smallholders at Wiremill, it is always possible that Nancy Grant and/or Margaret Fisher-Brown were members of the WFGA or had just gravitated to the area because of the settlement of women smallholders.

 

By 1931, Margaret had established the Lingfield Egg Farm and had been joined by Catherine Maud McNally at the property, who would continue to live there until 1938.  In 1933, Margaret and Catherine were joined by Helen Perret (no further information) but she had left by 1934 when James McNally joined Margaret and Catherine until his departure in 1938.  Unfortunately information on Catherine and James McNally is fairly scant and comes mostly from the 1939 Register after they had left the Wiremill area and were living at Crosby, Moat Road, EastGrinstead, Sussex.  The Register records that James was born on 23^rd April 1895 and was working as a chef and that Catherine was born on 2^nd March 1895 and was working as a bar dispenser.

 

By 1932, Margaret had swapped the farming of chicken for rabbits, establishing the Lingfield Angora Wool Farm.  According to David W. Gutzke and Michael John Law in their book The Roadhouse Comes to Britain: Drinking, Driving and Dancing, 1925-1955, Margaret was a ‘recognised authority on Angora rabbits’ and when she first established the Lingfield Angora Wool Farm there were ‘some 7,000 Angora rabbits’.  However, other documents record that the Angora Wool Farm accommodated 500 rabbits and that during the time that the farm was in operation, her rabbits won over 400 awards.  The wool was harvested by brushing out the loose hairs of the coat that were spun and the resulting yarn was then made into baby clothes and other garments.  It is generally this enterprise that is reported on in articles about the WFGA settlement at Wiremill in the early 1930’s.  However, besides the production of the Angora wool, Margaret was also known to supply her Angoras to many farms overseas. 

 

According to David W. Gutzke and Michael John Law, Margaret opened the Lingfield Angora Wool Farm as a tourist attraction, thus creating a demand for a Tea Rooms, known as the White Rabbit Roadhouse, as a ‘fitting conclusion to a tourist experience’ and in 1934 the White Rabbit Club was established, being one of ten registered private clubs in the local Surrey area to be granted a licence in February 1935.  Margaret managed to raise the capital for the private club through the generosity of friends and customers along with several residents who lived on the premises.  Members could enjoy eating in the private restaurant and drinking in the cocktail bar, and as the enterprise grew, so the Angora farm diminished, being replaced by tennis courts and a miniature golf course, although Margaret still kept a reduced number of Angora rabbits up until the early 1940’s, which could be ‘petted’ by visitors, as recalled by local residents.  Between 1938 and 1939 several advertisements can be found in the local newspapers for staff, chambermaids, cooks, restaurant and kitchen staff and cocktail waitresses, even a request for an up-right piano, all indicative of the popularity and expansion of the White Rabbit Club.  Eventually the number of members would rise to 1,000, no doubt helped by the establishment of Hobbs Barracks in 1939 [for further information see Handout, Hobbs Barracks, DHW 01/03] and the influx of soldiers and officers and their wives during World War II.

 

However, the war years were not without incident for Margaret Fisher-Brown who was warned once and fined at least twice for failing to comply with the war-time lighting regulations.  The first fine was for £5 but the second was for £50 as a repeat offence.  If these incidents weren’t bad enough, in May 1941, Margaret, as Lady Secretary of the White Rabbit Club, was fined £30, and the club struck off the register and disqualified for six months for ‘selling beer and spirits without a justice’s licence and for supplying intoxicants after hours’.  The report states that the club had been registered in 1934 and that, to date, had been ‘very well conducted’.  However, on 27^th April 1941, the club was raided at 1.15am and it was found to have 34 people inside, of which only four were actual members and five were residents, the rest were all non-members.  It was revealed that all the men present on the occasion were Army Officers who, in Margaret’s defence, described the premises as being of a ‘nice nature and providing decent, refreshing entertainment’.  Margaret apologised for the lapse of licence and proclaimed that she ‘only did it because they are in khaki’.  By the end of 1941, the White Rabbit Club had re-opened and continued to trade until May 1943, when a serious fire occurred at the premises. 

 

The newspaper articles covering the story recorded that the fire had broken out just before 1.50am on the morning of Saturday 8^th May 1943.  It was established that the fire had broken out on the ground floor, in or near the club room, and had taken hold before those on the first floor were alerted, resulting in them jumping from the bedroom windows to escape.  When a roll call was taken, Margaret was discovered missing, she was later found in the grounds and was taken to Queen Victoria hospital having damaged her spine in the fall and having received slight burns.  As for the remainder of the guests, they were all fine. The origin of the fire was not known but it completely gutted the north wing of the property, fortunately the rabbitry adjacent to the wing, where the Angora rabbits were normally housed, was empty at the time of the fire.  It is interesting to note from this article that the property, by 1941, was a two-storey building and was not a bungalow as implied by the original name The Bungalow.  Unfortunately it has not yet been possible to determine whether the bungalow was replaced by a two-storey building or whether it was extended to become a two-storey property.  What is known is that by November 1943, the White Rabbit Roadhouse was being voluntarily wound up and that a modern, cottage-style residence had been built within the grounds called White Rabbit Cottage (now known as Cypress House), which was put up for auction in August 1945.

 

The cottage was described as of ‘picturesque appearance, brick-built, partially tile hung, with a tiled roof’ containing ‘a Loggia Entrance, Two Reception-rooms, Four Bedrooms, Bathroom, Cloakroom and good offices’.  It had mains electricity, gas and water but no mains sewage, being on ‘Modern Septic Tank Drainage’.  Accompanying the dwelling was a large garden of about half an acre consisting of lawn and flower beds with ‘ample space for a garage’.  The cottage was on the market for at least five years before it eventually sold, together with the site of the old Roadhouse to Stanley Victor Moncrieff, the property then becoming known as the White Rabbit Farm [for further information see Handout, Eating and Drinking Establishments of Felbridge, Pt.3, SJC 09/09].  At sometime after the closure of the Roadhouse and before the sale of White Rabbit Cottage, Margaret also sold about six acres of the original site of the Lingfield Egg Farm/Lingfield Angora Rabbit Farm to Hobbs Barracks.

 

After the sale of the White Rabbit Cottage and associated grounds, Margaret moved from the area, although she still kept close ties and, well into old age, had copies of the local newspapers sent to her.  Margaret Fisher-Brown died aged 84, in July 1973, her death registered in Amersham, Buckinghamshire.

      

Other Pioneering Women Smallholders of Felbridge

Like the pioneering women smallholders of Wiremill, other women of a similar social standing gravitated to the area, possibly attracted by the supportive environment created by the women smallholders of Wiremill, and society’s growing acceptance of women working on the land.  As early as 1923, Enid Allen had taken up residence at Golards Farm, where she established a poultry farm [for further information see Handout, Golards Farmhouse, SJC 11/07] and later bred Alsatian dogs, before moving in 1928 to Crockstead, Imberhorne Lane, East Grinstead, Sussex.  Also, by the mid 1920’s the following poultry farms had been established by women in Felbridge: Felbridge Poultry Farm on Crawley Down Road run by Minnie Spong [for further information see Handout, Another Biography from the churchyard of St John the Divine, James Osborn Spong, SHC 03/04]; Woodcock Poultry Farm run by Miss C M Birdseye, later taken over by Mrs Nancy McIver [for further information see Handout, Woodcock and Nancy McIver, SJC 05/15]; Hazeldene on West Park Road run by Misses Huddlestone and McKellar; Park Farm at Snow Hill run by Miss Harrison and Mount House Farm, also at Snow Hill run by Miss Muriel Neale.  Several of these women have been covered in a previous Handout [Poultry Farming in Felbridge, SJC 05/11] being attracted to the area for the above reasons and the availability of land through the continued break-up and sale of the Felbridge estate [for further information see Handout, 1911 Sale of the Felbridge Estate, SJC 01/11]. 

 

At the upper end of the social scale, Mrs Mary Ann Rudd established a pedigree dairy herd of Jersey cattle at Park Farm [for further information see Handout, Park Farm, Old and New, JIC/SJC07/16] between 1916 and 1924 and Mrs Gladys Elizabeth Atkinson began a breeding programme of Shetland ponies at Park Farm in 1929 [for further information see Handout, Park Farm, Old and New, JIC/SJC07/16].

 

There are, no doubt, many other women who gravitated to the Felbridge area who have not yet been identified or covered in our research, attracted by land-based work opportunities that became available to women as a direct consequence of World War I.

 

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