Thrust and parry

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (112) explores further eastward expansion for the resort’s power brokers: the Christchurch Union for poor relief. This organisation supported the area’s poor both at home and in its Workhouse. Its area included Bournemouth. In the late 1870s, the number of Bournemouth people serving on the Union’s management board grew to match those representing Christchurch. Christchurch’s members resented this incursion, flashpoints often occurring. The two sides appear to have differed in social background, perspective, and temperament: suitable material for Charles Dickens.

Victorian Bournemouth (112): Background

Bournemouth Guardians

Most of the men who served as Guardians representing Bournemouth-Holdenhurst belonged to the town’s commercial group. Thus, Joseph Briggs, a poulterer, joined towards the end of the 1870s. The rest had enjoyed success through developing and building property in the town. The names Kerley, McWilliam, Tuck, and Joy all played significant roles in increasing Bournemouth’s built environment. E. W. Rebbeck, son of the primary estate agent, having the same occupation, also became a Guardian at this period. Most of these men also sat on Bournemouth’s Improvement Commission. Thus, they had two important pools of experience on which to draw: the practical issues of building and the management of community affairs. Furthermore, kinship connected Kerley and Rebbeck, McWilliam and Tuck, who also had a business relationship. Reverend J. R. Pretyman, another Improvement Commissioner, joined the Guardians as well. Reports of Commission debates show him as forthright as his fellow Guardians.

Christchurch Guardians

The Guardians representing Christchurch also included a retailer – Elias Lane, grocer – and professional men – James Kemp-Welch (physician), J. E. Holloway (architect). No builders appeared to have served, but farmers constituted an alternative commercial bloc. Stanfield and Seare had considerable holdings within Holdenhurst. John Waterfield farmed a smaller area at Winkton. James Druitt, the solicitor, retired from the Board of Guardians during the 1870s, but remained involved through taking the clerkship. The 1851 census listed him as mayor for Christchurch. Holloway’s father had a plumbing business, but as an architect he appears to have enjoyed some social mobility. The physician and the solicitor perhaps occupied a similar social position as Holloway, if not more elevated. Elias Lane’s possible mother recorded her occupation in 1841 as ‘independent’. This can sometimes indicate social comfort. The farmers may also have stood on similar levels. Thus, perhaps significant social differences separated the Bournemouth and Christchurch Guardians.

Victorian Bournemouth (112): types of power

Christchurch reactionaries

John Waterfield, one of the farmers representing Christchurch on the Union Board, resented the Local Government Board’s interference: ‘he thought the Local Government Board was the greatest curse in existence’. Such an attitude displays an element of introversion perhaps in keeping with the extent to which the members appeared to monopolise power. James Druitt, for example, held at least ten clerkships within the local administration, accruing £850 per annum in fees. Letters to the press complained about ‘too many bells hanging on the same horse’. The acquisition of so many ‘bells’, while lucrative, also prevented others from developing powerful positions. His predecessor in the Board’s clerkship also practised pluralism. He clerked for Holdenhurst’s vestry. Furthermore, he worked for Lord Malmesbury, perhaps the most substantial proprietor in the district, his brother representing Christchurch in Parliament. Another significant landholder, Mr Farr, sat on the Board ex-officio, but played an active role.

Bournemouth expansionists

In the 1870s, the Local Government Board’s sanction had to precede loans taken by both the Union and Bournemouth’s Improvement Commission. Neither body welcomed this procedure, but they displayed an attitudinal difference in proceeding. The Christchurch members of the former sought to borrow as little as possible to fund the new workhouse. In contrast, the Improvement Commissioners appear to have borrowed as much as possible during their various civic projects, not least the eastern drainage work. The Improvement Commission managed a much wider agenda and larger budget than the Union’s Board of Guardians. The former conducted their business fuelled on expansionist ambition, whereas the latter appeared reluctant to do even the minimum. To some extent, the moral requirement not to encourage poverty will have limited the Guardians in their programmes. Nevertheless, when Bournemouth acquired greater representation amongst them, the difference in attitudes may have resulted in confrontations. 

Victorian Bournemouth (112): another flashpoint

John Waterfield versus Rev. J. R. Pretyman

Almost contemporaries, Waterfield and Pretyman both came from outside. Waterfield, from Leicestershire, farmed in Lyndhurst by 1861, taking up 80 acres in Winkton, near Christchurch, by 1871. Pretyman, from Berkshire, a clergyman, had followed an itinerant life until he came to Bournemouth by 1881. They appear to have had different social backgrounds. Pretyman, a Cambridge student, stood in a line of clergyman, reaching to his grandfather if not beyond.  His wife’s father may have worked as a solicitor. John Waterfield’s father at one time kept a public house. His first wife’s father made and repaired wheels. Consecutive census reports listed Waterfield as a farmer, but he may have started as a nurseryman. Thus, while Waterfield seems to have achieved success, Pretyman lived within its context from birth. Neither man took a restrained approach during Board or Commission discussions with colleagues. They viewed many poor people as chancers at best.

A memorable encounter

They got across each other at a Guardians’ meeting where Pretyman reported on a spontaneous visit he had paid to the workhouse children, then housed elsewhere. Waterfield said that education had become a curse to the country, England now ‘eaten up’ with clerks. Pretyman referred to a book of his entitled ‘Dispauperisation’. Waterfield brushed it away, commenting that Local Government Board books provided most of his content. ‘Old stuff, 20 years old, about a man and a pig.’ Why had a man of Pretyman’s talent published such a book? The clergyman made a swift rejoinder. ‘One must put in such things as that to enliven such gentlemen as you’ (laughter). At another meeting, Waterfield began to talk, when Pretyman spoke over him. Each backed away, staging an elaborate display of politeness. Other resentments between the towns’ Guardians echoed this disharmony on the Union’s board.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (112) has explored the backgrounds of those who represented Bournemouth and Christchurch on the Union board. The latter often criticised or sneered at Bournemouth, resentful of their neighbour’s success and its increasing presence on the management board. Social and perhaps personal differences may have impeded the Union from making quick and effective decisions affecting the local poor people. Charles Dickens would have appreciated the irony of the egos clashing while the poor shivered.

References

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