Author: Andy Turner

Kate Oliver

Kate Oliver, née Buckman, 1881-1967

Between 1943 and 1952, Francis Collinson collected nine songs or song tunes from a Mrs Oliver of Bethersden. Collinson included her tune for ‘I wish I wish’ in the Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, 1946, writing:

Mrs. Oliver of Bethersden, Kent, comes from a naturally musical family each member of which played an instrument, either violin, concertina or piano, and all of them self-taught. She played the airs of the tunes to me on the English concertina and spoke the words to me afterwards. She learned the songs from her father, who knew upwards of a hundred songs. I have noted a number of songs from her in addition to the incomplete one below, including “Blackberry Fold,” “The Cottage in the wood,” ” Mary at the garden gate ” and “The sprig of thyme.” Mrs. Oliver is a woman of middle age.1

Looking at records from the 1939 Register, there are at least three married women in Bethersden, with the surname Oliver, who could meet the imprecise description “a woman of middle age”. The most likely seemed to be Mrs Kate Oliver, if only because her father was Horace Buckman, who George Frampton has identified as having taken part in musical activities in the village before the First World War2. In fact, George has been able to positively identify Kate Oliver as Collinson’s singer – in an article in Bygone Kent he quotes Mrs Oliver’s daughter Mrs Rhoda Sargeant (born 1925), who remembered Francis Collinson visiting the family to note down the songs, and later hearing them sung on ‘Country Magazine’:

My mother learnt the songs as a young girl from her father who played them on his concertina which she learnt to play when she was quite young — it was a natural talent, as she had no lessons except a few tips from her father who was also a natural player.3

Kate was born in 1881, the eighth child of agricultural labourer Jeremiah Buckman, originally from High Halden, and Sarah, née Russell. The 1881 census (shortly before Kate was born) showed the family living at Paris Cottages, Bethersden. In 1891, they were at Bateman Lane, Bethersden, but Jeremiah and his two youngest daughters were back at Paris Corner in 1901 (Kate’s mother Sarah had died in 1896). Kate, now 19, was working as a domestic help.

In 1906 she married farm labourer John Charles Oliver, and at the next census were to be found living at Paris Corner, with a baby son. Her father, Jeremiah had died in November 1910, so John was shown as head of the household. In 1921 their address was 5 St Peters Row, Bethersden; they had another three sons and one daughter. John was now working as a Roadstone Carrier for H Godden Contractor, while Kate’s occupation was shown as “Home Duties”. In September 1939 they were at 5 Council Houses, Bethersden; Kate’s occupation was “Unpaid Domestic Duties”. Three children were still in the parental home, including their youngest child Rhoda, who was approaching fourteen.

Kate Oliver died aged 85, on 20th March 1967. She was buried at Bethersden Methodist Church. An obituary in the Kentish Express, 31st March 1967, gave her address at the time of her death as Bailey Field, Bethersden.

Songs

In his article for JEFDSS, 1946, Collinson mentioned having noted ‘Blackberry Fold’ and ‘The sprig of thyme’ from Mrs Oliver. Neither of these appears to have survived in his collection.

Rhoda Sargeant told George Frampton that her mother sang a song which started “As I walked out one summer morning”. This might have been a version of ‘The Banks of Sweet Primroses’.

  1. Songs Collected by Francis M. Collinson, Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Dec., 1946), pp.13-22 ↩︎
  2. George Frampton, The Millen Family of Bethersden, Kent, Musical Traditions, https://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/millens.htm ↩︎
  3. George Frampton, Country Magazine in Kent, Bygone Kent, Vol. 16, No. 7 ↩︎

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Mary Thompson

From Samuel Holdstock

Collected by Percy Grainger and Edith Lyttleton, Wittersham, 21st August 1909

Percy Grainger Collection PG/10/50, PG/15/2, PG/15/3; Folk Music Journal 2:5 (1974) pp.349-350

Roud 2458

PG-10-50 Mary ThompsonDownload

Writing to Percy Grainger on 10th May 1910, Edith Lyttleton noted that Mr Holdstock “was
quite clear that Amsterdon was the place and you will observe near Derbyshire. But I
suspect that he is easily muddled.” Also that in verse 7 he insisted that the words should
be “But still the smiling said to him”, not “But still she smiling said to him” (PG/15/1).

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Samuel Holdstock

Samuel Holdstock, 1823-1915

Samuel Holdstock was born on 16th May 1832, at Budds Farm, Wittersham, He was baptised at the church of St John the Baptist, Wittersham on 7th June, and remained in the village all his life. His parents were Joseph, a labourer, and Elizabeth, née Tickner. At the time of the 1841 census the family was living at Blackwall, Wittersham. Samuel was the second oldest of eight children, and the household also included the 80 year old Mary Holdstock.

On 11th April 1846, Samuel married Sophia Jenner in the church at Wittersham. In 1851 they were living at Back Road, Wittersham, and had two daughters and one son. Samuel was listed, as he was in most subsequent census returns, as an agricultural labourer. The 1861 census lists the family at 1 Back Street, Wittersham (the same location as Back Road?); Samuel and Sophia have had another three daughters. In 1871 their residence was in the High Street, Wittersham; their youngest daughters, Kate and Caroline, still living in the parental home. In 1881 they were at 5 Main Road; Caroline was still with them, and on the census day they were also looking after a baby granddaughter, Minnie. The 1891 census found them at 4 Swan Road; their daughter Sophia was now living with them, along with two granddaughters, Emma and Mabel.

Samuel’s wife Sophia died and was buried in the parish church on 14th December 1894. By the time of the 1901 census, he had moved in with his daughter Sophia, now married to Thomas Hinkley, a corn miller, at Poplar Cottage, Wittersham (the census has Samuel down as Thomas’s brother-in-law, but that is plainly wrong). Also in the house were Thomas and Sophia’s three children. Samuel was aged 77, but still listed as Agricultural labourer.

Although generally shown as an agricultural labourer in census returns, in 1881 he was described as “Shepheard” (and his daughter Caroline as “Shepheards daur”). In fact, it would appear that he was a skilled shepherd, winning prizes at meetings of the Tenterden Agricultural Association: in 1869 he was placed third for “Rearing the greatest number of lambs (320 lambs, 278 ewes)”1; was third again in 1870 as “lamber of a breeding flock who shall before the 1st June  have reared the greatest number of lambs in proportion to the number of ewes under his management (the number of ewes not to be less than 300 in lamb) of which there must be one-third ewe tags”2; and gained first prize – and a prize of £1 10s. – in 1874 “for rearing 311 ewes 415 lambs”3. On all three occasions his employer was Thomas Chennell, of Budds Farm, Wittersham. He was also awarded a number of prizes at the Wittersham Horticultural Society’s Annual Meeting, in August 1870 – for his extra red gooseberries, herbs, turnips, stocks, scarlet runner beans, calceolaria, cut flowers, marigold, and red potatoes4.

Percy Grainger visited him on 21st August 1909, in company with Mrs Edith Lyttleton, who lived in Wittersham, and noted down five songs – although for only one of these did he note any words. Grainger wrote to his mother the following day

We got though several folksongs yesterday from a very nice old man, his name Samuel Holdstock. How cross I am that I didn’t bring my phonograph with me, for he sings really with charm and with many added syllable “inden” “I’dd” etc.”
One of his melodies was really beautiful: [here he wrote out the tune of the song ‘Mary Thompson’]
I’m so fond of those beginnings (marked*) on the 4th of the key, so uniquely characteristic of English tunes.
Perhaps I will arrange it for 4 voices and let them sing it this evening.

Of the singer, he noted

Samuel Holdstock, born 16 May 1832 [at] Budds, Wittersham, Kent. Here all his lifetime except 2 years in Appledore. [Dealt with] cattle and sheep. Worked up to he was 79, and then got hurt. Wouldn’t sing on a Sunday. Even in his wild days he had never done that. He went up to London to see the Queen’s funeral (Vic[toria]) and he never wished to see another.5

Two years later, in 1911, Samuel was still living with his daughter’s family. Thomas Hinkley was now shown in the census as “miller and baker”, and the family were living at The Mill, Wittersham. Samuel died in the final quarter of 1915, aged 92.

Songs

  1. Maidstone & Kentish Journal 11 October 1869 ↩︎
  2. Maidstone & Kentish Journal 10 October 1870 ↩︎
  3. Epsom Journal 13 October 1874 ↩︎
  4. South Eastern Advertiser 13 August 1870 ↩︎
  5. Quoted in Kay Dreyfus (ed.), Farthest North of Humanness: Letters of Percy Aldridge Grainger 1901-1914, p307-308. ↩︎
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Edith Lyttleton

Edith Sophy Lyttelton, née Balfour, 1865-1948

Born in St Petersburg, the daughter of a London businessman who traded and lived in Russia for many years. She was a member of the “the Souls”, a loose-knit group of intellectuals and politicians active at the end of the nineteenth century. Another member was the Liberal Unionist MP Alfred Lyttleton, whom she married in 1892. They bought Wittersham House, a Georgian Rectory in a state of considerable disrepair, and in 1907 commissioned the architect Edward Lutyens to completely remodel and rebuild the property.

In August 1909 she accompanied Percy Grainger on his song-collecting visit to Samuel Holdstock at Mill House, Wittersham. Presumably, knowing that Mr Holdstock had a stock of old songs, she invited Grainger down to Kent specifically to note these down. A letter from Lyttleton to Grainger, dated 10th May 1910, shows that she had visited the old man again, in an effort to note down the full words of his song ‘Mary Thomson’ (PG/15/1).

Following the death of her husband in 1913, she became heavily involved in spiritualism. At the start of the First World War she was a founder of the War Refugees Committee, became deputy director of the Women’s Branch of the Ministry of Agriculture in 1917, and served on the Central Committee of Women’s Employment from 1916–1925. In 1917 she was one of the first people to be awarded the newly-created Order of the British Empire, in recognition of her work with refugees. After the war she served as vice-chairman of the Waste Reclamation Trade Board (1924–1931) and represented the UK at the League of Nations on several occasions. As well as her public work, she wrote fiction, non-fiction and plays. Having married into the Lyttleton family, she was related to Humphrey Lyttleton, the jazz trumpeter, and chairman of the radio programme I’m sorry I haven’t a clue.

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Percy Grainger

Percy Aldridge Grainger, 1882-1961

Brought up in Melbourne, Australia, after completing his musical studies in Germany the composer made his living as a concert pianist and private teacher in London between 1901 and 1914. His song collecting work began in 1905 in Lincolnshire. The following year he began to make use of the Edison Phonograph to record folk songs – notably from the remarkable Lincolnshire singer Joseph Taylor. His enthusiastic use of this new technology distinguished him from all other early 20th century collectors in Britain. By 1910 he had collected songs in around a dozen counties, including five from Samuel Holdstock at Wittersham in August 1909. On that occasion he was accompanied by Mrs Edith Lyttleton, who lived at Wittersham, and had probably invited Grainger down specifically to hear Mr Holdstock sing.

Grainger and his mother went to America at the outbreak of war in 1914. He became an American citizen, and remained in the United States for the rest of his life.

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