Author: Andy Turner

Samuel Holdstock

Samuel Holdstock, 1832-1915

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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George Butterworth

George Sainton Kaye Butterworth, 1885-1916

The composer George Butterworth, a close friend of Ralph Vaughan Williams, joined the Folk-Song Society in 1906. He collected several dozen songs between 1906 and 1913, in counties including Herefordshire, Shropshire, Norfolk and Oxfordshire but, especially, in Sussex – it was a Sussex version of ‘The Banks of Green Willow’ which provided the inspiration for one of his best-known compositions. He was also a founding member of the English Folk Dance Society. He collected morris tunes and dances, and was a key member of the EFDS demonstration team.

He made only one collecting trip to Kent, noting three songs in the Minster Workhouse in September 1910:

There are of course two places called Minster in Kent, and both had a workhouse. However it seems most likely that he was following in the footsteps of his friend Francis Jekyll, who had collected two songs in the Sheppey Union Workhouse the previous month, in August 1910.

Regrettably, Butterworth did not record the name of the singer of these three songs – indeed we don’t have any indication if all three were sung by the same person. This failure to note down their name was disrespectful, to say the least. Noone entered the workhouse willingly, and becoming an inmate brought shame, and a loss of personal dignity. It might have been some small recompense if the poor singer’s name had been recorded for posterity, alongside their songs.

Butterworth enlisted as an officer in the 13th Durham Light Infantry at the outbreak of World War I. He was recommended for the Military Cross on three occasions, and was awarded the medal twice – the second time in recognition of his conduct on the morning 5th August 1916, at Pozieres during the first battle of the Somme This was also the day he met his death, and he was buried at the front. He was one of three members of the pre-war EFDS demonstration team who failed to return from the war.

George Butterworth, second from the left, with the English Folk Dance Society demonstration team, Kelmscott, June 1912.
George Butterworth (second from the left) with the English Folk Dance Society demonstration team, Kelmscott, June 1912.
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