Mary Rebecca Powell, née Wells, 1835-1920
In August 1910 Francis Jekyll collected two songs from a Mrs Powell, Minster, Isle of Sheppey. This would appear to be Mrs Mary Powell, who had been an inmate of the Sheppey Union Workhouse since at least 1891. Census records from 1891 to 1911 have her birthplace as Linton in Cambridgeshire, or Cambridge. However she appears to have been baptised at Isleham, near Newmarket in Cambridgeshire, on 2nd September 1835. She was the daughter of Edward Wells, a labourer, and Hannah, née Starling. The 1841 census shows the Wells family living in Isleham. Mary was the third eldest of seven children, and there were two other adults and a 15 year old also living in the same house.
Mary was still in the family home at Isleham in 1851, but at some point between then and 1873 it seems that she must have moved to Kent, because in the final quarter of that year she married Thomas Holden on Sheppey. The 1861 census listed Thomas as a carter, working at Eastchurch.
The 1870s were a time of rural unrest throughout the country as, in a movement often referred to as “The Revolt of the Field”, the newly-formed National Agricultural Labourers Union, led by Joseph Arch, encouraged farmworkers to stand together to achieve better working conditions and wages. Formed in 1872, the union’s membership peaked nationally at over 86,000 in 1874. The separate Kent Agricultural Labourers’ Union – later the Kent and Sussex Agricultural Labourers’ Union – was founded as the result of a meeting held at Shoreham on 17th April 1872. This meeting was addressed by Alfred Simmons, editor of the radical newspaper the Kent Messenger and Maidstone Telegraph and he emerged as the main leader of the Kent union (Simmons was not himself an agricultural labourer, but he attributed his commitment to the labourers’ cause to the fact that he and his siblings had been brought up in poverty by his mother, who had been left penniless on her husband’s death). Within three months of that initial meeting, the Kent Agricultural Labourers’ Union had over 4,000 members, and by the end of the year this figure had risen to 6,000. One year into its existence, by May 1873 there were 8,000 union members and the union had a healthy bank balance: subscriptions had brought in £1,25o, plus more than £200 from public donations1. Soon, farmers began to dismiss workers who had joined the union, but the union countered with boycotts of these employers – finding work for dismissed labourers elsewhere in the county and also, following the example of the national union, assisting workers to emigrate to Australia or New Zealand.
A union branch was established on Sheppey following a meeting of 200 men outside the Royal Oak, East End Lane, near Minster, on Saturday 31st May 1873. A detailed report of this meeting was printed in the Sheerness Times and General Advertiser on Saturday 7th June 1873, under the headline “MEETING OF AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS”, and it is well worth reading this to get a feel for the nature of the farmworkers’ grievances, and also the eloquence of the speaker at the meeting, a Mr. Harry Howard, of the Southfleet Branch of the Kent union. Howard argued persuasively that “A combination of men was better heard and listened to than the complaints of single individuals. Masters could discharge their labourers by wholesale a short time since, because they were sure of getting others, but that time had gone by: working-men were no longer weak, and their complaints were now listened to”, and summarised the aims of the Kent Union as “to secure an adequate scale of wages for work performed, overtime to be paid for in the coin of the realm, and to secure a certain number of hours as a day’s work”. In conclusion, he suggested that they should adjourn to the pub to formally set up a union branch. This they did, and 70 men joined on the spot.
In 1875 the union pressed for higher wages – asking for 3 shillings a day, and the working day to be set at 10 hours. Employers rejected this, insisting on an 11 hour working day. In April 1865 it was reported that
Nearly all the agricultural labourers of the Isle of Sheppey have turned out on strike, in consequence of their employers not acceding to a request for more wages and shorter hours. The men – most of whom have been in receipt of from 16s. to 18s. a week – are backed up by the Kent Labourers’ Union. The farmers held a meeting, and resolved to maintain an opposition to the demands at any cost.2
The Tablet, 10th April 1875, put the number of striking labourers as “200 to 300 in number”.
A letter in the Sheerness Times, 17th April 1875, signed simply “A FARM LABOURER” sought to make readers aware of how farmworkers were treated by their employers.
The farm labourers are “locked out” because they demand that a day’s work shall consist of ten hours, and I am sure that the majority of your readers will coincide with me that that time is quite long enough for the arduous work we have to perform. Latterly (at the request of the majority of the labourers) a young man was elected branch secretary of the Kent Agricultural Labourers’ Association, and he was immediately discharged from a farm near “Court Tree” for his connection with our Society. This was not all! Although he had held the position of “organ blower” at the Church at Eastchurch for the last seven years, to the satisfaction of all, he has also been peremptorily discharged from that position by the Churchwardens. The salary attached to the above office was the paltry sum of £1 per year, I ask those who deprecate the un-English proceedings of the farmers of Sheppey, to support those on the “lock out” with their mite.
We know that Thomas Holden was a union member and took part in the strike, because this was widely reported – in Kent and elsewhere – in reports of a court case in August 1875. The Sheerness Guardian, 21st August 1875 provided a summary of the case:
AN AGGRAVATED ASSAULT.—At the Sittingbourne Petty Sessions, on Monday last, a farmer named King, belonging to Eastchurch, was summoned for assaulting Mary Rebecca Holden and Jas. Holden, her husband, at Eastchurch, on the 10th of July, 1875.—Mr. Hayward appeared for complainants, Mr. Johnson for defendant. Considerable interest was attached to this case. Holden is one of the agricultural labourers who have been on strike in Sheppey, and it is understood that in this action he was supported by the Kent Agricultural Labourers’ Union. The assault was clearly proved, and neither of the complainants appear to have given the defendant any provocation. The defendant knocked Holden down insensible, whereupon his wife went to his assistance, and, as she was stooping down to pick him up, King struck her. He knocked her down several times, cutting her eye, breaking her jaw, and finally rendering her senseless. The magistrates characterised the assaults as most brutal and cowardly. For the assault on the man defendant was fines £4 18s. 5d. including costs; for the assault on the woman he was sentenced to fourteen days’ imprisonment with hard labour, and ordered to pay the costs (£2 18s. 5d.) or to undergo further imprisonment for one month.
Several reports gave the name of the assaulted man as James Holden, but this was a typographical error – perhaps the result of conflating his name with that of the defendant, James King.
This article, from the Sheerness Times and General Advertiser, 21st August 1875, provides some further information:
COWARDLY AND UNPROVOKED ASSAULT.
James King, farmer, of Leysdown, Sheppey, was summoned for having assaulted Thomas Holden, an agricultural labourer, and Mary Rebecca Holden, his wife, at Eastchurch, on Saturday, July 10th.— Mr. Hayward for the complainants; Mr. Johnson for the defendant.
The evidence of the complainants, supported by several witnesses, was to this effect. On the day in question, Holden was in the Wheatsheaf beer-house, Eastchurch, and his wife came to the door with a basket of vegetables for sale. King was at the bar, and he went to the woman and took a bundle of lettuce out of her basket and tore them to pieces. Holden then went to his wife and asked why she allowed her things be spoiled, whereupon King said, “Do they belong to you, Tom,” and he replied “Yes, Jem, and I don’t like to see them spoiled.” King then gave Holden a “chuck” under the chin, saying, “How do you like that,” and this he followed by some “fearful blows”, knocking Holden down, and rendering him nearly quite insensible. The woman thought her husband was dead, and went to pick him up, when King attacked her, striking her several times, and finally knocking her down on the cellar-flap outside the house, and breaking her jaw-bone. The woman was insensible, and some thought at the time that she was dead. It was suggested in cross-examination that the woman drank the defendant’s beer without permission, and that she sang in the tap-room after her jaw was said to be broken, but this was denied; it elicited, however, that she had been convicted of riotous conduct. Two witnesses were called on the part of the defendant named Stockbridge and Mungham; they endeavoured to prove that the woman was the aggressor, but they gave their evidence in such a way that Mr. Hayward significantly declined to cross-examine them.
The magistrates characterised the assault as brutal and cowardly. For that upon the man they fined the defendant £4 18s. 5d., including costs; for that upon the woman he was sentenced to fourteen days’ hard labour, and to a further term if the costs (£2 18s. 5d.) were not paid.
Nowhere is Thomas’ union membership explicitly stated as the reason for King’s assault on him. But all reports mention the fact that he was a striking union member. In fact the union supported Thomas and Mary in bringing the case, retaining the lawyer Mr Hayward on their behalf.
The longest, most detailed report appeared in the Kent & Sussex Times, 20th August 1875, under the headline “BRUTAL ASSAULT ON A LOCKED-OUT LABOURER AND HIS WIFE BY A SHEPPY FARMER”. This provided the additional information that “The case had been adjourned for a month in order to enable the female complainant to appear, she having had her jaw broken in the assault, and being under medical treatment. She now appeared in court with her face bound up”. Thomas Holden (incorrectly referred to as James throughout the article) is described as “one of the men who were “locked out,” and by growing a few vegetables in his cottage garden occasionally earned a few pence to supplement the Union lock-out pay”. The article includes details of Mary’s testimony – and since we rarely have the opportunity to hear directly from the mouths of traditional singers from this era (even if filtered through the pen of a newspaper reporter), this is given here in full:
I was in the front of the bar of the Wheat Sheaf, at Eastchurch, on the 10th of July. My husband was in the tap-room when I went in. I asked them if they wanted some lettuces or onions, and the defendant took a bunch out of my basket, and threw them down in front of the bar. He repeated this. I said, “If you don’t want to buy them don’t pluck them to pieces.” My husband came up to know what was going on, and the defendant said “are they your’s,” and up with his fist and struck him under the chin. He struck him in the same way again, and then knocked him down. I went to pick him up, and the defendant struck me and knocked me down, cutting me across the eye. When I was getting up he hit me under the jaw, and knocked me down again. I became senseless, and that is all I know about it. I am under the doctor now, and still have the wires in my jaw, which was broken. I did nothing to the defendant, but went to pick my husband up, and that was what I had the blow for. I cannot say how long my husband was senseless, for I was knocked down senseless myself directly afterwards.
Then, when examined by the defence lawyer:
I am quite sure it was the defendant who tore the lettuces to pieces. I did not attempt to drink any of his beer. I saw Stockbridge and Mungham there, and they are witnesses, I ought to have had, but they both live under the defendant and work for him. I was in Mr. Hughes’ summer-house when I came to myself. I should not think I was capable of singing after having my jaw broken.
The evidence given by the landlord James Hughes, and his wife Sarah, as well as three labourers who had been witnesses to the attack, all supported Mary’s testimony. The conflicting evidence given by the labourers Stockbridge and Mungham seems to have been given short shrift – the magistrates told James King that “The assault is a brutal one on your part, and particularly disgraceful in knocking down a woman and breaking her jaw as you did”. At the end of the trial, King paid the damages plus costs – amounting to a total of £7 17s, “and the defendant was removed in the custody of the police to undergo his sentence”.
The anonymous author of the ‘Jottings Grave and Gay’ column in the East Kent Gazette, 21 August 1875 condemned the assault by King, saying that “I should imagine that a more unmanly outrage never disgraced the Isle of Sheppey”, and applauded the fact that the magistrates had sentenced the assailant to two weeks’ hard labour, not just a fine. He concluded that this would demonstrate that there was, as was often asserted, not one law for the rich, and another for the poor. This view was not universally shared however. Reynolds’s Newspaper (originally linked to Chartism, and later the Cooperative movement) ran a report on the trial under the heading “MORE LENIENCY TOWARDS RUFFIANISM”. The Kent & Sussex Times, meanwhile, on 20th August 1875 described the sentence as “FLAGRANT INJUSTICE”. The column argued that
The Hon. Secretary to the Labourers’ Union has acted well in bringing Mr. KING before the magistrates, and it is greatly to be deplored that the Bench acted in so half-hearted a manner in punishing the accused. To such a person as Mr. FARMER KING a fine of a pound or two is no punishment whatever. The only real punishment brought to bear upon him is the fourteen days’ imprisonment, and we emphatically maintain that this sentence is utterly inadequate to the outrageous nature of the offence. It will be very convenient for some persons to know that they may commit a brutal assault upon an unoffending man and his wife, that they may kick the husband and break the wife’s jaw bone, and all upon the risk of “a small fine and 14 days.” Now let us put a case. Supposing instead of a labouring man’s wife this woman had been the wife of a farmer, and supposing instead of a farmer KING had been a labourer, would the punishment inflicted have been the same? We trow not. We venture to think that any working man who attacked an unoffending woman would have been committed for trial, and ultimately sentenced to a lengthy term of imprisonment. And in that he would have had no more than his due. Yet, here is a farmer who, without receiving provocation, commits a cowardly and aggravated assault upon both the man and his wife, and – because he is a farmer, possibly – a few days’ confinement, and a mere flea-bite of a fine is deemed sufficient.
It concluded
We denounce the decision of the magistrates as entirely inadequate to the offence. It is this partiality for higher class criminals which is daily bringing the law into contempt; and the Sittingbourne verdict adds another to the long string of precedents which eventually must lead to the appointment of stipendiary instead of country gentlemen magistrates.
Sadly, the attack on Thomas and Mary was not the worst tragedy to befall them at the Wheatsheaf Inn. The Sheerness Times and General Advertiser, 2nd October 1880, reported that on the afternoon of Saturday 25th October 1880 the Holdens went to the pub, which “is situate on the borders of Eastchurch parish, in the centre of an extensive agricultural district, and at this season of the year […] is mostly frequented by those engaged in harvest operations, as in addition to being a retailer of beer and spirits, the proprietor also carries on the business of grocer and general dealer, and the labourers are accustomed to resort thereto for their weekly provisions”. They met William Hadlum and his wife in the pub and, after eating some dinner, went outside to sit on the green in front of the pub.
Shortly afterwards Hadlum, who was the worse for drink, commenced abusing his wife and making so much noise, that the landlord ordered him either to be quiet or to go about his business, whereupon Hadlum stretched himself upon the ground and appeared to go to sleep. Whether he really did so or not we cannot tell, but it seems that after the lapse of about two hours he jumped up and recommenced the disturbance, by challenging Holden to fight. The landlord again interposed, and warned Hadlum off his premises, when the latter suddenly turned round, and exclaiming “This is the way to do it,” rushed at Holden, who was still sitting on the ground, and struck him two heavy blows with his fist, knocking him senseless. Assistance was at once rendered to the unfortunate man, but it was soon discovered that he was past all human aid, and Hadlum was accordingly detained till the arrival of the police, when he was taken into custody and removed to the lock-up at Sheerness. The deceased must have expired immediately, as he neither moved nor spoke after being struck. Hadlum is well-known all over the island, being somewhat of the half-gipsy type and has been generally looked upon as a man to be avoided when in drink, his violent temper and cruel disposition having on more than one occasion led to a breach of the peace. On the other hand, Holden, who was a native of Eastchurch, was a quiet, inoffensive man, and was greatly respected by those with whom he worked.
At the inquest the following Monday, James Hughes the pub landlord said Thomas Holden was a farm labourer who resided in the parish of Warden (just up the coast from Leysdown, in the East of Sheppey), and that he’d known him since childhood. He described what he had witnessed, and his attempts to restrain Hadlum:
as I was approaching him, Hadlum took off his coat and waistcoat. He said he had fought Tom Sayers [a famous bare-knuckle prize fighter], and he would fight the best man in England. He again placed himself in a fighting attitude in front o the deceased, who was still sitting down, and had apparently not provoked Hadlum at all. I pushed Hadlum back, and threw his clothes on his shoulders and told him to go. I said “Holden is not a fighting man, but one of the quietest persons in the parish.” I then turned round to go away, when Hadlum immediately jumped round and said, “This the way to do it.” He then struck the deceased two violent blows with his fist, the first on the temple and the second near the ear, knocking him over senseless from the seat upon which he was sitting. Holden had not attempted to get up or to fight, and the only expression I heard him use was “If you hit me you will have to suffer for it.” So far as I know there was not the slightest provocation given by Holden to Hadlum. Deceased appeared to lay doubled up. I put my hand under his shoulders and lifted him straight. I tried his pulse and could find none, and I then said to Hadlum, “He is dead, you vagabond, you have killed him.”
Once again, we get to hear the voice of Mary Holden. Here is her evidence as reported in the Sheerness Guardian of 2nd October – it is mostly consistent with what appeared in the Sheerness Times, but has a slightly more natural feel, and some additional detail:
The deceased, Thomas Holden, is my husband. On Saturday last, at ten minutes past twelve, he and I came to the “Wheatsheaf Inn” to have our dinner. Hadlum and his wife were there when we came in. After dinner we all four went out and sat on the green in front of the house. No disagreement occurred between my husband and Hadlum, and I sat talking to his wife. Just before five o’clock Hadlum said something to [my husband], but I did not hear what it was. My husband replied, “If you hit me, you’ll have to suffer for it.” He got up, stood in front of [my husband], put himself in a fighting attitude, and said “I care for no man; here I am; I am one of Courtney’s men.” He then struck my husband two violent blows and he fell down dead directly.
The witness here became very excited, and after waiting for some time, she was removed from the room in a fainting condition.
In the first quarter of the following year, 1881, Mary remarried, with Edward George Powell. At the time of the 1881 census, the couple were living at 2 Earlls Cottages, Eastchurch. Edward was 42 years old – three years younger than Mary – and his occupation was given as “Ag lab & army reserve”.
In April 1891, when the next census took place, Mary Powell was for the first time accorded an occupation in the census record – Agricultural labourer. But she is also shown as a Pauper inmate of the Sheppey Union Workhouse in Minster, and there she appears to have remained until her death, three decades later. Edward does not appear to be listed as an inmate of the Workhouse in 1891, 1901 or 1911; in fact, he seems to disappear from the official record after the 1881 census. Mary would have been a resident of the workhouse when she sang her songs for Francis Jekyll. She died in 1920, aged 85.
Songs
An Old Man He Courted Me (Roud 210)
Tarry Trowsers (Roud 427)
- This account of the Kent Agricultural Labourers’ Union is derived mostly from Rollo Arnold, The “Revolt of the Field” in Kent 1872-1879, Past & Present, No. 64 (Aug., 1974), pp. 71-95 ↩︎
- Midland Examiner and Wolverhampton Times, 10th April 1875 – exactly the same words were printed in local newspapers across the country ↩︎
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