Frances Harriett Baker née Bell, 1879-1954

Writing in the Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society Vol 5 No 1 (1946), Francis Collinson provided a brief paragraph about Mr and Mrs Baker of Maidstone:

His wife also knows folk-songs and I got the following songs from her: “The oyster girl,” “The bold fisherman” and “The sergeant in the wagon train.” She was born at Mereworth in Kent and learned her songs from her father, who used to sit and sing them in the chimney corner in the evening. He knew over a hundred and fifty songs. Mrs. Baker was hopeful of getting some more songs from her sister, but the latter unfortunately died very shortly afterwards, and her songs died with her.

Frances Bell was born on 5^th October 1879, and baptised at St Lawrence, Mereworth on 26^th October 1879. Her father Josiah was a labourer. Both he and his wife Mary née Cheesman had been born and raised in Mereworth. In 1881 they were living at an unspecified address in Butcher’s Lane, Mereworth; in 1891 the family (now including 5 children) were residing at Moorcocks Cottages in Butcher’s Lane.

At the time of the 1901 census Frances was 21, and working as a cook for farmer John Godwin at Hazlewood, East Peckham. She married Harry Baker at St Lawrence, Mereworth on 19^th December 1903, and by 1911 they were living in Maidstone, initially in Upper Fant Road and then later at 5 Evelyn Road.

She died at Maidstone in 1954, aged 75.

Josiah Bell, 1845-?

Frances’ father Josiah was baptised at Mereworth on 19^th February 1845. He lived in Mereworth all his life, with censuses from 1881 through to 1911 showing him living in Butcher’s Lane; his occupation was consistently given as agricultural labourer, with the exception of 1901, when he was listed as “Fruit grower, own account”. By 1911 he was a widower, and living with his daughter Kate and son-in-law Jesse Pantrey (also a farm labourer) at Herne House Cottages, Butcher’s Lane. I have not as yet been able to identify his date of death, but this would appear to have occurred before the 1921 census.

Kate Pantrey née Bell, 1886-1944

Frances had two sisters. The elder, Annie Louisa, died at the age of 16, in 1893. Therefore Kate, born 25^th January 1886, must have been the sister from whom “Mrs. Baker was hopeful of getting some more songs”. She was still living in the family home in Butcher’s Lane, Mereworth in 1901. In 1905 she married Jesse Robert Pantrey, and they set up home at Herne House Cottages – also in Butcher’s Lane. In 1911 they were living at 8 Kent Street, Mereworth in 1921, with a son and a daughter. By 1939 they had moved to 8 Council Cottage, Herne Pound. Kate died in the second quarter of 1944.

Songs

The Gleaner (Roud 13638)

Mary at the garden gate (Roud 418)

Oyster girl (Roud 875)

Sergeant in the wagon train (Roud 1354)

Although in the 1946 JEFDSS Francis Collinson ascribed ‘Bold fisherman’ to Mrs Baker, his notebooks record that it was actually sung by Mr Baker.

Harry Baker, 1876-1958

‘Death and the lady’, the only song in the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs that was collected in Kent, came from “Mr. Baker of Maidstone”. The song was included in the Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society Vol 5 No 1 (1946), with the following note from the collector Francis Collinson:

Mr. Baker of Maidstone, who is in his seventies, has worked all his life as an engineer at Thomas Tillings’. He is a little uncertain in his singing, and I had to ask him to repeat the tune of “Death and the Lady” a number of times before I was certain of having it down correctly.

It only became apparent in the 1990s, when Collinson’s English song MSS became more readily accessible, that he had in fact collected songs from both Mr and Mrs Baker.

Harry Baker was born on 12^th December 1876 and baptised 14^th January 1877 at St Lawrence, Mereworth. His father William was a labourer, originally from East Malling, his mother was Eliza née Honey, from Mereworth. In 1881 the family was living at New Pound, Mereworth; Harry was the second youngest of the four children in the family home. By 1891 they had moved a couple of miles away, to Dukes Place, West Peckham. Harry, now 14, was described as “Houseboy domestic”. 10 years later they were to be found at Court Lodge, East Peckham; Harry’s occupation was given as Grocer’s assistant.

Shortly before Christmas 1903, on 19^th December, Harry married Frances Harriett Bell, at St Lawrence, Mereworth. His occupation at the time was given as “Labourer”. By the time of the next census, in 1911, Harry was working as an Assurance agent for the Prudential and living at 108 Upper Fant Road, Maidstone, with Frances, and a 5 year old daughter, Hilda. They were at the same address in 1921, and the family now included a son, Harry, who had been born in 1912. Harry’s occupation was shown as “Hardener (Steel)”, but in the Employer column it states “Out Of Work”.

The 1939 Register shows that they had moved at some point literally just round the corner, to 5 Evelyn Road, Maidstone. As well as Frances, his daughter Hilda – now Hilda Stanley – was also living in the house. Harry was working as “Steel Hardener Heavy Worker”. His employer is not given, but presumably this was Thomas Tilling Ltd. – or, to be accurate, Tilling-Stevens, whose factory was less than a mile away in St Peter’s Street. That factory was designed by Wallis, Gilbert and Partners, the foremost factory architects of the inter-war period. It is now a Grade II listed building, “one of few surviving examples of a group of English factories built using the Kahn Daylight System, an adaptable, efficient and influential system of factory building, developed in America for the construction of automotive factories”[1]. To quote further from the same Historic England record:

Tilling-Stevens Ltd was formed in 1915 after WA Stevens, inventor of the petrol-electric motor, met Richard Tilling of Thomas Tilling Ltd, London’s oldest omnibus operator (established 1847). The men recognised the potential for petrol-electric transmission in motorised buses, and the companies went into partnership together, manufacturing their own vehicles. New premises were added to Stevens’ Maidstone works (known as the Victoria Works) in 1912, and following the formation of Tilling-Stevens Limited the works were enlarged again with the construction of the Wallis Gilbert and Partners factory in 1917 to accommodate production for war requirements.

The company manufactured buses and other commercial vehicles; during the Second World War their work would have been turned over to the war effort, and they produced searchlight lorries for the Army.

Harry Baker died in the second quarter of 1958.

Songs

Bold Fisherman (Roud 291)

Death and the Lady (Roud 1031)

---

[1] Historic England, Official list entry for Former Tilling-Stevens Factory, St Peter’s Street, Maidstone, Kent, ME16 0ST, https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1408072