Thomas Coomber

Thomas Marshall Coomber, 1865-1945

Between 1905 and 1907, during her stays with her brother at Blackham in Sussex, Anne Gilchrist noted down more than a dozen songs from the Coomber family, who lived in the village. One of these, ‘The Gentleman Soldier’, became well known on the folk music scene thanks to its inclusion in The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, first published in 1959. The song came from Thomas Coomber, who had moved to Blackham following his marriage in 1884, but had been born and raised in Penshurst.

His parents were Richard Coomber, a labourer, and Frances (Fanny), née Card. Both were natives of Penshurst. Thomas was born in the third quarter of 1865, and his birth record lists him as Thomas Marshal Coomber.  Oddly, when baptised at St John the Baptist, Penshurst, on 5^th November that year, his name was recorded as William Thomas Comber, but subsequent census records have him as Thomas M. The family’s residence at the time was shown as Pounds Bridge, Penshurst (actually, geographically it’s closer to Speldhurst). In 1871 they were to be found at Barracks Cottages, Penshurst. Richard Coomber was now working as a “Stone drawer”. Four sons, and three out of four daughters, were still living in the family home: his eldest son Richard was a bricklayer’s labourer, while daughters Harriet and Elizabeth worked in a paper factory. This would have been Chafford Paper Mills, actually at Fordcombe, which existed from at least 1786, until 1913, and which at one stage produced paper used for Bank of England notes, and for postage stamps. Ten years later, in 1881, they were living at Poundsbridge and Richard was now a bricklayer’s labourer. Both his wife Fanny, and youngest daughter Charlotte, were employed at the paper factory. 15 year old Thomas was, like his older brother Arthur, working as an agricultural labourer. He had been listed as “Scholar” in 1871, but by his own account he left school at the age of 8, and we know that he was illiterate – both because Anne Gilchrist recorded this fact, and because he signed his marriage certificate with an X.¹

On Christmas Day 1884, at Fordcombe, he married Elizabeth Gasson, who hailed from Hartfield in Sussex. As Thomas’ descendent Richard Coomber points out, Christmas Day would have been one of relatively few days in the year when both bride and groom could be sure of being off work. It would appear that Elizabeth had had a son earlier in the year, and that Thomas Coomber was the father: the baptism of Thomas George Marshall Gasson was recorded at Hartfield, Sussex in 1884.

At some point before the end of the decade the family moved to Blackham, just over the border in Sussex, and Thomas began work as a labourer on the extension of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway:

In all probability Thomas’s quest for work to feed his growing family saw him tramp the few miles to the village of Blackham where the construction of the railway offered the chance of hard, but quite well paid work.

Most of the men employed on the extension of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway line from Edenbridge to Ashurst junction were professional ‘navvies’, men from all over Britain, Ireland and even parts of Europe, who followed the growing rail network wherever labour was needed. The life was hard and the men often crude and rough, prone to heavy drinking and fighting. Indeed, this line should have been opened 20 years before, but a lack of funds and a riot at nearby Mark Beech over the use of Belgian labourers halted all work until the 1880s.

Thomas worked on shifting the thousands of tons of earth and stone excavated as the cut was dug through Black-ham, and the bridge was built to carry the road which ran from the recently constructed ‘Iron’ church just below the post office, down Bean’s Hill to the watermill on Kent Water, the tributary that marks the border with Kent and ran into the Medway near the papermill about a mile further along its course.

Much of the earth was shifted further down the line towards Willetts Farm to build the embankment for the line before it reaches Ashurst. Thomas was using a horse and cart belonging to the farmer Thomas Floyd and by the time the railway was completed, he had obviously impressed him with his willingness to work hard because he was offered a job on the farm.²

The 1891 census shows the family living in Blackham, with Thomas’ occupation now farm labourer. Their son Thomas was now listed as Thomas G.M. Coomber, and they had a daughter, Elizabeth, born in 1886. Abraham Read, a 74 year old farm labourer, was living with them.

In 1901 they were living at 1 Blackham Cottages, and Thomas was working as “Stockman on farm”. Indeed he remained “Cowman on farm” in the next two censuses, with his employer in 1921 shown as Thomas Ashby, Willetts Farm, Blackham (Ashby had taken on the tenancy of Willetts Farm in 1912). Neither the 1911 or 1921 census gives any real indication of where they lived, other than Blackham, but Richard Coomber believes that they lived throughout this period at a cottage on the Willets Farm estate. You can read a description of their dwelling on the Blackham Village website.³

When he finished his day’s work on the farm, Thomas would return and work in his garden. Apart from a few flowers near the house, it was given over to producing food for the family. Rows of vegetables gave way to plum and pear trees, and a Maid of Kent apple tree, which yielded huge apples. Room was also found for a chicken run and a pig pound, in which he would raise two pigs – one to be killed for the family to eat, the other as payment to the butcher for killing and preparing the meat.⁴

By 1911 Elizabeth had given birth to a total of 13 children, six of whom had died. When Anne Gilchrist came collecting in the early 1900s, she took down one song, ‘The Squire and the Milkmaid’ (AGG/3/6/8), from Thomas and Elizabeth’s daughter Florrie, who would have been around 14 at the time (she was born in 1891). Gilchrist noted that “the little girl who sang the song had learnt it from her mother, but could not remember all of it”. She also marked one song, ‘The Dark-Eyed Sailor’ (AGG/3/6/9a), as having been sung by “Mrs and the Misses Coomber”. The other Miss Coomber was probably Beatrice (born 1894), although it might have been Dorothea (born 1896). There’s a pretty good chance that they all knew some of their parents’ songs, but unfortunately we’ve no idea if any of them continued singing them in adulthood.

In 1921 there were two grandsons residing with Thomas and Elizabeth, both shown in the census return as “Mother alive Father NK” i.e. Not Known. They were in fact  the children of Thomas’ daughter Florence, and their father had died in the First World War. The two boys, Jack and Frederick, were brought up by their grandparents, and from a fairly young age were expected to help with jobs in the garden or on the farm – for example, milking, thatching haystacks, and hop-picking.

There was no doubt this was a tough existence for a young boy and Jack remembers that his grandparents could be very strict. “Grandad would make you behave. You couldn’t mess him about. If you were naughty he would take his cap off the knob of the cupboard next to his chair and throw it at you. You had to take it back to him and he’d hit you with it. He never used a strap. Mostly, the punishment was to be sent to bed. Granny would sometimes give you a smack.

“They were very strict. When you sat at the table you never spoke or touched anything. You were asked if you wanted any food and you had to sit there until everyone had finished. Meals weren’t a social occasion with people chattering about what they’d done during the day. In many ways the old couple lived two separate lives both working hard right up until they died.⁵

Thomas taught Jack how to fish, and how to snare hares, rabbits and even sparrows, which would be cooked in a pie. He rarely drank, and then only Elizabeth’s home-made wine – dandelion, parsnip, elderflower, and so on.⁶

Needless to say, Elizabeth’s occupation, if listed at all in census records, is shown only as “Home Duties” or “Unpaid Domestic Duties”. However Richard Coomber records that “Although unqualified, she became the person women called on when they were giving birth or a body needed laying out”.⁷

The 1939 Register shows the couple living at Willetts Cottages, Blackham, with Thomas listed as “Incapacitated”. Thomas died on 13^th January 1945 at the age of 79. Elizabeth survived him by just a few months: she died on 10^th March, aged 80, a few days after she had had a stroke and fallen into the fire, burning herself badly. They are both buried in the churchyard of All Saints, Blackham. Richard Coomber notes that “In later years, Thomas also worked in the garden of Mr and Mrs Vinall at Home Place for sixpence (2.5p) an hour which he asked the Vinalls to keep for him to pay for his tombstone. The stone, which is still in Blackham church yard, cost over £72 in 1945, representing nearly 3,000 hours work”.⁸

My thanks to Richard Coomber for generously allowing me to quote biographical information from his Blackham Village website, and for providing the photographs reproduced above.

Songs

Thomas Coomber

• The Farmer’s Life (Roud 16897)
• The Gentleman Soldier (Roud 178)
• Green Bushes (Roud 1040)
• It Rains, it Hails, it Blows, it Snows (Roud 608)
• William Taylor (Roud 158)

Thomas and Elizabeth Coomber

• Once I was Courted by a False Young Youth (Roud 60)

Elizabeth Coomber

• The Banks of Sweet Dundee (Roud 148)
• Barbara Allen (Roud 54)
• The False Hearted Lover (Roud 154)
• The Folkestone Murder (Roud 897)
• Mary across the Wild Moor (Roud 155)
• Undaunted Female (Roud 289)

Elizabeth, Florrie and Beatrice (?) Coomber

• The Dark-Eyed Sailor (Roud 265)

Florrie Coomber

• The Squire and the Milkmaid (Roud 559)

Note: Since Elizabeth Coomber and her children were born and raised in Sussex, their songs are not included on this website. They can however be found by searching the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library Archive Catalogue.

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1. Richard Coomber, The Coomber Family, http://www.blackham-village.co.uk/Coomber%20chap%201.html ↩︎
2. Richard Coomber, The Coomber Family, http://www.blackham-village.co.uk/Coomber%20chap%201.html ↩︎
3. Richard Coomber, The Coomber Family, http://www.blackham-village.co.uk/Coomber%20chap%202.html ↩︎
4. Richard Coomber, The Coomber Family, http://www.blackham-village.co.uk/Coomber%20chap%203.html ↩︎
5. Richard Coomber, The Coomber Family, http://www.blackham-village.co.uk/Coomber%20chap%205.html ↩︎
6. Richard Coomber, The Coomber Family, http://www.blackham-village.co.uk/Coomber%20chap%207.html ↩︎
7. Richard Coomber, The Coomber Family, http://www.blackham-village.co.uk/Coomber.html ↩︎
8. Richard Coomber, The Coomber Family, http://www.blackham-village.co.uk/Coomber%20chap%203.html ↩︎