Loughborough to Jackfield to Yorkshire to Leicestershire to Loughborough

Terracotta detail on Ashby Road

The journey of one Loughborough clergyman.

The curate at St Mary the Virgin church in Jackfield heard that he’d obtained joint probate with his older brother, when his mother died in 1915.

Jackfield was part of the industrial area around Ironbridge, and the St Mary’s church in question was a newer one that had replaced earlier one around 1863. The new church was designed by William Arthur Blomfield, and unsurprisingly is constructed of local material, including locally-crafted tiles.

Tiles in Jackfield church

Tiles in Jackfield church

Some of the stained glass windows were made by the London firm of Heaton, Butler and Bayne (originally Heaton, Bath and Bayne), who also produced windows for Westminster Abbey, Wimborne Minster and Peterborough cathedral. The latter was the chief, or ‘mother’ church of the diocese which included Loughborough.

Stained glass in Jackfield church

Wimborne Minster

Despite being constructed in the Victorian era, the Jackfield church contains some furniture from the 1600s and some woodwork that was brought from an older chapel of ease, the wood dating from the mid-1700s.

Jackfield church

Jackfield church entrance

More tiles at Jackfield church

Although the bell of St Mary the Virgin is not from Taylors bellfounders of Loughborough, someone from Taylors, has done some research into the bell, and the following appears in an account of the church’s history:

“There is a single bell in St Mary’s, fixed rigid in a wooden trestle frame and is rung by a clapper activated by a lever system and rope. It carries the inscription “G.MEARS & CO., FOUNDERS, LONDON, 1863” so is a product of this famous Whitechapel foundry. It is 75cms or 30 inches diameter at the mouth and weighs approximately 550lbs (250kg). Its note is E flat.”

Whitechapel Bellfoundry

In 1878 and 1880, William Arthur Blomfield designed some renovations to a church dating from the 13th to 15th centuries, and also supervised this work. This church was also called St Mary’s but this one was – and still is – situated in Sileby. Of the 10 bells in the Sileby church, the oldest from 1622 is by Hugh Watts, and the new set were added by Taylors in 1978. Blomfield is also more closely connected to Loughborough, but that is for a future blogpost. Let’s return to our curate.

In 1916, shortly after the death of his mother, the curate of St Mary the Virgin moved to Hutton Rudby, in Yorkshire, where he remained until his own death in March 1927. During his time as vicar at All Saints church, Hutton Rudby, he wrote a short book about the history of the church and the parish, in 1923.

It was also during 1923-4 that the vicar commissioned a full-scale restoration of the church. This work was designed by the architect Walter Henry Brierley, who was based in York, who, during his partnership with James Hervey Rutherford (1918 to the death of Brierley in 1926), also seems to have had a hand in designing the bathrooms in Harewood House. Brierley had been diocesan surveyor for York between 1908 and 1921, and restored numerous small country churches, Hutton Rudby being one of them.

A bathroom in Harewood House

So, back to the vicar … Prior to taking up these positions in Jackfield and Hutton Ruby, the vicar of the latter had trained as an articled clerk to a solicitors, and in 1901 was lodging with his aunt in Chesils, on Christ Church Road, London. In 1907, he married Eva Betsy Turgoose, in Retford, and in 1908, he appears to be the curate at Alderwasley.

On the 1911 census return, the couple are living at The Parsonage, Eaglescliffe in County Durham, with a general domestic servant, Lucy Spendlove, originally from Shottle, near Wirksworth. Another move, this time before 1915, takes them to Aboyne, where he is curate-in-charge while the Rector was absent, and later in 1915 comes the short-term move to Jackfield, mentioned above, and thence to Hutton Rudby for the remainder of his life.

Arthur Eddowes, is buried in the churchyard of All Saints church in Hutton Ruby. He had been born in 1877 in Loughborough, the eldest son of Dr Arthur Benjamin Jackson Eddowes, and nephew of Dr John Henry Eddowes. On the 1881 and 1891 census returns the young Arthur is living with his parents and siblings at No.6 Market Place, a property from which his grandfather, Dr John Henry Eddowes (snr.) had worked.

Arthur’s parents, Arthur and Frances, had married in March 1876, at St James church, Litchurch, Normanton, part of Derby, and following the birth of Arthur, went on to have another five children. Sometime after 1901 they moved from Market Place to Ashby Road. When Arthur’s father died on 10th July 1908, he was living at Theydon, Ashby Road, and it was here that Frances Louisa Eddowes, mother to the vicar of Jackfield, also died on 22 nd March 1915, and probate was granted to her oldest son, Arthur, and youngest, Charles Frederick Beaumont Eddowes.

And I still don’t know which house exactly on Ashby Road is, or was Theydon!

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough 7 February 2021

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Dyer, Lynne (2021). Loughborough to Jackfield to Yorkshire to Leicestershire to Loughborough. Available from:https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2021/02/loughborough-to-jackfield-to-yorkshire.html [Accessed 7 February 2021]

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