Chilterns villages and villagers
Chair bodger Reg Tilbury, family and friends outside their cottages at Parslows Hillock, Lacey Green, c 1900. Stuart King Collection
Who were the Woodlanders of the Chilterns?
To find some answers to this question, Woodlanders’ Lives researchers transcribed all the census data for 17 Chilterns villages for the period 1841–1911. These transcriptions – a brilliant resource for local and family studies – are available to everyone from the ‘Research’ link on the Buckinghamshire Family History Society website.
In time, the transcriptions will be searchable in the Buckinghamshire Archives.
The census returns tell us that in the middle of the 19th century and beyond the main employment for men in Chilterns villages was agricultural labour, which was seasonal and very poorly paid. Farm workers could not earn enough to support their families and so the women and children had, of necessity, to work; their pay was generally only a fraction of the men’s wages. But, by the 1870s, we begin to see fewer children in the workforce because education had become compulsory for children over eight and then nine years old.
Family and local historians also use many other sources to tell people’s stories. Autobiographies and memoirs are one such source, and we are lucky to have found several such accounts of village life in the Chilterns from which we can understand the ups and downs of people’s lives.
Woodlanders’ Lives volunteers have kindly donated two family histories giving us fascinating insights into life in the Central Chilterns from the late-19th to mid-20th centuries.
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‘Hannah’s Tale’, written by Chris Wege, a local historian, introduces families who found work in chair making, lace making and later as bead workers. We find out about the ups and downs of their home and working lives, where they shopped, gathered fruit, their family meals and much more. |
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Another volunteer, Andy Dean, dug out an account of life in the village of Speen, written by his grandmother, Alice Dean, probably in the 1970s or 1980s. |
The lives of working people in the past have often been romanticised in popular media, but we should remember that life was hard for most people who had little or no protection against job insecurity, accidents and low pay. Although earnings rose in real terms during the 19th century and into the 20th, pay remained poor, work was insecure and women only got about half the men’s rate. This did not begin to change until after the Second World War.
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In his article Housing and Life in the Chilterns before the First World War, Tony Sargeant tell us of the struggles of the poor and labouring classes living on inadequate wages trying to house themselves and their families. |
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Another account of family hardship comes from an interview recorded in 1990 with Mrs Ethel Maud Warren from Beacon’s Bottom near Stokenchurch. Ethel has a funny story to tell about one of the old women still making lace in the village, but she also reminds us that her life in the past was hard – they were not ‘the good old days’.
Ethel Maud Warren (1901-1994) remembers life as a young girl in Beacon’s Bottom, near Stokenchurch |
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In this video find out how one Chilterns woodlander, ceramicist Jane White, discovered a mysterious connection to the woodland workers of the past. |
If you’d like to visit a Chilterns village and discover its history for yourself, download the walking tour guide to Winchmore Hill near Aylesbury where chairmaking, lacework, beadwork, straw-plaiting and pottery industries gathered pace from the 18th century onwards. Over time, this relatively small village had six chairmaking businesses!
Chilterns Heritage and Archaeology Partnership
Chalk, Cherries and Chairs
Bookable experiences
Plan your trip to the Chilterns!
