Henry Green – Farms and Family
Henry Green was William Green’s (WJ) younger brother by 18 months, he was farming at Trinity Farm Holmpton when he married Agnes Annie Speck on 8th June 1881 aged 30 years. He was farming with father and mother before that also at Trinity. I do not know when they retired but they lived in the village. His first two children, Earnest and Kenneth were born there before they moved to Manor Farm in Crofton to join WJ who had been there since around 1870. Clifford and Mildred (Millie) were born at Crofton. Manor Farm was rented to Henry at £77-10s per half year in a rent receipt dated 11th August 1885 from Henry S L Wilson. Manor Farm was the boyhood home of Titus Salt a well known industrial philanthropist of the time and was licensed for Congegational worship since 1813. The farm was converted into a public house in 1982 serving the thirsty mining community of Crofton and was known as Goose and Cowslip but with locals taking a ‘mismeaning’ or ‘wordplay’ of Cowslip it was renamed The Lord of the Manor.
When we visited in 2011 with my sister, we spoke with some locals and with some sceptisium, they told us that ‘The Lord of The Manor’ was to be renamed the ‘Goose and Cowslip’ in recognition of the farms previous numerous geese and cowslips. The link to the website tells us that it was renamed the Goose and Cowslip in 2012, just after my visit. Both Henry and his more famous previous occupant are mentioned on a pub plaque we saw in 2011.
Henry remained at Manor Farm until around 1888 then moved to Gembling between Driffield and the sea where Herbert and Lawrence were born in 1889 and 1894. His wife Agnes Annie Speck came from the Driffield area so perhaps that was the reason for the move. About the time of his move from Crofton to Gembling Henry called on a family friend Thomas Norrison Marr in Scarborough to tell him about his new farm, which TNM described as useful in a letter to his brother Harry Marr. My Grandfather (Edwin 6) assisted in moving Henry’s enterprise in 1894 to Catley Park Cambridge – reuniting him with WJ who had previously moved to Cambridge by 1890. Below is Edwin’s recollection over 50 years after the event in 1950. Typically at that time the rest of the equipment, animals, luggage and people would have gone by train.
JourneyfromGemblingEdwin apparently said that Henry was a better preacher than a farmer but this cannot be checked. What is true is that Henry was a devout Wesleyan preacher, preaching on the Partrington circuit from 1870 to 1884, the Wakefield circuit from 1885 to 1888 and the Driffield circuit from 1888 to 1894 – all fit the farm moves and children’s birth dates.
Just as his father and perhaps his grandfather had morning household prayers every day, so did Henry, a custom maintained until at least WW1, when Owen Gibbon knew the family and admired them for preserving the ritual. In addition to his church work Henry was a County Councillor, probably in conjunction with his brother WJ. He retired in around 1913 to Myrtle House in Linton where he died in 1922. His wife Annie pre-deceased him in 1918.
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Henry and Agnes had 6 children:-
Earnest
Earnest married Maude Baybrooke on 13th October 1913 and we believe he took over Catley Park farm from his father and its where their first children were born in 1914 & 1915. They moved in around 1920 to nearby Bordeaux Farm, Little Chesterford when Edwin (6) took over the tenancy. He died at Barnet in Hertforshire on 25th March 1952.
Kenneth
Kenneth married Dora Richardson on 15th September 1915 and they had four children the first of whom is Alan Green who has provided a deal of information for this website. He was born in 1917 and married Mari Thomas. Kenneth was a partner in Holttum and Green who were cabinet makers, carvers and shop fitters based in Kings Cross London where Alan joined the business later. Kenneth died on 14th September 1953 in Worthing. Three further children followed:- Barbara Joan in 1921 (married Edward Savage), Peter Mitchinson in 1927 (married Moira Bell) and Patricia in 1930 (married John Savage).
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Clifford
Clifford married Edith Barugh (pronounced Barff) on 15th April 1911. The Baugh’s had been farmers in East Yorkshire leaving Ulrome Grange (on the coast level with Gembling) in 1903, spending a few months at Bartlow Hill before going on to the Manse, Linton on 11th October 1905 (so says Margaret Green). Clifford was then working with Kenneth in London. Their first child Raymond was born at Myrtle Cottage, Linton, Henry’s retirement home in 1917.
In 1918 Clifford and Edith moved to Barrow-in-Furness where he went into partnership with Mr F G Lord. Norman, and their third child Janet Margaret were born in Barrow in 1919 and 1920 respectively. The woodworking business was responsible for the altar rail, choir stalls, lectern and Bishops Chair in St John’s church, Barrow Island but unfortunately the price of wood had escalated due to the war and the partnership was made bankrupt.
Clifford and Edith moved back to London and his brothers business, now in Finchley, in 1921. St John’s fine examples were still there in 1985. Clifford died in 1925 after a motor-bike accident, which left Edith to struggle to bring up her family on very little. She spent some 18 months in Caldecote, Nr Cambridge, before moving back to Linton in 1926. Later she lived in Cambridge. She managed to put a brave face on life and to give her children a good education.
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Clifford and Edith’s Children
Raymond worked at Pye Radio in Cambridge and in WW2 was in the RAF as a wireless mechanic installing ground radio and direction finding equipment, afterwards becoming a technical author. Norman died a Japanese prisoner of war. Janet went to the US with her GI husband after WW2 and it is from one of her children Frances Holt who has a family genealogy interest, with whom I have obtained some information for this website. Frances’s younger sister Grace was an actuary in Boston, Massachussets who also shares this interest.
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Mildred ‘Millie’
Milly married, Owen Gibbon on 30th August 1913, a teacher from Wales, with a very strong religious bent. He once refused to sign that he accepted the 39 articles, yet was at the time an Anglican. From his memoires called ‘ Episodes in my Life’ edited by Fran Holt with his daughter and cousin, Janet Malloy providing a forward. It covers his early days and particularly his experiences in WWI. He became fluent in Welsh though not brought up bi-lingual and was a lay preacher in that language. They met while he was on the staff at Linton school. Owen died in 1980, aged 95 whilst living with Muriel Marr
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By 1926 their parents had died so they volunteered to become educational missionaries in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where he became Principal of Kingswood College the Methodist Mission High School in Kandy. Milly caught cerebral malaria and he picked up sprue, an eastern disease, which forced them to return to Worthing in 1937. He then taught at Chichester until 1947 when he retired at the age of 63. They took foreign students as lodgers and served teas. Milly died on 4th September 1959 after which Owen made his home with Muriel Marr in Cambridge. Milly and Owen adopted a daughter Meg (Margaret Eileen)(Gonzales) in 1930. Owen died in 1980 and I met him at my parents house. He had interests in family history evidenced by him notating the interview with Henry Green in 1922 and getting Edwin to document his trip from Gembling to Catley with the horse and wagons.
Herbert
Herbert (Bert) was the 4th Son of Henry and Agnes Green and what follows is rather a sad tale.
He married in Linton on 19th November 1915, Olive Barugh, Edith’s younger sister. who married Herberts elder brother, Clifford. He had been studying at the Richmond Wesleyan College before the War, had joined the RN reserve as “private” and was commissioned as a Temp. Sub Lieutenant in Jan 1916. He later transferred to the Army and went to France in September 1916 as a Wesleyan Chaplain. He was killed in WW1 in Flanders on 24th August 1917 where his headstone is in The Huts Cemetery which is managed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. If you follow the link above to The Huts Cemetery it shows the inscription detail. The headstone is shown below. The memorial below is at Linton Church, and he is also is named in Linton Congregational Church and in Ely Cathedral. He was awarded the Military Cross in the second battle of Arras, Nr Ypres in Belgium.
There are newspaper records of his eulogy and of his father visiting the Cemetery. Herberts mother Agnes Annie Green died on 22nd July 1918 some 11 months later. Anecdotally, she was greatly effected by his death and this may have precipitated hers. According to Owen Gibbon, Olive also visited the Cemetery and never got over her husbands death. A few years later she took herself off to study medicine at Edinburgh University. In her 4th year of study she committed suicide in the botanical gardens of the University as reported by The Scotsman newspaper on the 20th January 1925 when she was 34. They speculate that she committed suicide due to nervous exhaustion.
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Lawrence
Lawrence went to Canada before WW1 and served in the Canadian Army. After the war he again crossed the Atlantic and worked as a salesman at Springfield, Massachussetts USA. He married Mary Jane Nelligan and they had three children, Warren Henry in 1921, Helena Marie in 1924 and Dorothy May in 1931. On retirement they moved to St Petersburg, Florida where he died on 29th November 1977. Mary Jane died in 1990.
Catley Steam Traction Engine Accident
In 1904 much of the ploughing was undertaken by contractors using steam ploughs and this section notes covers an explosion resulting in the death of a Federick Mynott at Catley Park when Henry Green was in situ. It was reported that Henry took a deal of care and even paid for a holiday for the remaining Mynott family. The details was reported and is well documented by the Linton Historical Society.
These traction engines worked in pairs, were static, used coal/water and pulled a plough up and down a field between wires on a pully system. (I saw one working at the Welland Steam show in 2016). The particular engine was a Fowler 16hp of 1879 with a church valve owned initially by Eastchuch Ploughing Co, Sheeness, Isle of Sheppy then Oxford Steam Plough Co then by Pamplin Brothers. Using these steam ploughs was a step up in terms of power compared to horses but just over a 100 years later we see over 600 hp tractors ploughing! It’s just possible that the working picture was the same one working at Catley but the second photograph is a press photograph showing a 3616 that definitely was at Catley for the last time!
