Agnes Royston Pigott née Mitton
1850-c1924
Agnes Mitton was born at Baildon near Bradford, Yorkshire in November or December 1850 to the Rev Joseph Mitton BA, Perpetual Curate of Baildon, and Ann née Barrett. At the time of the 30 March 1851 census, the household at “33 Low Baildon” consisted of Joseph M, 43, born Thornthwaite Yorks; his wife Ann, 36, born Cambridge; their daughters Caroline, 15, and Jane Victoria, 13, and son Arthur Tennant, 11, all born Kirkby Malzeard, Yorks; sons William, 10, Edmund Henry, 7, Charles James, 5, Joseph, 3, all born Osmotherly, Yorks; Agnes herself, 4 months; Maria Ann Page, 21, born Edmonton, Middlesex, a “fundholder”, “inmate” of the household; Arthur B Hopkinson, 14, born Ambleside, Westmoreland, pupil of the parson, Ellen Cryston, 23, born Osmotherly, and Hannah Parker, 18, born Darley, Yorks, unmarried house servants. Joseph had been curate at Kirkby Malzeard and then parson at Osmotherly before moving to the living of Baildon. Joseph’s brother Welbury Mitton was the parson at Darley near Thornthwaite, where Joseph’s father James M was the parson. Joseph was born at Thornthwaite on 28 December 1807. I have not found where Agnes was christened. It was not Baildon. Her grandfather James and grandmother Jane (née Garforth) died in 1852 before Agnes was two.
After Agnes, were born Walter Robert (9 at the 1861 census), Samuel George (6 in 1861), Arnold (4 in 1861) and George Henry, who died at 19 weeks and was buried at Baildon on 24.11.1856 (if he was of the same family). Agnes and her mother Ann were not at the parsonage on census night 1861 and Ann did not die until February 1881 when Agnes would have been about 30 and married. Her father, Joseph, had died in 1868 when she would have been about 17. Entry 92 on page 12 of the Thornthwaite register records the burial of a one-month-old Annie Mitton of Baildon on 18 Dec of a year I failed to record. As the officiating clergyman was Isaac Brittain, I assume it was between December 1847 and 1855. If she was a daughter of Joseph and Ann, she could not have been born before 1848 when they moved to Baildon. No other Mittons figure in the Baildon parish register of the time.
Part of what is likely to have been the text prepared for a talk for a Women’s Institute branch in East Kent survives. It is in faded pencil in the hand of my grandmother Agnes Helen Tulloch, née Royston Pigott and must have been written between about 1918 and 1960. I transcribe it here.
‘Tales of my Grandfather’
‘For generations, our family were parsons up in Yorkshire. It’s a northern land so different from this garden of England, wild moorland, rocky valleys, mountain streams, stone walls built without mortar yet strong enough to [withstand] great gales. Yet in spring it is very lovely with a wealth of wildflowers in the valley meadows, great stretches of blue geraniums, as thick as bluebells in the south, [common sun rose] etc growing amongst the moon daisies and tall grasses in the hay fields – And, later on, there is the glory of heather on the hills, giving them a purple bloom like nothing else on earth.’
‘The Vicarages and Rectories mostly follow the same pattern. They are built of grey stone, with stone floors, long passages, great kitchens with hooks hanging from the ceiling for hams as you find in farmhouses to this day. And the Yorkshire folk match their county, hard and tough, yet with a dry humour all their own and boundless hospitality.’
‘Well, as I say, my ancestors nearly all followed the same pattern of life; they went to a North Country Public School and then to Cambridge where they were ordained. And there my grandfather, Joseph Mitton, met my mother [sic], Anne Barratt and fell in love with her and they became engaged. Now, as illustrating the fashion of the time, he used to end his letters “yours sincerely” and he never kissed her till they were married! No doubt he made up for this afterwards.’
‘They went by train part of the way and then by coach to a little village named Osmotherly and there is a pretty legend about the name. In Saxon times, King Oswald and his mother were fleeing from the Danes and they rested at this place where Oswald and his mother lay. My grandfather was only a curate and they must have been pretty poor. Specially when the babies began to come. And come they did – like the oysters of the Walrus and the Carpenter – “and thick and fast they came at last and more and more and more.”’
[In fact we know from parish records that Joseph Mitton was signing parish register entries at Kirkby Malzeard as “Officiating Minister” from January 1834 and as “curate” from August 1834 to May 1840 and they had their first few children there. They did not go to Osmotherly until 1840. Its vicar had died of fever with four of his children, all under 11, during eight days of March that year and Joseph Mitton is signing the register as “Officiating Minister” from 26 March and as “Vicar” from 20 December 1840 to 1848. He was the parson at Baildon from 1848 until his death at 60 in July 1868. AHT continues:-]
‘In those days clergy didn’t work nearly as hard as they do nowadays, there weren’t the classes, there weren’t the Clubs but evidently my grandfather’s ministrations met with approval for I have a silver presentation cream jug inscribed “- [maddeningly, AHT omits anything so familiar to her that she needs no notes; she merely indicates that she will insert it on the night. I wonder where the jug is now.]’
‘As for my grandmother, she never did any parish work at all. She was so cumbered with family affairs that she never went out of the house and garden except to church once a day on Sunday. She had two maids, one of whom was called Susan, a very good girl, and the other, who shall be nameless, can’t have been so good because once, when there was an aurora borealis, she thought it was the day of judgement and went down on her knees and confessed all sorts of things about her past life, things that most girls would have kept quiet about. No doubt she was sorry next morning.’
‘Well they moved from Osmotherly when my grandfather got the living of Bayldon [sic] near Bradford. There again there was the same rambling old stone rectory, bitterly cold in winter. The babies came crowding fast, my mother about the middle, a twin, and her twin was supposed to have died of a damp dress.... [This must have been before June 1861 as, on census night, Agnes was the only four-month old in the household and it can not have been the Annie buried in a December at Thornthwaite] They had no bathroom; bathrooms were unknown in those days; so the children had their Saturday night baths in front of the kitchen fire and an old woman told my mother years afterwards that she had seen her in the bath and that she was “just like a waxwork figure”.’
‘Talking of old women: there were some queer characters [illegible]. One of them always alluded to my grandmother as “Mysterious Mitton” – a corruption of the old fashioned title, “Mistress Mitton” and another used to come round with what she called “damsels” – i.e. damsons. They all talked broad Yorkshire, which I shan’t attempt, but I can’t resist one tale. An old lady was supposed to be dying and a neighbour came in and said, when she got up there, would she be sure to tell their Jim, recently deceased, that they were all well and this year’s pig was doing fine and so were the hens .... The old dame retorted , “And, when I’m up there, d’you think I’ll have naught better to do than go clattering about among clouds looking for your Jim?”’
‘There was another, very ill, and my grandfather was saying she had had a hard life down here and that he hoped it would be made up to her up above – and she said, “I oftimes think, if I’m nobbut a good lass to Jesus, ‘appen he’ll make me prime minister in t’next world.” Incidentally, she didn’t die for some time and the prime ministership had to wait. You see, they were great characters.’
‘The men were, many of them, very rough and wild, hard drinking and hard living. There was a curious custom among them called “riding the stang” – “stang” being the Yorkshire word for donkey. If a man was a noted wife beater, the others would go, armed with pots and pans and trays, one of them seated head to tail on a donkey, and proceed to the man’s house, where they would make the most infernal din as accompaniment to the following song “Tang, de rang dang, I ride the stang – st[illegible]. What effect it had upon the malefactor I can’t say but the noise was dreadful. One knows what the beaten wife was doing during this pandemonium!’
‘Drunkenness was very common and there was a special most terrifying ghost that haunted drunken men, an enormous donkey with eyes as big as saucers called “Gaytrash”. Several people bore witness that they had seen this alarming monster. I have read folklore articles that mentioned this apparition. There was also another ghost called “Screaming Barn” – barn being the name for bairn or child – dressed in white that emitted piercing yells. So evidently the way of transgressors was hard in Bayldon.’
‘My grandfather was a very stern man. I don’t know how he dealt with drunkards but the way he dealt with his family was like the way of the father of the Fairchild family. He concentrated first upon his eldest daughter, my aunt Caroline, who could read the Greek testament at the age of five and was taken for long walks by her father across the moors, her little legs having hard work to keep up with his long ones. Indeed her subsequent ill health was probably due to her being overdone by those long walks. On one occasion he took her see a boy who had been drowned and, having been in the water for several days, he was not a pretty sight and it made an extremely painful impression upon the child.’
Here the fragment ends but one can glean a certain amount more from the brief notes for delivering a talk she called “My Mother’s Childhood”. Unfortunately some of them are tantalizingly obscure.
‘North Riding, near the Dales. “Water Babies” country. Describe Thornthwaite – tiny hamlet among heather –“gnarled and writhen thorn” – snowed up in winter. Grandfather Mitton – Cambridge and Miss Barrett – stage coach – 12 years. Kirkby Malzeard curacy. Move to Bayldon. Describe vicarage – home washing, baking, hams & Yorkshire tea and cakes. 2 servants never went out – nor grandmother; 13 children. ..... Coffin cakes – black silk scarves. Silk dress.’
‘Agnes 9th child and a twin – very fair – “like a wax work image!” – like “Alice”? - blue eyes, hair like spun gold, delicate features, beautiful mouth. Grandfather a stern man “Beat him if he sneezes” – Bertha beaten – bit his leg – “It will be your turn next, Miss!”. To school at 5. Wheel barrow and carrier. Describe school and connection with Charlotte Bronte and “Jane Eyre”. Conditions – Food – Cold – Uniform. Hairless Miss Williams and her spanking. “Go upstairs” etc. Gathering birch-twigs themselves. Think of hullabaloo nowadays! The Poorest Person’s Child??? Chaplain and gloomy religion. Preaching the Second Coming – “hills to hide them and rocks to cover them”. Tale of little Agnes and 2nd Coming. “Angels!” No Angel. Tale of scratched piano. Chaplain and terrifying texts. Day of Judgement and pair of stockings – if not found, shouldn’t go home. Never complained at home; children don’t. The Prevention of Cruelty to Children people tell us that. But not crushed – tale of “I’m illegitimate”! Tale of Miss Smith’s “husband’s boot”. Tale of running away. Nightgowns, outdoor uniforms & nightcaps. Junior School, tho’ hard, not really hurtful to health. BUT much worse in Upper School. Up at 6 – broke ice – no food – icy church at 7. Practising in ice-cold music rooms like boxes – refrigerators. Two girls died one winter of lung trouble – as they did in Charlotte Bronte’s time. Still – Governors – Board of Management. Buns & jam for tea instead of dry bread and roaring fires. Who was making money out of it? Agnes got more and more weak & ill. Sores from bad food on face and head – many other children the same. Rescue came! The doctor friend driving by ... ... Heart so weak must not walk upstairs. “Childish exaggeration and parental anxiety”. Incredible nowadays. Workhouse children better treated. Clergy daughters’ school of the type of St Edmunds [Blean, Canterbury] for boys. Complaints & enquiry after the showing up in Jane Eyre – temporary improvement , but evidently things had lapsed. My mother very weak so sent to relations in Cambridgeshire. Took a year to recover – it left Heart weakness all her life. Grew very tall – full height at 15. Most lovely young girl – Madonna type. “A golden blonde”. Most beautiful woman. Not only beauty but wit and charm. To end with: those are the tales she told us as children – over and over again till we almost knew them by heart.’
The school for the daughters of poor clergymen that Agnes went to was the school in Westmoreland to which Charlotte Bronte went and which she describes in “Jane Eyre” under the name of Loworth. It had moved in 1833 from Cowan Bridge to Casterton, Westmoreland.
I know little more about Agnes R-P. Elsewhere I have written what I know of George West Royston Pigott and this tells us a little more about the life of his second wife after their marriage at Ilkley on 22 August 1872. I shall not repeat that here. Her father had died some four years before her marriage and the family will have had to vacate the parsonage house at Baildon. I have seen that house. It is stone-built as she describes and was a nursing home in 2000. Presumably they had moved to Ilkley as the widowed Ann Mitton, née Barrett was living there on census night 1871 with five of her children and two nephews. Caroline M Mitton was now 35 and a “pupil teacher”, William a 30-year-old “banker’s clerk”, Charles V Mitton at 25, a “book keeper”, Agnes, at 20, a “pupil teacher”, Samuel G Mitton, at 16, a “banker’s clerk”, Agnes’s cousin John F Lawrence (son of her aunt Agnes Barrett, who had married a farmer in Ely) was 21 and a draughtsman while his brother Edward B Lawrence, at 8, was a “scholar” as were two 11-year-old boarders. There were no servants living in but the house next door was a school and it looks as though it was all one establishment, even though Ann Mitton is shown as the head of the household. When Agnes, at 21, married the 53-year-old widower, Dr George West Royston-Pigott, her uncle Canon Welbury Mitton married her and it is presumably her mother who signs as the first witness, A F Mitton. The other witnesses were her first cousin, Agnes Rebecca Lawrence and Alfred and Georgiana Arnold. Alfred was later knighted and was a Trustee of the Royston-Pigott Trust whose beneficiaries were the children to be born of the wedding being solemnized.
My father HMT remembered Agnes’s brother William as a bank manager there when he visited Ilkley “as a very small boy”. Caroline Mary M was then (probably about 1900 – so in her mid-sixties) a little old lady living with her brother William and “getting a little weak in the head”. Joseph’s mother Jane (née Garforth) hailed from Wheatley Hall in what is now the suburb of Ilkley, Ben Rhydding. The old family home at Thornthwaite, where there was no parsonage house, was not far away. Writing in 1961, AHT said “Thornthwaite was a little property and an old aunt, a Miss Mitton, lived there and once, when mother’s two brothers walked over from Ilkley to see her at 7pm, she put her head out of the bedroom window and upbraided them for arriving so late!” As Joseph M’s sister Mary died 26.5.1878 and is buried in Thornthwaite, she was probably the Miss Mitton in question. The incident was probably at about this period between 1868 and her death in February 1881when Anne Mitton and those of her children who were still at home were living at Ilkley.
AHT used to tell the story of her mother doing something in the garden with the gardener’s boy George when a bee got tangled in her hair or hair net. In the commotion to get rid of it without her being stung, the hair net and a hair-piece fringe she wore, as her own hair was getting thin, came adrift. She said to George “You are very young to be initiated into the mysteries of a lady’s toilette!”
After GWR-P’s death in September 1889, his widow, Agnes went on living at Annandale, Grange Gardens, Eastbourne. Her daughter Helen was married from Annandale to Herbert Frederick Parry Tulloch on 29.9.1892. She was 19. HFPT was an old friend of the family, said by my mother DEMT to have had “rather a thing for Agnes”, and who used to spend some of his leaves from the Indian postal service with them. That leave he transferred his affections to Helen. He was thirty-three, eight years younger than the mother and fourteen older than the daughter.
By census night 1901, she and her household were in what must have been a large house in Burlington Place, Eastbourne because it held three households of what my grandmother would have called “gentlefolk”. Hers consisted of herself, her 20-year-old son Walter, then an infantry subaltern, her seven-year-old grandson Maurice and Fanny Rackstraw , who must have been in service with the family for at least twenty one years by then. For some years Agnes lived with her daughter and grandchildren at 9 Orchard Road, Eastbourne. It is not clear who was living at Annandale during these years but, when Herbert Tulloch retired from India in 1915, they all moved back together to Annandale. There is a photograph of about 1915 of Agnes with some of her children in uniform in the garden of Annandale. In about 1917 HFPT bought Tyler Hill House near Canterbury and Agnes came to live with them there. It was there that she died. I have not established the date of her death but probate on her will was granted in 1924.
Rodney Tulloch
Oxford
Added to 11 November 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment