Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre

Name

Howse, Alfred

Date of Birth

1851

Location/Community

Latton

Notes

Date and place of birth / baptism
Latton, Wiltshire, 24 August, 1851, baptised, son of James, a labourer, and Anne, Bathe.
Latton, Wiltshire, 1852, Census, 1901.

Date and place of marriage
Latton, 7 April 1877, married Anne Prudence Smith of Castle Eaton, both being able to sign their name

Date and place of death / burial
29 July, 1937

Alfred Williams / others notes
Andrew Bathe – Lock keeper, literate

Census Information

Census 1911
An Alfred Howse at Latton is listed in the index.

Census 1901
Born, Latton, Wiltshire, c. 1852, 49; Address, Canal Basin, Latton; Occupation, Lock keeper; Living with, wife, Ann, 46, born Castle Eaton; daughter, Lily, 20, housemaid, domestic; son, Frank, 15; son, Joseph, 12; daughter, Nellie, 10; daughter, Margaret, 8; daughter, Daisy, 5; daughter, Amy, 3, all born Latton.

Thesis

Bathe, Andrew Lee: Pedalling in the dark – the folk song collecting of Alfred Williams in the Upper Thames Valley, p133, 134
Submitted for the degree of PhD
National Centre for English Cultural Tradition
University of Sheffield
May 2006

By the time Alfred Williams wheeled his bicycle expectantly down the track to the canal basin at Latton, lock-keeper Alfred Howse was well established as a venerable parish character: snowy bearded at the head of a numerous family, he had taken on something of the air of an Old Testament patriarch. Alfred was baptized in the village on 24 August 1851, son of James, a labourer, and Anne, though by 1871 his father had died. On 7 April 1877, at the parish church at Latton, he married Anne Prudence Smith of Castle Eaton, both being able to sign their name. Within a year or two, Howse was installed with his burgeoning family in the lockhouse at Latton Basin, an enclave just to the west of the village where the Wilts and Berks Canal entered the Thames and Severn. This was to be his home until his death in 1937, though initially Howse himself continued to be employed as a, general labourer, while his wife officially fulfilled the role of, canal toll collector. His grand daughter, Josephine Steele, conjures up a vivid picture of the routines of family life:

"He, Alfred, had a brother John, who with his wife Ann kept a small inn at Cerney Wick, The Good Intent. My great aunt Ann died there at the age of 102. The beer at that time was drawn from the wood. Sometime about 8 or 10 of the grandchildren would be on holiday, a whole month of August. Each Sunday evening, we would have to have on our clean pinneys and Granny and Gramp would lead the way from the Basin along the tow path to Cerney Wick. We grandchildren would play in the orchard while the elders had their drinks. Of course we stole one or two of Aunt Ann’s apples, which had Grandfather found out, we should have had a stroke of his stick. We had an old donkey and cart which Gramp used to take his garden produce into Cricklade. In those days we did not know what a car was, or even looked like. We were very well off if we owned a bicycle. Wherever we went we used our legs. There used to be a hump backed bridge just past Latton Cross in those days and we always walked to Cricklade along the stream by North Meadow. Grandfather used to cut the grass in North Meadow and we kids had to turn it over and make the haycocks and push poles underneath and carry it to the barge which Gramp had on the canal. The old donkey then pulled it home and we had to build the ricks. I was about 7 years old then, but we had to earn our corn as soon as we could handle a rake. They were happy carefree days and such a happy family."

However life was sustained materially, there was no shortage of homespun entertainment. Mrs. Steele remembered Alfred Howse as a martinet with a heart of gold, whose enthusiasm for song and dance ensured that musical gatherings within the family were a routine part of life at the Basin. She specified that much activity at the messuage revolved around the, hogtub house, one of a number of outbuildings, and that her own place within the domestic foyer was far from passive.

"My Gramp was a very happy man and was always singing funny ditties to us or playing the accordion. He taught us all to dance to the tunes he played. We had gravel pathways and Gramp used to sit on his three legged stool by the pig stys playing for us to dance. I think it was a melodeon or concertina that he had, a round one with buttons. He could play any tune by ear, so long as he kept us dancing, we loved it. When I was four years old, he taught me to dance the Broomstick, with a broom. All the old times. Daisy the Polka, I put my money on a Bob-tail mare, Nellie Dean, Maggie so many I have forgotten. We had a wonderful childhood. I think we sang and danced our way through life."

The period invoked by Mrs Steele corresponds roughly to the time, and a little before, Alfred Williams was conducting his vigorous fieldwork, when Howse would have been in his mid-60s. She did not, needless to say, recall his visits. From this apparent wealth of musical materials, Williams recovered four song texts, two of which, Fanny Blair and The Spider and the Fly, were published in the Standard serial on 4 December 1915, but do not survive in manuscript. The other two are Life let us cherish, Wt 418, attributed to the Howse family and The Struggle for the Breeches, Wt 419; see also p. 185, of which Mrs Steele recalled:

"I am 91 and I can remember my Grampy and Aunt Rose doing the duet, Struggle for the Breeches, but then we were always doing plays and songs within the family and amusing ourselves in various hilarious ways."

In addition, Williams had a text of, The Wiltshire Labourers, copied from a broadside in Howse’s possession, Wt 521. A connection might be suggested here between Latton’s location within a transport nexus, canal, Thames, Ermine Street, and the fact that all these texts are broadside staples.

End of the idyll

It is a happy story with a sad ending, as Mrs Steele poignantly conveys:

"Uncle Frank was in the 1914 war. He came home to Catterick Camp to be demobbed in 1918. He caught pneumonia and died. My Granny was with him and my mother. Mother brought Granny home, my family lived in Birmingham then. She only lived a week, she died of a broken heart. That was the end of it all. The heart had gone out of the family. There are twelve of them buried in Latton Churchyard, so they are all together. Sorry to add the sad ending, but it was really the ending of a wonderful life for all of us. Granny was the heart of it all and such a big heart."

The old man assiduously tended his garden at The Basin for 20 more lonely years, before he too made the final journey to the little graveyard on 29 July 1937, aged 85.

An obituary notice in the local press conveys a sense of his standing in the village:

"The coffin, of plain oak with brass fittings, was borne on a horse-drawn vehicle to the main road, being then placed on a hand bier, Vale of Cricklade Benefit Society, of which Mr Howse was secretary till his retirement at the age limit of 65, was represented, Floral tributes were received from, list of family and friends, the garden he tended for 60 long years. Last Sunday evening a memorial service was held at Latton Church, when the Vicar spoke of the great gap caused in the village by Mr Howse’s death."

Let Mrs Steele have the last word, "He was a wonderful man in every way and it seems so nice to keep his memory alive."