by Sylvia Kent
After being reunited with her parents, she married Sighere, King of the East Saxons. But before the marriage was consummated, she took the veil. Sighere, accepting her vocation, gave her his village of Chich and founded an abbey there with Osyth as abbess. In AD 653, Danish pirates landed near Chich and, after burning the surrounding countryside, attacked Osyth’s abbey, forcing the nuns to accept their pagan gods. When Osyth refused, she was beheaded but, according to the writer Thomas Fuller, so sainted and pure was she that: ‘Yet this head after it was cut off, was carried by St Osyth (Oh, wonder! Oh, lie!) three furlongs and then she fell down and died.’ In Nun’s Wood, near the priory, the ghostly figure of poor decapitated St Osyth is supposed to walk, holding her head in one hand.
Byrhtnoth
Maldon is first mentioned in AD 912 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Maldon was a borough by the time of the Domesday Book in 1086. Danish and Norse raiders would regularly descend on the Essex coast. The Earl (ealdorman) of Essex, Byrhtnoth, led more than 1,000 men out to defend Maldon against a huge Viking army camped on Northey Island. Having allowed the Vikings to cross to the mainland before giving battle, the Saxons were overwhelmed and Byrhtnoth was killed. The Vikings took away his head. One of the earliest surviving English epic poems included in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the disaster. A statue of Byrhtnoth was erected on All Saints church in Maldon in 1907.
King Harold
The Bayeux Tapestry gives us a fascinating glimpse of the life and death of that last brave Saxon monarch, King Harold II, who died on the battlefield at Hastings on 14 October 1066. Many towns have laid claim to being the last resting-place of King Harold, but according to William Andrews, in his book Bygone Essex (1892):
The place of interment of the last of the Saxon monarchs is a subject much controverted in the present day. Many historians appear to be entirely opposed to the most authentic versions of the story; that Harold was buried at Waltham Holy Cross.
Byrhtnoth, the Saxon Ealdorman of Essex, who fought at the Battle of Maldon in AD 991.
Peasants’ Revolt
The court rolls of Great Canfield, Blackmore and Birdbrook all refer to the Black Death of 1349, which carried away one-third of the county’s population. No longer were there enough labourers in Essex to carry on farming and the peasants, still bound to their lords, resented the crippling poll taxes imposed to raise money for the war against France.
On 30 May 1381, the peasants of Essex attacked the King’s commissioner, who came to Brentwood to investigate the tax returns. The uprising spread rapidly and the peasants began burning the evidence of their villeinage. At Coggeshall, they plundered the manor house and at Cressing Temple they burned Sir Robert Hales’ home. Uniting with commoners from Kent, the rebels marched to London, by which time they numbered 100,000. Jack Straw, Wat Tyler and John Ball influenced the rebels and all were betrayed by the young Richard II, who when meeting with them at Mile End on 14 June agreed to their demands. They asked for an end to serfdom, the fixing of low rents and an unconditional pardon. Once the threat posed by the revolt had been lifted, Richard withdrew his promise. Five hundred peasants fled to Billericay, where they were savagely killed by soldiers in Norsey Wood. Jack Straw and Wat Tyler were executed and their heads placed on poles on London Bridge.
Lady Jane Grey
In the sixteenth century, the Manor of Woodham Ferrers belonged to the parents of Lady Jane Grey, born in 1537. Jane’s father was Henry Grey, the Marquis of Dorset and Duke of Suffolk. Jane and her two sisters, Catherine and Mary, were great-granddaughters of Henry VII.
In 1553, the Duke of Northumberland, foreseeing the early death of Edward VI, aimed to secure the succession of the English throne by arranging for the marriage of Jane to his fourth son, Lord Guildford Dudley on 21 May, 1553. Following Edward’s death on 9 July, 1553, Jane was named as his successor. But after just nine days as Queen of England, she was forced to abdicate in favour of Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII, who had popular support. Jane was imprisoned in the Tower of London and beheaded on Tower Green.
The historian, Thomas Fuller, in his Book of Worthies, described Lady Jane Grey: ‘She had the birth of a princess, the learning of a divine, the life of a saint, yet died the death of a malefactor for the offences of her parents.’
Queen Elizabeth I
Most people in Elizabethan Essex must have seen their Queen at some time, as she seemed to have enjoyed travelling on Progresses around Essex, where she passed through small villages. The Essex Great Road would have been familiar to her. She is recorded as having slept in at least 240 different places during her forty-four-year reign, many in Essex
She often visited the ancient boroughs of Colchester, Maldon, Harwich and Saffron Walden. New Hall, Boreham, was a favourite, as this lovely manor house was built by her father, King Henry VIII, in 1517, and she also visited the Altham family at Mark Hall, Latton, several times.
The Earl of Leicester entertained the Queen at Wanstead House and Sir William Petre at Ingatestone Hall was a favourite host, as was Sir Thomas Mildmay at Moulsham. She visited the great houses at Loughton, Epping, Great Hallingbury, Gosfield, Ongar and Kelvedon. At Horham Hall, Thaxted, she stayed for as long as nine days in 1571.
Elizabeth’s most famous visit to Essex did not form part of a regular Progress. In 1588, when her sailors were fighting the Spanish Armada, she went by water to Tilbury, reviewed her troops and delivered her noblest speech:
Let tyrants fear: I have always so behaved myself that under God, I have pleased my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all, to lay down for my God, and for my kingdoms and for my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust.
Dick Turpin
Hempstead was the place of birth in 1705 of Richard Turpin. He was apprenticed to a butcher in London’s Whitechapel and later owned a butcher shop. Then he began stealing cattle, followed by a spell of smuggling. Soon he was a member of the dreaded criminal Gregory Gang. Around 1735, they were robbing remote farmhouses. The London Gazette reported on 7 June 1737 that Turpin was ‘the famous highwayman’ who ‘used the passengers with a great deal of civility’. However, reports of his cruelty and torture of old people who could not defend themselves compelled George II to offer a £50 reward for his capture.
When local constables captured two of the gang, Turpin headed to Epping Forest, where he lived in a cave and began working with Tom King, a well-known highwayman. So notorious was Turpin that another bounty of £100 was placed on his head – a reward that unwittingly transformed him from common footpad into a murderer. On 4 May 1737, a gamekeeper named Morris tracked Turpin to Epping Forest. When challenged at gunpoint, Turpin drew his own gun and shot Morris dead.
Turpin then lived rough in Epping Forest. Realising that if he remained in Essex he could not escape capture, he set off to live in Yorkshire under the name of John Palmer, financing his lifestyle with excursions into Lincolnshire for occasional highway robbery. One day, returning from an unsuccessful hunt, he shot his landlord’s rooster. When the landlord complained, he threatened to kill the landlord too. He was taken into custody while local authorities made enquiries as to how exactly ‘Mr Palmer’ made his money. Imprisoned in York Castle dungeons, while charges were investigated, he stupidly wrote to his brother, requesting him to ‘procure an evidence from London that could give me a character that would go a great way towards my being acquitted’.
Unfortunately for Turpin, his brother was too mean to pay the sixpence postage due and so returned the letter to the post office. By coincidence, Turpin’s former schoolmaster recognised the handwriting. Showing the letter to the local magistrate, they opened it and despite the fact that it was signed John Palmer, the writer was identified as Turpin.
Turpin was sentenced to death. Pleas from his fathe
r to have the sentence commuted to transportation fell on deaf ears. Between his sentence and execution, visitors frequented Turpin’s cell. He bought new clothes and hired five mourners for 10s each. On 19th April 1739, Dick Turpin rode through the streets of York in an open cart, bowing to the crowds. At York racecourse, he climbed the ladder to the gibbet and then sat for half an hour chatting to the guards and the executioner. An account of Turpin’s execution in the York Courant on 19 April 1739 notes his brashness even at the end: ‘with undaunted courage looked about him, and after speaking a few words to the topsman, he threw himself off the ladder and expired in about five minutes.’ Thus, in death at least, Turpin attained some of the gallantry that had eluded him in life.
A poster depicting Dick Turpin’s deeds.
Lionel Lukin
Great Dunmow was the birthplace of Lionel Lukin, born in 1742. Here, in 1785, Lukin developed and tested the first ‘unimmergible boat’ on the local pond, lodging his patent for an ‘improved method of construction of boats ... for either sailing or rowing, which will neither overset in violent gales ... nor sink by any accident when filled with water’. A month later, the patent was granted to Lukin, who rightly claimed the credit for the invention of the lifeboat which ever since has saved so many people’s lives. He was a personal friend of the Prince Regent, later George IV, who encouraged the inventor to develop his ideas. He retired in 1824, a significant year that saw the founding of the National Institute for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck, later to become the familiar Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
King George III
Brentwood was a place of excitement on 19 October 1778. That day King George III, the staunchest of Protestant kings, and Queen Charlotte passed through the town on a visit to Lord Petre, one of the most eminent of Roman Catholic peers. The townspeople gave their monarchs a tumultuous welcome and the road from the town to Thorndon Hall, Lord Petre’s new mansion, was lined with soldiers. Later, there was a wonderful party with fireworks and a concert. Next day, the King rode over to Warley, reviewed his troops and witnessed a mock battle. When he departed, he handed Lord Petre 100 guineas for the Thorndon servants and left money for the poor of Brentwood.
Elizabeth Fry
Plashet at East Ham was the Essex village that was home for a while to Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845). At a time when it was unthinkable for a women to be anything but a subservient wife and mother, Elizabeth Fry (née Gurney) entered the male preserve of public life.
Elizabeth is best known for her prison reforms, although she also campaigned for improved conditions in asylums and hospitals. She was also involved in the promotion of training of nurses and organised shelter for London’s homeless. Elizabeth experienced a religious conversion after hearing a sermon by the American Quaker William Savery in 1798 and devoted her life to preaching and ministering to the poor. She married a fellow Quaker, Joseph Fry, and they produced eleven children. Her great friend, Elizabeth Hanbury, born in Essex in 1793, lived in three centuries, dying in 1901.
James Banyard
James Banyard’s name is still well known in Tillingham where, in 1838, the Rochford-born shoemaker founded the religious sect that became the Chapel of the Peculiar People. By 1900, Essex had more than forty such places of worship. The word ‘peculiar’ originally meant ‘special’ in the biblical sense and there are several references in the Old Testament.
Preaching his own brand of elemental Methodism in his cramped cottage or in the open air in the Rochford market square, Banyard’s followers gradually increased. At first his fiery evangelistic message was met with derision. However, within a few years, other chapels were opened throughout Essex, including Herongate, Fobbing, Great Wakering, South Green and, of course, Tillingham. This is the only Peculiar Chapel still following the old service in the Essex countryside. In 1956, the Peculiar People’s church was absorbed into the Union of Evangelical Churches.
The Peculiar People enjoying a celebration tea at Chelmsford.
John Constable
East Bergholt, Suffolk was the place of birth of John Constable on 11 June, 1776. He was educated at Dedham Grammar School, Essex and here was encouraged by Sir George Beaumont, the Essex patron of artists. He loved Dedham Vale, which was the scene of so many of his lovely paintings. In 1821, he wrote: ‘I associate my careless boyhood with all that lies on the banks of the Stour. Those scenes made me a painter, and I am grateful – that is, I had often thought of pictures before I ever touched a pencil.’
Guglielmo Marchese Marconi
When thinking of Chelmsford, the first name that comes to mind is Marconi. In 1896, the twenty-two-year-old scientist took out his first patent for ‘transmitting electrical impulses and signals’. In the following year, at Chelmsford, he founded his Wireless Telegraph Co. and built his first factory. Here, associates carried out most of the early research which enabled him, in 1901, to hear in Newfoundland the first Morse messages sent across the Atlantic from his transmitting station in Cornwall. Wireless equipment made at the Chelmsford works and constantly improved by the Marconi scientists was fitted first to ships and then to aircraft. After the First World War, the Marconi company, using the short-wave beam system, established a worldwide Imperial telegraph service. At Chelmsford, the first sound broadcast took place on 15 June, 1920 and listeners heard the voice of the famous singer, Dame Nellie Melba.
Lord Byron often stayed at Gilstead Hall in South Weald.
Lord Byron
The weekend visits of Lord Byron to South Weald’s elegant Wealdside, (later Gilstead Hall) during the early eighteenth century caused much excitement to the household of Mr James Hanson, Byron’s solicitor and great friend from the time Byron succeeded to the barony as a ten-year-old.
Hanson had bought Wealdside in 1813. Byron, who by then was a successful poet, was leading a colourful life in London society. Lady Carolyn Lamb had described him as ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’. Following publication of his epic poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, his verses were seized on as fast as they were published. Byron’s fondness for the Hanson family was evident when, on 7 March 1814, he gave Mary Ann Hanson away at her wedding to Lord Portsmouth. Byron also made the solicitor one of his executors and in his last will left him the sum of £1,000. Wealdside has had many owners over the years and several sightings of Lord Byron’s ghost have been reported in the grounds.
Edwin Dunning
The church of Bradfield overlooks the estuary of the river Stour and, like older Essex churches, is steeped in history. However, inside it contains a dedication to a man of the village. He was Squadron Commander Sir Edwin Harris Dunning DSC RN. On 2 August 1917, at the height of the First World War, he landed an aircraft on a vessel underway, the first person to do so. This legendary feat changed the way that air power could be delivered by sea to all parts of the world. In St Lawrence’s church is a plaque and a stained-glass window in his honour and also dedicated to the Royal Flying Corps and to his ship, HMS Furious. Edwin Dunning was killed five days later.
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