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THE FIVE FARMS IN 1911

On January 21 st 1911 a large article about the farms belonging to the firm of James Oakes and Company of Riddings appeared in “The Derbyshire Courier”. It began by describing the location of Riddings farm as this was the farm where the Bailiff, Mr. George Henry Chamberlain, and his family lived. The article began:

“The Riddings Farm, a picturesque place, is surrounded with the beautiful Riddings House, its huge park and lovely gardens on the one hand, the parish church and grounds on the other. It is situated about two and a half miles from Alfreton and its acres extend to Pye Bridge on one side and to olden Valley on the other.”

This homestead and farm buildings were originally erected around 1874 under the direction of Thomas Haden Oakes but were continually improved and modernised as well as added to over the subsequent years. In 1911 when the newspaper article was written there were five farms in total owned by the Oakes Family and managed by George Chamberlain. He was the third generation of Chamberlain to administer the farm work, succeeding his father and grandfather in being employed by the Oakes family. (Please see later.)

This was a time, just before World War 1 when these farms were in their prime and enjoyed their glory days. The total acreage of the five farms exceeded more than a thousand acres, of which four hundred acres were mown for hay each year and making it one of the largest farm estates in the county. The five farms were Riddings Farm, Newlands Farm, both at Riddings, Cotes Park Farm, Brinsley Hall and Greenhill Farm, which was at Sutton. Each of the farms specialised in a different aspect of agriculture or husbandry and was run by a separate foreman. Exclusive of the foremen there were twenty-five labourers who tended 180 cattle, 50 horses (mainly shires), 150 breeding sheep and a large number of pigs and hens.

In 1911 Riddings Farm was where George Henry Chamberlain and his family lived along with other farm workers and visitors, although he had grown up living at Newlands Farm. Riddings Farm shared the responsibility with Newlands Farm for the dairy cows and fifty -five cows were milked daily. The foreman was Mr. T. Marson.

“The Courier” recounted that

“The cattle are chained up in a long cow house, built on the most modern principles, and are fed by one of the best methods ever employed. A tramline extends the whole length of the building, and when the tram is filled with food 50 cows can be supplied in a few minutes. Another interesting item in the cow house is the Milk Register which hangs at the back of every animal and from which can be seen the quantity of milk produced by each cow. This enables the farmer to see whether any particular animal is giving a good milk yield. All the latest machinery is used on the farm for grinding, chopping and cutting foodstuffs. Two gas engines and one oil engine are continually turning and the animals’ food is produced at a rapid rate.”

 

PHOTO: Hay Making in the early 1900's. The photograph was taken across from Furnace Row, Lower Somercotes

 

A large number of Indian Game and Buff Orpington hens were kept at Riddings Farm in the orchard and farmyard and technology was used to good effect as “The hundred-egg incubator is an interesting piece of apparatus and is used at the farm with great success.”

Riddings Farm House was very extensive with seventeen rooms providing living accommodation and many other adjacent buildings. One of the shaded buildings on the right wing of the house was the Dairy, the interior walls being covered with blue and white Minton tiles. The newspaper article disclosed:

“The walls are further decorated with some fine specimens of china, sent up to the farm for that purpose by the late Mrs Jas. Oakes of Riddings House.”

The Dairy was managed by George Chamberlain’s wife, assisted by Dairy Maids. The farm produced at least seventy gallons of milk every day and the bulk of it was sold at the door of the Dairy, accounting for the fact that no dairy carts were used by the farm to sell milk.

“It is a great sight at this farm, night and morning, to see large numbers of children taking their turns for their supply of milk. As the children wait their turns, they are watching the milk produced in the cow house and they receive their supplies from the cans as they are brought in by the men.”

Mrs Chamberlain and the Dairy maids made between eighty and a hundred pounds of butter on a specific day each week and there was always a big call for Riddings Dairy Butter. The paper reported:

“Mrs Chamberlain holds six first prizes for butter making, having only been defeated once in her career. On the premises may be seen an ‘Alpha Laval’ Cream Separator, driven by a gas engine”

Near to Riddings Farm were the two mills on Green Hill Lane. They were named James and Sarah and were driven by wind and steam. The mills were constantly engaged in grinding corn as well as grinding and preparing the food stuffs for the numerous cattle and horses (including Pit Ponies) for the firm and so were also under the jurisdiction of Mr. Chamberlain as part of his work as Farm Bailiff.

 

PHOTO: Hay Making at Lower Somercotes. The photograph dates from 1904

 

Newlands Farm had a few milking cows but devoted the majority of its work to the breeding and rearing of large white pigs. It was where the pedigree white boar, “Nottingham Dreadnought”, was housed. The foreman there was Mr. J. Taylor. Brinsley Hall was mainly used for rearing cattle, under the foreman, W. Whittimore. Cotes Park and Greenhill Farm, Sutton were used for the fattening of cattle and grazing sheep. An extra resource at Sutton was the enormous sand quarry from where six thousand tons of sand were sent annually to the Alfreton Ironworks. The foreman at Cotes Park was Mr T. E. Wright and at Greenhill Farm, Sutton, Mr. R. Brailsford.

George Henry Chamberlain held the responsibility for the management of the farms in 1911 and was also responsible for the purchasing of all cattle, horses, colliery ponies and corn. While a great deal of time was taken up with the running of the farm business, George Chamberlain was the Treasurer of the Alfreton and District Milk Sellers’ and Cow Keepers’ Society and a well-known judge of Shire horses at all the local and county agricultural shows.

 

THREE GENERATIONS OF FARM BAILIFF.

Three generations of the Chamberlain family gave service as Farm Agents to the Oakes family of Riddings for more than seventy consecutive years. This began in 1845 when Henry Chamberlain was appointed as the Farm Bailiff.

GENERATION 1 HENRY CHAMBERLAIN (1812-1863)

Henry Chamberlain was born in Gravenshurst, Bedfordshire, in 1812 to John and Ann Chamberlain. In 1841 Henry was aged 30 and living with his wife, Sarah Ann, and Maria, their daughter, in Essex. Sometime between 1842 and 1845 Henry Chamberlain brought his family to live in Riddings where he took up the position of Bailiff at Newlands Farm, a post which he held for almost twenty years until 1863 when he died. The couple had four children who were as follows:

1. Maria Chamberlain (1839-1907)

Maria married Thomas Bland (Grocer) in 1858. They lived at “The Horse and Jockey” at South Wingfield and Thomas was described as a Licenced Victualler. In 1901 they lived at High Pavement, Belper with a daughter, Mary, and a servant. They had nine children altogether.

2. George William Chamberlain (1842-1908)

Born in Essex before the family came to Riddings George Chamberlain married Emma Jones in Riddings Church in 1865 where his occupation on his marriage certificate was listed as “Clerk”. He did not follow his father’s vocation in farming. Emma Jones originated from Liverpool where her father, Joseph Jones, was a Master Mariner. In the 1871Census George William Chamberlain lived in Coupland Place, Somercotes and worked as a Colliery Surveyor. In 1881 he was living in 1, Victoria Cottages, Birchwood with his wife and six children and was the Manager of Shady Colliery in Muckram. However, he did not remain in the coal industry. By 1891 he was the proprietor of “The White Lion” public house in Ripley and subsequently “The White Lion” hotel in Belper.

3. Charles Richard Chamberlain (1846-1916)

Farm Bailiff after his father died. Please see GENERATION 2***

4. Emma Chamberlain (1849-1924)

Youngest child of Henry and Sarah Ann Chamberlain, she was brought up at Newlands Farm with her three older siblings. In 1871, when she was 23, she married William Reason, a local butcher. In 1891 they lived at “The Old Crown Inn” in Stafford with their five daughters. In 1901 the Reason family lived in Matlock. Emma Reason died in 1911 when she was living in Osmaston Road, Derby

 

PHOTO: Ploughing in the early 1900's, Lower Somercotes

 

GENERATION 2***CHARLES RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN (1846-1916)

Charles Richard Chamberlain was the second generation to become Farm Bailiff to the Oakes family of Riddings. He undertook the duties from 1863 until 1909 when he retired. Charles Chamberlain was born at Newlands Farm, the third child and second son to Henry and Sarah Ann, his parents. In 1869 he married Ann Ellen Edwick Cook (1850-1904). Despite his relatively young age he became Farm Bailiff in 1863 on the death of his father. In the 1891 Census he lived at Newlands Farm (Detailed then as consisting of 160 acres) with his wife and six children. However, in the early 1870s Thomas Haden Oakes had a new farmstead erected in Riddings and, on its completion, Charles and his family moved into the purpose-built premises of Riddings Farm.

Their six children were:

1. George Henry Chamberlain (1871-1957) ***

The third generation of Chamberlain to become the Farm Bailiff.

See later.

2. Eleanor Harriet Chamberlain (1873-1926)

Eleanor was the oldest girl born to Charles and Ann Chamberlain. She married Francis Starr Elliott (1871-1954) in 1903 at Riddings Church. In 1911 she lived in Hemsworth, near Wakefield where her husband was the under manager of the local colliery and had a daughter called Norah. (1907-1994)

3. Alice Maria Chamberlain (1875-1948)

Alice married Bernard Ward, a Pig Trader, in 1899. By 1901 the couple had moved to Leicestershire and had a nine-month old daughter called Dorothy. Ten years later the 1911 Census showed that her father Charles Chamberlain and her unmarried sister, Elsie, were visitors as Charles was widowed in 1904 and retired as Bailiff in 1909. Alice and Bernard Ward also had a son, Harry, (1902-1993) who emigrated to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in 1953.

4. Margaret Emma Chamberlain (1877-1920)

Margaret Chamberlain married her cousin, (through marriage- see wife of G.W. Chamberlain 1842-1908) Philip Lockwood Jones in Shanghai, China in 1902. He was Chief Officer on a ship in the China Navigation Company. They had a son, Ernest Norman Lockwood Jones (1906-1953) who was born in Shanghai. In 1911 Margaret and her son, Ernest, were staying at Riddings Farm with her brother, George. She died in Hemsworth, Yorkshire in 1920, bequeathing her estate to him.

5. Elsie Mary Chamberlain (1882-)

Little information can be found at this time regarding Elsie Chamberlain other than she was unmarried in 1911.

6. Arnold Edwick Chamberlain (1886-1949)

Arnold Chamberlain became an electrical engineer. In 1939 he was married and living in Birmingham with his wife Enid Anne Dorothy Chamberlain. He died in 1949.

 

GENERATION 3 ***GEORGE HENRY CHAMBERLAIN (1871-1957)

George Henry Chamberlain was the third generation to be the Farm Bailiff to the Oakes family of Riddings. When he was 21, he was given a book by Thomas Haden Oakes called “The Encyclopaedia of Agriculture”. Thomas Haden Oakes wrote a personal message of good wishes and esteem on the fly leaf of the book, expressing the hope that George would follow his father and grandfather to serve the family in the same faithful and reliable way. His wishes were carried out.

In 1896 George Chamberlain married Eliza Rebecca Webster in Alfreton and they lived at Riddings Farm where they had five children.; Francis Charles (B 1897), Bernard (b. 1901), Grace (b. 1904), Ralph (b. 1909) and Janet (b. 1910). He was the Bailiff when the 1911 article was written and the family held high social status in the locality. In 1939 George and Eliza Chamberlain lived at Repton with one servant. His occupation was described as “Farm Bailiff / Buyer for Colliery”. Eliza Chamberlain died in 1953 aged 78 and George Chamberlain died in Derby in 1957 aged 86. Because of the three generations of Farm Bailiff called Chamberlain and because they were important in farming circles for at least seventy years, Riddings Farm was often referred to as Chamberlain’s farm by local people.

 

PHOTO BELOW: Hay Cart in the early 1900's, near Furnace Row, Lower Somercotes