In past centuries the village expanded several times, but never
quite so overwhelmingly as in the post war period. In 1931 the population was just
over a thousand, it had risen to 1,640 by 1951, to 2,505 ten years later and now must be nearly three thousand.
With the influx of so many people into the village its inhabitants
could no longer feel that each family was related to most others in the Wick. Probably
this had never been strictly true; but by marriage and by recognising second cousins
and the like, most families had indeed been related. The character of the village
was changing in other ways. No longer was the College the most important source
of income and employment for the majority of families, and less and less did College
people take an interest and control of village affairs. The old gulf between gentry,
epitomised in the Wick by College masters, and villagers gradually disappeared.
Today new residents may be unaware of the old ties between Eton and Eton Wick. When
Mr Vaughan died in 1940 his place as unofficial squire was taken by Bob Bond. Their
backgrounds were very different, but both men were intensely interested in the village.
It was Bob Bond who was reappointed bailiff at the 1948 Manor Court; he was instrumental
in restarting the Boy Scouts after the war, he helped organise gymkhanas, dances
and the annual Scout Fete ( which took the place of the old Horticultural Show).
He also became the first president of the PTA.
The horse had virtually disappeared from the agricultural scene;
though not entirely for George Pagett set up as a smallholder soon after the war
and continued to use horses until the 1970s. The car and the lorry replaced the
horse and cart, and garages became a necessity. Mr Sibley opened his filling station
in 1958 and Ellis Motors were established in Victoria Road. People travelled more
and taking holidays became the normal and not the exceptional way of life. Whereas
in pre-war days people walked, cycled or used the bus to go to school, work or shopping,
the use of the car became more and more the accepted practice. This transport revolution
has brought in its wake other changes, such as the loss of the old road which ran
from Haywards Mead to Meadow Lane in Eton and which is now only a bridle path. The
Windsor Bridge has been closed to vehicle traffic and bus services have been cut,
accentuating the hardship of those without a car. The roads are all macadamized
and edged with pavements, and there is a profusion of street furniture road signs,
electric streetlamps, bus shelters, pillar boxes, telephone kiosks and seats. Most
of these have been provided by the statutory authorities, but the seat by Albert
Place was the gift of the Women's Institute and the one in the churchyard in memory
of Bob Bond.
Soon after the war, in line with national educational changes,
Eton Wick School became a primary school, catering for both boys and girls from
the ages of five to eleven; while older children were expected to attend secondary
schools outside the village. However, it was still a church school, though the diocese
was now responsible only for the fabric of the building and not the salaries of
the teaching staff or the education of the children. To cater for the needs of the
growing population the school was enlarged in 1953 and again in the sixties, but
on that occasion the cost was such that a change of management became inevitable
and the school was taken over by the County Council. In 1973 national policy brought
about another change and the school became the combined infants and middle school
with children being required to stay an extra year. But, though its title, appearance
and teaching methods have changed over the years, because now almost all 'the children
from Eton Wick are taught there, it has become even more the village school than
in the years before the war when the older boys attended Porny School.
In spite of the addition of twelve new shops since the war there
are now proportionately fewer shops per head than before the war. Several of the
older shops have indeed closed and there is only one, Sibley's, in the area of New
Town. The village has lost its priest-in-charge and Rev Christopher Johnson is now
the only Church of England clergyman serving the parish of Eton, a sharp contrast
to the situation a hundred years ago, when the parish was desperately trying to
afford to employ two curates to assist the Vicar. Instead the village now has three
churches, the Roman Catholic St Gilbert's having been built at the same time as
Haywards Mead. The Village Hall stands close by and is still used for a baby clinic
and library, but the role of the Hall has substantially diminished. No longer is there a Village Hall Club; the
Management Committee is concerned only with the maintenance of the building and
the hiring of Its rooms. It has been overshadowed by its offshoot, the Football and Social Club, whose club rooms stand just behind the Hall. Some organizations
still meet in the Hall, but others now use the rival establishment, and the
whole of the ground floor is let to the County Council. Even the Village Fete,
first organized by the Management Committee in 1962 and then the Youth Club,
has now been taken over by the Football and Social Club, and since the mid-sixties
it has been known as the Wicko Carnival. The loss to the village of Wheatbutts Field
when it was sold by the College brought about the end of the Scout Fete.
The list of changes seems inexhaustible, but it must suffice
to mention only a few more and perhaps it is fitting that these should
concentrate on the part of the parish first known as 'le Wyk'. The streams are
now much shallower, the ponds filled in and the westernmost part of the common
has recently been landscaped. Trees have always been part of the village landscape, but
unfortunately several beautiful elms had to be cut down in the 1950s. Hedges
and trees have been grubbed up and in the last few years more elms have been
lost through disease so that the area around Little Common has a rather open, desolated look. It has been one more step in the succession of
changes that has taken place since the first cluster of buildings established a
wick in a clearing in the woods of Eton. Thankfully Eton Wick is still a
village which will continue to evolve and, it is hoped, will remain surrounded and
protected by commons and lammas lands.
This is the final part of the serialisation of The Story of a Village - Eton Wick - 1217 - 1977. The Eton Wick History Group is most grateful for the kind permission of Judith Hunter's husband to publish her book on its website.
The village and community has continued to change and evolve since Judith completed her history more than 40 years ago and some of this change is reflected in The Eton Wick Newsletter - Our Village and the Photographic History of Eton Wick and Eton.
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