Boveney New Town Census 1911

The United Kingdom Census of 1911 was taken on 3rd April, that year and was the eighth of the UK censuses to include details of household members. The total number of persons returned as living in England and Wales at midnight on Sunday, April 2nd, 1911, was 36,075,269. This shows an increase of 3,547,426 upon the number enumerated on March 31st, 1901, and gives a decennial rate of increase of 10.9 percent. It is the first census that has the returns for each household as completed by the head of the house are available

Details collected include:

Place: street name, house number or house name.

Houses: inhabited, uninhabited or a building and the number of rooms.

Names of each person who was resident in the house on the night preceding the census.

Age and sex of each person: The actual age in years or months for babies under one year are recorded in the 1911 census.

Particulars as to Marriage: married, single (persons 15 years and upwards) or widowed; years married, the number of children, living and who had died.

Profession or Occupation.

Birthplace and nationality.

Infirmity.

The Superintend Registrar's District was Eton, Bucks and the Registrar's district was Burnham. Enumeration District No. 1. The enumerator was not recorded on the cover of the Census records.

The area for the 1911 census included was the entire parishes of Dorney and Boveney.

The 1911 Census reveals that there were 125 households, one house was unoccupied and 503 people in residence in the parish of Boveney at midnight on the 2nd April. In Lower Boveney (Boveney New Town) there were 94 households and 389 people recorded. The oldest person, Ann Grimes at the age of 91, she was born in 1820. There were two residents in their 80’s. Arthur Lea was youngest at one-month-old, he was the third child of Thomas and Martha. There had been two children born in the first three months of 1911.

Click on this link to see our transcription of the 1911 census records for Boveney.. We will be looking deeper into what the census reveals about the growing village and publish our findings in future articles.

Eton Wick WI - Our Community Today & Tomorrow

The Eton Wick and Boveney WI was started in the 1930's by Edward L. Vaughan and his wife. Mr Vaughan was an Eton College master who lived in the village. The village WI ran for 72 years until Christmas 2006, here are some photographs from the final meeting.

Mrs Joan Ballhatchet, a long time member of the village WI told Windsor and Eton Express "We were determined to keep going until 2006 so we could have our Christmas party and go out with a bang. We brought out all our trophies that the branch had won over the years and former members came back especially."

One of the scrapbooks on display was Our Community Today & Tomorrow that was produced and entered into the Berkshire Federation of the Women's Institue Golden Jubilee Cup Competiton in 1992. The Eton Wick and Boveney WI entry came 1st. To read the full report click here or copy the URL and paste it into your web browser: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mn7PXZieX69ypFxkUNJqQ0-hXS1GHNPJ 

1897 - 1997 Centenary of Victoria's Jubilee

On April 30th 1997 the History Group meeting covered how Eton Wick celebrated Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. The talk was researched and given by John Denham.

June 21st, 1997 was the centenary of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. 

Celebrations for both Jubilees, Golden and Diamond, had similar programs in Eton and Windsor.

Although Eton Wick became a parish with about 800 inhabitants within the Eton Rural District in 1894, for the Jubilee celebrations the village joined Eton, who in turn joined with Windsor in the organisation for both occasions.

The ten years between the Golden and Diamond Jubilees saw an increase in the number of village traders.

From Kelly's trade directory for 1887 only eleven premises are listed as commercial. (Farms, Beerhouses, a laundry, Three Horseshoe P.H) the two shops for provisions etc. were Arthur Bennett and Thomas Lovell, baker and Post Office.

For 1897, 24 premises are listed as commercial, Eton Wick now had shopkeepers, Charles Ayres, Alma Road, Edward Wilkins, butcher, Thomas Lovell, baker and grocer, Dairymen, a florist, market gardener, boot and shoe maker, draper and boot retailer, cabinet maker, plumber, carpenter and smith, and builders, but in 1897 the village relied on Eton for many domestic requirements. The increasing wealth was altering the way life was pursued by many parishioners. This brought forth the comment from the Reverend Donalson speaking at a Deanery conference at Slough on the subject of Sunday Observance that the neglect of this began with the leisured classes who robbed their servants of the privilege of Sunday worship by dinner parties, concerts and other amusements and was influencing all classes generally.

For the Diamond Jubilee celebrations public meetings were held in January 1897 at Eton and Eton Wick to consider ideas and arrangements for the sixieth anniversary. But other events of local interest were also being discussed by the Parish.

The new year commenced with the children's Christmas party given by Mr Vaughan and others for the 235 children attending the day schools in the parish., which brought the remark from the vicar that, when compared, the number attending Sunday school was miserably poor.

Temperance and thrift both got their due mention in the parish records. A decision by the local school governors in 1897 to encourage thrift introduced a savings bank for children of the parish Church of England schools. The collected monies were deposited with the Post Office savings bank.

Mr Denham's script can be read here. 

Remembrance Sunday 2017

The Eton Wick History Group laid its first wreath on the village War Memorial on Remembrance Sunday 1999. They have continued to do this each year since then and will be doing so again today.

During 1917 11 men who called Eton Wick their home died in the service of the country.

Private Herbert Pithers - Killed in action at Ancre and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.

James John Newell (Trooper No. 1232) - 10th Brigade 4th Division (Formerly Trooper No. 3831 - The Life Guards) - Killed in action at Arras and he is buried in the Athies Communal Cemetery Extension in France.

John Carfrae Clark (Gunner No. 630936) - Killed in action at Roeux and he is buried in the nearby cemetery of Anzin-St-Aubin. 

Joseph Newell (Private No. 9534) - 1st Battalion Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry - 17th Brigade - 6th (Poona) Division - He died in a Turkish Prisoner of War camp and is commemorated on the Basra Memorial in Iraq.

Charles Miles (Stoker 1st Class K25314) - H.M.S. Vanguard Royal Navy - Killed when HMS Vanguard blew up and sank with its entire crew. He is commemorated on the Chatham Naval Memorial in Kent.

Arthur Bunce (Private No. 39794) - 3rd Battalion Worcestershire Regiment - 7th Brigade - 25th Division - Killed in action at Messines Ridge and he is buried in the Messines Ridge British Cemetery, Messines, Belgium.

Alfred Brown (Private No. 11811) - 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards - 4th (Later 1st) Guards Brigade - Guards Division - Killed in action at the start of the Third Battle of Ypres and he is buried in Artillery Wood Cemetery at Boesinghe. 

Henry Charles Hill (Stoker 1st Class No. 1/18991) - H.M.S. Pembroke - Chatham - Royal Navy. He was killed during an air raid at Chatham Naval Barracks and he is buried in the Gillingham Naval Plot.

Robert Thomas Hobrough M.M. (Sergeant No. 40782) - Royal Engineers - No. 7 Signal Section Royal Engineers - Killed in action during the Third Battle of Ypres and is commemorated on the Memorial to the Missing, Panel 8, at Tyne Cot in Belgium.

Ernest Brown (Private No. T/202287) 3rd/4th Battalion The Queens Royal West Surrey Regiment – 62nd Brigade – 21st Division - Killed in action during the Third Battle of Ypres and is commemorated on a wall plaque in the Tyne Cot Cemetery.

Cyril Arthur Ashman - (Private No. 746) 2nd Battalion Honourable - Artillery Company 22nd Brigade - 7th Division - Killed in action at Gheluvelt and is buried in the military cemetery known as Tyne Cot.

"Lest we forget"

Eton Wick History Group Programme of Talks for 2018

The Eton Wick History Group has been meeting regularly since 1992. Eton Wick and the surrounding area is rich in history and the village has a heritage dating back to 1217.

Meetings are held at 7.30 pm in Eton Wick Hall, Eton Wick, and everyone is welcome. Refreshments are served, and there is a charge of £1.50 to cover costs.

Visitors and new members are always very welcome.

The 2018 programme of talks:

            17^th January        

‘Rogues and Vagabonds, Prisons and Punishments in 19^th Century Windsor’ with Dr. Brigitte Mitchell

28^th February     

‘Sir Sydney Camm and The Hurricane’ 

with Malcolm Lock

18^th April              

‘The History of Baylis House Slough’ 

with Elias Kupfermann

30^th May              

‘The Curious Disappearance of Major Glenn Miller’ 

with Tony Eaton

18^th July                

‘The Berkshire Lieutenancy’ 

with John Handcock LVO, DL

19^th September  

‘The Changing Face of Farming’ 

with Malcolm Kinross 

31^st October       

‘The History of the Poppy Appeal’ 

with Geoff Hayes

12^th December  

‘A Walk Around Eton Wick with Frank Bond’: 

as filmed by Peter Tarrant

Cyril Ashman Hon Artillery Company

Cyril Arthur Ashman - (Private No. 746) 2nd Battalion Honourable
Artillery Company 22nd Brigade - 7th Division

Cyril was born on April 17th, 1897 at about the time the family is believed to have moved to Eton Wick from Tidworth in Hampshire. In September 1910 he left the Eton Porny School to complete his education at the Windsor County Boys' School. During his school years he frequently helped on his father's farm until April 1914 when he left school to become a banker's clerk for Barclays at Southall. He joined the Army in April 1916 when he was just 19 years old and served with The Honourable Artillery Company.

He was a very likeable lad and probably more outgoing than his older brother, Douglas. Eight months before Cyril enlisted, his 23-year-old brother was killed in the Gallipoli offensive. It is not known whether this loss influenced his own decision to join the army, but it is not difficult to understand the apprehension of his parents as their one remaining son went off to war.

Edwin and Alice Ashman
with their children
Dorothy, Cyril and Douglas

As a boy he often called on Mrs Roll Bond of I Palmer Place and jokingly asked for titbits from her larder. In return he would take her a pail of skimmed milk and said it would only be given to the animals if she did not use it. Mrs Bond was very fond of young Cyril and she is said to have named a son after him. When Cyril had completed seven months of military training he was posted to the Western Front and in the late summer of 1917 he was serving in the Ypres Salient, Belgium.

He was wounded on October 7th and suffered Trench Fever, but was soon back in the front line. It was late Autumn and the battle had raged for three months with the aim of breaking out from the Salient and capturing the distant high ground known as the Passchendaele Ridge. Intense shelling had destroyed all the network of drainage ditches and the heavy rains made the terrain a glutinous, oozing quagmire.

The name of Passchendaele became synonymous with mud and slush, mud that drowned both men and horses. From the beginning of August 1917, the army had pressed painfully, slowly onward, until on

November 10th the ridge was finally taken at the appalling price of an estimated 250,000 casualties of whom 42,000 were never to be recovered. Cyril was killed here at Gheluvelt on October 26th, 1917, while trying to rescue a wounded comrade. Unlike his brother, he has a grave and is buried in the nearby massive military cemetery known as Tyne Cot. The cemetery is situated five miles northeast of Ypres and it contains 11,000 graves. Memorial walls there name nearly 35,000 other soldiers, who have no known graves. This total of approximately 46,000 British men were all killed in the Ypres Salient between August 1917 and the Armistice of November 1918.


Cyril's grave is number 21; Row C; plot 55. Mr and Mrs Ashman received a letter from their son's commanding officer which read: It is with the greatest regret that I am writing to inform you of the death of your son, Private Cyril Ashman of this Company, who fell on the 26th October while performing his duty under heavy shell fire. His officers regret the loss of a good soldier and his comrades mourn one of their most popular comrades, and it is the wish of all that I should convey to you their deepest sympathy in the great loss which you have sustained.In little more than two years, Edwin and Alice Ashman had lost both their sons in the Great War.

They left Eton Wick and the farm to live in Lansdowne Avenue, Slough. Their one remaining child was Dorothy. She lived until 1956 and was buried in the Eton Wick Churchyard. Her grave headstone bears the names of her two lost brothers along with her own.

Cyril's name is the second on the village memorial. He is also commemorated on the Eton Church Gates and on his old school memorial in Windsor. Cyril was single and 20 years of age.

This is an extract from Their Names Shall Be Carved in Stone  
and published here with grateful thanks to the author Frank Bond.

Cyril Ashman: The Commonwealth War Graves Commission page.

* The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records the death

of Private Cyril Ashman as 28th October 1917. 

Cyril Ashman: The For King & Country page.

Ernest Brown: There is no information about him on Lives of the First World War as yet.

The Eton Wick War Memorial page on Buckinghamshire Remembers website.

Cyril Ashman is also recorded in the Barclays Bank WW1 Roll of Honour. Private Ashman was one of 645 Barclays employees who died in the service of the country during the First World War.

Documents from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website 

The Village News viewed from Eton Wick

I have lived for over 40 years in and have been part of the life of two villages, Eton Wick and West Chiltington Common so when Tom Fort's “The Village News” came out I felt that I should get a copy. It is a fascinating collection of village stories that takes the reader on a meander through rural England both geographically and historically. From Twyford where his parents moved to when he was a year old in 1952 to Sonning Common where he currently lives his book looks at how villages have survived and what they need to make them work as communities.

His journey from Twyford to Sonning Common takes in Eversley, Luccombe and Chelsfield in the South of England to Troutbeck and Chopwell in the North. He chose his villages with care as most of the places that he has written about have either literary connections or researched histories written about them; these are referred to throughout the book.

Eton Wick may not get a mention, but villages across much of Berkshire are from Chieveley* in the west, home of Miss Read via Three Mile Cross, Miss Mitford and Sonning Common (used to be in Berkshire) to Twyford are covered and the changes that the passing of time has brought them. Eton College does get a mention as it is part of the history of Juniper Hill in Oxfordshire.

Juniper Hill was the village that Flora Thompson called Lark Rise in the novel of that that she wrote about rural life in the   North Oxfordshire community in the 1890's. One part of Juniper Hill's history is the experience of the area being enclosed by the landlord, Eton College. Mr Fort writes

"when it was enclosed the people would lose their rights to graze and take wood, and much more alarmingly would risk losing their homes."

Eton Wick had its own experience with the threat of enclosure when John Penn attempted to gain the necessary legislation through Parliament which was defeated on 1st May 1826. Eton Wick is still surrounded by open fields, Lammas land and commons. And of course, Eton College is Lord of the Manor.

The story of Three Mile Cross contrasts with Eton Wick as both villages are close to major urban centres, but so far have different futures. Three Mile Cross which is part of the Parish of Shinfield* the area was subject to several Enclosure Acts between 1856 and 1863.  The village lies immediately south-east of the M4 – A33 junction and is being developed. There is a website for the Shinfield plan that shows where the national house builders are adding the new homes. 

The Village News illustrates that every village is different and that actions and decisions taken in the past can bring about very different futures for the communities that live in villages. Eton Wick had a major growth phase from the early 1880’s with the development of Boveney Newtown starting on former farmland on the north side of the Eton Wick Road and west of Bell Lane. The growth continued through to the early 1970’s when the Wheatbutts was built on.

Mr Fort suggests an asset mix that can make a village successful. This includes in no particular order:

The village school, Church, shops and Post Office, sports and other clubs, families with young children and people how are prepared to be actively involved in making the community thrive. He also adds that finding space for small developments is important, Eton Wick offers all those. I think that as someone who has a keen interest in Eton Wick and looking through the lens of The Village News I would say that the village community has much to be proud of and some issues to be wary of.

Some notes on the growth of Eton Wick.

The census records for the older part of the village in 1861 show that there were 78 occupied dwellings with a population of 276.   By 1911 the village had gained a neighbour, Boveney Newtown on what had previously been farmland immediately to the west. The two communities, they both had their own Parish Council totalled 248 houses and 1026 inhabitants.  The population of the village at the 2011 census was 2260. 

During 100 years between 1861 and when my parents brought their family to the village in 1960,  it gained a new school in 1888 and extended several times since to cope with a larger population. A Post Office arrived in the mid-1880’s as well as other shops. A new parade of shops was built by the local authority in the early 1950’s  and a second parade was added in the early 1970’s. The Village Institute/Hall, Scout Hut, Youth Club, St. Gilberts RC Church and Football & Social Club were added to the south side of the village between 1900 and the end of the 1970’s.

*Author's note: my own 3x great-grandparents, Richard and Asenath Povey lived in Chievely and had nine children including my 2x great-grandfather also called Richard.

Elizabeth Povey, a granddaughter of Richard and Asenath is recorded as having stayed at the Wheatsheaf Inn, Shinfield on the 1901 Census.