William Thompson & Children
William (born 1835) was Richard’s eldest son, but the one who seems to have made the least success of his life. If he played a part in the activities of the village, these have gone unrecorded. But like his parents he and his wife had a large family - 10 children over 16 years. He lived in at least 8 places, including 6 different parishes and perhaps never felt that Pirbright was his true home.
When only 15, in 1851, he was working as a page for a prosperous farmer in Flexford about 2 miles south of Willey Green where he grew up. 10 years later he was a gardener in Farnborough. About that time, he formed a relationship with Elizabeth Stevens, who had been a witness with William at his brother’s wedding in 1863. She had been born in Pirbright in 1836 and lived with her family at Terry’s House, West Heath. Later that year William and Elizabeth were married in
Farnham, where it is recorded they both lived at the time. When their first son, William Harvey was born in 1864 they were now living in Pirbright as was their second child, Charlotte (1865). But Alex (1867) was born in Farnborough suggesting they lived for about 2 years with Elizabeth’s parents in Pirbright before William found work back in Farnborough.
However, by 1869, when Julia was born, the family were again in Pirbright, this time working for HH2 at the Dog Kennels, as recorded in the 1871 Census. This is now called Stream House lying beyond the Royal Oak. It was used by the Halseys both as a laundry and for a pack of harrier hounds. People employed by HH2 lived there in 4 separate cottages. Two worked as agricultural labourers, but the wife of one was a laundress. Another was “a steward of the manor”. William continued to work as a gardener, possibly at Henley Park, though he also seemed to have the management of 20 acres and he sometimes called himself a farmer in the baptism records.
By 1881 the family - now with 9 children - were living on Pirbright Green at Linnards, also owned by HH2. William was still working as a gardener, probably for HH2’s son, Edward Joseph, at The Cottage (now Langley House). He was assisted by his eldest son, William Harvey, and Elizabeth was helping to support the family by working as a dairy woman.
In 1885 William died, aged only 50, and Elizabeth moved to the Old School House as a caretaker together with 5 of the children and, by 1891, with her sister-law’s son, Michael, who could no longer live at Rails Farm once his grandfather had died. By 1901 Elizabeth was still at the Old School House, presumably still as the caretaker, but also working as a laundress - possibly back at the Dog Kennels. Only 2 daughters supported her, Charlotte and May Lavinia who was a teacher at the local Board School. In 1906 Elizabeth died and was buried in Pirbright churchyard with her husband. Unfortunately, the grave of William and Elizabeth cannot be found in the churchyard today. It may have fallen victim to over enthusiastic churchyard maintenance, as almost certainly their children would have provided a headstone for their parents.
The Children
Five of William and Elizabeth’s adult children lived all their lives in Pirbright, not including the last 2 children, Emily Alice and Rose Effie, who died as babies. These were:-
Joseph Bateman (1871 - 1898), who died aged 19 in January 1891. His occupation was never captured in a census but the likelihood was that he became a gardener like his father and older brother.
William Harvey (1864 - 1898) was working as a gardener in 1881 and is the only Thompson known to be mentioned in a published book. He worked for Miss Cawthorn, who wrote the authoritative book about the history of Pirbright and she commended his professionalism in it. However, he never married and died in 1898, aged only 34. His is the only grave of this family that can be found in the churchyard today. There is a lot of space around it, so originally this may have supported the
headstones of his parents and some of his brothers and sisters.
Alex (1867 - 1946) did marry - to Charlotte Parsons in 1898 - but they had no children. Instead, the couple were providing a “foster home” for 2 young orphans in 1911 when they lived with Alex’s uncle Charles at Brook House (Cove Cottage). Fostering had existed in England since the mid nineteenth century and became regulated through the 1908 Children Act. Alex was working as a decorator. After Charles died, they moved to 11 Pirbright Cottages, Fox Corner and were still
fostering, by then to 3 teenage children, though not the ones listed in 1911. In 1921 Alex described himself as a self-employed painter and decorator. He remained at 11 Pirbright Cottages until he died in 1946 and was buried in Pirbright churchyard.
Julia (1869 - 1908) married George Gosden, a bricklayer, in 1891. The Gosdens had a long association with Pirbright, loosely paralleling that of the Thompsons. George was the son of Elijah and Emma Gosden. In 1851, when Elijah was 15, his parents, James and Maria were managing a small farm of 50 acres at Cowshot, having moved there from Chobham. In 1854 he married Emma Hockley and the couple moved to Sandpit Cottages where they had 3 children by 1861. Elijah worked as an agricultural labourer. By 1871 George (1865) and Ben (1868) had been born and the family had moved to the old blacksmiths at Cove Bridge, which HH2 redeveloped in 1883 to become Brook Cottage. As a result HH2 moved Elijah and his family to a one acre smallholding he owned at Little Cut, near Vines Farm, where Elijah died in 1907.
George and Julia Thompson were married in February 1891, when Julia had almost given birth to their first child. HH2 found them a home in another of his projects - the redevelopment of the old almshouse, close to Little Cut, into the Long Houses. In the 1891 Census the couple and their baby lived at 10 Almshouses, but by 1901 this had become 6 Long Houses. By then they had 3 children, Lizzie (1891), Arthur (1895) and Daisy (1900). A fourth, Leslie was born in 1903 but Julia
died in 1908 aged only 39. She was buried in Pirbright Churchyard but no headstone can be seen there today.
George stayed at the Long Houses for several years but married again in 1914, to Agnes Sayers who had borne his son in 1909. Agnes had by then had a colourful life. She was born in Hook Heath in 1877, daughter of a nurseryman, Henry Sayers. Henry moved to Eltham, London a few years later and then to Greenwich. But before the second move he left Agnes, aged 13, living in an Eltham pub where she appeared to be helping another teenager, only a year older, with the care
of the publican’s little children. In about 1894 Henry moved to Fleet, Hants and Agnes, now 17, joined him there. She formed a relationship with a teenager of the same age, Ernest Barker, and the following year they had a son, Rupert William B Sayers baptised in nearby Crondall. The relationship did not result in marriage but did continue for several years. When Agnes moved with her father to 9 The Terrace, Pirbright in 1902, a second child - Vera Ethelberta Barker Sayers - was
born and baptised in Pirbright in 1906. However Vera was severely disabled and spent most of her life in care homes, first in Hampstead and by 1921 in Farnham.
Agnes soon forgot Ernest Barker and formed a relationship with George Gosden. Their first child, Ronald Sayers was born and baptised in 1909. In 1911 Agnes was living and working, as a cook, in Pirbright Camp, leaving the care of her 2 children to her parents. Here she probably met Charles Chittenden and their son, Walter Sayers was born in 1913. After George and Agnes were married, both Ronald and Walter were given the name “Gosden”. But Walter changed his to
Chittenden, which was used at school and he revealed his father’s name on his marriage certificate in 1936. The couple had 3 more children, twins Robert and John (1915) and Violet (1918). Meanwhile, in 1915, Rupert had become one of the first men in the newly formed (1912) Royal Flying Corps which, in 1918, became the Royal Air Force. After the war ended, he returned to Pirbright, but his grandfather died in 1919. Rupert married and stayed at 9 The Terrace and worked at the Cattle Research Station. Later he moved to Windlesham and died there in 1960. Walter also worked at the Research Station but moved to Woking.
None of Julia’s 4 children with George stayed in the village but Leslie, who lived in Horsell after he married, wanted to be remembered in Pirbright. He made a gift of about 15 walnut trees to be planted as part of the Millennium celebrations. Leslie died only 5 months after the celebrations. But he will be best remembered for his stewardship of Woking Football Club. At one point the club’s ground was at risk of being sold and the club closed. Les (known as Gerald) helped to raise enough money to buy the freehold and as a result when a new stand was built in 1995 it was named the Les Gosden Stand.
Two of George’s later children, with Agnes, can be traced after 1921 in the village. Ronald lived his whole life there, marrying Veronica, known as Blanche in 1929. They moved to Hawthorn Cottage, at the end of Chapel Lane, which has now been redeveloped. Ronald died in 1969. His sister, Violet, known as Nance, moved from her father’s home near The Cricketers into the pub itself by 1939 and was helping to run it. She married Charles Bailey in 1954 and moved to his home at Heath Mill, Fox Corner. She died in 2005. The Gosdens had a close relationship with the Cricketers in the years after WW2. Besides the presence of Nance, a photo taken at the Coronation celebrations in 1953 shows an informal Cricketers Band of 7 men, but 2 of them were Gosdens. One was Ben, George’s nephew, who lived in Brookwood Cemetery where he was a foreman. The other was Pug, a distant relative from Chobham who moved to Pirbright after WW2.
Pug also frequented The White Hart and, at his funeral in 1954, a friend remembered :- “It was nothing for him to come in a cart, drawn by a donkey and he would get absolutely inebriated and then you slung Pug on the cart, hit the donkey’s rump and he took him home”. Home was somewhere unconventional on Bullswater Common.
George died in 1929 and Agnes in 1933. Both were buried in Pirbright churchyard but today only George’s grandfather and parents have headstones which have survived.
Ada Louise (1873 - 1917) married James Goddard in 1900. James’s parents, Edward and Emma, came from Heckfield near Hartley Wintney, Hampshire, where James was born and Edward worked as a labourer and blacksmith for about 30 years. Then he moved to Surrey - in 1881 he was in Leatherhead, working as gardener, but about 1883 he became the licensee of The White Hart. In doing so he was following the footsteps of his own father, who had been a publican at the time of his son’s marriage. He died, still the licensee in 1924, and for a lot of that time his children helped in the pub, especially after Emma died in 1916. James is listed as barman in 1891 and in subsequent years his sisters, Fanny (1882) and Minnie (1889), helped and then ran the White Hart until about 1940. When Fanny died in 1949 she had retired to Cove Cottage, once the home of Charles Thompson.
When Ada’s father, William Thompson, died in 1885 the family were living at Linnards, one of the largest and most attractive houses on Pirbright Green. HH2 also died that year and the new managers of the Halsey estate must have thought the house too grand for a widow and 9, mainly young, children. So they were moved to the Old School House, about 80 yards away, which was by then a Reading Room, as the school had been replaced in 1870 by the new one in School
Lane. However there was some concern for the family’s welfare as the tenancy stipulated that no eviction could occur “while there was a Thompson descendant in the house”. The Thompsons stayed for 65 years!
After Ada and James married they moved to 2 Pirbright View on Dawney Hill and their 3 youngest children, Ethel (1900), Violet (1903) and Edward (1906) were all born there. Ada’s mother, Elizabeth, died the same month as Edward was born, leaving Ada’s sister the last remaining Thompson in Old School House. So when she married a soldier and had to move away, the Goddards took advantage of Halsey’s generosity and moved (back in Ada’s case) to the old family
home. Their fourth child, Ida May was baptised from there the same month as her aunt, May Lavinia was married.
Ada and James had 2 more children, Alexander (1912) and Marjorie (1914) but then Ada died, in 1917. However, the clause in the tenancy agreement still protected James as Ada’s children were still there - or enough of them. Ida May was sent to live with her aunts at the White Hart, Edward was placed in a Church of England Home for Waifs and Strays in Croydon and Violet died in 1918. However, Ethel seemed prepared to carry on looking after her father and the other children and did
so until she married in 1930 and moved to Woking.
In all the Censuses when he was working, James lists himself as a labourer or gardener but he also owned a small horse drawn carriage in which, among other jobs, he chauffeured guests to parties at Henley Park, by now occupied by Lord Pirbright. So it is no coincidence that Ethel married a chauffeur and his son, Edward also became a chauffeur. In 1939 he was working for no less than the Bishop of Peterborough, having married in that area. He died in 1988, in London, but despite being sent to an institution when a teenager, he must have remembered his birthplace with affection as he was buried in Pirbright churchyard.
James continued to live at Old School House until his death in 1948. In his later years Ida May left the White Hart but there is no further trace of her. Alexander was working at the Cattle Testing Station in 1933, then helping his aunts as barman in 1939, but when he married Daisy Thody in 1941 he moved to Woking. He served in the Home Guard and then the Royal Engineers from 1943 but later moved to the Isle of Wight where he and Daisy both died. When James died, only Marjorie was still living at Old School House, although she was also recorded as living at the White Hart in 1939, described as an upholsteress. She married Peter Wheeler in 1949, who came from Worplesdon. John built the bungalow, Tangletrees, next to Old School House on what appears to have once been part of its garden. Marjorie and John moved to their new home in 1960. With the last Thompson descendant no longer living there, the Trustees of the Halsey Estate sold Old School House and the Halsey era in Pirbright finally ended.
John Wheeler died in 1983 but Marjorie lived on until 2013, the last Thompson in Pirbright, surviving even my mother, Win Watkins, by 3 years. The headstones of 3 generations of Goddards can be found in Pirbright churchyard - Edward (1924), Emma (1916), their children James (1948) and Ada (1926) and James’s children Edward(1988) and Marjorie (2013). But there is no surviving headstone for Ada, James’s wife.
The 3 that left Pirbright to live were:
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Charlotte (1865) who moved only as far as Frimley with her husband, Frederick Kent and son Thomas.
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Louis (1875) who moved to London as a young man and is recorded working in a billiard hall and as a cashier at Marylebone Municipal Baths. He married and had 3 children.
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May Lavinia (1876) became a teacher and her first job was at the new school extension on the edge of Burrow Hill on the south side of School Lane. This had been built in 1901 on land provided by Lord Pirbright, when her cousin William Thompson was a member of the School Board. Later she married a soldier, Louis Marsden, who worked in the Medical Corps and, after leaving the army, at a hospital in Lancashire. They had one child.
William Thompson used his farming background to become a gardener, not a farmer. This may have been the luck of the draw or maybe it was deliberate. He could not be described as lazy but he probably preferred relaxing in the White Hart of an evening to preparing for another hard day in the fields. His main legacy was his children who, with his grandchildren, reached into most parts of Pirbright life in the century after he died. Today he is almost forgotten as he died young and his grave in the churchyard can no longer be found. But the headstones of William Harvey Thompson together with those of Edward and Marjorie Goddard remind us of this large and important branch of the Thompson family.