Hives and Washbourne families - Hungerford Virtual Museum

Dr. Hugh Pihlens
Dr. Lois Pihlens
Canver House,
2 Canal Walk,
HUNGERFORD
Berks. RG17 OEQ
01488 683493
Mrs Ann Long
Highview
Steyne Road
Seaview
IOW PO34 5BH
tel 01983 612821
20 May, 1997
Dear Mrs Long
re: Hungerford Free Grammar School and Hives & Washbourne Families:
•
Further to our phone call today, I enclose a copy of my talk about Hungerford Schools and of /
Norman Fox's article in the Newbury District Field Club on Hungerford's Grammar School. I r
hope they are of help with your researches into ypur family tree for-ihe Hives family^-.i . i^ fj^ 2X 4i-T
"i) i%3$ .l^LpOl
As we discussed, John Hives was the schoolmaster firstly at 25 High Street (now Spackrrians ) f-
from at least 1841 (1841 census states schoolmaster aged 35; 1847 Kelly's directory states
John Hives , Gent. Boarding School, High Street,; and 1847 Commoner's List has John Hives ' ^ «£) ) W
occupant of 25 High Street with Misses Westall as the owners; 1848 a deed of 25 High Street
states Eliza Westall leasing property to James Bodman, linen draper and mentions "John Hives
before") and secondly at the Grammar School from 1 848 until his son John took over (due to
his father's death in March 1880?) who was the schoolmaster until its closure in 1884. The
Grammar school had been in existence nearly 250 years (it was founded in 1635 and built
within a few years).
You mentioned John Hives senior's other children: Edward who went to West Ham & was a
caretaker of a Mission Hall & died 1915/6; William Henry who died in his 20s, unmarried; ^

If you would like to make a donation for the information, which you kindly offered to do, then
please send a cheque payable to the Hungerford Historical Association. I will then pass it onto
the Treasurer.
With kind regards,
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Lois Pihlens

"Highview",
Steyne Road,
Seaview,
Isle of Wight,
P034 5BH.
3rd Dune 1997
Dr. Lois Pihlens,
Canver House,
2 Canal Walk,
Hungerford,
Berks,
RG17 OEQ.
Dear Dr. Pihlens,
My apologies for not writing to you sooner to thank you for all the help
you have given me, by letter and on the telephone. Life has been somewhat hectic
since we came home from our visit to Berkshire and Wiltshire over the Bank Holiday
weekend. Renewal of our main drains has meant a lot of excavation in the garden
and tree cutting, etc. uJe are still in the midst of it!
Apart from attending the 90th birthday celebration of one of my mother's
cousins - a great grandson of Dohn Hives of Hungerford Grammar School - we also
visited many villages around Wroughton and Hungerford, searching for gravestones
and generally getting a feel of the area again after a long spell of absence. I
hadn't been to Hungerford for some time. It is an attractive town, but it does
seem full of cars these days. We didn't get there until the Tuesday morning and
I suppose it was bound to be crowded with people out shopping, etc.
I took a look in Hungerford church, but a Mothers Union church service was about
to take place and time was limited. I found Margaret Uashbourn's gravestone; I was
glad about that because I thought it had disappeared when I last looked. Today so
many gravestones get taken up. Her husband, Thomas ulashbourn, is buried at
Great Bedwyn; there was a stone there when I last looked, but unfortunately I didn't
have time to go back on this occasion. It is Margaret and Thomas who lived in
Cow Lane, later Park Street. I have a mug which belonged to their daughter, flary,
inscribed: "Wary liiashbourn/Park Street/Hungerford/1857". She would have been twelve
years old. He was a maltster in 1838, then a farmer at Shalbourne — or I should
say Slope End Farm, Bagshot (Flary and her brother 3ohn were baptised at Shalbourne) —
after 1841 and still there in 1851 (census returns), back in Park Street as a
corn factor by 1857, still there in 1861 and 1862, but in Great Bedwyn by 1871,
died there 1872. If anything turns up about him through your Historical Association
I would be pleased to know. Park Street seems to have been 'gutted 1 ; was there a
malt house there once? In the 1841 census there is a blacksmith next door but I can't
see eny other clues.
I took photos of 25 High Street, 114 High Street and 6 Bridge Street and I am
most grateful for the information from the commoners lists. I would never have
pinpointed these former family homes without your kind assistance.
I have found your talk on Hungerford Schools and the article by Norman Fox on
the Grammar School fascinating; also the photo of the School with its thatched roof;
I have yet to delve deeply into your husband's pictorial book on Hungerford and
his other book on the town I shall order through the library - your local bookshop
told me it was out of print.

During our visit we managed to find Standen Farm House, the home-farm once of
Standen Manor, where the Uashbourn family lived from 1808 until 1837. We met a very
nice lady there called 3udy Chidlow (a professional photographer) and she gave us
a lot of help. We also found what we think were the old walls of Slope End Farm
at Bagshot and Eastcourt Farm nearby, which has some connection with the family.
Anvilles we discovered was pulled down 1960s or 1970s (precise date not known),
although we did drive down the lane towards it and got a feel of its whereabouts.
If anything comes to light on these properties amongst your archives or any old
photos, I would be delighted to hear from you. Also any old photos of Parsonage
Farm, Hungerford; I have modern ones, of course. Matthew bJashbourn, brother of
Thomas, farmed there until his death in 1834. His widow, Letitia, married
Henry Arthur Cundell and the Cundells farmed there for many years thereafter.
Newly widowed Elizabeth Uashbourn came to Standen Farm (her husband must have
arranged the tenancy or lease of it just before he was killed from a fall from a
horse) from Wroughton, Wilts, in 1808. Her six children were born in Wroughton,
but were the first generation to grow up in the Hungerford area. The eldest boy,
Dohn, inherited Overtown Farm at Wroughton and returned there about 1841. Next in
line, Dane, married three times and moved around a bit, ending her days in
Great Bedwyn; i^atthew, as I say, farmed at Parsonage Farm but died aged 31;
Thomas (my gt-gt-grandfather) lived out his days in Hungerford, Bagshot, Hungerford
and Great Bedwyn, but his daughter Mary went to Reading and his son to Leicestershire;
Elizabeth after her first marriage lived at Bagshot and then Rudge and Boxford, where
she died. Her daughter, Sarah, married John Richens and the Richens are still around
Hungerford - also the families her children married into, i.e. Dohn Corduroy Adams,
D'Oyley, etc. The other three children of Elizabeth nee klashbourn left Hungerford.
l^ary, the youngest, never married and died at the Somerset Hospital, Froxfield (the
almshouses), where her mother had gone to live after she left Standen Farmhouse in 1837,
So basically after this first generation to grow up in and around Hungerford, there
only remains the descendants of Elizabeth through her eldest daughter, Sarah.
I will, of course, let you have a copy of the full story for the Historical
Association's archives. Likewise the part dealing with the Hives family.
Again they were not a long stay family in Hungerford.
Dohn Hives came from Hickling in No tts, hiss wife came from Cornwall; they
were married in London and presumably arrived in Hungerford about 1838. Their
children were all born in Hungerford and one or two grandchildren, but after the
closure of the Grammar School they all departed - in fact most had already departed
by 1884; Edward took over from his father, Dohn Hives, and then he went to West Ham
with his family. The High Street and Grammar School are the only relevant addresses,
and of course son George was at 6 Bridge Street for a while. Dohn Hives might not
have had a degree or been a very good teacher of arithmetic but his Reading grandchildren
had very good mathematical and engineering brains. I wonder what he would
have said, had he known that little Ernest Walter Hives, born after his death,
was to be raised to the peerage in 1950 and receive honorary degrees of Doctor of
Science and Doctor of Law and awarded the Royal Aeronautical Society Gold Medal
for work on aero engine development. Although Dohn Hives chose the teaching
profession his ancestors had been wind and water millers for hundreds of years —
an aptitude for dealing with machinery that has followed on through many generations.
I enclose a small contribution to your Association and hope perhaps to hear
further from you, if anything you think of interest comes to light.
With very many thanks for all your help.
Yours sincerely,
-. J