The "Rough Suburbs" of Headington Quarry

“Silas Marner the weaver…worked at his vocation in a stone cottage that stood among the nutty hedgerows near the village of Raveloe and not far from the edge of a deserted stone pit.”[1] These words by George Eliot in her 19^th century tale of a linen weaver provide the reader with an insight into the features of the ‘rough suburbs’ that could be found on the edges of most nineteenth century towns.  This description of the deserted stone pit is one that is a true example of life in the ‘rough suburbs’ of Headington Quarry, Oxfordshire, which is described as having “Stone pits, working or abandoned, remained in their original state and alongside them were the old pit banks.”[2]

This is from the excellent book by Raphael Samuel called “Quarry Roughs: life and labour in Headington Quarry, 1860-1920.”Samuel describes Headington Quarry as a primitive place, where “Piped water did not reach the village until the eve of the Great War…Water had to be drawn from wells.”[3]Clearly this residential area was lacking in the basic needs of a community such as piped water, where cottage laundries were so dependent. The quarrymen of Headington in the 1800s lived in “poor insubstantial hovels which could without difficulty be removed and set up elsewhere.”[4] This would then enable the workers, just like Silas Marner, to travel and wander to the places where work could be found.

 Evidence of poverty can be found in the ‘rough suburbs’ and the ineffective nature of the Poor Law in John Hollinshead’s book, Ragged London in 1861. Here he describes a bread riot that nearly came about due to adverse weather stopping labourers from working outdoors in the East End of London.  This led to dissatisfaction and when the workers could not find relief from the unions or workhouse they attacked various baker shops, emptying them of bread.  Hollinshead claims, “The workhouses have been daily besieged by noisy and half famished crowds: the clumsy poor law system…has broken down”[5] Hollingshead claims in his book that the government could not and did not provide relief to these poor suburbs. There is some truth in this statement as significant welfare reforms were not introduced until the 1906 Liberal landslide and the following 1909 Peoples Budget. A description of the ‘rough suburbs’ of London is found in  Charles Kingsley’s novel “Alton Locke”, which was considered to be sympathetic to the Chartist movement.  Here we find the protagonist dreaming of sunnier climes in Italy where he can pursue his ambitions as a poet. Although he describes the “poor wretches who sit stifled in reeking garrets and workrooms, drinking disease with every breath”[6] he is still proud to be a cockney.

So we can see life was hard in the ’rough suburbs’ both in the capital, London, but also in the country and the outskirts of the towns like Oxford.  George Eliot paints a bleak picture of life in Raveloe: “Pain and mishap present a far wider range of possibilities than gladness and enjoyment”[7]  “There is no manor house in the vicinity, but there were several chiefs in Raveloe”[8] highlighting the lack of a Lord of the Manor, but demonstrating the management of the community between perhaps the elders, thus resulting in a less formalised structure of land ownership and decision making.  Indeed Raphael Samuel illustrates this point further in his book about Headington Quarry. He explains that “land was easier to come by on the wasteland edge of the village”[9] and evidence can be found in the Charity Commissioners’ archives which show that there was the successful establishment of two squatting families in the Headington Quarry area. The 1869 churchwarden accounts complain that “buildings have increased into two cottages and the occupants have enclosed a piece of the ground as gardens, but for none of this do they pay any rent.”[10] The residents of Headington Quarry in the 1850s spent thirty years resisting the enclosure of the Open Magdalens by a local farmer called Richard Pether. This resistance took the form of “mass trespasses, large scale raids for wood, and the illegal grazing of cows.”[11] This ‘rough suburb’ was almost a law unto itself in a place with a fearful reputation where even the police did not like to venture.

The church was a prominent feature of the 19^thcentury literature described in these suburbs. For example in Catherine Furze by Mark Rutherford the church is described as “immense…. and big enough to hold half of Eastthorpe.”[12] But although the church may have had a presence the influence of religion in theses suburbs is quite different. Silas Marner was thought to be able to “cure folks’ rheumatism if he had mind….if you could only speak the devil fair enough, he might save you the cost of the doctor.”[13] The book describes this as “such strange lingering echoes of the old demon-worship”[14] Demonstrating that religion perhaps did not hold should a firm grip in these areas, where the community were more familiar with the older demon, perhaps pagan, worshipping practices.  This weak hold of the Church of England was also true in the quarry roughs of Headington where “for centuries the villagers seem to have lived almost outside the reach of organized religion.”[15] When Bishop Wilberforce preached a sermon there in 1847 he described the Quarry as “an abandoned district where evil had found a ready home.”[16]However, Alton’s mother in in Alton Locke is a pious character of Calvinist nature who prays for her reprobate children to be reborn and saved.

The people who lived in these ‘rough suburbs’ were what we might call ne'er-do-wells, or outcasts living on the fringes of society.  Thomas Hardy cites the biblical word “Addulam” which was the name of cave that Saul hid in when he fled from David where upon he was joined by “everyone that was in distress and everyone that was in debt and everyone that was discontented.”[17] The same can be said of the characters that Hardy describes in the Mayor of Casterbridge, who were poachers, in distress, in debt,  drinkers, fighters, too idle to work or to rebellious to serve. Comparisons can be drawn from Hardy’s description of his characters to those who lived in the Headington Quarry where the local pub, the Mason’s Arms was a place of much activity. It was here that the gypsies, well-diggers, rabbit-catchers, horse-dealers and poachers would reside, perhaps of no fixed abode, wandering between suburbs not unlike Silas Marner the weaver. The gypsies settled in Headington Quarry as it gave them a place to live rent free without the interference of a land owning farmer and it also gave them rough pasture for their horses. A local Headington man explained, “They were chaps who got their living on the side – they were poachers, ‘orse dealers – some may have been up straight and others may have been under-handed.”[18]The fictional town of  Raveloe from George Eliot’s novel  was also a place of travellers and settlers who came from distant parts outside of the area, but they were never treated with distrust, unless that is if the were seen to be clever, or too eloquent, this would then be treated with suspicion. Thomas Hardy also speaks of travelling gypsies in his book, travelling the country to set up their annual fair.

But of course progress changed and continues to change the landscape and community of these ‘rough suburbs.’ As the country went to war and then became more modernized so these suburbs could not avoid the influence of progress. Many of the men who had previously been poachers or horse-dealers went to work in the factories in the city and with the advent of public transport, in particular buses, this again encouraged the younger generations to move out and find traditional work. “The village of the well-diggers and the morris-dancers gave way to one in which man clocked in for work in the morning, and took home a weekly wage.”[19]

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[1] Silas Marner – George Elliot pp2

[2]   Village Life and Labour – Part 4 Quarry Roughs’: life and labour in Headington Quarry, 1860-1920 – Raphael Samuel pp 142

[3] Village Life and Labour – Part 4 Quarry Roughs’: life and labour in Headington Quarry, 1860-1920 – Raphael Samuel pp 141

[4] Village Life and Labour – Part 4 Quarry Roughs’: life and labour in Headington Quarry, 1860-1920 – Raphael Samuel pp 142

[5] Ragged London in 1861 – John Hollingshead pp5

[6] Alton Locke – Charles Kingsley pp 4

[7]   Silas Marner – George Elliot pp2

[8] Silas Marner – George Elliott pp2

[9]   Village Life and Labour – Part 4 Quarry Roughs’: life and labour in Headington Quarry, 1860-1920 – Raphael Samuel pp 143

[10]   Village Life and Labour – Part 4 Quarry Roughs’: life and labour in Headington Quarry, 1860-1920 – Raphael Samuel pp 141

[11] History Workshop pamphlet, Headington Quarry and the fight for the Open Magdalens – Jack Holland, Alun Howkins and Raphael Samuel

[12] Catherine Furze – Mark Rutherford pp2

[13] Sailas Marner – George Elliott pp2

[14] Sailas Marner – George Elliott pp2

[15]     Village Life and Labour – Part 4 Quarry Roughs’: life and labour in Headington Quarry, 1860-1920 – Raphael Samuel pp 158

[16] A Sermon Preached on Behalf of a proposed Church at Headington Quarry, Oxford 1847 – Samuel Wilberforce

[17] 1 Samuel. 22:2

[18] HQT, Buckland, fol. B. 2.

[19]   Village Life and Labour – Part 4 Quarry Roughs’: life and labour in Headington Quarry, 1860-1920 – Raphael Samuel pp 243