A New Forest Childhood 1903-1916
()
About this ebook
The memoirs of Thomas Gilbert Scott growing up in Sway in the New Forest before the Great War. This ebook version does not contain the photographs, family tree or map of the print edtion.
Related to A New Forest Childhood 1903-1916
Related ebooks
The Course of My Life: My Autobiography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man Whistler Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeath and Deprivation on the Forgotten Sumatra Railway: A Prisoner's Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy War and Peace Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRomance and Rations. the Postcards of Leo Sidebottom Company 351 British Expeditionary Force France Ww1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Spy Runner: Ronnie Reed and Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat and the Cambridge Spies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaking a Difference: The Lives of Jack and Joan Verney Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMany Lives, One Lifespan: An Autobiography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPeter Plymley's Letters, and Selected Essays by Sydney Smith Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Life: A Brief and Probably Biased Autobiography Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJohn Burnet of Barns Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSinners in the Hands of an Angry God and Other Puritan Sermons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Families Are Forever: Bentz and Kalk Families. a History of Two Families Joined Through Stories and Pictures Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUtterly Immoral: Robert Keable and his scandalous novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Langlands Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Battle of the Books, and other Short Pieces Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJust for the Family Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Globalist: Peter Sutherland – His Life and Legacy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRecords of a Family of Engineers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Last of the Priestleys: Sports Legends Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDoctor Poison: The Extraordinary Career of Dr George Henry Lamson, Victorian Poisoner Par Excellence Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCulture vs. Anarchy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Story of Jim Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHomesteading and Moving On Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) James Mill Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrime Ministers’ Wives: Those Who Endure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Corncrake's Welcome: Memoirs of a Northern Irish Diplomat Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Vintner's Tale Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYoung Neil: The Sugar Mountain Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Churchill Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Social History For You
Whore Stories: A Revealing History of the World's Oldest Profession Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters--And How to Get It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Defining Moments in Black History: Reading Between the Lies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization, Volume I Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5made in america: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Library Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flight of the WASP: The Rise, Fall, and Future of America’s Original Ruling Class Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Scapegoat: A History of Blaming Other People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stories of Rootworkers & Hoodoo in the Mid-South Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for A New Forest Childhood 1903-1916
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
A New Forest Childhood 1903-1916 - Thomas Gilbert Scott
A NEW FOREST CHILDHOOD
1903 – 1916
by THOMAS GILBERT SCOTT
Copyright 2007 CUDWORTH PRESS
Smashwords Edition
Ebook version without pictures, family tree or map – see below
This ebook is produced with the full permission of Cudworth Press and based on the 2nd printing, 2007.
* * *
It is released under the following license:
Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
You are free:
to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
to make derivative works
Under the following conditions:
Attribution — You must give the original author credit.
Non-Commercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a licence identical to this one.
With the understanding that:
Waiver — Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
Public Domain — Where the work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.
Other Rights — In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license:
Your fair dealing or fair use rights, or other applicable copyright exceptions and limitations;
The author's moral rights;
Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights.
Notice — For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the licence terms of this work.
Full details of this license can be found at: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/legalcode
If you enjoy this ebook or know someone else who would, please consider buying a physical copy (available online). It is richly illustrated with original photographs, an explanatory family tree and a map.
Profits from this book go to Wessex Heartbeat, to help support the Wessex Cardiac Unit at Southampton General Hospital :-)
CONTENTS
Preface
The Scott Family
Bernard and Lydia Scott
Brothers and Sisters
The Bungalow
Kettlethorns
Bessie
Outside
The Garden
Visitors
Boundary Ford
The Forest
The Seasons
The Village
Craftsmen
Holidays
Influences
School
The 1914-18 War
Sway Notes
Subsequent History
Scott Antecedents
PREFACE
TOM SCOTT spent the greater part of his life as a doctor in Newbury, in Berkshire, where he and Buffy brought up five children, but Tom’s own childhood had been spent at Sway in the New Forest. He was born in 1903, one of the youngest of ten children whose father was a doctor in Bournemouth.
Tom died on 10 November 1979 and wrote these memoirs shortly before that; I think he meant to go over them again, for there are unfinished notes and the odd gap. They were written and rewritten in two notebooks, with subject headings in the margins. I have occasionally moved chunks in order to avoid hopping about from one subject to another, and have added dates, names and relevant additional snippets from various members of the family in square brackets. Otherwise, they are exactly as Tom wrote them, and give a vivid picture of the life of a comfortably off large family (as well as the ten children there were seventy-two first cousins) living in the country before the 1914-18 War. They are also acutely observant of the Forest, its flora and fauna, and of country practices and crafts.
I have added three appendices. These give additional information about Sway (for which we are hugely indebted to Tony Blakeley); an outline of Tom’s later life; and more information about Scott family antecedents.
Photographs come from family albums and also from Tony Blakeley.
My sisters Elizabeth Fortescue and Georgina Burrows and my daughter Annabel Taylor have all been involved in the production of the book, and we thank Andrew Barron very warmly for designing it.
The photograph of Tom on the back cover of the book was taken by Elizabeth Fortescue in 1979 shortly before he died.
Caroline Taylor, September 2003
THE SCOTT FAMILY
MY GREAT, great, great grandfather was John Scott, a grazier [yeoman, d. 1777], who lived at Braytoft near Skegness in Lincolnshire — then on the coast, now miles inland. His mother was Ann Wayte, descended from John Bradshaw who signed Charles I's death warrant and whose sword I have.
John Scott's eldest son was trained as a doctor but died when a young naval surgeon, having insisted against advice on boarding a plague ship which had docked in Portsmouth harbour, where he caught the plague and died. So a younger son, Thomas [1747-1821], the tenth of thirteen, was at the age of ten sent to a boarding school at Scorton in Lancashire where he spent the next six years of his life. He returned home at the age of sixteen, did a years work on the farm, and was then sent to a doctor practising in a town some eight miles distant to be trained. However, after three months he was returned home in disgrace, having committed some immoral act! His father was furious and put him to work on menial tasks with the sheep. For the next ten years he led a dissolute life keeping bad company.
One day he had a row with his father, threw his shepherds smock on the floor, and said he was going into the Church. He saw the Dean of Lincoln, for whom he translated the Greek Testament at sight, first into English and then into Latin. He was then told he must see the Bishop of London. So he Walked to London in boots that he had made himself, and records that he was here able to stay with some better-off relations — a maternal aunt [Bridget Wayte] married to one Lancelot Brown, better known as 'Capability' Brown.
He eventually entered the Church and became a celebrated divine, producing a five-volume copy of the Bible with his commentaries, from which he became known as Scott the Commentator. He wrote several books, as well as many tracts and books of sermons. He was an early follower of Wesley. He died in 1821 but took a long time dying and often asked for his sons to come and see him. On one occasion two of them rode on horseback from a considerable distance and on asking their father what it was he wanted to see them about, he said: 'I think it is time the potatoes were planted.' This was March 24th!
Thomas Scott had a large family, one of whom, another Revd Thomas Scott [1780-1835] married Euphemia Lynch [1785-1853] whose grandfather, Nathaniel Gilbert, had owned the 'Gilbert estate' in Antigua in the West Indies. This Thomas Scott also had a large family, one of whom was Sir George Gilbert Scott, the architect, and another Samuel King Scott, my grandfather, who was a GP in Brighton. My grandfather was clearly a man of immense energy; he had a large practice in the town and was an immense walker, walking extensively in Switzerland and the Lakes as well as in Sussex. He married Georgina Bodley [d. 1901] who was a sister of George Bodley, another eminent architect who worked closely with the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. Grandfather died suddenly of a coronary thrombosis at the age of forty-six [in 1865], leaving Grandmother with a large house and thirteen living children. She had given birth to fourteen, but one lived only a few days and one, Maitland, my father’s nearest and closest brother, died at eleven of heart failure following rheumatic fever. He was a great favourite with the family and his death left a deep sorrow on my father for many years. [Tom's grandmother and her surgeon son Alfred were listed in the Brighton Street Directory as still living at 15 German Place, now Madeira Place, in 1888. Reginald John Ryle MD, who married her daughter Catherine, took over the house and was living there in 1900.]
After Grandfather's death there was little money and a public fund was opened in Brighton to help Granny. Some of the family could remember running to get a copy of the weekly paper with headlines: 'Scott fund reaches £ . . .' My father, Bernard [b. 1858], was sent to Lincoln Grammar School where he was taken in free by the headmaster who was, I think, a brother or a cousin of Grandmother's. He came home twice a year only, and it took all day in an unheated train. School was very Dickensian and he was beaten almost daily; there were two hours' work every morning before breakfast, and that consisted of bread and water, and the food altogether was poor. He used to make a little pocket money from richer boys who threw him pennies for standing on his head on the planks laid across the dykes as bridges. (Both his and my earliest memories were of standing on our head.) Other members of the family were sent off to live with friends or relations.
BERNARD AND LYDIA SCOTT
(DADDY AND MOTHER)
WHEN MY FATHER was sixteen he went to Guys Hospital to train as a doctor. He shared rooms in Putney with his elder brother Tom [who was also studying medicine], and had to walk both ways to and from Guy's daily. He passed his final exams at twenty but had to await his twenty-first birthday before he could qualify. He learnt surgery at Guy's under the Lister spray, which meant that in addition to careful cleanliness all operating was done under a fine spray of carbolic acid in order to control infection; the results were surprisingly good. Later, he and my mother spent their holidays in a small hotel next to St Bride's Church in Fleet Street, and Daddy spent each day at Guy's watching the development of the new aseptic surgery.
After leaving Guy's he went to the Sussex County Hospital at Brighton, where his eldest sister, Georgie, was matron. She had trained at St Thomas's Hospital where Florence Nightingale still came to lecture and used to have batches of young nurses home to tea on Sundays. There was a nice story that one day Daddy was sent for by the Board of Governors. He entered a large room and was confronted by a lot of elderly men seated at a long table. The Chairman waved him to a chair and then asked: 'Dr Scott, we want to know what you would