Slimmon, Boyes and Muskett

 Continuing our occasional ambles around the calm and picturesque Hatfield Road Cemetery I have enjoined three farmers whose lives paused in the East End of St Albans.  In fact we could argue we owe much to the men who occupy plots in this quiet place along Hatfield Road.  In close proximity are the graves of three farming families.  We are so used to hearing of food surpluses and the proportion of purchased food which is thrown away, it is difficult to comprehend the on-the-edge existence of 19th century families who relied on their hard labour.  As to the farms themselves there is a world of difference between the farm or landowner, and family the family who worked the farmer – the tenant family.

A slump in the price of grain in the second half of the 19th century meant that landowners were anxious to protect their rents.  They began to engage tenants experienced in dairying.  This attracted a number of farmers from Scotland where dairying was already a significant speciality.

The two drawings in this series were by Jane Marten in the 1820s.  This is of Marshals Wick Farm homestead, also recorded as Wheeler's Farm, but there was no connection with the murderer of tenant farmer Edward Anstee.  Anstee's replacement was James Slimmon.
COURTESY HISTORIC ENGLAND

Improvements in rail transport and nearness to the capital meant there would be a ready market for milk.  But an event occurred in 1880 which forced the hand of landowner George Marten.  In that year a murder was committed at the Marshals Wick farmhouse, when tenant farmer Edward Anstee was brutally murdered by having several dozen bullets fired into his body by an intruder while he was resting in his bedroom,  A man called Thomas Wheeler was arrested, tried and found guilty; a trial in which the details filled even the national papers at the time.

The boldest headstone, in the form of an obelisk, to the life of James Slimmon
close to the Hatfield Road boundary of the Cemetery.

Within a short space of time James Slimmon, his wife Jane and son William arrived at the farm from Dumfries.  Not only was he an experienced dairy farmer but he brought with him new farming practices.  Although he died a few years later, son William, brought up in the same mould as his father, looked for new farming methods and new marketing skills; pioneering new door-to-door milk deliveries twice each day.  He also led the way in getting machinery demonstrations arranged by manufacturers.  William was the last tenant before the land sale to T F Nash for house building from the 1930s

With the demolition of the former Beaumonts Manor House a new tenant homestead took its
place in 1831 and the second farmer to the new building was John Boyes.

Next door arrived John Boyes, also from Scotland, to the tenancy of Beaumonts Farm, only the second to do so since owner Thomas Kinder decided to move out of the Manor House in 1831.  Under Boyes' management the farm remained a mixed unit instead of changing to dairying.  But the skill came in judging the balance between the specialisms in order to keep the farm profitable.  Like Slimmon, Boyes became the last farmer on this land before housing arrived in the form of Camp estate and eventually Beaumonts estate.

Jane Marten pencilled this splendid drawing of Newgates set back from Sandpit Lane nd occupied by the Musket family.
COURTESY HISTORIC ENGLAND

All three farmers are laid to rest in this quarter of Hatfield Road Cemetery.

Of the three farmers celebrated William Muskett was the only man not from Scotland; he was a St Albans man, managing Newgates Farm for over forty years.  Newgates was a tiny unit of less than thirty acres on the north side of Sandpit Lane.  About the size of a school playing field he managed to make a modest living on whatever mix of produce his acreage would allow.  Being more of a subsistence farm rather than a commercial enterprise William's was probably as typical as it is possible to be of many tiny farms and smallholdings in the UK.  He was the penultimate tenant on his little holding for this and other nearby farms were sold for post-war housing needs, and have therefore been lost as a valuable local food resource.  It is our good fortune that other farms have been able to compensate by their greater efficiencies.  And that the rest of us have progressively been able to choose from an increasingly wide range of occupations than agricultural labourers, cowmen and farm hand casuals which would have been inevitable for many of us up to the late 19th century.

So we will raise a glass to the constant battle fought by these tenant farmers and their families.