Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

THE PARISH COUNCIL: A HISTORY OF THE GOVERNANCE OF BUCKDEN VILLAGE 163 chairman (John Linton, who was to remain in office for the next fifteen years), only one item was on the agenda: street lighting (it was later decided that none was needed). Perhaps not surprisingly the meeting was adjourned, but more surprisingly only until 1 January 1895. A special meeting was held in February, at which standing orders were agreed. These differed very little from those in place today, but included a sensible rule that no meeting would last for more than three hours. Most activities were carried out by committees, the first being Parish Property, Footpaths and Open Spaces (including care of the cemetery and sanitary matters) and a Technical Education Committee. This last committee set up a wide ranging programme of educational courses, and to start with all the instruction was given by councillors. The initial subjects were veterinary science and farriering, bookkeeping, domestic economy, beekeeping, and poultry keeping. At later dates bread-making, cookery, ambulance, basket-making, shoemaking, carving, vocal music and sick nursing were added. 1 The early councillors obviously had a busy life and were, hopefully, multi-talented. In 1900 ‘military training and rifle shooting’ were added to the syllabus, a response, no doubt, to the second Boer War which had begun the year before. The number and responsibilities of these committees changed to meet circumstances over the years. In the twenty-first century they are: Planning, General Purposes, Finance, Allotments, Footpaths, and Highways and Road Safety. Councillors are, perhaps, grateful that they no longer have to run educational classes. Meetings were short, mainly taking account of the various committee reports. Some of the agenda items would be familiar to today’s councillors: footpaths, stiles, condition of road surfaces, trees, the state of the many brooks running through the village and the unsatisfactory condition of closets and vaults which ran into open sewers and ultimately into the brooks. The council had taken over from its predecessor the parish fire engine and hearse, and these responsibilities continued until the late 1930s. 2 The village also maintained a ‘bathing place’ and hut on the River Ouse, which was not given up until 1952. Overseers and constables were still being appointed (although both had been phased out in many parts of the country): the overseers until the 1920s and the constables until just before the Second World War. The responsibilities for the church were handed over to separately appointed churchwardens. In 1907, in spite of the fact that there was no piped water, the council reported that ‘with the exception of isolated cases of shortage there is a fair supply of water in the Parish’. Even in 1934 both Brampton and Buckden turned down a district wide water scheme. At a public meeting voting was 122 against the scheme with only 42 in support. As late as 1949 the council was urging the retention of the village pump because many villagers had no mains water and it would be a good standby for those who had. There was no sewerage system, and complaints about the dumping of ‘night-soil’, especially in Lucks Lane, and the pungent smell, were still being voiced in 1958 when main drainage for the village was completed. The scheme had first been agreed in 1950. The third utility was equally slow in coming to Buckden: in spite of having electric street lighting there were ongoing discussions about electricity for domestic use as recently as 1948. 3 Neither the start nor the end of the First World War or the Second World War was recorded in the council minute books. It was not until late 1915 that any mention was made of the ‘Great War’, and then there were discussions about support for the Star and Garter Fund to provide accommodation for (originally) paralysed soldiers, and a fund was started for ‘Christmas comforts for men of Buckden who are serving the King and Country and at present far from home’; sixty-four parcels were despatched. A War Agriculture Committee was formed, which distributed advice and seed potatoes. A notice from the Food Production Department offered rewards for killing rats, sparrows, rabbits and rooks to prevent ‘deprivation committed upon crops by these pests’. In October 1917 the council was asked to nominate ‘Representative Women’ to assist with the setting up of a district wide nursing association to promote maternity and welfare care. Eight ladies volunteered, mainly wives of councillors or ex-councillors. The following year the council discussed the provision of cottages and smallholdings for soldiers and sailors on demobilisation at cessation of hostilities. As early as 1936 the council discussed air-raid precautions (ARP) and first aid training and, perhaps a little macabre, purchased a new hearse. The discussion was prompted by a Home Office circular and other 1 See also under Barson in the A-Z section. 2 For more on the fire engine and the hearse see the A to Z entries fires and fire-fighting equipment and bier (as the hearse was more commonly known). 3 For how Buckden’s lack of utilities struck an outsider, see the appendix to this chapter,