Robert White the Gamekeeper

Robert, the Gamekeeper and Elizabeth

Our White-line, which followed from Thomas and Sarah (of the first marriage), is really put into perspective when one merely counts Thomas’ prodigious output of children and the massive geometric progression of offspring that has surely followed. We’re but one of many, many strands that have threaded down; and it’s easy to think of the enormous number of people who are distantly related to us: hundreds of them living parallel but distant lives; each unaware of the other; perhaps even working and living side by side… unbeknownst. If any of you are mathematically inclined - alas, I’m not - you might amuse yourself by working out how many relatives there might be from Thomas, Sarah and Barbara alone!

So, one fifteenth - or sixteenth - of the surviving children under Thomas and Barbara’s roof at Tedgness farm was the aforementioned Robert White. Robert was born in the township of Nether Padley XE "Nether Padley" , Eyam, Derbyshire on the 11^th of November 1808. [1] The seventh of eight children, his parents, farmer Thomas and his first wife Sarah had already been married ten years. He probably grew up on Tedgness farm (at times spelled Tadgneys and Tadgness) as both his father Thomas and grandfather Joseph were tenant farmers there.

In 1808 (or 1811?), just 5 years after war had resumed with Napoleon Bonaparte’s France; 3 years since Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar; and six days before Robert White’s third birthday Robert’s mother Sarah died. He would most likely have had little memory of her later in life and no memory at all of his granddad, Joseph who was dead even before he was born. Mother Sarah was buried south in Baslow[2] and hopefully his young age spared him any real emotional trauma. ‘Mother’, as far as he was concerned would have been his new step-mother Barbara who arrived in the household almost exactly one year later. They’d managed for a year without a mother figure - the eldest female was sister Dolly who, aged ten, wouldn’t have been capable of stepping into her mother’s shoes. How the children did manage whilst their father was out farming the land and dealing in slate (was he a slate and millstone dealer? Check sources) is remarkable unless their grandmother, the late Joseph’s wife Mary White[3] was still alive and living with them? Perhaps Thomas and Sarah had run a tight ship, the kids becoming disciplined, self-reliant hard-workers. From my own observations, farming children have a tendency towards those characteristics: working as soon as they can hold a shovel. Whatever the case, step-mother Barbara bravely took on the seven kids as her own. When Robert was almost seven years old his first half-sibling Richard was born, to be followed by seven more.

As we read earlier, the land that Robert’s parents worked was “cold and bare” with a “cold and hilly aspect”[4] and they probably grew either turnips; or tillage: wheat, oats or barley. A third of the land around the Tadgness area was woodland so it would be an environment with which young Robert would come to feel very much at home. This familiarity would serve him well in adulthood.

More Historical Background

Despite Britain covering herself in glory at Trafalgar in October 1805 and any National patriotic posturing for the consumption of the masses; Robert’s early life was witness to Britain’s continuing rapid transformation via what has since been labelled the ‘Industrial Revolution’. Truly leading the world, its increased headlong dash of mechanisation was however also making life intolerable - living often impossible for the lower classes: particularly families of the factory workers in the towns. Factory owners and landlords were often heartless and arrogant toward their workers and tenants and frequently, men, women and their children worked from dawn to dusk each day on pay that barely kept them alive. Added to this, if they wanted to bring about change through the political system - they were usually without a franchise anyway. Perversely, there was no parliamentary representation for some of the most successful and densely populated industrial boom towns and hence a lack of parliamentary representation for their poor. To vote, you had to be a property owner. With such inequality and suffering, this was truly a time of enormous social unrest. It’s hardly surprising that the workers were on the brink of boiling over into violent revolt. More surprising still was that there wasn’t a true workers’ revolution, particularly with their French neighbours’ recent activities as a final spur.

Gamekeeper

At present we barely know anything of his life between his birth in 1808 and his second marriage in 1840 when he was working as a Gamekeeper. That’s a significant gap, and until we can find more records we must speculate in order to paint some sort of picture of these years.

Post-War Crisis
The war with France raged until Wellington’s victory at Waterloo in 1815 and this should have given some glimpse of better times ahead. However, life was made even harder by the introduction of the Corn Laws of the same year and the general slump of the so-called ‘post war crisis’. Imported wheat was made subject to a tariff to keep domestic wheat prices as high – in the absence of cheap competition - as they’d been during the war when imports were banned. Domestic producers had been prospering – war usually financially benefits someone. After the war, Parliament – under pressure from the large landowners who feared foreign imports being cheaper than their own produce and devaluing it – decreed that foreign grain could be imported again but under the condition that domestic wheat, the value of which had been dropping again, should reach a certain value first. During the process of passing the law, parliament had to place the army around the building as a precaution against the angry crowds outside. A basic loaf of bread was out of the financial reach of many families.

Fever Pitch
As Robert entered his teens, the Government would have good reason to fear a violent popular revolt, as later testified by the Captain Swing Riots in southern England and the Weavers’ Rising in Scotland in 1820. There was even a plot, the Cato Conspiracy, to assassinate the entire cabinet in 1820. Matters had tragically come to a head a year before however with the ‘Peterloo Massacre’ in Manchester, 1819. The agenda of the peaceful meeting in St.Peter’s fields included Parliamentary Reform (for equitable representation of the whole nation) and the repeal of the Corn Laws - the latter not to be achieved until 1846. Unfortunately, the military were sent into the peaceful crowd with sabres: brutally hacking 14 (?) people to death and injuring 400 (?) more. Ironically, the government’s repression became tighter following Peterloo and a part of its strategy to counteract radical political agitation was the ‘Six Acts’, increased imprisonment and even transportation.

The year after the massacre, King George III, both mad and blind died succeeded briefly by his useless son George IV and the more effective William IV. In terms of strides in communication and transport, 1825 saw the first ever railway in Britain opened: the Stockton-Darlington Line. Importantly for Robert’s future children, and commerce generally, it would be followed five years later by the Manchester-Liverpool Line of 1830.

Perhaps as a Farmer, Robert’s father Thomas had himself benefited from the 1815 Corn Laws but they would have seen neighbours and heard of many more struggling to feed themselves. Markets however, could fluctuate; harvests could fail and Britain was in the grip of a post-war depression: diversification could be healthy. We know that Robert moved from the more predictable farming career path to become a gamekeeper. Was this the Whites thinking smart? How he actually achieved this move we can’t say, but what we do know is that one didn’t become a Gamekeeper over night. Like most professions and trades in those days you had to work your way up in the time-honoured manner. So, let’s… dream for a bit.

A Temporary Recovery
In the 1820s a general economic improvement began as the war years faded. A young lad living as a tenant on a country estate (owned by the Duke of Rutland?) famed for its game shooting, our Robert would have seen the comings and goings of those hardy men: respected by the local community as pillars, or loathed by them as a scourge to be feared, and no better than the criminals they helped bring to justice. Depending on whose accounts you read. Some regarded them as being akin to spies - no loose lips in the local pub when the Keeper was about. They arrested poachers and often testified against them in court. The Gamekeepers who crossed the fields and woods daily from 6am to as late as 10pm doing their rounds with their dogs and underkeepers, would have cut an impressive and exciting figure in a young boys eyes though. They may have only been able to buy one suit a year, depending on their master’s generosity but they stalked across the fields, woods and heath in a tweed cap and jacket, cordueroy trousers, hunting boots and leather leggings; shotgun slung over one arm with a collection of gin traps and snares and maybe a shot rabbit or two. With their woodsmanship and general knowledge of the countryside and everything that lived in it, they would have made for interesting companions and teachers. When a Gamekeeper walked into a wood, he quickly knew which creatures where about. Perhaps Robert tagged along during quiet spells at the farm, hoping one day to become a keeper himself.

As he got a little older, and with this ambition in mind Robert might have started by helping the keepers on their rounds, maybe even getting a gift of the odd rabbit or bird for the family pot. The keepers weren’t supposed to take or give away anything that could be sold at market for their master, but they occasionally exercised their own discretion. This could even extend as far as allowing a poacher to make off with his catch if he was in particularly dire straights, struggling to feed his family. On the condition of course, that they never showed their faces on the Master’s land again.

Robert’s dad Thomas would have had plenty for him to do on the farm but with extra money always being needed, the kids would earn their crust as soon as they were able. It’s entirely possible that Robert started work under a Gamekeeper who was a relative. It was frequently the sons of Gamekeepers who became Gamekeepers themselves. In fact it was a considerable disadvantage not to be descended from one. The usual way to get into the profession was as a kennel boy but before this when still quite young he might have done some beating work with many other young folk on the big estate shoots. Even youngsters as young as 6 or 7 might be used as a stop: simply sitting for hours in an exactly chosen spot to discourage the game from flying overhead. He mightn’t be paid to do that, but he’d be given some lunch to eat there on his lap and it was all good experience after all - maybe even earning him a tip or two. As a kennel boy though, he’d be up early; especially if he had to help with the rearing of the birds.

After a few years of being a kennel boy, he’d graduate to Underkeeper. It was damned hard work. It included pest control: patrolling his patch of land, inspecting the snares, gins and tunnel traps for vermin. The term vermin encompassed stoats, weasels, rabbits, cats and foxes and various birds of prey. Basically, anything that ate partridges, grouse and their eggs or ate their food could be trapped or shot. In addition he’d have to check the game birds’ nests, counting the birds and eggs against a carefully drawn up map - possibly of Robert’s own making.

Let’s not forget though, that this outdoors work also involved rearing thousands of birds for the Shoots. This less exciting, though more scientific work involved an early start. Out on the rearing field at around 6am, the Keepers would cook up the partridges’ first feed of the day in a great big specially-designed cast iron boiler. The recipe changed as the birds grew. Hundreds of eggs were boiled and pushed through a sieve to be mixed with various types of grain and stirred long and well. The birds, pheasants perhaps, had to be put out and tied to stakes each morning. Their coops were also moved to fresh patches of grass to cut down the risk of disease and keep the birds clean. The rearing field was often on a slope to help the keepers’ backs. They sometimes had to treat the birds for infestations such as gapes - nasty worms of the throat. The feeding was done the same way several times a day, the last feed being at around 9pm before they were put to bed. Just some of the jobs done every single day on top of his rounds during which he walked countless miles across rough terrain in harsh weather - not necessarily having a horse. And… every third night he may have done his stint night-watching for poachers. This work, apart from being exhausting was quite dangerous. In the old days it was far more common for poachers to resort to violence - and occasionally kill.

For protection, Robert probably carried a Gamekeeper’s truncheon - in addition to the shotgun which he’d be reluctant to use. Some keepers used brass knuckle-dusters. Brutal enough but sometimes even adorned with spikes. If Robert was smart he’d know that a few game weren’t worth dying over and that good Gamekeepers weren’t that easy for the aristocracy to come by. Usually poachers were local - before the advent of the car - and it was his job to know them all, so he’d know who to tread carefully with and who to give a good hiding to.

1830s and Robert’s First Marriage

Britain had recovered from the Post-War Economic Crisis, boomed by 1826 and then slid back into another crisis with factories closing down and wages being cut in 1830. The need for reform was felt ever more sharply by those at the bottom of the social heap as the next 10 years are said to be have been the worst yet (Discuss the Reform Bill/William IV)

I wonder if Robert felt insulated more than most of his class by his position as an employee of the estate? - assuming that he was one by now. Robert married twice in his life and the first may have been to a Mary Frith in 1834 (to be confirmed by Parish Regs.). If so, he married bang in the middle of this economic crisis. Did he feel confident in doing so? Gamekeepers of the 20th Century were often required to be married men as a condition of employment and of course of sound morals. Keeping themselves to the estate and behaving themselves. Considering the demands of the job, it’s actually difficult to imagine how they managed meet and court prospective brides. Certainly once they were married family life could be fractured indeed with long the hours. Never mind the night watching, keepers rearing birds sometimes spent days and nights by their huts.

[1] Eyam, Derbyshire XE "Eyam" according to the late A.Neale[2] See Genuki.org.uk for burials.[3] Nee Goddard. If the Baslow memorial inscription is hers she would have died in August 1813 aged 77.[4] S.Rimmington

Marriage, Highlow and Hazzleford Halls

This entry page will soon receive the complete new draft of Chapter 3 of ‘White family: from Derbyshire to Liverpool’. This has been only a taster. Copyright John White 2007 - except information sourced from elsewhere. If you feel that I have not acknowledged your work, please contact me so that I can do so. Please ask permission before directly using any of the text or images which have taken many years to create. Thank you. JW.

Acknowledgements to Fellow Researchers

Special thanks to S.Rimmington, R.Lockie, the late A.Neale, E & D. Gee.

Other Acknowledgements

The Chatsworth House Archivists.

Bibliographical Sources

Tales of the Old Gamekeepers, 1999.
Brian P. Martin’s excellent and vivid books. An invaluable research source for this chapter.

The Gamekeeper and English Rural Society, 1660-1830
P. B. Munsche -from The Journal of British Studies, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Spring, 1981), pp. 82-105

Oxford History of Britain
Kenneth O. Morgan and others

A History of Britain
Simon Schama

The Rough Guide to England

Hamlyn History of the World (!)