Diary of Rev Edward Stevens

Visited school. Library case is finished except staining and varnishing.

Visited Thomas Padbury at Colony and reminded him that his allotment rent was 2 months overdue and that he must in future pay me on rent night. He said he would call and pay it in a week or 10 days.

Visited

• Jane Legge
• Humphrey Sabin who seems very unwell with a chest complaint.
• Ann Paine who has removed to Miss Somerton’s in late Mr Dix’s old house.
• Edward Fox’s wife
• John Coleman’s – gave her an order for pair of boots for her youngest son who is apprenticed to Mr Fox for 4 years. She asked for calico also, but I had none to give her and told her I did not think the Feoffees could continue giving flannel and calico whenever asked for it.

Visited school. Yesterday I offered a small money prize to children who should write on paper correctly from memory Byron’s poem “The Defeat of Sennacherib“. W. Rimmell and Emma Webb did it very well indeed and I gave them 6d each.

Visited:

Sarah Barnes, Anna Wilks, Lydia Aris, Ezra Green’s wife, Miss Somerton, John West’s wife, Thomas Henry Hone’s wife, Tailor Hall, Eli Webb’s wife.

Widow Ann Lines – gave her 3/- extra on her ticket to help her to get some clothing for her boys as she has promised to send them to the Sunday School. She tells me her eldest (age 18) boy was out of work 5 months last winter and she had to use all her clothing club money to buy her children food.

Mrs Reason and read and prayed with her husband who is of weak intellect and confined to his bed. Also Mrs Reason on the hill.

Ezra Hillman who seems very poorly. Wrote to Lord Saye and Sele a week or two ago to ask if he could give me a letter for Brompton Consumption Hospital for him, but I have not heard from him yet.

Visited Sewing Club held at Widow Hillman’s. Gave some of the women who were there their Clothing Club tickets. Some of them would like to have them a week or two earlier another year when the days are longer than now. At present they find it beginning to get dark before they can complete their shopping in Banbury.

Visited:

• Buckingham who has been laid up since Sunday.
• Mrs Samuel Lines, not at home
• Mrs H. Woolgrove, not at home
• Mrs Haynes senior
• Mrs Haynes junior.