Dolphin and his brother Francis Bint had a large family at Childrey. Most of their mother's brothers and sisters lived in the village. Grandma Hannah was still alive in 1861 and possibly offered a home for her orphaned grandchildren in 1852. We know Francis was living there in 1859 when his first child Fanny was born.

 In 1881 there were 22 Legges in the village, all apparently related.

When Dolphin moved to Texas he may have been writing to his late mother's youngest sister Prudence Legge (born 1824). That could account for him naming one of his daughters after her. She married local blacksmith Thomas Packer in 1858 and one of her grandchildren, who was born in 1887, 60 miles away at Bristol, was known as Dolphin according to the Childrey 1891 census. (he was christened Randolph)

Childrey

Dolphin's mother was Mary Legge (born 1810) who married Lambourn gamekeeper Charles Bint at Childrey in 1836. Her 19 year old brother Jonathan Legge was a witness.

She died whilst giving birth to her fourth child Jonathan in 1849. The baby died a few days later. Her two surviving children were Francis John, and Dolphin William Bint.

She was the daughter of Jonathan Legge (1779) a Childrey farmer and preacher, and Hannah Beavis (1778) who were married at the nearby village of Sparsholt in 1804.

Mary's parents had lived at Childrey until 1809 when they moved a few miles to Letcombe Bassett with 3 children, John (1806), William (1807) and Ann (1809), where her farmer father Jonathan became the village's first Methodist lay preacher. Five more children, Mary (1810), Martha (1813), Elizabeth (1814) Jonathan (1817) and Sarah (1820) were christened at Letcombe Bassett.

When their youngest child Prudence was added to the family in 1824 they had returned to farm at Childrey. The 1841 census shows them there with four children living at home, Elizabeth, Jonathan, Sarah and Prudence.

Childrey

Letcombe Bassett and Letcombe Regis are two small villages half a mile apart  with Bassett Brook the stream that feeds the local water-cress beds, for which they are famous, joining them. The old name for Letcombe Bassett was Upper Letcombe. The novelist Thomas Hardy called it Cresscombe in "Jude the Obscure".     Childrey is around 2 miles away.

Letcombe Bassett

The grave of Dolphin Bint's grandparents, and parents of the Childrey Legge family, Jonathan Legge and Hannah Beavis, near the right-hand wall of Childrey Parish Church.

Nearby are other Legge family graves including those of infants.

Behind the Church are the graves of several of Jonathan and Hannah's children.

Jonathan Legge (1779-1842)

Jonathan Legge the preacher's children and grandchildren were an important part of Childrey's commercial life in Victorian times. 

His youngest daughter Prudence married Thomas Packer the village blacksmith in 1858, their son Frederick (born 1864) was still with the family business in the 20^th century.

Her eldest brother was John Legge (1806) whose family were coal merchants for more than 50 years. His daughter Martha married Charles Lovegrove, self-employed carpenter and parish clerk, and another, Matilda, was the wife of Charley Praeter the local tailor, whose father Joseph had the village's first post office at their family shop in the 1860's.

John's son Walter Legge (1846) was a self-employed bricklayer and stonemason, while Edwin (1840) was a maltster (brewer). Eldest son Thomas (1833) worked with the coal business through to the 20th century.

Their cousin Joseph Legge was a draper in 1871 with his mother Elizabeth, Mary's younger sister, a dressmaker. He later added a bakers and general store to the business and in 1901 described himself as a "master baker and farmer". His son Ralph Oliver Legge (1873-1948) was still running the shop in the 1930's when one of their barns caught fire, destroying some boundary maps and documents he was storing in his capacity as the village's parish clerk and postmaster.  Son Ralph Olaf took over the business and parish clerk's job in 1948. 

A few miles away at Abingdon, in 1881, Jonathan & Hannah's grandson Frederick Legge (christened at Childrey in 1838) was a butcher. In earlier years he had been employed as a weaver, starting his career before his twelfth birthday as a weaver's turner.

CHILDREY in 1851

The 1851 census records Jonathan's widow Hannah (73) living on Greendown Farm with Mary's 27 year old single sister, Prudence, working 37 acres and employing 2 labourers.   Prudence married blacksmith Thomas Packer in 1858.  Hannah's elder daughter Elizabeth Legge (1814) who had previously lived with her two sons at Ock Street, Abingdon, seems to have then taken her place at the farm, staying there with 16 year old Joseph, until her marriage to another blacksmith,30 year old Aaron Piper, and 84 year old Hannah's death, both taking place in 1862.

Hannah's son John Legg (44) a farm worker, is married to Ann Dance (44) and with their 7 children are living on Ann's father 71 year old Thomas Dance's Childrey farm. (John died in 1877. In 1881 his widow Ann is listed with their 47 year old son Thomas as coal dealers.)

One of their sons, Jonathan Legge (born 1835),who in later years married an East Challow girl and was employed at the Iron Works there, appears to be the right age to be "Jonathan Legg from Childrey" referred to in Thomas Hughes book "The Scouring of the White Horse" which describes the 1857 festivities and celebrations traditionally following the periodic "scouring" (scraping and renewing the chalk lines) of the Uffington White Horse, which commonly attracted a crowd of more than 30,000 from local towns and villages.

The horse has survived by being regularly scoured by local villagers. The Lord of the Manor was obliged to provide food and entertainment for 'scourers' and this developed into the 'Pastimes'. These were huge two day events with thousands of people attending, - food and drink stalls, sideshows, and musicians were provided whilst games took place for which people would travel from neighbouring counties

In 1857 Jonathan Legge from Childrey was among 14 young men taking part in a potentially leg-breaking down-hill race when a cart wheel was released from the top of "the Manger". The winner being the first to touch the wheel at its resting place. The prize, a cheese, was won by Jonathan. In earlier times, a cheese was chased instead of the cart wheel.  

Nearby Uffington born author Thomas Hughes is more well known for his authorship of "Tom Brown's Schooldays"

The White Horse

Excerpt from 'The Scouring of the White Horse' by Thomas Hughes.           

The Cheese Race 1857  Two wild-looking gipsy women, with their elf-locks streaming from under their red handkerchiefs, and their black eyes flashing, were rushing about amongst the runners, trying to catch some of their relations who were going to run; and screaming out that their men should never break their limbs down that breakneck place. The gypsies dodged about, and kept out of their reach, and the farmer remonstrated, but the wild women still persevered. Then, losing all patience, he would turn and poise the wheel, ready to push it over the brow, when a shout from the bystanders warns him to pause, and, a little way down the hill, just in the line of the race, appear two or three giggling lasses, hauled along by their sweethearts, and bent on getting a very good view. Luckily at this moment the Chairman appeared, and rode his white horse down to the front of the line of men, where there seemed to me to be footing for nothing but a goat. 

Then the course was cleared for a moment, he moved out of the line, making a signal to the farmer, who pushed the wheel at once over the brow, and cried, "Off." The wheel gained the road in three bounds, cleared it in a fourth monster bound which measured forty yards, and hurried down far away to the bottom of the manger, where the other two umpires were waiting to decide who is the winner of the race.Away go the fourteen men in hot pursuit, gypsies, shepherds, and light-heeled fellows of all sorts, helter-skelter; some losing their foothold at once, and rolling or slipping down; some still keeping their footing, but tottering at every step; one or two, with their bodies well thrown back, striking their heels firmly into the turf, and keeping a good balance. They are all in the road together, but here several fall on their faces, and others give in; the rest cross it in a moment, and are away down the manger. Here the sheep-walks, which run temptingly along the sides of the manger, but if they would look forward will take the runners very little nearer the bottom where the wheel lies, mislead many; and amongst the rest, the fleetest of the gypsies, who makes off at full speed along one of them. Two or three men go still boldly down the steep descent, falling and picking themselves up again; and Jonathan Legg, of Childrey, is the first of these. He has now gained the flat ground at the bottom, where after a short stagger he brings himself up, and makes straight for the umpires and the wheel. The gypsy now sees his error; and turning short down the hill, comes into the flat, running some twenty yards behind Jonathan. In another hundred yards he would pass him, for he gains at every stride; but it is too late; and we, at the top of the hill, cheer loudly when we see Jonathan, the man who had gone straight all the way, touch the wheel a clear ten yards before his more active rival.

* * Jonathan Legge (1835) was Mary's nephew and Dolphin's cousin.

CHILDREY 1851 Another son of Jonathan and a witness at Charles Bint and Mary Legge's 1836 Childrey wedding, Jonathan Legge (33) with his wife Jane are living nearby with their 4 children. His occupation is listed as "agricultural labourer". In 1861, still a farm labourer, he has lived at Greendown Farm for around 7 years.   In 1871 & 1881 his occupation is "bailiff" (farm manager) at Warren Farm.

His brother William Legge (43) also a farm worker, is in the same village with his wife Ann and 2 of their children. (In 1881 he is listed as a bailiff, or farm manager, a widower living with his 47 year old son William at West Street, Childrey.)

Jonathan's youngest daughter Prudence who was christened at Ebenezer Wesleyan Chapel in Hungerford in January 1823, married Childrey's blacksmith, 36 year old widower, Thomas Packer in 1858. They had 3 children, William 1859, Jane 1862, Frederick 1864. In 1891 the census shows a 4 year old grandson called Dolphin Packer born at Bristol, staying with them.   

The blacksmith's business, started by Thomas's grandfather John at the beginning of the century, was in the hands of Prudence's son and Dolphin's cousin, Frederick Packer, from 1891 till his death in 1941 aged 76.

Thomas's younger brother Henry Packer was employed at the smithy in the 1870's until 1877 when he took over the blacksmiths at the nearby village of Uffington. He was joined by son John in 1892 who continued with that business into the 20th century.

The two farms named in various census returns are Greendown Farm and Warren Farm. For some time Jonathan the preacher and later his widow Hannah, lived at Greendown, while eldest son John Legge (1806), in later years a coal merchant, was a mile away at the farm formerly belonging to his in-laws, the Dance family, at the Warren. His brother Jonathan took over its management in the mid 1850's. Both properties were a few miles south of Childrey village, and roughly half way to Lambourn. According to ordnance survey maps, they are still there today.

The early days of Methodism are marked in the history of Childrey.   At a time when there was serious opposition from the established Church of England, it was introduced by Squire Thomas Bush from Lambourn when he brought a Mr Mitchell to preach there in 1809.  He borrowed Mr Kent's wagon to use as a pulpit and held a service in Farmer Bunce's yard.  

The established Church was not very happy and later Mitchell and Bunce were summoned for permitting and conducting Divine Service in a place unlicensed by law.    Eventually they converted a cottage to use as a chapel.

Childrey's rector instructed the Constable and various witnesses to attend a service and demand to see the license. As a result Kent and Mitchell were indicted under an act of 1670 forbidding groups of 5 or more from worshipping without a licensed preacher. Kent and Mitchell were both fined 20 pounds, and the congregation 5 shillings each.  Kent refused to pay. Much to his distress his favourite mount, named "Gospel Horse" because it always met visiting preachers, was seized and sold by the authorities to pay the sum.

Squire Bush died in 1847 but not before drawing up plans for a new chapel which opened in 1849 when  Methodism was firmly established in the village.

The Legge family are not mentioned, but we know that Jonathan moved to the next-door village of Letcombe Bassett in 1809 and sometime during the next ten years, formed a chapel there. Squire Bush is described in Jonathan's 1842 will in which his children were to have equal shares after their mother's death, as "my friend and sole executor".  A number of Jonathan's family in later years were prominent, and continue to be, in the local Methodist Church. Both Joseph Legge the baker and his cousin Joshuah Burson a farmer, were founders and trustees when the Methodist chapel at nearby Grove was built in 1889.

23 year old grocer, farmer and carpenter, John Burson (1826-1882), who married Mary's  36 year old sister Martha Legge of Greendown Farm in 1849, was already a widower. His father, carpenter John Burson, a widower originally from Grove, near Wantage, had married Sarah Legge (born 1820), so young John had a step-mother and wife who were sisters. He later moved to the Legge's farm and is believed to have then converted to the Methodist Church. When Martha died, he married for the third time to 42 year old farmer's daughter Anna Maria Coventry in 1871,being already a well off farmer of 560 acres. By his death in 1882 he was employing 14 men,3 boys & 3 women.

Edith Legge (1882) a great-granddaughter of Jonathan Legge the preacher, attended the local girl's school as a pupil in 1887. The Childrey book relates that she went on to teach ,with very little training, at the Infant's school until 1909, and later as Mrs Hack was employed by the Council School for another 30 years. The book also has a 1920's photo of Edith outside the Post Office.

Joseph Legge (1845) the local baker, was listed as a school manager in 1896. His son Ralph Oliver Legge was Parish Clerk in 1932 when a family barn caught fire on Easter Sunday destroying some of the village's important local historical maps and documents. A local book, "Wantage, Faringdon & the Vale Villages" by Nancy Hood, showing local history from old photos, has an interesting 1932 picture of the fire engine attending that fire and drawing its water from the village pond, the notes mentioning damage to the Post Office also. 

Douglas Legge (1929) mentioned to me that he has his doubts about the year of the above event. He remembers it happening as a boy - not as a two years old.

The Childrey book has a later 1930's photo of Ralph's son, Ralph Olaf, whose mother Marie was Norwegian, standing outside Penn House their bakery and post office. 

There are still members of the Legge family living at Childrey. A grandson of Joseph, Douglas Legge (born 1929), and his wife Patricia, have two children. Son Robin (1975) is married to Rebecca. They have 2 daughters, Hannah (born 2000) and Amy Rose (born 2002). Daughter Victoria (1980) contacted me after discovering this website.. 

Douglas and his family carry on the family tradition of close involvement with their Methodist Chapel.

The photograph shows Douglas's parents Henry (1887-1966) and Mary Legge (1896-1984) at one of their grandchildren's christening.

Henry Legge was the village baker for a number of years and his wife Mary was the postwoman at Childrey, where she delivered the mail on her cycle twice a day for more than 30 years, only retiring in 1974 at the age of 78.

The family returns to baking.... and we all wish Jon the best of luck and hope he makes loads of dough! 

And if you're ever visiting Edinburgh....