THE HISTORY OF SILVER END

Those who remember David Jason's amusing portrayal of 'Pop' Larkin in H.E.Bates "The Darling Buds of May" are well-placed to envisage the fairly self-supporting groups of small-holders which flourished, near to the Western Arms in the heyday of the 19th Century.

One such family was that of John Beckwith, the publican, who not only ran the alehouse but encompassed a grocery business, carpentry, and a smithy within his activities. Then there were Carter's Gardens, the particular location of which appears to be lost; and a favourite of mine, James SIBLEY, who ran a business of sorts, up near Egypt's Farm. His many forebears came from Stisted and Bradwell parishes and he first appears as a general dealer, in his early thirties around 1870. ,p>He and his wife, Frances, a Bradwell girl, arrived with 3 Stisted-born girls added to which were born 4 more daughters and Herbert Sibley, their only son. It seems highly probable that James Sibley had a speech impediment and it was all rector Hawkins could do to make out whether his name was 'Sibley' , 'Siveley', or 'Selby'.

When James appeared in a London court-room, the judge was at a loss to understand him and wondered if he was drunk or mad! Yet James combined the occupations of pedlar, general dealer, pig farmer and pork butcher; but he was not highly successful!

I first stumbled across this peculiar character when I found that Witham Petty Sessions fined him 2 shillings for beating and ill-treating a pony.

The Essex Weekly News of Friday 22nd March 1878 carried the following:

"IMPRISONMENT FOR SELLING BAD MEAT"

At the Guildhall, London, on the 15th Inst. James SIBLEY, a pork butcher and pig dealer...was charged on remand, before Sir William Anderson Rose, with having sent twenty pigs to market for sale which were unfit for the food of man. Mr.Bayliss prosecuted and stated that this was a case where the defendant was remanded, as his Worship could not tell on the last occasion whether he was drunk or a lunatic and he was now brought up to be dealt with. The prisoner had sent to Mrs. Ward in the Metropolitan Meat Market, ten pigs on the 14th Ult. five on the 15th and five on the 16th. They were in a very bad condition and anyone not a judge of meat would know that it was not fit for human food.

"The prisoner, in defence, said that he did not know the pigs were diseased, or he would not have sent them. There were three that had been exposed to the wind and looked red, and, fearing that they would not keep, he sent them up to the market before they were dry." Sir William Anderson Rose told the prisoner...he had sent up meat to London that was in a disgusting state. He would not be doing his duty unless he sent the defendant to prison. He therefore sentenced him to two months imprisonment.

Later that year rector Hawkins wrote: 19 July: - "Brad."(His curate son) to Selby's for Emily S. (aged 9) to go to be patient"(at Colchester); on 31 July he wrote: "To Sibley's - arranged to send their child to Colchester Hospital." Emily apparently recovered from her trip, since she was at home in Silver End at the time of the 1881 Census. Rector Hawkins befriended the family and baptized two of their youngest children. Their poverty, however, may account for the death of Jane Lizzie "Selby" who was buried in our churchyard aged 15 in 1896. She was almost certainly a Sibley and yet one more clergymen couldn't be sure of the name when entering it in the parish register! And whilst on this subject, I ought to point out that April's magazine departed from my typescript. After mentioning the Savilles, the search turned into a single one - in quest of the Sibleys.

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