When attending a Remembrance Day service at the Silver End Village Hall some years ago, I realised that the names of the war-dead referred to those lost in WW2; you have to go to Rivenhall to see at least three names of men lost in WW1 who came from Silver End. I mention this because I believe a community that parts company with its history is greatly impoverished.

The next part of this little survey often shows links between our two ends. When the Rev'd Shirley Western converted £218-worth of Consols into cash in 1822; he did so with the set purpose of building two semi-detached charity cottages with some of the money. The thatched cottage is the first one you pass in Rickstones Road after the Oak on the left hand side. Now only one dwelling, it has, of course, long ceased to be a charity cottage.

One of the first pairs of occupants were Charles and Jane Rivers. Jane died in 1854 and Charles in early 1855. It fell to Bradford Hawkins, only recently become rector, to choose the new tenants. Eager to show that the northern end of the parish qualified as much as the south, he chose the family of Abraham and Eliza YOUNG^* a sad little family from Withers Green, which was then officially in the Silver End part of the parish.

Abraham, a Stisted boy, had married Eliza, a Cressing girl, in the early 1830s. They had come to live in the parish about 1834 and by 1855 Eliza had given birth to nine children:seven boys and two girls. William and Thomas, born in 1838 & 1840 had died aged seven years and three days, respectively. Then Alice, born in 1854, increased the number of surviving children to seven. Hawkins, who had baptized several of the children, had no hesitation in persuading them to move to Rivenhall. Eliza had one more child, Rosina, born in 1857, and the couple stayed in the cottage until their deaths.

^*'Young', not to be confused with 'Youngs' (with an 's') which was a different family living in the parish.

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