Dickens Journal On-line

If anyone is interested in having in insight into the lives of the people of the Forest of Dean around 1851 in Household Words (Charles Dickens' two-penny weekly magazine of original short fiction and crusading social journalism) - my x Great Uncle the Rev W S Wickenden born in Awre 1795 - wrote an article published 8 August 1851 Volume 111 (page 461 onwards) 'A tale of the Forest of Dean'

http://www.djo.org.uk/household-words.html

It is interesting as it mentions ordinary peoples lives (and enclosures) of the Forest and the Government checking on them. 'The Government decided that a check should be put on these proceedings, and determined to enclose the forest. Discontent accordingly prevailed among the foresters. At the Speech House - in the centre of the forest, and from time immemorial the forum of the district - meetings were held'. It does talk about a meeting on July 18 (not sure what year) at Bailey, when there were some thousand foresters, with spades and pickaxes etc.

Talks about Mrs Winifred Kear who was affected. Winny was an Ash burner - 'she cut down fern, burned it, and from the ashes, with the aid of water, kneaded a substance which she sold to the surrounding housewives, for the purpose of softening the water in their tubs on washing days'.

Morris dancing is mentioned - and the dancing ground was Blakeney Hill.

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David Adams who has recently published a book on another local Poet Richard MORSE of Yorkley (MORSE was related to the Rev by marriage) is collating as much information on the Rev and hopefully a book will be published when we've exhausted all our research on this intriguing Reverend.

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Interesting stuff. Thanks for posting

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Really good read, especially the Morris Dancing references. W S Wickenden has an article in The Gentleman's Magazine in 1822 called "The Rituals of The Forest of Dean" which also mentions Morris Dancing particularly at Blakeney. I managed to get the article through ancestry.co.uk.

If anyone has any more Morris Dancing articles or old photos then I would be very interested.

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The article you refer to is in the Documents & Articles section on this website.

There is a small mention of Morris Dancers in William Wickenden's book

'Poems and Tales: with an Autobiographical Sketch of his early life' which is fully readable on Google Books.

'My native village........ Here the morris dancer used to assemble every evening, for many weeks preceding Whitsuntide to rehearse their several parts in the approaching gala and the shrill squeal of their violin and the merry clash of bells echoed far and wide. All was rollick and glee, mirth and jollity.'

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Thanks for that, I'll have a look.

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It seem seem from 'The History of Morris Dancing'

http://www.wickham-morris.org.uk/main_history.html

'Going back further, it would seem that Morris Dancers used to dance each year, usually once at Whitsun. But having said that there seems to be a wealth of different oddities of tradition. For example in the Forest of Dean there was a procession headed by a man carrying a long pole with white flag and two front dancers carried swords used for very complicated movements'.

Obviously why they rehearsed for many weeks!

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It seems that the Forest of Dean tradition of Morris "died out" before it could be properly documented and most details come from people who could remember watching it in their youth. There are lots of references to people twirling flags and twiddling swords around their heads.

It is said that a fight between the Ruardean and Mitcheldean sides on Plump Hill, where one of the dancers was killed, hastened the end of Morris Dancing locally. (I have banged on about this in previous posts!).

The current Forest of Dean side were reformed 40 or so years ago and dance in the old Ruardean kit but we are still very interested in any old stories or old photos of strange men in raggy jackets.

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I've just come across this free access website about traditional folk dancing. Within it's archives are some interesting references to FoD Morris dancing including mentions of Blakeney and Lydbrook especially, it also gives some local dancers' names. I'm struggling to read it all as it's scans of the original handwritten letters, not transcripts, it may offer nothing new to the aforementioned publciations but is hopefully still of interest.
Sorry if it's been mentioned before.

Hope this direct link works for others, https://www.vwml.org/search?q=dean%20forest&is=1

If not here's the site homepage, then just search "Dean Forest". http://www.vwml.org/search/search-full-english#

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Thanks for highlighting this fascinating resource. I'm particularly interested as Dickens was a favourite of my mother whose family came from the FoD he's also a favourite of mine too. The article mentions a Kear and a Prosser as well as a Llewellyn, all these names link with my ancestors and I am wondering now whether the three featured are in any way connected with those in my family though the individuals in the item aren't any I've found yet in my family tree! I have a Llewellyn who is the daughter of a man called Llewellyn who married a Prosser! Either my great-great grandma or her mother worked at the Speech House too.

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The Dean House Riots - took place in 1831

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_of_Dean

Warren JAMES (parents Warren JAMES + Ann KEAR) emerged as a populist leaders (but later sent to Van Diemen's Land) -

previous thread on the riots:

http://www.forum.forest-of-dean.net/index.php?mode=thread&id=25039

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David Adams (whose ancestors were also Kear's on his mother's side) and who is collating all the information, together we are trying sort out the fact from fiction in his writings, as the 'Rev' used family names and people he knew frequently.

I'll forward your message onto him.

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