Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

James Parsons

View full burial details

MAJOR JAMES PARSONS, B.A., T.D., O.B.E., J.P. ; 1864 – 1938

When James died in 1938, he had enjoyed a distinguished life and career. He had been a housemaster and bursar at Berkhamsted School and founded one of the school’s boarding houses. He was the commanding officer of the school’s cadet corps for many years. He also served with the 2^nd (Hertfordshire) Volunteer Battalion, rising to the rank of Major and was awarded the Territorial Decoration. For many years he was the chairman of the Berkhamsted Urban District Council.  He was also a prominent Freemason and held high office. When the Prince of Wales visited Berkhamsted in 1935, James was one of the dignitaries introduced to the Prince.  James was “…known and well esteemed throughout the town and district…”[1] and his public service was recognised with the award of the Order of the British Empire. These achievements, considerable as they were, become all the more impressive in the light of James’ humble working-class origins.

James was born on 17^th February 1864[2] on Foulness Island, Essex. His father, also James, was a farmer’s assistant and, according to family history[3], caused something of a scandal by marrying his housekeeper, Grace Eliza Wright Ducker.  Grace was not only 14 years his junior, but also heavily pregnant with James junior, when she and James senior married on 1^st January 1864. The wedding took place in Shoreditch, well away from the family home on Foulness, no doubt to avoid even further gossip. 

In 1871 the family were living in New Wick, Foulness.[4] Following James’ birth, his mother gave birth to three daughters, Charlotte, Lucy, and Emily.[5]  In 1875, James senior died at the age of 46 years. Grace later remarried, but following his father’s death, James was sent to live with the family of his uncle, Henry Parsons. His sisters remained with their mother.

Henry Parsons was quite well to do. Henry, his wife and three daughters lived in Chelsea where he was in business as a draper, employing three assistants and a porter, all of whom lived in the family home, as also did a housemaid and cook.[6] Family history tells that James “…wasn’t allowed… to have his meals with his three cousins because it wasn’t considered quite the thing as his mother was, well, really a servant…” He was “…kept very aloof of his cousins.”[7]  One cannot but wonder how James felt as the recipient of such humiliating treatment and whether it was perhaps the spur that drove him on to make such a success of his life. James’ later achievements and social standing certainly eclipsed those of his uncle.

Whilst James may not have been considered of the right class to sit with his better off cousins, he was sent to school and that was to provide him with the means by which he was able to make his way in the world. He was sent to St Mark’s College School, Chelsea.  James was a bright boy and did well at school. He was also assisted by the fact that his grandfather, John Cohen, was a teacher at the school. His grandfather saw academic promise in young James and told James’ uncle that James should become a teacher.[8]

At the age of 17, James had taken his first step on his career as a teacher, having become a pupil teacher.[9] As education became more widespread in the 19^th century, the academic training of student teachers in a college system could not meet demand. In 1846 the pupil teacher system was introduced in which intellectually suitable pupils of at least 13 years of age served an apprenticeship, typically of 5 years, after which they would be qualified teachers. As pupil teachers they would teach the younger children and learn from observation and experience. During the apprenticeship they were paid a small salary. In the 1870’s and 1880’s pupil teachers were offered instruction at centres designed to improve their training. Typically, a pupil teacher would spend half his or her time at such a centre and half training in a school. James undertook his training at London University, where he obtained a Teacher’s Certificate in art.  

James came to Berkhamsted School as a young man 25 years old in January 1889, the second year of Dr Fry’s headmastership, thus beginning an association with the school which lasted three months short of fifty years.[10]  A later headmaster, Garnons Williams, wrote that whilst James was of little academic distinction, having been appointed to teach art  on the strength of an art teacher’s certificate, “…Fry immediately detected [in James] unusual organising ability and business acumen” According to a Charles Greene, who also joined the school in 1889 and who was later to succeed Fry as headmaster, James ‘very soon became the right hand of the Headmaster in all matters concerning business and finance’.[11]  Indeed. shortly after his arrival James relieved Fry of many of his accounting and financial responsibilities for the school and was to be bursar for nearly fifty years.

James took charge of two forms and was responsible for all the art teaching in the school. Garnon Williams was of the view that James was not a particularly good teacher. “For Parsons, though an excellent man of business and a most useful man to have on the staff, and in the classroom careful and energetic, was a frankly inefficient teacher, whether of art, the only subject in which he was formally qualified, or any other classroom subject.”

In 1896 James became a housemaster at the school by opening a “waiting house”, Broomfield, in Boxwell Road and in 1898 he built at his own expense Incents, a new boarding house on Chesham Road to which he transferred the boys from Broomfield. Fry, the Headmaster, no doubt approved of this; more beds, more boarders. Incents was administered by James for twenty years.

He was also an accomplished sportsman: “On the playing fields he was a tower of strength as a Soccer back, and he was a formidable lob bowler; his exceptional power as a quarter miler combined with a gift for organising made him for many years the central figure and motive force of athletic sports.”[12]

His sporting interests were not confined to the school. He was a founder and president of the town tennis club, a vice-president of the golf club and a keen supporter of the Sports Ground Association.[13]

Whilst at St Marks College, James had joined the South Middlesex Rifles, beginning a long connection with the volunteer forces which was to continue at Berkhamsted. In 1891 the Berkhamsted School Rifle Volunteer Corps was formed under the command of Rev.Wynn Wilson. James became involved from the outset, at first as a sergeant and, from 1892, as a commissioned officer, taking over command of the Corps in 1897. [14]

Under James’ command the Corps grew in strength from about 60 members to 270. In 1910 Lt-Gen. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien “…a local hero, quoted the verdict of a senior officer that for three successive years he had found the Berkhamsted Corps the best of all he had inspected. This supremacy he attributed first to the backing of the Headmaster, secondly to the leadership of the Commanding Officer, Major Parsons, ‘a particularly smart man’…”[15] Indeed, in 1907 the Corps was presented by Lord Liverpool with a trophy as the smartest Corps in the Brigade of Public School Cadets.

When, in 1908, the cadet forces were reorganised to become part of the Officers Training Corps (O.T.C.), James took on the additional role of camp secretary to the O.T.C.“…responsible in his leisure(!) time for the masses of organising work which contributed to the success of a whole series of OTC camps.”

James held the command of the Corps for 22 years until 1919 and “…it was he who, more than any one man, strengthened the foundations, and inspired and directed the work of building up a Corps of whose history and traditions the school can be justly proud.”[16] 

In addition to his involvement with the school cadet corps, James was also a member of the local volunteer force, 2^nd (Hertfordshire) Volunteer Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment,[17] in which he held the rank of major and commanded the Ashridge company.

When the Berkhamsted Urban District Council came into being in 1898 James stood for and was elected as a councillor. For 22 years from 1910 until 1932 he served the town of Berkhamsted as Chairman of the council. “He shewed himself to possess in the highest degree the attributes of a good chairman, knowledge of procedure, devotion to duty, untiring industry, leadership, tact couple with firmness and the great gift of getting the best out of those over whom he presided.”[18]

During World War I, he took on further work of organising and commanding the local division of the Special Constabulary. When war broke out, many policemen had previously served in the Army were recalled. Others volunteered. There was consequently a shortage of policemen. The Special Constables Act of 1914 allowed chief constables to appoint special constables as a permanent force. Initially uniforms were in short supply and special constables were issued with no more than hat, armband, whistle and truncheon.

 For many years James also sat on the Bench as a Justice of the Peace.

He was also an active member of the Freemasons, for a time holding the offices of Warden and Provincial Grand Secretary for Hertfordshire and Past Grand Deacon of England. [19]

In 1889, the year following his appointment as a master at Berkhamsted, James married. His bride was Maria Morton Charlton. Maria’s family came from Brentford and she and James must have met whilst he was teaching at St Mark’s. The couple had two children, Christopher James, born in 1890 and Hester Constance, born in 1893. Christopher joined the army in September 1914 following the outbreak of the war. He landed in France in 1915 and served on the Western Front. He was fortunate to survive the war. Hester became the Director of the College of Nursing and was herself awarded an O.B.E. for her work in founding a nursing school at St Thomas’ Hospital.[20]

Maria died in Hastings on 16^th February 1936. Her body was brought back to Berkhamsted and buried in Rectory Lane Cemetery. James died on 26^th October 1938. His funeral was held in the Berkhamsted School Chapel. Six officers of the school O.T.C. acted as pall bearers, his body being laid to rest with Maria.

His obituary, published in the Berkhamsted School journal, concluded with the following words:[21]

“Work and service were in fact the main spring of a life devoted without thought of self to the School and to the Town of his adoption – and School and Town alike pay homage to a simple, loyal, disciplined life, in the sure and certain faith that such devotion has been an inspiration to many, and so will live on in Berkhamsted.”

Notwithstanding all his success, family history relates that James never forgot his childhood family…

“This James Parsons, you know, who became quite an important person at Berkhamsted, he had a sister, who wasn’t so fortunate, wasn’t taken into anybody’s care, you see, to look after. She became just a cook in some household and, but - - - he always was very attached to his sister and he always had her to stay with him on holidays and that was when she was ill and the doctor called and said he had come to see Jane, or whatever her name was and this chap said “Miss Parsons in this house.” It was funny - terrible class distinctions in those days - dreadful isn’t it?”[22]