Introduction
Samuel Taylor and Mary Ann White married in Yeovil in 1877 and spent most of their married life running the Chough’s Tap, a beer house in Hendford. Samuel was the licensee, but Mary Ann probably helped run the business while raising their daughter and caring for a niece. In 1904, the Chough’s Tap narrowly escaped closure during a campaign by local magistrates to reduce the number of licensed premises in Yeovil. It finally closed in 1911, four years after Mary Ann’s death.
Mary Ann’s early life
Mary Ann was born in 1852 at Hardington, as the second of eight children born to William White and his wife, Emma (née Guppy).[1] She was probably born at Romsey Farm, where her father rented sixty-three acres.[2] Her mother, Emma, came from a background of religious nonconformity, and she and William had married at the Baptist South Street Chapel, Yeovil, on 11 May 1850.[3] In 1865, the family moved to a farm at Hardington Marsh.[4]
As a young woman, Mary Ann worked as a domestic servant. By April 1871, she was a nursemaid at South Street, Yeovil, one of two servants employed by William Fooks, a prosperous glove manufacturer.[5] After William Fooks died in July 1871, his widow and children lived in the same house until the 1880s.[6] While in Yeovil, Mary Ann met her future husband, Samuel Taylor.
Samuel’s early life
Samuel was born at Haselbury in 1846, the second of six children of George and Eliza.[7] At that time, George worked as a farm labourer, and the family surname was Robins.[8] Between October 1856 and April 1861, George became a carrier and changed the family surname to Taylor.[9] The reasons for him doing this are unclear. A newspaper advertisement dated 2 January 1866 for carriers to and from Yeovil listed Taylor as leaving the Chough’s Tap, Yeovil, daily for Crewkerne and Haselbury.[10]
In late 1870, George and Eliza moved to East Chinnock to run the Hare and Hounds public house, taking over from Mrs Redward, whose husband, Charles, died in January 1869.[11] Eliza died in December 1875, and George remarried a few months later. In 1881 he returned to Haselbury with his second wife to run the Swan Inn.[12] George died in June 1886, while sitting in a chair, a few minutes after conversing with customers in the bar.[13] His fifteen years in the pub trade probably influenced his son Samuel to become a publican as well.
After his parents left Haselbury, Samuel remained in the village and probably took over his father’s carrier business. In April 1871, he lived in West Street with his brothers, Thomas and Henry George, and their sister, Mary, who was their housekeeper.[14] Mary’s marriage in July 1874 may have played a significant part in breaking up the household. Thomas moved to Cardiff, Henry George to Hammersmith, and Samuel to Yeovil.[15]
Marriage
On 25 April 1877, Samuel and Mary Ann married at Holy Trinity Church. Samuel was thirty but recorded his age as twenty-six, while Mary Ann was twenty-four. They both lived in London Road, and Samuel was employed as a cabman. The witnesses to the marriage were John and Ann Guppy, probably Mary Ann’s relatives.[16]
Mary Ann was heavily pregnant when she married, and their only child, Mabel Maud, was born on 19 July 1877. The 1881 census recorded the family living in Waterloo Lane, next door to the Oxford Inn. Samuel was a carman, and two young men boarded with them.[17]
The Chough’s Tap
Samuel became the licensee of the Chough’s Tap at 72 Hendford in 1883 or 1884, probably taking over from Sarah Dunn, who died in December 1882 at the age of fifty-one. In March 1881, she had been struck on the head by a violent customer angry at being ejected from the premises.[18] She subsequently developed erysipelas, a potentially serious bacterial infection, and remained under medical care in April.[19] Whether the assault contributed to her death is unknown.
The Chough’s Tap was a beer house owned by the brewers Brutton and Co and let to tenants.[20] It was located at 72 Hendford, across the road from the Three Choughs Hotel, and had existed since the early 1850s. While Samuel held the licence and appeared in court when difficulties arose, Mary Ann probably played an important part in the daily running of the beer house, although the extent of her involvement is not recorded.
The Chough’s Tap occasionally featured in proceedings before the local magistrates. In October 1893, a tramp was sentenced to fourteen days’ hard labour after a policeman saw him enter the Chough’s Tap to ask for assistance.[21] The same sentence was given to a man out on bail who was convicted of stealing a two-shilling piece, which he then used to buy a drink at the Chough’s Tap. Samuel testified that the accused man tendered the coin in payment for a “quart of four,” a low-cost beer sold for four pence per quart.[22]
In September 1896, Samuel himself was summoned for selling liquor to a drunken man named Henry Stagg. At the Borough Petty Sessions, he told the magistrates that he had been the landlord of the Chough’s Tap for “upwards of twelve years,” during which time no summons had been issued against him, except for the present one. Before that, he was employed by Messrs Chaplin, carriers, for nine years. He recalled serving Stagg with half a pint of cider, which Stagg drank without making a disturbance. He saw nothing in Stagg’s manner to suggest he was drunk. The magistrates dismissed the case.[23] Samuel’s testimony suggests he joined Messrs Chaplin around 1874 or 1875 and became landlord of the Chough’s Tap by 1884.
In January 1898, Samuel appeared as a witness in a case in which a hawker was accused of stealing a pair of shoes from a dealer in second-hand clothes. The dealer had gone outside to wash a glass bottle under a tap before returning to the Chough’s Tap to have it filled with cider. During his absence, the hawker took the shoes from a box. Samuel testified that neither man was drunk. The magistrates accepted the hawker’s word that he never intended to steal the shoes and dismissed the case.[24]
In September 1901, two drunken navvies were ejected from the Chough’s Tap, probably without being served.[25]
The Farnham case and its repercussions in Yeovil
In 1903, the Yeovil magistrates decided to follow the example recently set by magistrates in Farnham, who had refused to renew the licences of pubs they considered superfluous to the town’s needs. The Yeovil magistrates compiled a report on the number of licensed houses in the borough and found there was one licensed house for every 139 inhabitants. A list had been made of over 211 boroughs in England and Wales with a population of over 5,000, and only 22 of those towns had a lower figure than Yeovil. The magistrates invited brewers and other owners of licensed houses to voluntarily reduce their number, or else they would take the initiative to do so. They required seventeen beer houses, including the Chough’s Tap, to produce plans at the scale of eight feet to an inch showing the use of each room, as well as counters, partitions, exits, outbuildings and public conveniences.[26]
At the annual licensing sessions in February 1904, the police objected to the renewal of the Chough’s Tap licence because they had found a drunken man there the previous day.[27] The following month, Samuel appeared in court charged with the alleged offence. The police stated that they had found a man named Chant drunk on Samuel’s premises, but Samuel denied that he had supplied him with drink. He said he had refused to serve him and ordered him off the premises; however, he had sneaked back in without Samuel’s knowledge. Robert Maunder, a painter and decorator, explained how this could have happened. He said he was repairing wallpaper directly over the bar door, and his presence blocked the view of the passage for anyone in the bar. The magistrates fined Samuel £1, and his solicitor announced his intention to appeal. No subsequent appeal has been traced. However, Samuel’s licence was renewed, which saved the Chough’s Tap for the time being.[28]
In February 1906, Samuel was one of ten men from Yeovil who attended the annual meeting and dinner of the South Somerset Licensed Victuallers’ Association at the George Hotel, Crewkerne.[29] This organisation defended the industry’s interests.
Family matters
On 21 February 1882, Mary Ann was a witness to the wedding of her sister, Susan, to George Paine Dolling at Hardington Mandeville parish church.[30]
In March 1896, Mary Ann’s sister, Susan Dolling, died in London from cancer of the uterus at the age of thirty-six.[31] Her death left her husband with six children under the age of fourteen to support. One of them, Eva, came to live with Samuel and Mary Ann.[32] She was four when her mother died, and she probably lived with Samuel and Mary Ann until she was at least fourteen.
On 3 July 1900, Mabel was a bridesmaid at the wedding of her uncle, Theophilus White, to Jane Partridge at Hardington Mandeville.[33]
In 1903, Mabel married Frederick John Axe, a bricklayer from Odcombe.[34] His first wife, Lily, had died in October 1901, leaving him with a four-year-old son, Sydney Ernest. Frederick and Mabel settled at 83 West Hendford and soon had a son of their own: Leslie Charles Taylor Axe, born on 27 July 1904.[35]
Following the death of Mary Ann’s father in March 1904, her brother, Walter, purchased a house and two orchards from the estate for £108, of which Mary Ann received one-sixteenth.[36]
Mary Ann’s death
On 15 September 1907, Mary Ann died at the Chough’s Tap from hepatic cirrhosis and asthenia at the age of fifty-five. Her death was registered two days later by her son-in-law, Frederick Axe.[37] Hepatic cirrhosis is a condition where healthy liver tissue is replaced by scar tissue due to long-term continuous damage and inflammation. Chronic alcohol misuse is a common cause, although there are others. Asthenia means severe physical weakness, in this case probably associated with her advanced liver disease. Mary Ann died intestate, leaving an estate valued at £144 17s 2d, which Samuel administered.[38]
The end of Chough’s Tap
At the annual licensing session in Yeovil in February 1910, the police offered no objections to the renewal of licences. However, the mayor read a statement calling for the number of licensed houses in the borough to be reduced and adjourned renewals for three houses: the Volunteer Inn (Hendford), the Hollands Inn and the Chough’s Tap.[39] The following month, the magistrates referred all three licences to the County Compensation Authority. In the case of Chough’s Tap, neither Brutton Brewery nor Samuel raised any objections. Samuel simply asked for his licence to be renewed until compensation was agreed, and this request was granted. A surveyor and architect submitted a rough plan of the premises and stated that the distance to the nearest inn, the Oxford Inn, was nineteen yards.[40] At their June meeting, the Somerset Licensing Committee refused to renew the Chough’s Tap’s licence.[41]
The meeting to determine compensation was held in camera.[42] Under the rules of the 1904 Licensing Act, most of the compensation would have gone to the property owners, but a proportion would have been allocated to Samuel to make up for his loss of livelihood.
After the house closed, Samuel held an auction on 20 February 1911 to sell his bar and household furniture. The sale included a six-foot mahogany-top counter, several deal tables, cups, glasses, jugs, and pewter measures.[43]
Samuel’s retirement and death
Samuel was about sixty-five when the Chough’s Tap closed. He moved to 83 West Hendford to live with Mabel and her family and remained there for the rest of his life.[44] He died there on 24 March 1924, at the age of seventy-seven.[45] Mabel continued living at the same house for another forty years and died in March 1964, after accidentally setting light to her nightdress while standing in front of a gas fire.[46]
Conclusion
Samuel and Mary Ann spent more than twenty years running the Chough’s Tap, which provided their livelihood and a home for their family. Its closure marked the end of a family connection with the licensed trade that began with Samuel’s father more than forty years earlier.
References
[1] Birth certificate of Elizabeth Jane White; family reconstitution.
[2] 1851 and 1861 censuses.
[3] Marriage certificate.
[4] Sherborne Mercury, 7 March 1865, p. 1.
[5] RG10, Yeovil, ED6, piece 2418, folio 75, p.37; William Fooks left an estate valued at “under £16,000.”
[6] National Probate Calendar.
[7] Civil registration birth index; family reconstitution.
[8] HO107, Haselbury Plucknett, ED1a, Piece 1929, folio 10, p.13.
[9] Haselbury Plucknett baptism register; RG9, Haselbury Plucknett, ED 8, piece 1939, folio 20, p.7.
[10] Sherborne Mercury, 2 January 1866, p.8.
[11] Western Gazette, 21 October 1870, p.4; National Probate Calendar.
[12] Devon and Somerset News, 23 June 1881, p.5.
[13] Western Times, 7 June 1886, p.3.
[14] RG10, Haselbury Plucknett, ED 8. Piece 1639, folio 20, p.7.
[15] Haselbury Plucknett marriage register; RG11, Cardiff, ED39, piece 5287, folio 8, p.12; RG11, Hammersmith, ED1, piece 54, folio 20, p.33.
[16] Holy Trinity Yeovil marriage register.
[17] RG11, Yeovil, ED8, piece 2393, folio 68, p.15.
[18] Western Gazette, 25 March 1881, p.5; Western Gazette, 22 December 1882, p.1.
[19] West Somerset Free Press, 2 April 1881, p.5.
[20] Western Gazette, 18 February 1876, p.4.
[21] Western Chronicle, 20 October 1893, p.5.
[22] Weymouth Telegram, 24 March 1896, p.7.
[23] Pulman’s Weekly News and Advertiser, 6 October 1896, p.5.
[24] Pulman’s Weekly News and Advertiser, 11 January 1898, p.6.
[25] Western Gazette, 20 September 1901, p.6.
[26] Western Chronicle, 6 February 1903, p.4.
[27] Western Chronicle, 5 February 1904, p.8.
[28] Western Chronicle, 4 March 1904, p.6.
[29] Western Chronicle, 23 February 1906, p.5.
[30] Hardington Mandeville marriage register.
[31] Death certificate of Susan Dolling.
[32] RG13, Yeovil, ED16, piece 2302, folio 10, p.12.
[33] Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser, 11 July 1900, p.7.
[34] Civil registration marriage index.
[35] Civil registration birth index: 1939 Register; civil registration death index.
[36] Deed in the possession of the Taylor family of Hardington.
[37] Death certificate of Mary Ann Taylor; Western Chronicle, 20 September 1907, p.8.
[38] National probate calendar.
[39] Western Chronicle, 4 February 1910, p.4.
[40] Western Chronicle, 4 March 1910, p.4.
[41] Western Chronicle, 1 July 1910, p.4.
[42] Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser, 11 January 1911, p.2.
[43] Western Gazette, 17 February 1911, p.3.
[44] RG14, Yeovil, ED 9, piece 14410; RG15, Yeovil, ED21, schedule 93.
[45] Western Gazette, 28 March 1924, p.12.
[46] Bristol Evening Post, 2 April 1964, p.14