This ledger is 130 pages of wages for employees at North Street Farm, Aston,
AE Townsend was employer, and listed each week were Albert Fox, P Dewe, J Dewe, K Dewe and Mrs Harris.
Note from Margaret Josephs 2023 the sender of the ledger
North Street Farm, Aston, stood on the Witney edge of the village and comprised the farmhouse and adjoining cottage, duckpond, or¬ chard and lovely walled vegetable garden, together with farmland. A small development of designer houses now occupy the site.
The farm was owned by three generations of the Townsend family and Mollie, granddaughter of the original owner, was my Godmother. Family lore says that he bought the farm with money made in the South African diamond mines, but as with all family tales, I have no idea if that is true.
My great-grandparents, Thomas and Amelia Fox, both buried in Aston churchyard, lived in a labourer’s cottage in the market Square, where modem houses now stand. Water came from the well and at the end of the garden, through the chicken run was a Cotswold privy. As a child I hated going through the run as they all rushed towards you clucking madly, hoping to be fed. I’m still not fond of chickens!
Great Uncle Albert lived with my great-grandparents, working as a labourer on the farm, and is the A. Fox in the accounts book. For at least 20 years Mollie and Uncle Albert were a couple and part of the family until Bob Powell arrived on the scene from the North of Eng¬ land. How he originally connected with Mollie I don’t know as by then I was married and away from home. I only heard second hand about the rows that caused, but Mollie married Bob and became Mrs Powell.
My contact with Mollie was limited for some years, but when I moved to Bampton in 1994 we spent some happy times re-connecting until she died in her 90s. I salvaged the accounts book, diligently kept by Mollie in her handwriting, from her effects, ( Mollie kept every¬ thing) hoping it might be of local interest and as a record of bygone times for agricultural workers.
Margaret Josephs 2023
