Contents: Janet Ingram, Olive Bourton & Joanne Hind | David Blundell’s grandparents | Maynard Green | Roy Barnett | Joseph Merrick | The Root(e) Family* | Back to History Section overview
Many residents of Badby contributed their memories to the History Group’s 2017 exhibition, through discussions and interviews. There are brief biographies of some of them below, whose recollections you will find elsewhere on this site, the sections on Transport, Entertainment, Services and Employment in particular. In addition, you will find below memories of other residents – David Blundell, Maynard Green and Roy Barnett – taken from published records. Also contained elsewhere in the Badby History Pages are Mary Hodges’ recollections of running the Post Office, several farmers’ stories of farming in the Badby area, and numerous contributions to the section on Schooling and Education.*The Root family was one of the early settlers of New England, before 1692. As we often receive enquiries, especially from America, about the Root or Roote family, there is an area dedicated to that family name.
Some long-time Badby residents
Janet Ingram: Janet was born in Badby and lived on Vicarage Hill, Church Green and Main Street. Her mother was from a local family and her father was a Yorkshireman. Janet went to Badby school. After school, she worked at Stead & Simpsons in Daventry, until her marriage to Cyril from Woodford Halse. When her youngest son went to secondary school she worked at Dodford Nursery school for 15 years. She sees her 3 sons regularly, who live locally, being both a grandmother and a great grandmother.
Olive Bourton: Olive was born in Badby in 1922 at The Hollies, The Green. Her parents bought Park View and the land behind it up to Pound Lane in 1926. Olive went to school in Badby and then to the Grammar School in Daventry, paid for by her parents, After school she started nursing training, however, later she she worked at an accountant’s office in Daventry as book keeper for 40 years and continued to have private clients well into retirement.
Olive married Gordon Bourton from Badby. Gordon started work at BTH Rugby followed by Armstrong Siddeley at Coventry. His last job before retiring was at Ford in Daventry. Gordon’s father ran the Windmill. Olive played hockey for the County and was Superintendent of St John’s Ambulance Nursing Division.
Joanne Hind: Joanne’s father Dan Coles moved to Wayside, Main Street from Priors Marston in 1939 at the age of 11 and married Sylvia Goodwin in 1955. It was Dan who built Orchard Bungalow in the smallholding of Wayside in 1965. Wayside Bungalow had been built for Joanne’s great Aunt and Hope House was built there where a beautiful pear tree used to stand.
Joanne was born in Badby and lived at Japonica Cottage next to the Post Office until she was 3. She went to school in Badby and worked at The Maltsters as a cook and then joined Barclay’s Bank in Daventry, later working at other branches in the area. She now lives in Rosewood Cottage with her husband Gerald Hind and son George. The house has been lived in by members of her family since the 1600s. After their marriage in 1988 the couple took on the task of renovating and extending the cottage, moving in three years later. Their son George is the sixth generation to live there.
David Blundell’s grandparents & farm
These photographs, kindly shared by David Blundell, show his grandparents. Mr Jack Blundell, known as ‘Pap’ is pictured outside his bakehouse workshop at Church Green, Badby in about 1951. Mrs Annie Blundell, known as ‘Gran’ is shown outside the old bakehouse in about 1937
Reminiscences of Badby 80 years ago (now 100 years ago)
by Maynard Green, taken from Village Matters issued by Friends of Rural Badby – Summer 1997
I first came to Badby in 1911 when my parents purchased Park House – I cannot remember anything about the actual move, as I was only 2 years old.
Mrs Ingram refers to army manoeuvre. I am going to take you back to 1913 when other manoeuvres were held around Badby & Fawsley. My mother was very ill at the time, but her bed was moved nearer to the window so that she could see King George V and Queen Mary drive through the village in an open carriage.
During the First World War three things stand out in my mind:
Firstly, I remember with sorrow the pages and pages of casualties published in the Daily Telegraph every day. Thinking about it makes me realise the futility of war – the millions of men killed or wounded merely to satisfy the greed of mankind.
Secondly, I remember the bombing of Northampton – One window in Park House faces directly down the Nene Valley and I could see; caught in the searchlights, the Zeppelin dropping its bombs.
Thirdly, I recall that we had a captain and his batman living with us, the rest of the platoon billeted in other houses. The thing that really sticks in my mind is the punishment imposed upon a soldier who had done something wrong – he was bound, spread-eagled to the wheel of a gun carriage for a whole day on the Green in front of Park View.
*************************************
During WW2 the Army held manoeuvres on the ridge behind Fawsley Hall. A Vickers anti-aircraft gun was used for training, aiming at aerial targets on their way to bomb Coventry.
Concrete ramps were constructed to stand tanks on for repairs, There were also trenches for rifle practice.
Fawsley Hall had soldiers billeted there. It is said that there existed then, a secret tunnel (now long since forgotten and lost) running between the church at Fawsley and Fawsley Hall. This tunnel was used as a means of sneaking back to the billet after lights out, by the soldiers, who had been imbibing in The Windmill or The Maltsters in Badby.
Another unsubstantiated story survives, telling of a tragic accident occurring at Fawsley Hall. Apparently the billeted soldiers were from a Tank Regiment. They received delivery of a new proto-type of tank, which they had no knowledge of its working. So a young soldier attempted to learn to drive it. He lost control and it careered into the Horse Pond Lake, tragically the soldier drowned.
Roy Barnett MBE
In 1986 Roy Barnett saw a Newsflash of children dying of diarrhoea across the world. He heard it could be remedied with a mixture of salt, sugar and potassium in a sachet costing 5p. He started collecting 5p coins from the Chapel congregation in Badby and continued to spread the idea, calling it “The MITE Foundation”, every 5p being spent on the medicine.
UNICEF eventually took on the work and at January 2025 over 9 million lives had been saved by the distribution of Oral Rehydration Sachets. UNICEF has advised that, for organisational reasons, it is no longer able to track the number of individual sachets funded by the Mite Scheme, therefore the Scheme has had to be wound up.
Roy was awarded the MBE at Buckingham Palace in 2003. He died in 2014 aged 93.
“He always maintained that Badby was the finest place in the world, and saw no earthly reason to be elsewhere!” (Rev. J Phelps)
In January 2001, on his 80th birthday, Roy gave a talk to Badby School about his childhood and school days; extracts from his talk are included on the Schooling page.
Joseph Merrick and his stay on the Fawsley Estate in 1887
Many will be aware of the film ‘The Elephant Man’. Shot in 1980 and starring John Hurt as Joseph (John) Merrick. It tells of a man born with a congenital disorder, known as ‘The Elephant Man’. He spent a brief time in this area, as follows:
Joseph Carey Merrick was born around 1860. His beloved mother died when he was 10 years old from Pneumonia leaving him in the care of his unloving father. Shortly after Joseph senior remarried a widow, Emma Wood Anthill with children of her own, thus Joseph junior entered a competitive, unloved existence. Crippled with his debilitating disease he was shunned and rejected.
At 13 years of age he went to work in a cigar manufacturers until his disability stopped him from being able to roll the cigars. He then became a book salesman, a job he eventually lost as he was unable to keep to his targets. When he returned to his father he was subjected to the worst and most brutal thrashing of his life. He eventually ended up in the workhouse.
To escape this hell he ended up as an exhibit in travelling shows as ‘The Elephant Man’. He had his own caravan which afforded him privacy and his travel companions and other exhibits befriended him and he had a degree of protection from his employer Tom Norman.
Sadly this didn’t last, Joseph ended up working for a villain named Mr Ferrari who stole all of Joseph’s saved money and ended up abandoning Joseph in Brussels. Abandoned and penniless he eventually returned to England by pawning his few remaining possessions.
On his return he was surrounded by an excitable, jeering crowd who all tried to get a glimpse of this alien man. Pushing and jostling him, he was terrified and cowered in the corner of a waiting room at the station. The police rescued him and took him to Frederick Treves at the London Hospital, who took responsibility of Joseph, offering him safety and care and eventually he became a resident there.
Joseph Merrick suffered from a disease called Proteus syndrome also known as Wiedemann syndrome, a congenital disorder.
During the closing months of the Elephant Man’s life he was invited to stay on the Fawsley estate by Lady Louisa Knightley. Joseph left the London Hospital and boarded a private second-class railway carriage that had been moved to a private siding in order for him to board unnoticed. The carriage was then moved and attached to the train which travelled to Northamptonshire. Behind the closed blinds Joseph travelled away from prying eyes to the awaiting carriage which brought him to the Fawsley estate.
The original plan had been that Joseph was to stay as a guest in a cottage of an estate worker, but unfortunately the wife of the estate worker was so shocked and frightened by his appearance that alternative plans had to be arranged and he then went to the gamekeeper’s cottage where he was cared for by the gamekeeper and his wife.
He spent 6 very happy and carefree weeks here, wandering freely through the fields and woods of Fawsley Hall. No-one bothered him and he enjoyed a normal existence, picking wild flowers, watching the wildlife, enjoying the beauty and tranquillity of the idyllic countryside. It was described by his friend, Frederick Treves as the ‘one supreme holiday of his life’.
Lady Louisa Knightley mentioned his stay in her diary dated 9th September 1887:
“Mother and I drove to Badby where two sad cases – poor old Powell dying of cancer in the face – and a young Billingham of consumption. Then on to Haycock’s Hill where Joseph Merrick, the ‘elephant man’ about whom there has been so much in the papers, has been boarded out for some weeks with the Birds.”
He came to stay again the next year as a guest in the home of the Goldbys at Edgcott.
The following September 1889 he returned and stayed at Redhill Farm a farm situated about ¼ mile from the Daventry to Banbury road, now the A361. On this stay he made friends with a local man called Walter Steel who called in daily to collect and post any letters for Merrick. He remembered Joseph Merrick as a well-educated and interesting man who wrote numerous letters and enjoyed reading poetry and took delight at the natural world.
Sadly the following year on 11th April 1890 Joseph Merrick passed away. It was believed that the cause of death was from asphyxia, as he was found lying on the bed on his back. Joseph could only sleep in an upright fashion due to the weight of his head. He always wanted to sleep ‘like other people’. He died suddenly and without a struggle. He was 27 years of age.
Lady Louisa Knightley wrote in her journal:
“I see in today’s paper that poor Merrick, the ‘elephant man’, is dead, passed quietly away in his sleep. It is a merciful way of going out of what to him has been a very sad world, though he received a great deal of kindness in it. Thank God – he was not unprepared. Now! He is safe and at rest.”
(Lady Knightly’s diary extracts taken from ‘Politics and Society: The Journals of Lady Knightley of Fawsley 1885-1913‘, edited by Peter Gordon published by Northamptonshire Record Society)
Poem by Isaac Watts loved by Joseph Merrick
‘Tis true my form is something odd,
But blaming me is blaming God.
Could I create myself anew,
I would not fail in pleasing you.
If I could reach from pole to pole
Or grasp the ocean with a span
I would be measured by the soul.
The mind’s the standard of the man.
Updated 14 February 2025