Exhibition: The History of Walton Hall

St Michael’s Church in the Nineteenth Century

Several small fragments of broken window glass were recovered from St Michael’s Church in 1976 during its restoration by The Open University. The writing scratched onto the glass appears to be the name John Jefcoate. Subsequent research has revealed that 25 year old John Jefcoate/Jeffcoate was working as a glazier, living in Stony Stratford in 1841. The glass he scratched his name onto must have been inserted into the church around this time.

 

John Jefcoate was born in Passenham, Northamptonshire in about 1816. In 1844 he married Ann Ratliffe at Pottersbury. The couple settled in Coach House Lane, Stony Stratford and in 1851 John was working as a journeyman house painter and Ann was a lacemaker. They had at least four sons – John (born 1846), William (1848), Edward (1851) and Ebenezer (1853). In the 1851 census an elder son George, born illegitimately in 1841 - was also listed. John Jefcoate died aged 41 in 1857.

 

In 1861 St Michael’s Church underwent major restoration work during which the vestry was most likely added to the building. On this page there is an exterior photograph of the vestry taken in 2022. The chancel was repaved at this time with nineteenth century Minton tiles. Mintons was based in Staffordshire and was Europe's leading ceramic factory during the Victorian era. During the 1861 restoration, a new font was erected in the nave and a heating system was also installed. This plan of the church floor shows the position of the font and the heating flue discovered during excavation of St Michael's by Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society in 1976. 

 

A wooden plaque hanging on the wall of St Michael’s Church reveals that in 1862, charitable donations of £532 2 shillings & 2 pence were made to the Parish of Walton Official Trustees of Charitable Funds through an Unknown Donor's Charity created in the late 18th century. Part of the income of the charity was used to pay towards the salary of the teacher of the Daily Infant and Sunday School and the remainder for the distribution of coals, clothing, or fuel among the poor of Walton. In 1861 the school mistress at Walton was 20 year old Ann Constable living with her 15 year old sister Emily. The pair were from Maidstone in Kent. 

 

Two years following its restoration, in 1863 St Michael’s Church was described in ‘Dutton, Allen & Co’s directory and gazetteer’: “The church is a small edifice, possessing accommodation for 100 persons. The living is a rectory, value £230, in the gift of the Lord Chancellor, and incumbency of the Rev. George Wingate Pearse, M.A. A small charity is devoted to the apprenticing of poor boys”.

 

A leather bound church communion and services book dated 1843 was retrieved from St Michael's Church during the 1970s and is held in the University Archive. It was printed by John Collingwood and Co. The book, which dates from the time when Captain Charles Pinfold was Lord of the Manor, would most likely have been used during the tenure of three of the rectors of Walton during the nineteenth century and beyond into the twentieth century. You can view a photograph of the book here. 

 

During the nineteenth century St Michael’s Church had four rectors including George Wingate Pearse whose tenure lasted almost half a century. The four rectors of Walton were: 

• William Ellis from 1790 to 1821
• Valentine Ellis from 1821 to 1851
• George Wingate Pearse from 1851 to 1899
• Algernon Edward Tollemache from 1899 to 1902

​You can read more about George Wingate Pearse and his family on the next page. 

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