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| Keywords: suffolk east anglia eastanglia church churches british union fascists oswald mosley mosely moseley February 1934: BUF black shirts and farm workers defend Doreen Wallace's Wortham Manor Farm from the bailiffs and the police. From The Tithe War by Carol Twinch, Media Associates 2001. original photograph from the Friends of Oswald Mosley collection. THE TITHE WAR 134 pigs and 13 cattle (value £702) seized for tithe February 22nd 1934 My little book records the biased observations of a tithepayer under notice of distraint. I make no claim to omniscience, broad-mindedness, or even good temper; I have, however, about as much of each of these desirable qualities as any titheowner with whom I have yet come into contact. I have, in addition, a grievance, for I am experiencing the oppression of the Tithe Laws. And I have an inspiration: the courage and conviction of my fellow soldiers in the Tithe War. - Doreen Wallace, Wortham Manor, Suffolk. November 1933. (Foreword to her own book The Tithe War) In the 1930s, agriculture in England experienced a deep depression, and it was very hard to make the land pay. The Church of England had undergone much modernisation over the previous century, but even so, there were still parishes where the tithe system meant that even small landowners were legally obliged to contribute a proportion of their income to the church for the upkeep of its incumbent. This was the case even if they were not Anglicans, which in Suffolk many were not. In addition, many of the smaller landowners were supporters of the Liberal Party, but the governing Conservative Party, which many of the larger landowners supported, stood foursquare behind the Church in the matter. If the landowners refused to pay, the courts could enforce tithe seizures by bailiffs, who in many cases would take goods valued at far more than the unpaid tithes. The tithe protesters received strong support from, among others, the writers Henry Williamson and Doreen Wallace, who would later recall the events in her book The Tithe War, both of whom had small farms in East Anglia. Their articles in London newspapers had the effect of drumming up considerable discussion, and both writers' sympathies with the British Union of Fascists encouraged that organisation to support the tithe protesters. In return, people in this part of East Anglia gave strong support to the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s, who were vocal in their support for the tithe rebels. Ronald Creasy, a local farmer, was elected as a British Union councillor for Eye, principally on the issue of the tithe protests. The tithe controversy has lingered well into the collective folk memory of modern Suffolk. In 1934, Doreen Wallace and her husband Rowland Rash, who was from a long line of Wortham landowners, refused to pay their tithes for Wortham Manor farm. For sixteen days, some fifty members of the British Union of Fascists surrounded the farm to stop the court's bailiffs gaining access to remove goods. They were confronted by lines of police drafted in from Ipswich, and then many were arrested on a technicality and carted off to prison in Norwich. on February 22nd 1934 the bailiffs entered and took £702 worth of goods. Doreen Wallace recalled in an interview many years later that the bailiffs had come down from Durham, as no East Anglian firm could be found to take on the job. The police had to intervene to stop the bailiffs lifting the piglets by ears and tail, a practice outlawed in East Anglia but apparently still acceptable in the north. The bailiffs had previously wanted the farm's 1934 wheat harvest, but they couldn't find any farmworkers for miles around who were prepared to take it in for them, a fact of which all East Anglians should be proud. The events are remembered by a memorial on the edge of the Wortham Manor Estate near to Wortham church. A few miles away across Suffolk, the Elmsett Tithe Memorial recalls a similar incident, in which possessions were seized from the home of a land owner in lieu of payments to the Church. It reads 1934. To commerate the Tithe seizure at Elmsett Hall of furniture including baby's bed and blankets, herd of dairy cows, eight corn stacks and seed stacks valued at £1200 for tithe valued at £385. Charles Westren, the farmer at Elmsett, had refused to pay his tithes to the church. After the seizure, he set up this monolithic concrete memorial on the edge of his land facing into the gateway of Elmsett church, so that anyone leaving a service would be reminded of the injustice of the system. Westren eventually emigrated to America during the Second World War.The legal abolition of the tithes system in England and Wales was set in motion after the War, the system coming to a final end in the 1970s, by which time very few tithes were still collected because of the cost of doing so. February 1934: BUF black shirts and farm workers defend Doreen Wallace's Wortham Manor Farm from the bailiffs and the police. From The Tithe War by Carol Twinch, Media Associates 2001. original photograph from the Friends of Oswald Mosley collection. THE TITHE WAR 134 pigs and 13 cattle (value £702) seized for tithe February 22nd 1934 My little book records the biased observations of a tithepayer under notice of distraint. I make no claim to omniscience, broad-mindedness, or even good temper; I have, however, about as much of each of these desirable qualities as any titheowner with whom I have yet come into contact. I have, in addition, a grievance, for I am experiencing the oppression of the Tithe Laws. And I have an inspiration: the courage and conviction of my fellow soldiers in the Tithe War. - Doreen Wallace, Wortham Manor, Suffolk. November 1933. (Foreword to her own book The Tithe War) In the 1930s, agriculture in England experienced a deep depression, and it was very hard to make the land pay. The Church of England had undergone much modernisation over the previous century, but even so, there were still parishes where the tithe system meant that even small landowners were legally obliged to contribute a proportion of their income to the church for the upkeep of its incumbent. This was the case even if they were not Anglicans, which in Suffolk many were not. In addition, many of the smaller landowners were supporters of the Liberal Party, but the governing Conservative Party, which many of the larger landowners supported, stood foursquare behind the Church in the matter. If the landowners refused to pay, the courts could enforce tithe seizures by bailiffs, who in many cases would take goods valued at far more than the unpaid tithes. The tithe protesters received strong support from, among others, the writers Henry Williamson and Doreen Wallace, who would later recall the events in her book The Tithe War, both of whom had small farms in East Anglia. Their articles in London newspapers had the effect of drumming up considerable discussion, and both writers' sympathies with the British Union of Fascists encouraged that organisation to support the tithe protesters. In return, people in this part of East Anglia gave strong support to the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s, who were vocal in their support for the tithe rebels. Ronald Creasy, a local farmer, was elected as a British Union councillor for Eye, principally on the issue of the tithe protests. The tithe controversy has lingered well into the collective folk memory of modern Suffolk. In 1934, Doreen Wallace and her husband Rowland Rash, who was from a long line of Wortham landowners, refused to pay their tithes for Wortham Manor farm. For sixteen days, some fifty members of the British Union of Fascists surrounded the farm to stop the court's bailiffs gaining access to remove goods. They were confronted by lines of police drafted in from Ipswich, and then many were arrested on a technicality and carted off to prison in Norwich. on February 22nd 1934 the bailiffs entered and took £702 worth of goods. Doreen Wallace recalled in an interview many years later that the bailiffs had come down from Durham, as no East Anglian firm could be found to take on the job. The police had to intervene to stop the bailiffs lifting the piglets by ears and tail, a practice outlawed in East Anglia but apparently still acceptable in the north. The bailiffs had previously wanted the farm's 1934 wheat harvest, but they couldn't find any farmworkers for miles around who were prepared to take it in for them, a fact of which all East Anglians should be proud. The events are remembered by a memorial on the edge of the Wortham Manor Estate near to Wortham church. A few miles away across Suffolk, the Elmsett Tithe Memorial recalls a similar incident, in which possessions were seized from the home of a land owner in lieu of payments to the Church. It reads 1934. To commerate the Tithe seizure at Elmsett Hall of furniture including baby's bed and blankets, herd of dairy cows, eight corn stacks and seed stacks valued at £1200 for tithe valued at £385. Charles Westren, the farmer at Elmsett, had refused to pay his tithes to the church. After the seizure, he set up this monolithic concrete memorial on the edge of his land facing into the gateway of Elmsett church, so that anyone leaving a service would be reminded of the injustice of the system. Westren eventually emigrated to America during the Second World War.The legal abolition of the tithes system in England and Wales was set in motion after the War, the system coming to a final end in the 1970s, by which time very few tithes were still collected because of the cost of doing so. | ||||
