My grandfather, having been trained to serve the upper classes, went into service with a gentleman. Here's the inscription in the front of a book he was given when he left St Peter's College, Radley.
The inscription reads:
J.H. Wanklyn,
St Peters Coll,
Radley;
given to
William Barratt
upon his going
into service to
John Parkinson Esqre,
Hexgreave Park,
Nottinghamshire.
J.H.Wanklyn was the Rev. James Hibbert Wanklyn who was a Fellow (a Master) at the college from 1800 to 1855.
His next book seems to have been Steps to the Altar. A Manual of Devotions (published 1853), given to him on April 6th 1854, shortly after his 16th birthday. Although the name looks like K.Parkinson, I believe the initial is an elaborate abbreviation of the name John. WGB was already employed by John Parkinson of Hexgreave Park.
We have many other books with signature and inscriptions, recording WGB's life. There isn't room to include details or graphics of all of them here.
White’s Directory of Nottinghamshire, 1853, mentions Hexgreave as Hexgrave:
[Southwell] parish is very extensive, comprising about 5,613 acres, divided into five constablewicks of High Town, Burgage, East Thorpe, West Thorpe and Normanton, with the four parks of Hexgrave, Hockerwood, Norwood and Southwell, and various scattered farms bearing different names. The five districts maintain the poor conjointly, but their roads separately. Its population in 1851 was 3,458.
Knapthorpe hamlet, 1 mile south‑west of Caunton, belongs to John Parkinson Junr. Esq. of Hexgrave Park. It was anciently called Chenapethorpe, and was partly soc to Laxton. It contains 500 acres and 35 inhabitants.
In 1832, Knapthorpe had been owned by Richard Parkinson, whom I presume was John’s father. They were indeed a landed family!
The Rev. Arthur Sewell, who wrote his letter about WGB in 1937, was then a living link with WGB, because he was at Radley from 1849 to 1861. He stated that John Parkinson was there from 1852 to 1861. His brother George Parkinson was at Radley from 1856 to 1861. Mr Sewell recalled:
I spent the Christmas holidays of 1854 at Hexgrave with the Parkinsons. So I and W.G.B. were there together for Christmas but I have no clear memory of him. But he would have remembered a large Christmas Party for children and grown ups which the Parkinsons gave. At this party two young “Bloomer Girls” from America were present and created a great sensation. Months afterwards Mrs Parkinson was asked if she had heard anything of them. — Johnnie P. and I were the Bloomer Girls!!
My sister Yvonne has an interesting book from this period of WGB's life. Here's the title page.
The inscriptions on the verso of the title page are really very interesting. The date 1852 is in a style very similar to that of Dad’s (William Barratt) when he thoughtlessly wrote dates in ink in some of the heirloom books. However, Yvonne has confirmed that it is not Dad’s handwriting.
W.G.B. was aged 14 in 1852. The book itself was published in about 1850. The handwritten inscription Mansfield Nottinghamshire is not that of a 14-year-old boy. Whose it is remains a mystery.
This was the first time I’d seen the rubber stamp of W. G. Barratt. My initial reaction was that it would have been unlikely for a boy at a school for poor children to have his own rubber stamp. However, this view changed when I received some more of WGB’s books from my brother John. WGB might have had the rubber stamp when he was a boy or he might have stamped his books a little later in his career.
The subject of the book, gardening, ties in with the fact that WGB went into service at Hexgrave Hall as a boy, straight from Radley College