Famous of Arksey

Famous People Associated With Arksey

It is a little known fact that Arksey has some rather famous names associated with its history, from Robin Hood and Shakespeare, to Worzel Gummidge and the Pilgrim Fathers, they all had their origins here. 

Read on to discover just how Arksey played its part in bringing these famous stories to light.

Contents

• The Merry Man of Arksey - Richard de la Lee
• A Knight of Shakespeare - Sir John Fastolf
• The Vicar's Daughter and the Scarecrow - Barbara Euphan Todd
• The Pilgrim Father's Grandfathers - William Bradford

The Merry Man of Arksey - Richard de la Lee

 

Around the years 1319-21, the parson in residence at Arksey was one Richard de la Lee. A man who was known for constantly being in debt.

It seems that Richard was the inspiration for one of Robin Hood's Merry Men. Well, not a Merry Man really, just someone who was helped by Robin Hood and who, in return gave a hiding place to the outlaw and his band of men.

Richard appears in an early ballad, A Gest of Robyn Hode, as a knight called Rychard at the Lee. In the story Robin loans the poor knight some money to pay off his debt to the abbot of St Mary's in York. Robin then recovers his losses by robbing the monks from the abbey. Another story in the Gest tells how Robin and his men hide in the castle of the knight they helped, namely, Rychard at the Lee.

Of course, Richard de la Lee wasn't a knight, nor did he have a castle, but of all the possible candidates for the real man behind the story, Richard is the most compelling. And whether true or not, the story is a nice detail in the history of Arksey church.

A Knight of Shakespeare - Sir John Fastolf

 

Around the year 1446 a new parson was presented to the church of All Hallows (later All Saints) at Arksey. His name was Richard Tregone, but it wasn't he that was famous, it was the knight who presented him, who became immortalized in three of William Shakespeare's plays:

• Henry IV, Part 1  
• Henry IV, Part 2
• The Merry Wives of Windsor 

In Shakespeare he appears as Sir John Falstaff, the rotund, vain and cowardly knight who leads Prince Hal into trouble in the Henry IV plays. But as with Richard de la Lee (above), the real man behind the character in the plays, is altogether different.

The real Falstaff (of whom the character was based) was in fact called Sir John Fastolf. He was a medieval knight who had fought at the Battle of Patay against Joan of Arc, which the English lost. Fastolf was made a scapegoat for the loss, as he was one of the military leaders who escaped death or capture, and while he seemed to show no cowardice, he was temporarily stripped of his knighthood. Which is presumably why he appears in Henry IV, Part 1, as an abject coward.

How he came to present Richard Tregone to Arksey church is not recorded, but maybe this was one of his expected duties as a knight of the Realm.  

The Vicar's Daughter and the Scarecrow - Barbara Euphan Todd

 

Between 1895 and 1910 the vicar at Arksey was the Rev. Thomas Todd. What many people do not know is that his daughter was an author who went on to create one of the best loved children's literary characters, Worzel Gummidge. 

Thomas Todd, who was originally from London, had moved to Doncaster by 1890, where he can be found on the 1891 census for Spring Gardens.

He married Alice Maud Mary Bentham in 1894 in Harlesden, Middlesex. The couple settled in Arksey, where Thomas became the vicar.

Thomas and Alice's only child, Barbara Euphan Todd was born in Arksey on the 9th of January 1897, and the family stayed in the village until 1910. After that, they can be found on the 1911 census in Kirk Sandall.

1911 census for the Todd family at Kirk Sandall

It is unclear how long the family stayed in the Doncaster area, but Barbara is known to have spent some of her childhood in Soberton, Hampshire. She was educated at St Catherine's School, Bramley, Guildford, Surrey, and following her fathers retirement, lived with her parents in Surrey, which is where she began her writing career.

Barbara Euphan Todd

She married Commander John Bower RN in 1932, and collaborated with him on some of her books. She wrote mainly children's books and her first Worzel Gummidge book was written in 1936. She wrote ten books featuring the character, who was a scarecrow that came to life. 

The books were adapted for radio in the 1950's, and featured on the children's TV programme Jackanory in the late 1960's. However it was the ITV, TV series starring Jon Pertwee which ran from 1978 to 1981, which is the best remembered.

Barbara continued to write until 1972, and later moved into a nursing home in Donnington, Berkshire, where she died in 1976. 

The Pilgrim Father's Grandfathers - William Bradford

The Mayflower Compact

Now we all naturally associate the Pilgrim Fathers with the village of Austerfield near Bawtry, after all it is where one of the most famous of the colonists, Governor William Bradford was born in about 1590. However, William's forebears were not originally from that area, they had their roots in Arksey and Bentley.

The Bradford name and its variant spellings (Bradforthe, Bradfurthe, Bradforth, Bradforde) are quite prolific in the Arksey parish registers. With properties and lands in Bentley, Arksey and Almholme, their roots were firmly established in the area.

Governor Bradford's ancestors can be traced back to at least 1460 when Peter Bradforthe was born in the parish. He was the 2x Great Grandfather of William Bradford. Peter married twice and fathered as many as ten children with his wives. His third son Robert (1487 - abt 1553), with his first wife, also married twice. He left the parish and went to live in Wellingly near Tickhill, this was the start of the migration to Austerfield for this branch of the family. Robert was Governor Bradford's Great Grandfather.

Robert Bradford's first son, William (1515 - 1595) was born in Wellingly and upon the death of his father, he inherited all his lands at Bentley. William, who also married twice, left Wellingly for Austerfield in about 1557. His first wife gave him three children, the second child being another William (1559 - 1591), the future father of Governor Bradford. 

Austerfield Manor

William married Alice Hanson in Austerfield on the 28th of June 1584. Following the birth of two girls, Margaret in 1585 and Alice in 1587, their son and future Governor of Plymouth Colony, William was born about 1589/90. It is widely thought that William was born at Austerfield Manor, although it has never been proven. He was just over a year old when his father died in 1591. His mother married Robert Briggs in 1593 and died soon after giving birth to her last child in 1597.

The story of the Pilgrim Fathers is well known, but to summarize - William became interested in religion at an early age, especially in the non-conforming preachers he came into contact with. As a youth he became a member of a separatist congregation at Scrooby church where William Brewster was an elder.

In 1607 church authorities discovered one of the meetings and they were forced to flee. They firstly sailed to Amsterdam before settling in Leyden. In 1612 William married sixteen year old Dorothy May, and in 1615, their only child John was born.

In 1620, the group, seeking freedom in the New World set sail for Southampton on the Speedwell. The Bradford's young son was left behind to sail on at a later date, however it would be seven years before he would make the crossing. 

In September that year William and Dorothy Bradford joined 130 other passengers and crew, and left Plymouth on the Mayflower. After a miserable two month journey, the Mayflower finally arrived in New England, many hundreds of miles further north than intended. 

The day after their arrival, the famous document The Mayflower Compact was drawn up (in Brewster's hand) and Bradford was the third signatory as a leader of the group. 

The next month was taken up by looking for a suitable settlement area, while the passengers stayed on board ship. On returning from one reconnaissance trip, William Bradford discovered his wife Dorothy had fallen overboard and died. 

The Mayflower colonists finally came ashore at Plymouth Harbour in December. As the colonists began to build their settlements a great sickness struck the group wiping out around half of them.

The following spring Governor John Carver became ill and died. William Bradford was elected to the vacant post, a situation he would occupy for the next thirty one years.

Bradford married one of the later arrivals from one of the many ships which would dock at Plymouth. Widow Alice Southworth arrived in 1623, her two sons followed a few years later. The couple had three children, William (1624 - 1704), Mercy (abt 1627) and Joseph ( 1630 - 1715).

The Puritan settlers made Plymouth a prosperous colony and by the 1630's were beginning to widen their settlements to other areas across the eastern seaboard. 

When William Bradford died on the 9th of May 1657 he was the richest man in the colony and left an estate worth £900, a farm, a house, an orchard and a library containing almost 300 books. Of course, the larger legacy he left was a thriving community he had helped to start, one that would in time, occupy the whole of the continent of America and become one of the richest nations on earth. Quite a legacy for a man who could trace his ancestry back to a small Yorkshire village.

Many thanks to Tracy Tebo for sharing her research with me.      

Alison Vainlo 

First written 2013, revised 2017, updated 2020