Barton St David's link to 5 former Presidents of the United States

Henry Adams was born in Barton St David in about 1583.  He was a tenant farmer and farmed land in the village and in neighbouring Chartlon Mackrell.  He married Edith Squire in Charlton Mackrell Church in October 1609.  They emigrated to America c1638 and settled in the town of Braintree, Massachusetts. Their 3x great grandson was John Adams, who was the 2nd US President (1797-1801).   He was also the 4x great grandfather of John Quincy Adams, who was the 6th US President (1825-1829).  There is a plaque in St David's Church in Barton St David commemorating this fact.  The wording on it is as follows:

TO THE GLORY OF GOD

IN HONOUR OF ST DAVID

AND

IN MEMORY OF

HENRY ADAMS

BORN IN THIS PARISH ABOUT 1583

AND A FOUNDER OF NEW ENGLAND 1638

ANCESTOR OF TWO PRESIDENTS

OF THE UNITED STATES

OF AMERICA

JOHN ADAMS AND JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

WHOSE EXALTED SERVICES

TO THEIR COUNTRY

EVOKE

A TESTIMONY OF RESPECT FOR

THEIR ANCESTRAL HOME

THIS MEMORIAL HAS BEEN ERECTED BY

EDWARD DEAN ADAMS

A.D. 1926

Edith Squire is also distantly related to the 13th US President, Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929).  She was born in Charlton Mackrell in 1587.  Her sister Ann Squire married Aquila Purchase and the 13th US President, Millard Filmore (1850-1853) is one of her descendants.  Edith's sister Margaret Squire married John Shepard and the 27th US President, William Howard Taft (1909-1913) is related to her.

Plaque on the wall in St David's Church

St David's Church

The Popham Memorial, Church of St John the Baptist, Wellington

The elaborate Popham Memorial in the Church of St John the Baptist in Wellington dates from around 1607.  It was made by Cornelius and William Cure, who were master masons to James I.  They also made the tomb of Mary, Queen of Scots in Westminster Abbey and the tomb of Bishop Montague in Bath Abbey.

The figures on the memorial are as follows:

• The recumbent effigies of Sir John Popham and his wife Amy Adams are on the table.  Sir John is dressed as Lord Chief Justice and he is wearing the collar of S.S. This is an ensign of the office of the Lord Chief Justice.  
• Sir John's parents, Alexander Popham and Joan Stradling, are shown kneeling at the west end of the memorial.  
• Sir Francis Popham, who was the only son of Sir John, is shown kneeling with his wife, Anne Dudley at the east end.  
• The six daughters of Sir John and three ladies' maids are on the south side
• The sons and daughters of Sir Francis Popham are on the north side

Sir John Popham was born at Huntworth near Bridgwater in about 1531.  He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford.  He then went on to the Middle Temple, where he was autumn reader in 1568, lent reader in 1573 and treasurer in 1580. He served as Recorder for Bridgwater and Bristol and he was MP for Bristol in 1571 and 1572.  He was appointed Solicitor-General in 1579.  

Sir John Popham was Speaker of the House of Commons 1581-1583,  Attorney General 1581-1592 and Lord Chief Justice of England 1592-1607. He was involved in the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots at Fotheringay Castle in 1587, which resulted in her execution. He presided over the trials of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1603 and the Gunpowder Plot conspirators in 1606.  

Sir John Popham married Amy Adams of Castleton in Glamorgan in around 1556 and they had one son (Francis) and six daughters.  Amy inherited property from her father, Hugh Adams.  Sir John inherited land in Bridgwater and elsewhere from his father.  Sir John became a wealthy man and bought estates at Publow near Keynsham, Littlecote in Wiltshire and Hemyock Castle in Devon.

Sir John Popham built a new mansion for himself in Wellington between 1592 and 1604. He then lived there until his death in 1607.  The mansion was destroyed by fire during the English Civil War.  The mansion was located to the north of Mantle Street and the site is now playing fields used by Wellington AFC and Wellington Cricket Club.  The exact position of the mansion, which had been 142 feet long, was rediscovered when the playing fields were established in 1952.

Sir John Popham endowed almhouses in Mantle Street, Wellington in 1606.  These were rebuilt in 1833 and converted into Sir John Fisher Catholic Church in 1936.   

Peter Blundell died in 1601 and in his will he asked Sir John Popham to establish a free grammar school in Tiverton with his bequest of £20,000.  The school opened in 1604 and is still in existence today. 

Sir John Popham died in Wellington on 10th June 1607 and was buried in St John the Baptist's Church in Wellington.

The 6 daughters of Sir John Popham and 3 ladies' maids

Sir Francis Popham, his wife and their children

Sir John Popham's parents

The Popham Memorial

Portrait of Sir John Popham

John Biffen, MP and Government Minister

(William) John Biffen was born in Bridgwater on 3rd November 1930.  His father Victor William Biffen was the tenant farmer at Hill Farm, Otterhampton.  He was educated first at Combwich Village School and later at Dr Morgan's Grammar School in Bridgwater, where he became the head boy. He was awarded a scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge University, where he studied history and graduated with a first class honours degree in 1953. He worked for Tube Investments Ltd from 1953-60 and the Economist Intelligence Unit 1960-61.

John Biffen developed an interest in politics at Cambridge University and he was chairman of the university Conservative Association.  He stood unsuccessfully for the parliamentary constituency of Coventry East at the 1959 general election.  In 1961 he won the by-election for the Oswestry constituency (renamed Shropshire North in 1983) and he held the seat until 1997.  He was a Eurosceptic and in 1971 he voted against the UK joining the European Economic Community. 

He served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury (May 1979-January 1981), Secretary of State for Trade (January 1981-April 1982) and Leader of the House of Commons (April 1982-June 1987).  He made remarks that upset the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher and he was dropped from the Cabinet after the 1987 General Election and returned to the back benches.

John Biffen married Sarah Wood in 1979.  He was made a life peer in June 1997 and moved to the House of Lords.  His title was Baron Biffen of Tanat in the County of Shropshire. He died on 14th August 2007, aged 76.  He is commemorated in Combwich with a blue plaque on the wall of Otterhampton Village Hall.

Blue Plaque in Combwich

Ernest Bevin - Winsford

Ernest Bevin was born in Winsford on 7th March 1881.  His mother was Diana Tudball or Tidbould.  She married an agricultural labourer called William Bevin in 1864 but he left his family in 1876 or 1877.  Diana called herself a widow after his departure. Ernest's father was probably a butcher called William Pearse.  Ernest was Diana's 7th child.  After her death at the age of 48 in 1889, Ernest went to live with his sister Mary Jane and her husband George Pope in Morchard Bishop and Copplestone in Devon.

Ernest went to school in Winsford and later in Colebrook and at Hayward's School in Crediton.  After leaving school in 1892 he worked on two farms at Chaffcombe and Beers.  In 1894 he moved to Bristol where he lived with his older brothers Jack and Albert.  He had jobs in a bakehouse, shop and restaurant and as a van boy and a horse tram conductor.  He then became a van delivery driver for a mineral water firm called G.C.King in 1900.  For two years from 1906 he ran the mineral water firm's refreshment rooms.  He then had a job for another mineral water company as a van delivery driver.  During this time he met and married (although it is not known when or where) Florence Anne Townley.  They had one daughter, Queenie.

Ernest Bevin became interested in trade unions and in 1910 he became the Chairman of a branch of the Dockers' Union.  In 1911 he became a paid trade union official for the Dockers' Union.  He worked for the trade union movement in various roles during the First World War.   He stood for parliament unsuccessfully in 1918 (Central Bristol) and 1931 (Gateshead).  He played an important role in the creation of the Transport and General Workers Union by the merger of 14 trade unions in 1922 and was its first General Secretary.  During the interwar years Bevin became closely involved with the Labour Party.

When Winston Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940, he appointed Ernest Bevin to the role of Minister of Labour and National Service in the coalition cabinet.  Bevin was not an MP at this point, so he was hurriedly elected unopposed to the seat of Central Wandsworth in June 1940.  He soon mobilised a huge workforce committed to the war effort.  He diverted 48,000 military conscripts to work in the mines.  These men became known as Bevin Boys. 

After the 1945 General Election Clement Attlee appointed Ernest Bevin to the post of Foreign Secretary.  He allied Britain to the USA in the Cold War against the Russians and helped in the development of the Marshall Plan.  He played an important part in the formation of NATO in 1949 and in the development of Britain's independent nuclear deterrent. 

Ernest Bevin ate, drank and smoked too much and his health began to deteriorate after 1945.   He died of heart failure in London on 14th April 1951.  He has a College and Sixth Form Centre named after him in Tooting.

Bust of Ernest Bevin, County Hall, Taunton

Ernest Bevin's Birthplace

The house in Winsford where Ernest Bevin was born and lived for the first 8 years of his life.  Today it is called Bevin's Cottage but presumably it previously had some other name.

Hayward's School, Crediton

Plaque on Hayward's School, Crediton

Margaret Bondfield, the UK's First Female Cabinet Minister

Margaret Grace Bondfield, trade unionist, campaigner for women's rights, politician and the UK's first female cabinet minister was born on 17th March 1873 in Chard.  Her father William was a laceworker and she had 10 siblings.  She attended the nonconformist British School in Chard and became a pupil teacher there at the age of 13.

At the age of 14 she became a shop assistant in Brighton and then from 1894 in London. Appalled by the long hours, poor pay and the requirement to 'live in', she joined the newly formed National Union of Shop Assistants, Warehousemen and Clerks (NUSAWC).  Using the pseudonym Grace Dare she wrote articles for the union's journal Shop Assistant. In 1896 Margaret went undercover for the Women's Industrial Council (WIC) and worked in several West End shops to covertly gather information for WIC to enable them to campaign for shop work reform.  She presented her evidence in the Economic Journal in 1899, at a House of Lords select committee in 1901 and before a 1908 parliamentary departmental committee.

In 1898 Margaret was appointed Assistant Secretary of the NUSAWC, a post she held until 1908. She also joined the Independent Labour Party, became a leader of the Adult Suffrage Society and sat on the executive of the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL). In 1906 she and Mary Macarthur jointly founded the first women's general union, the National Federation of Women Workers (NFWW).  In the same year she helped to found the Women's Labour League (WLL). After 1908 she did more investigative work for WIC on the employment of married women, maternity and child welfare.  Her work contributed greatly to the introduction of state maternity benefit and improved medical care for mothers and babies from 1914.  She helped Mary Macarthur to organise and protect women who were employed in war work during the First World War.  In 1915 Margaret became the organising secretary of the NFWW.

In 1918 the WLL and WTUL were absorbed into the women's sections of the Labour Party and Trades Union Congress.  In the same year the NFWW merged with the National Union of General and Municipal Workers (NUGMW) and Margaret was appointed their Chief Women's Officer after the death of Mary Macarthur. In 1920 she visited the Soviet Union with a TUC delegation.

Margaret Bondfield was the leading woman trade unionist in the 1920s and she was the first woman to be elected to the TUC's executive in 1918.  She became the first female chairman of the General Council of the TUC in 1923.  She was elected as an MP in 1923 to represent Northampton and she was one of the first 3 female Labour MPs.  When the first Labour government was formed in 1924 she became the UK's first female minister, as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Labour.  She was not re-elected in 1924 but was successful in a by-election at Wallsend in 1926.  After the Labour Party won the 1929 general election she was appointed Minister of Labour, thus becoming the UK's first woman cabinet minister and privy councillor.  

However she lost her seat at the 1931 General Election and failed to be re-elected for Wallsend in 1935. She returned to her post at the NUGMW and remained there until her retirement in 1938. During the Second World War she co-ordinated voluntary services.  She was granted the freedom of Chard in 1930 and was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1948.

Margaret was known as Maggie to her friends. She never married and she died at her home in Sanderstead in Surrey on 16th June 1953. She is commemorated in Chard by a plaque on the Town Hall. She is also mentioned on a plaque at the location on the corner of High Street and Helliers Road where the British School used to stand.  There is a road named after her in Crimchard.

 Plaque on the Town Hall commemorating Margaret Bondfield, which was unveiled by the Right Honourable Barbara Castle on 20th September 1985

Plaque at the location of the British School in Chard

Bondfield Way, Crimchard