This Page is Under Constrution.
If you have a story to share please email me...

Mr James Walter Court was our Rector and was greatly loved and respected by the village. He was born in 1861 and his father James C L Court was also Rector at Widdington. Mr Court retired in 1947 so was 86 and died in Saffron Walden 25th February 1950. He married Frances Ellen Ducane who was buried at Widdington 27th January 1939. I don’t remember Mrs Court as I was told she was blind and didn’t go out. However, she had made the white muslin veils which the girls wore in the Church Choir. Mr & Mrs Court did not have any children. Mr Court is buried in Widdington Churchyard on the piece of ground in front of the clocktower near a fir tree. He has a wooden cross to mark his grave and some time ago this was repaired by Jack Chipperfield. I have recently visited his grave, which also contains Mrs Court and June Francis has planted some Daffodil bulbs in front of the wooden cross. According to Church records, Reverend James Walter Court became Rector of Widdington in 1886 at the age of 25. My father told me that he was met at Newport station with a pony and trap and that the young men of the village pulled the trap themselves into the village as they were so excited. Of course my father was not born then so that is a story which he had been told. When I was a small child before the war, Mr Court, although getting old, was still active and apart from Church affairs took part in village matters. There was the village brass band, the annual fete, the men’s club and I remember him attending a Bridge Party at our house. Dad played Bridge, Mum did the catering and Eileen and I were sent up to bed. He also taught Latin at Newport Grammar School at one time. Also, Widdington Primary School, being a C of E School would have benefited by his teaching. I have been looking through the old Widdington Magazines and have found an account submitted by Ernie Wilson (Little Auntie’s stepson) in the Autumn of 1987 which he found in the Herts & Essex Observer, October 24th 1936 recording the occasion of the celebrations when Rev J W Court had been Rector of Widdington for 50 years. It was called “A Beloved Clergyman”. I must have attended this occasion but as I was only 5, I cannot recall it but am including it in my memoirs in his honour.

A BELOVED CLERGYMAN 

Parishioners of Widdington assembled in large numbers on Tuesday October 20 1936 to pay tribute to their esteemed rector who recently completed 50 years as rector of the Parish. An enjoyable social function in the attractively decorated Hut was provided by the churchwardens, Mr William Chipperfield and Mr John Dillon-Robinson. On a long table in the centre of the room were the refreshments and an iced cake surmounted with a silver horseshoe and 50 candles. Mr & Mrs Jim Cooper made and decorated the cake and Miss M Cooper put the candles on.
Refreshments having been served, the Bishop of Chelmsford presented Mr Court with a cheque and a pipe as small tokens of their appreciation and great affection. The Bishop recalled that Mr Court had served 2 years as curate at Willingale Doe before coming to Widdington. Sometimes people feel that when a vicar or rector has been in a parish even 20 years it was time for a change, but your rector has been 50 years amongst you, but I am perfectly certain that if he went to another parish everybody would have the most profound regret: this is a small parish where he cannot keep himself out of the public eye, whereas, in a large parish he could to some degree, keep out of the limelight. But he has lived for 50 years in this small parish and passed the test in a wonderful way.

From The Daphne Stalley Memories of Widdington

The Rev. James Court’ Spring 1957:
Extract from an article by C Henry Warren.

‘Widdington in Essex, where I lived in early twenties was a place where change came slowly.  It was a village with an entrance, but no exit: it led nowhere.  It was two miles from the nearest main road.  Its 400 inhabitants moved always a pace or two behind their neighbours and obviously liked it better that way.

…. The force around which the village was held was the Rev. James Court almost as much because of him common humanity as his position as rector.  I had known him at Newport Grammar School nearby, where he taught Latin to the senior boys and scripture to the juniors.  Nobody, least of all himself, would have claimed that he was a scholar; nor was he a disciplinarian.  We all knew from the laughter and shouting that came through the open windows when Jimmy was in class. But the laughter was good-tempered and the shouting mere animal spirits; both master and boys were enjoying themselves.

If Jimmy lacked discipline when he wore his gown in the classroom, he lacked it no less when he wore his surplice in church, but the same qualities that triumphed over his disadvantage in the one served no less in the other.  He was of the type, saint as jester.  Coming up the aisle from the vestry at morning service, he would back a little off course to say to one of the congregation.  “Nine across, six letters, what is it?  For the crossword was coming into fashion and Jimmy was an addict.  His sermons lacked any sort of shape; they rambled, their sense, like their sentences, got tired up in knots; but they were comfortable short and they spoke from the heart to the heart.  The village school was his, no less that the church.  It was one of the last church schools to remain so in more than name.  Over the door, carved in a slab of stone, were the words, ‘Behold, I will teach you the fear of the Lord’ (Now placed in the wall of the Churchyard, after the Church School was pulled down). Every morning Jimmy would run across from the Rectory to give a token scripture lesson before hurrying back to finish his breakfast and than race his rackety open car down to Newport, late as usual for the first Latin period

I think he put more work into the village brass band than into any other of his activities.  It was his pride and joy.  In winter the weekly band practices were held in the school and in summer on the green, but summer or winter, indoors or out, the noise was equally penetrating.  Even Newport heard it if the wind was in the right quarter, and Widdington itself compulsorily stopped paying attention to anything else.  Louder than the brass was Jimmy’s own voice as he bawled his injunctions to the performers.  He knew little about music, as he cheerfully admitted, but somehow he managed to get fair results; at any rate, it was not only because there was no other brass band in the vicinity that Widdington’s was in considerable demand for summer fetes and flower shows, where in handed-down uniforms and with mugs of beer at their feet the men blew their loudest and best … His tiny backwater parish was his sufficient world and he ruled it like a father his family… Widdington may have been backward as far as social responsibilities were concerned: I only know that it radiated contentment”. 
So ends this article by C Henry Warren.  There are still some of you in the village who remember him, even longer than my wife and myself.
We have his portrait painted, as a young man, by the artist G. Clausen, 1894.  Jimmy Court had a simple oak cross in the churchyard which had deteriorated,  with inscriptions on it, including that of his wife.  I have asked Jack Chipperfield to restore this as best as he can, and this is being done.  So well loved and interesting a person should not be forgotten, and I felt that his picture should remain in this area for all time.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

BROTHER JAMES 

Extract from Stanley Wilson, Saffron Crocus 1972

THE REV. JAMES WALTER COURT was Rector of Widdington for over 60 years, his rule spanning large lumps of the 19th and 20th centuries. In some ways he was more typical of the exceptional 18th century country parson, the Father of his people who knew and visited everyone in his parish, be they church, chapel or having no religion.
His father had been Rector and as soon as Jim was old enough he took on the job as arranged long before by his devoted Dad. From infancy he was Rector designate.
Long before he retired in extreme old age he seemed to have baptised, married and buried almost the whole parish, while he carried on apparently immortal and so utterly full of life. He never looked for another parish with more people and money. Tiny Widdington with its 350 souls, few cottages and gardens, the wild dog-roses, honeysuckle, sheep, lambs and singing birds, was enough for him.
He loved children and so he became a part-time teacher of religion and Latin at the nearby Newport Grammar School where he was immensely popular. Later he became Governor of the school. Although married he had no children of his own, I think to his regret.
He started the Village Band and trained all twenty-five men and boys to play the instruments. They were mostly lads without musical training who had left school at fourteen. He even took his band and conducted at the Crystal Palace competitions, under false pretences he used to say. There the lads enjoyed meeting the big important musicians.
Old Fred told me. He took us boys up to London when I was sixteen. What a wonderful place it was. We went into one of these great big rooms, and there was hundreds and hundreds of people in it, posh people you know, and not like us. I reckon there was more people in that room than in the whole of our village, all sitting up proper-like, at them tables.

Page 122

We had cherry pie for seconds and I didn’t know what to do with the stones so I watched the Rector and when he put them on the side of his plate I did the same. We had to behave proper-like you know.
'There was about thirty of us and it must have cost Mr. Court a tidy bit. He let us drink our hot tea out of the saucers. Later we all had a pint together!
'We had a good time at Widdington Village School. On summer afternoons we had a lot of fun when our teacher had a few drinks and dropped off to sleep. Some days the school was shut in the afternoons and no one seemed to care. We liked it and the Rector who was Chairman of the Governors didn’t do anything, he didn’t want to hurt her. Later we had a younger Mistress and we had to learn to read, write and count.
I was friendly with Lady Weaver and I used to carry her harp for her when she played it in the village. She was made a Lady because she played before Queen Alexandra, who was Edward VII’s wife. King Ted used to come over to Easton Lodge to see Lady Warwick and to play cricket with the Earl.
We also had Mr. and Mrs. Baillie-Weaver in the village. Old Mrs. Parkhurst used to stay with them. She was a proper card and had two gals. They wanted “Votes for Women”, were vegetarians and loved animals. George Clauson (R.A.), the artist, who shared one gardener with the Rector, lived in Widdington for some years and was a friend of the Rector. Sir Claud Hollis was also one of his mates, and they all used to come every September to the Village Horkey, or Harvest Home. Master Jim Court was the Chairman and we all had plenty of beer and grub. It was a hot supper: meat, poultry, greens, taters, onions, and lots of gravy. Every old man present had to tell a story wot his Dad had told him and it had to be true. Some of them tales ain’t printable. One year the prize story was by Master Roberts. It was about an old boy of Widdington what used to work up at the Rectory, and the Rector gave him four prize-winning black rabbits in a hamper addressed to the people at Henham Hall, three miles away. The boy carried them across the footpaths and fields and after he had gorn a mile the rabbits escaped, and ran into the undergrowth. The boy sat on the hamper and laughed himself silly. Run rabbit run, as much

Page 123

as you like, you'll have to come back because only I know where you are going, as I've got the label. We had half-black rabbits for thirty years after. 'More good fun was when the Rector made us N... Minstrels with boot polish, and we performed in the Saffron Walden Hall. Then we went to Broxted where their Squire and our Parson had a row because the school had no licence for us to sing and act. We could only sing if we didn't dress up. 'When we was in the pub the Rector would treat us and "put it on the slate" to pay next pay-day, like we did. He was only fooling of course. 'I only had one thing against old Jimmy. He was a Guardian of the Poor and not always a good one, but better than most. My Dad died when I was three and my pore old Mum had a rare struggle I can tell you. Mr. Court said he had his orders from the farmers and mother must go out to work to keep her three young children. Seven others were grown up. 'She only got odd days out charring and we picked up acorns for 10d a bushel; on Saturdays I carried telegrams for 10d a day-the Government rate for the job. "The Guardians had given me 1/6d and a big quartern loaf each week, and the Rector told us they had stopped it as I was twelve and could work part-time. 'Mum told him he was our shepherd and that it was not the way for him to treat his sheep and lambs. He did not like it very much, you see he was upper class like, and them farmers had got at him. They reckoned we got too much relief. 'Later I got 4/- a week, and some grub, for working up the Rectory, tolling the Death Bell, clearing jobs, running errands, doing the car, and helping Mrs. Court feeding chickens and pigs, and winding our church clock.
Our neighbour, poor old Blind Polly, had a bad time. Her work was taking in washing, and she lived at the washtub six days a week. The toffs paid little. 'Once I picked up an injured pheasant and took it to the gamekeeper, Mr. Stride. He accused me of poaching and was going to prosecute me, but he didn't. He was a nasty man; once, in a temper, he shot his dog dead. He never smiled.

Page 124

I had eight sisters all older than me, and mostly married. They made a rare fuss of me.
One January at midnight in the snow I had to walk to Little Henham Hall with medicine where a rich single girl was dying in childbirth, a mystery.
Mr. Clausen could draw pictures. He did our Emily wot died and we had her picture on the kitchen wall. As she died our picture of her sitting in the hay was all lit up, transfigured like a miracle you might say.'
Running a car for nearly fifty years Mr. Court had given lifts to about all the car-less people in his parish. For the last year or so, as he was well over eighty, women used to hide in the hedge as he passed since they felt him no longer a safe driver. Later his garage was locked and the key hidden. For some years Jimmy Court would not only run his church services but on Sunday evenings would help at the village chapel as well. No theologian, it was all the same to him, just one big family.
He was a good chess player and keen on crossword puzzles, and shared these delights with both young and old neigh- bours, discussing them in church.
On Tuesday, October 20th 1936, the Rev. J. W. Court celebrated 50 years as Rector with a party in the Parish Hall and a service in the Church. The Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr. Henry Wilson, said that Mr. Court was the ideal parson and never gave any trouble to his Bishop. One of the few people present who welcomed Mr. Court to the Parish in 1886 was Mr. Will Chipperfield, one of his church wardens and the village undertaker and builder.
I am indebted to my cousin, Mr. Ernest Wilson, at one time head boy of Newport Grammar School and a member of Widdington Band and Church Choir, for happy memories of Mr. Court. He writes that the Band was formed in 1909 and lasted thirty years with an interval during the first World War. In 1919 it had to be re-formed with a few musicians who came home from the Forces and many eager boys. Mr. Court was asked to take in girls but he would not have them either in the band or the church choir.
Widdington had a lot of boys for such a small parish. Even on winter nights boys would walk over a mile through the snow for band practice. From the ages of 8 or 9 years they were allowed to join the band.

Page 125

On some Sunday summer evenings, Evensong would be on the Rectory lawn, led by the Band. The Band also attended fetes over a wide area for £5 each engagement. He sang as he conducted, and this shocked musical critics who could never have made a brass band of pure 'Essex clay'. He was not a great musician but would have a go at anything and get and give lots of fun to budding musicians.
World War II ended the Band and after the war Mr. Court was too old to start again. People came to buy up the band instruments but he would never sell. He hung on to them hoping for a successor to turn up but nothing happened. It was Jimmy Court's Band and it lived and died with him. Mrs. Court was also very active and organised the women of the village, making fancy baskets and all sorts of new arts and crafts hitherto unknown to the country girls. She too was friendly and popular in the village for several decades.
Widdington Church has three bells. Old folk say that when they ring they say, 'Fill dung cart'-no good in these days of fertilisers! Generations of boys have fooled about with these bells, luckily without injury, and the picture of the church over the ages is one of a happy family with fun and mischief. Off the main road, the All, the village is so remote that change has been slow. The Londoners who took over most of the big houses as the landed gentry faded out have fitted into the rural scene so easily.
When Jimmy Court first went to the village in those Victorian days he met Ezekiel Bird, the village post messenger. He delivered his letters and an occasional telegram; there were also young John Chipperfield, carpenter and sexton, Fred Hopwood of the 'Fleur-de-Lis' inn, Jim Hoy the baker, Alan Ketteridge the bricky, and Walter Salmon the carrier who brought all sorts of goods from the outer world of Bishops Stortford, Newport and Saffron Walden. Amos Smith was then landlord of the 'Conqueror' inn, with John Wilson and other farmworkers and many farmers as his customers. For his first few years his only 'crime' was his extreme youth: old folk thought of him as a lad.
This was long before the intellectuals came who did not find the delightful cul-de-sac of Widdington until Edwardian and Georgian days.
The Rector's love for young people was practical, and he helped several boys to get into Newport Grammar School.

page 126

He was not quite as keen to educate girls, since he felt that most women's place should be in the home. In so many respects he was mid-way between the 19th and 20th centuries. They had no Women's Lib, only Mrs. Weaver who was Mrs. Parkhurst's local representative.
He seemed to tolerate his new parishioners, suffragettes, socialists and vegetarians with amusement, like the other country boys did. Looking back, they were 'a rum lot', but full of ideas. The Weavers started a League of Kindness for man and beast; Mrs. Weaver was rightly angry when the foxhounds killed a fox in the 'Fleur-de-Lis' inn. There was a real 'bust-up', but the Rector kept calm.
A member of Saffron Walden Rural District Council, the Board of Guardians and the Saffron Walden Technical Education Committee, he was the one link between his village and the Area for local government in a day when people still lived in isolation but maintained village control of their own affairs.
In the early days Joe Wright, Saffron Walden's first car mechanic and salesman, used to keep the Rev. Mr. Court's car in repair for 7/- per week. It had to be kept on the road as much for the villagers' convenience as for the Rector's.
Jimmy Court was a typical churchman in so many ways and would not have claimed to know much about ritual. Yet without knowing it he was a Father in God to all his parishioners, far more than most clergy, and so very much in touch with each one of his people.
He was not long-winded like so many clergy of his age but put much wisdom in brief addresses. He lived his faith more than he talked about it. He was a man's man and a boy's man and in some ways a delightful Peter Pan, yet a natural leader of his people. He saw the decline of the village church and in his own village held back the dying better than most parsons. It puzzled him that all people did not love Church as part of nature and the community.
During the Rector's holidays, the visiting Priest was the Rev. Dr. Frank Wyeth, M.C., D.Sc., D.D., M.A., Head- master of Newport Grammar School, a great intellectual, impressive in his monocle, face and figure-every inch a headmaster.
If only all Church parsons had been like Mr. Court, John Wesley would not have left the Established Church, and in

127

villages Christians could have remained united. He could have been just as good a chapel parson as he was Church parson. Church unity came early to Widdington.
One Sunday evening early this century the attendance at Evensong of young people was almost nil, they had all gone to Clavering to see the digging for Miss Holland's body. Her manservant Wm. Dougal had been arrested for her murder. Some went by horse and cart, some by cycle, and many more walked. The scene at The Moat Farm was like an enormous Sunday School Treat, with lemonade and sweets on sale, all because of the behaviour of Mr. Dougal, the Clavering ex-Sunday School teacher. Young George said, 'Me and my mate went in an old shed at Moat Farm and I took one of Dougal's old coats-I gave a bob for it to one of the coppers. I wore it one summer and it made me sweat like a bull. Parson pulled my leg about it.'
Excitement all over the countryside was intense but Mr. Court stayed at his job and so he continued through two World Wars, through rain and sun, until he seemed part of the fabric of the church.
When I visited Widdington Churchyard recently I saw his wooden memorial over his grave. 'Couldn't you afford a stone?' I asked a 'local'. "The money ran out, he died very poor, and you see it was his Dad's grave too, and the wooden cross is old.'
How short are memories. James Court retired to Saffron Walden and died in St. James's Hospital in 1950, which he used to visit as Guardian and Priest. A wooden cross that so soon will rot. Alas, poor Widdington, it is already hard to decipher the name of James Walter Court, died February 25th, 1950, 'His soul goes marching on, aged 86'-as the brittle wood rots and time rolls on.
His father was Rector for 22 years, then another came for three years to keep the seat warm for James who stayed Rector for 60 years, perhaps a 20th century record as Bishop Henry Wilson used to say it must be. The all-time Essex record was a 19th century Vicar of Middleton who served from the age of 23 until his death at 93.
The Widdington living was purchased for the boy by his Dad in undemocratic fashion yet what appointment or election has been more successful?
To enter the Kingdom of Heaven we have to become like

Page 128

children. Jimmy, often so wise in a simple way, did just this; of such are the Kingdom of Heaven, faults and all. Like Widdington, he was utterly remote from some of the cruelties and injustice of a very wicked world.
Of the many ex-Newport Grammar School boys who have written to me about their beloved teacher 'old Jimmy Court' the most entertaining letter about him, warts and all, is from Major A. A. Titmarsh, now of Swaffham Prior, Cambridge. He writes:-
'I was at Newport Grammar School 1926-30. The Rev. James Court of St. John's College, Cambridge, taught Latin under Headmaster Rev. Dr. F. J. Wyeth.
He was a lovable man and a great gentleman. He was slim and slightly stooping, flat-footed with one knock-knee which gave him a somewhat bouncing gait. He sported a drooping moustache, steel-rimmed spectacles and always smoked a pipe. He sputtered, he invariably wore a cloth cap, and his academic gown was ankle length.

'On Sports Day he could never keep his leg down when a boy was doing a high jump and he was sometimes heard to pass wind at the same time.

'He was fond of music particularly in his Church, and invited his Brass Band and the School Orchestra for Services to "take the roof off" with joy and thanksgiving, beating time on the pulpit rail.

'He was a "no humbug man" and when entertaining at home always offered me beer.
I always remember him when I visited him at Saffron Walden shortly before he died in the days of the "flappers and short skirts". He used to say, "In my days we had to run miles and jump five-bar gates to see what you now see free and without effort"."
Old folks say, "The birds no longer sing so well in Wid- dington Churchyard as they did in Jim's time', and I wondered why. Soon, an old man told me. He said, "The Rev. Jim used to hide and imitate the call of every kind of bird. He was a wonderful mimic and we locals never gave him away to visitors. There was some talk of getting the BBC down to record the bird-songs. What a marvellous hoax that would have been.' Many cockneys were fooled. Master Jim loved a leg-pull.

Page 129

The Court family remain in residence and in the 1881 census are listed as living at the Rectory with their 6 daughters and 2 sons with 2 female servants. The reverend Court was succeeded by his son James Court, who was christened in the Church on 17 Mar 1861. As Rector and occupier of the Rectory he is recorded on the 1891 Census and again in the 1901 census aged 40 with his wife Frances Du Cane, whom he married 17 Apr 1894, and two servants. Interestingly in 1911 the Reverend Court is now noted as being a Church of England Clergyman rather than an independent Rector. The family are till in residence in the Rectory in the 1911 census 

The Reverend James Walter Court was baptized at Widdington 17th March, 1861.  He married Frances Ellen Ducane, who was buried at Widdington 27th January, 1939. 
He died at Saffron Walden on the 25th February 1950, and was buried at Widdington on the 1st March.