[Note – Click HERE to see the picture of the effigy burning –from the "Bexhill Observer", dated 4th June 1932. & Click HERE to read the newspaper reports, in ′pdf′ format.]
The paying of "tithes" goes back, at least, to biblical times and were, originally, "payments in kind" made to the priests for food and other essentials of life; items that, as priests, they had no other way of living or maintaining the temples.
These "payments in kind" were one–tenth of:–
1 – all things growing out of the ground, such as grain, wood, vegetables, and so on. etc.
2 – all things nourished by the ground, such as the young of cattle, sheep etc., and included animal produce such as milk, eggs and wool;
3 – lastly, the produce of a man′s labour, particularly the profits from milling and fishing; in other words, money.
This idea seems to have died out for some time but, eventually, around 600 A.D., the churches brought it back to support the clergy and the maintenance of the church but it was still, mainly, based on one-tenth of the produce and not monetary, and, perhaps more importantly, to a great extent, voluntary.
By the 1300s, however, the church extended it from the original biblical tithe to include "the poultry of the yard, the cattle of the stall, the catch of fish, and the game of the forests".
With the dissolution of the monasteries, from 1536 and 1541, much of the church land and the tithes due were sold off into lay ownership where the new owners, or lay impropriators, would receive the tithe, passing on what was due to the church. From early times money began to be substituted for payments in kind and thus the tithe became nothing more than a tax on the farmer, who was right at the bottom of the chain.
To be fair, these new lay impropriators became responsible for the repair and the maintenance of the church building – but the tithe was still a good source of income all the while that the church was not in need of repair.
I had (and have) no intention of giving a history lesson on tithes but, because I had to read and understand the background leading up to the burning of the effigy of Lord St. Audries, in the village of Hooe, I felt that what I had learned might interest others. I knew, virtually, nothing about tithes, other than the word meant one tenth and was some sort of tax that had to be paid to the church by farmers and/or land owners. I was surprised, having read the various articles, at just what it, really, meant to the local farmers. What had started off as a voluntary offering in kind, based on what a man managed to produce by his own labour, became a fixed monetary sum, the value of which bore no relation to his success or failure to produce anything; it became a fixed tax, payable on the due date, whatever his circumstances.
As, for example, when corn prices fell, the farmer′s profit was reduced but the tithe or tax remained firmly fixed at the rate that corn used to sell at in the good days. Sometimes, farmers, even, found that they had paid out more at the end of the year, in the tithe, than they had earned so they either went broke or borrowed money to keep themselves solvent. As a result, from 1918 onwards, there had been growing unrest, country-wide, which led to the so-called "tithe-wars".
In 1936, an Act of Parliament abolished all tithe rent charges – no one had to pay them and no one could collect them.
In 1928, in the "Bexhill Observer", I came across the first mention that I had seen of the tithe problem; over the next few years, articles and letters appeared in that newspaper on the subject. Tempers and anger grew between those who supported and tried to explain tithes and those who had to pay and could see the injustice.
In Hooe, the farmer at Broad Street Farm, having been taken to court for the non-payment of his tithes, and found guilty, was evicted by the owner of the land, Lord St. Audries. The final straw for the local community, however, occurred when an auction was attempted to be held at the farm. As the crowd became more and more angry, the auctioneer had to abort the auction and was, for the sake of his safely, escorted by the police to an upper room at the Red Lion pub, where he remained for many hours until it was considered safe for him to leave.
There had been a similar disturbance, a few days or so before, at Sadler′s Farm, but no report seems to have appeared in any newspaper at that time, so no information on that auction is available.
There was a long correspondence, in the "Bexhill Observer", at the time and this I transcribed, mainly to allow searches to be made for names or places.
I am aware of two farms being involved in this "Tithe War" (both are mentioned in the same newspaper article, although in no great detail) but there may have been others. The two farms were "Sadler′s Farm" and "Broad Street Green Farm".
The two farmers, of "Sadler′s Farm" and "Broad Street Green Farm", appear to have failed to pay the tithes due to St. Audries so he decided to issue writs against both of them. In lieu of payment he, then, chose to sell, at auction, livestock from both farms the result was the revolt.
In both cases, the tithe-owner was Lord St. Audries, who was the Lord of the Manor, and owner, of the farms at that time.
Lord St. Audries came to own the farms through an ancestor of his. In 1835, Sir Peregrine Palmer Fuller Palmer Acland, had bought the manor of Hooe from his cousin Augustus Elliot Fuller.
In 1864, the majority of this manor was purchased by a Thomas Brassey and he renamed it the "Normanhurst Estate". Thomas Brassey, in 1865, continued to buy further outlying pieces of the old estate and went on, in the 1870s and 1880s, to buy yet more land from other owners.
Lord St. Audries was Alexander Peregrine Fuller-Acland-Hood, 2nd Baron St. Audries – the 1st Baron took the name St. Audries from the village in Somerset, which was the family home.
There is a much fuller account of the "St. Audries" in "Some Families of Hooe" – though they were not, truly, a Hooe family, in that no member of the family was born in the village but they did have a great influence and effect on the village for some time.
