From A History Of The Wiltshire Strattons, updated and edited by Richard Flower Stratton, 1987:
William Stratton 1834-1919
William Stratton, the eldest child of Richard and Eliza, was born at Calcut, near Cricklade, on 17th November 1834. Two years later the family moved to Manor House, Wroughton, and in 1842 to Salthrop where he spent a happy childhood with his ten brothers and sisters. When William was sixteen the Strattons moved to Broadhinton, leased additionally from the Duke of Wellington. He went to Shaw House school, leaving in 1848 for a school at Calne; but the following year he was taken, aged 15, from this school at Easter because of heart disease. At 18, he and his sister Charlotte were sent back to Salthrop to manage the farm and neighbouring Bupton Farm.
In his memoirs, William’s younger brother Dick writes “About this time I must record what I look upon as plucky a performance as any I have heard of on the part of brother William. Some people had come to see the cattle and two big, high-mettled bulls were being let out for inspection at Salthrop Dairy; one being led by the big old dairyman, Mr. Sly; the bulls began challenging each other when one jumped forward, knocked Mr. Sly down and knelt down over him, beginning to work his horns on him. The leading-stick had become detached from the ring, so the bull was absolutely at large and very excited. William, who was sitting on his horse close by, jumped off, rushed to the bull’s head, caught hold of the ring and pulled the mad brute off the man with his bare hands and so held him until properly secured, thus undoubtedly saving the old man’s life. Greater courage than this there can hardly be.”
William’s mettle must surely have been further tested when in 1855 his father sent him in charge of a bull and a cow to the Great Exhibition in Paris, whence he returned with two first prizes of 700 franks (sic) each.
In 1857, Inglesham Farm near the Thames, between Highworth and Lechlade, was rented from Lord Radnor for William. This was an excellent dairy farm of 200 acres. Young William was fond of horses and hunting. Once when he was ill, he loaned his good horse ‘Friar Tuck’ for a day with the Heythrop to his brother from whom we read of an alarming trip straight across country. William was still farming Bupton which he rented from his father. Though busy, he was gaining experience of both heavy and light land farming. His 1859 diary records 43 acres of wheat averaging over 11 sacks (2¼cwt) per acre and return of £12-14-0 per acre. Perhaps it was this that triggered off a trip to Paris and the Rhine with his brother Dick the following summer. The Strattons had never lacked for farm pupils and it must have been at this time that William saw three of his sisters marry neighbours or pupils. Alice, Emily and Eliza to Messrs. Walker, Blyth and Rawlins respectively.
In 1865 on his marriage to Elizabeth Harris, and undoubtedly backed financially by both families, William was looking for fresh worlds to conquer. His opportunity came when Lord Bath at the 1864 meeting of the Bath and West Show Council was recommended the Stratton family by a Mr. G.H. Andrews of Rimpton near Sherborne, probably a fellow shorthorn breeder and exhibitor. Mr. Jones, the Longleat agent, then sought a written reference from Mr. Andrews. Before the usual queries as to farming competence, assurances were sought as to whether the Strattons were regular churchgoers and whether their politics would be in accord with those of the Marquess, Conservative. Mr. Andrews replied that all was well and that he could recommend all of Richard Stratton’s sons equally, so well had they been brought up. On a day in January 1865 father came over from Walls Court and son took train from Swindon to Warminster, announcing that he would then spend the night in Maiden Bradley. Inspection of Kingston Deverill followed next day. There followed correspondence over the rent, but on the 25th March 1865, William wrote to confirm a rent of £1300 per annum for 1682 acres, the tenancy to be for “three years certain”. (This rent was steadily increased but in 1871 William negotiated a permanent reduction of £174 to £1724 because his wheat crop was ruined by blight.) William moved to Kingston in April 1866 and his new bride took over the pleasant farm house which had recently been tastefully enlarged from the old, but modest, dwelling house. They must have been relieved to have missed the great blizzard in January which buried all the sheep on the neighbouring Pertwood.
The Longleat Estate had invested substantially in their Kingston Deverill estates in the shape of cottages and buildings. The small farms set up following Enclosure had not proved viable. The estate was now looking to throw these in together and was seeking a man to weld the whole into a business that would justify their investment.
With his background, experience and financial backing, they certainly found the right man in thirty year old William Stratton. His landlord, the 4th Marquess, had taken over the administration of Longleat from his mother on attaining his majority in 1852 and in 1865 obviously found it congenial to work with a man only four years his junior. It was to prove a rewarding partnership and the two men achieved a mutual respect, culminating in William being invited to propose the toast to the 5th Marquess at the coming of age celebrations in 1883.
The agreed strategy at Kingston Deverill was to reduce dependence on corn; the soil was too poor and the climate too wet. Unlike his new neighbours, William understood cattle and a cheesemaking dairy of fifty cows was soon established in the Maiden Bradley valley. All this difficult working heavy land was laid to permanent grass for these cows and other cattle. The Downs were enclosed for the first time, a mammoth task since oak posts five inches square were dug in at three yard intervals and were to last a century. The Downs carried maybe 20% of gorse and were suitable only for sheep and rabbits. William imported literally train loads of lambs from Scotland every autumn; they paid well for their twelve month stay until worm infestation, for which there was then no cure, enforced caution and more cattle.
In 1882 Kings College, Cambridge, could not find a tenant for Pertwood. William Stratton took it on, and installed a shepherd in the big house surrounded by sheep and rabbits.
Kingston had an abundance of cheap labour and the requirements of a largely self-supporting society kept many off the Poor Rate – pond making, road making, thatch making, haulage in and out of Warminster, horse and hand hoeing, stone picking, cutting crops, remind us of a myriad of activities. Even so, many people emigrated. As time went on, much farm machinery was loaned and hired out from Kingston Deverill, culminating in the purchase in 1869 at Manchester Show of a set of steam tackle to rip into the land, to be replaced in 1894 by a pair of 14 H.P. Fowlers costing £450 the set.
Marketing the farm produce was then a personal activity and William had his hands full getting round the markets for his cheese, corn, beef, mutton and lamb. On one occasion he rode on to Bristol with the proceeds of a sale at Devizes Market to invest in the forming of the Ashton Gate Brewery; the share register shows the blotting by his wet sleeve. This investment was emulated by his brothers and was to underpin the Stratton family for a century.
By the turn of the century, the lack of a proper water supply for stock had become acute and in 1900 Mr. J.W. Titt of Warminster was commissioned by Longleat to sink a well surmounted by a wind engine, build a reservoir and install pipes for the whole estate, including Keysley Farm. The cost totalled £2406-17-2. In 1987, the pipes are still as new. It occurred to no one to bring the marvellous supply into the village.
It was well that William had plenty to occupy his mind for his personal life was dogged with tragedy. Elizabeth died in her second childbirth and the baby survived her by only six months. In 1873, when 38, William married Amy Flower, the lovely eighteen year old daughter of his friend at Chilmark. They were marvellously happy until after only fourteen years she was finally struck down with pneumonia, having been delicate for four years with congestion of the lungs. Before this, three of her seven children had died; her eldest, Walter Flower, was killed in an accident involving a water barrel; he was nine years old. Norah died aged four and a half and Edmund Herbert died when he was eight months, both from scarlet fever. It was Amy who caused the ornamental trees opposite the farmhouse to be planted. They have given pleasure for a century.
These personal sorrows and the increasing farming depression turned William into a hard and withdrawn character. He enjoyed fox hunting regularly with the South and West Wilts, hare coursing and horse racing. We read of a trip in 1894 to the sale of the Chilcombe Estate, then on to Bognor and Goodwood Races. In 1900 a fall from a runaway horse strained his legs so badly that he was obliged to give up hunting. He used his enforced six weeks confinement to have an operation on his eyelids and to give up shaving for good. But he was a man who inspired respect, even fear, rather than affection. He was a rabid Tory. His public work must have been a real solace, and he certainly made his mark.
William started the South Wilts Chamber of Agriculture in 1871 and seven years later was elected Chairman. From the start he was its representative on the Central Chamber of Agriculture in London and after two years a Cattle Diseases Committee, which he was to chair for most of his life, was formed at his suggestion. It is hard for us in 1987 to appreciate the scourge of human and animal diseases a century ago. In January 1882 William had to take his family to Clifton for part of the winter while the whole house was disinfected following infectious disease.
His stock “first had foot and mouth disease” in 1859 and it was often repeated. In 1901 he records heavy losses in hill lambs due to worms in stomach and bowels. It is recorded of William Stratton that “he took the leading part in the long struggle to secure the flocks and herds of this country from the ravages of infectious diseases.”
This was followed in 1879 by a letter, in Lord Beaconsfield’s own hand, inviting him to serve on a Royal Commission under the Duke of Richmond to enquire into the depressed state of the agricultural interest. William was one of the only two tenant farmers so appointed and we learn “in the examinations of witnesses he always inquired their view as to tenant rights”; he claimed that he had a large part in inducing the Commission to report in favour of a fair measure of compensation for tenant improvements on leaving their farms, which ultimately led to such a measure being passed by Parliament. The Duke of Richmond himself was entertained at Kingston Deverill, young Dick being on hand to attend the great man’s boot-laces.
William Stratton was a founder-member of the Wiltshire Archaeological Society, and himself financed the excavation of the Roman site on Bidcombe Hill, whence he sent artifacts to Devizes Museum.
William moved to St. Andrews, Boreham Road, Warminster when Dick married in 1914 having handed tenancies of the Kingston and Pertwood farms to Dick and Jack together in 1905. He died in the post-war flu epidemic of 1919, aged 84 years.