Victorian Belton

When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 industry was growing, towns were expanding and life in Britain generally was changing. The was most obvious in the towns and cities but life in Belton was changing too.

The Census of 1851 gives us one of the clearest pictures yet of life in the parish. There were 80 agricultural labourers, the largest group of workers. They made up about one third of working males. This does not include children who worked on the land instead of going to school.

The next biggest group were the 30 servants such as maids and farm servants. These were mostly young girls. 'Going into service' was one of the few jobs available to young women. You did not have to be rich to afford a maid at that time. Every middle class household had at least one.

Another job for a woman was laundress. With no washing machines wash day was hard work and those who could afford it would send their washing to a laundress. Belton had seven, including one in Browston.

Among the other trades in the parish were seven blacksmiths, (including apprentices), six carpenters, five shoemakers, four bricklayers, one brick-maker, two farm bailiffs, three fishermen and the inn keeper at the King's Head. There were 11 farmers, but only one market gardener. That would soon change.

Out of 158 children of 12 years and under, only 14 are recorded as scholars. At that time Belton had a school but it was obviously not well attended. This was Belton's first proper school, the National School started in 1835. National Schools were charity schools linked to the Church of England and widespread before the start of State education in the 1870's.

It is hard to say why the school was so poorly attended. It is true that children from poor families were kept away to do jobs like bird scaring, stone picking and helping with the harvest. Education was not free, nor was it compulsory. It seems that the school was rundown. Also the school master was 74 years old and perhaps no longer up to the job.

Despite the apparent poverty of Belton only three people were recorded as paupers, that is receiving charity from the parish. Most people worked for as long as they could and then relied on their families to look after them. The three paupers were too old to work and had no-one to support them. They were lucky to be living in their own homes, though. Most paupers were sent to the workhouse, a place feared more than prison. The workhouse for Belton parish was at Oulton, quite a way off.

Most of the people in Belton worked with their hands, but their were a few who formed the upper crust of local society.

At the top was the Rector, the Revd Francis Howes, who had arrived in Belton in 1837. In 1851 he was 44 years old and lived with his wife Mary Ann 35, their four sons and four daughters aged from 11 months to 10 years, his sister Dorothy, two nursemaids, a housemaid, cook and general servant. They lived in the Rectory opposite the Green. Compare the Howes family with the Guytons of Stepshort. William, 43, was an agricultural labourer living with his wife Jane, 42. They also had eight children, ranging from William junior, 24 to Sabina, a three month old baby girl. They lived in a cottage with no servants to help.

At Browston Hall John Baker, solicitor, lived with his wife Emma, and a lady's maid, a housemaid, a cook and groom. Meanwhile at Browston Hall Farm, Edward Stannard, bachelor, lived with his sister Harriet, who was his housekeeper, their niece and two servants. He farmed 207 acres and employed six labourers.

The lord of the manor was the railway magnate, Samuel Morton Peto, of Somerleyton Hall.

The most populated parts of Belton village were still Lockless Lane (Station Road South), the Green and Goffin's Lane (Sandy Lane). Seven families lived at Stepshort, some way off from the main village and almost a separate hamlet.

By 1861 Belton had grown to 516 inhabitants. There were now eight market gardeners and 115 agricultural labourers. Laundresses had increased from six to 24. Another group which had greatly increased was the scholars. In 10 years it had grown from 14 to 70 and included children from the poorer families. This may have been because the school was rebuilt in 1860 and now had a new school mistress, Miss Norton. The new school, which included a teacher's house, was built on the site of the old one and cost £700. £200 came from the will of Mrs Fowler, the rest from Government grants and voluntary subscriptions. In 1896 it was enlarged to take 170 children. By then attendances were regularly over one hundred.

Another new arrival during the previous decade was Police Constable Thomas Denny, 34, his wife and 5 young children. He was the first 'village bobby' and lived on Belton Green Road.

In the 1860's a sub-post office was established in Belton with Noah Pole the sub-postmaster, The letters went via Great Yarmouth and the nearest post office to supply money orders was Gorleston.

At the Rectory, the Revd Howes family continued to grow. His eldest son was a 20 year old medical student. There were 9 others, the youngest only 6 months old. Mrs Howes, 45, was helped by a governess, a dressmaker and four house servants. The growing population of Belton needed amenities. In 1857 local farmer David Claxton gave land for a Primitive Methodist Chapel on the edge of the Common. About 30 years later he helped raise funds for a bigger chapel to be built on the site. There was no minister living in Belton so the services would have been conducted by a lay preacher or a circuit minister. The chapel was demolished in the 1960's.

In 1886 the Misses Howes, daughters of the Rector, and Sir Savile Crossley MP of Somerleyton laid foundation stones for the Belton Institute. This red brick building with Gothic windows on the front was designed by Yarmouth architect Sidney Rivett. It was the village hall and was run by a local committee. The Institute was used for many different functions: Parish and Parish Council Meetings, dances, parties, club and society meetings, whist drives, polling station.

Perhaps its greatest claim to fame is that it was the venue for Sir John Mills first public performance. His father Lewis Mills was headmaster of Belton School around the time of the First World War. The young John, dressed in a sailor suit danced a horn pipe at a concert organised by his father. It went down well and drew great applause. Interviewed on 'Desert Island Discs', nearly 90 years later, Sir John said that it was this first taste of show business that made him want to become an actor.

After the sub-post office opened in the 1860's, postal services in Belton continued to improve. In 1900 Belton Post Office was offering a full service including money orders, telegrams, express delivery, parcel post and savings bank. The Post Office was on Station Road South, not far from the Rectory. There was a market garden beside it and some stables. One of the postmen kept a horse and sometimes delivered mail on horseback. This would have been useful for delivering to Browston.

By the late 1880's Belton had a tourist trade. The Belton Gardens were laid out to the side of and behind the King's Head. These were pleasure gardens, where visitors could enjoy the flowers, take tea or have a drink, and buy produce to take away. There were also novelties to see, like oranges and other fruit growing under glass. It became very popular with Yarmouth holiday makers who came out in horse drawn brakes and charabancs.

The King's Head itself was originally an 18th century country inn. Because of the success of Belton Gardens extensions were made to building in 1900. It was now the King's Head Hotel and even had a public telephone. On Good Fridays there was a fair at the King's Head called 'Mother Brown's'. This attracted visitors from Great Yarmouth who got up to pranks and possibly worse. In 1908 the Parish Council complained to the landlord and the Police, saying the fair was a public nuisance. It seems to have died out after that.

The Railway Tavern was now a fully licensed public house. It is an 18th century building, long pre-dating the railway. It must have had another name before the railway arrived, but it was a beer house and so its 'pub' name does not appear in the directories.

As the population of the country grew in the 19th century, industry expanded and life became more complicated new forms of administration were needed. In 1889 County Councils were created and Belton came under East Suffolk. Below the new County Councils new Parish Councils and Rural District Councils were created in 1894.

Belton came within the District of Lothingland and on 31st December 1894 the first meeting of Belton Parish Council took place in the Belton Institute. The new council was drawn from a cross section of the parish, from gentlemen to labourers but mostly from the market gardeners and farmers. The decided to hold four regular meetings a year but in their early years, they seemed to meet rather irregularly.