The people of Chipperfield must have been very excited when the Men’s and Women’s Clubs were officially opened by Samuel Blackwell in 1922. The progress of Waterhouse’s builders would have been watched for months by the villagers and the future use of the facilities would have been a general topic of conversation. Until then, the school had been used as a meeting hall and pupils were given a holiday whenever there was a need to make preparations for a show or concert, so they wouldn’t have been so pleased about the new venture!
Samuel Blackwell, Lord of the Manor, who opened the Clubs in 1922, was a tall imposing man, with a full set of long whiskers. You will see a photograph of him on the wall, to the left of the bar, in Blackwells. He may have attended the opening ceremony in a wicker wheelchair. Sadly, his health was deteriorating by this stage.
On either side of the photograph, are copies of the official documents giving details of his sons’ deaths and war service. Their names are also on the war memorials in Church and on the Common, along with those of many other villagers who lost their lives in the First World War. Both men would have been well known locally.
Samuel and Elizabeth Blackwell had eleven children, and Charles and William Gordon were almost the youngest members of their family.
The fifth child, Dr. Tom Blackwell, built Pale House after he retired as a medical practitioner and finally moved to Pale Farm. Their seventh child, Eddie, retired to Old Barn Cottage after World War Two. It is their sixth child Robert, born in 1876, who provides the next link with the Club.
After the refurbishment of the Club in June, this year, the Trustees asked whether I knew of a descendant of the Blackwell family, who might be persuaded to perform the opening ceremony. Quite by chance, Diana Uff, of Pale Farm, mentioned that she had sat next to a Nick Blackwell, at a lunch party in London last year. That coincidental meeting could not have been more fortuitous, for as it turned out, Nick’s grandfather was the aforesaid Robert Blackwell, brother of the two young men, who died in World War One.
Nick was delighted to revisit Chipperfield and was honoured to perform the opening ceremony of the newly named Blackwells, thus following in the footsteps taken by his great grandfather Samuel Blackwell, 84 years ago.
Mary Nobbs