by Sheila Jones

One of the most long-standing members of the Mourholme Society is Margaret Clarke who was there at its inception.

Her article, “The Ancient Parish of Warton, a Background View”, is featured in the very first magazine, printed in Autumn 1982. However, the Society was born before the magazine and there was also background before the formation of the Society which Margaret was eager to talk to me about. Her enthusiasm is rooted in the feelings she had first had 48 years ago, which were still immediate to her and founded in the absolute revelation that history was not just something distant in place and time but continuous and all around her. Margaret was living in Warton with her young family in 1974 when Paul Booth was sent from Liverpool University to conduct an outreach or extension history course in the village. He ran courses in other communities, evidently loved his job, was “a great lecturer”, and was keen to work in Warton leading up to the bi-centenary of American Independence.

For this event he mounted an exhibition highlighting the connection to the Washington family, consisting largely of reading material, mounted all around the Church Hall. An early member, Desmond Holmes, a farmer from Kendal, also put up a display of old farm implements on the stage. Margaret remembers it as a superb exhibition but says there were Americans in the village at the time and a visiting American choir who were bemused by all the attention on the American connection!

However, Margaret’s memories are more of Paul Booth’s general research over 20 years, the results of which were shown in an accumulating or developing display again in the Church Hall. She was an avid attendee at the courses which ran in there in two-hour long sessions on Thursday afternoons. These attracted women in the main and there was always a good turnout, though the hall was not packed. Because it ran beyond school time her daughter would come across into the hall to sit with her mother. Paul brought in visiting lecturers and would sit at the back when they came, just in front of Margaret and her daughter, fidgeting and rocking his chair. He was a large man and, Margaret learned later, her daughter was always in dread that he would topple backwards and crush her. Stimulated by the lectures, Margaret began her own research despite the difficulty of having the children to look after. She took them with her when she went to investigate the role of Worcester Cathedral as receiver of Warton’s tithes (their tithe barn was on Back Lane but the remittance was in money). The children behaved beautifully, and although Nick was warned not to touch any of the old, precious books, the Cathedral librarian gave him the oldest book to hold. She went several times to the Public Records Offices at Chancery Lane, then at Kew, as well as at Preston, and always found the staff helpful. She would go with a particular purpose in mind, and it was entirely for her own satisfaction.

She was particularly interested in land holdings, in estate holdings and in management. Warton’s history is well-documented and very rich in this area, being classed as a manor rented from the crown. There was very little freehold, almost all holdings being sub-let from the manor. Paul Booth sourced many documents to photocopy and share, and many of these formed the beginnings of the group’s archive. Margaret also has a legacy in the archive because she hand-traced the 1848 tithe map, which the vicar, Mr Oddie, lent to her, kneeling on the vicarage floor. She further transcribed by hand all the rules and customs of the manor. Margaret had always enjoyed history, but for her, the introduction to local history was an intense experience, and she described as “marvellous” the realization that her own locality had an “extreme past”. One has the feeling that she felt a living part of it, that the human continuity imprinted on the piece of land beneath her feet became a force in her own life. She was not alone in her intense enthusiasm, and named other, vibrant early participants.

One was Nancy Thomas, an American living in Lindeth, who became editor of the magazine. Another was David Peter, who produced the history, “Warton with Lindeth” in 1984, edited by Dr Booth. Each of these has several articles in the magazines. And there was also Desmond Holmes, cited above. Margaret had a great deal of material which she had hoped to gather together, relating all the national laws and customs to Warton. Sadly, even devastatingly, her connection with the village was cut because her husband was moved to the North East in 1984 when the I.C.I. plant at Morecambe, where he worked, was closed down. He died in 1999 and Margaret moved back to Warton in 2004 as soon as she heard of a suitable house becoming available.

Published in Mourholme Magazine Issue 81 Autumn 2022

Editorial Note Margaret sadly passed away in May 2026.