“Peerless” Labour

So Chettle’s made The Mail:

It has no crime, full employment, cheap housing… and is owned by the lord of the manor. So is this the perfect English village?

And everyone’s gone all predictably gooey. But bear in mind that it is not really a “village.” Rather, it is essentially now — in early 21st century terms — a “private community.”

Which explains how it functions as it does. But while the likes of Chettle is no longer commonplace, estates and their impacts are, however, still relatively common. Not too far from us is Hinton Admiral, which is opened to the public one weekend a year.

It doesn’t own Hinton or Bransgore villages. (It has also fought off inclusion in New Forest National Park.) That’s not to say that there might not be tenants living on the estate grounds. But it is a private property: a home.

And being a large one, it needs taking care of, which is also probably why, along its border perimeter on the A35, is found the “Estate Office.” Also, along that road a short distance, is the Anglican parish, which gets a good turn out on Sundays. With no village immediately around, it would seem likely to have been built at some time by a lord for himself and estate tenants. (Nowadays, the worshippers turn up by car.)

Interestingly, the Belfry Hotel in Yarcombe, Devon (next to Dorset, to the southwest), tells us that the Tapps-Gervis-Meyrick Baronets, of Hinton Admiral inherited a good part of what had been Sir Francis Drake’s estate, at Yarcombe and Marsh:

…Lady Drake and her daughter, Beatrice, as largely absentee owners, continued to administer affairs during the war-torn years [of World War I]. Beatrice married the Honourable John.R.V.Colborne, the son and heir of Lord Seaton. The Seatons spent most of their married life at Buckland Abbey or Nutwell Court, and did much to restore Buckland to its former glory. However the golden age of large estates was coming to an end. Crippling death duties were levied on the aggregate value of all property passing on death. It became necessary for Lady Seaton to sell some of their property, and in the summer of 1931 1,478 acres of the outlying portion of the Yarcombe Estate were put up for sale.

Lady Seaton died after several years of widowhood. There were no children, so what was left of the erstwhile Drake Estate went to Captain Richard Owen Tapps-Gervis Meyrick, a third cousin of Lady Seaton. Captain Richard O. T. G.Meyrick was the second son of Sir George Augustus Eliott Tapps-Gervis Meyrick of Hinton Admiral, Hampshire and Bordogan, Anglesey. The link was provided by Thomas Trayton Fuller Eliott Drake and Rose Henry Fuller’s brother, Augustus Eliott, who had married Owen Putland Meyrick’s daughter and heiress, Clara.

Are you still with me? Good. But if not, don’t worry, there won’t be a quiz at the end:

This was a time of great uncertainty in Yarcombe and Marsh; part of the Estate had already been sold and little was known about the new owner. Shortly after his succession there was a devastating fire at Buckland Abbey, the family seat. Captain Meyrick’s wife, Evelyn, (nee Harris) and two sons were in residence, and it was the elder son, Richard Anthony Tapps-Gervis Meyrick, who saved the famous “Drake’s Drum”. However, circumstances were not good. The second World War was about to begin, and it became necessary to sell more of the Estate. Yarcombe and Marsh were this time not affected. The Meyrick brothers, Richard and Peter, were both serving officers in the Grenadier Guards. Richard was mentioned in despatches and came home to inherit what was left of the Estate on his Father’s death in 1948. Peter was killed in action at Salerno, and the entrance gates to the village hall, together with a nearby plaque, serve as a memorial to him. It is fitting that this memorial to a 21 year old, who lost his life in defence of his country, should be at Yarcombe, where his forbears had held and administrated a little bit ofEngland for so long. It is strange that, of all the properties once possessed by the Drake family, only Yarcombe and Marsh remain. The aftermath of war, crippling taxes and changing social values saw the continued disintegration of estates, but somehow Capt. Richard Anthony Meyrick managed to survive, and today his son, David, is slowly but surely rebuilding the Estate and maintaining the standards set by his ancestors.

Most in all the cars daily rushing by the non-descript Hinton Admiral entrance, have not the slightest idea. Sssh. Don’t tell The Mail.

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That brought this to mind. One thing yours truly had noticed years ago was if one watched the hereditary peers in action in the House of Lords, one was usually treated to a high quality of debate, focus on the country as a whole and a real breadth of substantive insight. That likely was at least in part because those peers, owing to their generational ties to this land (“nowhere men” they are definitely not), seemed to see their role as “national caretakers.”

They weren’t aspirational regarding their own political careers (they didn’t have those) which meant they were not usually short-termist and politically posturing in the manner nearly all voters loathe. Rather, they tended truly to embrace a more expansive and necessary sense of a personal here today/gone tomorrow, while Britain is “eternal.” In comparison, you rarely see anything even approaching such coming from any elected members of the House of Commons.

That being so doesn’t mean that such lords they should govern Britain; but those who would take the time to attend the salary-less House of Lords were obviously very committed people, and their advice and views were often weighty and earnestly expressed. Few seemed to appreciate at the time, and fewer seem to now (or are willing to admit to), the huge loss to debate and governing experience the hereditary peers’ ejection would eventually reveal. For despite what they could clearly contribute and long had, in the last decade they have been replaced mostly by mediocre political appointees of some sort: what had been dirisively (and often quite accurately) christened “Tony’s cronies.”

Thus Lords “reform.” Interestingly, all Labour prime ministers have reportedly valued the weekly private talk with the Queen, and those in the Lords — albeit with a smattering of power to hold up legislation that she does not have — could have been seen as providing much the same “advice.” Instead, New Labour has simply discarded those with a similar sense of noblesse oblige, who have opinions of value and serious life experience. Their “successors” in the “reformed” House of Lords?: those with a decided sense of meself oblige, walking super-egos (who often have little to have much ego about) who raise party money and crave the word “Lord” in front of their names.

And, about as one would expect given what most are, new “lords” in the salary-less House are evidently angling somehow to get themselves higher personal “expenses compensation.” One almost can’t wait for a Labour plan for “Monarch Reform.” Perhaps a monarch appointed similarly by an “independent commission?”

Which would be a natural follow on also consistent with what Labour’s leadership is: small-time former local politicos and ex-university lecturers who suddenly find themselves called “MP,” and “minister,” and near “the top” and ever-determined to try to vault themselves still higher, while at the same time vocally decrying “social standing,” and ultimately out of their depth and essentially ashamed of their own shortcomings and backgrounds.

Yet as bad as they might be, at least you can vote a waste of space out of the House of Commons, but how does one get rid of some life-appointed party hack peer?

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UPDATE: These islands produced one of the world’s great and free civilizations; but, we are told (again), “reforms” are urgently needed. And, as with the Lords “reform,” once more this generation’s mediocre politicians are opening “the process” without having a solid idea of what, in the end, the “reforms” are supposed to encompass:

…Labour and the Conservatives agree on the need for a new Bill of Rights, but differ on what areas it should cover…

So what they produce ought to be a real beaut: heaven help the people of these islands.