Mary Ellen ‘Nellie’ Taylor (Suffragette) 1863 - 1937
For 10 years the Taylors (Thomas, Nellie and their three children) lived at Westerby House, Smeeton Westerby.
On March 5th 1910 Nellie Taylor organised a WSPU (The Women's Social and Political Union) meeting in the Kibworth Village Hall when an audience consisting mainly of women listened to speeches by two famous suffragettes, Alice Pemberton-Peake and Dorothy Pethwick. From 1910 to 1912 Dorothy Pethwick was the WSPU organiser in Leicester.
This brief note is about Smeeton Westerby resident Captain Thomas Smithies Taylor (born 5 July 1863), who founded a company that was to dominate lens manufacturing in the inter-war period. Through his camera lenses, the world quite literally saw the twentieth century.
The two Kibworth villages developed distinct identities throughout the nineteenth century, based in large part on their different economic character. Kibworth Harcourt remained largely agricultural with a vibrant service sector based on provisioning the A6 traffic. Kibworth Beauchamp always had a more industrial character, from when the weavers predominated and this continued with industrialisation in the nineteenth century as factory production took hold in the village.
The differing economic chracteristics was also subtley reflected in the more "advanced" politics that developed in Beauchamp in contrast to the Tory dominance in Harcourt. This is evident in the choice of street names in the expanding Beauchamp village, with new streets named after the leading Liberal politicians of the late nineteenth century, such as Gladstone and Melbourne. These political rivalries sometimes also found expression in public bitterness, as evidenced in April 1897, when a suggestion that both parish councils co-operate in planning Queen Victoria's jubilee celebrations was decisively rejected at a Harcourt parish council meeting.
What is evident from reports of the meeting is that there was a general feeling in Harcourt that Beauchamp considered themselves more advanced in their civic efforts. The meeting instead agreed that Harcourt would build something permanent to mark the Queen's jubilee, with perhaps a village hall "emphatically asserting that Merton College, the lords of the manor, would have pleasure in giving the necessary ground." Kibworth-Harcourt-Parish-Meeting-1897.pdf
On an earlier occasion, in 1885, when the new vicar, the ebullient Bangalore-born Merton man Edmund Knox, took on the ecclesiatical parish of Kibworth, the rivalry between the two Kibworths was one of the most striking, and challenging, aspects of his new living.
Beauchamp, he noted, the home of 'stockeners' and predominantly 'radical', was in stark contrast to Harcourt, 'the home of the sporting squirearchy and retired businessmen of Leicester'.
Between the two 'was kept up a half-playful antagonism', with even the most minor disagreement eliciting 'fiery eloquence' poured forth with 'passion such I had never heard in Oxford'.
On one occasion, he recorded:
The vestry debated warmly the plan of a sewer which was to run down a road that divided the two villages [Ed. A6]. It was even suggested, with a fine disregard of costs, that two parallel sewers should be constructed, that the sewage of one village should not be 'contaminated' by the waste of the other.
In early July the Kibworth Relay for Life was held in the grounds of the Kibworth Football club over the weekend of 7th July 2012.
The goal of the Relay was to raise money for Cancer Relief and each team had to walk for 24 hours. In keeping with a very wet summer of 2012, rain was a constant feature of the weekend, with the result that the relay course became very muddy and challenging over the course of the weekend.
Smeeton Westerby Trail
- Smeeton House START
- The Elms
- Corner House, Mill Lane
- The King’s Head
- Sub Post Office
- Springfield Farm
- Main Street
- Village Hall
- Rose Cottage, Debdale Lane
- Farmhouse
- Blacksmith’s Lane
- 33 Main Street
- The Bank
- 62 Main Street
- Main Street Wall
- Beaker Close
- Stattis Fair area
- 53 Main Street
- 63 Main Street
- Westerby House
- Smeeton & Westerby border
- Christ Church
- Pit Hill Allotments
- Ivy Cottage, Gumley Road
- Smeeton Terrace
- Apple Tree Cottage
- Highfields
- Smeeton Farm
- Rose Cottage
- Footpath detour
- Debdale Wharf
Heritage Trails Gallery
Kibworth Harcourt Trail
- Coach & Horses Inn START
- Raitha’s Restaurant (formerly Rose & Crown)
- Main Street
- 10 Main Street
- 15 Main Street
- 16 – 18 Main Street
- The Barn at rear of 25 Main Street
- 20 Main Street
- 24 & 31 Main Street
- 28 Main Street
- Harcourt Terrace
- The Munt (Kibworth Castle)
- Turnpike Route
- 51-53 Leicester Road
- Paddocks Farm
- Congregational Chapel
- The Manse
- The Limes
- Priory Farm
- Boboli Restaurant – (formerly Three Horse Shoes)
- Manor Farmhouse
- 78 Main Street
- The Slang
- Cross Pump
- Jubilee Green
- The Village Cross
- The Old House
- The Old Barn
- Joiners Cottage
- The City
- Kibworth Harcourt Windmill
- Former Land Army Hostel
- Former Harcourt House
- Rector’s Plantation
- Lychgate & Cemetery
Heritage Trails Gallery
Kibworth Beauchamp Trail
- Coach & Horses Inn START
- Grey House, Church Road
- 30 Church Road
- St Wilfrid’s Church
- The Villas
- Station Hollow
- Former Railway station (Isabel Lane)
- The Pharmacy
- The Railway Arms
- Village Hall
- Stuart Court
- Old School Surgery
- Former Infants’ School, Paget Street
- The Bank
- 33 High Street
- The Manor House, 30 High Street
- Cross Bank House, High Street
- Lantern House, 4 High Street
- Former Gas Works
- Thatched Cottage, Weir Road
- Barrack Yard
- Tudor Cottage
- Smeeton Road
- Smeeton Court
- Clock Tower
- 36 High Street
- Mud Wall
- St Wilfrid’s Hall
- Methodist Chapel, School Road
- Kibworth Grammar School Hall
- Old Grammar School
- Former Railway Sidings
- Ridge & Furrow
- Little Lebanon
- Navvies Row, Leicester Road
Heritage Trails Gallery
This map, from the first decade of the 17 century, illustrated Kibworth Harcourt on the eve of the agricultural revolution, just prior to the enclosure movement that would wipe out the Medieval strip farming.