Howes Family History
Postscript
Postscript - Until the Great Central Railway arrived in Woodford at the very end of the 19th century the Howes family had been exclusively involved with agriculture. In this part of south Northamptonshire there was little or no other employment. In 1851 the population was 455 and in 1891 was 527, with agricultural labourers in the majority. Occasionally a member of the family worked as a farmer’s carter, or as a milk-boy. In Preston Capes a branch of the family worked a farm, and in Byfield another branch of the family worked a farm and also were licensees of the New Inn on Banbury Road, but in Woodford the head of each family and all his sons worked as farm labourers. With the coming of the railway we had engine drivers, firemen, guards, signalmen, fitters, foremen and a host of other railway oriented occupations and the village grew to accommodate the extra workers arriving from all over Britain. In 1901, two years after the opening of the railway, the population was 1,220. By the end of the 20th century, in addition to railwaymen, the family had nuclear energy reactor controllers, RAF aircrew, RN sailors, policemen, architects, builders, gardeners, professional golfers, accountants, computer consultants, metal merchants, nurses, civil servants, secretaries and a wide variety of other occupations available to the modern man and woman.
Since the closure of the railway in 1966, Woodford Halse has become a sleepy hollow once more. Gone are the noises of a working railway; the clanking of the side-rods on the 2-8-0 WD Austerities; the clatter of wagon couplings as the trains are shunted and marshalled in the yards; the whistles of engines on the express trains charging through the station or waiting for a signal at the entrance to the sheds. Gone are the smells of soot and hot oil, and the strong whiffs of cod after the passing of the fast fish train from Grimsby. Gone is the hustle and bustle of a busy railway community and the vibrancy of an exciting village life. Now the village is quiet and still. There is very little to offer in the way of local employment. The surrounding countryside is beautiful and farming is once again to the fore, as it was 300 years ago at the beginning of the 18th century.
With the changing occupations and consequent lifestyles came movement of personnel and now (in 2016) there are members of just three Howes families living in Woodford; the family of recently deceased Adrian Robert Howes (the son of Richard Arthur “Dick” Howes and grandson of George Thomas Howes), Beryl Parratt, the daughter of Ellen Louie “Mary” Howes, and the family matriarch Florence Howes, widow of Edward Thomas “Tom” Howes, who at 94 is still maintaining the Howes tradition of agriculture in her garden on Farndon Road.