You don't know you're born.

Mrs. Fanny West was 95 years old when she died in 1910, before her death she was a fine old lady with a retentive memory and a cheery smile and very active and nimble for her age. She had been "the oldest guest" at the gathering held in Shodfriars Hall on January 1st. 1909 in celebration of the Old Age Pensions Act, when about 400 of the residents of Boston, who had passed the age of three score years and ten, were entertained at a tea and concert promoted by the Boston Liberal Association.

Mrs. West was born in June 1816, and in an interview two years before her death stated that she remembered the last election when voting took place in the Parish Church. Excitement was so intense that the electors tore off the green baise coverings from the pews in the church to make banners and flags.

She remembered she was cleaning the doorstep when the horsemen riding past announced the death of King William IV, and was present at the feast provided in a booth in Pump Square to celebrate the coronation of Queen Victoria.

Mrs. West had been a widow for fifty four years and when her husband died she was left with four children under seven years of age, the youngest being ten months, and no parish relief. The oldest boy, 9 years old, worked seven days a week for sixpence a day. The next, a mere boy of 8 years, worked for fourpence a day, Sundays included. Tea was a rare delicacy in those days, and more often was made by pouring boiling water over toasted bread and calling it tea because it looked brown. The eldest girl went out to service at 12 years of age for £1 per year, and Mrs. West toiled for the little ones, washing at one shilling a day, taking in sewing and gleaning in the harvest time corn getting enough to keep a pig in a stye. The humble pig in the olden days seems often to have been the saviour of the family.

Pump Square

Along with the new buildings in Pump Square there are some very nice looking old buildings but it is what you can't see that is much more interesting.

The history of Pump Square is veiled in mystery, it is not mentioned by that name before 1600 but it was a place of importance long before that date. An old tradition says that a prison once stood there and that in this prison there were two dungeons below the ground level, one three steps lower than the other. It is said that in the floor of the lower dungeon a spring of water flowed continuously and the most difficult prisoners were confined in this cell where they had to pump up water for the inhabitants of the town, the punishment being that if the prisoner ceased from his work his cell would flood and he would be more uncomfortable. The two cells are in existence, they are arched and have groined roofs and were opened out for examination many years ago.

There are other reasons that seem to prove that Pump Square was a centre of some importance in the early years of Boston's history. Just as all the roads and lanes entering the town open into the Market Place, so all the narrow lanes east of the Market Place (Still Lane, Dolphin Lane etc.) lead into Pump Square along with the narrow lanes of Bargate (Mitre Lane, Silver Street) and Main Ridge.

The Hiring Fair

The annual hirings of farm and domestic servants took place at what was known as the "Fortnight Market" (more commonly known as the Hiring Fair) on the Wednesday following the 14th. of May. The men's hirings took place in Pump Square and the men wore corn dollies plaited in different ways to distinguish their various crafts, thus enabling the hiring farmers to identify the particular type of worker they were seeking. Living accommodation and food would be included in the agreement and after haggling over the conditions and when agreement was reached, the worker would shake hands and be paid one shilling to seal the bargain.
The women's hiring took place at Shodfriars' Hall, the women wearing an arrangement of white ribbons on their dresses to denote their skills, and young girls were accompanied by their mothers so that their respectability might be judged.

Shodfriars Hall.

The living accommodation for all workers was often extremely primitive, the men often living in the lofts over the stables and feeding in the kitchen of the farm foreman, feeding almost exclusively on a diet of boiled fat bacon, potatoes and bread and boiled puddings. The women might fare a little better as to food, as there would be leftovers from the upstairs table, but the sleeping accommodation was very meagre, in a cold garret room with a candle. Working conditions were very hard, with coal fires and oil lamps, often the coal had to be carried in from outside stores and up stairs. It was always a case of early rising as the rooms occupied by the household had to be cleaned and fires lit before the house came down for breakfast. There would be only a small supply of hot water from the kitchen range, and common yellow soap and stiff scrubbing brushes would be in common use in the days long before electric machines and modern utensils came into use.
These practices of annual hirings ceased with the end of the 1914-1918 war, so a phase of what some called the 'good old days' was over. It should be remembered that years ago families were much larger and the houses generally smaller than today, and there was very often not enough accommodation for the youngsters to live at home, the only alternative was to go out to Service. In general, all young men and women would be given a written character as to their general behaviour and work ability for them to show to prospective employers. A very large number of these young people would only stay at one employment for one year and then be hired again at the next Fortnight Market.

J G Horton.

Herbert Ingram

Standing on a stone plinth high above Boston Market Place is a statue of Herbert Ingram.

He was born in 1811, the son of a local butcher who died when Herbert was still an infant. He and his sister were brought up by their mother in some poverty, but he received a rudimentary education at Laughton's Charity School which in Herbert's day operated in the south-west chapel of St Botolph's, he then moved on to the much larger National School in Pump Square.
He was apprenticed to Joseph Clarke, a tradesman with premises in the Market Place. Clarke was primarily a printer, but supplemented his income with a handy side-line as a chemist and druggist, making up his own prescriptions. Herbert was acutely ambitious, and set out to learn every aspect of the printing trade.
Realising his chance of making his fortune in Boston was slim he set off for London. At the age of twenty-one he found work as a machine printer, and dedicated himself to working harder than anyone else in the trade.
He became friendly with Nathaniel Cooke, a well-educated lad from a good family, who later married his sister. Nathaniel had the literary ability which Herbert lacked - he never did master how to construct a grammatical sentence - but the two young men made a good team. Herbert had the drive and he was a born entrepreneur.

Their combined savings were enough to start a provincial business in Nottingham, where they set up as printers, newsagents and stationers. Remembering Joseph Clarke's side-line back in Boston, Herbert also devoted a corner of the shop to an agency for pills.
The partners were fortunate to come across a descendant of Thomas Parr, who had lived to the incredible age of 152. Old Thomas claimed that the secret of his longevity was a vegetable pill supplied from the recipe of Dr Snaith, back in Boston. Somehow Herbert Ingram managed to purchase the recipe, and the sale of Parr's Life Pills soon became a real bonus.
How many of the two partners' clients lived to a ripe old age history conveniently does not record, but with profits from the pills they were able to move back to London and set up a printing business in the heart of the city. Herbert Ingram's next venture was to take up an idea from a member of his staff called Marriott, and to found an illustrated weekly newspaper.
Ingram held a sincere belief that an understanding of topical news should not be the prerogative of the well-educated and the wealthy. If pictures could supplement the text, he argued, it would not be necessary to be literate in order to know what was going on in the world. So he ignored those who dismissed the idea as preposterous or a mere gimmick, and founded the 'Illustrated London News' in 1842, selling for sixpence a copy. He thus became a newspaper proprietor at the age of thirty-one, and it was certainly the first paper of its kind.

The 'Illustrated London News' was an instant success. This was partly due to Joseph Clayton the publisher, who already published 'The Spectator' which was the best-selling weekly in the business. But it was also because of the proprietor's drive, tenacity and indeed ruthlessness. Circulation soon reached 66,000 copies weekly, and the issue that featured the funeral of the Duke of Wellington in 1852 sold 250,000 copies. Three years later, for the Christmas 1855 edition, coloured prints were used for the first time.
Herbert Ingram's ruthlessness showed itself in the way he used the skills of clever people without ever giving them the credit that they deserved. To those whom he saw as being of no threat to his prestige he would be kind, generous and encouraging, and he certainly was an excellent man of business. But he could be intolerable to his closest and most talented colleagues, especially when he was drinking heavily.
By now, Herbert Ingram had married Ann, only daughter of a prosperous farmer from Eye, near Peterborough. In due course the couple had ten children, the first being stillborn. Of the surviving nine, four were sons and five daughters.
Despite his shortcomings, Ingram did a great deal for the town of Boston, for which he retained a deep affection all his life. In 1853 he bought the patronage of the vicarage for £1,050, and he was instrumental in the major restoration of St Botolph's Church (The Stump) in the same year. It was here that he first learnt his alphabet and the rudiments of addition, and now he played his part in restoring it to the glory of its past. In particular he paid for the staining of the glass in the glorious east window.
Ingram then turned his attention to what had been a longstanding bone of contention with Boston residents - the scarcity of drinking water. In 1815 water had cost a penny a bucket from water carts, and the only public pump was in Pump Square. This was served by two underground cellars, which acted as a primitive reservoir. Otherwise, people used to catch the rain as it landed on their roofs or trickled into their gutters.
Ingram formed the Boston Water Works which built a reservoir twelve miles north of the town at Miningsby, where there is a flat tableland behind Revesby Park. This is 170 feet above the pavement height in Boston, so water was able to run freely through twelve-inch diameter iron pipes. This proved a great boon to the town.
Railways were all the rage in the mid-nineteenth century, and Ingram was determined that the town and its port should be connected to the national network. The Boston, Sleaford and Grantham branch line was constructed in 1853, and a loop line heading northwards linked with the Great Northern Railway main line.
Perhaps it was from the nearby railway line that he first spotted the derelict house that he determined to restore and convert into a local home for Ann and their growing family. Swineshead Abbey had originally been built by Sir John Lockton in 1607, on the site of an old Cistercian abbey.
By 1855, when Herbert Ingram bought it, the house had deteriorated badly. He spent a lot of money on a thorough restoration of this handsome building. Ingram also acquired about 2,000 acres of farmland around Boston.
As a benefactor to the town and a wealthy landowner, it was no surprise when Ingram decided to stand for parliament in 1856 as a Liberal. It was a by-election and he won comfortably, securing 521 votes against 296 cast for his opponent, William Henry Adams. Ingram was assisted in his campaign by Mark Lemon, the editor of 'Punch', who had lived in Boston as a teenager. Herbert Ingram was re-elected the following year, and in 1859.
This triumph was the final accolade of his transformation from the urchin who stood in the gutter and watched the carriages of the wealthy roll by, thirty-five years earlier. Before and during his parliamentary career he received very generous coverage both in text and pictures from the 'Illustrated London News'.
But no amount of ambition can overcome the cruel hand of fate. In 1860 he took his eldest son, also called Herbert, on a trip to the New World to obtain illustrations for an 'Illustrated London News' feature. As they were travelling across Lake Michigan their ship collided with another, and a large number of people were drowned in the tragedy. Ingram's body was recovered and brought home for burial, but sadly that of his fifteen-year-old son was never found.
Boston mourned its famous figure with dutiful dismay. Two years after his death, the monument to Herbert Ingram in Market Place was unveiled (picture below) and there he is to this day, left hand clutching a weighty tome of 'Illustrated London News'.
By the pedestal a girl is carved, pouring water from an urn, signifying what Boston feels was his greatest achievement - a plentiful supply of pure water for his home town. It is a paradox that water was ultimately to cause his death all those miles from home, when he was not yet fifty years of age.

Human remains

In April 1900 human remains were found in a sack in Boston and were about to be sent away for disposal before they were discovered.
The scene of their discovery was the Railway Goods Yard where they had been sent to be forwarded on in the ordinary course of business by a rag and bone man. A railway employee, who knew something about the human skeleton, noticed a bone protruding from the sack and realised it was the forearm and hand of a girl!! He told James Carr, a carter who was unloading in the yard and Carr took possession of the bone and hurried up to the Police Station

The Railway Goods Yard at Boston.

The police were soon upon the scene, with them came the Medical Officer and the Sanitary Inspector and others officially concerned (as at this time it looked very serious) but after a while it was proved there had not been any murder or tragedy.
Enquiries showed they were broken up skeletons from the sale of the late Dr. Snaith in Pump Square and their recovery at least rescued them from a fate that would seem incredible to us today.
There were several skulls - the number was variously given as three and five - and the bones of an adult’s and a young female’s skeletons. They were all contained in the sack, and their destination, along with a truck load of animal bones, was a factory at Newark that crushed bones and turned them into manure!!
It seems the skulls and skeletons were “cleared out” at Dr. Snaith’s sale as a job lot, they were taken to a rag and bone yard by a man named Blades and received in the normal way without too much attention being paid to them. Their man was loading iron when the bones were brought in and were passed as ordinary commercial animal bones.
The human fragments were eventually decently interred under the directions of the Medical Officer.