The Plough Public House, Part 2

Continuing the Ploughs history and taking us through the First World War years was Arthur Jinks. Arthur’s time as landlord was to be one of tragedy, accusations and concern for his sons. Arthur Jinks was born in Newborough in 1867. He married Elizabeth Jackson at Newborough Church on 8th October 1888, they were both aged 21. Their family soon grew after their daughter Ethel was born in 1892, followed by Arthur Jnr (1894), Elizabeth (1896), Joseph (1898) Tyrrel (1900) and William (1904). Arthur Jnr, Joseph and Tyrrel all served in WW1. Prior to taking over the license for the Plough Inn Arthurs was listed as a “Butchers Pig Dealer.” Having sons away in the military must have been a considerable concern for Arthur and Elizabeth, especially as over the duration of the First World War so many Newborough young men died on active service.

Tragedy struck the family on 26th January 1921. Joseph Jinks who after leaving the army had been awarded a smallholding in the village. It must be mentioned that Joseph was 22 at the time. He had served in the army during WW1, as a driver with the Army Service Corp. He served for five years from 1915 to 1920. He lied about his age and enlisted at the age of 15 so that he could join his older brother Arthur. On the 26th January 1921 Joseph was ploughing land on his small holding. As was common at the time he was carrying a gun on the implement. Whilst he was ploughing the land the gun, resting on the plough, accidentally discharged and shot from the weapon entered his right elbow, causing him a serious wound. Fortunately his friend Thomas Walden, the local milkman, was close by and heard the gun discharge and also Joseph crying out for help. Thomas bandaged the wound as best he could and took Joseph to the hospital on his horse and cart, arriving at around 2pm. Surgeons operated and removed the shot from the wound and tied off the damaged arteries. The next day the wound showed signs of blood poisoning and surgeons were forced to amputate his arm just below the shoulder. Joseph remained in a serious condition and further deteriorated as gangrene set in. Joseph died at 4.30pm on Sunday 30th January 1931. At the inquest, which was held at the hospital on 31st January, the coroner; Mr W. B. Buckle returned a verdict of accidental death. He did add that it was a waste of a young life and that Joseph had been a credit to his country.

As was usual for public houses at the time, many organisations used the establishments as a base for operations or for convenience. In another episode which involved a death locally, the Plough was the venue for an inquest in 1916. A man from Walton had hung himself in a hovel close to the pub in March 1916. The poor soul had suffered depression and had taken his own life. The coroner returned a verdict of suicide whilst temporary insane.

One of the village organisations which used the Plough as its base was the Newborough Dividing Club, for which Arthur Jinks was the treasurer, a post he had held for 15 years. In April 1926 Arthur was summoned to trial accused of “Having received certain property to wit £94, for an account at the Newborough Dividing Club, he did fraudulently convert to his own use or benefit the sum of £67. 18s. 6d between January 1st and December 31st 1925.” Witness for the prosecution was the Dividing Club secretary Mr John William Smith, and engine driver from Newborough who had been the secretary for the past 15 years. He gave a description of the purpose of the Dividing club as; to receive contributions of 6d per week from each member. The proceeds were used as sick pay and benefit for the clubs members. The remaining balance of the funds was paid out to members at the end of the year, except for a balance of two shillings which was rolled over to the next year. Under questioning it was established that not every member paid into the fund weekly and some paid fortnightly. It was also established that some members did not frequent the pub on a regular basis and took the money to the pub out of hours. The money was then handed to Mr Jinks whose job it was to enter the amount into the cash book. If Mr Jinks was not at home the money was given to Mrs Jinks, for which she was authorised to collect on his behalf. The clubs books had been audited and found to be correct. What was not audited was the cash book used by Mr Jinks as it was not present. According to the prosecution there should have been a dividend of £67. 18s. 4d. The Dividend was to be shared between the club’s 72 members. It was admitted that the Plough Dividing Club had been run efficiently for the past 15 years whilst Mr Jinks had been treasurer. The issue of missing money arose during 1926 when the secretary, was absent from July onwards of the monthly committee meetings and did not sign off the cash book. The club was also criticised for its lack of process. Was Mrs Jinks authorised to accept the money on her husband’s behalf. Was the money paid to Mrs Jinks always passed to Mr Jinks or was there a mix up? There was no explanation as to why the cash book did not match the accounts and considering it went unchecked for so long, what were the guarantees that all the money had been paid in. These were just some of the irregularities that lead to the judge being unconvinced that a fraud had actually taken place. In his opinion the evidence is insufficient to send the case to the Crown Court and therefore dismissed the case.

What is also interesting regarding this case is the fact that a certain Mr R. Y. Norris from (Messrs Norris and Sons, solicitors) observed the case on behalf of the owner; Messrs Elgoods and Sons Ltd, owners of the Plough Inn. Why is this interesting? When I originally wrote to Elgoods and Sons for information regarding the Plough Inn, they responded stating that they had never owned the Plough Inn. In their defence the Plough Inn does not feature on any of the Elgoods historical web sites that I have visited. Yet they are represented in court as owners. To further add evidence that they did in fact own the land a court case later in 1926 where Elgoods went to court in order to evict Arthur Jinks from their property. This case also failed. However, there is evidence that Arthur did leave the pub in 1926 as the following notice appeared in the Peterborough Standard on Friday 7th May 1926. “An application from George Thomas Bell for the transfer to him of the licence of the Plough Beerhouse, Newborough from Arthur Jinks was granted. In the same paragraph, on the 5th May Elgoods again tried to evict Arthur Jinks from the Plough Inn. This was dismissed on the grounds that Thomas Elgood had instructed his solicitor verbally regarding the eviction rather than by written correspondence.

From this point the trail goes cold regarding the landlords at the Plough Inn. In the late Mrs Dunns account of the village history; John Rowell, who married Arthur Jink’s daughter Ethel, ran the pub for a while. It is not known at this stage whether George Bell was the landlord or just a means to get the licence back from Arthur Jinks. What is certain is that George Murden was the landlord in the early 1930’s. In 1932 the pub was put on the redundancy list, just as the Carpenters Arms and the Royal Oak were, unless the facilities were improved. They obviously were as in 1937 a report in the Peterborough Standard in October  1937 describes how George Murden’s son was convicted for dangerous driving when he was involved in an accident near St Ives in his lorry. His address was given as; The Plough Inn, Newborough. George Murden, who was one of the village blacksmiths retired in October 1943 and the licence transferred to Thomas Cranwell, who was to be the last landlord of the Plough.

Thomas was born on 17^th June 1896 in Ramsay. He was the second eldest child to Frederick and Rhoda Cranwell. Frederick originated from Saffron Walden. Rhoda originated from Whittlesey. They were married in Huntingdon in 1883. The 1911 census lists Frederick as a Farm Horse Keeper at Willow Hall, near Thorney. It is certain that Thomas served in World War 1. Although there are no surviving records he did tell me before he died that he was a Lewis Gunner. It is not known what Thomas did before coming to Newborough. However, what we do know for certain is that he married Elsie Wilson, in Peterborough in late 1929. Tragically Elsie died suddenly on June 15^th 1955. A year later Thomas published the following tribute to her in the Peterborough Advertiser;

Elsie is buried in Newborough Churchyard.

Tom continued to run the pub on his own until 1976. Elgoods made the decision to close to pub. Tom was in his 80^th year. In the process of closing the Plough, a proviso was made that Tom could live there for the rest of his natural life. Elgoods, who still maintained that the plough was not one of their pubs, made an application to Peterborough City Council in 1979 to develop the land. However, before this could go through the land was sold to Neville Sanders. Neville also made the condition that Tom could live in the old pub for the rest of his life. However, the ravages of time were taking their toll on the pub building which lead to Tom moving out of the pub and into a caravan on site. To his credit, and considering the primitive living conditions, Tom was always well groomed and dressed. As time moved on the caravan became uninhabitable and infested with mice. Some of the neighbours made a couple of the rooms inside the old pub building inhabitable again and made the fireplace serviceable again. The caravan was dismantled for scrap. Some neighbours would ensure Tom had a regular hot meal. Tom died in 1986 just short of his 90^th birthday. He is also buried in Newborough Churchyard. Not long after his death the old pub building was demolished and the bricks re-used elsewhere. In 1987 Neville Sanders sold the land to Jelsons, who built the Plough Lane development.

Whilst talking to many of Newborough’s older residents, it was clear that they all have fond memories of the pub when it was open. From the friendly atmosphere to Tom’s character, no-one had a bad word to say about it. One comment which did make me laugh, from someone who shall remain nameless; “He spent so much money in there he could have bought the place”