MELBOURN, CAMBS

MELBOURN, CAMBS.

Over the first half of the 19th century the population of Melbourn had doubled by 1851 to 1,931. However, after 1839 as a result of parish enclosures and the introduction of labour-saving agricultural equipment, many of the poorer labouring families left the village to find work in the industrial towns. By 1861 the village population had dropped to 1,637. The major occupation was agriculture but one of the many small businesses in the village was ran by a local man, Alfred Coningsby, whose family was to become quite important in the coming decades.

Alfred was the coal merchant with his son, Henry, as a coal dealer. Henry Coningsby was to become a well-known merchant in another commodity, coprolites. These phosphate-rich nodules were raised in from the base of the Cambridgeshire Greensand which ran across the south of the county. It was a fossil deposit that spread over 100 miles in length and seven miles in width. to provide manure factories with the raw material for making superphosphate. He became an agent for Odams Patent Blood Manure Company which must have led him to be well aware of the use of coprolites and by 1868 had won an agreement to raise them in Potton, an area he was to be involved with until the turn of the century.

Although there have been no records of ”coprolite diggings• in Melbourn parish in the 1860‘s, there must have been some locally as one source suggested that it was coprolite diggers that boosted the population to 1,756 in 1871. (V.C.H.,Cambs.p67) According to the 1871 census, there were 22 men involved in the diggings with Henry Coningsby, aged 40, living on Ranford Lane, describing himself as a ”Coprolite merchant.“ Whether he had agreements with local landowners to raise the coprolites from their fields was not recorded but it seems likely with more than twenty men involved. As a merchant he would also have arranged to purchase the washed fossils from any landowners or farmers who were using their own labourers to raise the deposit, rather than hire a gang from outside the parish.

Where they were raised at that time remains unknown but one of the local landowners, St. Peter's College, Cambridge, in an 1871 report about its income, admitted that it had three to four acres in the parish still worth digging. Unfortunately, no records have come to light to indicate they were actually dug before that. (CUL.Rep.Univ.Inc.1872)

Coningsby had an arrangement with one of the largest entrepreneurial families of the area, the Fordham‘s of Ashwell. Herbert Fordham had the coal rights between Peterborough and London and was involved in the coprolite business from its early years. He had gained sole digging rights over the several thousands of acres of Lord Hardwicke‘s Cambridgeshire estates and had allowed Coningsby to work part of them in Guilden Morden in 1873. He had extensive works there as three mills were reported in a valuation of his coprolite plant. (CCRO.296B485 p41-44)

Another local man, James Rawlings, was quite involved as in 1874 his executors arranged the sale of his “Moor End Works“. It included ”Fixed machinery, Implements, Engineers and Millwright‘s Stock, Coprolite Trucks and Barrows, 3 Spring Tumbrel Carts“. (Royston Crow, Nov.1874, p.879) Whether he had been a contractor or just supplied farmers or coprolite merchant with plant and machinery is unknown. Who bought the equipment is also unknown. Three years later, the Vulcan Iron Works, appeared to have been an unsuccessful venture as it too was put up for sale. (Royston Crow, November 1874, p.879; February 16th 1877)

Coningsby expanded into Ashwell in the mid-1870s to work Edward K. Fordham‘s land. He continued there until the early 1880s. (CCRO. 296B945.6) Such was the business during this time that he regularly advertised his services in Kelly's Post Office Directory throughout that decade and into the 1890s. (Kelly‘s Directory, 1875, 1879, 1883, 1888)

In 1880 he actually appeared in court for refusing to pay a fifteen guineas rate on the coprolite field in Ashwell he had been working for the previous five years. With the decline in business he had curtailed operations in 1879 and left his plant on the field. The parish authorities still included him in the rates though. He subsequently settled it out of court. A fortnight later the Royston Crow reported that he had one of labourers sentenced to three weeks hard labour for stealing a 52 lb. bag of engine coals from the steam engine that drove his wash mill. (St. John‘s College, Mun.423.4.27; Royston Crow, Jan.9th 1880 p4; 23^rd January 1880)

By 1881, after the heavy rains and poor harvests of the previous few years, there was the problem of the agricultural depression. It had brought severe economic distress for many farmers in the neighbourhood. Not only did it lead to many labourers being laid off but it also coincided with massive foreign imports of phosphates which lowered coprolite prices. As a result the work in the parish was significantly reduced. The census showed there were just over half the number employed in 1871 with twelve fossil diggers and a fossil washer. Coningsby was still living there, describing himself as a ”farmer of 15 acres and Coprolite Merchant employing about 100 hands“. Although it is quite possible he had arrangements with local farmers and landowners, there was only one piece of evidence there were still workings in the area.

At the beginning of January 1885 a 30 year old fossil digger from Melbourn, Joseph Barnard, was fined 15s., probably a week‘s wages, for being drunk and disorderly. (Royston Crow,23rd January 1885) In March 1886 Mr Coningsby, now chair of the Conservative Association, allowed his barn to be used for the Annual Gleaners Tea and Cottagers Show as well as a field in his grounds to be used for the Rural Sports. (Royston Crow 19^th March 1886)

There was no further mention until the 1890s by which time Coningsby had taken on Heath Farm on the Newmarket and Melbourn Roads from the Fordhams. As late as 1892 it appeared he was still raising coprolites as their accounts showed he had paid them £204 3s.6d. (CCRO.296B551,pp76-9; 296B559,p57-8) By this time the coprolite trade was in decline and it seemed he may well have been stretched with his involvement in the business. In April 1893 he was still asking for the prices of coprolites being raised in Stow Cum Quy hoping to make some profits to pay off his debts. (CCRO.Francis papers, Quy Fen,22ndApril, 1893)

“MELBOURN. Bankruptcy of a Melbourn Farmer. Henry Coningsby, farmer and Coprolite merchant of Melbourn, presented himself for further examination at the Cambridge Bankruptcy Court before Mr. Registrer Eaden on Wednesday. The debtor, in reply to Mr. Ginn, (his foreman at Potton, Beds. Ed.) who appeared for the trustee, said he had some interest in coprolite works at Potton. The plant was sold at a valuation of £86 and the money was paid in part discharge of a debt of £150 - with the sanction of the trustees.

In March he had given up Heath Farm to the mortgagees and £150 was paid to the landlord as part of £700 he had owed them for two and a half years back rent. They took possession of all the cropping and tillages, the farm stock was auctioned but there was a suggestion he had had coprolite works at Whaddon which had already finished otherwise they would have been auctioned as well. In court he gave interesting details of his coprolite business which showed that before this time it must have been an exceptionally profitable venture. Mr. William Lee, a creditor, asked:-

“Did you not say as late as April - or rather by letter from a lawyer, that you would pay everyone 18s. in the under Mr Spencer‘s will? I believe I did, but when you made a bankrupt of me, and the landlord took all the tillages and everything, I could not. So you had £5,000 when you began business, and you realised between £3,000 and £4,000 in three years in coprolite works, where has the money gone to, that we are to have none? I don‘t think I said that. You must bear in mind when the property was sold it did not realise one tenth of what it was worth. Official receiver read the debtor‘s answer on income or profits for the last few years - ”I have not balanced my books and can only give you a rough guess that my gross turnover was from £4,000 to £5,000.“ Debtor:- No, I said that is what I was worth, I think you will find on the return made that I showed £1,800 profit.“

(Ibid)

It appeared that he had already disposed of some of his property before the auction and had shifted the bulk of his work over into Buckinghamshire where he was still working at the turn of the century. (See author's account of Stanbridge.) By that time in Melbourn the village had experienced a further significant out-migration. The population had declined to 1,462 in 1900.