Vicar denied brolly attack

The alleged assault occurred when tempers flared at Wolvercote during a tour of Oxford’s boundaries led by the mayor, Frederick Anson, in 1892.

But it appears that the priest, the Rev Anthony Bathe, was doing no more than using his brolly to protect himself.

As we recalled (Memory Lane, April 8), villagers and civic party members clashed over whether the boundary line ran along the Wolvercote or Port Meadow sides of a ditch.

Our sister paper, The Oxford Times, described how a struggle broke out as villagers tried to stop the mayor and his entourage entering what they claimed was Wolvercote territory.

The paper reported that a “strange clerical gentleman accompanying the vicar became considerably excited and, it is said, struck with his umbrella a young man employed in the city engineer’s office and wearing the Corporation uniform.

“The latter immediately returned the blow by effectually bonneting the reverend gentleman, whose tall silk hat was thereby doubled up and presented the appearance of a dilapidated concertina.

“He was seized by one of the city police and thrown down, and it is rumoured that a summons for assault will be the result.”

However, historian Ann Spokes Symonds tells me that Mr Bathe, a former curate, who was visiting the vicar, the Rev F W Langton, at the time and accompanied him to the scene of the confrontation, was very annoyed at accusations that he used his umbrella as a weapon.

“There was some armed combat between the two sides, with stones and earth flying about. Mr Bathe put up his umbrella to protect his silk hat.”

As we reported, the boundary stone was moved several times as the argument over the boundary raged.

Mrs Spokes Symonds, of Davenant Road, Oxford, writes: “The villagers wanted their ditch back because they had had sheep-washing rights there for hundreds of years.

“There was, however, one consolation when the boundary was moved because they no longer had to keep the ditch clean.”