Boxing Day customs: Boxing Day gift custom was a nuisance

(Redirected from Boxing Day gift custom was a nuisance)

Boxing Day derives its name from the custom of giving Christmas boxes to tradesmen and tenants on the day after Christmas. But, by the 19th century, all and sundry had come to expect a gift and the custom, in some quarters, had become “a great nuisance” – as Maxwell Craven recounts.

Glory to God: The Christmas interior of the church of St Mary the Virgin, one of the most beautiful in the country

Freeloaders? The church of St Mary the Virgin at Drayton Beauchamp, where ‘Stephening’ – the custom of feeding all the parishioners on St Stephen’s Day – flourished until 1827

THE church of St Mary the Virgin, Drayton Beau-champ in Buckinghamshire, is probably the most beautiful in the county and one of the most attractive anywhere.

Not only was it once the focus of an extraordinary old Boxing Day custom, it also has numerous strong Derbyshire links.

Now, most of us know that Boxing Day was once the time when people gave their local tradesmen and tenants presents on the day following Christmas Day, usually of money – their “Christmas Boxes”.

It would appear that by the middle of the 19th century, that this custom had become irksome, with “boxes” being actively solicited by almost anyone who had the slightest claim on the good nature of others.

For instance, in 1864, Thomas Chambers wrote: “The custom of bestowing certain expected gratuities at the Christmas season was formerly and even yet continues to be a great nuisance…This most objectionable usage is now greatly diminished but certainly cannot yet be said to have become extinct.

“Christmas boxes are still regularly expected by the postman, the lamplighter, the dustman and generally by all those functionaries who render services to the public at large…” Bah, Humbug!

Now at Drayton Beau-champ there was once a custom called “Stephening”, named after St Stephen’s Day.

In former times, all the parishioners used to go to the rectory on St Stephen’s Day and there consume as much bread and cheese and drink as they chose, at the expense of the rector himself.

Indeed, the church still has three pewter plates and a lidded flagon which are thought to be connected with this custom.

However, the Charity Commission, on looking into the custom, were completely unable to discover its origin or establish any legal obligation on the part of the hapless incumbent to continue it.

So, in 1827, “Stephening” at Drayton Beauchamp was terminated, much to the disgruntlement of the parishioners and relief of the parson.

The church’s beauty lies in it being totally rebuilt in the 15th century, although the Norman font survives, along with an early English chancel arch.

The east window is glorious, consisting of five tall lancets, each filled with original stained glass depicting two saints, making a total of 10 in all, each ensigned with a portion of the Apostles’ Creed in Latin. These, too, are 15th century, as is most of the west window and some other surviving glass. A rare survival.

Inside, the marble monument to the last Lord Newhaven and his lady, by William Woodman the elder, is a fine baroque sculpture.

Among the Cheyne, Harpur, and Jenney rectors on a list fixed to the south aisle is the name of the notable Elizabethan ecclesiastical lawyer, Richard Hooker, given the living in 1584 and promoted later to Mastership of the Temple.

The connections of the parish with Derbyshire are numerous and surprisingly strong. William de Beauchamp, after whom the manor and parish takes its name, was called William de Mandeville until 1221 when his grandmother’s brother, Roger de Beauchamp died.

He then inherited his estates in Eaton Socon, Bedfordshire, Drayton and those at Chellaston, Normanton-by-Derby and part of Melbourne.

This combination of Derbyshire and South Midlands land continued for only a generation or two, when everything passed through an heiress to Lord Botetourt.

They were later broken up by sale and grant, although Botetourt himself was lord of the manor of Bakewell – the second Derbyshire connection.

After almost 400 years with the Cheyne family, the patronage of the church and the estate passed to the Dukes of Rutland, our third local connection, for they were then and are still, lords of Haddon.

From the 2nd Duke, Drayton passed to a younger son, General Lord Robert Manners, and from him to his daughter who bequeathed it all to her god-daughter and distant cousin, Caroline Frances, wife of William Jenney.

Now both the Jenneys and the Manners were already closely related to the Harpurs of Calke, our final Derbyshire connection. In fact, one of the Harpurs, Henry, was vicar from the 1850s until his death in 1883 – narrowly escaping a yearly dose of “Stephening”!

The Jenneys built themselves a house in the parish called Drayton Lodge, which was rebuilt in 1837 and was eventually joined to the Harpurs’ estates on the death of Mrs Godfrey Mosley of Calke.

Later the huge Derbyshire holdings passed to her sister, Mrs Jenney, and thus down to the heir of the late Airmyne Harpur-Crewe (1919-1999), formerly Jenney.

Thus the link between the surviving local estates of the Harpur-Crewes and Drayton Beauchamp still endures, though happily the ancient and unexplained habit of “Stephening” which previously dominated the incumbent’s life on this day, does not!

Pages linking here