In the year 1875 Sir William Heathcote succeeded in bringing about an arrangement by which Otterbourne could be separated from Hursley and have a Vicar of its own, the difference of income being made up to the Vicar of Hursley. This was done by the aid of a munificent lady, Mrs. Gibbs, the widow of one of the great merchant princes, whose wealth was always treated as a trust from God. She became the patron of the living, and the advowson remains in her family.
The first Vicar was the Reverend Walter Francis Elgie, who had already been six years curate, and had won the love and honour of all p. 41his flock. Deeply did they all mourn him when it was God’s will to take him from them on the 25th of February, 1881, in the 43rd year of his age, after ten years of zealous work.
It was felt as remarkable that a young pupil teacher in consumption, whom he had sent to the Home at Bournemouth, was taken on the same day, and buried here the day after, and that the schoolmaster, Walter Fisher, a man of gentle and saintly nature, followed him six weeks after.
We left them in the Church’s shade,
Our standard-bearer true,
And near at hand the gentle maid
Who well his guidance knew.
He fainted in the noon of life,
Nor knew his victory won;
She was fresh girded for the strife,
Her battle scarce begun.
Long had we known Death’s angel hand
The maiden’s brow had seal’d;
He fell, like chief of warrior band,
Struck down on battle- field.
So in God’s acre here they meet
As they have met above,
Tasting beneath their Saviour’s feet
The treasures of His love.
For what they learnt and taught of here
Is present with them there;
May we speed on in faith and fear,
Then heavenly rest to share.
With the coming of our present Vicar, the Rev. H. W. Brock, our Otterbourne story ends, as the times are no longer
p. 43Old Remembrances.
I remember, I remember,
Old times at Otterbourne,
Before the building of the Church,
And when smock frocks were worn!
I remember, I remember,
When railroads there were none,
When by stage coach at early dawn
The journey was begun.
And through the turnpike roads till eve
Trotted the horses four,
With inside passengers and out
They carried near a score.
“Red Rover” and the “Telegraph,”
We knew them all by name,
And Mason’s and the Oxford coach,
Full thirty of them came.
The coachman wore his many capes,
The guard his bugle blew;
The horses were a gallant sight,
Dashing upon our view.
I remember, I remember,
The posting days of old;
The yellow chariot lined with blue
And lace of colour gold.
The post-boys’ jackets blue or buff,
The inns upon the road;
The hills up which we used to walk
To lighten thus the load.
p. 44The rattling up before the inn,
The horses led away,
The post-boy as he touched his hat
And came to ask his pay.
The perch aloft upon the box,
Delightful for the view;
The turnpike gates whose keepers stood
Demanding each his due.
I remember, I remember,
When ships were beauteous things,
The floating castles of the deep
Borne upon snow-white wings;
Ere iron-clads and turret ships,
Ugly as evil dream,
Became the hideous progeny
Of iron and of steam.
You crossed the Itchen ferry
All in an open boat,
Now, on a panting hissing bridge
You scarcely seem afloat.
Southampton docks were sheets of mud,
Grim colliers at the quay.
No tramway, and no slender pier
To stretch into the sea.
I remember, I remember,
Long years ere Rowland Hill,
When letters covered quarto sheets
Writ with a grey goose quill;
Both hard to fold and hard to read,
Crossed to the scarlet seal;
Hardest of all to pay for ere
Their news they might reveal.
No stamp with royal head was there,
But eightpence was the sum
For every letter, all alike,
That did from London come!
I remember, I remember,
The mowing of the hay;
Scythes sweeping through the heavy grass
At breaking of the day.
p. 45The haymakers in merry ranks
Tossing the swaths so sweet,
The haycocks tanning olive-brown
In glowing summer heat.
The reapers ’mid the ruddy wheat,
The thumping of the flail,
The winnowing within the barn
By whirling round a sail.
