German Troops Enter the Rhineland March 1936
On 7 March Adolf Hitler sent German troops into the Rhineland, the part of western Germany where the peace treaties had restricted military activity. France and Belgium regarded those restrictions as protection for their borders. Britain also had obligations under the Locarno agreements, which had been intended to strengthen European security after the First World War.
Anthony Eden, the foreign secretary, reported the occupation to the Commons on 9 March. Britain consulted the other governments involved and took the question to the League of Nations, the international organisation established to help settle disputes between countries. The crisis raised an urgent question about enforcing agreements when a government broke them. British newspapers followed the negotiations while ministers debated the country’s defences.
Loxwood’s war memorial inside St John the Baptist named local men killed in the earlier conflict. Their families and the village’s ex-servicemen approached reports of European tension with personal memories of military service and bereavement. Bishop Bell added a particular Sussex connection: his work with German Christians opposing Nazi interference in their churches, and his help for people escaping persecution, brought events in Germany into his responsibilities at Chichester.
Rural Payments and the Milk Trade April 1936
On 8 April Earl Winterton, MP for Horsham, pressed ministers over the payment of agricultural unemployment benefit. His connections with the district included Shillinglee and local village organisations. He wanted workable arrangements allowing rural claimants to obtain money close to home, including through Post Offices where appropriate. A long journey could consume time and money for someone already facing the loss of a wage.
The Post Office, telephone and motor bus supplied different ways of reaching beyond a village. Loxwood’s automatic telephone exchange had opened in 1933, allowing subscribers to dial local calls. Fred Henry Kilner had acquired the Sunbeam bus service that year and established the business in a former coal yard on Guildford Road. His route linked Plaistow, Ifold, Loxwood, Alfold, Tismans Common and Bucks Green with Horsham. Mary Kilner held a public-service-vehicle driving licence and drove when required. By 1935 the service was issuing more than 39,000 tickets a year, carrying people towards shops, work and onward journeys.
The same roads carried farm produce. At Kirdford Creamery, A. E. Mitchell managed a depot handling about 2,000 gallons of milk a day by the middle of the decade. Collection lorries brought churns from routes extending towards Loxwood, Rudgwick, Petworth and Billingshurst. Workers recorded and tested each farm’s supply before combining the milk. At about half-past two in the afternoon, a tanker left for United Dairies’ depot at Streatham in South London. The morning’s work in scattered Wealden cowsheds thus fed a carefully timed collection and delivery system.
Brewhurst Mill provided another service to the farming district. Walter Roper was associated with the Brewhurst Milling Company during these years, and the oil engine installed in 1928 helped drive the machinery when river conditions varied. Grain, milk and passengers each required vehicles and businesses suited to their particular journeys.
Schools and Tithes May and June 1936
On 13 May the Commons debated the Tithe Bill, a measure addressing an obligation attached to farmland over many generations. Tithes had originally been a share of agricultural produce paid to support the church or another holder of the right. During the nineteenth century, most had been converted into a money charge on land. By the 1930s these payments formed part of a landholder’s yearly expenses, alongside wages, rent and the cost of farming. Ministers proposed ending the existing tithe rentcharges and compensating those entitled to receive them. Church bodies depended on some of that income, so Parliament had to settle both the liability of the land and the rights of the recipient.
On 27 May MPs discussed a Bill raising the school-leaving age to fifteen, with the change scheduled for September 1939. The proposals allowed exemptions for approved employment and certain other circumstances. An authority considering “beneficial employment” would have to judge the job offered and the conditions in which a child would work. Parents, employers and teachers faced decisions about an additional year at school and the age at which a young person could begin earning.
In Loxwood, those questions concerned children attending the schoolhouse on Vicarage Hill, opened in 1878 and extended in 1912. The Wisborough Green School Board had provided the building. Nearby Plaistow’s school had developed with support from John Napper of Ifold. On 30 June the Lords examined the Education Bill’s arrangements for schools founded by religious bodies, including building grants and religious instruction. Implementing a higher leaving age would require education authorities to plan classrooms, staffing and places for older pupils.
Rearmament New Laws and a Cathedral July 1936
On 15 July Baldwin defended the government’s rearmament programme in the Commons. Orders for aircraft, ships and other military equipment committed the country to greater defence spending. He presented stronger armed forces as a contribution to preserving peace, while MPs questioned the scale and purpose of the programme. Reports of the Rhineland occupation had already given the argument an immediate European setting.
During July a military uprising in Spain began the Spanish Civil War. Fighting between the Republic and its opponents soon drew attention from other governments and political movements. Britain pursued non-intervention, seeking to contain the conflict and restrict outside assistance to the combatants. Newspaper readers now followed a further European war alongside arguments about Britain’s own military preparations.
Closer to Alfold, a large church-building project reached a ceremonial milestone. On 22 July Cosmo Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, laid the foundation stone of Guildford Cathedral on Stag Hill. Edward Maufe had designed the building for the young diocese. Alfold parishioners belonged to that diocese, giving the neighbouring Surrey village a direct connection with the cathedral project and the work being undertaken above Guildford.
On 31 July the Tithe Bill received royal assent, the sovereign’s formal approval completing its passage into law. The Act provided for the extinction of the old rentcharges, compensation and replacement payments lasting for a defined period. Land subject to the scheme would acquire a new form of financial obligation, and recipients of tithe income would enter the compensation arrangements.
The Public Health Act received assent on the same day. It brought together laws dealing with water supplies, drains, sewers, refuse and infectious disease. These subjects concerned the daily management of rural homes and businesses: protecting a well, disposing of waste and obtaining clean water for a dairy. Local authorities gained a consolidated statute through which to exercise their duties and powers. Loxwood’s later introduction of mains services would belong to George VI’s reign.
Ifold Pulborough and the Loxwood Altar Stone in 1936
During the year, Ifold House was demolished as its former estate developed into a settlement of separate plots. Sales had begun in 1931 on an estate of more than 315 acres, with plots ranging from about one-third of an acre to five acres. Early buyers built basic dwellings, often used for weekends or holidays. Each owner needed to arrange water, lighting and sanitation. The estate’s old routes helped shape access to the new properties, while the wooded surroundings attracted people seeking a retreat from town life.
The new households could turn towards Loxwood or Plaistow for shops, church and transport. Plaistow offered an established village centre, Holy Trinity Church and the Winterton Hall, provided in 1908. At Loxwood, the Combination Stores beside the pond supplied groceries, clothing and household goods. The premises had grown from the religious community founded by John Sirgood; Henry Aylward and Ethel Smith had established Aylward, Smith & Co during the 1890s. Deliveries extended the shops’ reach into the surrounding countryside.
Pulborough gained a new road bridge across the Arun in 1936, beside the eighteenth-century crossing. The removal of shops at Swan Corner the previous year had made room for widening. The new crossing served a district increasingly dependent on motor transport.
Around Kirdford, apple growers sent fruit to the shared packhouse at Pound Common for grading and packing. Hugh Kenyon, a fruit farmer who had come to the parish in the late 1920s, was among the founders of the growers’ association. Kirdford Growers Limited, formed in 1934, connected individual orchards with a common marketing business and buyers farther afield.
Loxwood’s local history also dates the rediscovery of its old altar stone to 1936. A new vicar found it beneath bushes in the vicarage garden at Wisborough Green, where it had been used as a seat. Henry Frederick Napper’s account, published in 1883, described the stone’s removal from Loxwood chapel during the Reformation and its concealment in the priest’s house, now Church Cottage. It had subsequently been taken to Wisborough Green. The sandstone slab measured six feet three inches by two feet six inches and was a foot thick. Its recovery brought an object from Loxwood’s medieval worship back to public attention; arrangements for its renewed use would follow under George VI.
A Royal Portrait and Public Protest September and October 1936
September brought Edward’s portrait to the Post Office counter as the first stamps of his reign went on sale. Four values were issued during the year. A letter posted from Loxwood could now carry the new king’s image to a relative, customer or supplier. At the Royal Mint, Humphrey Paget worked on a portrait for the coinage, with production intended for January 1937. The design programme would be overtaken by the royal crisis before those coins entered ordinary circulation.
On 4 October Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists attempted to march through London’s East End. Opponents blocked the route around Cable Street, and demonstrators clashed with police. Jewish residents, trade unionists and other participants opposed a movement whose campaigning included antisemitism. Ministers subsequently prepared legislation restricting political uniforms and giving authorities further powers over processions.
The following day, unemployed men from Jarrow began their march to London with a petition seeking action over the loss of the town’s major employment. Their journey drew public attention to the hardship caused by industrial unemployment. Rural workers had entered the insurance debates earlier in the year; the marchers brought the closure of large urban workplaces before the same national government.
Meanwhile, Edward’s wish to marry Wallis Simpson was becoming urgent. She was married to Ernest Simpson, and foreign newspapers had already reported her relationship with the king. Baldwin met Edward at Fort Belvedere, near Sunningdale, on 20 October to discuss the difficulties. On 27 October Wallis obtained a decree nisi at Ipswich, a provisional divorce order requiring a further legal stage before the marriage was finally dissolved. Her first marriage had also ended in divorce.
The Church of England’s teaching treated marriage as a lifelong union and opposed remarriage after divorce while a former spouse was living. Edward’s position as Supreme Governor, the monarch’s formal role in the Church of England, made his proposed marriage a public religious question. Ministers also had to consider the standing of a future queen and the support of Parliament and the governments sharing the Crown.
Broadcasting and the Royal Marriage November 1936
On 2 November the BBC opened its regular television service from Alexandra Palace. Expensive receivers and the limited reach of the transmissions concentrated its first audience around London. Across the Western Weald, sound broadcasting offered a much more accessible means of following national events. A battery-powered wireless could bring speeches and news into a house whose lighting and water supply depended on older arrangements.
The following day Edward opened Parliament and read the government’s programme. It promised measures concerning defence, public order, factories, livestock, housing and major roads. Farmers supplying milk and fruit, parents considering their children’s employment and businesses using road transport had practical interests in those proposals. The speech also anticipated the king’s coronation in May 1937.
On 16 November Edward told Baldwin that he intended to marry Wallis and was prepared to leave the throne. Ministers considered a proposed morganatic marriage: Edward would keep his position as king while Wallis would have a lesser title, with special arrangements governing the succession. Establishing that position required legislation. Baldwin consulted the governments of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Irish Free State, whose constitutional status had been recognised by the Statute of Westminster in 1931. These countries had their own governments and also recognised Edward as their sovereign.
Edward also visited South Wales on 18 and 19 November, bringing him among communities affected by prolonged unemployment. Ernest Brown and Sir Kingsley Wood, the ministers of labour and health, accompanied him at Pentrebach. At Abertillery he visited the Glebe Sports Ground, built over two years by unemployed local men. Photographs placed the king among people whose search for work formed part of the country’s political debate.
Abdication and the Accession of George VI December 1936
In early December British newspapers began reporting the crisis openly. Readers could follow the king’s intention to marry, the government’s objections and the possible outcomes. On 4 December Baldwin explained the constitutional position to the Commons: giving the king’s wife a status other than queen would require legislation. The government opposed the marriage and declined to introduce legislation for the proposed alternative. Edward considered his decision at Fort Belvedere while ministers awaited his answer.
On 10 December he signed the Instrument of Abdication. His brothers, the Dukes of York, Gloucester and Kent, witnessed the document. It declared his decision to renounce the throne for himself and his descendants and asked for immediate legal effect. Baldwin presented the king’s message to Parliament that afternoon.
The legal change came on 11 December, when Edward gave royal assent to His Majesty’s Declaration of Abdication Act. His reign ended, and Albert, Duke of York, became George VI. Albert’s wife Elizabeth became queen, and their elder daughter, Princess Elizabeth, became heir presumptive. Under the succession rules then in force, the birth of a son to the new king could have placed that child ahead of her.
That evening Edward spoke from Windsor Castle in a wireless broadcast explaining his decision. He described his wish to marry and expressed confidence in his brother. Listeners could hear the former king’s own voice within hours of the legal transfer of the Crown. George VI was proclaimed on 12 December, and the coronation planned for the following May would take place for the new king and queen.
In Loxwood, preparations were already leading towards another change. Residents wanted to separate their civil parish from Wisborough Green. The village had its own church parish, established in 1873; a civil parish concerned local representation, public property and specified community affairs. Loxwood’s clubs and recreation ground gave residents matters to place before the county authorities. A special committee of West Sussex County Council was due to hear the proposal in the Old Comrades’ Hut on 18 December, one week after George VI’s accession. As the new king began his duties, villagers were preparing to put their case for a parish of their own.
