Buckden - a Huntingdonshire Village

53 born in Thurleigh, Bedfordshire. Census returns and trade directories reveal that he lived and worked in several places before settling in Buckden in his late fifties. He variously referred to himself as a miller (as his father apparently was), machine maker, engineer, machinist (the description that also appears in his burial entry) and miller/millwright. He is said to have been self-taught, and a mechanical genius, having built Buckden’s first bicycle and the first pipe organ in the church. It is clear from a photograph of the yard in which his engineering was done, that he must have worked for or with the Thomsons (q.v.) in Bakers Lane. Whether it was Eliphaz or a Thomson who was the genius cannot be known but it was the Thomsons who took out several patents in the 19thC. Eliphaz and his wife Ann are known to have lived in Providence Cottage which was just south of Hardwick Lane on the west side of the Great North Road. After Ann died in 1889, Eliphaz was looked after by his granddaughter Sarah Jane Kennedy, who had been living in his household since at least 1871; it is not clear what had happened to her parents. NB The name ‘Eliphaz’ is from the Old Testament. Eliphaz the Temanite was one of the original ‘Job’s comforters’, the three friends who sat with Job in his misery and made him even more miserable. This may go some way to explaining why it has never been among the most popular of christian names. John Bradshaw Osborn (1848-1909), Eliphaz’s son, was a blacksmith (burial record) and had his shop in the High Street next to the Vine public house. He is listed in the 1881 census as an ‘Enginere and Ag. Imple. Mkr’. He and Eliphaz were both preachers at the Methodist Chapel. John George Osborn (1875-1926), the son of John Bradshaw Osborn, was born in Buckden. He was listed as an engine driver in the burial record but the type of engine is not known. In the 1901 census, however, he was listed as a carpenter and joiner. George Leslie Osborn (b.1908) is presumed to be the son of John George and his wife Maude, and is the father of Greta (see below). He is said to have been the first owner of a motor car in Buckden. Perhaps he was the first MG owner? But not to spoil his grandson’s story which follows: My grandparents claimed to be the first family in Buckden to own a motorcar. He bought the car from some wealthy person in the Lion Hotel one night in the pub. Seems the wealthy person, who did not live in the village, had bought it for his daughter’s 21st birthday. She did not like the car so the wealthy man got angry and told anyone in the pub they could have the car for 100 pounds. My grandfather produced the money and drove away with the car. George was working at Park Farm when he married Alison where she was cook. He later became head carpenter for a Huntingdon builder and also had his own outdoor sawmill in George Lane. Greta Osborn , the mother of Leslie Osborn Glessner, was a child in 1939 when evacuees from Tollington School (q.v.) arrived. Two teenage boys, Alec and Dick, were billeted with the family, much to the chagrin of her parents who had been expecting girls half the boys’ ages. There seems to have been some friction as well and the boys were moved to Stirtloe House, but not before Greta had relayed to Alec the announcement of the declaration of war with Germany and Alec had seen his host burying cans of petrol under the garage floor. (This was not uncommon.) osiers business, the. Willow canes had been cultivated in The Osiers (q.v) area of Buckden, probably since at least medieval times, for basket making, construction and other uses. Since before the 1860s, Richard Brown (1827- 1912) had employed local labour, usually women, to cut and collect the osiers and bring them to his business in the field and large thatched barn at the bottom of George Lane (q.v) (approximately where the A1 dual carriageway is today). The barn was largely destroyed in July 1923 (see under fires and fire-fighting equipment ). In 1927, a local newspaper reported: ‘A familiar scene is now taking place at Buckden in Mr Brown's paddock; rod or osier peeling. Mrs Mills has turned 77 years and is again rod peeling. She has worked for Mr Arthur Brown and the late Richard Brown for upwards of 60 years.’ ΩΩΩΩΩ 1875 “Grandfather Eliphaz’s workshop in Buckden. Uncles William and John in the picture.” The Lorna Baptist Collection, Victoria, Australia