Payne, Richard (1859-1936)

Richard Payne was born in Guyhirn, in the Isle of Ely, on 27th March 1859, the youngest of three sons, to John Payne, a husbandman, and later a smallholder, and his wife Susannah (née Aubin).

The family was able to pay for Richard to receive some education at the only school in Wisbech St Mary parish, Hardy’s Free School at Tholomos Drove, where the schoolmaster at the time was George Hardwick. It was later recalled that Richard was “of a studious nature.”

In 1870, aged twelve, Richard left school for farm work, presumably on the family smallholding under the direction of his father and elder brothers. In August of the following year his mother died.

Described after his death as a lifelong Methodist, it was also written that he joined the Primitive Methodists “As a young man… and for 55 years his enthusiastic services were invaluable”. Further, “his power as a speaker led to many calls upon his services” and “for 50 years he was a local preacher of no mean repute.” He was a trustee of the Guyhirn Primitive Methodist chapel and, for twenty years, was Superintendent of the Sunday School attached to it. He was also President of the Wisbech and District Sunday School Union.

For many years he was President of the Guyhirn Christian Endeavour Society and also, for some years, of the District Society.

“He was keenly interested in politics, of the Liberal variety”, and his political awakening coincided with the agricultural slump and the arrival of the railways. (The railway arrived at Guyhirn in 1867, in all likelihood, running past his father’s smallholding.)

During an election campaign in the early 1880s, the Tory candidate was addressing a meeting in Thorney Toll school when William Weston and Richard Payne, described in the local press as “young radicals”, heckled the speaker and were thrown out. His elder brother John was a close friend and contemporary of William Weston, who we know was politically active during this period. This and later events suggest that the Payne brothers and Weston were part of an active liberal circle, linked to the Methodist chapel, who agitated locally for liberal ‘labour’ reform.

At 21 years of age, Richard gained employment on the Great Eastern Railway (GER) and remained “on the permanent way” for thirty years. In 1882 he married Amy Louisa Allen of Tilney St Lawrence, Norfolk. Between 1883 and 1896, Amy bore five children: Richard Jnr.; Amy Elizabeth; John William; Thirza; and Harry.

Enough was saved and borrowed to buy some land, probably at Rogues Alley, Murrow, and set up a sideline as a fruit and flower grower. Later in life, in a surviving letter, he advised his eldest son to follow the same path, noting that he would “enjoy more liberty” growing fruit than working on the railways. He was successful enough to retire from the railways around 1910, and from horticulture in 1922.

In 1896 he was one of the first cohort of councillors, along with his brother John and William Weston (standing as a ‘labour candidate’), to be popularly elected to the new civil parish council of Wisbech St Mary. Richard remained a parish Councillor until 1934 and, for the last eighteen years, was Chairman. On the sudden and unexpected death of Weston in 1912, Richard was elected to the vacant Isle of Ely County Council seat for the western division of Wisbech St Mary, which he also held until his retirement in 1934. He was also Chairman of the local Liberal Association.

He was an active proponent of the principle and practice of mutuality through friendly societies. He was a member of the Guyhirn Old Benefit Club, and when it amalgamated with the United Forresters Club in 1911, became Treasurer of the local lodge. In 1896 he founded the Guyhirn and Rings End Pig Club of which he was Secretary for 35 years.

Richard saw his youngest son Harry off to the Great War from the platform of Guyhirne station. Harry survived the war, returning a cavalry officer, but thirty local men did not, and Richard led the committee for the erection of a memorial to them in Guyhirn. He also led the inauguration ceremony in 1922.

After the war, he formed, and was chairman of, a committee to build a village hall for Guyhirn. The hall was opened in 1923. His contribution remains memorialised on the stone plaques built into the hall’s facade. In the same year, his wife Amy died.

He was, after Weston before him, the lead proponent of the building of a road bridge across the River Nene at Guyhirn and its erection was said to be “in very large measure” due to his efforts. He was the first person to cross the bridge when it was opened on 22nd April 1925. At the official dinner that followed it was proposed that the bridge should be named the Weston-Payne Bridge, but the name did not stick.

He was made an Alderman of the county of the Isle of Ely in 1920, and a Justice of the Peace for the Isle of Ely division in 1922.

In the last few years of his life it seems likely that Richard suffered from dementia. For the last year of his life he was bedridden. He died 6th August 1936 and was buried in Guyhirn Chapel graveyard. On the day of his funeral, blinds were drawn along the whole length of Guyhirn High Road.

After his death it was said of him that: “As a Methodist [his] religion was something which had to express itself in every department of life… and he gave himself unsparingly to the service of the Church.” As such Richard raised his family on strong Primitive Methodist principles (his younger daughter Thirza married a primitive methodist minister, the Rev. Harold Wright), stressing service to one’s fellow man. So strong were these principles that their practice, amongst his descendents, lasted well into the twenty-first century.

His second son John, who considered entering the Primitive Methodist ministry, was made an Alderman of the Isle of Ely in 1932 and when, in 1935, his youngest son, Harry, also received the same honour, there was a short period when three of the county’s Aldermen were from the same family. In the 1930s, both John and Harry stood for Parliament for the Liberal Party, polling creditably but unsuccessfully. His eldest son, Richard Payne Jnr., became Chairman of the Wisbech Rural District Council.

In the 1950s all three brothers sat as Justices of the Peace on the Isle of Ely bench at Wisbech.

His grandson, Alderman Maurice Payne, was the last Chairman of the Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely County Council before its abolition in 1974, and his great grandson, Brian Payne was a JP on the Cambridge bench for over 40 years and Chairman of Wisbech St Mary Parish Council.

When the first Guyhirn Bridge was replaced in 1991 the last people to drive across it, and so memorialising Richard’s own first crossing, were his aforementioned grandson, Maurice, and great grandson, Brian.