“ We reached Halifax early this a.m. and St John’s at 1.30 tonight. Breakfast at 5 a.m. and on to the train at 7 a.m. Feeling quite alright now. A lovely smooth sea and not so cold as we expected.
Merry Xmas & Happy New Year – though somewhat late. KP”

Emigration to Canada was at its zenith during the years before the First World War. More than three million people left the UK, escaping rising unemployment and the toxic legacy of the Industrial Revolution. In Canada, there were new opportunities, a better lifestyle – or so the Canadian government suggested. Adverts were placed, postcards handed out at events and shipping lines promoted their passages.

Lucy (née Baldwin), known by her middle name Kathleen, and Charles Partridge had married only a few months before sailing to Canada in 1911. The Empress of Britain’s passenger list shows that Charles was a farmer. Despite the promise of a new kind of life, living away from friends and family made settling into a new community hard and less than two years later, Kathleen and Charles returned to England, again sailing aboard the Canadian Pacific Line’s Empress of Britain. During their time away, the couple had a son, Charles junior. The family settled in Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire, where Charles senior’s family farmed.

Kathleen was also from a farming family. Her parents, William and Elizabeth Baldwin, owned land in Worcestershire and had, for a short time, also tried living abroad. For them it was Rugby, Tennessee that persuaded them to leave England and explore what was suggested would be a ‘utopian’ community of like-minded people. They arrived in America some time before 1882 and settled in the town of Rugby, founded by social reformer and author Thomas Hughes – perhaps best known as the writer of Tom Brown’s School Days .

With Victorian society and laws weighted against younger sons, Hughes aimed to create a fairer society, to establish a community that didn’t favour the first-born sons – i.e. primogeniture. With them being unable to inherit their family’s wealth, these sons were destined to lives lived with a much-reduced status.

It was while visiting America for a lecture tour in the early 1870s that Hughes began to dream of creating his ‘new Jerusalem’. Together with Boston capitalists and several wealthy Englishmen, he formed the Board of Aid to Land Ownership Ltd. With Hughes as president, the Board employed a team of architects to design a town from scratch – homes, hotels and a church. There was even provision made for a drama club, tennis court and a library (eventually stocked with 7000 books donated by publishers from England and America). By the end of the decade work began – the Board owned 75,000 acres and had the option on up to five times more.

When Rugby opened in 1880, the Tabard Inn hosted almost 80 guests including dignitaries from Chattanooga, Knoxville, Cincinnati and Boston. Hughes gave a rousing speech from the inn’s veranda and there was of course much to celebrate. However, just a few months later, Rugby suffered its first typhoid epidemic and eight residents died. The cause was traced back to the inn’s well – itself a place of bad luck. Later, it would burn to the ground on two occasions and be rebuilt. Rugby needed tourists – it was trying to promote itself as a health resort, so that aim stalled. After 1884, visitor numbers declined and the businesses were limited – the guesthouses and cafes were the first to suffer. There were two main industries – a sawmill and a canning company. It wasn’t possible to grow sufficient quantities of tomatoes to warrant the investment in the steam-operated boilers that were brought in from Cincinnati in 1882. The canning building would eventually become a successful steam-operated laundry run by an African-American family. One crop that did grow well was top-grade tobacco; in 1885, 766 lbs was harvested.

The press on both sides of the Atlantic were sceptical of Rugby’s success from the very first suggestion. In fact, the idea of attracting the sons from England wasn’t the success Hughes himself had hoped for. Those that did try living in Rugby often found they lacked the necessary practical skills to make a new life for themselves. The town’s newspaper, The Rugbeian, published a breakdown of the residents and only 40 per cent were from England – the others were from the local area, wider America and elsewhere, including a librarian from Germany.

Hughes was a frequent visitor to Rugby, but never lived permanently in his house – Kingstone Lisle – and it seems his wife refused to leave England. However, his mother, Margaret Hughes, was hugely supportive of her son and moved to Rugby in 1881 and eventually lived in Uffington House until her death in 1887. For a short while she was joined by another son, William – known by his middle name, Hastings – who later moved to Massachusetts. Hastings’ daughter, Emily, was a self-taught photographer and she lived in Rugby until her grandmother’s death. Many of the photographs of Rugby’s early years were taken by Emily. She was also a keen horticulturist and brought with her a skilled gardener who helped with the planting of grapes, climbing roses and other reminders of home.

Community in decline
By the end of the 1880s the town’s newspaper had ceased publication and many of the colonists had moved away – including William and Elizabeth Baldwin. The Board was reorganised in 1892 and it’s believed that by the time Hughes died four years later, the venture had cost him $35,000. In 1900 it was estimated that only 120 people lived in the town.

In England, William Baldwin’s father was a landowner (as was Elizabeth’s) and he and his siblings were privately educated. In Rugby, William owned a large parcel of land in the colony and used it for farming crops. He also ran ponies and traps – renting them out to visitors, or taxiing them to and from the railway a few miles away. The Baldwins’ stay in Rugby was a short one and when they decided to return to England with their two young sons, American-born William Frederick and Archer (named after his mother’s brother, Archer Mytton), their land was sold – one parcel alone was 200 acres. A third son, Hubert, was born in England in 1885 and Kathleen, whose postcard began this story, was born four years later. At this time, the family farmed in Herefordshire and this generation of children were also privately educated. During the First World War, Archer was awarded the Military Cross for his involvement in an attack on the Hindenburg Line. Hubert was killed at Gallipoli.

Archer would become a farmer and Conservative MP for Leominster and was knighted in 1958. His online profile says ‘Baldwin was born in a log cabin’ and indeed the first homes that were built in Rugby were log cabins. However, those who moved into Rugby were not necessarily the pioneers of folklore as that statement might suggest, arriving in a covered wagon with all they possessed – although they were encouraged to bring only the essentials. The emigrees from England would travel by steamer and rail – it cost $43 to travel third class and $105 for a first-class ticket. They might have been assured of a welcome, but for many the conditions were harsh. Their homes had to be built, the climate wasn’t kind – the area suffered droughts and harsh winters – and of course the outbreaks of typhoid meant an unsettling new life. Many complained that work on their homes was delayed while leisure and sporting facilities were finished. Even the construction of roads was given a low priority compared to entertainment.

Rugby’s eventual decline led to any uninhabited buildings falling into disrepair, but in the 1960s a local man, Brian Stagg, began a campaign to repair and renovate what was left. The Rugby Restoration Association was formed and any buildings that remained were eventually listed in the National Register for Preservation.

Like Brian, James Keen was another local man interested in his home’s history. As a photographer he had recognised the importance of Emily Hughes’ work and ensured her photos were preserved and he added to the collection by taking his own images that continue the story from the 1930s to the 1970s. Descendants of those first settlers were photographed, still living where their ancestors had.

Over the years others have continued what Brian started and Historic Rugby is now a non-profit tourist attraction in its own right. It’s more than a living museum – people live and work in buildings Hughes would recognise and they continue to renovate and protect the buildings and area. New homes have been built on the adjacent Beacon Hill site – sponsored by Historic Rugby, these buildings share the same style and complement the restored buildings.

It’s possible to worship in the church, stay in guesthouse accommodation, such as Newbury House, and enjoy the views that the first residents of Rugby would have seen. It’s even possible to see the Thomas Hughes Library, still stocked with the original books. Local interest is maintained with the organising of social events including tea table setting competitions (complete with china and cutlery), classic car rallies and Irish road bowling. There’s a great sense of community, something that Hughes must have hoped for. But more than that, there’s a love for Rugby and its history that passes from generation to generation.

Over the first decade or so after Hughes’ death, there are very few people recorded in the census returns for Tennessee as being born in England – and even fewer in the immediate area around Rugby. The custodians of Hughes’ dream – and the dream of those colonists – survives in a way the original town never could. The economic rule of ‘supply and demand’ always made it nearly impossible for those new ventures to survive and grow; now Historic Rugby is the business and supplies a history that many continue to preserve. {

Further reading:
Visions of Utopia, John Egerton
Images of America: Historic Rugby, Barbara Stagg
Rugby, Tennessee: being some account of the settlement founded on the Cumberland Plateau, Thomas Hughes
Historic Rugby has a Facebook page and website, historicrugby.org