Notes on Old Chipperfield

Helen Gordon Liddle

Privately Published, 1948

Helen Gordon Liddle (1875-1956) is perhaps best known because she was arrested for a suffrage protest in which she broke a post office window. As a result she was imprisoned in Strangeways Prison, Manchester for one month (October-November 1907). While in prison she was forcibly fed when she demanded to be treated as a political prisoner and protested against prison regulations and food. As a result she wrote The Prisoner: A Sketch. An Experience of Forcible Feeding by a Suffragette, published by Garden City Press, Letchworth, in 1912.

It is no clear when Helen's connection with Chipperfield began, but the Old Chipperfield book says that she helped to organise an "Old Chipperfield" exhibition at the Women's Institute in 1935 and the book was linked to a talk on the subject she gave in the village in 1948.

64 pages. photographs, map

This is a very good example of a mid-20th century history of a small village in Hertfordshire. The main history books on the county such as Chauncey and Cussans have been consulted for the early history. There are also a good number of photographs including some taken by the author and there is a fold out copy of the 1839 survey of Kings Langley, which includes Chipperfield.

It contains valuable reminiscences of old inhabitants which are not available elsewhere - such as this description of the plaiting school by Mrs Godman, of Queen Street, recorded in 1935.

There are also extracts from records of the history of the Baptist Church made by the Rev. C. Seymour King in 1920  and information on the Royal connections with Kings Langley,