"A Remarkable Resident of Grayshott : Agnes Weston"
In 1901, Miss Agnes Weston with her close colleague and friend Miss Wintz moved to Grayshott to be 'among the pines and within striking distance of Portsmouth' where, along with the other naval port of Devonport her life's work had taken her. The house she bought may still be found in Grayshott.
Agnes Weston was born into a well to do ancient family in 1840 in London. Her father was a successful barrister with many contacts and acquaintances in the Victorian establishment. She was a girl far ahead of her time as shown by a comment she made in her book 'My Life among the Blue Coats' published in 1909. She wrote, 'Young ladies in the nineteenth century can do anything and go anywhere, but in my mother's day such things were not permitted; if she went out she must be attended by a footman.'
Around 1862, her father moved the family into a large family home overlooking the city of Bath. She had a talent for playing the organ, so much so that she received training at Gloucester Cathedral and was welcomed in the organ lofts of the great cathedrals and churches of the south-west. Like many young people she did not know what she wanted to do with her life, but with religion prompting her to do good things she adopted the old English proverb, 'Do ye next thynge'
Living at home, with the opportunity to play croquet and take holidays abroad, she still found time to play great church organs as well as visiting the sick in Bath on the invitation of the hospital chaplain. Whilst conducting a service in the 'Albert Ward' she recalls 'a poor man terribly crushed by an accident in the stone quarries was brought in' whereupon she ministered to this dying man. By 1868, her Sunday school work (including teaching boys up to the ages of 18 & 19) had merged into temperance work and regular prayer meetings, 'I had a good committee of working men around me'. She admitted enjoying a glass of wine and saw no reason to give this up. However, confronted by a chap who was about to sign the pledge she confessed that she liked the odd glass of wine. "That's what I do," said the man "I have the odd glass" much to the protest of his friends. Challenged in this way, Agnes felt that she had no option but to sign the pledge.
From this work she chanced into evangelistic and temperance work with army personnel. She set up a coffee bar as an alternative to the pub and she became treasurer of this project. "All my own spare cash I threw into the undertaking" she said, and at the same time she began writing letters to Christian soldiers overseas.
A soldier travelling on a troop ship showed a sailor his letter from Agnes. And so began the much valued 'letter-link' with the navy. 'We never light our pipes with your letters,' one sailor wrote, 'because you thinks and cares for us.' She wrote to them (never dictated) on a monthly basis, and never missed a month in 38 years even when laid low in hospital with a broken leg, or away on holiday. In 1909 she was mailing 770,680 copies of her 'Monthly Letters' to seamen world-wide.
Agnes had the great ability to attract and persuaded people of the highest rank in Victorian and Edwardian society to help and to support her cause. These were people with great influence and with great wealth. She was a superb networker, long before this word was invented. She was very perceptive and alert when it came to money, and realised that she must be whiter than white in all her financial dealings. Through her networking, she was even given permission to board warships of the Royal Navy and 'speak freely to the sailors without being supervised', a privilege denied completely to other civilians.
Then in 1874, sailors on HMS Dryad asked if she would open a temperance house for sailors outside the dock gates at Davenport. She found a house, rented it for year using her own money and secured an option to buy at the end of the lease. With Miss Wintz she found the funds to purchase and re-furbish the house and they went to live there - with the sailors! Sailors were free to come and go, drunk or sober, to buy food and indeed to drink, providing this was coffee. In due course she would 'capture', i.e. purchase, no less than three public houses surrounding the coffee house, pull down these pubs, and then build a custom designed 'sailors' rest'. Here men on shore leave could stay in a friendly, welcoming, warm, comfortable and alcohol free community with the opportunity as they chose to listen or not to listen to religious instruction.
Agnes went on to build the 'Royal Sailors' Rest' at Portsmouth raising over £1 million pound required for this project.
So this is how this remarkable, determined, energetic, talented, highly organised woman who successfully made her way in what was very much a man's world came to live here in Grayshott.
For further up to date information on the Christian charity, 'RSR (Royal Sailors' Rest) known as Aggies', readers are recommended to visit www.rsr.org.uk .
David W A Barrett
Grayshott Village Archive
Reference: Weston, Agnes (1909) 'My life among the Blue-Jackets'. James Nisbet & Co. Limited, London. Kindly loaned to the Archive by Mrs. June Peskett.