The Vicar of Draycott’s daughter – her story

Just over 150 years ago, in Draycott-in-the-Moors, one of the daughters of the most respectable family in the parish slipped out of the doors of her home and eloped with her lover. The couple, shunned by society, emigrated abroad, first to Canada, then to South Africa.
This is the true story of Frances Stocker, the vicar of Draycott’s daughter.

Novelists

We know the story of Frances thanks to the researches of her grandson and great-grandson – respectively, the famous South African novelist Jack Cope, and his son Mike Cope, a poet/novelist himself.
The talents of these two men seem to have come down in the family genes from Frances. When she died, she had left papers which included sketches and watercolours (some of which dated back to her life in Draycott), not to mention short stories, all of which show a sure hand.
Later in her life, in the 1880s, Frances even wrote a ‘colonial novel’, one depicting the hard life of English settlers like herself who went out to farm in the lands of the British Empire.

Her story

Before he died Jack Cope sat down to write a brief account of his grandmother’s life:…

“….Briefly, the story on the Cope side goes back to Charles Stocker. The Stockers were university people, parsons, doctors, lawyers etc for a good many generations.
In the early 19th century, Frances’ father, Charles, who was schooled at Eton, took holy orders at Oxford and became a clergyman/don at St. John’s College. However, this college at that time was strictly celibate; and so when Charles got married he had to leave Oxford.
His wife was from a French family settled in England and her father was Vice-Provost of Eton College, Charles’ old school.

Charles was found a living on Guernsey Island but eventually wangled a much more lucrative living as the rector (vicar) at Draycott-on-the-Moors in Staffordshire. (I have a painting of the Rectory, which is an enormous double-storey house with about twelve bedrooms, which were necessary in those days: country parsons, having time on their hands and not much entertainment, usually gave their wives a rough time and produced hordes of children).

The parish was wealthy and a lot of the country people were free-holding yeoman farmers owning their own land, not tenants or labourers under the squirearchy as in most of England.

Frances, one of the younger daughters, did the unmentionable thing of falling in love with a yeoman farmer, John Lymer Cope, and the old rector refused her his permission to marry him as he was “beneath her station in life”.
I don’t know how long the romance lasted but Granny was twenty-eight when they eventually decided to elope in 1861 and get married without Papa’s permission.
They did this and sailed off to Canada in 1862.
In retaliation Charles in his will cut Frances off with a paltry one shilling.

The couple settled at Lakeside near Toronto and the three boys were born there, the last being Charles (aka Carol).
About this time the old rector died and Frances was duly paid one shilling out of his estate. Her older sister Emily (I’m not sure about the name, she was usually known to the family as Auntie Turner) had married and emigrated to Natal South Africa, living in the town of Warley Common. She offered to share her inheritance with Frances, but Granny was so hurt by what her father had done that she refused to accept a penny.
So Auntie Turner used the money to buy Rudolfs Hoek, a large farm (now in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) and she put it in the name of Frances’ latest baby (Charles Carol) as a christening present.

Just at this time, back in Canada, while John Lymer, Frances and the family were in church one Sunday, something frightened their horses which were tethered outside – and they bolted with the trap and went kerplonk into Lake Ontario and were drowned. The family were finding farming in Canada hard and winters freezing and they took the accident as a sign from God. So they accepted Auntie Turner’s plan – and left Canada to settle on the Hoek in 1874. The nominal owner of the farm, Charles Carol, was just three years old….”

Frances lived the rest of her life on the farm, and died aged 80 in 1914.

Traces

It’s clear that Frances was a young Victorian woman educated in various ‘accomplishments’, including writing, drawing and painting (and no doubt needlework and music). These accomplishments were not skills as such, but intended to make her ‘marriageable’ in the eyes of a similar respectable family.
However, the fact that she continued to try to develop her talents, despite turning to a hard farming life, shows she must have been quite a determined person!
Her novel is now archived in the South African National Literary Museum.

As for her father, the Rev Charles Stocker, you can still see his name up in St Margaret’s Church, on the list of rectors of the parish, which is at the back of the church. The list goes back to 1268, and written there you’ll find that Charles was the Draycott rector in the years 1841-1870.
And, of course, the old rectory (opposite the Draycott Arms), now in private ownership, still stands, though now much altered… a real link with the past!

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Thanks to Mike Cope whose kindness and careful archiving made this article possible.
The researches into the Stockers, and Frances in particular, continue; if you have leads or information, please contact us.

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