Lucy Bettesworth (Cambridge Library Collection - History)

George Sturt (1863-1927) was a British wheelwright and writer who usually wrote under the pen-name George Bourne. A native of Surrey, he inherited his father's workshop in the rural village of Bourne, near Farnborough, in 1894 and began to record the daily lives and recollections of his rural family and acquaintances, which he published towards the end of his life. This volume, first published in 1913, contains Sturt's descriptions of characters and traditions of the village in which he lived. Through conversations with his gardener and labourer Fred Bettesworth and his own experiences, Sturt vividly and sensitively describes the community, hardships, daily lives and experiences of a variety of characters from his rural agricultural village, including Fred's wife Lucy Bettesworth. Written with a keen sense of the fragile nature of this community, this volume provides a valuable record of a now-vanished way of life.