C S Neal

James Madison Carpenter collected a number of songs, rhymes and childrens' games from C. S. Neal at |Glebe Farm, Weston Subedge, Gloucestershire in 1935.

Charlotte Shayler Neal (nee Robins) (1861-1959) was born in the (then) Worcestershire (now) Warwickshire village of Shipston-on-Stour. Her father, George Amphlette Robins was born in Parsons Street, Banbury, Oxfordshire to a confectioner and his wife (James and Sarah) and he soon started to follow his father's trade. In 1856 at the age of twenty, he married a girl from Shipston, Mary Shayler Best, who was in service at a local firm of auctioneers. Her mother's maiden name was Shayler and the names Shayler and Best were subsequently given to several children in the family. She appears to have died fairly young and her widowed husband, Henry, a watchmaker in the Shambles at Shipston, soon had the newly-married couple setting up home next door to him as confectioners.

Charlotte was the second of their three children (preceded by Eliza Best Robins, b1860 and followed by John Hamilton Robins, b 1864). Following the death of her mother in 1867, when Charlotte was 7, her father almost immediately remarried (Thirza Scarsbrook), but continued to live and work in Shipston. Thirza, too died young, in 1871 and George Robins remarried a few years later. This marriage was to Harriett Nicholls, a girl who had family living at Neithrop, Banbury, close to where George had been brought up, and George moved back to Banbury, setting up his confectioners shop at 6 Cherwell Terrace.

Charlotte, however, stayed in Shipston, continuing to live in the Shambles accompanied by her aunt, Mary Best. Mary Best, originating from London, was now the head of the household and was recorded as "living on own means", whilst no occupation is recorded for Charlotte. Mary Best was born around 1806 and is the most likely candidate as the source from whom Charlotte learned many of her songs and games. In the notes to some of the songs Charlotte said "learned as a little girl, more than fifty years ago, in Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire, from my aunt". She would have been about 74 when she said this. Fifty years previously she was aged 20 and living with her aunt, although it is quite possible that her aunt had come to live with the family on previous occasions.

In 1894 Charlotte married a local farmer, Ernest Neal and they went back to Ernest's parental home in Long Comtpon (by now in Warwickshire), where two sons and a further daughter were born. Following her husband Ernest's death in 1919, Charlotte moved to another farm in Gloucestershire, Glebe Farm at Aston Subedge, where she was visited by James Madison Carpenter around 1935, providing him with a large number of songs, games and rhymes. Charlotte Neal died at the age of 97 on 15 March 1959. Her sons moved a distance away from the area, but her daughters remained fairly close.

Paul Burgess