Sophie White's Christmas Bazaar

We took Sophie White's Bazaar to Watersmeet for the Christmas market for the second year.

Sophie White was a London girl who married the Rickmansworth farmer John White in 1841. They lived at Parsonage Farm house, which still stands in Townfield, although of course no longer a farm.

Although a wheelchair user and frequently unwell for most of her married life, she was a strong supporter of the young people of the town. She had many interests, and set up in 1868 a ‘Working Lads’ Club’ and other activities around Rickmansworth. In 1878, following a long-standing custom by charitable people, she organised a fundraising Bazaar in the town hall, to support both the Lads’ Club and the Infant Children’s Boot Club. In that first year she raised £80, equivalent to about £5,500 now – it was about 240 days wages for a skilled tradesman.

Mrs White’s annual Bazaar became quite a feature in the weeks before Christmas, being reported in the local papers and raising around £60 each year. Even when, towards the end of her life, she was unable to be there herself she took a keen interest in what her friends and family were doing for it. Sometimes she sent friends into L:ondon to buy items to sell in the Bazaar, so it was carefully set up.

We know about it from her husband’s diaries, from which his pride in her Bazaar and other achievements shines out.

In honour of Sophie White and her philantropic bazaar, we follow her excellent example to raise funds for our work in providing service to our visitors, however they come to us. Yesterday we were at the Watersmeet Christmas market with a wide-ranging set of things - books and pens, jams and chutneys, Christmas ornaments and gifts, and other small items.

It was a good day!