Social and Economic History
Benson is one of several key sites of the English civil war in thin South Oxfordshire, lying between the site of the Battle of Chalgrove Field (which took place on 18 June 1643) and Wallingford Castle, reputedly the last Royalist stronghold to surrender, and close to the Royalist cities of Oxford and Newbury. At Benson itself, a building is still known as the Court House from the time that King Charles I held court there when en route to Oxford.
A flash lock was installed on the Thames at Benson in 1746. Benson weir collapsed in 1783, necessitating the construction of Benson pound lock in 1788. Benson Lock was rebuilt in 1870.
The road between Henley-on-Thames and Dorchester on Thames was made into a turnpike in 1736 and in the 18th and early 19th centuries Benson became an important staging post for coaches running between London and Oxford via Henley. Its broad, open square was surrounded by coaching inns and at its peak the village four large inns, ten smaller alehouses and a blacksmith. The Henley - Dorchester road was disturnpiked in 1873.
The decline in coaching, enclosure and the agricultural depression led to a fall in population, from 1300 in 1831 to 960 by 1901.
Among those who moved away was the family of Reginald Robinson Lee, aged about 16 when they moved to Hampshire. Reginald was born in Bensington in 1870, the son of William Lee (schoolmaster) and his wife Jane, and was baptized at the church of St. Helen, Bensington on 19 June 1870. Reginald signed on to the RMS Titanic in Southampton on 6 April 1912, aged 42. He was in the crows' nest with Fred Fleet when the iceberg was sighted at about 11.40 p.m. on 14 April 1912, and survived the tragedy, being rescued in lifeboat 13.
Lee subsequently testified before the Board of Trade inquiry. He died on 6 August 1913 whilst serving aboard the Kenilworth Castle.
The failure to extend the Cholsey and Wallingford Railway to Watlington, which would have meant a station at or close to Benson, left the village increasingly isolated as passenger transport between London and Oxford increasingly went via a railway which ran nowhere near the once-vital coaching stop.
The village recovered as motor coaches (and increasingly private cars) became more important, and Benson gained a number of roadhouse-type cafes - early 20th Century equivalents to the Coaching Inns that had gone before.
Read more about this topic: Benson, Oxfordshire
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