Arthur Thomas Waring (1851-1920) was the third son of William Waring and Mary Waring (nee Wall Tasker). The Warings were major landowners in the parish of Chelsfield, and Arthur Thomas succeeded to the Chelsfield land and property when his father died in 1904. The history and rise of the Waring family is well documented in Geoffrey Copus’ book, “Chelsfield Chronicles 1450-1920”. The brief summary here is based on Chapters 1 and 8 of his book, which contains a wealth of further information about the family which is not duplicated here. It also draws on Geoffrey’s introduction to the “Chelsfield Parochial Notes” a history of the parish produced by Arthur Thomas Waring. I am indebted to Geoffrey for his material; anyone interested in the history of the Waring family should consult his book. Arthur Thomas was educated at Eton and became a barrister. He served in the Kent Artillery Militia for some ten years. He was a Justice of the Peace, and he was a member of Kent County Council. In 1877 he married Agnes Birkett. He lived in the Waring family home at Woodlands, on Hawstead Lane, which still stands. On retiring Arthur Thomas set about producing his “Chelsfield Parochial Notes”. This book, compiled between 1904 and 1914, is a wonderfully detailed history of Chelsfield Parish, drawing on wills, deeds, and manorial records in the possession of the Waring family, and parish records at St Martins Church. In Geoffrey Copus’ words AT Waring was “an admirable local historian”, both “thorough” and “reliable” and he transcribed a large number of historic documents. He produced three editions of his book in longhand. The version held by St Martin’s was transcribed by Sarah Tanner in 1992, and thanks to her work and that of Geoffrey Copus in producing a scan of the transcript, the two volumes of the transcribed version are now available on this website in digital form. You can find them here. Our sources section has lots of original sources on Chelsfield’s history.

Chelsfield A Community Archive

Pages from AT Waring’s history of the parish which detail “beating the bounds”. You can find out more about this custom for marking the parish boundaries here.

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