1806
Magna Britannica
From Wikipedia: Great Brickhill was described in 1806 in Magna Britannia as follows:
Great-Brickhill, in the hundred and deanery of Newport, lies about two miles and a half to the south-east of Fenny Stratford. The manor was anciently in the Beauchamps, from whom it passed by female heirs to the Bassets and Greys. Richard Grey, Earl of Kent, sold it in 1514 to Sir Charles Somerset, of whose son, Sir George it was purchased in 1549, by the Duncombes: from this family it passed, by female heirs, to the Bartons and Paunceforts, and is now the property of Philip Duncombe Pauncefort esq.The manor of Smewnes-Grange, in this parish, became the property of Woburn Abbey, in 1293. King Edward VI granted it to Edward Stanton esq. of whose descendant it was purchased in 1792, (under an act of parliament which had passed the preceding year,) by the present proprietor, Edward Hanmer esq. of Stockgrove. This manor extends into the parish of Soulbury: the manor-house, which was built by Edward Stanton, the grantee, within a moated site near the River Ouzel, has long been suffered to go to decay.In the parish church are memorials of the families of Duncombe, Barton, Pauncefort, and Chase. The advowson of the rectory is annexed to the manor. This parish was inclosed by an act of parliament, passed in 1776, when an allotment of land was assigned to the rector, in lieu of tithes, and an allotment to the poor in lieu of their right of cutting furze.
1820
Lace Making
Sir Frank Markham (FM – see References) says that some quite old industries were on the wane. The home industry of lace making, which before 1820 utilised practically all the female labour force in North Bucks. It was severely hit by the introduction of machine-made Nottingham lace, and both the canals and railways helped to distribute it. By 1925, Gibbs reports, the lace trade was stagnant.
1850s
By 1850 there was a new National School in Great Brickhill with 95 pupils.(FM).
1862
The Duncombe Estate Report of 1863 refers to the Great Brickhill School as ‘a neatly built school home: rent free’, at the southern end of the village. Sheahan described it as ‘a handsome structure consisting of two school rooms with a teacher’s house in the centre erected by PDP Duncombe’. There were then (1863) nearly 100 children attending. It ceased to be a school in 1960. (FM)
1864
Herbert Ackroyd Stuart (1864 -1927)
Inventor of the the Oil Engine
The old foundry in Denmark Street, Bletchley (the Bletchley Ironworks), had been taken over by Charles Stuart who according to a local report, spent too long in local hostelries on occasion, with the result that he was sometimes brought home in a wheelbarrow (info from Mary Sinfield 1884 – 1873). Fortunately, he had help at work from his more notable son, Herbert (or Bertie) born in Halifax 1864. He soon had a reputation for experimenting with petrol and paraffin heaters and engines. The story goes that one day, some hot slag fell on some oil in the foundry pit. Bertie was burnt in the ensuing small explosion. This made him think of using the explosive flash to drive the engine, and he developed an oil engine. He developed this idea between 1886 and 1890, devising an oil engine which is several ways was more truly the ancestor of modern oil engines than were the early attempts of Dr Rudolf Diesel. (FM)