H AT F I E L D i n H I S T O R Y professional people, among whom in 1837 were 4 surgeons, 3 clergymen, 6 academy owners, 2 schoolmasters, an architect and a solicitor. In 1822 there had been a civil engineer. Also, there was a large number of people who are described in the directories simply as ‘Esq.’ Or ‘Gent.’ these would include landowners and people with private incomes, some of them retired, and in 1837 this group numbered at least 16 (that is, not counting their families and dependants). In 1822 this group had included three commissioned officers retired from the armed services, but by 1837 only the widow of one of these remained in Hatfield. (Plate 11). There were ten inns in the parish in 1837, some in the village centres of Hatfield and Stainforth and others in remoter parts, such as the Black Bull Inn on the High Levels, catering especially for people who lived in the scattered farmsteads of that area. In the 1861 Directory the Ingram Arms was said to afford ‘good accommodation’ but at that time it is likely that few of the other inns had residential facilities. Links with the outside world would mainly be by meeting travellers passing through the parish - e.g. along the Doncaster-Thorne and Bawtry-Selby turnpike roads through Hatfield and Hatfield Woodhouse, or the canal and river at Stainforth. Farmers also regularly marketed their produce in Doncaster and sometimes in Hull. Carriers’ carts went from Hatfield to Thorne every day and to Doncaster on Saturdays, and coaches left Hatfield for Thorne and Doncaster twice a day. There was also a post office in Hatfield village, with collections in both the morning and the afternoon.
Whilst it has been said that an important institution around which local life revolved was the parish church, it should be pointed out that some inhabitants attended Nonconformist churches. In 1837 Hatfield had an Independent Chapel and a Primitive Methodist Chapel, the latter newly built in 1835. At Stainforth the Church of England had a chapel of ease (rebuilt in 1819), and the Unitarians, Wesleyans, and Primitive Methodists all had small chapels in the village. This was a far cry from 1743, when the Vicar of Hatfield, William Drake, wrote: We have no Meeting House, nor any Dissenters in the Parish.3 40