William Pink, as a thatcher, and his two sisters in service, had saved enough to provide for their old age, and to leave a considerable overplus, out of which the last survivor, Mrs. Elizabeth Pink, when passing away at a good old age, bequeathed enough to provide the parish with the clock whose voice has already become one of our most familiar sounds.

Allbrook was by this time growing into a large hamlet, and a school chapel was then built, chiefly by Mr. Wheeler. We must not forget that we had for five years the great and excellent Samuel Wilberforce for our Bishop, and that he twice held confirmations in our parish. No one can forget the shock of his sudden call. One moment he was calling his companion’s attention to the notes of a late singing nightingale; the next, his horse had stumbled and he was gone. It was remarkable that shortly before he had, after going over the hospital, spoken with dread of what he called the “humiliation of a lingering illness”—exactly what he was spared.

Bishop Harold Browne came from Ely to take the See of Winchester. He reconsecrated our church when the chancel was enlarged and the new aisle added. He carried on vigorously work only begun under Bishop Wilberforce. Under him Diocesan Synods, the Girls’ Friendly Society, and the Examination of Senior Scholars in Religious Knowledge have all shown his diligent oversight as Shepherd of the flock.

In the year 1875 Sir William Heathcote succeeded in bringing about an arrangement by which Otterbourne could be separated from Hursley and have a Vicar of its own, the difference of income being made up to the Vicar of Hursley. This was done by the aid of a munificent lady, Mrs. Gibbs, the widow of one of the great merchant princes, whose wealth was always treated as a trust from God. She became the patron of the living, and the advowson remains in her family.

The first Vicar was the Reverend Walter Francis Elgie, who had already been six years curate, and had won the love and honour of all

his flock. Deeply did they all mourn him when it was God’s will to take him from them on the 25th of February, 1881, in the 43rd year of his age, after ten years of zealous work.

It was felt as remarkable that a young pupil teacher in consumption, whom he had sent to the Home at Bournemouth, was taken on the same day, and buried here the day after, and that the schoolmaster, Walter Fisher, a man of gentle and saintly nature, followed him six weeks after.

We left them in the Church’s shade,
Our standard-bearer true,
And near at hand the gentle maid
Who well his guidance knew.

He fainted in the noon of life,
Nor knew his victory won;
She was fresh girded for the strife,
Her battle scarce begun.

Long had we known Death’s angel hand
The maiden’s brow had seal’d;
He fell, like chief of warrior band,
Struck down on battle-field.

So in God’s acre here they meet
As they have met above,
Tasting beneath their Saviour’s feet
The treasures of His love.

For what they learnt and taught of here
Is present with them there;
May we speed on in faith and fear,
Then heavenly rest to share.

With the coming of our present Vicar, the Rev. H. W. Brock, our Otterbourne story ends, as the times are no longer old times. The water works for the supply of Southampton are our last novelty, by which such of us benefit, as either themselves or their landlords pay a small contribution. They have given us some red buildings at one end and on the Hill a queer little round tower containing the staircase leading to the underground reservoir, a wonderful construction of circles of brick pillars and arches, as those remember who visited it

before the water was let in. And, verily, we may be thankful that our record has so few events in it, no terrible disasters, but that there has been peace and health and comfort, more than falls to the lot of many a parish. Truly we may thankfully say, “The lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground, yea, I have a goodly heritage.”