page_title: Badger, Shropshire
section_title: Making of the modern village
hierarchical_section_title: Badger, Shropshire / History / Making of the modern village
caption_attribution_description: English: Monument to Isaac Hawkins Browne, essayist, Tory politician, MP for Bridgnorth 1784-1812. St. Giles church, Badger, Shropshire, England. By Francis Leggatt Chantrey.
context_page_description: Badger is a village and civil parish in Shropshire, England, about six miles north-east of Bridgnorth. The parish had a population of 134 according to the 2001 census, falling to 126 at the 2011 census.
  Badger Parish is at grid map reference SJ 76834 99840. The boundaries of the parish contain the village of Badger, one side of Badger Dingle, and Badger Heath Farm. It is approximately 2.7 km at its widest point.
  The village and its surroundings, particularly the Dingle, are considered a visitor attraction. In their present form they owe much to deliberate planning and landscaping in the 18th century.
context_section_description: The buyer was Isaac Hawkins Browne, a Derbyshire industrialist and a Tory politician. Returning from the Grand Tour, Browne set about living the life of a country gentleman on his Shropshire estates at Badger and at Malinslee, near Dawley. He worked on his father's writings, helping to get his poetry recognised.
  Browne spent heavily on the Hall. Between 1779 and 1783, he had it greatly extended, to a design by James Wyatt, with a museum, library, and conservatory, elaborate plasterwork by Joseph Rose, and paintings by Robert Smirke. Browne then turned his attention to the landscape. However, it was in his work on the landscape that Browne made his biggest and most permanent mark on the appearance of the village and its surroundings. He had the dell along the Batch Brook, on the south edge of the village, improved to a plan by William Emes and probably his pupil, John Webb. This reshaped Badger Dingle was a notable example of the picturesque style in landscaping. It had two miles of walks, with a walk linking it to Badger Hall from its east end, cascades created by damming the brook, a "temple" and other architectural features. It seems that the pools in the village itself, which drain into the Dingle, were enlarged and reshaped at this time.
  Browne ingratiated himself with the local gentry, serving as High Sheriff from 1783 and as Member of Parliament for pocket borough of Bridgnorth, a fiefdom of the Whitmore family of Dudmaston Hall from 1784 until 1812. He spoke rarely and briefly in the House of Commons, with only 11 recorded interventions in debates. He was a great admirer of William Pitt the Younger and rose to pay a handsome tribute to him when the House was debating funeral honours for the recently deceased Prime Minister. This was his longest recorded speech and it was interrupted by loud coughing.
  In general, Browne was either opposed to reform or, at best, equivocal. In 1807 he tried to delay the passing of the Slave Trade Act 1807, although he professed himself opposed to the trade. A few weeks later, he observed, in a debate on a bill to allow Roman Catholics to serve in the armed forces, that "it had been the wisdom of our ancestors to restrain the executive power from conferring the highest offices upon Roman Catholics,and we ought to revere their memories, and also to do justice to posterity, by maintaining the fences which our ancestors had erected." In 1809 he denounced John Curwen's Reform Bill, which would prohibit the selling of seats in the House of Commons, "because it would have the effect of excluding a great portion of the wisdom and talents it possessed from that house."
  However, Browne was a generous landlord and employer, instituting coal allowances for the villagers and help for the poor. It was probably he who initiated and financed the main village school: this was paid for by the lords of the manor and provided primary education for the village children and others, until 1933.
  Browne was also keen to ensure that the parish was better served spiritually. None of the rectors had actually lived in the parish for at least a century and communion was celebrated only four or five times a year. This was an issue that clearly troubled Browne for many years: one of his rare parliamentary speeches was in favour of compelling absent clergy to pay for replacement curates. Dr. James Chelsum, a minor scholar, was the rector from 1780. He contrived to combine his benefice at Badger with the rectory of Droxford in Hampshire from 1782, and a chaplaincy at Lathbury in Buckinghamshire. Although Browne must initially have trusted Chelsum, he clearly became disenchanted and arranged for his departure in 1795. Chelsum retained his other benefices until he died insane in 1801. In Chelsum's place Browne nominated William Smith, who proved a conscientious minister for 42 years. Smith was never absent from the parish for more than two weeks in the whole of his incumbency. Browne must have valued Smith greatly, as he bequeathed him the right to nominate his own successor. In the event, Smith sold the right back to 
caption: Memorial to Isaac Hawkins Browne and his second wife, Elizabeth, by Francis Leggatt Chantrey, in St. Giles' church, Badger.
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