Charles Randell. 
697 
Mr. Edward Holland the purchase of the Dumbleton Estate 
near Evesham, and retained for himself the occupancy of one 
of the farms thereon, which lie entrusted to the management 
of his youthful nephew, though he was then barely fifteen 
years of age. Mr. Randell resided at Dumbleton in this posi- 
tion from 1826 to 1836, and there, by the acquisition of actual 
practical knowledge, laid the foundation of his great career as 
an agriculturist. In the year 1836 he took the Prospect House 
Farm, at Benge worth, which has in recent years been converted 
into market gardens, and while residing there married a daughter 
of the late Mr. James Ashwin, of Bretforton Manor. 
In 1839 Mr. Randell took from Mr. Edward Holland, who 
had then for some time come into residence at Dumbleton, the 
farm at Chadbury, upon which he resided up to the time of his 
death. The farm had up to that time been divided into two 
holdings, comprising a large proportion of poor, cold, clay land, 
generally held to be of small value. Long years of neglect and 
slovenly management under the stress of bad times had reduced 
the yielding properties of the land to the lowest point. It was 
encumbered with a multitude of straggling hedges, containing 
numbers of small elm trees, and was for the most part un- 
drained. 
Directing all his great energies to the \^'ork he had taken in 
hand, Mr. Randell soon made a complete transformation. By 
burning the soil, draining, grubbing, and straightening fences, 
bringing into use the best appliances, improving the breeds of 
stock, and unceasing vigilance, Chadbury became changed from 
a miserable poverty-stricken place to a model farm, a pattern to 
the country at large, and was visited by landholders and cidti- 
vators from far and near as an example of what was possible to 
be achieved for agriculture by enterprise, sagacity, and skill. It 
is recorded in the volumes of the Journal that where Mr. 
Randell's predecessors kept 90 breeding ewes on the Chadbury 
Farms, he increased their capabilities to carrying 300, and from 
a growth of 150 quarters of wheat — all that could be grown in 
the first two years of his tenancy — his growth sprang up to an 
average of 1,100 quarters a year. The later years of Mr. 
Randell's life saw a further development of the arts of culture 
applied to the Chadbury Farms, for the grain crops have now 
for the most part been siiperseded by market gardens. 
In conjunction with his own farming operations Mr. Randell 
carried on a large land-agency practice, which at one time 
extended to the care of 30,000 acres of land. Among the 
noblemen and gentlemen for whom he acted in this capacity 
may be named H.R.H. the Due d'Aumale, the Marquis of 
