Margery

Coordinates: 51°15′40″N 0°12′22″W / 51.261°N 0.206°W / 51.261; -0.206

Margery is a heavily buffered, lightly populated hamlet in the Reigate and Banstead district, in the English county of Surrey. It sits on the North Downs, is bordered by the London Orbital Motorway, at a lower altitude, and its predominant land use is agriculture.

History

This area was formerly very far from drinking water sources, being on Banstead Commons (also known as Banstead Downs), so was a lightly laboured hill farming settlement. The history of its importance to the national economy is that of its feudal centre, Banstead, which gave much wealth to its lord of the manor, particularly to the King's consort, who had it exploited by tenant farmers for more than two centuries as part of its wide Commons/Downs, spanning here the widest part of the chalky, grassy North Downs. The high quality of the wool is shown by a petition of the Commons in 1454, in which they prayed that a sack of wool of the growth of Banstead Down might not be sold under £5, when the price of such wool was "greatly decayed". The reputation of Banstead Downs for sheep is referred to by Pope in the Imitations of Horace, and by others.

Mina Crandon

Mina "Margery" Crandon (1888–November 1, 1941) was a well known physical medium who claimed that she channeled her dead brother, Walter Stinson. Investigators who studied Crandon concluded that she had no genuine paranormal ability, and others detected her in outright deception.

She was the wife of a wealthy Boston surgeon and socialite, Dr. Le Roi Goddard Crandon.

Biography

Crandon grew up on a farm in Princeton, Ontario, Canada, but moved to Boston as a young woman. While working as a secretary of a local church in Boston, she met and married Earl Rand, a grocer. They had one son. She later met Dr. Crandon when she entered a Dorchester, Massachusetts, hospital for an unspecified operation, possibly appendicitis. Dr. Crandon was her surgeon. She and Dr. Crandon crossed paths again later that year when Dr. Crandon served as a lieutenant commander and head of surgical staff in a New England Naval hospital during the First World War and she served as a civilian volunteer ambulance driver who transported casualties to the hospital. Mina sued for divorce from Earl P. Rand in January 1918 and became Dr. Crandon's 3rd wife a few months later. She moved to Dr. Crandon's house at 10 Lime Street, with her son. Dr. Crandon later adopted her son and changed his name to John Crandon.

Margery (disambiguation)

Margery is a female given name derived from Margaret, which can also be spelled as Marjorie or Marjory. From the Old French, the Middle English forms of Margaret equally derive from the Greek for pearl. Margery, Marjorie and Marjory in the 14th century became a medieval softened translation of French and Church Latin versions of Margaret. After the Middle Ages this name was rare, but it was revived at the end of the 19th century. The name later became that of a small rural settlement and a hill in England.

Given name

Middle Ages and Renaissance (Tudor) period