George Donald Rivis (known as "Donald" or "Don") was the first born of Reginald Ramsden Rivis (known as "Reg") and Mary Eleanor (nee Sleightholme) and known as "Dot" in the family. He arrived into the world at Great Barugh near Malton in North Yorkshire on 3rd October 1908. Reg and Dot, had been married the previous year in the Wesleyan Chapel in Sherburn near Scarborough on 29th Oct 1907 and both were 20 years old. On his marriage certificate Reg recorded his occupation as Farm Labourer at West Field Farm, Normanby.
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Reginald Ramsden Rivis and Mary Eleanor (nee Sleightholme) with George Donald Rivis and 2nd born Reginald Sleightholme Rivis at Great Barugh circa 1911.
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This was the farm of John Strickland who had married Reg's older sister Annie. Reg was the youngest of a family of 11 Rivis's born of the miller George Rivis and Isabella (nee Carter) of Helmsley. The two youngest boys Reg and Wilf both received private education at a school in Bootham in York until the death of their father in 1900. Annie took Reg and brother Wilf into her care first on the Strickland farm at Ouldray then later when the John Strickland moved to West Field Farm, Normanby. Wilf went on to later take over Westfield farm at Normanby and Reg made his own way learning unsuccessfully to be a Tailor, Farm Labourer and most of all loved working with horses. Reg and Wilf had both joined the Territorial Hussars around 1905 in Helmsley and Reg was in his element looking after the horses. Wilf later moved from Normanby to take a farm at Driffield.
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L-R: Reg, Donald and the youngest Bernard Rivis
at Acklam School c. 1920 |
Reg met and fell in love with Dot who was from a large Sleightholme family with her father George Henry Sleightholme, a Methodist preacher on the Malton Circuit. Dot would play the church organ at Little Barugh Methodist Chapel where her father preached and lived. Reg found a job mending the roads for the council and after marrying Dot had their first house in Great Barugh when their first born George Donald arrived. Their subsequent born children show their path of movement around North Yorks.:
1. George Donald b. 3 Oct 1908 Gt. Barugh
2. Reginald Sleighthome b. 25 Mar 1910 Gt. Barugh
3. Bernard b. 9 Mar 1912 Gt. Barugh
4. Dorothy b. 7 Oct 1917 Acklam
5. Freda b. 7 Sep 1919 Acklam
6. Geoffrey b. 10 Aug 1924 Settrington (died 10 Jan 1927 of Meningitis and buried at Harwood Dale)
7. David b. 2 Dec 1925 Marton
8. Jean b. 29 Oct 1927 Harwood Dale near Scarborough
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Donald and brother Reg at Acklam with
Mary Eleanor ("Dot") holding the reigns. |
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Dorothy and Freda at Grove House, Kirk Hill Farm, Settrington
with Reg. R Rivis
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Mary Eleanor and Bernard in Scarborough Market Hall
at the Rivis stall c. 1934 |
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Donald Rivis married Blanche Mary Beswick
in 1935 |
Around 1916, Reg had chance of a rented farm at High Sleights Farm, Acklam, near Malton. A Wolds farm of mainly grass and some arable. Don and Reg and Bernard all attended the small school there. Later they moved farms on the Lord Middleton Estate to Grove House, Kirk Hill Farm at Settrington. This was a nice farm in the Park at the top of a hill in Settrington. They walked to the school in Settrington down the hill, which my mother Dorothy told me she vividly remembered one day had a road full of frogs! Donald and brother Reginald attended Malton Grammar school travelling on the train from Settrington.
After some sort of dispute with the landlord Reg and Dot moved to Marton sometime in 1924/25 for a short period before moving again to Surgate Brow farm at Harwood Dale, Scarborough where a family tragedy occurred and Don lost his little brother Geoffrey to Meningitis and was buried in Harwood Dale churchyard.
The family then moved into a house at Scalby and during the depression of the thirties took a market stall in Scarborough market to try and earn a living. Donald, Reg and Bernard all helped to make the stall a success with Donald learning the butchery business in Foxholes with the Beswick family, Reg was handy at carpentry and joinery and Bernard helped to man the stall in Scarborough market hall where they sold rabbits.
1929
- Don took a job at Foxholes with William Beswick to learn butchering and subsequently took over the business. It remained a retail business until the 1950s when it became wholesale.
1935 - married Blanche Mary Beswick, William's daughter in Foxholes.
1940 ? - Rented his first farm of 130 acres at Helperthorpe.
Had a piggery at Foxholes which got bombed during the war, thought caused by returning German aircraft dumping their unused bomb load.
6th April 1944 - Don rented Boythorpe farm near Foxholes of 700 acres and so began more than 40 years of various business enterprises.
1940s. - laid water on to every field on farm using labour from the adjacent POW camp. Built 2 large greenhouses on the farm for tomatoes in summer and lettuce in winter. Planted a field of rhubarb. Started milking pedigree Friesian cows. He bought only the second combine harvester to be used on the Wolds. It came in a box from Massey Harris in Canada and had to be assembled on the farm.
He then started breeding turkeys. He also used grass drying for cattle feed.
Poultry breeding
started in three small incubators in the cellar of the farmhouse before buying two large incubators to sell day old chicks and point of lay pullets. Day old chicks and point of lay pullets were sold around the county and into Lincolnshire.
1949 - Introduced Landrace pigs to Britain with Mr. Wertheimer of Settrington.
1950s - There was the Boythorpe annual sale of livestock. From this he was able to buy Boythorpe from his landlord and bought further farms at Skerne and Duggleby.
The abattoir at Foxholes was changed to wholesale and meat products were delivered around the county and to Smithfield market in London.
He experimented with mushroom growing in cow houses after his cows were sold.
1957 - While in a Nursing home after a riding accident he read about sealed storage silos in the U.S.A. He travelled to America and got the licence to import A.O.Smith Harvestores.
He pioneered haylage making and storage of high moisture barley and pioneered the barley beef method of fattening cattle.
He opened the first supermarket in Scarborough with Wilf Proudfoot.
This photograph was taken in 1959 aboard the Queen Mary on a visit of a group of local farmers from the Foxholes area to view Harveststores in the USA and organised by GD Rivis.
1960 - He began manufacturing Boythorpe Cropstores on the farm. The Factory later moved to Weaverthorpe. The business bought a vitreous enamelling plant at Accrington. He took stands at the Yorkshire, Royal and Smithfield Shows to promote the Cropstores.
1960s - bought farms at Hunmanby, Weaverthorpe and Foxholes.
c.1962 - Ventured into the hospitality business and bought the Coconut Grove which was renamed the A64 roadhouse and then became the Caribbean Club but it was not a success.
1965 - Built large cattle sheds at Hunmanby and marketed up to 50 fat cattle a week.
1970 - Built further cattle sheds for bull beef at Boythorpe.
1971 - Sold the cropstore business. Fattened a lot of beef cattle and planted a field of strawberries.
1972 - Built mushroom sheds (2 acres) and produced mushrooms for 13 years.
1980 - Hosted National Sugarbeet Demonstration, the most northerly farm to host it.
Don passed away in 1987 and was buried in Foxholes churchyard, where he was married, and after a long life as a pioneer and entrepreneur in agriculture. He left sons Chris, John and daughters Angela and Joan and many grandchildren some of which carried on the family farming tradition. (Right: Donald with his three sisters Jean, Freda (Fob), Dorothy (aka Dot)).
n.b. Information and photos on Don's life and milestones were kindly provided by his family descendants and shown here with their kind permission.
