cond World War. (fn. 338) Thomas Green, the schoolmaster, who kept the post office at Wicken from the 1850s until the 1870s, (fn. 339) appears to have been the village's first sub-postmaster. Services were modestly increased in the 1890s but Deanshanger remained the nearest place for most Post Office business. (fn. 340)
Richard Whitton was described as a 'laceman' (i.e. a merchant) of Wicken in 1699 and 1720; (fn. 341) he died in 1741, by which time he was living at Deanshager, where two of his sons were also lace merchants. (fn. 342) As elewhere in the district, lacemaking remained a ubiquitious by-employment for women in Wicken until the early 20th century. In 1891 there were said to be at least 40 pillows in the village, which was one of those which benefited from the interest in the craft shown by Mrs. Harrison, the wife of the rector of Paulerspury. The exhibition organised that year in Northampton helped to raise the price the local buyer paid for Wicken lace, while Mrs Harrison's counterpart in the parish, Mrs. Andrews, tried to revive the craft and Lady Penrhyn agreed to pay for some new designs. (fn. 343)
The White Lion, one of the few freeholds in the village, was kept by the Canvin family from at least the 1840s until it was bought by Pickering Phipps, the Northampton brewer, in 1883 and a new tenant installed the following year. (fn. 344) The pub was modernised in 1906. (fn. 345)
A carrier from Wicken to Stony Stratford on Fridays and Northampton on Saturdays is first mentioned in 1869; (fn. 346) in 1874 he was also going to Wolverton Station on Thursdays, although this seems to have been a shortlived innovation. (fn. 347) In the 1890s there were two carriers (both of whom also had greengrocer's shops in Wicken) to Stony Stratford on Wednesdays and Saturdays but no service to Northampton; one of them was still in business in 1920 but had retired by 1928. (fn. 348) Another carrier continued to go to Stony Stratford one or two days a week until at least 1936. (fn. 349) From about 1930 motorbuses from St