Category: People

Elizabeth Higginbotham (b.1804), Seamstress, Colwich

By Peter Collinge

Thus far Elizabeth Higginbotham is one of the few businesswomen to emerge from the vouchers who supplied any of Staffordshire’s parish overseers with goods or services. The explanation for this is not clear at present. It is certainly not because it was unusual to find women in business at this time, but may reflect the types of goods and services required by the overseers and the nature of the businesses in which many women could be found. Occasionally, we come across bills signed by women working in a family business but whose names do not appear in trade directories or on billheads.

Between 12 March 1829 and 22 January 1835 Elizabeth Higginbotham submitted 16 bills to Colwich’s overseers of the poor for a range of items she made including petticoats, frocks, caps, dresses and shirts. She also supplied drapery items. The aggregated value of goods totalled £6 11s 2d. The highest bill, for making clothes for Thomas Buckley’s three daughters and two sons totalled £0 19s 8d. It was submitted on 26 November 1829 and settled on 29, a quick turnaround for a parish bill. The lowest value bill for drapery items, costing £0 2s 2d, was settled on 7 November 1834. Like the bill for Buckley’s children, most of the bills provide the names of the families in receipt of the goods including Jane Tooth, Widow Tooth’s daughter; Margaret Bowvin and Francis Elsmore (four times); Thomas Buckley; Mary Rocks child, John Ansell’s boys (twice), Mary Shelly (three times); Sarah Yates’ children (six times); Edward Ansell, and Richard Ansell.

Elizabeth, born in Staffordshire in 1804, was married to Joseph Higginbotham, (b.1805 in Warwickshire). The Higginbothams lived in Great Haywood. In the 1851 Census Joseph, a stone cutter, and Elizabeth were living with two daughters, Ann, a ‘servant at home’ aged 19, and Henryetta aged 13. Ten years later, Joseph described himself as an agricultural labourer in the census and Ann was the only daughter listed. No daughters are listed in the 1871 Census, but living with Joseph and Elizabeth was a granddaughter Henrietta aged seven. For the first time in the 1881 Census another daughter Elizabeth (b.1837) is mentioned; like her mother she was a seamstress. Elizabeth the elder was a widow by this time. In all the census returns, Elizabeth’s occupation is not listed.  Neither Parson and Bradshaw’s 1818 directory nor White’s 1834 directory has any listing for either Joseph or Elizabeth Higginbotham.

Sources

SRO, D24/A/PO/1592–2016, Colwich Overseers’ Vouchers, 12 Mar 1829–22 Jan 1835

TNA, HO107/1999, Census 1851

TNA, RG9/1909, Census 1861

TNA, RG10/2820, Census 1871

TNA, RG11/2691, Census 1881

This is a work in progress subject to change as new research is conducted.

Richard Hayne’s (1723–1787) Memorandum on Uttoxeter Workhouse, 1782

By Peter Collinge

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Amongst the papers of the Fitzherbert family of Tissington, Derbyshire, there is a bundle of miscellaneous items including a description of Uttoxeter workhouse, its management and the activities of its inmates in the second half of the eighteenth century. From the document, it is not clear why the memorandum was written or to whom it was addressed, but it may have been prompted by planned changes to the way in which workhouses were established as a result of Gilbert’s Act of the same year.

Richard Hayne was the second of five children born to John Hayne (b. circa 1688) of Uttoxeter and his wife Lettice Leighton (bapt. 11 Jan 1690). Richard was baptised on 26 March 1723. He was apprenticed to a Derby attorney William Turner in 1742 and appointed as a Justice of the Peace for Derbyshire in 1755, the year after he married Mary Newton at St Oswald’s parish church, Ashbourne. He spent some years living in Uttoxeter, but his main residence was Ashbourne Green Hall. The Hayne family also owned a number of other properties in Ashbourne including the Green Man inn and the Old House in Church Street used as a dower house. Richard died at Bath in 1787 and was buried in the churchyard of All Saints’, Weston. After Richard’s death, his widow moved to the Old House, remaining there until her death in 1802.

The memorandum offers one person’s perspective of the state of the Uttoxeter workhouse and its management before the construction of the one designed by Thomas Gardner which opened in 1789. Hayne’s views emphasise its poor state before his appointment as an inspector, the improvements made whilst he was in post and its decline once again after he left.

He starts the memorandum by recalling events of more than thirty years previously when Uttoxeter’s numerous poor were ‘constantly erecting cottages and enclosing small [plots] of land which they considered as their own, making careful not to change their place of settlement’. The workhouse itself was ‘mostly filled with old persons and children perhaps from 40–60’. Many other poor people received outdoor relief ranging from one to three or four shillings a week. The overseers, chosen usually from ‘the lower sort of Trades People’, sent provisions to the workhouse where ‘some of the old men there distributed it’, not just to the inmates but to others who came for their dinners. The problem was exacerbated, according to Hayne, because those who went to the workhouse for their meal had a tendency to pocket the victuals and carry them away.

Hayne’s other main concern was that the ‘Poor of the workhouse had no employ and ran about the town at pleasure by which habit the children were ignorant, idle and impudent’. The problem of how to ‘amend this bad and expensive conduct’ was discussed frequently by the gentlemen of Uttoxeter who attended the parish vestry. Remonstrating with the overseers proved ineffectual. Consequently the vestry proposed that ‘two Gentlemen should be added to the official overseers who could spare time to inspect’ the workhouse. Hayne and a Major Gardener were thus appointed. ‘Our first step’, wrote Hayne, was to ‘advertise for a person as Manager of the Workhouse’. They got one from Wolverhampton at £24 a year ‘or thereabouts for himself, his wife and his daughter’.

Hayne’s and Gardener’s next step was to inspect the workhouse where they ‘found a room full of broken spinning wheels … We directed these implements to be thoroughly repaired’. The boys and girls were then taught to spin and knit linen and wool, and the ‘old people as were able had their allotment of such work as suited them best’. The House was ‘whitewashed and cleaned in a wholesome manner’. Rooms were inspected on a weekly basis. As the workhouse manager was ‘qualified to instruct the children … in reading, writing and accompting’, copy books and reading books were procured for their education. For the sake of their health the children were permitted to play in a large yard attached to the workhouse where a palisade and locked gate were fixed. A boy, seated in a box, was to unlock the gate and admit in or out ‘all proper persons’.

Gardener’s and Hayne’s role as inspectors lasted for a year, during which time they alternated their duties every two weeks. Hayne claimed that he scarcely missed a day, sometimes carrying out unannounced inspections twice a day. He visited the market to see the butcher’s meat (usually animal muscle tissue) being weighed and put his mark next to the entry in the general account book. He also did this for the flour, wool, hemp and other materials brought into the workhouse. Outdoor relief (except during sickness) was stopped as was the practice of feeding any other than workhouse inmates.

As a result of the inspectors’ endeavours the workhouse was transformed: ‘From a most filthy, dirty place the House became perfectly sweet, clean and wholesome’. The inmates became industrious and the children ‘attained an attention to Business & were (from Parental Homebread (sic)  Brutality) Civilised and fited (sic) to be put out as Parish Apprentices into any decent families’. The spinning of linen yarn for shirts and worsted produced a sufficient amount to make stockings and ‘to be sent out to be woven into liney wolsey for coats and waistcoats for the Men and Boys and Gowns and Petticoats for the Women and Girls’.

After his term of office Hayne removed to Ashbourne, the major returned to his regiment and a contested county election ‘divided the friendship of the Gentlemen [of Uttoxeter and the] workhouse gradually sunk into its former state’.

How much of Hayne’s account we accept at face value is difficult to say. Frederick Eden’s State of the Poor certainly confirms many of the practices Hayne found on his arrival at Uttoxeter workhouse, but the extent to which the workhouse and its inmates were transformed within the space of a year is open to question.

Sources

Derbyshire Record Office, D239/Z/6, Fitzherbert of Tissington Papers, Memorandum Uttoxeter Workhouse 10 May 1782

Frederick Morton Eden, The State of the Poor, A History of the Labouring Classes in England, 3 vols (London: 1797)

Adrian Henstock (ed.), A Georgian Country Town: Ashbourne 1725–1825:  Fashionable Society (Ashbourne: Ashbourne Local History Group, 1989)

Alannah Tomkins, The Experience of Urban Poverty, 1723–82 (Manchester: MUP, 2006)

www.archerfamily.org.uk/family/hayne.htm accessed 6 Mar 2018

www.batharchives.co.uk/sites/bath_record_office/filesWES%20Inscriptions accessed 6 Mar 2018

This is a work in progress, subject to change as new research is conducted.

Matthew Woodward (1794–1857), Woollen and Linen Draper, Haberdasher and Deputy Postmaster, Rugeley, Staffordshire

By Peter Collinge

Between November 1826 and July 1832 Woodward submitted four bills to the Colwich overseers totalling £1 11s 0½d for flannel, linen cloth, worsted stockings and haberdashery items. Parson and Bradshaw’s directory does not list Woodward, however, Pigot’s 1828 directory reveals that he was a linen and woollen draper. Like many in his trade, his billheads show that he was also a silk mercer, hosier and haberdasher. He also had another occupation as Rugeley’s deputy post master.

The Rugeley post office was established in January 1830. The position of deputy (for which a bond of £300 was payable marking Woodward out as a person of means) was held initially by John Wood, but he resigned within 12 months. Woodward (listed as a draper in the post office appointment books) was engaged on 6 January 1831.

The roles of deputy postmaster and postmaster were ones that carried with them responsibility, and depended upon trustworthiness and creditworthiness so it comes as something of a surprise to note that in November 1831, less than a year into his new job, the London Gazette records that a commission of bankruptcy was issued against Woodward, ‘mercer and draper, dealer and chapman’ on 3 November 1831. The commissioners proposed to meet at 12 noon in the Talbot Arms, Rugeley, on 23 February 1832 to make a first and final dividend.

During this period, and indeed afterwards, Woodward kept the position of deputy postmaster. As limited liability in business did not come into being until the 1850s, those declared bankrupt were required by law to declare all their assets, not just those in the business affected by bankruptcy. Technically, therefore, the income derived from Woodward’s position in the post office would have been taken into consideration by the bankruptcy commissioners. They may have decided that the best and quickest way to ensure that Woodward’s creditors received a dividend was to allow him to continue to operate as the deputy postmaster. Indeed, it may be surmised that despite the bankruptcy proceedings, Woodward was not fundamentally poor at business. In a credit-dependent era, it is likely that his bankruptcy was occasioned by demand for payment by another person in the credit chain who was in difficulty. Whatever the cause, the outcome was that Woodward ceased to operate as a draper. White’s 1834 directory lists his only occupation as that of postmaster in Horse Fair, as does the 1841 Census (in a property owned by William Otty according to the tithe award). The 1844 Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons list Woodward as one of the people to whom ‘half-sheets of postage free paper will be sent for sale’. He resigned from his position in 1847; bookbinder Samuel Cheshire the younger was appointed in his stead.

Woodward married Jane Fortescue by licence at St Augustine’s, Rugeley, on 23 December 1823. The ceremony was witnessed by Rebecca Hart and Samuel Fortescue. All were literate. Samuel Fortescue was a surgeon in Horse Fair.

In the Census returns of 1841, 1851 and 1861 no children of Matthew and Jane Woodward are recorded. The 1851 Census records the pair as having a house servant, Elizabeth Marlow, aged 23. Intriguingly, the 1851 Census lists Woodward as a maltster, but he does not appear as such in any trade directory of the 1820s or ‘30s. In White’s 1851 directory, however, Woodward is listed as a maltster in Heron’s Nest Street. How Woodward moved from being a draper to post master to maltster is unknown, but he must have made or acquired money somewhere along the line to set up or take over a malthouse because malting was an expensive, highly regulated and heavily taxed trade. The law required commercial maltsters to be registered and to take out annual licences backed by guarantors. Few could afford the costs involved. Furthermore, the complexity of the malting process meant that it was not a business easily accessible to newcomers.

Woodward died in 1857. His funeral took place on 14 December at St Augustine’s, Rugeley. His widow, aged 70, was living alone by the time of the 1861 Census.

Sources

HMSO, Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons, 20 vols (1844), vol. XLV

Henry D. Barton, Analytical Digest of Cases Published in the Law Journal Reports, vol. XI, new series vol. II (London:  James Holmes, 1833)

British Postal Museum, POST 58/39, Appointments Register for Deputy Postmasters, 1777–1849

Peter Collinge, ‘A Genteel Hand in the Malt Business: Barbara Ford (1755–1841) of Ashbourne’, Midland History 39:1 (2014), 110–132

George Elwick, The Bankrupt Directory being a complete register of all the bankrupts with their residences, trades and dates when they appeared in the London Gazette December 1820–April 1843 (1843)

London Gazette, vol. 1 (London: 1833), 212

William Parson and Thomas Bradshaw, Staffordshire General and Commercial Directory, (1818)

Pigot, Directory of Staffordshire (1828)

Staffordshire Name Index, B/A/15/644, Tithe awards, 1836–1845

SRO, D24/A/PO/1496, Colwich Overseers’ Vouchers, 17 Nov 1826

SRO, D24/A/PO/1510, Colwich Overseers’ Vouchers, 27 Mar 1827

SRO, D24/A/PO/1705, Colwich Overseers’ Vouchers, 7 April 1831

SRO, D24/A/PO/1816b, Colwich Overseers’ Vouchers, 19 Jul 1832

SRO, D1454/1/12–17, St Augustine’s, Rugeley, Parish Register

TNA, HO 107/973/18, Census 1841

TNA, HO 107/2015, Census 1851

TNA, RG 9/1978, Census 1861

William White, History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire (Sheffield: 1834)

William White, History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire (Sheffield: 1851)

This is a work in progress, subject to change as new research becomes available.

Royal Approval for Uttoxeter Workhouse

By Peter Collinge

In November 1840 the Derby Mercury reported, in glowing terms, the visit of Queen Adelaide (widow of William IV) to the new Uttoxeter Workhouse. At the time she was living at Sudbury Hall. With her ‘accustomed benevolence’, reported the paper, ‘Her Majesty … has graciously consented to become the patroness of the Uttoxeter Provident District Visiting Society [and] has intimated her intention of giving an annual subscription of ten pounds to the society’. The queen also ‘paid a visit to the Uttoxeter Union Workhouse, and conveyed … her … intention to bestow a substantial meal of roast beef, plum pudding, and ale, upon the poor inmates on Christmas day. Her Majesty was pleased to inspect the house, and to express her approval of the general arrangements made for the accommodation and convenience of the poor people, who, with numerous other objects of compassion, will have cause to bless the Christian sympathy of the Queen Dowager.’

Source

Derby Mercury, 25 November 1840

John Dumolo (d.1840) Plumber and Glazier, Uttoxeter

By Peter Collinge

John Dumolo of Uttoxeter supplied the parish overseers with a range of goods and services including glass for the workhouse, lamp black, oil, putty, paint of various colours, solder, turps, lead, red lead and buckets. Charging for his labour, he repaired glazing (including window casements), pointing and leading, repainted when required and made several repairs to a pump (including a valve). Vouchers survive for Dumolo for the period 1826 to 1837. His last receipt for January 1837 gives a good flavour of the range of goods and services he provided over the years.

Pint Black Paint, Pot & Tool £0.1.0
Pint of Oil £0.0.7
Pint of Lamp Black £0.0.8
1 Pint Glue, 1 Pint Lamp Black £0.1.4
1½ Pints Salmon Colour, Glue £0.0.8½
5 Squares Crown £0.1.10½
3 Squares Common £0.1.1½
4½ Ft New Leaded £0.2.½
12 Squares common £0.4.6
Repairing Valve to Pump £0.2.6
1 Man ¾ day to do £0.2.9

 

Although these amounts were not enormous, Dumolo’s contact with the parish overseers provided him with regular repeat business. He was also paid for repairs, including glass, to Doveridge workhouse. This is one of the few instances where we find a business getting work from more than one parish.

The Register of Duties Paid for Apprentices reveals that in 1796 plumbers Elizabeth and William Dumolo apprenticed Thomas Mollatt and in 1805 John and Elizabeth Dumolo apprenticed John Colclough.

Aside from business, John Dumolo and a Miss Dumolo each contributed £0-10-0 to the British and Foreign Bible Society (Uttoxeter Branch) and in June 1831 Dumolo declared his support for the parliamentary reform bill.

John Dumolo left an extensive will and appointed his friends Thomas Woolrich, surgeon and druggist; William Smith, saddler; and William Smith mercer and draper, as trustees.

Whilst John Dumolo made provision for a number of his relatives, it was not an equal division. Perhaps he had already made some in-life gifts. The chief beneficiaries were Mary Ann Kimber and Edward Kimber, the children of his sister Ann.  They were bequeathed his house in High Street, Uttoxeter together with the grates, cupboards, and other fixtures, with the shops, his five seats in the pew in the church, and his land at Uttoxeter Heath. Property in High Street in the occupation of hosier Joseph Roe went to Mary Ann Kimber

Rents and profits from part of his estate were to be used to provide annuities of £5 each to his sisters Ann Kimber and Elizabeth Salt. The stock-in-trade and working tools of his business were left in equal shares to Elizabeth Salt and Edward Kimber. If Elizabeth died before John Dumolo her husband Rupert Salt, should he be living, was to receive Elizabeth’s share of the stock and tools. The business itself was to be continued by his brother-in-law Rupert Salt and his nephew Edward Kimber in an equal partnership for their mutual benefit. John Dumolo’s household goods, furniture, plate, linen and china were bequeathed to Mary Ann Kimber for her own absolute use; his books, wine and other liquors were left to Mary Ann, Rupert and Edward in equal shares.

Dumolo’s money, securities and book debts, his farming stock, horse and other personal effects were to be gathered in where necessary, sold and disposed of to settle his debts and pay his funeral and probate expenses. Any residue was to be placed at interest on mortgages or securities. The income and dividends arising were to be divided equally between his two sisters.  It is only after this provision that it becomes apparent that there were other relatives of John Dumolo. After their deaths income and dividends arising were to be divided between Rupert Salt, Mary Ann Kimber, nephews Thomas Kimber, William Kimber, William Dumolo, his nieces Blanche and Louisa Dumolo and grocer George James Kimber, the son of his nephew Thomas Kimber. No mention is made of the parents of the Dumolo nephews and nieces.

The last part of Dumolo’s will appears to be missing.

Sources

Derbyshire Record Office, D1197 A/PO 1492, Doveridge Overseers’ Vouchers, 29 April 1834–14 Feb 1835

The Ninth Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society (London: J. Tilling, 1813)

W. Parson and T. Bradshaw, Staffordshire General and Commercial Directory, (1818)

Pigot and Co., National Commercial Directory [Part 2: Nottinghamshire–Yorkshire and North Wales] for 1828–29 (London and Manchester: J. Pigot and Co., 1828)

William White, History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire (Sheffield: 1834)

William White, History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire (Sheffield: 1851)

Staffordshire Advertiser, June 1831

Staffordshire Record Office (SRO), D3891/6/32/19/4, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 2 Aug 1828

SRO, D3891/6/32/19/6, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 22 Sep 1826

SRO, D3891/6/33/3/010, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, Apr 1828–22 Apr 1829

SRO, D3891/6/34/11/005, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 18 May–9 Nov 1829

SRO, D3891/6/35/3/48, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 27 Jan 1831

SRO, D3891/6/37/10/34, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 12 Jan 1832

SRO, D3891/6/39/13/7, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 25 Jan 1833

SRO, D3891/6/40/10/21, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 25 Jan 1834

SRO, D3891/6/41/1/22, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 17 Jan 1835

SRO, D3891/6/44/54, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 2 Jan 1837

SRO, D3891/6/45/9/1p, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 21 Dec 1837

TNA, PROB11/1921, John Dumolo, 23 Jan 1840

TNA, IR1/36 and IR1/40, Register of Duties Paid for Apprentices, 4 Feb 1795, 22 Jan 1805

This is a work in progress subject to change as new research is conducted.

Thomas Moore (1801–1865), butcher, Tettenhall

By Peter Collinge
Tetttenhall Workhouse was supplied with meat on 77 occasions between 12
April 1825 and 5 April 1827. In the financial year 1825–1826, three butchers,
Thomas Moore (1801–1865) of Compton, Edward Mason and William
Farmer, supplied 1,195lbs of meat, overwhelmingly beef occasionally
supplemented by mutton. Between them, they submitted 37 bills (Moore 16,
Mason 14 and Farmer seven). In the following year, Moore, Mason and
Farmer again supplied all the meat (submitting 42 bills between them),
except for one bill for 12½lbs of bacon submitted by a Mr Stockes and
another submitted by Mr Crutchley for 20lbs of mutton. At 23 bills Farmer
submitted more than half, with Mason submitting 13 and Moore just six.

White’s History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire (1834), lists four butchers in Tettenhall: Charles Hayward, Thomas Matthews of Tettenhall Wood, John Moore, and Thomas Moore of Compton. William Nicholls, victualler and butcher is listed in Parson and Bradshaw’s 1818 directory.

Thomas Moore (1801–1865), most likely the son of Thomas and Mary Moore who married at St Michael’s and All Angels, Tettenhall, in 1794, was married to Sarah (b.1799) from Claverley, Shropshire. Between them they had nine children Harriet (b.1825); William (b.1827) who became a butcher; Ann (b.1828) and Ellen (b.1831)  who became servants; Sarah (b.1832); Elizabeth (b.1834); Thomas (b.1836); Joseph (b.1840) and Charlotte (b.1841). Thomas was buried in St Michael’s and All Angels, Tettenhall, on 13 March 1865. As butchers were generally amongst the better off shopkeepers, it is perhaps a little surprising to find two of Moore’s children listed as servants in the 1841 Census. More usually they might have been expected to work within the family business. By the time of the 1861 Census the Moores had moved to Tettenhall Wood and only two of Thomas’ and Sarah’s children were still living at home: William and Charlotte. Both were unmarried.

Sources

TNA, HO 107/998 Census 1841

TNA, HO 107/2017 Census 1851

W. Parson and T. Bradshaw, Staffordshire General and Commercial Directory, Part 3 (1818), 41

Staffordshire Record Office, D1364/1/18, St Michael’s and All Angels, Tettenhall, Parish Register.

Staffordshire Record Office, Tettenhall Workhouse Purchases 12 Apr 1825 – 5 Apr 1827

www.wolverhamptonhistory.org.uk Tettenhall St Michael’s and All Angels Burials 1824–1856.

This is a work in progress, subject to change as new research is conducted.

Thomas Crutchley and Henry Crutchley, Tettenhall

By Peter Collinge

On 28 December 1826 a Mr Crutchley supplied 81lb of cheese at 5½d per lb to Tettenhall workhouse. The following year on 5 April 1827 a Mr Crutchley supplied 20lb of mutton at 5d per lb. Was Mr Crutchley both a supplier of meat and cheese, or are we talking about two different Crutchleys? Census returns, trade directories and parish registers offer some possibilities, but no definite answers.

White’s History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire (1834), lists four butchers in Tettenhall: Charles Hayward, Thomas Matthews of Tettenhall Wood, John Moore, and Thomas Moore of Compton, but no Crutchley. Thomas Crutchley of The Wergs, farmer, and a cheesemonger Henry Crutchley of Lichfield Street, Wolverhampton, are listed in White’s 1834 directory. Pigot’s 1828–1829 directory also lists Henry Crutchley, grocer, in Lichfield Street.

The Spectator (1845) reported the death of a Thomas Crutchley of The Wergs in his ninetieth year and there is the burial of a Henry Crutchley (1794–1847) of The Wergs recorded in the parish register of St Michael’s and All Angels, Tettenhall, 4 February 1847.

For Tettenhall Road, Wolverhampton, the 1841 Census notes grocer Henry Crutchley (b.1796), his wife Harriet (b.1806), daughter Laura (b.1838), and two servants Martha Walker (b.1817) and Mary Perry (b.1797). The will of Henry Crutchley, grocer, Wolverhampton, was proved on 3 June 1847. All his real and personal estate was left to his wife Harriet, who was also the sole executrix.

The 1841 Census for Compton lists Thomas Crutchley [wheelwright?] (b.1791), his wife Lucy (b.1796), their children Sarah (b.1821), Henry (b.1829), Lucy (b.1832) and Mary (b.1838).

On 2 July 1821 John Jones of Cheswardine, Shropshire married Jane Crutchley of Tettenhall by licence. It was witnessed by Elizabeth Crutchley and Henry Crutchley. On 17 April 1823 the marriage of Thomas Pickstock of Penkridge and Elizabeth Crutchley was witnessed by Elizabeth Gardner and Charles Crutchley and on 19 April 1824 the marriage of George Blakemore of Tettenhall and Mary Anne Mason of Wolverhampton was witnessed by Thomas Crutchley and Lucy Crutchley.

Seemingly, there were many people who went by the surname of Crutchley; several of them called Henry or Thomas. It may not be possible to determine which of the Crutchelys operated as a supplier to Tettenhall Workhouse.

Sources

Pigot and Co., National Commercial Directory [Part 2: Nottinghamshire–Yorkshire and North Wales] for 1828–29 (London and Manchester: J. Pigot and Co., 1828), p.756.

Tettenhall Parish Registers vol II, Marriages 1745–1839 (printed privately by F.J. Malton and Co., Willenhall, Staffordshire, 1966)

The Spectator vol. 18 (1845), p.67.

Staffordshire Record Office, D1364/1/18, St Michael’s and All Angels, Tettenhall, Parish Register.

TNA, HO 107/998 and HO 107/1000 Census 1841

TNA, Census 1851

TNA, RG09/1984 Census 1861

TNA, PROB 2057 Henry Crutchley, grocer, Wolverhampton, proved 3 June 1847

William White, History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire (Sheffield: 1834), pp.289, 290.

This is a work in progress subject to change as new research is conducted.

Sampson Bartram (1790–1863), Master Blacksmith, Uttoxeter

By Peter Collinge

Bartram’s skills as a blacksmith were called upon for repairs to metalwork and for sharpening tools at Uttoxeter workhouse and brick yard. In January 1831 he was paid a total of £9 6s 10d for such work. A year’s bill for sharpening and mending tools, possibly at the brick yard amounted to £2 14s 0d. An additional £1 15s 5½d was received for a year’s ‘repairs, nails and other metal work for House’, presumably the workhouse. In 1833 he mended and sharpened picks and harrows and in 1835 was paid for repairing tools for stone breaking. A detailed bill of 1835 lists ‘Nails, mending locks, mending a key, mending dung forks, mending of ironwork on alms houses, mended a cow chain, plaits for a wagon, fixed the mangle, mended a pair of stuffers, steeling a brick hammer, 5 dowels, a pair of pincers, window bar repairs, repaired a table, hoop on washing dolly, mended a ladle, mended door handle & mended fire shovel’. He was paid £2 0s 7d.

In March he received £0 3s 0d for repairs and mending locks. On this occasion he was paid by constable James Mills. Sometimes Bartram took in overnight lodgers. In April 1832 he took in Francis Evans and family, William Robson and Thomas Johnson. In September 1832 he was paid £0 3s 0d by the constables of Uttoxeter for 12 nights’ lodgings.

Sometimes receipts were signed by Enoch Bartram. Occasionally, he may have been called upon as a rat catcher.

Bartram was born in Birmingham in 1790. In the 1841 Census Sampson Bartram the elder was listed as living with his sons David, a blacksmith; Sampson the younger, an apprentice joiner; William; and his daughter Hannah in a freehold house in Carter Street, Uttoxeter. Ten years later, Sampson, now 61, was living with his wife Sarah, 55; and William an apprentice blacksmith. By 1861 he was once again listed as a blacksmith. Sarah has disappeared from the record and Sampson was living with William, 30, and Hannah, 27, a housekeeper. The change from blacksmith in 1841 to master blacksmith in 1851 may represent Bartram’s advancement in his profession. The way in which people defined themselves in relation to others, however, in this case through a gradation in status, may also represent one of the ways in which Bartram formulated his identity.

The Census returns reveal only part of Bartam’s family. What follows is supported by documentary material but there are some areas where doubt remains. Bartram married three times. First to Mary (1784–1823) the daughter of John and Mary Allport of Uttoxter. The marriage took place in 1823. Sampson and Mary had at least three children: Enoch (c.1816–1889) who became a blacksmith in Lincoln; David (1817–1899) who moved to Shawnee County, Kansas; and Sampson. There may also have been another child, Amos (b.1820), a cattle drover lodging in Kineton, Warwickshire at the time of the 1851 Census. Bartram’s second marriage was to Priscilla (1807–1838), the daughter of Joseph and Sarah Burton of Uttoxeter. The marriage took place on 3 October 1825 in Stone, Staffordshire. Sampson and Priscilla had two children: William (1831–1905) and Hannah (c.1833–1862). Sampson’s third marriage to Sarah (1783–1858) took place in 1842.

Sources

Peter Guillery, The Small House in Eighteenth-Century London, A Social and Architectural History (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009),13.

Kansas Territory Census 1865, ks1865-4

Poll Books and electoral Registers, Pirehill South, Uttoxeter, 1832

National Probate Calendar, Sampson Bartram, 11 April 1863

Staffordshire Record Office, D3891/6/34/4/028, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 15 Jun 1829

SRO, D3891/6/35/3/20–21, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 28 Jan 1831

SRO, D3891/6/37/10/47, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 19 Jan 1832

SRO, D3891/6/37/10/55, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 19 Jan 1832

SRO, D3891/6/37/12/55, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 31 Mar 1832

SRO, D3891/6/38/6/006, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, Jan–Dec 31 1832

SRO, D3891/6/39/11/1, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 12 Apr 1832

SRO, D3891/6/39/11/2, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 9 Apr 1832

SRO, D3891/6/39/11/8, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, Sep 1832

SRO, D3891/6/39/17/1, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 25 Jan 1833

SRO, D3891/6/40/10/8, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 24 Jan 1834

SRO, D3891/6/41/1/13, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 24 Jan 1835

SRO, D3891/6/41/1/16, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 24 Jan 1835

SRO, D3891/1/7–20, Uttoxeter, St Mary Parish Registers

TNA, HO 107/1007/14 Census 1841

TNA, HO 107/2010, Census 1851

TNA, HO 107/2105, Census 1851

TNA, Census 107/2074, Census 1851

TNA, RG 9/1954, Census 1861

This is a work in progress, subject to change as research continues.

Thomas Woolrich (active 1820s-1830s), Chemist and Druggist, Uttoxeter

By Peter Collinge

A bill sent by Thomas Woolrich turns up just once in the overseers’ vouchers for Uttoxeter when, in 1835, he charged 6s for supplying sulphuric acid and a further 6s for manganese. With extensive business interests and multiple income streams, notably as a purveyor of his own ‘horse balls’, as an agent for Sun Life insurance, agent for Heeley and Sons pens, and the supplier of patent medicines, perhaps he had little need to rely on business from the parish overseers. He may also have faced competition from George Alsop and Samuel Garle.

As Woolrich’s business network extended far beyond Uttoxeter, it is no surprise to find that like a number of other residents of the town he was on the provisional committee of the Leeds, Huddersfield, Sheffield and South Staffordshire, or Leeds, Wolverhampton and Dudley Direct Railway. His claim to fame, however, rested on ‘Woolrich’s improved diuretic horse balls’ available from ‘all respectable medicine vendors in most market towns in the kingdom’. In addition to Uttoxeter, they were also sold wholesale by London agents such as Messrs Barclay & Sons, 95 Fleet Market; Mr Edwards, 66 St Paul’s Church Yard; Sutton & Co., Bow Church Yard; and Butlers’, Cheapside. They could be bought at 73 Princess Street, Edinburgh, and at 54 Sackville Street, Dublin. Closer to home they were sold retail by Drewry & Son, Derby; Whitham, Ashbourne; and Claughton, Chesterfield.

His shop in High Street offered a wide range of patent medicines including John Leeming’s genuine horse medicines; Dr Sibly’s Reanimating Solar Tincture for debility, consumption, nervous complaints, rheumatism, spasms, indigestion, and  lowness of spirits; Barclay’s asthmatic candy; Hayman’s Meredant’s antiscorbutic drops; Lignum’s antiscorbutic drops; Blaine’s celebrated powder for distemper in dogs; and ‘Dr Boerhaave’s red pill no 2 famous for the cure of every stage and symptom of a certain complaint [the] cause of foul ulcerations, [and] blotches’.  Regarding such medicines, Alan Mackintosh notes ‘A few of the supposed inventors were dead and certainly had no real link with the medicine, as in the case of … the enigmatically named Dr Boerhaave’s Red Pill Number Two’.

Woolrich may also have operated an informal registry office for servants. In March 1831 a cook was ‘wanted for a small genteel family where a kitchen maid is kept’. For particulars interested persons should apply to Mr Woolrich. In June two cooks and other domestic servants were wanted in a respectable household near Uttoxeter; a good plain cook of middle aged was preferred. Housemaids and nursery maids seeking positions should enquire of Mr Woolrich, or Mrs Horn and Son, Cheadle. In September a clergyman’s family in a country village wanted a plain cook with a good character reference from her last place. Particulars could be had from Messrs Mort at the Advertiser Office, Stafford, or from Mr Woolrich.

Woolrich subscribed to Thomas Fernyhough’s wonderfully titled Military Memoirs of Four Brothers, Natives of Staffordshire Engaged in the Service of their Country as Well in the New World and Africa, as on the Continent of Europe, by the Survivor.

No specific dates have been given for Thomas Woolrich as there were several in Uttoxeter. In 1787 a Thomas Woolrich apprenticed Francis Woolley as a druggist; another, James Walters was apprenticed in 1790 and a third, William Morley was apprenticed in 1796. Thomas Woolrich senior of High Street, was registered as a voter in the 1832 poll book. Another Thomas, son of Thomas and Sarah Woolrich was baptised in Uttoxeter on 14 April 1782 and was buried 20 September 1853.

Woolrich served as a juror at the quarter sessions in1811 and 1821.

Sources

Bradshaw’s Railway Gazette vol. 1, (London: William James Adams; Manchester: Bradshaw and Blacklock, 1845)

Hyde Clark (ed.), The Railway Register and Record of Public Enterprise for Railways (London, John Weale, 1845), pt II, 166

Derby Mercury, 6 Apr, 27 Jul, 2 Nov 1831, 1 Feb, 8 Feb, 9 May 1832

Thomas Fernyhough, Military Memoirs of Four Brothers, Natives of Staffordshire Engaged in the Service of their Country as Well in the New World and Africa, as on the Continent of Europe, by the Survivor (London: 1829)

Alan Mackintosh, The Patent Medicines Industry in Georgian England: Constructing the Market by the Potency of Print (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) p.244

W. Parson and T. Bradshaw, Staffordshire General and Commercial Directory, (1818)

Poll Books and Electoral Registers, Totmonslow South, Uttoxeter, 1832

Staffordshire Advertiser 1 Jan, 12 Mar, 26 Mar, 2 Apr, 23 Apr, 11 Jun, 10 Sep 1831

Staffordshire Record Office, D3891/6/41/7/71, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 1 April 1835

SRO, D3891/1/7–20, Uttoxeter, St Mary’s Parish Registers

SRO, Q/RJr, Quarter Sessions Jurors’ Index 1811–1831

TNA, IR 1/34, 1/64, 1/68, Register of Duties Paid for Apprentices’ Indentures 1710–1811

This is a work in progress, subject to change as research continues.

Uttoxeter Names on Obscure Lists

By Peter Collinge

Beyond parish registers, newspapers and census returns the names of some Uttoxeter residents turn up in obscure places. Here are some of them. Occupations are taken from trade directories of 1818 and 1834, or from the sources themselves. Many of these people have turned up in connection with the overseers’ vouchers.

William Pitt, A Topographical History of Staffordshire (London: 1817)

Name of Subscriber Occupation
George Alsop Surgeon
Michael Bass
James Bell Banker
Revd Thomas Best
Samuel Botham
Thomas Hart
Benjamin Hodgson
Clement Kynnersley
Edward Mallabar
Mr T. S. Robinson
Job Shaw Master of house of industry
Herbert Taylor Doctor

 

Thomas Fernyhough, Military Memoirs of Four Brothers, Natives of Staffordshire Engaged in the Service of their Country as well in the New World and Africa, as on the Continent of Europe, by the Survivor (London: 1829)

Name of Subscriber Occupation
Mrs Alsop
Mrs Bladon
James Bell Banker
Mr James Cook Minister
Mrs Flint
Miss Godwin
William Garle Druggist
Alexander Kennedy M.D
Mrs Perkin
Mr Smith
Herbert Taylor M.D.
Thomas Woolrich Druggist

 

Deed of Settlement of the Northern and Central Bank of England, established 1834 (Manchester: printed by henry Smith, 1835)

Name Occupation
John Garle Red Lion
Samuel Garle Draper

A list of the Country Banks of England and Wales, private and proprietary; also of the names of all the shareholders of joint stock banks (London: M. A. Marchant, 1838)

Name Occupation
Francis Blagg Attorney
John Cooke Minister
William Dafforn Evarard Darper
John Garle Red Lion
Samuel Garle Draper
Joseph Haigh
Maria Howe
Richard Keates Ironmonger
William Porter Ironmonger
Herbert Taylor Doctor
John Vernon

 

Commercial Bank of England

Name Occupation
John Cooke Minister
William Dafforn Evarard Draper
Joseph Bladon esq., Oldfield House
Francis Blagg Attorney
Joseph Haigh
Maria Howe
John Vernon

Derby and Derbyshire Banking Company

Name Occupation
John Cooke Minister
Richard Keates Ironmonger
William Porter Ironmonger
Herbert Taylor Doctor
John Vernon

Manchester and Liverpool Banking Company

Name Occupation
Richard Keates Ironmonger
William Porter Ironmonger

Northern and Central Bank of England

Name Occupation
Joseph Haigh

George Elwick, The Bankrupt Directory being a complete register of all the bankrupts with their residences, trades and dates when they appeared in the London Gazette December 1820–April 1843 (1843).

Date Name Occupation
16 June 1821 John Billingham Nailmaker
4 Jan 1825 Thomas Smith Tanner
3 July 1829 Joseph Norris Draper
11 Nov 1831 George Alsop Surgeon
26 July 1836 Thomas Blair Money Scrivener
9 June 1837 William Perkin Timber Merchant
26 April 1842 Charles Holbrook Plumber and Glazier

 

Bradshaw’s Railway Gazette vol. 1, (London: William James Adams; Manchester: Bradshaw and Blacklock, 1845)

Leeds, Huddersfield, Sheffield and South Staffordshire, or Leeds, Wolverhampton and Dudley Direct Railway Provisional Committee

Name Occupation
Henry Arnold Cheese Factor
George Benwell
Robert Blurton Banker, Smallwood Manor
Revd J. Cooke Independent Minister
Thomas Earp Cheese Factor
Samuel Garle Draper, royal Exchange Insurance Agent
William Garle Druggist
Lawrence Richard Corbett Wandfield Hall, Uttoxeter
Richard Lassetter Surgeon (Registrar of Births and Deaths 1851)
James Lassettter Wine & Spirit Merchant, Cheese Factor
John Minors Gent, the Parks
William Phillips Springfield Hall, Uttoxeter
Thomas Woolrich Druggist
Charles Wood Union Clerk (1851)

 

Hyde Clark, The Railway Register and Record of Public Enterprise for Railways, Mines, Patents, Inventions vol. 2 (London: John Wall, 1845)

Direct East and West Junction Railway, Kidderminster to Hereford Provisional Committee

Name Occupation
Henry Arnold
Benjamin Bell
George Benwell
Thomas Brindley Grocer and Tea Dealer
Revd J. Cooke
Samuel Garle Draper
William Garle Druggist
John Minors The Parks

The British and Foreign Railway Review vol, 1, (London: Effingham Wilson, October 1845)

Leeds, Huddersfield, Sheffield and South Staffordshire Railway

Name Occupation
William Garle Druggist

Staffordshire and North Midlands Junction Railway

Name Occupation
John Earp Director

Remington’s Direct London and Manchester Railway

Name Occupation
Henry Arnold Director

Direct Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Worcestershire Junction Direct East and West

Name Occupation
Revd John Cooke Director
Thomas Brindley Director
Richard Lassetter Director
C. Wood Director