Category: People

Thomas Clerk (1758–1836), and other Gardeners and Seedsmen, Lichfield

By Peter Collinge

Thomas Clerk and his wife Betty (1762–1840) lived in Bird Street. They had three children: Thomas (b.1796), Elizabeth (b.1801) and Frances (b.1804). All the children were baptised at St Mary’s church in the centre of Lichfield. St Michael’s parish register, however, notes that ‘Thomas Clerk of Bird Street’ was buried on 4 July 1836. He does not appear to have left a will. Betty was also buried at St Michael’s. For an explanation of why the burials of Thomas and Betty took place at St Michael’s see the entry on Lichfield extracted from Frederick Morton Eden’s State of the Poor.

Between 1823 and 1832 Clerk was one of two regular suppliers of plants and seeds to St Mary’s workhouse, Sandford Street; the other was Joseph Sedgewick of Boar Street. The workhouse leased its garden from a Mrs Simpson. This may be Mrs Maria Simpson of St John Street, listed in White’s directory.

Between them Clerk and Sedgewick supplied mustard, cress, radish, onion, lettuce, cabbage, Savoy cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, parsley, leeks, Windsor and long pod beans, Altrincham carrots, Prussian and imperial peas, celery, turnip, early turnip, and Cockney potatoes, an early-cropping variety. On occasion Maria Sedgewick took payment instead of Joseph.

Pigot’s directory notes that the grounds around Lichfield produced ‘a great abundance of vegetables’, but lists only Clerk and Segdewick as nurserymen and seedsmen. There were, however, a large number of gardeners in Lichfield. White’s 1834 directory lists 32 in all. Twelve of them had addresses on Green Hill, and a further six were located in Sandford Street. Of all the gardeners listed, only Clerk was also listed in Pigot’s directory as a seedsman.

Occasionally, other suppliers of seeds and plants submitted bills to the workhouse. Of these, Jackson and Nichols appear in White’s directory, whereas George Sandford, James Bird, Joseph Mould, Winslow, and Handley do not. In 1826 James Bird billed the workhouse for ‘Potatoes for the workhouse garden’; the money was received by Elizabeth Bird. Seed potatoes were delivered to the garden by Handley and Winslow in 1834. In the same year George Sandford supplied 150 celery plants. Samuel Jackson of Market Street supplied early gem, early beans, onion and carrot seed, mustard and cress, radish and lettuce seed, between 11 February and March 27 1835.

Sources

Staffordshire Record Office

D20/1/3, Lichfield, St Mary’s, Parish Register

D27/1/8, D27/1/10, D27/1/16, D27/1/18 Lichfield, St Michael’s, Parish Register

LD20/6/6/3, Overseers’ Vouchers, Lichfield, St Mary’s, Mrs Simpson, rent

LD20/6/6, no item number, Overseers’ Vouchers, Lichfield, St Mary’s, Thos Clerk, 30 May 1823

LD20/6/6, no item number, Overseers’ Vouchers, Lichfield, St Mary’s, Thos Clerk, 29 June 1824

LD20/6/6, no item number, Overseers’ Vouchers, Lichfield, St Mary’s, Thomas Clerk, 9 March–17 May 1825 settled 30 June 1825

SRO, LD20/6/6, no item number, Overseers’ Vouchers, Lichfield, St Mary’s, James Bird, settled 1 August 1826

LD20/6/6, no item number, Overseers’ Vouchers, Lichfield, St Mary’s, Thomas Clerk, 8 March 8 Mary 1826 settled 5 February 1827

LD20/6/7, no item number, Overseers’ Vouchers, Lichfield, St Mary’s, J. Sedgwick, 20 March 1832;

LD20/6/7, no item number, Overseers’ Vouchers, Lichfield, St Mary’s, J. Sedgwick, 7 April 1831–17 December 1832

LD20/6/7, no item number, Overseers’ Vouchers, Lichfield, St Mary’s, April-June 1834

LD20/6/7, no item number, Overseers’ voucher, Lichfield, St Mary’s, George Sandford, 1834

LD20/6/6, no item number, Overseers’ Vouchers, Lichfield, St Mary’s, Samuel Bird, 1835[?]

Pigot and Co., National Commercial Directory for 1828-29, Cheshire, Cumberland [&c.] (London and Manchester: J. Pigot and Co.)

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

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

William Dafforn Evarard (1786–1870), Linen and Woollen Draper, Uttoxeter

By Peter Collinge

Thomas Evarard (1745–1808) of Attleborough, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire married Elizabeth Dafforn (1756–1829) of Tamworth on 26 December 1782. They had eight children: Elizabeth (1781–1849), William Dafforn (1786–1870), Mary (1788–1844), Hannah Maria (1791–1860), John (1791–1829), Joseph (1794–1850), Susannah (1799–1862), and Jane (1800–1831).

White’s 1834 directory, and poll books of the early 1830s list William Dafforn Evarard as a linen and woollen draper in High Street, Uttoxeter. By 1841 he and his wife Sarah were living in Market Place alongside Henry Lawrence, Edward Kelsey, and Anna Leaves, all drapers’ assistants, and servant Leah Morley.

Between 1844 when the poll book for that year recorded him as living in a freehold house in the Market Place and his death aged 83 in 1870, Evarard had returned to Warwickshire with his wife and was living at 8 Union Street, Coventry. His probated estate was under £5,000.

Everard’s pre-printed bills state clearly ‘ready money only’, but this was evidently to encourage prompt payment rather than a strictly enforced business maxim. A bill sent to the overseers for calico, thread, and tape costing £1-7-9 dated 29 April 1831, for example, took two months to settle. Goods were supplied to both the workhouses in Uttoxeter and Doveridge, and to individuals in receipt of poor relief including ‘Brassington’ who was given five yards of Welsh flannel and ‘Ward’ who was given a w[oolle]n frock in 1832.  In the 1830s the range of goods supplied to Uttoxeter’s overseers varied little: calico, tape, cotton, thread, Welsh flannel, brown sheeting, moleskin, buttons, and cord.

Everard’s business success enabled him to invest in the local infrastructure and to contribute to charity. In 1838 his name appeared as a shareholder in the Commercial Bank of England and in 1836 he made a £1-1-0 contribution to a missionary charity.

Sources

1841 Census HO 107/1007/15

1832 and 1844 Poll Books and Electoral Registers 1538–1893

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)

National Probate Calendar 5 April 1870, William Dafforn Everard effects under £5,000.

SRO, D3891/6/37/3/4, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 18 June 1831

SRO, D3891/6/37/10/14, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 12 January 1832

SRO, D3891/6/37/12/69, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 7 February–8 March 1832

SRO, D3891/6/40/10/4, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 23 January 1834

SRO, D3891/6/40/16/5, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 28 June 1836

SRO, D3891/6/40/16/17, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 28 June 1836

The Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle vol. 14 (London: Frederick Westley and A. H. Davis, 1836)

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

N.B. This biography is a work in progress and will probably be amended as further information from vouchers and other sources becomes available.

John Shaw, Grocer and Tea Dealer, Uttoxeter

By Peter Collinge

John Shaw of Carter Street, Uttoxeter, was principally a grocer and tea dealer with a side line in the manufacture of sewing cotton and linen thread, the latter probably in association with Robert Shaw. Apart from John, the 1818 trade directory lists a number of other Shaws: Robert Shaw, linen and cotton manufacturer, Sheep Market; Mary Shaw, lace worker, Pinfold Lane; and perhaps most significantly because it may have enabled John to access workhouse contracts, a Job Shaw, governor of the House of Industry, Uttoxeter Heath.

Like many nineteenth-century grocers, Shaw carried a range of foodstuffs: loaf sugar, moist sugar, mixed tea, Congou tea, coffee, treacle, ginger, pepper, mustard, rice, saltpetre, black pepper, currants, raisins, and clove pepper. He also stocked soap, candles, tobacco, black lead, soda, whiting, starch and blue.

Shaw was prosperous enough to have illustrated pre-printed billheads such as the one dated 30 November 1835 which provides further evidence of the goods he stocked including tobacco, pickling vinegars, and ‘every description of eating and other oils, butters, hops, seeds, &c’.

There is a stylised westernised depiction of a ‘Chinaman’ dressed in flowing robes and wearing a bamboo dŏulì or rice hat. He is sat by the coast on chest of Fine Hyson tea with his left arm resting on a canister of ‘Turkey and all other Coffees, Cocoa &c’. Behind him is a pagoda, similar to the one at Kew Gardens in front of which is a large six sided, oval jar. Out at sea is a tea clipper.

Representations of Chinamen are seen on other billheads, often in conjunction with other generic figures (see ‘Advertising a Global Outlook’ post), and raises interesting questions relating to national sentiment.

Transporting tea was hazardous, with ships subject to storms, shipwrecks and smuggling. To compensate for erratic supplies to the domestic market, tea was often adulterated, reused and imitated. There was a thriving trade in second hand tea purchased from servants working in grand households, or from hotels to which the unscrupulous added a range of adulterants to ‘improve’ its colour and taste: ferrous sulphate, verdigris, and carbon black, were favourite additives. Such adulteration was widespread and often commented upon, but only occasionally was action taken against those involved: in 1818 eleven people were tried and convicted in London for adulterating tea. But it was not just that adulteration existed but who was believed to be doing the adulteration. Thomas Short’s A Dissertation upon Tea (1730) and John Lettsom’s Natural History of the Tea Tree (1772) both alleged that it was the Chinese. Such accusations grew during the rest of the century, increasing significantly in the nineteenth. The reality was that most of the adulteration was carried out in Britain by domestic dealers and suppliers eager to overcome shortages.

Shaw’s representation of the ‘Chinaman’ as a means of advertising his wares comes just prior to the introduction in the late 1830s of Indian and later Ceylon tea from Britain’s expanding empire. Purchasing and consuming products from the empire was regarded as patriotic; Indian and Ceylon teas were increasingly associated with Britishness whilst Chinese tea was regarded with suspicion. Like the representation of the Chinese figure in ‘Advertising a Global Outlook’, Shaw’s ‘Chinaman’ is presented as placid and unthreatening. It would be interesting to know whether later bills presented by Shaw continued to adopt the ‘Chinaman’ as a sales technique, or whether he had succumbed to national sentiment.

Sources

John Burnett, Plenty and Want: A Social History of England from 1815 to the Present Day (London: 1989)

Peter Collinge, ‘Chinese Tea, Turkish Coffee and Scottish Tobacco: Image and Meaning in Uttoxeter’s Poor Law Vouchers’, Transactions of the Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society, XLIX (June 2017)

Frederick Filby, A History of Food Adulteration and Analysis (London: 1934)

W. Parson and T. Bradshaw, Staffordshire General and Commercial Directory presenting an Alphabetical Arrangement of the Names and Residences of the Nobility, Gentry, Merchants and Inhabitants in General (Manchester: 1818)

Liza Picard, Dr Johnson’s London: Life in London 1740–1770 (London: 2000)

Erika Rappaport, ‘Packaging China: Foreign Articles and Dangerous Tastes in the Mid-Victorian Tea Party’ in Frank Trentmann (ed.), The Making of the Consumer: Knowledge, Power and Identity in the Modern World (Oxford: 2006).

SRO, D3891/6/42/75, Bill to Overseers from John Shaw, 30 November 1835

James Walvin Fruits of Empire: Exotic Produce and British Trade, 1660–1800 (London: 1997)

N.B. This  is a work in progress and will probably be amended as further information from vouchers and other sources becomes available.

Michael Clewley (c.1781-1853) of Uttoxeter

By Peter Collinge

Michael Clewley married Elizabeth Goodwin (c.1791–c.1846), the daughter of Thomas Goodwin the elder of Trentham, Staffordshire. Over the next eighteen years Elizabeth gave birth to seven children: Thomas Mallabar (b.1816) who became a surgeon in Warwickshire, Mary (b.1817), Elizabeth Goodwin (1819–1833), Edward (1821–1832), Edna (June–July 1823), Susanna (b.1824), and Michael Hugh (1826–1850).

Like other Uttoxeter traders, Clewley was a man with multiple business interests and civic responsibilities. Trade directories list him as an ironmonger in High Street (1818) and as a grocer, tea dealer and proprietor of the stamp office (1828). At the end of May 1831 he invoiced the parish overseers for £3 8s 8½d for grocery goods including blue, ginger, tea and tobacco. According to the 1832 Poor Rate Assessment, in addition a house in Carter Street, he was leasing cottages, and a malthouse. He served as a jury member at Stafford Quarter sessions in 1821.

In January 1831 Michael Clewley and Mr Bladon (churchwardens) placed a notice in the Staffordshire Advertiser. They wanted to borrow money in any amounts but not exceeding £1,000 for which annuities of any age would be granted and secured upon Uttoxeter’s church rates. This appears to have been a very unusual move.

In August 1831 Clewley was offering houses to let in the Market Place, late in the occupation of Mrs E. Clewley deceased. With ‘sufficient buildings behind’, these were well adapted for a retailer, a leather cutter, or currier. An adjoining shop in the occupation of George Burton, clock and watchmaker was also being offered to let

Within a bill for a large number of services submitted to the parish overseers by solicitors Bedson and Rushton Michael Clewley crops up again. On 29 April 1833 the solicitors had written to Clewley requesting payment of a debt for bricks totalling 3s 6d supplied by the workhouse. The following month on 18 May Bedson and Rushton drew up a notice of vestry meeting to be held on 24 May regarding the brick bill. Clewley was refusing to pay. On the day before the meeting Bedson and Rushton interviewed witnesses regarding Clewley and the brick bill so that they could report the particulars at the meeting. The solicitors attended vestry meeting, drew up resolutions demanding that Clewley paid up. He did so.

As part of the Clewley-Goodwin marriage settlement Clewley gained an interest in the White Hart and New Star Inn in Carter Street. Initially, this was run by Clewley in partnership with Esther Wilkinson under Wilkinson’s name. The partnership was dissolved by mutual consent in March 1844 with Wilkinson retiring from the business on account of ill health. All debts from the business were to be received and paid by Clewley who continued the business.

In 1840 the Goodwin family brought a case against Clewley over the latter’s lending of trust money without their consent and without proper security. Clewley had, in fact, agreed to loan money on a declaration by the borrower to raise the money. The court found in favour of the Goodwins.

By the time of the 1841 Census Michael’s and Elizabeth’s children Mary and Susanna were living with their parents alongside domestic servant Dorothy Deakin and washerwoman Elizabeth Blood. A decade later, Michael was a widower living in Balance Street with his daughter Susanna and a servant Mary May.

Sources

1841 Census, HO 107/1007/14

1851 Census HO107/2010

London Gazette, June 1844, p.2275

W. Parson and T. Bradshaw, Staffordshire General and Commercial Directory presenting an Alphabetical Arrangement of the Names and Residences of the Nobility, Gentry, Merchants and Inhabitants in General (Manchester: 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).

SRO, D4452/1/15/2/11, Settlement by Lease and Release of a Moiety of the White Hart and Star Inn, Uttoxeter, previous to the marriage of Elizabeth Goodwin and Michael Clewley, 25 May 1815.

SRO, D3891/6/70, Poor Rate Assessment, Uttoxeter, 1832

SRO, D3891/6/41/7/75b various dates 1833, bill for legal services submitted to Uttoxeter Overseer by solicitors Bedson and Rushton

SRO, D4452/1/15/2/17, Mortgage of a Moiety of the White Hart Inn, Uttoxeter, 23 March 1850

SRO, Q/RJr/1821, Quarter Sessions

Staffordshire Advertiser,  1 January 1831, 22 June 1850

S. Sweet, The Jurist, vol 3, 1840

N.B. This biography is a work in progress and will probably be amended as further information from vouchers and other sources becomes available.

The Westmorlands of Wigton

By Alison Nicholson

Isaac Westmorland I (1728-1790) Grocer and West Indies Importer, Wigton, Cumbria.

Isaac Westmorland II (1755-1824)   Tallow Chandler, Wigton, Cumbria.

Isaac Westmorland III (1787-1855)   West India Merchant, London.

 

Isaac Westmorland I (1728-1790)

There are three generations of identifiable men with the name Isaac Westmorland, but the records are not always clear which one is being referred to. What follows is currently a “best fit”.

The first Isaac was born in Crosthwaite, Cumberland, and married Martha Peat in 1753. He was probably a grocer and a West Indies importer of sugar and rum. He is also listed as an Overseer of Wigton in 1760.[1] Isaac and Martha had six surviving children, John, Robert, Isaac, Agnes, Martha and Peat.[2]His eldest son, John 1754-1820 is listed on the Hair Powder Tax register of 1790 as a “Housekeeper” [3]He is also listed on the Land Tax Redemption Register for the Township or Quarter of Woodside, Wigton, Cumberland.[4] He was probably a merchant in Kingston, Jamaica in 1780. John is listed on the Sunfire Insurance records in 1791, no occupation is given, so it is likely that he was insuring his property rather than his business.[5] John was unmarried, and when he died in 1820 his will left most of his property to his two sisters, Martha Thornthwaite and Agnes Westmorland who were probably twins, being born in the same year and baptised on the same day, 28 August 1766.[6]

Martha Peat had a brother, Arthur, born in 1741. An Arthur Peatt is listed on the Legacies of British Slave-ownership website as being someone with West India connections. In his biography mention is made of a slave trading company ‘Peatt and Westmorland’ in Kingston, Jamaica in 1777. This may have have been part of the connection all three Isaac Westmorlands had to the West Indies.

A Miss Westmorland is noted on John Wood’s 1832 map of Wigton as owning property in Wigton. One of these parcels includes the buildings and land next to the Half Moon Inn in King Street.[7] This is possibly Agnes as in the Parson and White Directory for 1829, a Miss Agnes Westmorland is listed among the Gentlemen and Yeomen as living on High Street.[8]

Another son of Isaac’s, Robert (1759-1844), died in in Southwark, London. It is possible that he was a lawyer as a Robert Westmorland appears in the UK Articles of Clerkship in 1785 as working at Ball Court, Cornhill and the clerk articled to him is Peat Westmorland. It is possible that both brothers were London Lawyers.[9] Peat Westmorland is also mentioned in the London Land Tax Records in the St Stephen Wallbrook precinct in 1792. In the churchyard in Wigton he is mentioned among the family headstones as having died in St George’s, Grenada in 1815, aged 47.

There are two groups of lease and release documents in the archive for 1772 and 1784, for the same property. Isaac was taking on the lease of the property in each case from Ann Gardner. Isaac Westmorland Junior’s signature appears on one document as a witness.[10]

 

Isaac Westmorland II, (1755-1824.)

Isaac is listed in the Sun Fire insurance records in 1791 as a Tallow Chandler and because this information is given, he was probably insuring his business. [11]

Hutchinson, in his History of Cumberland, 1797, notes the existence of a ‘soap boilery, the property of Mr Isaac Westmorland’ as one of the ‘public works of note’ in the town.[12]

So far, one voucher for Isaac Westmorland has been identified, he supplied soap, blue, starch and candles in January 1777.[13]

Isaac was active in the town, he is mentioned in the Cumberland Paquet in 1781 as one of the signees on a petition against Sunday trading in Wigton[14], and again in 1783, as a member of the ‘Wigton Association’ for the prevention of offences and for bringing the perpetrators to justice[15]. Isaac was married to Betty Atkinson in 1782. They had three sons and two daughters. There may have been others, but these are either mentioned in Isaac’s will or to be found on the headstones in the churchyard.

The headstone in the graveyard of the parish church notes that his eldest son, John, died aged 19 in Jamaica in 1802.

In 1805 there is an advertisement in the Cumberland Pacquet for the sale of the Half Moon Inn and the letting of the soap boilery and related buildings due to the illness of the proprietor, Isaac Westmorland.[16] In 1811 he is listed in Jollie’s Directory as ‘not in trade’ but living in Church Street. A John Westmorland, Esq. who may be his brother John, is listed in the same publication, again, ‘not in trade’ and living in Corn-market.[17]

Isaac’s will mentions his two daughters, Martha and Betty and his son Arthur, but no mention is made of his son, Isaac, who was born in1787.

 

Isaac Westmorland III, (1787-1856.)

Isaac III seems to have moved to London. He is listed on the Legacies of British Slave-ownership website as a partner in the firm Stewart and Westmorland. The same website notes that an Isaac Westmorland, then in partnership with James Thompson and Charles Osbourne at Billiter Square London was declared bankrupt in 1816.

He married Hannah Cheesewright in Islington in 1819 they had nine children. The 1851 census records them living in Camberwell, their eldest son, John being 17.

The website lists 11 associated claims for slave ownership compensation for the partnership in 1836. In some cases the company is listed as the Mortgagee, in others Owner in Fee.

The partnership was dissolved in 1854. Isaac died aged 68 in 1856.[18]

 

 

[1] CRO PR/36/119 within Vestry Minutes Book 1735-1885.

[2] Ancestry.com, England, Select Births and Christenings,1538-1975 [Database online]

[3]  CRO Carlisle Q/RT/11 Hair Powder Tax Certificates 1795.

[4] Ancestry.com UK Land Tax Redemption, 1798 [Database online]

[5] London Metroplolitan Archives, Royal Sun Alliance Insurance Group, CodeCLC/B/192/F/001/MS11936/367/569656 Insured: John Westmorland, Wigton, Gentleman. Date 1790 May 15

[6] Ancestry.com, England, Select Births and Christenings,1538-1975 [Database online]

[7] CRO John Wood, Map of Wigton, 1832.

[8] W.Parson and W.White, A History, Directory and Gazeteer of Cumberland and Westmorland with Furness and Cartmel, (Whitehaven:Moon,1984) First Published, 1829.

[9] Ancestry.com. UK Articles of Clerkship, 1756-1874 [Database online]

[10] CRO, Carlisle, DX748/203, DX748/195,196.

[11]London Metropolitan Archives, Royal Sun Alliance Insurance Group. Code CLC/B/192/F/001/MS11936/381/591605. Insured: Isaac Westmoreland, Wigton, Tallow Chandler. Date 1791 Aug22.

[12] W.Hutchinson, A History of the County of Cumberland, Vol.2 (Carlisle: Jollie,1797),p.468.

[13] CRO, PR36/V/757

[14] Cumberland Paquet, 24 April 1781.

[15] Cumberland Paquet, 30 September 1783.

[16] Cumberland Paquet, 29 October 1805

[17] Jollies Cumberland Guide & Directory 1811 P.68

[18] ‘Isaac Westmorland’, Legacies of British Slave-ownership database, http://wwwdepts-live.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/view/42306(http://wwwdepts-live.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/42306) [accessed 14thNovember2018]

George Alsop (1776–1847), Surgeon and Apothecary, Uttoxeter

By Peter Collinge

George Alsop was born in 1776. By 1799 he had qualified as a surgeon and took on John Roe as an apprentice. He took on a second apprentice, George Roe, in 1802. He married Susanna Christiana Mountford (b.1786) at St Peter and St Paul, Aston, Birmingham, on 8 May 1803. In the 1841 Census George and Christiana were recorded as living in Balance Street along with their children Mary Ann Alsop (25); Susanna Alsop (20) and Edward Alsop, also 20. They had two servants, Elizabeth Thawley (20) and John Brassing[?] aged 15.

He formed a business partnership with James Chapman and between them they provided medical services, pills and powders to the parish poor on behalf of the parish overseers (see entry ‘The Price of a Broken Leg). Alsop also became embroiled in a minor cause-celebre of the early nineteenth century. It was a case that had attracted considerable public attention and was authenticated by numerous highly respected people of ‘rank, talent, and scientific attainments’. Alongside Elias Sanders, curate of Church Broughton; John Webster, surgeon of Burton; Frederick Anson, rector of Sudbury; and George Watson Hutchinson, vicar of Tutbury, Alsop was one of the people who, watching ‘most diligently and attentively’, witnessed the supposed abstinence of Ann Moore of Tutbury, Staffordshire. Moore had constantly asserted that excepting a few blackcurrants, she had not eaten any solid food since the spring of 1807, nor had she taken any liquid since the autumn of 1808. By 1813 the case had attracted such widespread publicity that an investigation led by Legh Richmond sought to determine the truth of Moore’s claims. Richmond published his findings in A Statement of Facts, Relative to the Supposed Abstinence of Ann Moore of Tutbury, Staffordshire and a Narrative of the Circumstances which led to the recent Detection of the Imposture (Burton-upon-Trent: 1813). The title says it all.

In 1821 Alsop was listed amongst a number of other residents of Uttoxeter as a jury member at the Staffordshire Quarter Sessions. Other jury members included William Porter, Thomas Earp, William Garle and Michael Clewly.

Despite having a long-standing contract with the parish overseers, Alsop was declared bankrupt in 1831. As part of the bankruptcy proceedings land held by Alsop at Hockley was passed to his assignees and to a Mr Wilkinson, and Lanes End Croft to Mr Lassetter. A settlement was reached with creditors and a final dividend was paid in 1842[?].

At the end of December 1840 the long- standing partnership between Alsop and James Chapman was dissolved. Both men declared their intentions to carry on as Surgeons. Apothecaries and midwives independently.

His death was announced in Derbyshire Advertiser and Journal on 3 December 1847. George was 72 and declared to be ‘Universally esteemed and respected by all who knew him, and his death will be a cause of regret to an extensive circle of friends and acquaintance’.

In his short will Alsop left his plate, linen, old furniture, book debts and securities for money, and all personal effects to his ‘beloved wife’ for her sole use, and mad her the executrix. The will makes no mention of any real estate.

Sources

1841 Census HO 107/1007/15.

Derbyshire Advertiser and Journal, 3 December 1847.

Parish Register, St Peter and St Paul, Aston, Birmingham.

Legh Richmond, A Statement of Facts, relative to the supposed abstinence of Ann Moore of Tutbury, Staffordshire and a Narrative of the Circumstances which led to the recent Detection of the Imposture (Burton-upon-Trent: J. Croft, 1813).

London Gazette, part 3, (T. Neuman: 1842).

Staffordshire Adevrtiser, 27 February 1841.

Staffordshire Record Office, D3891/6/70, Uttoxeter Poor Rate assessment, 1832.

SRO, Q/RJr/ 1821.

TNA IR/38 & IR/70 Register of Duties Paid for Apprentices’ Indentures 1710–1811.

TNA, PROB 11/2086/6 Will of George Alsop, Surgeon of Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, 4 January 1849.

N.B. This biography is a work in progress and will probably be amended as further information from vouchers and other sources becomes available.

Samuel Garle (1792–1867) of Uttoxeter, So Much More than a Draper

By Peter Collinge

Samuel Garle was born in Uttoxeter the son of William and Ann Garle.

He had seven siblings, although not all survived into adulthood: William (1786–1856), Elizabeth (1787–1789), Richard (1788–1848), Thomas (1790–1793), Ann (b.1793), John (1795–1857), and Thomas (b.1796).

Samuel Garle married Sarah Fox on (b.1802) on 16 April 1825 at Gayton, Stafford. They do not appear to have had any children. He is listed in trade directories as a linen and woollen draper and hosier in Uttoxeter’s Market Place, but bill heads for his business also note that he furnished funerals, provided stays and supplied charities at wholesale prices.

By the time of the 1851 Census, he had retired and both he and Sarah were living in Balance Street, in a freehold house, along with a servant Elizabeth Blow or Bloor. Ten years later, they were still in Balance Street with a servant, Ellen Spare.

He died aged 75 on 14 April 1867. His will was proved at Lichfield by his widow Sarah and his nephew William Garle of Millwich, a farmer. The value of Samuel’s effects was under £6,000, indicating a successful businessman. However, Garle’s interests extended beyond his drapery business and supplying the parish overseers. Samuel and William (probably the brother and not the nephew) Garle were on the provisional committee of the Leeds, Huddersfield, Sheffield, and South Staffordshire railway, also known as the Leeds, Wolverhampton and Dudley Direct Railway, and the Direct East and West Junction Railway. Samuel Garle’s and John Garle’s names could also be found amongst the list of proprietors on the deed of settlement of the North and Central Bank of England. In 1826 he was listed as one of the jurors in the Quarter Sessions alongside John Garle, innkeeper.

Sources

Anon, Deed of Settlement of the North and Central Bank of England (Manchester: printed by Henry Smith, 1835)

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

HO107/2010 1851 Census

RG/9/1954 1861 Census

England and Wales FreeBMD Index, 1837–1915

UK Poll Books and Electoral Registers 1538–1893, Uttoxeter, 1861

National Probate Calendar 1858–1966, Samuel Garle late of Uttoxeter gentleman, 14 April 1867

W. Parson and T. Bradshaw, Staffordshire General and Commercial Directory presenting an Alphabetical Arrangement of the Names and Residences of the Nobility, Gentry, Merchants and Inhabitants in General (Manchester: 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).

Pigot and Co., National Commercial Directory, [Derby–South Wales] (London: J. Pigot and Co. 1835).

Staffordshire Record Office, D3891/6/70, Uttoxeter Poor Rate Assessment, 1832.

SRO, Q/RJr/1826.

St Mary’s Parish Register, Uttoxeter

N.B. This biography is a work in progress and will probably be amended as further information from vouchers and other sources becomes available

An Apprentice and an Anonymous Letter: Eli Wood of Uttoxeter

By Peter Collinge

There is a common assumption, probably derived from Dicken’s Oliver Twist who was taken from the workhouse to be indentured to an undertaker, that by definition parish apprentices were orphans. This was not always the case. In early 1829 Eli Wood of Uttoxeter, aged about 16, was bound to W. Appleby of St Mary’s parish Stafford. Uttoxeter’s parish overseers received a bill for the drawing up of the apprentice order, the indenture and the associated paperwork. Nothing more is heard of Eli Wood until the Uttoxeter overseer received an anonymous letter, dated 3 March 1830. The informant, who clearly knew something of the family and its history, told the overseer that Eli had had a work-related accident. He had been thrown off his master’s horse and although hurt, the injury was considered to be slight.

In the letter, written in a semi-literate hand, possibly in an attempt to disguise the author’s identity, we are told that Wood is apprenticed to a Mr R. Thorpe, a last-maker, not the Appleby named in the bill for the justice’s clerk’s fees. It could be that in the intervening year Appleby had died and that Wood’s apprenticeship had been transferred to Thorpe.

The letter continues: Wood’s parents had been in Stafford to see another son ‘woe I am informed is in gale’, and called upon Eli. Seeing Eli unwell they decided to take him back to their house in Pinfold Lane, Uttoxeter. The letter writer was of the opinion that any application made by Eli Wood or his parents to seek financial assistance from the Uttoxeter overseers as a result of the accident should be resisted. Signed ‘Well Wisher’, the clue as to the possible identity of the anonymous writer comes towards the end of the letter; Wood’s master had a great deal of work that needed to be completed and was in need of him. It seems likely that ‘Well Wisher’ was R. Thorpe who having invested time and money in Wood’s apprenticeship, now wanted to ensure that the errant Wood (who had effectively absconded) returned  to his duties. So why be anonymous? Probably it was an attempt to ensure that upon Wood’s return, the master/apprentice relationship could be repaired.

Thomas Steeple Flint (1788–1851) of Uttoxeter

By Peter Collinge

Between 1827 and 1836 Flint, listed as a basket, sieve, white cooper and turner in Pigot’s directory, supplied the parish overseers of Uttoxeter with a range of chandlery goods including baskets (described as wiskets), bowls, a ‘pump basket’ for the workhouse, and scuttles and sieves for the workhouse’s brick kiln. Spoons and large baskets were provided for the workhouse. Repairs were sometimes made to baskets. Like many traders and shopkeepers of the period the submission of most of his bills came in January each year, suggesting that he operated a system of credit. His premises were in the Market Place Uttoxeter, although the 1841 Census gives his address as Spiceal Street where he was living with his son William aged 10 and Mary Moore aged 23. By the time of the 1851 Census he was living in Balance Streetand listed as a ‘proprietor of houses’. This switch into rentier property was a common business strategy.

On occasion the receipts were signed by A. Flint. This could be Abraham or Augustus Flint. Both were attorneys. Abraham is listed in Pigot’s directory for 1828 – 29, whilst Augustus, alongside yeoman William Steeple Flint and jeweller Benjamin Bell was one of the three people who applied for letters of administration following Thomas death in April 1851. The ‘A’ could also be Flint’s wife Ann. Flint’s probated estate amounted to £200.

One bill submitted to the overseers from the attorneys Bedson and Rushton indicates that Flint, or one his many relatives in the Uttoxeter area, became involved in a land dispute. Their bill lists ‘Attending Mr Thos Kynnersley & Mr Wood respecting dispute with Mr Flint in regard to the situation of lands near Uttoxeter Mill occupied by him.’

Thomas and Ann Flint held an insurance policy with Sun Life. It was not for property in Uttoxeter, but for a house and printing office at 6 Nassau Street, Soho, London. Insured for £800, the brick built property was not used for drying paper neither did it contain a stove. Had it done so, the insurance value would have been increased as both represented ‘hazardous’ circumstances. The ownership of property in London may have enabled Flint to move from basket maker to ‘proprietor of houses’.

An auction advert in the Derby Mercury in 1838 provides details of Flint’s premises in Uttoxeter Market Place and an explanation for his move to Spiceal Street.

Flint’s property had ‘two commanding fronts, one opposing the Market Place, having a frontage of 28 feet; and one facing the Sheep Market, with a very handsome Private Entrance and a Frontage of 45 feet’.

The house consisted of a ‘Front shop 21 feet by 16 feet … with a sitting room at the back …together with a handsome parlour, neatly fitted up with cupboards … There is cellaring under the whole; part thereof is now used as a workshop, and a kitchen well supplied with soft water … Over these apartments is an elegantly fitted-up dining room 20 feet 6 inches by 14 feet 6 inches … with marble chimney piece, and two sleeping rooms, one of which is 19 feet by 11 feet 6 inches’ also with a marble chimney piece. The other room was smaller but had a large closet attached. Above these rooms were another six sleeping rooms and above those an attic measuring 43 feet by 21 feet. Outside there was a garden and stabling for four horses.

Towards the end of the advert Flint availed ‘himself of this opportunity of returning thanks to the public at large, for the very liberal support he has received since his commencement in business, and respectfully informs them that he is now declining the same in favour of his journeymen John Wyatt and Simeon Johnson’.

Sources

Derby Mercury, 31 October 1838

London Metropolitan Archives, CLC/B/192/F/001/MS11936/553/1245849,  Royal and Sun Alliance Insurance Group, Insured, Thomas Steeple Flint, Uttoxeter, Staffordshire,  basket maker, and Ann Flint his wife, 15 Mar 1837

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

Staffordshire Record Office (SRO), B/C/11, Thomas S. Flint of Uttoxeter, Admon, 29 Oct 1851

SRO, D3891/6/33/6/006, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, Aug 1827–May 1828

SRO, D3891/6/34/12/090, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 18 Nov 1829

SRO, D3891/6/35/3/32, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 27 Jan 1831

SRO, D3891/6/37/10/49, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 28 Jan 1832

SRO, D3891/6/39/16/33, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 30 Jan 1833

SRO, D3891/6/40/10/18, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 15 Jan 1834

SRO, D3891/6/41/5/5, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 17 Jan 1835

SRO, D3891/6/41/7/75a, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 26/2/1834–16/12/1834

SRO, D3891/6/42/47, Uttoxeter overseers’ vouchers, 20 Jan 1836

TNA, HO/107/1007, Census 1841

TNA, HO107/2010, Census 1851

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

Jane Baxter (1792–1867) and the Brick-Makers of Uttoxeter

By Peter Collinge

Uttoxeter had a number of brickworks situated on the Heath near to the workhouse. It is almost certain that most of the bricks were used locally. Indeed, Kingman has calculated that as around 40 per cent of a brick’s cost could be accounted for by its transportation the distance between production site and final destination was often short. The poor law vouchers contain payments for the digging out of clay, for the transport of other raw materials, particularly coal from Stoke-upon-Trent and Cheadle, and for brick production, but not for transportation. The latter costs may have been covered by the purchasers. Pitt’s history of Staffordshire (1817) notes that in the town ‘The houses in general are well built of brick, and commodious. The wharf belonging to the Grand Trunk Canal Company, with several large warehouses enclosed by a brick wall, … has contributed much to the prosperity of this small but flourishing town … There are several neat mansions of brick, built in the vicinity of the wharf’.

Until mechanisation in the nineteenth century, brick-making was both relatively small-scale and seasonal with manufacturers often engaged in other occupations. Clay tended to be dug between autumn and spring, with the actual process of brick-making occupying the summer and autumn months.

The only Utttoxeter brick-layer noted in the 1793 Universal British Directory of Trade, Commerce and Manufacture was William Hubbard who also doubled as a maltster. No brick-makers were listed. What is perhaps surprising is that even by the time of Parson and Bradshaw’s 1818 directory although the number of brick-layers had increased there were still no brick-makers listed. John Allen of Balance Hill, John Allen of Pinfold Lane, William Blurton, John Chatfield, William Eglison, William Hubbard, Neville Newbold, and John Walker were all brick-layers. Edward Hooper was both a bricklayer and builder, and more unusually John Tunnicliffe of High Street was listed as a brick-layer, grocer and flour dealer. Thomas Salt is described as the ‘agent for the sale of tiles of all descriptions, fire and floor brick, & Quarrie’s patent water, etc, pipes’. Many of these items are listed amongst the overseers’ vouchers.

The situation had shifted considerably by 1834. Brick-layers included Joseph Blurton, Anthony Chatfield (who crops up many times in the vouchers), Edwin Chatfield, John Chatfield and John Chatfield junior. A number of brick-makers are also listed. They included Clement Baxter, John Hudson, Margaret Parker and (unless this was a place rather than a person) the unlikely sounding Parish Yard. All were located on the Heath. In Uttoxeter were John and William Hales.

Jane Baxter, the daughter of George and Jane Baxter, was baptised on 3 February 1792. Her siblings included Clement (1780–1841), George (1786–1852), James (baptised 13 October 1789), Peter (baptised 17 October 1796) and Edward (1794–1859). George Baxter, a yeoman, died in 1802. In his short, probated will (£100) he left all of his real and personal estate to his ‘loving wife Jane’ for her own enjoyment and disposal. No mention was made of any children. His executors were William Chatfield, yeoman, and William Rogers, gardener (see entry 2 Feb. 2018)

At what point Clement Baxter entered upon the brick trade is unknown. The earliest reference we have is in the 1834 directory. His will of 1841 (£200) described him as a brick-maker. He bequeathed all his real and personal estate to his sister Jane appointing her as his sole executrix. We may ask why Jane was bequeathed the brickworks ahead of her brothers. Although it is often thought that males always inherited businesses before females, this was not necessarily the case. If it was felt that the men in the family were already established in their own occupations, or regarded as feckless or lazy, women often inherited. It may also have been a way of securing an income for the unmarried Jane thus reducing or eliminating her dependence upon the family. She also had practical experience in the brickworks operated by Clement. Her name appears in a number of overseers’ vouchers showing that she was dealing with the accounts. On 14 July 1829 there is a settled bill for 300 bricks costing 8s, whilst in March 1830 she received £5 8s 0d for a delivery of dung. This involvement would have placed her in a good position. She knew who the customers were and more importantly those who paid on time and those who did not. She would have known where raw materials could be obtained and the price to pay for such items.

In both the 1851 and 1861 Census returns Jane Baxter is recorded as being unmarried and living alone on Uttoxeter Heath. In 1851 she is listed as a brick-maker mistress. She is also listed as a brick-maker in White’s 1851 directory alongside Porter and Keates who by then had added brick and tile making to their other activities as grocers, tea dealers, ironmongers, chandlers, hemp and flax dressers, and nail manufacturers.

Following Jane Baxter’s entry in the 1851 Census is the entry for Peter Baxter, a brick maker journeyman; his wife Charlotte and their son Isaac, a cordwainer journeyman, and brick-maker journeyman John Norris. In all likelihood Peter was working for his sister. Whilst Peter was a brick-maker journeyman in 1831 he applied to the overseers for a pair of new shoes for his wife costing 6s. In 1835 he received £1 0s 0d for clothes for an apprentice. Clearly, although in work, his income was insufficient at times. The 1851 Census also lists widow Elizabeth Baxter (69) living on the Heath with her sons Thomas (35) a carter and labourer, and Edward (33) a brick-maker journeyman. Both were unmarried. Elizabeth was possibly the widow of Jane’s brother George. Other brick-makers on the Heath were Thomas Parker and his son Charles described as a brick-maker/servant, and master brick-layer William Godrich.

By the time of the 1861 Census much had changed. Jane was out of business; Peter, now widowed, had become a servant, and Isaac has disappeared from the record. Norris was still a brick maker. Also listed as a brick-maker was G[iddeon?] Prestbury.

Jane died in 1867 and is buried in the churchyard of St Lawrence, Bramshall.

Sources

Peter Barfoot and John Wilkes, Universal British Directory of Trade, Commerce and Manufacture (1793)

Bramshall, St Lawrence Memorial Inscriptions

Mike Kingman, ‘Brickmaking and Brick Building in Staffordshire 1500–1760’, (Unpublished PhD Thesis, Keele University, 2006)

Mike Kingman, ‘The Adoption of Brick in Urban Staffordshire: the Experience of Newcastle-under-Lyme, 1665–1760’, Midland History, 35:1, (2010)

C. C. Owen, The Development of Industry in Burton-upon-Trent (1978)

William Parson and Thomas Bradshaw, Staffordshire General and Commercial Directory, 3 vols (Manchester: J. Leigh, 1818), II

William Pitt, A Topographical History of Staffordshire (Newcastle-under-Lyme: J. Smith,1817)

SRO, D3891/1, Uttoxeter Parish Registers

SRO, D3891/6/34/12/040, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 14 Jul. 1829

SRO, D3981/6/36/1/22, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 7 Mar. 1830

SRO, D3891/6/36/6/21, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 20 Nov. 1831

SRO, D3891/6/43/3/7, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 30 Jun. 1835

SRO, D3891/6/42/19, Uttoxeter Overseers’ Vouchers, 6 Oct. 1835

TNA, IR27/360, Court of Probate, Wills and Probate

TNA, H.O. 107/2010, Census 1851

TNA, R.G. 9/1955, 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 is conducted.