Category: People

The Brinkhurst family: paupers of East Hoathly parish

By Hilary Holt

In early 1782 Benjamin Brinkhurst died, leaving a widow and three children. Charles Vine charged the parish 12s 6d for making his coffin on 15th February. John Burgess supplied 4 quarts of beer “for the people at Brinkhursts”, which may have been part of the provisions for the funeral. Benjamin was buried on the 17th February.

Benjamin was originally from Wartling, and after moving to East Hoathly, worked as a labourer for John Vine, starting in September 1760. He married Ann Dalloway in April 1762 and gained the right of settlement in East Hoathly in 1769.

Benjamin and Ann had three surviving children: Benedicta (born 1771), William (1773) and John (1776). Two children born to the couple in 1763 and 1764 had died young. When Benjamin died Benedicta was eleven, and William and John nine and six respectively.

The family had received help from the parish prior to Benjamin’s death, but would be more reliant on its help after the death of the breadwinner. During the period immediately before and after her father’s death it was Benedicta who collected the family’s groceries from Thomas Turner’s store, perhaps because her mother was nursing Benjamin. Subsequently Widow Brinkhurst was usually named as the recipient by Turner in his invoices.

Turner supplied candles and soap to the family. He supplied foodstuffs: cheese (4 lbs at a time), butter and sugar, as well as condiments – salt and pepper. For flour the family went to Charles Fielder the miller, getting through 4 gallands (sic) every week to a fortnight. They ate mutton, which seems to have been the staple meat of the poor of the parish, and this Benedicta obtained weekly from the butcher, Richard Fuller. Fuller’s bill to the Parish for the first part of 1783 itemises weekly supplies of mutton to Benedicta from the 1st February to the 15th April.

In the bills which survive it is startling how often the Brinkhurst boys had their shoes mended, (in common with other children in the parish). In one of his bills Thomas Davy remarks plaintively that he had mended William’s shoes “several times”. There is only one instance of Benedicta’s shoes being mended in the surviving bills, in April 1782.

If the boys were provided with new shoes once or twice a year, their feet must soon have outgrown their footwear, and that, and the active life they led, would help to explain the frequent need for repair.

In December 1786 when Benedicta was fifteen, and the boys thirteen and ten, the children’s’ mother Ann died, and the record of her burial on 15 December was annotated “pauper” (not the case for her husband). She seems to have been ill for some time as Mr Paine the surgeon had supplied medicine worth 13 shillings the previous September.

After that the boys became “parish children”. They lodged with parishioners who fed and housed them, and the parish was billed for their keep. The Mr Turner, who was responsible for William may have been Thomas Turner himself.

At the beginning of February 1786 Benedicta received a new pair of shoes, costing 4s 6d. She was rising 16 at this date, and it seems quite old for a child at that time to be dependent, and not expected to be at work.

Village inhabitants were usually provided with a set of clothes prior to looking for a position. That there is no record of Benedicta being outfitted other than with shoes may be because the records have not been transcribed or are incomplete. In contrast, there are bills for a waistcoat for Benedicta’s brother John in the spring of 1790, followed by a hat and hose later in the year, and in 1791 when he reached the age of 15 he was provided with a pair of shoes and nails, presumably a preliminary to starting to look for work.

Benedicta may have left the village to find work, but the boys stayed on in East Hoathly as parish children, continuing to provide the shoe menders with work.

Benedicta re-surfaces in the records at the age of twenty four, living in Lewes. In July 1795 her marriage banns were read in the parish of All Saints Lewes. Benedicta married Stapley Ade, a cordwainer, of St Michael’s Parish Lewes, on 26 July 1795. Her husband was forty eight years old to Benedicta’s twenty, which makes one wonder how she met him. Maybe he had been her employer prior to their marriage (although they were recorded as living in separate parishes). Their first child Ruth was born on December 25th in the same year, which indicates that Benedicta was already pregnant when the couple married.

The couple had five children: Ruth (born 1795), George (1797), Mary (1801), and John (1803) and Alfred (1808). Only the oldest two lived beyond infancy. The fifth child, Alfred Stapley Ade, was baptised in September 1808, and buried on 5 March 1809. Shortly after, on April 16 1809 there is a burial record for Benedicta, whose age was recorded as thirty six years, although her birth in 1771 would make her thirty eight.

Sources

www.Familysearch.org accessed 18 January 2019

PAR378/31/3/8 for settlement examination of Benjamin Brinkhurst

PAR 378/1/1 Early registers (1560-1812)

PAR378/31/3/19, PAR378/31/3/20, PAR378/31/3/21, PAR378/31/3/22

The Mystery Man – Thomas Woolgar

By Jean Irvin

We don’t know a great deal about Thomas Woolgar, we don’t know exactly when or where he was born or when and where he died, but what we do know is that he was living somewhere in the village of East Hoathly in the county of Sussex during the year of our Lord 1775 when the surgeon Mr Nathaniel Paine amputated his leg.

At this time East Hoathly was a village of approximately 395 souls in the east of the county supported by a largely agricultural economy and the occasional patronage of the Pelham-Holles family from their estate at Halland.

There is not much detailed documentation about the effects on local families of failed harvests in 1773 and 1778 or the outbreak of Smallpox early in 1774 that led to the death of 12 persons buried in the Lewes parish of St John sub Castro, Lewes. But we do know that the proprietor of the small store in East Hoathly, Thomas Turner and his wife, who already had four healthy living children and a relatively comfortable lifestyle, suffered the deaths of three male children in 1774, 1775 and 1776.

It may be surmised that these were not the most healthy of times and for Thomas Woolgar to have survived life threatening surgery without any of the advantages of modern medicine and hygiene, is possibly not just due to the skill of the surgeon but an indication of his underlying robust constitution as well as the pre and post- operative care he was given. Some of the parish receipts identify Thomas as ‘Master’ Woolgar which suggests he also had youth on his side in making recovery from the operation.

It is documented that the parish shared the expenses of the amputation and Thomas’s subsequent care with the Lewes parish of St John sub Castro. This was an unusual arrangement since the costs of medical care usually fell on the patient’s parish of legal settlement. Perhaps the amputation was the result of an accident that occurred during Thomas’s employment in East Hoathly. Whatever the reason no clue was left in the parish records as to the reason for these shared expenses.

Thomas’s on-going care was undertaken in East Hoathly including subsequent dressings of the wound and medicines. He was also provided with wine and ‘liquor’– no doubt to help with pain relief. The aptly named surgeon Mr Paine, who also lived in the village, checked on Thomas’s progress and dressed the wound on at least one occasion.

Amputation. T. Rowlandson 1793. Wellcome Library no. 11636i

Exactly when the operation took place is not recorded but the surgeon’s itemised bill , including the professional fee of three Guineas for the amputation itself, medicines, treatments, indicates that 13 April 1775 was the likely date.

Where Thomas was living in the village is not clear but interestingly parish relief appears to have been available to Thomas from an earlier date. On 7 January 1775 he received a generous quantity of ‘liquer’ from Thomas Turner’s general store and 2 ‘rollers’ – bandages  often used to immobilise injured body parts e.g. sprains, torn muscles; a sponge and ‘rags’ which were probably strips of cloth which could also be used for binding an injured limb. From then on there was a regular  supply of fuel , food , drink and household items  for Thomas that comprehensively addressed his personal care needs suggestive of a man who had precipitously become unable to provide for himself and had quite possibly suffered a serious injury to a limb which required significant pain relief.

Throughout January, February and March he is supplied with the ingredients of a high protein diet including some of the more expensive cuts of mutton, beef, veal, butter, sugar, oatmeal, rice, nuts, cheese, condiments. Vegetables, eggs and milk would no doubt have been available to him from the village farms.

Thomas’ hygiene appears to have been an ongoing priority and he is provided with copious supplies of soap and candles. It is not however until April 13 that there is a clear indication that surgery has been undertaken and dressings, medicines and treatment are all billed by the surgeon. At this point Thomas Turner provides Thomas Woolgar with a rented bedpan and candlestick and the quantity of candles is increased, no doubt to ensure there is enough light to properly wash and dress Thomas’ wound.

On 19 April James Marchant is paid 4 shillings for having shaved Thomas on eight occasions. The last Overseers’ receipt paid on behalf of Thomas is dated 21 April 1775 and is for the attendance and services provided by the surgeon, Mr Nathaniel Paine.

Financially the parish supported Thomas throughout these first three months of 1775 providing cash, goods and services, costing a total of £28.2s. At today’s prices this approximates to £4,600 suggesting that East Hoathly was a parish with a settled community who could afford to take its responsibilities for relief of the poor quite seriously and in Thomas’ case they did not stint.[1]

Thomas Woolgar then, sadly, disappears from the records as mysteriously as he arrived. His name is not unequivocally identified in the parish registers of East Hoathly or St John sub-Castro as having been born, baptised, married, or buried.

Only our imagination and a tiny bit of circumstantial evidence can help us at this point.

  • Being optimistic and assuming that Thomas made continued recovery, there is record of a Thomas Woolgar being apprenticed to a Mr John Cave, Mercer in the nearby village of Fletching in 1777.

However, I can’t imagine that a young man who had suffered a catastrophic injury, in all likelihood whilst working the land, would recover sufficiently in two years to enter the rather ‘genteel’ trade in fine cloth, silks and linens and there is no record of him having any claim to residence in Fletching.

  • In the parish registers of St. John sub Castro there is entry of a Thomas Woolgar and his wife Alice having two children, Charlotte born 22 March 1757 and Charles born 16 October 1758, who were both baptised at the church by a Mr Lepla on 6 May 1759. If this Thomas Woolgar is our mystery man, and assuming he was about twenty-five years old when his daughter was born, he would have been about forty-three years old in 1775 when the accident, or infection that necessitated his leg being amputated had occurred.

I think it unlikely this is our Thomas. I can’t think what he might have been doing living in East Hoathly, separated from his wife and children at age 43 and probably working the land when he suffered the serious accident eventually necessitating amputation of his leg. Additionally, there is no mention of parish support to his family.

  • There is an entry of a burial at the Church of St. John sub-Castro on 16 August 1786 “Woolgar Poorman” If this is our Thomas he has survived a further 11 years after surgery. Of the three mentions, this seems the most possible. However, lots of questions arise .What could have happened to Thomas in the intervening eleven years; if he continued to need support, who gave that; where did he live; if this is our Thomas why is the entry in just his family name when the parish had previously shared the costs for his care and would have known him as Thomas.

I personally am very unsure that any of these mentions relate to the circumstances for our Thomas.

Perhaps he will have to remain our Mystery Man. Written and researched by Jean Irvin

[1] calculator derived from CPI of Office of National Statistics

Joseph Shields (1795-1858) Schoolmaster, Part II (some of his pupils)

By NMDEA
Corsica Cottage Buckhowbank Dalston 2019 former home to Joseph Shields

Looking for evidence of who the pupils were who attended Joseph Shields identifies the following:

John Sanderson was the son of Ruth Sanderson. She was listed as a single woman of Hawkesdale Poorhouse when he was baptised on 29 April 1827. His father was named as Joseph Bowman of Kiitchin Hill ,Torpenhow, husbandman, who was pursued for contributions towards his son’s maintenance.[1] Ruthe Sanderson was described as being in the poorhouse when John’s older brother, Joseph, was baptised on 12 January 1817 and his sister Sarah on January 28 1821.[2] Ruth Sanderson received payments under her status as the mother of illegitimate children from Dalston Parish between April 1824 to April 1831.  Initially this was 2s weekly, then reduced to 1s 6d weekly. [3]

John Sanderson appears to have worked in the cotton weaving industry in Dalston and then in Caldewgate, Carlisle living with his sister Sarah and mother until around the time of her death in 1867. At the time of the 1871 census he was one of the labourers building the Lindley Wood Reservoir near Harrogate, Yorkshire.[4]

The brothers George (15 December 1831) and Thomas (6 June 1831) were the children of George and Jane Bell. George the elder was a miller of New Village, Dalston.[5]

The Roddick family, which also included sisters Ann and Elizabeth, was receiving outdoor relief of 4s weekly from 21 March 1830 to December 1835. [6]

Thomas Roddick married Agnes Cookson 7 September 1850 at Gretna signing his name while Agnes made her mark. On leaving Dalston, they settled near by in Cummersdale. Thomas was working in a textile mill .

By 1850 George Roddick hadbeen convicted twice for theft. The first occasion was on 10 November 1849. Along with John Dixon, he stole an axe belonging to Mr Thurnam selling it on to a James Hamilton in Carlisle. Charged under the Juvenile Offenders Act, they received a three week prison sentence. [7] At the Michaelmas Quarter sessions of 1850 George was given a six month jail sentence with hard labour and one month’s solitary confinement for breaking in and stealing glasses, porter, lemonade and other items from the tent of Mrs Robinson on the night of the Carlisle Fair on 19 September. His accomplice, Joseph Armstrong was described as of ‘imperfect instruction’, while George was described as ‘a labourer aged 21 who is well instructed’. [8]

John Hind cannot be positively identified, as is the case with the three girls. It is possible the girls are some of those who appear on a bill from William Wetherall for repairing clogs and making new ones. The boys’ names appear on his bill. [9] The girls may have worked in one of the textile mills situated in Dalston. The voucher for the girls is dated after the Factory Act 1833 where children from the textile mills had to attend school six times a week for two hour sessions. They also needed a schoolmaster’s certificate in order to be employed the following week [10]

Bill from Wm Wetherall for Clogs Dalston
SPC44/2/43/13, Dalston Parish Voucher December 1836-1837, settled May 27 William Wetherall

[1] Cumbria Archives, CQ5/8, Bastardly Bonds, Easter 1827
[2] Cumbria Archives, PR 41/8, Dalston Parish Register, Baptisms 1813-1832;
[3] Cumbria Archives, SPC 44/2/35, Account book for the maintenance of Illegitimate children, 1833-1836
[4] ancestry.co.uk [accessed 19 September 2019] 
[5] Cumbria Archives, PR 41/8, Dalston Parish Register, Baptisms 1813-1832;
[6] Cumbria Archives, SPC 44/2/32 1826-1840, Account Book for weekly outdoor relief.
[7] Carlisle Patriot, 10 November 1849
[8] Carlisle Patriot, 19 October 1850

[9]Cumbria Archives. SPC44/2/43/13 Dalston Overseer Voucher 1836=1837
[10]Platt, Jane, Making their Mark (Amadeus Press, 2019)

Robert Chicken, publican and butcher (1794-1847)

By Alannah Tomkins

As a small child one of my favourite card games was Happy Families. As soon as the Carlisle volunteer group found Robert Chicken among the overseers vouchers for Dalston, therefore, I knew I wanted to write about him. He was also the initial inspiration behind our own card game.

He was baptised in 1794 in Kirkbampton, the son of John and Mary Chicken (nee Skelton). In July 1823 he married Elizabeth Chambers at Great Orton, and the couple went on to have three children: John, Robert, and Dinah. He married a second time to Elizabeth Rayson in 1833 and had another son Thomas. Indicating their level of prosperity, the family kept one male servant/apprentice and a female servant in 1841.

Chicken was a victualler and publican in Dalston parish. By 1829 he was running the Waggon and Horses inn at Hawkesdale at Bridge End. At some point the establishment was renamed the Bridge End Inn, and under this name has survived into the twenty-first century. In the nineteenth century Hawkesdale was a small but arguably elite township, the latter claim confirmed by the residence of the Right Reverend Bishop of Carlisle at Rose Castle, Hawkesdale.

Image courtesy of the Wellcome Trust: engraving by R. Cooper, 1822, https://wellcomecollection.org/works/aseaxzqw. Publicans and food retailers were often portrayed as stout and prosperous.

Chicken supplied the parish of Dalston with meat (beef, mutton, and offal rather than poultry) and other consumables in the period 1834-37, including one and a half gallons of ale for a funeral. The meat came from his shop in the Shambles, Carlisle, rather than directly from the inn. Chicken has been illustrated in the Top Trumps game of this project using an image of a butcher’s shop, but it seems likely that butchery was not the foremost part of the family business. They identified in censuses and directories with the innkeeping part of the concern and we only know about the early history of the butcher’s shop because it is cited in an overseer’s voucher. The property in the Shambles was given up by the Chicken family in late 1846, towards the end of Robert’s life.

Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia and its collection of portraits by John Dempsey: https://www.portrait.gov.au/image/87718/87466/ This image depicts Billy Bean, a butcher’s carrier, of Scarborough 1825

Robert died at the relatively young age of 53. His second wife Elizabeth outlived him by over thirty years and died in 1883. She remained in the parish of Dalston and at first continued the tavern business: she employed her step-daughter Dinah as a barmaid in 1861. By 1871 and at the age of approximately 75 she was still living in Hawkesdale but had given up the inn to another female proprietor, Sarah Rayson, who was presumably her younger sister or niece. Elizabeth lived in Green Lane with her son Thomas, a brewer’s traveller, ensuring that two of Robert’s children had some occupational connection to their father’s main trade. The mother and son were immediate neighbours to an elderly mother-and-daughter couple who lived on parish poor relief, but this was not to be the fate of the widowed Mrs Chicken. Elizabeth herself became an annuitant, meaning she bought into a fund for her support in old age, and lived only with a female servant by 1881.

Image courtesy of archival volunteer and regular blogger on this site NMDEA

After Robert’s death in 1847, one Joseph Chicken can be found as an innkeeper in Dalston. In all likelihood he was Robert’s younger brother, who also acted as one of Robert’s two executors. Joseph kept the ‘Indian King’, combining it with work as ‘station keeper’.

Sources: Carlisle Patriot 4 December 1846 and 24 December 1847; White, Cumberland and Westmorland Directory (1829); Mannix, Cumberland Directory (1847); SPC 44/2/47/10 Dalston overseer’s voucher paid to Robert Chicken 1837; census for Dalston 1841-81.

Thomas Burn, (c.1776-1848) Assistant Overseer for the Townships of Greystoke.

By NMDEA

Thomas Burn was appointed the Assistant Overseer serving the Townships of Greystoke , Johnby, Little Blencow, Motherby and Gill at a meeting of the Vestry 16 May 1823. His appointment, to start on 4 August 1823, was for three successive years for a yearly stipend of twelve pounds and twelve shillings. Previously in 1820 he had been Overseer along with Joseph Stagg, Joseph Guardhouse, Joseph Todhunter and Thomas Arnott. [1] It might be wondered why he moved from the position of overseer to assistant overseer. Some might see this as a demotion, but by the 1820s the position of assistant overseer had become an official salaried post whereas an overseer continued to be unpaid.

Thomas Burn was a yeoman. He married Elizabeth Hawell on 30 March 1802 and they had one daughter, Jane, baptised at Mungrisedale on 28 April 1803 then again a week later 5 May at Greystoke.[2] Jane later married Joseph Mattinson on 19 November 1825 but died 31 December 1831 aged 28 years.[3]

Mention of Thomas Burn in newspapers is limited. In February 1828 it is reported in several newspapers that a hive of bees belonging to him had swarmed and were thriving. Comment is made of the mild weather for the place and season.[4] The abundance of reports on bees at the time was a reflection of the regard for their productive ways and perfect society. [5] Thomas Burn probably kept them to supplement his income from farming. In 1831 the Cumberland Pacquet and Ware’s Whitehaven Advertiser refers to a presentation to him of a silver teapot by the rate payers of the Parish in recognition of his conduct during his long service as Assistant Overseer. [6]

During his time as Assistant Overseer letters survive that were sent to him in relation to his office. The letters came from a wide range of places some from the adjacent parishes within walking distance, others from further away. [7] One came from Wolsingham, County Durham, concerning William Miller, a besom maker and his family struggling to make a living and coping with family sickness. [8] Another came from a poor widow Alice Lowden in Liverpool. [9]

In 1835 Thomas Burn gave notice of his intention to leave the office of Assistant Overseer giving up all money, books and papers belonging to the parish 15 April 1835.

Wanted Assistant Overseer Greystoke Feb 2 1835 PR5/53 15-1
Wanted Assistant Overseer February 2 1835 PR5/53-15-1 Greystoke Overseers’ Vouchers

Thomas Burn corresponded with his successor John Cockburn 12 August 1835 concerning pay due.

Burn wrote:

Sir , My Stipend being due the fourth of this month. I now expect you to pay me the sum of sixteen pounds before Saturday first, if not an action for the recovery without further notice. Yours etc; Thos Burn. [10]

Mr Cockburn replied:

Sir , In reply to your note of the 12th inst I have respectfully to inform you that your demand of £16 your full years salary cannot be complied with but I can at the same time inform you that the sum due for the time you were in office £11.2s.8d will be paid on demand. Aug 15 1835. Yours John Cockburn. [11]


Thomas Burn remained in the Greystoke area farming and hopefully keeping his industrious bees. He died on 8 January 1848 and his wife on Elizabeth 23 July 1849. [12]

The British Bee Hive George Cruikshank 1840 (1867)
The British Bee Hive George Cruikshank 1840 (1867) The British Museum

Sources
[1] Cumbria Archives, PR5/47, Poor Account Book, 1820-1837
[2] Cumbria Archives, PR 5/5, Greystoke, St Andrews, Baptism and Burial Register, 1757-1809; PR 5/9, Greystoke St Andrews, Marriage Register, 1813-1837.
[3] findmypast.uk [accessed 30 March 2020]
[4] Carlisle Patriot, 2 February 1828, p. 2.
[5] Ellis Hattie, Sweetness & Light, mysterious History of the Honey Bee (2004)

[6] Cumberland Pacquet and Whitehaven Ware’s Advertiser, 15 November 1831, p. 3 col, b
[ 7] Cumbria Archives, PR5/63, 22 letters to out relief, 1800-1837.
[8] Cumbria Archives, PR5/67/H 1, Greystoke Overseers’ Voucher, 5 May 1834.
[9] Cumbria Archives, PR5/67-H 21, Greystoke Overseers’ Voucher, 15 September 1835.
[10] Cumbria Archives, PR5/67-K 57, Greystoke Overseers’ Voucher, 12 August 1835.
[11] Cumbria Archives, PR5/67-K 55, Greystoke Overseers’ Voucher, 15 August 1835.
[12] Carlisle Journal, 27 July 1829 p.3 col. g.

This is a work in progress

Nathan Arnison (1796-1886), Linen and Woollen Draper, Penrith

By NMDEA

Nathan Arnison can be found in a trade directory of 1829 at Nether End, near Penrith, as a linen and woollen draper. [1 ] He moved the business to Market Place Penrith around 1831. He bought the shop from a William James who had purchased it from Christopher Crackenthorpe, a member of the Wordsworth family. The shop once was the home of William Cookson silk mercer and draper, and the maternal Grandfather of the poet William Wordsworth and his sister the diarist Dorothy Wordsworth.

Plaque re the former owners of Drapers on the site of N Arnison business, Penrith


A small bill amongst the Greystoke overseers’ vouchers, is headed ‘Bought of N. Arnison Linen and Woollen Drapers, Family Mourning and Funeral Furnishing’, and dated 27 April 1836. The four items, totalling 11s 1/2d, inclued the versatile fabric of cotton calico, priced at 1s. 6d, and 1 pair of sheets at 4s. 4d. [2] It is not apparent from the bill who might be the recipients of these items. Eight years later as well as a small bill for £1.17.6 a larger bill from N Arnison exists.[3] To the Executors of the late John de Whelpdale it is for his funeral expenses in June 1844 for £123.7s.6d Among the 63 different textiles supplied are black and slate calico, ribbon, black mourning silk, crepe, silk and Barcelona handkerchiefs. [4]

N Arnison Linen and Woollen Draper Penrith PR5/67-K

Nathan Arnison, the son of George Arnison (1744-1833) and Elizabeth Topping (1752-1831) of High Hareskeugh (sic) was baptised 1 January 1796 at Kirkoswald .[5] His father a yeoman and victualler of the Horse Heads Inn, Haresceugh [6]. Nathan married Ruth Barra (1799-1870) in 1827. Two sons joined the business: George (1829-1883) and Thomas Bell (1833-1888). N Arnison and Sons appear in subsequent Trade Directories. Robert (1836-1916) was a draper in Sheffield. The other sons William Barras (1830-1896) and Charles Nathan (1840-1911) were principally solicitors. [7] Nathan and Ruth also had two daughters: Isabella Ruth (1838-1914) and Elizabeth who married Hamilton Woods, an engineer.

When Nathan Arnison died 27 February 1886 he left a well established businesss. [8] Those living in the Penrith area will be familiar with the shop that remains in the same place in the centre of Penrith today.

Sources

[1] Parson and White, Directory of Cumberland and Westmorland Furness and Cartmel (1829).
[2] Cumbria Archives, PR5/67- K 8, Greystoke Overseers’ Voucher, 27 April 1836.
[3] Cumbria Archives, DX 8/1/15, N Arnison Account, 1843.
[4] Cumbria Archives, DHUD/17/60, John de Whelpdale deceased, N. Arnison, Penrith, draper, 29 June 1844.
[5] J.J. Thornley, Penrith Ancient Church Registers of the Parish of Kirkoswald.
[6] Parson and White, Directory of Cumberland and Westmorland, Furness and Cartmel (1829)
[7] M Harrison & Co., Directory and Gazetteer County of Cumberland (1861).

[8] Cumbria Archives, PROB/1886/W570, Will of Nathan Arnison.

Elizabeth Parrock (d.1787), midwife

By Alannah Tomkins

The history of midwifery in the eighteenth century in England is a story of a traditionally female occupation being colonised by male medical practitioners. In 1700 deliveries were nearly all conducted by women, whereas by 1800 deliveries to prosperous families were conducted by men. Doctors and surgeons charged more for their obstetric services than their female competitors (typically 10s 6d or £1 1s per child by men, compared with 2s 6d or 5s per child by women), so women continued to deliver only the poorest expectant mothers.

Wellcome Images https://wellcomecollection.org/works?query=man-midwife&search=images

The success of the ‘man-midwife’ can be attributed to a number of social and intellectual developments. The introduction of delivery by forceps in the first half of the eighteenth century, a technological refinement not used by female midwives, probably accounts for some of the increased popularity for trained men. They could achieve a successful delivery in difficult circumstances. Men could claim authority and expertise from studying human anatomy in ways not open to women.

Elizabeth Parrock, a Staffordshire midwife, probably trained for her role in the same way as most eighteenth-century women, by practising among her friends. Female midwives emerged when women accustomed to attending births as a friend or relation acquired a wider reputation for their ability to manage the birthing room. In most deliveries where the baby presented normally (head down, facing their mother’s spine) the midwife’s task was to reassure the mother and give advice, while allowing nature to take its course. The two women would probably be surrounded by the female friends of the mother, and collectively the group would keep fathers out of the room.

If the birth became abnormal, due to the malpresentation of the baby or the distress or excess bleeding of the mother, midwives had few techniques at their disposal to achieve a good outcome. Long experience might have taught them how to ‘turn’ the baby in the womb, but the only other option was to call in a surgeon to do something drastic. Women rarely if ever survived a caesarean section before the second half of the nineteenth century.

Dempsey Portraits https://www.portrait.gov.au/image/87695/87987/
Depicting Mary or Elizabeth Leagrove, a gaol attendant in Ipswich, 1823

We don’t of course know what Elizabeth Parrock looked like. The image above is the one we have used to illustrate her in our card game for the project. We do know that she was earlier called Elizabeth Floyd, and was married to George Parrock at Bilston, Staffordshire in 1752. The couple had at least three children, baptised in Bilston and Wednesbury 1756-1760. Elizabeth, therefore, fitted the typical profile for a midwife, being a woman with children of her own but whose children were mature, allowing her to leave her household to work. We know from the overseers’ vouchers that she charged the lower sum for her deliveries, 2s6d per child, for her work in Wednesbury in the 1780s. She was the only woman recorded in the Wednesbury vouchers so far as a midwife, paid for the delivery of just three babies, yet her association with midwifery was strong enough to ensure she was described as a midwife at the time of her burial. The vouchers similarly show that her husband George Parrock was employed by the parish to mend shoes.

Elizabeth is unusual because we can know something about her working life other than her name. Most women who worked as midwives left no records of their business at all, so parish payments for delivering pauper babies is one of the few ways to see them in action. She is also unusual in that female midwives were typically paid immediately after the child was born and did not need to issue receipts, whereas male midwives allowed parents to owe him the money: consequently relatively few female midwives crop up elsewhere in our project database, with only one named midwife per county so far.

Sources: Staffordshire Archives D4383/6/1/9/1/14/20, D4383/6/1/9/2/80, Wednesbury St Bartholomew overseers’ vouchers; marriage of 29 June 1752 Bilston; burial of 4 June 1787 Wednesbury St Bartholomew.

The Beadles of Winchelsea

By Alannah Tomkins

The Winchelsea poor-law records have been edited for publication by Malcolm Pratt and appear as volume 94 of the Sussex Record Society series. This book includes relatively few of the overseers’ vouchers surviving for Winchelsea – there are hundreds – but nonetheless contains riches for the project. It provides lots of evidence about men who took a parish salary to help implement the poor law.

Parish Beadles have a reputation for having been hard-hearted and officious, for which Dickens’s Mr Bumble is somewhat to blame. The word ‘Bumbledom’ was widely used in the second half of the nineteenth century to characterise pomposity and rigidity in public office. Harry Seacombe’s performance in the musical Oliver! in 1968 has cemented this popular view and it has to be said, whatever his behaviour in the role, his costume was fairly faithful to beadles’ uniforms of the period.

Beadle, Winchester, 1823: one of the 52 portraits painted by John Dempsey, now showcased by the National Portrait Gallery of Australia, at https://www.portrait.gov.au/exhibitions/dempseys-people-2017

But the Winchelsea beadles employed in the 1820s do not fit this stereotype at all. Instead, they were paupers themselves. John Chester was removed to Winchelsea under the provisions of settlement law in 1822, and was resident in the workhouse during the following year. He went on to serve as parish beadle 1824-6 for four shillings per week paid out of the poor rates, until his neglect of duty proved a nuisance to Magistrate Henry Powell.

Chester’s successor may have been better at the job, but endured a similar lifestyle. The tasks of beadle were taken up by Henry Tilden, which in 1826 included delivering notices to quit rented properties. The Winchelsea workhouse accommodated Tilden until the time of its closure in 1831. From then onwards, the beadle’s salary was agreed at six shillings per week if he would ‘keep himself’. On Tilden’s death in 1835 aged 77, he was buried at the parish expense.

One of the vouchers that was printed in Pratt’s book offers an additional touching sidelight on the inclusion of Tilden among the parish poor. He was listed in a bill of 1830 as one of the men benefiting from the services of George Haisell, hairdresser, paid for shaving the adult male paupers and cutting the hair of the children.

Sources: M. Pratt (ed.), Winchelsea Poor Law Records 1790-1841 (Sussex Record Society, 2011).

Isaac and Mary Mark. When will they be Settled?

By NMDEA

Three letters which relate to Isaac Mark and his wife Mary can be found with other Greystoke overseers’ vouchers. The first dated 2 June 1821 is an examination of Isaac Mark’s antecedents by the magistrates of Leath Ward to determine his place of settlement . Isaac is described as a labourer late of Kingside Hill, Holm Cultram. Born at Bowscale in Greystoke Parish he had, until about the age of 15, worked on a farm at Newlands. His father rented it from William Pattinson for £50 a year. In 1788 Newlands was described as being in both Castle Sowerby and Sebergham Parish [1]. After that, Isaac served in first the navy for twelve years then in the 81st Foot Army Regiment for twelve years. Not being in any one place more than six months, he had been to Malta, Gibraltar, Sicily, Naples, and Lisbon amongst many other places. He was married in Gretna around 1804-5. His son was born about 3 months later. He said he had not tried to gain a settlement elsewhere.[2]

Examination of Isaac Mark June 2 1821 PR5/67-C3


Isaac Mark was baptised on 30 October 1771, at Bowscale, Cumberland, the third son of Thomas (1736-1812) and Sarah Pattinson(1738-1805). He was the brother of George (b.1762), Mary (b.1762), Elizabeth (b.1765), Ruth (b.1767) John (b.1769), Thomas (b.1774), Sarah (b.1779) and Benjamin (b.1785). All were baptised as Quakers.[3] Isaac’s family were descendants of the Bewley and Mark families whose names dominated the Quakers of Mosedale, Cumberland. Some were persecuted for their faith. [4]

Perhaps struggling to make a living, Isaac left the farm. Military conflict may not have sat well with any Quaker principles he had.

It is not known where his wife Mary was born. The marriage document gives her surname as Marey Gels of Higton Lancshire[sic]. Their son, Thomas, appears to have been baptised in Bolton le Moors Lancashire on 17 June 1804.[5] Shortly afterwards, on 17 October 1804 Isaac enlisted in the 81st Foot Regiment at Londonderry, Ireland. He appears on a list of others in the Regiment serving in Canada [6].

While Isaac was absent Mary and Thomas were removed from Bolton le Moors to Greystoke on 3 October 1808, only to be sent back.[8 ] At a future appeal at the Quarter Sessions, they were returned to Greystoke where they were accepted by the overseers and given relief. The overseers account book shows that Mary was given £1 every 4 weeks but towards the end of 1813 payments were sometimes £2 every 8 weeks.[9]

Cumbria Archives PR 5/45 1810-1814 Poor Account Book payment 11 February 1811

On 14 November 1808 an order was given to remove Mary described as a widow and her son named Benjamin aged about 1 year from the Caldewgate Parish of St Mary’s in Carlisle to Castle Sowerby. The record refers to her son as Benjamin, no reference is made to her son Thomas although a subsequent document refers to a son called Thomas suggesting he was still alive. Further research has revealed that as a twelve year old the overseers of Greystoke arranged for him to be apprenticed to George Harrison a husbandman at Skelton Parish . Mary either thought she was now widowed or claimed she was. It is possible that there were two sons, Thomas and Benjamin. The 1851 census records Benjamin Mark aged 43 a Bricklayer of English Damside, Carlisle living with William Gilmore and his wife Mary Gilmore. Although referred to as Son-in-Law it may be that Benjamin Mark was his stepson and Mary Mark his wife. Isaac having died [10]

Caldewgate was mainly and area of innkeepers, tradesman and manufacturers attracting people from other areas looking for employment. The poor could be looked upon badly, more being spent on removing a pauper than relieving them.[11] Whether Mary was removed is not known.

By 7 December 1816 Mary’s status was no longer described as that of a widow. Once again the Justices ordered that Mary and her son Thomas be removed from Caldewgate Quarter to Greystoke Parish. Mary and Thomas, aged about 11 years, were described as having previously been removed from Bolton le Moors and accepted by one of the Overseers of Greystoke, Johnby, Blencow, Motherby and Gill, about seven years previously. Isaac her husband a soldier could not be found at the time, his whereabouts until lately being unknown. The Magistrates believed that he had returned to the Greystoke area and his place of settlement. They rejected Greystoke’s appeal against her removal as they had been paying her relief and should have been less submissive in accepting her from Bolton le Moors. The onus being on them to prove a settlement in another neighbouring parish.[12] Isaac may have left the army after the Napoleonic Wars about this time and have returned to what he considered home looking for work.

On 9 June 1821 a short letter to Thomas Burn the Overseer for Greystoke from Isaac and Mary stated they had arrived in Wigton. It briefly describes Isaac and Mary’s journey. He writes ‘she desires you send her bed and what there is‘. [13 ]

Letter from Isaac and Mary Mark to Thomas Burn 7 June 1821 PR5/67-C17

The last letter, dated 17 June 1821, is from John Stalker, the Overseer of Castle Sowerby to Thomas Burn warning him that if they try to send Isaac and Mary to them they will lodge an appeal at the Quarter Assizes. Stalker wrote: ‘take care you do not incur a penalty by suffering a woman deranged as she is to be at large’. Greystoke to be trying to remove both of them [14].

Together by choice or necessity it is not known if they every gained a settlement anywhere.

Thomas Burn from John Stalker 17 June 1821 PR5/67-C2

Sources
[1] Cumberland Pacquet and Ware’s Whitehaven Advertiser,6 August 1788, p.1
[2] Cumbria Archives. PR5/67-C item 3, Greystoke Overseers’ Voucher, 2 June 1821
[3] Quaker Birth Marriage and Death Registers, 1578-1831 [accessed at ancestry.co.uk 21 February 1821]
[4] Rev. Edward Thomas Bewley. The Bewleys of Cumberland and their Irish and other descendants (1904).
[5] Gretna Green Marriage Registers [accessed at ancestry.co.uk]; Liverpool Parish Clerk Project Online. www.lan.upc.org.uk
[6] The National Archives, Kew, WO 25/481, 81 Foot British Regimental Registers of Service 1801-1816pp. 89-90 (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/)
[7] Lancashire Archives, Salford Quarter Sessions, QSP/2575/31, Salford Epiphany 1809 or event date 3 October 1808
[8 ] Lancashire Archives Salford Quarter Sessions QSP/2575/31, Salford Epiphany, 1809 or event date 3 October 1808; Cumbria Archives, PR 5/57, Removal orders, 1737-1833
[9] Cumbria Archives, PR 5/45, Overseers’ Account Book, 1810-14
[10] Cumbria Archives, SPC 67/38, Castle Sowerby Removals, 1778 -1835; Cumberland Quarter Sessions, Q4/2, Christmas Sessions, 1809, p. 105. Cumbria Archives PR 5/59 Bundle of Apprenticeship Indentures 1763-1837
[11] Frederick Morton Eden, The State of the Poor (1797) Volume II page 60
[12]Cumbria Archives, PR 5/57, Removal Orders, 1737-1833
[13]Cumbria Archives, PR5/67-C, item 17, 9 June 1821
[14]Cumbria Archives, PR5/67-C, item 2, 17 June 1821

This is a work in progress subject to change with further research

 

Thomas Village, workhouse governor (c.1785-1866)

By Alannah Tomkins

If it takes a village to raise a child, did it also take a Village to run a workhouse? This is clearly a rather clumsy play on the surname of the Darlaston workhouse governor in the 1820s, but it also raises a more serious question about the tenor of workhouse life.

Thomas Village was allegedly born in Birmingham in 1785 or 1786, but his baptism has not been found. He first emerges in genealogical data in 1810, when he married Ann Osborn (also in Birmingham). Thereafter, and despite their unusual surname, the couple do not resurface once more until their appearance in the Darlaston overseers’ vouchers. It seems possible that they did not have any children, as they were both in their mid-30s at the time of marriage and no relevant baptisms appear in the 1810s.

https://forebears.io/surnames/village
The surname ‘Village’ is now more prevalent in South Africa than in any other country, with a relative concentration of people in Limpopo.

By 1823 the Villages were master and matron of the Darlaston workhouse, catering for between 25 and 30 inmates. Thomas undertook other work on the parish’s behalf, including making journeys on poor-law business and holding sales of goods taken from Darlaston residents in distress, although whether for non-payment of the poor rate is not specified. This suggests that Thomas was also the salaried overseer, also known as assistant or permanent overseer, for Darlaston.

This experience of workhouse management led to future employment for the husband and wife team, while the New Poor Law extended the scale of workhouse management experiences: in 1841 Thomas and Ann Village were the master and matron of the Erdington Union workhouse, in a building formerly used as the Erdington parish workhouse. At that time they were responsible for 123 other residents ranging from those in infancy to one nonagenarian.

They earned enough to retire before the 1851 census, when they were described as a ‘retired plate worker’ and ‘former dressmaker’ respectively. Familiarity with textiles was probably a significant plus for a prospective institutional matron, but it is less clear why a background in metal-working was indicative of success for a master. Ann died in 1862 at the romantic address ‘Shakespeare Cottage’ and Thomas died in 1866. They were both buried in the Warstone Lane Cemetery, Birmingham.

How responsible might Thomas and Ann Village have been for setting the tone of institutional life in their workhouses? Research on autobiographical sources for later in the nineteenth century suggests that staff could be central to establishing an atmosphere of either intimidation or of homeliness. The Erdington Union was known in the later nineteenth century for a rather uncompromising attitude to poor relief, but this does not mean that the Villages pursued harshness as a policy in earlier decades.

There is one shred of evidence for the relationship between the Villages and the resident poor: when Thomas Village died he was worth less than £100 and the sole executrix of his will was one Mary Ann Skelton, spinster of Darlaston. She was not known to be a relative of either Thomas or Ann. Instead, she had been a resident of the Erdington workhouse in 1851 who became the household servant of the couple in their old age and certainly by 1861. Who knew that a former and future pauper might act as executrix for a Governor? Mary Ann Skelton was in the West Bromwich Union workhouse in 1871 and 1881 and probably died in West Bromwich in 1891.

There is no guarantee, of course, that the relationship between the Villages and Skelton was cordial, but the only time she is known to have lived outside a workhouse from 1851 to her death was with them as a servant in 1861, and Thomas trusted her in a legal capacity above (for example) his surviving sisters (Mary Village 1790-1871 and Elizabeth Village 1799-1869) or any nephews and nieces by his other siblings. Whatever social distance was imagined to exist between workhouse staff and their charges was not necessarily strictly observed, and arguably narrowed in later life.

Sources: D1149/6/2/8 Darlaston overseers’ vouchers 1823; 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881 census; marriage of 5 March 1810; National Probate Calendar; Birmingham Daily Gazette 18 December 1862; www.workhouses.org.uk