Category: Staffordshire

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

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.