Tag: Uttoxeter

Beef Alamode

By Peter Collinge

Many bills settled by the parish overseers in both Cumberland and Staffordshire were for beef. Usually, like those submitted by John and Grace Brown in Lichfield or by Edward Young in Dalston and Jno Halliburton in Brampton the bills just listed as ‘beef’ but occasionally ‘shin’, ‘leg’ of ‘calf head’ are itemised. Couple these bills with those made out for salt and spices and the likelihood is that the beef was used to make  ‘beef alamode’, a type of stew or soup that could be eaten hot, or when cold and solidified could be cut into slices. In Brampton,  the workhouse dietary specified hot flesh dinners on Sundays and ‘fragments of cold meat’ on Mondays.

Beef alamode was a very popular dish in Georgian England, so much so that there were entire eating houses devoted to it and it was a handy takeaway too. This was one pot cooking that could be kept on the stove for hours and used to feed large numbers of people. There are many variants on the recipe (or receipts as the Georgians called them) which were tailored to satisfy the demands of different ranks in society, but in essence the ingredients included the following: course beef, water, lard or dripping, flour, vinegar, onions, salt, black pepper and then an interchangeable selection of herbs and spices that could include mace, nutmeg, cloves, allspice and sweet herbs, or whatever else was at hand. In 1826, Lydia West supplied groceries including black, pepper, mustard,  ginger, nutmeg, and cloves to the overseers of Uttoxeter and in 1829, Lewis Hall supplied pepper, mustard, clove pepper and nutmeg.

Sources

Cumbria Archives Service

PR60_21_13_8_1, Food and clothing Brampton Workhouse, c. 1765.

PR60_21_13_5_1, Jno Halliburton, 1811.

SPC44_2_40_8_10, Jan 17th to Aug 29th 1834 Dalston Parish to Edward Young, Settled October 10 1834

Staffordshire Record Office

D3891/6/31/22, Uttoxeter, Lydia West, 23 Dec 1826.

D3891/6/34/10/12, Uttoxeter, Lewis Hall, 1829.

LD20_6_7_169, Lichfield, St Mary, John Brown, 1831.

Thomas Norris (1787-1848)

By jmkrolik

Thomas was baptised in Uttoxeter in 1787 (7 March or 30 May), the son of Thomas and Ann Norris [1]. His father was a farmer. He married Charlotte Kiernan Collins at Stone by licence on 26 May 1821 [2]. In 1836 he advertised his intention in local newspapers to stand as candidate for Relieving Officer to the Uttoxeter Poor Law Union [3]. He had had considerable experience of the old pre-1834 Poor Law system as his signature appears on many of the receipts among the Overseers Accounts for Uttoxeter parish in the late 1820s and early 1830s [4]. He was successful in his candidature as the 1841 census shows his occupation as Relieving Officer [5]. His wife Charlotte listed her occupation as dressmaker, which proved important as she would need to support herself and her children after Thomas died in October 1848 [6].

Thomas and Charlotte had 6 children: daughter Charlotte became a dressmaker, too, Ann and Mary became milliners and Elizabeth became a governess at Blore Hall and at Croxden Abbey [7]. Son Henry eventually became a station master. Their other son, Thomas Henry, died aged 17 months in 1830 [8]. Henry became head of the family, gathering his womenfolk in his home at Dove Bank, including his aunt Harriet, Thomas’s sister, who had been a witness at Thomas and Charlotte’s wedding in Stone [7]. Thomas’s widow Charlotte died in Uttoxeter in September 1872 at the age of 82 [9].

 

[1] SRO, D3891/1/7 Utttoxeter St Mary Register of baptisms

[2] SRO, D5969/1/16 Stone St Michael, Register of marriages

[3] Staffordshire Advertiser, 19 Nov 1836

[4] SRO, D3891/6/31-40 Uttoxeter Overseers of the Poor vouchers

[5] TNA, HO 107/1007 1841 census for Uttoxeter

[6] SRO, D3891/1/34  Uttoxeter St Mary Register of burials

[7] TNA, HO 107/374 1851 census for Uttoxeter; TNA, RG 9/1955 1861census for Uttoxeter; TNA, RG 9/1954 1861 census for Croxden

[8] SRO D3891/1/33 Uttoxeter St Mary Register of burials

[9] SRO D3891/1/35 Uttoxeter St Mary Register of burials

Another Thomas Norris!

By jmkrolik

The 1841 census listed another Thomas Norris in Uttoxeter besides the one who was a relieving officer [1]. This second Thomas was a printer and bookseller living in the Market Place and was somewhat younger, having been born in 1809 [2]. He was at this stage unmarried and living with his mother Ann and sister Jane. He married Ann Caroline Fowler of Leominster in 1845 [3] and went on to be steward of the Wesleyan Methodist church in Uttoxeter. His sister Jane married a Wesleyan minister (John Peaviour Johnson) in 1844 [4].

However, it is their mother Ann who is the most intriguing figure. She was born Ann Schofield and married Thomas & Jane’s father John Norris at Leek in 1806 [4]. Sometime after Thomas’s birth in 1809 and that of Jane in 1814 the family decamped to Pentwyn in Llanfair Kilgeddin, Monmouthshire [5]. John Norris had been a baker but became a farmer in Wales. By 1834 Ann was a widow and was living in Uttoxeter again. In May of that year she requested to register a printing press and thus the firm of A. Norris & Son of Uttoxeter was born [6]. This must have been quite a departure from her life as the wife of a baker then farmer. What happened in those 20 years between 1814 and 1834 remains to be uncovered.

Ann died in Uttoxeter in December 1848 aged 72 [7]. Her son continued the business in the name of A. Norris & Son until the 1860s when it hit the rocks financially [8].

[1] TNA, HO 107/1007 1841 census for Uttoxeter

[2] SRO, D3891/1/8 Uttoxeter St Mary Register of baptisms

[3] SRO, D3891/1/20 Uttoxeter St Mary Register of marriages; Derby Mercury, 21 Feb 1844, p.3

[4] SRO, D1040/5/10 Leek St Edward Register of marriages

[5] Gwent Archives, D/Pa 71.1-71.8 Records of parish church of Goytrey, Monmouthshire

[6] SRO, Q/SB 1834 T33 Printing press declaration 1834

[7] SRO, D3891/1/34 Uttoxeter St Mary Register of burials

[8] Perry’s Bankrupt Weekly Gazette, 11 Oct 1862, p.7

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