Category Archives: Local history

The secrets of settlement papers

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Last summer we were fortunate to have two MA History students from the University of Essex on placement with us, jointly sponsored by the University and the Friends of Historic Essex. In this post, David Perkins tells us about his placement project: cataloguing settlement papers for the parishes of Rayleigh and Hadleigh. Thanks to David, you can now find more information about individual settlement papers on Essex Archives Online. For Rayleigh, search for the reference ‘D/P 332/13′ and for Hadleigh, search ‘D/P 303/13‘.

Photograph of an old document with slanted handwriting and red seal. The bottom line ends 'In the year of our Lord 1739'.
Removal order of John Smith, labourer, his wife Ann, and Ann’s son George from Chadwell St Mary to Rayleigh in 1739 (D/P 332/13/3/1)

The work I did for my placement forms a small part of a larger project by the Essex Record Office (ERO) to make more information about individual settlement papers available through Essex Archives Online. By making this information digitally available, the ease of accessing and the searching of those documents for details, of say, name, age, location, or date, is then greatly increased.

As a current MA student, the opportunity to not only undertake research for my dissertation in an archive and with the primary sources, but also to be a small part in the process of making those same documents more accessible and available to future researchers has been an absolute pleasure.

As a historian, the physical connection with the material past, both through the handling and reading of the settlement papers, has given me a far better sense of the real lived lives of those people named on the page. And in turn, this has given me a better appreciation for the existential realities of the people noted in those documents.

The settlement papers for Rayleigh and Hadleigh span from the late seventeenth century through to the early nineteenth century, and comprise three main types of documents: settlement certificates, removal orders, and settlement examinations.

Settlement certificates were given by the overseers and churchwardens of a parish to an individual or family as evidence that they had been granted legal settlement in that parish and so were then entitled to poor relief in that parish. Removal orders were issued by the Justices of the Peace against an individual or family, ordering them to be removed to their parish of legal settlement. Settlement examinations recorded an account of the life of an individual or family who had applied for poor relief from that parish but did not have legal settlement there. These three types of documents are individually quite formulaic in how they record the information. The date, name, and location is given in each case. Of the three types of documents, it is the settlement examinations that provide the most detailed information of that individual or family’s history.

The number of settlement papers that the ERO have for the parishes of Rayleigh and Hadleigh are markedly different. For Rayleigh there a total of 824 documents; 147 settlement certificates, 231 removal orders, and 446 settlement examinations. Whereas Hadleigh has a fraction of that, with only 54 documents in total, comprising of 48 settlement certificates, 5 removal orders, and 1 settlement examination. The difference in the volume of the ERO’s holdings for these two parishes is not necessarily a reflection of the contemporaneous quantities of those documents, but rather a reflection of what has survived. The difference between the number of documents that remain from these two parishes is a telling example of the un-uniform survival, even amongst similar items, of materials from the past. 

Aside from the most beneficial use that these documents have, in informing genealogists and researchers of family history, by looking at the settlement papers in a different way there also lays a vast wealth of other fascinating information that can be gained.

In the papers we can see a changing world over the course of more than a century. A world that in 1752 changes its observation of the new year from 25 March to 1 January, we can see the transition in the way that the names of settlements are described, from the Norman-French ‘Magna’ and ‘Parva’ (D/P 332/13/1A/70) to the English ‘Great’ and ‘Little’ (D/P 332/13/1A/79). We can even detect glimpses of changes in society’s attitudes and use of language and terminology; in the early documents single pregnant women are noted as ‘with child that is likely to be born a bastard’ (D/P 332/13/1A/96), whereas in the later documents we see the term ‘singlewoman, now pregnant’ (D/P 332/13/2/121). In local administration we can see the regularity of bureaucracy with a move away from handwritten documents (D/P 332/13/3/1) to the increasing use of printed and standardised official forms that are purchased from a state authorised stationer (D/P 332/13/3/4).

Close-up photograph of old document, with signature 'J Poynter'.
John Poynter’s signature on his settlement examination, 1806 (D/P 332/13/4/247). Originally from Asheldham, John had entered into a partnership with William Bellingham of Rochford ‘in the business of malting’ three years earlier, and lived in the house above the maltings in Rayleigh.

It cannot be forgotten that settlement papers are both official and legal documents that represent one part in the machine of poor relief. And although they do contain accurate information, that was sworn on oath, the information that has been written down on the documents, especially in the case of the settlement examinations, is a condensed and edited form of what the examinee said, it is not a verbatim transcription of their voice. The documents only tell us the facts; they do not and cannot convey an accurate account of that person’s emotional and social experience as they were when they came to request poor relief. The only place where we can see the real presence of the person is with their sign or signature. Although ranging from a shaky X (D/P 332/13/4/295) to an experienced hand (D/P 332/13/4/247, see above), the mark made is the only physical act on the document that is attributable to that individual.

Close-up photograph of old document, showing a handwritten list of costs.
Removal order for William Thorrowgood and his wife Mary from Rayleigh to Great Stambridge, 1795 (D/P 332/13/2/17)

Aside from the individual or family, or the churchwarden and the overseers as named on the documents, and indeed the purpose of the document, be that a certificate, removal order, or examination, there is no other indication or comment given on what would happen next, or by whom. Fortunately for us however, there is amongst the documents evidence of how poor relief operated in the real world. On the reverse of William Thorrowgood’s removal order (D/P 332/13/2/17) there is a glimpse into the costs incurred by the parish. The removal of William and his wife Mary from Rayleigh to Great Stambridge, a distance by road of only about seven miles, on or shortly after 12 February 1795 tells us that the total cost of removal was 15s 10d, from which 5s was paid for the horse and cart, and 8d paid for the turnpike. This then gives us evidence of potential local travel costs in late eighteenth century Rayleigh. Further, the cost list on the reverse of the document also notes that 2s 2d, later altered to 2s 8d, was paid to a tailor. From this we can likely conclude that since it was the end of February, therefore late winter, the Thorrowgoods were insufficiently clothed for the journey, and so by reasonable inference had insufficient clothes in general. Although the removing parish were entitled to, and able to, and, in general, did claim the money back from parish that the individual or family was being removed to, the very evidence of the parish of Rayleigh ensuring the well-being of the Thorrowgoods, even on such a short journey, provides evidence of a social contract between the parish and the parishioners that not only works to fulfil a legal obligation, but one that also cares for the individual’s wellbeing.

Since we know that 8d was paid for the turnpike, it is then a confident statement to make that the Thorrowgoods travelled on the horse and cart, in their new warmer clothes, along the turnpike. The turnpike road that they travelled on left Rayleigh and went to Leigh, from where the Thorrowgoods would have travelled north to Great Stambridge. The 1746/47 Act of Parliament (20 Geo. II. c. 7) gave rights to twenty-six miles of turnpike roads around Rayleigh, and as much as the improved roads were to the speed and comfort of travel, there were those who saw the new roads as an opportunity to take poor relief into their own hands. In the November of 1772 the toll gate at Hadleigh, a few miles south of Rayleigh, was robbed of 19s 6d by masked men on horses, who then after rode to the Stroud Green toll gate just east of Rochford, about five miles east of Hadleigh, and repeated their crime (Chelmsford Chronicle, 6 November 1772). Although the story of the Thorrowgoods and the highwaymen are not related – the incidents are after all separated by twenty-three years – the knowledge that highway robbery was a real lived possibility can help with building a better picture of the society and potential concerns that the Thorrowgoods may have had but are not, nor could be, written down on theirs, or anyone else’s settlement papers.

The operation of poor relief relied on more than just the gentlemen overseers, churchwardens, and parish vestry. In the case of the Thorrowgoods, we know not the name of the person who drove the horse and cart, nor the name of the place where the clothes were bought. These additional actors in the mechanism of poor relief are seldom named. However, on the reverse of the removal order of William Maize (D/P 332/13/3/77) we can see a named third party involved in the process.

Close-up photograph of document, showing rows of slanted handwriting. At the end it is signed with an 'X'.
Removal order of William Maize from Sittingbourne, Kent, to Rayleigh, 1830 (D/P 332/13/3/77)

A note on the reverse of the removal reads that ‘John Pretty is charged to convey William Maize from Sittingbourne to Rayleigh’. This note then raises the question of why the person being removed was to be accompanied. Unfortunately, we do not know the age of William, but it is possible that he was a child, and so was accompanied for his safety. Should William have been an adult, then we can consider, if elderly he may have needed accompaniment, or as in the case of John White and his wife Mary (D/P 332/13/3/81 and D/P 332/13/3/92), that they do not return again after having been removed on two previous occasions.

Since it was the parishioners of the parish who through the levy of the poor rate paid for poor relief in the parish, those same parishioners desired that those administering the system of poor relief were doing so in an economical way.

Two white posters on a green background, advertising a one guinea reward for the return of two 'strayed' dogs, who answer to the name of Don and Bell.
Reverse of John Rout’s settlement examination, 1826 (D/P 332/13/4/425)

Evidence of this comes first from John Rout’s settlement examination (D/P 332/13/4/425), which is written, although it should be noted as not being signed or dated, on the reverse of two lost dog posters. The posters state that two dogs have strayed from Dunton Hall, about ten miles west of Rayleigh, and a reward of 1 guinea will be given by Mr W. Gale on their return. The poster states that the dogs went missing on 30 July 1826, with the poster being published on the 2 August. This then can help us in giving a date to John Rout’s Examination as no sooner than 2 August 1826.

Old document laid on light brown surface. The document has a table printed on it, but is turned 90 degrees clockwise and has handwriting at the top of it.

The frugality of Rayleigh’s administrators is further bolstered by their use of old tax ledgers. Beginning with William Waight (D/P 332/13/4/271) on 21 January 1807 and ending with William Synett (D/P 332/13/4/305) on 2 February 1809, there are in addition five other incidents where the settlement examination has been written on a page cut from what appears to be a ledger for the receipt of tax payments. The rectitude shown in recycling the paper is admirable, and no doubt the contemporary parishioners of the parish would have been pleased to know that the administrators were not needlessly spending their rates. But the length of time over which these ledgers were re-purposed is curious. One or two on the same day, or even concurrent months would show a short-term solution to the lack of other paper. But since this occurred over a period of two full calendar years – and it must be remembered that we only have remaining to us a small fraction of the documents produced – then it has to be concluded that the administrators of Raleigh had a vast excess of unused tax ledgers. Why this was so is of course speculation, but a possible cause is the discontinued use of that form of ledger, so making the pages suitable for another purpose.

In helping to catalogue the settlement papers I have been overwhelmed by the research possibilities that they can offer. Apart from settlement papers being an invaluable source for their names, dates, and places, they do also contain hidden secrets about the lives and world of those past people. I look forward to finding many more.

If you’ve enjoyed this post, you can also read about Aaron Archer’s experience of cataloguing parish Poor Law documents for Colchester for his placement back in 2021. Next week we’ll be publishing David’s guide to settlement papers – watch this space!

Preserving a photograph collection for the future

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Erica Donaghy writes about repackaging the photographs and enhancing the catalogue for the collection of Mr J Hayllar and requests your help to identify some mystery buildings!

An important aspect of the work we do here at ERO is ensuring items are housed in a way which protects them, assisting with their long-term preservation, whilst also allowing easier access to researchers where possible. Our first County Archivist, F.G. Emmison, wrote an article, ‘The Sage of the Big Intake’ (Essex journal, 26 (3) 1991, pp.56-58, 71) in which he described the ‘astonishing accumulation of historical documents’ in the first years when ERO was established. We constantly strive to improve the storage of these documents, especially as we now have access to acid free materials and un-dreamt of resources that our predecessors were not so lucky to have.

Tanner’s Farm, Great Dunmow
(I/Ha 68/1/13)
Middleton Church (I/Ha 135/1/1)
Dagenham
(I/Ha 63/1/4)

(Click on a picture above to be taken the a gallery for more information)

With this in mind, the Hayllar Collection (catalogue reference: I/Ha), which was deposited with the ERO in June 1950, has recently been re-housed and listed to item level. Not much is known about Mr J. Hayllar, other than that he lived in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire. He travelled through various parishes in Essex photographing the parish churches, as well as secular buildings and other parts of the parish between 1920 and 1950. The photographs range from the exterior and interior of parish churches, to local estates, farms and mills as well as other local landmarks. The photographs are mostly focussed on the buildings themselves, but some show fascinating human elements such as vehicles, shop fronts, children playing and people going about their day.

The photographs were arranged by parish and stored in envelopes labelled with the parish name. These had already been catalogued to parish level by ERO staff.

Windmill, South Ockendon
(I/Ha 146/1/4)
The Old Sun Inn, Saffron Walden
(I/Ha 210/1/29)
Falcon Inn, Castle Hedingham
(I/Ha 99/1/12)

(Click on a picture above to be taken the a gallery for more information)

In 2023 a project began to re-house the photographs into pocketed transparent melinex sheets which would then be kept in acid-free boxes. This would not only contribute to their long-term preservation by protecting them from environmental factors, but would also reduce the risk of them being damaged or affected by being handled.

As this re-housing project was being undertaken, it was also a good opportunity to look more closely at their catalogue and it was decided to list each photograph individually. Mr J. Hayllar labelled his images clearly, often providing the names of buildings and streets or roads. This information has now been included in the catalogue in more detail, enabling researchers to search for photographs that might be of potential interest to them.

Whilst many photographs were labelled with enough information to identify the subject, whilst others were simply labelled ‘view in the village’, ‘street in the village’ or ‘old house in the village’. To try and identify as many of these as possible, staff here at the ERO used other images in the collection, images on the Historic England website as well as Streetview through google maps online. This has helped identify at least some of the subjects of the photographs, and if researchers have any further information to offer about other still-unidentified photographs we would be happy to hear from them!

High Easter
(I/Ha 71/1/11)
Little Hallingbury (I/Ha 92/1/9)
Henham
(I/Ha 102/1/13)
Matching
(I/Ha 133/1/8)
Radwinter
(I/Ha 157/1/11)
Great Waltham
(I/Ha 215/1/15)

(Click on a picture above to be taken the a gallery for more information)

The Collection has now been fully re-housed, labelled and stored at a new location in the repositories here at ERO. Fortunately for us, the new packing has not created a lot more volume than the original, as so often happens when items go to conservation! The item listed catalogue will be published online in due course at Essex Archives Online, and hopefully at some point in the future the photographs might be digitised to further protect them and increase access to these fascinating and beautiful images.

Of tombs and parish registers: sailing into the afterlife!

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Edward Harris, Customer Service Team Lead, together with Neil Wiffen, Archive Assistant and “Tintinophile” (though he prefers Asterix) have been exploring the connections between newly listed tombs at St Clements, Leigh on Sea and Hergé’s salty sea-dog Captain Haddock.

Here at the Essex Record Office, we all love the history of our county, and are always on the lookout for further research. We were pleased to hear recently news about the listing by Historic England, of the chest tomb dedicated to Mary Anna Haddock (neé Goodlad, c.1610-1688), mother of Sir Richard Haddock (c.1629-1715), in the churchyard of St Clement, Leigh-on-Sea (https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1481879).

Engraving of Leigh Church (St Clement) I/Mb 220/1/6

Leigh Church (St Clement) – I/Mb 220/1/6

An added attraction was the suggestion of a connection with Hergé’s Captain Haddock, Tintin’s nautical sidekick.

Historic England state that the tomb ‘is relatively unusual as a single memorial to a named women of this date’ and that it is ‘an exceptional early example of a churchyard memorial … for the craftsmanship evident in the carved panels, posts, and tomb slab.’ How interesting and what might the Record Office have on Mary Anna Haddock and her important tomb?

While we do not focus on physical monuments in themselves, we do look after parish registers of baptisms, marriages and burials for the Diocese of Chelmsford (under which St Clement falls) so, ‘do we have Mary Anna’s burial entry’ in the archive? If we do, it’s always nice to then share it with our followers – simple really. Well, no! As is so often the case when undertaking historical research.

Historic England’s listing informs us that Mary Anna died on January 6th 1688, so taking a look at the relevant register (D/P 284/1/1), there is an entry for a burial taking place on January 13, 1688 (which seems right for arrangements to be made for burial from the time of death) for ‘Mrs [mistress – presumably stressing that she was elderly and respectable] Hannah Haddocke’ but not ‘Mary Anna Haddock’. Our interest was piqued!

Hannah Haddock burial 1688 - D/P 284/1/1

Hannah Haddock burial 1688 – D/P 284/1/1

A couple of obvious answers, as to why there are differences, might be that the names ‘Hannah’ and ‘Anna’ were interchangeable in the period, or that she was simply known by ‘pet’ or preferred name as opposed to the name given to her at birth. The incumbent could have also made a mistake, especially if he was writing up the ‘official’ burial entry later than when the burial took place. What else can we find out though?

We initially went, as is normal, to the relevant volume of the monumental inscriptions produced by our friends at the Essex Society for Family History. That for St Clement being T/Z 151/89 (which is indexed and contains a great plan of the church yard). Due to weathering of inscriptions, they pointed us towards John Bundock’s 1978 Leigh Parish Church of St. Clement: a historical description:

There are two tombs to members of the Haddock family … [one] a large altar tomb with only the top inscribed. Part of it is not very legible. For this and most of the churchyard monuments described here the author has reproduced the readings of earlier copyists. (p.54)

For an ‘earlier copyist’, when the inscription must have been legible, we consulted Philip Benton:

This tombe was erected by Sir Richard Haddock, Kt, in memory of his Grandfather, Capt Richard Haddock who died 22 May, 1660, aged 79 years. As also his father, Capt William Haddock, who died 22 September, 1667, aged 60 years. And his mother, Anna Haddock, who died 6 January, A.D. 1688, in the 78 year of her age, who all lie underneath in the vault. Also the body of Dame Eliz. Haddock, wife of Sir Richard Haddock, who died 26 Feby, 1709-10 aged 59 years. As also the body of Sir Richard Haddock, Comptroller of his Majesties Navy who died 26 January, 1714-15, aged 85 years. (P. Benton, The History of the Rochford Hundred, 1 (Rochford, 1867), p.352.)

Sir Engraving of Richard Haddock I/Pb 8/2/2

Sir Richard Haddock I/Pb 8/2/2

An early twentieth century publication, when the tomb might still have been legible, describes the tomb thus:

In churchyard – E. end … to Capt. Richard Haddock, (1660?), Capt. William Haddock, 166-, Anna Haddock, 1688, Elizabeth Haddock, 1709, and Sir Richard Haddock, 1714, Controller of the Navy, table-tomb. (Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, Essex, 4 (London, 1923), p.83.)

So, it is clear that the tomb contained several members of both sexes of the Haddock family and that Anna/Hannah was one of them. We have not found a sniff of a ‘Mary Anna Haddock’, the nearest we have got is the burial entry to ‘Mrs Hannah Haddocke’. As the tomb in question, and several others around it, are so weathered now as to be illegible, we must rely on previous authors and, of course, what is written in the burial register. We just hope that we are talking about the same tomb and burial as Historic England. Unfortunately, the Leigh parish register that we have consulted is the earliest still extant. Any earlier registers, dating back to 1538, do not survive so we cannot check baptism or marriage entries for the Haddock family, which might have made clearer some of the family connections.

We did however find an entry in the burial register of St Olave, Hart Street 1684-1805, held by The London Archive saying that ‘Mrs Anna Haddocke wid[ow] was caryed to be buryed at Leigh in the County of Essex.’ So this must have been where the funeral service took place, but still not, Mary Anna Haddock! (P69/OLA1/A/010/MS28870 – The London Archive)

As to the Tintin connection, like physical monuments this is not one of our areas of expertise, but a quick look at the online ‘go to’ place for answers, Wikipedia, states that:

Haddock’s name was suggested by Hergé’s wife, who noted that haddock was a ‘sad English fish’ over a fish dinner. Hergé then utilised the name for the English captain he’d just introduced … Although it has not been suggested that Hergé based Haddock on any historical persons, it transpired that there were several Haddocks who had served in the navy. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Haddock)

Tintin.com (a fantastic website for the avid Tintinophile) does add:

As for his family, we know that he is the descendant of the knight François de Hadoque, a navy captain who served under Louis XIV. The king of France entrusted François de Hadoque with the command of the frigate “The Unicorn” which the latter lost under circumstances which were revealed in The Secret of the Unicorn. (https://www.tintin.com/en/characters/captain-haddock#)

The original french language version has the The Unicorn in the background flying a Bourbon Flag, interestingly, the English translation shows it flying a union flag only adopted in 1801, 86 years after the death of Louis XIV. The English translation also has François Hadoque become Francis Haddock who sailed in the English Navy in the reign of Charles II. Coincidentally (as Tintin’s Unicorn is fictional with the art based on a model of the French second rate ship of the line Brilliant) our Captain Richard Haddock commanded the HMS Unicorn from 1648 -1652.

Blistering barnacles, what do you think?

So often with historical research, things are not clear cut and very rarely is there a definitive answer. However, that’s the joy of looking at archives. If you would like to look at the images of parish registers held by the Record Office, further details can be found at: https://www.essexarchivesonline.co.uk/ParishRegisters.aspx

What will you discover?

A Mappa Monday

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Customer Service Team Lead, Edward Harris, looks at the highs and lows of research using our manuscript map collection.

We may have said before that we love maps here at ERO. But some of our manuscript maps can leave you scratching your head.

We have often ordered up something titled “Map of the Parish of…”, hopeful that it will give us an extensive view of the parish in question, only to get something like D/DWe P5 below. A map of Bagg Wood belonging to Thomas White Esq surveyed in 1703.

Map of Bagg Wood in Aldham

Map of Bagg Wood in Aldham (D/DWe P5)

These maps may show one or more field with very little context and no real clue of where it is. We do at least know that it is in Aldham and which part of the ditch it was measured to!

Examining a Google maps satellite images leaves us with scant help. While many of the woodlands do reveal a name when clicked on, none of them are named Bagg Wood. A perusal of the National Library of Scotland’s excellent Geo-referenced map resource (https://maps.nls.uk/) reveals only one candidate that is roughly the right shape, but called Hoe Wood on the 2nd Edition 25” to the mile Ordnance Survey. I suppress a little frustration that the surveyors in the late 1880s didn’t include an acreage as they had done in the 1870’s.

The perfect next step was our collection of copy Tithe Maps. Listing the owner, occupier, acreage and cultivation of every plot of land in the parish, but often also the names of houses, fields and woodland.

The Tithe Map of Aldham, surveyed in around 1839 (D/CT 2B) and it’s accompanying Award (D/CT 2A) is wonderfully clear and easy to consult, but it is also clear that there is no Bagg Wood. What is however, is a vast array of land owned by a Thomas Western, the major landowner in Aldham. One plot of land is the aforementioned Hoe Wood with an Acreage of 21 Acres 2 Roods and 21 Perches. Close enough?

Tithe map of Aldham 1843 (D/CT 2B)

Then I realised that I had fallen for yet another pitfall of a manuscript map, North is not always at the top of the page. A quick 90 degree counter-clockwise rotation of the parchment revealed the North is actually to the right hand edge of the map, and Bagg Wood and Hoe Wood are one and the same.

To add to the clues, the “DWe” part of the maps reference, tells me that it is part of the papers of the Western family.

Manuscript maps are often less clear even than this one, half the fun is in trying to locate their features on a modern map. Manuscript maps can be beautiful. Having a set of maps beautifully crafted for your estate was the status symbol of its day.

By way of example, here is another estate map for the estate of Thomas Western. D/DCm P29 dating to 1809 and surveyed by Robert Baker meticulously records all of the estate over several membranes and is beautifully decorated.

The value of this volume of estate maps can be seen in the gold leaf and beautiful colours used. It has also been separated from the other family papers at some point which can be seen by the different reference. Was this because it was sold off at some point to raise some vital funds? Can you spot Bagg Wood? Also, bonus points if you spotted the route of the railway marked across the estate.

D-DCm P29 Plan

Plan of the Estate of Thomas Western (D/DCm P29)

Mystery motorcycle riders

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Among a recent deposit of postcards is this one showing a man and woman on a motorcycle with sidecar. But who are they?

A postcard showing a man and woman on a motorcycle with sidecar from the Dowsett Collection (catalogue ref: A15840)

The licence plate is clearly visible which means that we can look it up in our Vehicle Licensing Registers (C/DF 11). An Enfield with the licence HK3016 was registered to Frederick Jay, High Street, Mountnessing on 8 June 1917. Is this an image of Frederick Jay on his new Enfield motorcycle? Or is it another person with aspirations of one day owning such a machine?

Register of motor vehicles ‘M2’: motor cycles showing entry for Frederick Jay (catalogue ref: C/DF 11/17)

 

The photograph was taken by Geo. Francis Quilter, a photographer in Ingatestone, who’s listed in the Kelly’s Directory for 1917. In the same Directory is Harry Raven, dairyman, whose shop can be seen in the background of the postcard, and Mark Wells, cycle agent, who operated from Ingatestone High Street. At this time motorcycles were often called “cycles”, so it is likely that this cycle agent sold motorcycles, perhaps even the one shown?

Mountnessing is about 2 miles south-east of Ingatestone and was home to two people named Frederick Jay – a father and son. The 1911 Census tells us that the younger Frederick, then aged 21, was a boarder at 3 Redcliffe Road, Moulsham Street, Chelmsford while working as an “Engineer Journeyman [ball bearing works]”. By 1921, he was back at his parents’ house in Mountnessing and working at the Hoffmann Manufacturing Company.

Marriage Register from St Giles Church, Mountnessing showing the marriage of Frederick Jay and Kate Everett on 3 Jun 1922 (catalogue ref: D/P 73/1/10)

On 3 June 1922, Frederick Jay married Kate Everett at St Giles’ Church, Mountnessing. Is the woman in the sidecar Kate or one of Frederick’s sisters? Sadly, we will probably never know for sure, but it’s nice to imagine that this is an image of Frederick Jay, the proud new owner of a motorcycle which he used to commute from his home in Mountnessing to work at the Hoffmann’s premises in Chelmsford.

Where there’s a will, there’s often an archaic word!

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Chris Lambert, ERO Archivist

The ERO’s collection of wills, stretching from 1400 up to 1858, is widely used by family historians, but also by those trying to get closer to our ancestors’ material lives and their mental worlds. In particular, wills can tell us about the language that they used. A query from our friends at the Oxford English Dictionary recently brought this example to our attention.

One page of Black ink on paper, secretary hand, sentence concerning temes loaf outlined in black

Will of Thomas Leffyngwell of Pebmarsh (catalogue ref: D/ABW 23/83)

It comes from the will of a man from Pebmarsh called Thomas Leffyngwell, made in January 1553 when he was sick and probably close to death (will reference D/ABW 23/83). Having made over his landed property to his two sons, his main concern was to provide for his wife Isabel. The two were to pay her, in quarterly instalments, a pension of £1 6s.8d. (half each), and to provide her with food, drink, clothing, a room called ‘the nether chamber’ with a bed, and a cow that they were to keep fed, winter and summer. And then, as if thinking that perhaps more detail was needed:

‘… Item I wyll that myne executores shall / delyuer unto Osbell my wyffe wekely one pote wythe ale off too galons & a [word struck through] / Temes loffe wythe a chese as often as nede shall requyre …’

Close up of manuscript. Black ink on paper, secretary hand, sentence concerning temes loaf outlined in black

Close-up of the section of the Will of Thomas Leffyngwell concerning “Temes loffe”. Right-click the image and open in a new tab to see an enlarged copy

All perfectly clear, except just possibly that bit about ‘a temes loffe’. ‘Loffe’ is easy enough if you give it a long ‘o’, but ‘temes’ may puzzle you as it certainly did us. It turns out that this is the earliest known reference to a ‘temse loaf’, meaning ‘a loaf made of finely sifted flour’. To temse, you see, was to sift, and a temse was a type of sieve, especially as used for bolting meal. A ‘temse loaf’, therefore, was one of several contemporary expressions for a better sort of bread – a class distinction as well as a culinary one, even in the 1500s.

The word temse itself, of Anglo-Saxon origin, survived into the 20th century, although seemingly restricted latterly to the brewing industry. The burial register from Pebmarsh unfortunately did not, and so we do not know whether Isabel lived to enjoy her ration of bread, cheese and ale. One can only hope that Thomas’s careful instructions were useful to her as well as to the makers of dictionaries.

What on earth is a Seax – Essex Day 2023

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The 26th October is the feast day of St Cedd, it is also Essex Day. Over on our social media we have taken you on a treasure trail of where you can find Seaxes here at the Essex Record Office. The three Seaxes will be familiar to many Essex residents as part of the logo for Essex County Council and on a red background, as their Coat of Arms. But what is a Seax and why has Essex taken it as their symbol? Customer Service Team Lead, Edward Harris delves deeper.

Essex County Council was first granted it’s Coat of Arms by the College of Arms on the 15th July 1932 comprising:

Essex Coat of ArmsGules, three Seaxes fessewise in pale Argent, pomels and hilts Or, pointed to the sinister and cutting edges upwards.

 

The somewhat archaic terms used by the College of Arms can be translated to:

Red, three Seaxes horizontal in pale silver, pommels and hilts gold, pointed to the viewers right with cutting edges upwards.

So now we know what the official Coat of Arms should look like, but we are still not given any clues as to the origin of the name Seax for the bladed weapons shown on the Coat of Arms.

The seax, (or scramasax as it is more usually called by archaeologists) is a weapon used by the Anglo-Saxon people who had displaced, at least culturally the Romano-British inhabitants of the British Isles in the 5th and 6th Centuries. The earliest evidence for the use of a Seax is from the mid 5th Century, though they would still see use in one form or another into the late 13th Century. The term Seax covers a whole family of germanic blades which varied widely in size and shape. The Anglo-Saxons widely used the distinctive broken back seax which varied in length from 30″ to as short as a few inches and, for most, it was probably a utility or defensive knife rather than a weapon of war.

Iron seax, with a straight cutting edge and sharply angled back, the tang offset from the blade.
© The Trustees of the British Museum.

It is from the Saxons that the County of Essex (along with the Ancient County of Middlesex) takes its name. The Boundary of Essex still resembles that of the Saxon Kingdom of Eastseaxe. And it is from this Saxon heritage that Essex adopted the seax as it’s symbol.

The Coat of Arms itself was in regular use well before the grant from the College of Arms in 1932 albeit unofficially. It is likely that the Arms were first assigned to the Saxon Kings of Essex by the more romantic minds of the Late 16th and early 17th Century, as the heraldry in any recognisable sense would not exist until the 12th Century.

One of the earliest mentions of a coat of arms is by Richard Verstegan who writes in 1605 of the East Saxons having two types of weapon, one long and one short. The latter being worn “privately hanging under their long-skirted coats” and “of this kind of hand-seax Erkenwyne King of the East Saxons did bear for his arms, three argent, in a field gules”

Peter Milman’s History of Essex 1771 (LIB/942.67 MUI1-6)

By the 18th Century the use of the Arms seems commonplace, in 1770, Peter Muilman published the first volume of his History of Essex. The frontispiece shows a shield with the three seaxes although with an unfamiliar shape.

The Plans for the building of the Shire Hall in Chelmsford drawn up in 1788 (Q/AS 1/1) clearly show the Seaxes emblazoned on its neo-classical portico. These wouldn’t form a part of the final design though with this space being blank in an engraving from 1795 (I/Mb 74/1/59) shortly after the building’s completion. It now houses a clock.

[You can find about more about the history of Shire Hall on our blog  – ed]

John Johnson plans for Shire Hall 1788 (Q/AS 1/1)

Engraving of Shire Hall shortly after it’s opening 1795 (I/Mb 74/1/59)

The seaxes on a red field would make numerous other appearances, among them: the Essex Equitable Insurance companies fire plate from around 1802; the Essex Local Militia ensign formed in 1809 and the Chelmsford Gazette in 1822. It appears on the cap badge of Essex Police and who remembers the single seax that appeared on the original logo for BBC Essex way back in 1986?

BBC Essex logo from 1986

The shape of the seax on Coats of Arms has led to confusion and myth. As you can see from the examples here, the shape of the Seax changes with use, the notched back of the weapon may simply be to distinguish it from a scimitar for which it is often mistaken. The notch itself has gained a myth all of its own. To many people the notch exists so that the Saxons could hook their Seax over the cap-rail of an enemy longboat to haul it closer.  This sounds rather difficult to achieve, but also to justify, given that the notch doesn’t appear on any of the real world weapons categorised as Seaxes.

The Coat of Arms of Essex

Either way, the Essex Coat of Arms remains an enigmatic and iconic link to our county’s Saxon past.

I owe much of the information that I have garnered from the excellent pamphlet ‘The Coat of Arms of The County of Essex’ produced by F.W. Steer, an Archivist at Essex Record Office ,in 1949 (LIB/929.6 STE) which is well worth a read on your next visit.

Just who is St Cedd? Essex Day 2023

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The 26th October is St Cedd’s day. It is also known as Essex Day as St Cedd is Essex’s very own patron saint. Bur who is St Cedd? And why is he held in such high esteem in Essex? Archive Assistant, Robert Lee takes a look at the life of St Cedd.

St Cedd – A Hagiography

Icon of St Cedd

Cedd’s life began in the Kingdom of Northumbria under the tutelage of Saint Aidan of Lindisfarne. The oldest of four brothers (Chad, Cynibil & Caelin), Cedd in particular would be unwavering to the Celtic Rite imbued to him by Aidan. Cedd’s introduction to Christianity was anti-diocesan: not liturgical and parochial, but peripatetic and abstinent. In one of very few sources on Cedd, the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, emphasis is made on both Cedd and Chad’s devotion to Saint Aidan; such that four years after Aidan’s death in 651, Cedd is said to have been consecrated by the hands of his successor, Saint Finan of Lindisfarne.

Cedd’s reputation in Christendom had much to do with his proselytizing. In 653, at the behest of King Oswiu of Northumbria, Cedd journeyed into the Midlands with three other priests in order to evangelise the “Middle Angles”: an ethnic group predominantly living in Mercia. By Bede’s account, Cedd was greatly persuasive, with masses coming forward to listen to his preaching and receive baptism. Cedd’s enthusiasm would even sway the opinion of King Penda of Mercia, a long committed pagan. Later in the same year, Cedd would be recalled from Mercia and sent into Essex to aid King Sigeberht of the East Saxons. Again Cedd’s evangelism was highly successful, and Essex was thoroughly Christianised. For his efforts Cedd was ordained Bishop of the East Saxons.

Cedd attended the Synod of Whitby in 664 as a vigilant mediator between Iona (followers of the Celtic Rite) and those who followed the Roman Rite. Roman missionaries were arguing for their own computation of the calendar day of Easter, to which the predominantly Celtic northern English initially disagreed. Uncharacteristically, Cedd was won over by the catholic system, and converted to the Alexandrian computus of Easter Sunday. Following the Synod, Cedd returned to Northumbria to supervise the foundation of a monastery, but the Kingdom had been overwhelmed by the yellow plague, which would bring about Cedd’s death.

St Peters-on-the-wall in November with clear skies

St Peters-on-the-wall in November (Copyright Edward Harris)

Perhaps appropriately, Cedd is remembered far more for his itinerant sainthood than for government of the East Saxon Church. The chapel of Saint-Peter-on-the-Wall in Bradwell-on-Sea is said to have been built by Saint Cedd after his ordination. Having gone through several phases of disuse and ruination, the chapel still stands as testimony to Cedd; to God’s glory and the humility of man.

His role in converting the East Saxons and role as their bishop is the reason that Essex now claims Cedd as their patron saint.

If you would like to visit the Chapel of St Peter yourself it can be reached by taking East End Road from the brick built church in Bradwell-on-Sea for about one and a half miles, until you can see the carpark ahead of you, from there it is a ten minute walk to the Chapel. It is open all year and is well worth a visit!

Solanum Lycoperiscum – the tomato

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The home-grown tomato season is coming to an end and to mark this, ERO Archive Assistant and vegetable patch correspondent Neil Wiffen, delves into the history of the tomato.

Tomatoes in season are one of the joys of summer, especially if you can grow your own which, warm from the greenhouse, are a delight to eat. In our modern world they are available all year round, but this is a rather recent phenomenon, as with so many of our salad and soft fruit crops. It’s really only in the last 40 or so years that they have become such staple fare for before that, the cost of heating greenhouses was such that they were really just another seasonal crop which came on during the summer. It has a fascinating history.

A (concrete – but that’s another story!) greenhouse in Broomfield full of tomatoes, possibly the variety Moneymaker c.1980. (Reproduced by courtesy of N. Wiffen)

A (concrete – but that’s another story!) greenhouse in Broomfield full of tomatoes, possibly the variety Moneymaker c.1980. (Reproduced by courtesy of N. Wiffen)

The tomato, which is really a fruit, originates in South America, back to at least the eight century, and its name derives from two Nahuatl words for ‘swelling fruit’ – xitomatl and centtomati. It arrived in Europe sometime in the mid-sixteenth century where it was known in Italy as pomi d’oro (golden apple), with the first English reference being recorded in 1578. Several names were recorded by this stage including Poma Amoris and pommes d’amour – the love apple. It is likely that this was a corruption of an earlier name, possible the Spanish pome dei Moro, the ‘apple of the Moors’ (T. Musgrave, Heritage Fruits & Vegetables (London, 2012), p.120). Philip Miller, writing in the early eighteenth century (P. Miller, The Gardeners Dictionary (London, 1731): ERO, D/DU 588/1) called them Love-Apples, a name which was still in use, although now subordinate to ‘tomato’, when Mrs Beeton was writing in the mid-nineteenth century (I.M. Beeton, The Book of Household Management (London, 1861, p.252). At the end of that century, it was still listed thus by Cramphorns in their catalogue of 1898 (ERO, A10506 Box 7).

Title page of Philip Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary. (ERO, D/DU 588/1)

Title page of Philip Miller’s Gardeners Dictionary. (ERO, D/DU 588/1)

The tomato didn’t get off to a flying start as it was treated with suspicion, it being related, along with the potato and aubergine, to the poisonous deadly nightshade.

It took until the later nineteenth century to become more acceptable, which might have had something to do with the spread of greenhouses from the big country houses to more general growers. Tomatoes will grow outside in our climate but growing them in greenhouse will give a much better chance of successful harvest and fuller flavoured fruits.

It might also have had something to do with the Victorian mania for growing and propagating all sorts of fruits and vegetables, along with the proliferation of magazines and newspapers related to gardening which helped to spread information about new ideas and new plants, while the postal and railway systems allowed seedsmen and nursery gardeners to easily send catalogues and packets of seeds throughout the country.

The tomato varieties sold by Cramphorns in 1898, including the Dedham Favourite. (ERO, A10506 Box 7)

The tomato varieties sold by Cramphorns in 1898, including the Dedham Favourite. (ERO, A10506 Box 7)

It was not only private gardeners who were growing all sorts of fruit and vegetables. Urban populations were growing and needed feeding and there was a proliferation of market gardens on the outskirts of larger towns, from the later years of the nineteenth century to the 1980s. And it was here that market-gardeners and growers were producing tomatoes, earlier on grown as an outdoor crop but over time growing under glass, for local sale via a network of green grocers. However, for larger growers with access to a railway station, or later via road haulage, the massive London market was accessible. Tomatoes were not listed in 1850 among the ‘Principal kinds of vegetables sold at the London Markets’, although 260 tons of asparagus, 300 tons of marrows and a staggering 4,150 tons of turnip tops were (G. Dodd, The Food of London; a sketch (London, 1856), p.387).

The hey-day of Essex grown tomatoes was probably from the 1920s to the 1980s, although more research could really be undertaken on this subject. The rise of foreign imports, from large Dutch growers and Spanish producers, along with the decline of local retail outlets, due to the growth of supermarket chains, very much put an end small market-gardeners and growers.

To see what commercial tomato growing looked like in the early 1980s do take a look at the Essex Educational Video Unit production showing the processes involved in the commercial production of tomatoes as carried out at Spenhawk Nurseries, Hawkwell (ERO, VA 3/8/11/1):

Cramphorn’s tomatoes as sold in 1962 with Golden Sunrise and Harbinger listed. (ERO, A10506 Box 7)

Cramphorn’s tomatoes as sold in 1962 with Golden Sunrise and Harbinger listed. (ERO, A10506 Box 7)

In the last few years ‘heritage’ tomatoes have become quite common in shops and supermarkets, with fruits of different shapes, sizes and colours, very different from the post-war period when they were almost exclusively red. This is not a modern phenomenon, for Miller describes red and yellow fruits, small cherry ‘shap’d’ tomatoes and ‘hard, channell’d fruits’, possibly what we might recognise as lobed, maybe beefsteak tomatoes. Cramphorns advertised 20 varieties in 1898, which included red and yellow varieties along with cherry and currant sized fruits and the ‘irregular’ shaped President Garfield, although it was of ‘good quality’.

Of particular interest is the Dedham Favourite – was this a locally raised variety and does it still exist out there?

By 1962, 12 varieties were listed, including the well-known and comparatively recent Moneymaker but also including the older Golden Sunrise (c.1890) and Harbinger (c.1910). A special tomato,’ Cramphorn’s own Wonder of Essex headed the list. In the catalogue for 1975 eight varieties were listed.

And those you could buy from Cramphorns in 1975. (ERO, A10506 Box 7)

And those you could buy from Cramphorns in 1975. (ERO, A10506 Box 7)

And how to deal with a tomato? Miller states that ‘The Italians and Spaniards eat these Apples, as we do Cucumbers, with Pepper, Oil and Salt, and some eat them stew’d in Sauces, &c’. Meanwhile, Mrs Beeton, says they are:

chiefly used in soups, sauces, and gravies. It is sometimes served to table roasted or boiled [into submission?], and when green, makes a good ketchup or pickle. In its unripe state, it is esteemed as excellent sauce for roast goose or pork, and when quite ripe, a good store sauce may be prepared from it.

An interesting use as an acidic sauce to accompany goose or pork, perhaps replacing cooking apples before they were in season? The other curious thing about these recipes is that the tomatoes are all cooked or processed in some way. Where we regularly eat them as a salad, here they are cooked – perhaps a hang-over from the suspicious way they were treated when first introduced.

Writing about tomatoes is one thing, but it’s being able to taste them that counts! Recently the massed ranks of the ERO staff were treated to a ‘blind’ tomato tasting of seven different varieties, some modern, some old. It was very gratifying to see that the old variety Harbinger, first listed over a century ago, was the outright winner with seven votes (eight if you include the outdoor grown version):

A selection of tomatoes for blind tasting by ERO Staff.

A selection of tomatoes for blind tasting by ERO Staff.
  1. Golden Sunrise: 0
  2. Artisan Bumble Bee mix: 1
  3. Harbinger (greenhouse grown): 7
  4. Indigo Blue Berries: 0
  5. Gardeners Delight: 2
  6. Tigerella: 1
  7. Chocolate Pear: 1
  8. Harbinger (out-door, pot grown): 1

The eagle-eyed among you will surely have noted though, that Golden Sunrise, the oldest known variety grown, received no votes, so age isn’t everything!

While Mrs Beeton might not have mentioned bruschetta, it’s one of my favourite ways of eating tomatoes, so I treated the staff to a taste to celebrate the flavour of locally grown toms!


Bruschetta made with Harbinger and Golden Sunrise tomatoes along with lots of basil and a good heft of garlic. (Photo courtesy of Andy Morgan)

So, if you have any stories to share about tomato growing in Essex, or market gardening in the county (an under-researched and known about topic in my mind), then do a leave a message below. There’s still lots to learn about their culture in the county. And, if you fancy growing any of the tomatoes mentioned above (and I really recommend the Harbinger as a very good ‘doer’) in 2024, then a quick search of the internet will find many suppliers from whom you can purchase some seed. Just remember not to over-water and to pick out the side shoots. But hey, this isn’t Gardeners Question Time but a history blog, you’ll work it out!!!

Neil