Document of the Month, January 2016: A New Year present from Scotland

Archivist Chris Lambert tells us about his choice for the first Document of the Month of 2016.

This month’s choice is an unusual document that reached us recently from a local house clearance, thanks to some alert neighbours (Acc. A14346).

What they rescued was a small bag of account books relating to a farming business at Little Saling, near Braintree.  Amongst them was this exercise book, apparently bought in Leith, the port for Edinburgh, and used to keep accounts for the coastal trade, mainly in the 1860s.  This opening relates to a vessel called the Paragon, which in January 1866 made what seems to have been a regular run between Leith and Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands.  Many packages are not itemized, but with the names of both the sender and the consignee we still get a good picture of trade in the outer islands of Britain.  On this voyage, the Orknies took considerable quantities of Usher’s ale, tea, sugar, biscuits, and a hogshead of spirits.

2016-01-05 Rendall 1080

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And just what is this document doing in Essex? A loose note of 1880 gives us the clue, referring to J.D. Rendall of ‘Breckaskaell’ (the modern Backaskaill on the Orkney island of Papa Westray).  In about 1889, John David Rendall – born on Westray around 1836 – moved himself, his wife and children to Little Saling in Essex, buying Gentlemans Farm from its absentee owner.  Rendall himself died in 1904, but his family stayed on the farm, part of that wave of Scottish farmers who helped to revive Essex agriculture after the depression of the late 19th century.

Intriguingly, some other loose papers list ‘kelp made on the shores of Narness’, 1875-?1887.  The use of fertiliser made from seaweed was hardly an option at Little Saling, but an interest in unconventional methods, and an eye for new opportunities, were just what Essex agriculture needed.

The book will be on display in the Searchroom throughout January 2016.

New Accession: Will of Benjamin Chipperton, 1795

The Friends of Historic Essex (FHE), the charity that supports the work of the ERO, has recently purchased for the ERO the will of Benjamin Chipperton of Little Bromley (to the north east of Colchester). While it is a modest will of a carpenter we are very pleased to receive it because we do not have a copy of his will in among the 70,000 or so wills that we look after. Thanks to their generosity it is now available for all to look at in the Searchroom. Since it arrived Archive Assistant Gail Sanders has been finding out more about Benjamin Chipperton…

After the  purchase of Benjamin Chipperton’s will (Acc. A14021 Box 1) written on the 28th August 1795, I have been able to draw up a family tree and look into a small part of village and family life in the late 18th and early 19th century. As mentioned below this document could be one of a number of documents that have been split up and I have been unable to pinpoint the exactly location of the messuages and cottages owned and mentioned in the will.

Gail - A14021 box 1 watermarked

Since there are so many Benjamin Chippertons involved in the tale below we shall refer to them as follows:

  • Benjamin senior – our main Benjamin’s father
  • Benjamin junior – the Benjamin who wrote the will at hand
  • Benjamin III – Benjamin junior’s son
  • Benjamin IV – Benjamin III’s son

Benjamin Chipperton junior was baptised on the 4th March 1738, the son of Benjamin Chipperton senior and his wife Elizabeth. Benjamin junior’s first wife was Susan Winter; together they had two sons, another Benjamin, and then James. Susan died a year after James’s birth. Benjamin junior remarried on 17 November 1774 to Hannah Cook of Little Bentley.

Benjamin junior’s will highlights his career as a carpenter, as the main items mentioned are his workshop and tools. It also makes clear his hope or expectation that his son Benjamin III would take over the business; he was left the family home, household goods, workshop and tools.

The will mentions only modest amounts of money: Benjamin junior left £1 to his wife for every year she lived but remained unmarried, and £5 to his second son James on the year of his death and the year after. The old money converter from the National Archives suggests that in the 1790s £1 was 6 days of a craftsman wages, and £5 was 33 days.

However, all was not to work out just as Benjamin junior might have planned. From the Little Bromley parish registers (viewable on Essex Ancestors) we learn that three generations of Chipperton men all died within five years: Benjamin Senior was buried on 23 September 1795, Benjamin junior died in 1798, and his son Benjamin III was buried on 15 June 1800.

Benjamin III was, however, survived by his son Benjamin IV (born 1799), with whom the family’s fortunes did revive a little. He survived to adulthood and married Maria Cook (her second husband) and went on to have a family of 7 children. He did, however, die in 1843 aged just 44. (Maria went on to marry her third husband, Robert Porter, and can be found on the 1851 census.)

If you have managed to keep up with all the Benjamins through to the end of this post then well done – and just as a bonus one of the witnesses to the will was also a Benjamin, although at least with a different last name (Carrington).

It appears that Benjamin junior’s will might be part of a bundle of documents that have been split up for sale, including a mortgage for a cottage and land in Little Bromley, 1795, and a lease for a carpenter’s workshop (now divided into two properties) and land in Great Bromley, 1827. Does anyone know of the whereabouts of these to help us add to the story of the Chipperton family? We’d love to hear from you! We can be contacted on ero.enquiry[@]essex.gov.uk

To support the work of the FHE, or if you would like to make a donation to their document purchase fund, please see: http://www.essexinfo.net/friends-of-historic-essex/

PS Remember that digital copies of more than half of our wills are now available to view on Essex Ancestors

Document of the Month: a letter from India, 1828

As October is Black History Month, we have chosen for our Document of the Month something from our small but significant collection which reflects the history of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities and their connections to Essex.

The document is a letter from Bhowaneydass Purshotumdass in Bombay to Captain G. G. H. Munnings (referred to in the letter as ‘Mannings’) dating from 1828 (D/DU 312/7). While the letter raises more questions than it answers, it gives us a tantalising glimpse into the world of trade in India in the nineteenth century.

D_DU_312_7 watermarked

We can glean from the letter that Munnings was employed by Purshotumdass, and that he had just arrived in Calcutta on the Sunbury from Madras, a journey of 800 miles along the Bay of Bengal from the south to the north of the country. Judging by the need to ‘repair and cork the ship’, the writer’s reference to a ‘boisterous passage’ from Madras to Calcutta by Captain Munnings would seem to be an understatement.

It appears that the main purpose of the journey was to transport horses to Calcutta, but Purshotumdass wanted the vessel to return with as full a cargo and as quickly as possible to maximise profits, as is the case with international trade today.

Unfortunately, no other letters between the pair survive; we don’t know for how long he was employed by Bhowaneydass Purshotumdass, or what goods he found for the return journey.

At present, we have been able to find out a little about Captain Munnings but nothing about Bhowaneydass Purshotumdass.

What we do know is that Captain Munnings was from a family from Thorpe-le-Soken, and his full name was George Garnett Huske Munnings. Poll books available on Ancestry describe Captain Munnings as a merchant; the burial registers of St. Stephen Coleman Street in the City of London record that he was buried in that parish in 1837.

Other records show that Munnings owned a number of ships involved in both domestic and international trade. Some of his vessels operated up and down the coast of East Anglia, while others plied their trade to India and the West Indies.

Bhowaneydass Purshotumdass has signed the letter twice; in English and possibly in Marathi (a language used in Bombay).  He was clearly an educated and wealthy man; it is difficult to translate the 2,000 rupees he mentions to a modern day equivalent, but by the end of the 19th century, 15 rupees equated to £1.

The letter will be on display in the Searchroom throughout October 2014.

Do you have a story to tell about the past or present of a Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME) community in Essex? If so we want to hear from you.

We are inviting people from BAME communities to tell their stories, either by writing them down or making a sound or video recording, to be kept in the archive for current and future generations to share.

This will be an ongoing project, but in order for potential contributors to see where their stories will be stored, we are holding a launch event with an opportunity to see behind-in-scenes at the archive, and to enjoy food, music, and a display of documents. Come and join in with Essex History Needs You on Saturday 11 October 2014, 11.00am-2.00pm. Free entry, just drop in. More information here.