Tag Archives: nineteenth century

Tracing lives through allotment records

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Once you’ve explored the main family history sources, it’s worth investigating the records that survive for the towns and boroughs where your ancestors lived. Local records can reveal a lot about their lives, documenting their trades, involvement in community affairs, notable achievements or misdemeanours, and even the allotments they cultivated. 

The records for the Borough of Saffron Walden contain a fascinating insight into allotments in the 1830s and 1840s. As with many places across the country, “spade husbandry” was introduced as a form of poor relief, with unemployed men being offered a piece of land to grow food for their families and provide an income at a reasonable rent. The 1830s was a period of instability in rural communities with poor harvests and increased mechanisation meaning food prices and unemployment rates were high and wages were low. This led to the Swing Riots where arable workers in the south and east of England destroyed threshing machines and set fire to haystacks in protest of these conditions. Saffron Walden’s Justices of the Peace were concerned enough about disturbances to call upon certain householders “to act as Special Constables for the prevention and suppression of any tumult, riot or felony” in the area (catalogue ref: D/B 2/QSS5/34). 

Front cover of Register of proceedings in matters relating to Spade-Husbandry and Allotments’ [title page], recording minutes of committee relating to provision of allotments for poor labourers, 1829-1834 (D/B 2/PAR9/5)

Saffron Walden set up an Allotment Committee in 1829 and the surviving records include committee minutes (D/B 2/PAR9/5 and D/B 2/PAR9/6), allotment rent accounts which record the names of people cultivating plots (D/B 2/BRL5/71), and maps of the fields with allotment plots marked out and numbered so they can be linked to the rent accounts, allowing individual plot holders to be identified (D/B 2/BRL5/72). The minutes also contain maps of the allotments and have been digitised so can be viewed on Essex Archives Online.

Plan of Turners Field with numbered plots and named plot holders in Register of proceedings in matters relating to Spade-Husbandry and Allotments’ [title page], recording minutes of committee relating to provision of allotments for poor labourers, 1829-1834 (D/B 2/PAR9/5)

The Allotment Committee managed several fields provided by local landowners and charities such as Lord Braybrooke, and the banker and philanthropist Wyatt George Gibson among others. Two such fields were Turners Field and Warners Field. Both fields have been identified on Saffron Walden’s tithe map of 1848 (D/CT 378B) – marked in green with Turners Field on the left. Turners Field is recorded as “Next Windmill Hill Road” on the tithe apportionment, but the owner is the Trustees of the Turners Charity and the shape of the plot corresponds to the shape of Turners Field as drawn in the account books and allotment plan. There are still allotments on this site. 

Section of tithe map with Turners Field and Warrens Field highlighted in green
Section of the Tithe Map for Saffron Walden, 1848, showing Turners Field on the left and Warners Field on the right (D/CT 378B)

Allotments were primarily assigned to men such as John Cornell who is recorded in a rent account book as working a 30-rod plot in Turners Field and a 40-rod plot in Warners Field, however, there is a note that he died in 1838 and that the plots were taken on by his widow. In Warners Field, John Auger had a 20-rod plot and there is a note that he was killed in 1840 with the plot being taken over by his widow, so women and children were likely involved in cultivating the plots. The fact that widows took on the plots shows how important they were to the household. 

Entry for Widow Cornell’s plot in Turners Field in the allotment account book 2, 1838-1887 (D/B 2/BRL5/71)

In Warners Field, Charles Byatt had a plot until 1840 when he is recorded as a “rate payer” and the plot was taken over by Richard Barker. At one point the plot was “all potatoes” which went against the rules stipulated by the Allotment Committee.  

Allotment rules, 1830 (D/B 2/PAR9/6)

It looks like a survey was carried out in 1838 and the rent accounts have been annotated with the crops being grown. Oats and barley are the most common crop along with potatoes and a very few carrots and turnips. 

Allotment account book 2, 1838-1887, with plot holders names and their crops marked in pencil (D/B 2/BRL5/71)

The first extant minute book concerns the provision of fields for the allotments, digging wells, drawing up the rules and regulations and the assignment of allotments for cultivation. There are lists of men with the number of children in their family together with the number of rods they were offered and whether they were accepted, and later applications for allotments or additional rods. It also contains the signatures or marks of the plot holders, depending on whether they were able to write their name, and includes their address.  

Extract from the Register of proceedings in matters relating to Spade-Husbandry and Allotments’ [title page], recording minutes of committee relating to provision of allotments for poor labourers, 1829-1834, showing the marks or signatures of the plot holders and their addresses (D/B 2/PAR9/5)

The survival of both committee records and plot-by-plot rent accounts is particularly valuable, allowing researchers to connect named individuals with specific pieces of land and, in some cases, the crops they grew. 

The committee’s concern with productivity and proper cultivation echoes wider contemporary attitudes towards agriculture. One of the final pages records the following quotation: 

“To judge of a Nation we have only to throw our eyes in the Markets and the Fields. If the Markets are well supplied, the Fields well-cultivated, all is right. If otherwise we may say, and truly say, these people are barbarous or oppressed”. (Samuel Rogers, Italy: A Poem. London: T. Cadell, 1830) 

Extract from Italy: A Poem, by Samuel Rogers,  as written on the back page of allotment account book 2 (D/B 2/BRL5/71)

For a detailed look at these allotments and the wider social history of Saffron Walden see The Well-Ordered Town. A story of Saffron Walden, Essex, 1792-1862 by Jacqueline Cooper (Clavering: Cooper Publications, 2000) which is available in the ERO reference library (LIB/E/WALDS1).

Document of the month, June 2018: ‘war and confusions’ in Colchester

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Archivist Lawrence Barker tells us about his choice for Document of the Month: a newly accessioned Church Book from Colchester dating from 1796-1816 (D/NC 42/1/1A).

A year of ‘war and confusions’: this is how the Reverend Joseph Herrick (1794-1865) described 1815-16 at the Church of Christ in Colchester.

Revd. Joseph Herrick, who was minister of Stockwell Congregational Church in Colchester for over 50 years, from 1814 until his death in 1865 (I/Pb 8/16/2)

Herrick had been elected as minister of the congregation in 1814. At the time, the Church of Christ met in a building on Bucklersbury Lane, which is now St Helen’s Lane. (The congregation was later to build what would become Stockwell Congregational Chapel.)

Several new (to us) documents relating to Herrick’s early years at the church were recently deposited at ERO. The two most significant items are a commonplace book, a kind of journal kept by Herrick himself recording his activities as a preacher from 1813 to 1819, and a church book, which is a record of church activities and members from 1796-1816, which Herrick must have kept in his personal possession. After his death, it must have passed down through his descendants and has thus survived. It is an important record relating to the early history of the Congregational Church in Colchester which has remained hidden for 200 years.

One function of the church book was to record the names of members of the church, noting when they joined and when they either left, died or were ‘excluded’ during disagreements (D/NC 42/1/1A)

The book begins by recording the ministries of Herrick’s predecessors Isaac Taylor and Joseph Drake. Drake’s ministry was plagued by a quarrel over a man named John Church, who had been invited to preach in the church by some members of the congregation. The majority of the members, however, disapproved of Church’s views: he was an antinomian, that is, he held the view that salvation could be achieved by faith alone, and people were not compelled to follow moral laws by any external influence.[1] Such a row followed that Drake resigned, having been in post less than a year. From March 1812 and throughout 1813 the church was without an appointed minister, and nothing was entered into the church book during this time. At the time of Herrick’s official election in April 1814, the book records that:

This Church was thrown into a great deal of confusion in the year 1813 by a Mr Church, an Antinomian Preacher, of very vile character, being forced into the pulpit contrary to the wish of the generality of the people.

In December 1813, Herrick came down from London and preached his first sermon at the Church of Christ on Christmas Day. After labouring amongst the church for 3 months ‘with a view to a settlement if things were mutually agreeable’, an invitation dated 16 January 1814 was sent to Herrick signed by the Deacon, James Mansfield Senior, and other members of the church.

Yet Herrick’s ministry does not seem to have restored harmony to the church, in the main because a conflict arose between him and the very Deacon responsible for his ordination, James Mansfield.  Things came to a head in June 1815.  Mansfield concocted a letter of dismissal (D/NC 42/6/6) dated 6 June to send to Herrick stating that ‘from and after the twenty fourth Day of June instant your services as Preacher at such Meetinghouse will be dispensed with.  And that from and after such time we shall Consider you entitled to no payment of a Minister for the performance of Divine Service in such Meetinghouse’.  The letter is signed by Mansfield and others of his cronies (some of which are thought to have been invented).

In the short term, Herrick seems not to have been affected by this:

June 14 1815

Our 15 Church meeting was held. – this was a special meeting called to consider the conduct of James Mansfield Senr Deacon, Mary Tillet and Mary Wright, when it was unanimously agreed that their conduct was highly inconsistent; and such as we could by no means tolerate. Mr M had abused his pastor, insulted the members, destroyed the harmony of the church, kept back part of the subscriptions etc etc – and the others had been concerned with him, and supported him in all his improper practices.  All suspended.

In August, an intermediary tried to help resolve the situation:

August 14, 1815

Our 16 Church meeting was held. This was a special meeting, to hear the report of the Rev W B Crathern, who had been requested to attempt an adjustment of the differences between the church and Mr Mansfield Senior etc. His interference had been, he stated, without effect, entirely owing to the obstinacy of Mr Mansfield. He advised the church not to consider him as suspended, but to try him a few months longer and if no alteration appeared, then, to cut him off. Agreed to etc. Joseph Herrick.

In September, having accepted (presumably) James Nash as his new Deacon, Herrick reported that Mansfield ‘refused to deliver to Mr James Nash, Deacon the sacramental cups which are the property of the church; awful sacrilege! We, however, bought one which we administered the Lord’s supper on the 10th’.

By February 1814, desperation seems to have begun to set in:

February 2, 1816

This day the following persons broke into our meeting. –

Quilter, carpenter, F Smythies, lawyer, J Mansfield Senior, J Mansfield Junior, S Mansfield, Isaac Brett, Chas Heath, John Hubbard, John Inman, Thos Podd, James Nevill. On hearing they were there I immediately went and took possession, and James Nash my Deacon went with me – after staying about 20 minutes they retired and left us in the possession of the place.

Our 22 Church meeting was held this evening, no particular business was attended to, excepting the above, which we shall refer to the Protestant Society for the defence of Religious liberty.

Joseph Herrick

Entry in the church book from 2 February 1816 when the church meeting was disrupted by several members of the congregation (D/NC 42/1/1A)

Eventually, so determined it seems was Mansfield to dispense with Herrick as Pastor that he went to the extraordinary expedient of organising the de-roofing the chapel so that it could no longer be used as a meeting place, a development laconically reported by Herrick as the last entry in the church book:

June 3 – 1816 –

Mansfield and his party, without any previous notice, sent a bricklayer to unroof the meeting which is now exposed to the weather etc.

Entry from the church book for 2 June 1816, when the roof was removed from the church by a disgruntled member of the congregation (D/NC 42/1/1A)

But that wasn’t going stop Herrick pursuing his mission.  He simply built a new chapel 50 yards further along St Helen’s Lane, on the corner with East Stockwell Street, which was to eventually become Stockwell Congregational Church. This new chapel was enlarged in 1824 and 1836 to accommodate a growing congregation.

This 1870s map of Colchester shows that by this time the chapel had seating for 750 people and an attached Sunday School (Ordnance Survey first edition map 27.12.3, 120”: 1 mile)

Herrick remained its minister until his death in 1865; he is buried in Colchester Cemetery, where a large obelisk dedicated to his memory stands. On his death it was estimated that he had conducted over 10,900 services in his 51 year career in Colchester. While he was never universally approved of, he clearly had a large band of very dedicated followers. An obituary for him in the Essex Standard of 8 February 1865 describes a man ‘Firm in purpose’, with ‘gravity and sobriety’, who was deeply knowledgeable not only on Christian theology but on a whole range of other subjects as well, who practiced what he preached and unaffectedly sympathised with ‘those in sorrow’. For his congregation, his loss after so many years must have been felt deeply indeed.

The church book will be on display in the ERO Searchroom throughout June 2018.

[1] Antinomianism is one of many debates within Christianity. The word itself literally means rejection of laws (from the Greek ‘anti’ meaning against, and ‘nomos’ meaning laws). In Christianity, antinomianism is part of the debate about whether salvation is achieved through faith in God alone, or through good works. An Antinomian in Christianity is someone who takes the view that salvation is achieved by faith and divine grace, and those who are saved in this way are not bound to follow the laws set out in the Bible. However, this is not to say that someone with antinomian views believes that it is acceptable to act immorally, rather, that the motivation for following moral laws should flow from belief rather than external compulsion. In this view, good works are considered to be the results of faith, but good works above and beyond what is required through faith were viewed as signs of arrogance and impiety.

Document of the Month, July 2015: Correspondence of James Brogden MP, 1816

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Chris Lambert, Archivist

D/DSe 13

Our document this month is actually 3 documents, chosen to illustrate how a national political and economic crisis works at a personal level – or at least, how it did in Britain in 1816.

They all come from the correspondence of James Brogden, long-serving MP for Launceston in Cornwall. He actually lived in Clapham, but his papers came to Essex through his sister Susannah, who married into a local family.

1816 should have been a year of relaxation, with the long years of war against France finally over.  Unfortunately, peace did not bring prosperity.  Sudden demobilisation and a fall in demand for goods brought unemployment, poverty and riots.  As always, however, individual reactions to the crisis varied.

One response was to make use of the patronage networks that ran through society and government.  Brogden himself was a client of the Duke of Northumberland, the major landowner at Launceston, but as a government MP and chairman of the Ways and Means Committee he too received many requests for patronage and support.

In our first letter, from March 1816, one H. Stratton wrote from London hoping for a job in the government service, stimulating the economy: ‘the present pressure upon the Agricultural and other Public Interests will probably be relieved by some Legislative Enactment … similar to the late Commission of Exchequer Bills’, and he desired ‘to fill some situation under the new Establishment’.  Evidently this was not his first attempt (‘I venture again to take the liberty of intruding myself upon your notice’), but what resulted from it we do not know.

2016-07 D-DSe 13 - letter 1 watermarked

Our second correspondent, from August 1816, was of a different kind.  John Parker of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire had a longstanding connection with Brogden, whose family home was nearby at Narborough.  When Brogden’s mother died in 1814, the MP had sent Parker a £5 note to buy mourning, earning a tribute for ‘taking notice of a poor old man, and … numbering him among your most intimate friends’.  In 1816 Parker was 80 years old and in failing health.  Just a week before the present letter, he had complained to Brogden that ‘I cannot see to work in the Frame [presumably he was a handloom weaver], and if I could I do not know that I could get work, great numbers are out of work of all Trades …’

Now Parker gives thanks for the gift of a coat, waistcoat and pantaloons: ‘when Trade is bad, [a] poor man cannot afford any thing to purchase Cloathing.  I should rejoice to hear of the revival of Trade …’  Besides Brogden’s charity and 6 shillings a week from a sick club (shortly to fall to the club’s old age rate of 4 shillings), he relied on a small amount of invested capital.

2016-07 D-DSe 13 - letter 2, front watermarked

Those without capital or connections had few options.  In our third letter, from November 1816, an un-named correspondent reported a very different reaction to the crisis.  He had spent 3 hours at Spa Fields in London listening to the political reformer Henry (‘Orator’) Hunt address a public gathering: ‘the poor ragged people could not be complained [of] – the humbugging egotistical, stupid & impudent orator … nearly well might’.  A second meeting at Spa Fields in December descended into rioting and a march on the Tower of London.

2016-07 D-DSe 13 - letter 3, front watermarked

In the short term the government responded with repression, and an economic revival in 1817 helped to calm the situation.  The wider question of how to create a stable politics, able to respond to economic shocks, remained.

The three letters will be on display in the ERO Searchroom throughout July 2016.