Uttoxeter

Uttoxeter Police Officers in 1851, by Jim Preston

/ LHL / Leave a comment

In my previous post I looked at Inspector Kidney. This time I’ll look at some of the other policemen in the town around the same time, using the police registers held by Staffordshire Records Office. These registers contain the names of all police officers back to the beginning of the force. (An online index to them is linked below).

The County Police Act of 1839 allowed counties to create police forces. Some counties didn’t form them until it was made compulsory in 1856, but Staffordshire was relatively early to use the act, in 1842. Three districts were put in place under a single Chief Constable. A Pottery District included the towns in the north of the county, whilst a Mining District encompassed populations around Wolverhampton, Dudley and Walsall in the south. The large remaining portion of Staffordshire – excluding boroughs that already had forces such as Stafford and Newcastle – became the Rural District. Uttoxeter was part of the Rural District.

Staffordshire Constabulary police uniforms from the early 20th century. The top hat and swallowtails worn when the force started were replaced in the mid 1860s. The ranks shown are: superintendant, inspector, sergeant and constable. Reproduced courtesy of Staffordshire Record Office.

The bold text below is taken from the police registers.

Inspector Blood

004 John T Blood; appointed 1842 Dec 12th; aged 29; 5’ 8½”; trade: butcher; from Tamworth; married with 3 children;  recommended by [blank]

John Thomas Blood was Uttoxeter’s police inspector before James Kidney. It was his resignation in 1850 that allowed Sub-inspector Kidney to step up to inspector level.

John had joined the county constabulary in December 1842, as the force was being created; in the police register he is appointment number 4.  As well as his age (29), the register provides us with his height (5’ 8½”), origin (Tamworth), previous job (butcher), and marital status (married with three children). He was taken on as a constable but immediately moved up to class 1 inspector. Just the bald facts are given in these registers, so we don’t know the reasoning behind the promotion. However, it wasn’t all plain sailing for John because a couple of years later he was demoted to class 2 sub-inspector. Three years after that, in 1847, he was promoted back up to inspector.

In the early days of county police forces, officers were expected to behave impeccably. As well as the police officer registers, the Records Office holds two defaulters registers for the constabulary, which contain brief records of officers who misbehaved. Unfortunately the first register only starts in 1857, so we don’t know why John Blood was demoted thirteen years earlier. A random sample of offences in the register are as follows: “neglect of duty” (fined 5/- or a third of a week’s pay); “losing his staff” (a new one was ordered at the officer’s expense);  “drinking in a public house when on sick list” (5/-); “insubordination and under the influence of drink” (20/-); and “smoking a clay pipe while on duty in Trentham” (21/-).

Inspector Blood resigned from the county force in 1850 to become superintendent for the independent Newcastle police force. He spent six years with Newcastle police and on his retirement in 1856 his friends advertised a public dinner at Newcastle’s Roebuck Hotel in order to recognise his past service. Tickets were 5 shillings each, including dessert.

Now 53 years old, John probably still needed an income, and by the time of the 1871 census he was an accountant. He was still an accountant in 1881, aged 68. He and his wife Mary continued to live in Newcastle, where their two daughters became schoolteachers and their son became an architect and surveyor.

Officer Jones

091 John Jones; aptd 1842 Dec 19th;  aged 25;  5’ 11”;  trade: shoemaker;  from Staffordshire; single;  recommended by “discharge and inhabitant of Stafford”;  “was previously a soldier”

386 John Jones (1st);  aptd 1844 Jun 12th;  aged 20; 5’ 11”;  trade: potter;  from Stoke;  single;  recommended by [blank]

411 John Jones (2nd);  aptd 1844 Aug 28th;  aged 19;  5’ 9¼”;  trade: shoemaker;  from Stafford;  single;  recommended by Revd W Caldwell

When the 1851 census was taken, a 29 year old police officer called John Jones was living in Short Street, Uttoxeter, just down the Chapel Gardens passage from Inspector Kidney’s house. John was married to Matilda and they had four young children.

John and Matilda were married in Stafford in 1844. From the birthplaces of their children we can see his subsequent postings. In 1846 the family were in Stafford. They had moved eight miles east to Colwich between 1847 and 1849, and eleven miles north-east from there to Uttoxeter by 1850. Can we match this John Jones to a police register entry? Well, no. Of the three John Jones’ in the police register before 1851 (shown above), the first was too old by about five years and the second and third were too young by about 2 and 3 years respectively. There are no matches.

Jones 091 remained in the force until 1873; Jones 386 was dismissed in 1844 and again, strangely, in 1845; and Jones 411 resigned in 1853. I haven’t found John, Matilda or their children in Staffordshire in the 1861 census or later.

Inspector Kidney

232 James Kidney; aptd 1843 May 1st; aged 20; 6’ 1”; trade: [blank]; from Ardshaw, County Tyrone;  single;  recommended by Capt. Roberts of [indecipherable]

The police register gives additional information to my previous account of James Kidney’s police career. He joined the force four months after Inspector Blood. We know he was tall, and that he came from the parish of Ardshaw in County Tyrone. James was promoted from constable to sub-inspector after two years in the force, on the 1st of April 1845. It was from this time – as detailed in my previous post – that we begin to see newspaper reports of his encounters with the area’s malefactors and rapscallions. He became an inspector in 1850 and then on 30th April 1856, after a 13 year career, Inspector Kidney was discharged from the force through ill-health. As I wrote in the previous post, he died in August, aged 33.

Constable Nisbet

307 James Nesbitt;  aptd 1844 Jan 23rd;  aged 31;  5’ 8”;  trade: Sgt 94 Foot;  from Edinburgh;  married no children;  recommended by TS Kynnersley Esq.

James Nisbet was not living in Uttoxeter in 1851, so it seems unlikely that he was stationed there. However, on census night his wife Louisa Nisbet was staying in Uttoxeter High Street with her father Stephen Udale, a master staymaker. Her occupation was recorded as “wife of a police officer”. The wife of a police officer was expected to be part of the team. She was not allowed to have paid employment and had to be available to take messages when her husband was away on his beat or at court. She was held to the same high standards of conduct as her husband, and although paid a working man’s wage, the couple was expected to have the same the levels of behaviour as the middle classes.

Louisa and James married in Uttoxeter on Thursday 24th October 1843, whilst he was still a sergeant in the 94th Foot, and three months before he joined Staffordshire Constabulary. His regiment was in Ceylon at the time, so he must have been on discharge leave. I haven’t been able to find out where he and Louisa met.

Constable ranks are recorded in the police register as a weekly wage, with most early appointments starting at 15/-.  James was promoted from 15/- to 17/- constable in 1845, and to 20/- two years later.

On census night James was in a house in the village of Newborough, a few miles south of Uttoxeter. I think we can assume he was stationed here. There were no children with James on census night, nor with Louisa in Uttoxeter, so they may still have been childless in 1851.

James is the only one of the officers I’ve looked at to have an entry in the defaulters registers. On the 14th August 1858, his superintendent reported him for “Quarrelling with a civilian in a public House”. His punishment was to be  “removed to Leek”. The following March James died in Leek, aged 48.

Two years after his death, in 1861, Louisa remarried. Her new husband was Hezekiah Perkin, an eating house keeper in Leek. The 1871 census shows them living with two children, Hezekiah’s daughter Sarah Perkin, aged 7, and Louisa Nesbit, aged 12. Louisa Nesbit was recorded as his step-daughter; James Nesbit had a child born the same year he died.

Constable Miles

501 Thomas Miles;  aptd 1845 July 10th;  aged 22;  5’ 8½”;  trade: husbandry;  from Ellenhall;   single;  recommended by Sir Joshuah Walmesley

Thomas was a police constable born in Church Eaton, to the west of Stafford. In 1851 he was living in Uttoxeter as a lodger with his superior, Inspector Kidney. The police register records that he was recommended for the police by Sir Joshua Walmesley, who was a former mayor of Liverpool and a former MP. At the time of Thomas’ appointment, Sir Joshua was living at Ranton Abbey in the parish of Ellenhall, not far from Church Eaton. I think, because of who recommended him, we can assume Thomas was working on the land at Ranton Abbey prior to joining the police force.

Sir Joshua Walmsley, Thomas Miles’s probable employer prior to joining the police force. Painted about 1843 by William Daniel.

Thomas started as a 15 bob a week constable, which rose to 16/-, 17/- and in 1846 to 18/-. The page of the police register in which Thomas is listed is the first that records the colour of his eyes (hazel), his hair (light brown), and his complexion (fresh).

Thomas Miles was dismissed in 1853, before the defaulters register started. I have discovered no other Findmypast search results that could be connected to him. He may have moved away, or, with no way to connect him to other Thomas Miles of the same age, he has just become lost to us in the haze of historical uncertainties.

Sources

County Force Registers 1842-1977 at Staffordshire Records Office.

Defaulters Registers (1857-86, 1904-23) at Staffordshire Records Office.

Sir Joshua Walmsley: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O131746/sir-joshua-walmsley-mp-oil-painting-daniels-william/

Staffordshire Constabulary: https://www.search.staffspasttrack.org.uk/Details.aspx?&ResourceID=2195&PageIndex=11&KeyWord=police&DateFrom=0&DateTo=2021&SortOrder=2&ThemeID=0

Online index to the Staffordshire Police Force Registers, 1842-1920: https://www.staffsnameindexes.org.uk/default.aspx?Index=B&Info=2

Some background on early policing: https://www.oldpolicecellsmuseum.org.uk/content/history/police_history/life_in_the_19th_century_england-2

A policeman’s lot in the 1870s: http://www.victorianpolicestations.org/a-policemans-lot-1872.html

Inspector Kidney, by Jim Preston

/ LHL / Leave a comment

In 1851, twenty-eight year old James Kidney lived with his twenty-three year old wife Maria and young daughter Anne Maria, together with a servant and a lodger, in Uttoxeter High Street just north of the entry to Chapel Gardens, an alleyway by the Methodist chapel. James’ occupation was recorded as police inspector. He was born in County Tyrone, Ireland.

James’ surname is derived from the Gaelic word ‘Ó Dubháin’, a diminutive form of dubh which means dark, “the dark one”.  However the word is pronounced similarly to ‘duán’, the Gaelic word for kidney. Some Ó Dubháins had their name mis-translated in this way whilst others were anglicised by pronunciation, to Devane or Duane. In the 16th century many Irish names were anglicised, often by Anglo-Irish officials, I suspect because they or higher officials couldn’t cope with Gaelic spellings. I’ve linked at the bottom to more details on the subject.

In the 1820s, when James was born, there were quite a few people named Kidney in Ireland, mostly in the Cork area in the south-west of the country. But there are only two records of Kidneys in County Tyrone. One record is an 1821 index to the will of William Kidney from Castle Derge, and the other of the wedding of Sarah Kidney to Edward Roger in Clogher in 1825. These records show there were Kidneys in the area at the time James was born, and the lack of direct evidence of his birth could be due to the civil war destruction of records in 1922.

Occurrences of the surname Kidney by Irish county in the FindMyPast database (all categories) for five years either side of James Kidney’s birth

James Kidney and Maria Horden were married two years prior to the census in Barton-under-Needwood, a small town thirteen miles south-east of Uttoxeter. At this time James was a sub-inspector of police, which seems to be the equivalent of a sergeant, in other words one level up from a constable. It is possible to track his rank and location over the years either side of the census from newspaper reports:

1846, March: Sub-inspector Kidney found stolen goods in a pawnbroker shop in Uttoxeter (3 frocks, 1 shawl, 1 cloak, 2 pairs boots).

1846, July: William Petts, “rather in liquor,” attacked Sub-inspector Kidney, stationed at Rocester, at Mayfield (Ashbourne) wakes.

1849, March: In a notice of his marriage he was a Sub-inspector of police, Barton.

1849, July: David Riley was brought to the court by Sub-inspector James Kidney for being drunk and disorderly in the streets of Barton-under-Needwood. Riley expressed his sorrow and was discharged with a reprimand.

1850, June: George Wigley of the Union Inn, Uttoxeter, was charged by James Kidney, Inspector of Police, for having his premises open for the sale of alcohol at 8am on a Sunday morning. Wigley had only to pay 7 shillings costs because of previous good conduct.

1850, August: A drunk and disorderly farmer, John Carter, kicked open the door of Inspector Kidney’s house in Uttoxeter at 2am one Thursday morning. Inspector Kidney “desired him to go away” then followed him up the street. He found Carter making a great noise with a whistle and shouting, “my kingdom for a horse.” Fined 5 shillings and 9/6 costs.

1851, October: James Kidney, High Constable for the hundred of Totmonslow South, summoned George Elkin, overseer of the parish of Gratwich, for not returning a jury-list.

There are no references to him in newspapers before 1846. However, the Staffordshire Police Force Registers show he joined the force in 1843, soon after it was formed, when he would have been 19 or 20 years old. I have been unable to find him in the 1841 census or in any Irish sources, so his life beforehand is a mystery.

From the above reports we can see that James was moved from Uttoxeter to Rocester and then Barton, before being promoted to inspector and moving back to Uttoxeter. The reason for his promotion was that his predecessor, Inspector Blood, was made Chief Constable of Newcastle in 1850 (from a report in the Staffordshire Advertiser, 9 February 1850).

Map showing the three towns in which Inspector Kidney worked

He had other jobs as well as inspector. In 1850 the Staffordshire Advertiser reported on the Weights & Measures section of the Staffordshire Quarter Sessions. At the session the magistrates decided to give James the weights and measures role on top of his police inspector job.

As shown by the 1851 newspaper report, above, in which he summoned a parish overseer, James Kidney was also High Constable for Totmonslow South. This was not a police role but that of an officer of the hundred and assistant to the Lieutenant of the county.

The Local Historian’s Encyclopedia defines a High Constable as “An officer of the Hundred, responsible for law and order and the performance of manor and parish constables. He was also assistant to the Lieutenant of the county. He was appointed by the Court Leet of the Hundred or by the Justices of the Peace.” “An annual payment [was made] from each parish to the High Constable of the Hundred for the maintenance of prisoners in the county goal.”

James Kidney had achieved the rank of inspector by the age of 27. Sadly, he died six years later, “after a long illness.”

Illustration of the swallowtail and top hat uniform of the 1840s Staffordshire Constabulary. It was replaced in the 1860s. The hat was reinforced with canes and the tail would normally conceal a truncheon.

James and Maria had three children, Anne Maria (born 1851), James (1853) and Joseph (1854). The two boys pre-deceased their father: James aged 5 months and Joseph aged 9 months. After her husband’s death in 1856, Maria returned to Rocester with her remaining child to live with her father. She was looking after the house for him when the census was taken in 1861. Two years later, aged thirty-five, she married fifty-one year old Edward Sheldon, a joiner and sheriff’s officer in Rocester. Maria had two more children: Elizabeth, born 1864, and Louisa, born 1869. Maria died the same year her daughter Louisa was born, aged forty.

Maria and James’ daughter Anne Maria married Alfred Joselyne, a groom at Ingestre Hall, in 1872. I could not trace her after the marriage.

I hope to find more about the early Staffordshire Constabulary and write a future post on what I discover.

Sources and Links

Origin of the surname Kidney: https://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Kidney

Anglicisation of Irish surnames: https://www.libraryireland.com/names/anglicisation-irish-surnames.php

More background on the English in Ireland: https://www.irishcentral.com/culture/craic/the-real-history-of-how-the-english-invaded-ireland

Index of Staffordshire police registers: https://www.staffsnameindexes.org.uk/default.aspx?Index=B

An overview of early policing: https://www.oldpolicecellsmuseum.org.uk/content/history/police_history/life_in_the_19th_century_england-2

John Richardson, The Local Historian’s Encyclopedia

Mary Taft and her Chelsea Pensioner, by Jim Preston

/ LHL / Leave a comment

Mary Taft, aged 58 at the time of the 1851 census, lived in Heath – part of Uttoxeter – with her 54 year old husband Jonathan. Mary was born in Ireland. Jonathan, a Chelsea Pensioner, was a local man. Ten years earlier, the 1841 census recorded Jonathan as a labourer in Uttoxeter.

Thanks to their unusual surname I was able to find their marriage records. They married in 1837 in Gillingham, Kent.  The certificate shows she was a widow with the previous surname of Anderton. The certificate also provides her father’s name. She was born Mary Dunn or Dune, baptised in Ballymore Eustace, near Dublin, to James and Mary Dune, who were farmers. Gillingham, along with neighbouring Chatham, was not only a major naval shipbuilding site, but also the location of several army barracks set up initially to protect the dockyard. Since she married there perhaps her previous husband was a soldier or a sailor. She put a mark on her marriage certificate rather than a signature.

Gillingham parish church, where Mary and Jonathan married in 1837

We know little of Jonathan’s early life, other than his birth in Uttoxeter in 1797 to Thomas and Mary Taft. But we know quite a bit about Jonathan’s military career because of the fifteen pages of documentation gathered to prove his pension. Prior to joining up, he was a blacksmith. He enlisted when 18 years old in 1815, shortly after Napoleon escaped from Elba and two months before the battle of Waterloo. He joined the Royal Regiment of Artillery Drivers, a regiment separate from the Royal Artillery. They were trained in managing guns, waggons and horses with the aim of getting the artillery’s field guns to the battle front and were not provided with arms. Blacksmiths would have provided essential skills. He may or may not have joined up in the nationalist fervour surrounding Napoleon’s escape from captivity, but there is no record of him serving at Waterloo.

The Duke of Wellington implemented what Jonathan’s documents called a “reduction” in army numbers after Napoleon’s defeat and his exile to St Helena. Jonathan was reduced in the summer of 1816 back to civilian life. The Artillery Drivers regiment was completely disbanded in 1822 and its men incorporated into the Royal Artillery.

I can find no evidence of how he earned his living over the next three years, but Jonathan re-enlisted in February 1819, this time in the 80th Regiment of Foot, a Staffordshire volunteer regiment. He spent the next twenty-one years as a soldier. He served in Gibraltar, Malta, and the Ionian Islands (in the Greek war of independence), rising to the rank of sergeant, twice. (He was demoted – no reason given – to private in 1836, but regained his previous rank the following year.) There is another note mentioning that his trade was a blacksmith, so it seems likely this was his main occupation during his time in the 80th Foot, as well as in the Drivers.

In the 1830s the 80th Foot returned from the Mediterranean to spend time in the UK and Ireland. They were stationed in Kent in 1835–6, but by the time Jonathan married Mary in 1837, in Kent, the main part of his regiment had moved to New South Wales to look after convicts, where they stayed until 1845. We don’t know why Jonathan remained in Britain, but it may have had something to do with his health.

In 1840, three years after his wedding, Jonathan was discharged on medical grounds. His medical documents state he had a “general debility and Rheumaticus Chronicus,” which first appeared in 1835 and which was attributed to “cold and exposure to wet.” He was in hospital eight times, five times in Malta, two in Chatham and once in Manchester. His discharge papers stated he had difficulty breathing, making him unfit for military duty, and that it was likely to be a permanent condition.

Pensions were given to soldiers with over twelve years service and to those who were injured in service. These were paid by the Royal Hospital Chelsea, hence the term used in the census. Those we know as Chelsea Pensioners today are the in-pensioners – ex-soldiers that surrendered their army pension to live at the hospital. Out-pensioners were the former soldiers that lived at large and received a pension from the hospital or their agents.

Drawing of a Chelsea Pensioner by Sir David Wilkie RA, about 1816

Fourteen men in Uttoxeter in 1851 put down their occupation as Chelsea Pensioner. They ranged in age from 42 year old John Slater who lived with his 30 year old wife Mary and two young children in the High Street (where the WH Smith shop is now), to 79 year old William Tooth who lived on his own towards the east end of Bradley Street.  Six of the Chelsea Pensioners were aged 65 or over. At 54, Jonathan was somewhere in the middle of the age range. He received 1/8 (one shilling and 8 pence) a week, which is higher than other amounts I’ve seen, but doesn’t seem enough to live on. Did he earn money in other ways?

We know a little of what Jonathan looked like. Aged almost 43 at his discharge, he was 5’ 7” (1.7m), had blue eyes, grey hair and a fair complexion. At the time of his enlistment his hair was brown.

Jonathan died eight years after the census, in 1859, aged 62. Two years after his death Mary was an inmate in an alms house in Carter Street. She died six years after that, aged 75.

Mary left Ireland long before the Great Famine.  Had she remained in Ireland, her circumstances might have been a lot worse. A newspaper report of a meeting in Naas – the poor law union to which Ballymore Eustace belonged – to consider the state of the poor in the area, describes the situation in 1846: “300 souls were in deep distress”; “large families are dependant on 1/6 [one shilling and sixpence] a day or less… which is totally inadequate to their support at the present price of provisions and fuel”. It was going to get even worse: “apprehension of more formidable distress to come arises from many poor people having been compelled by present want, to sell their manure heaps, nor can they at the present exorbitant price, attempt to purchase potatoes for seed.”

We do not know why Mary left Ireland when she did, but she was lucky to have done so.

Map showing the boundary of the English Pale, the area directly controlled by the English in the late middle ages. Beyond the Pale was outside “the limits of civilised jurisdiction”. Mary’s birthplace, Ballymore Eustace, is actually on the pale at the bottom of the map.

Sources

Jonathan Taft’s army papers on findmypast (fees apply).

Timeline of 80th Regiment Of Foot: https://staffs80.weebly.com/history.html

Naas State of the Poor meeting: https://kildare.ie/library/KildareCollectionsandResearchServices/Famine-Co-Kildare/leinster-express-16-05-1846-2.asp

Gillingham church picture: https://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/50265314511/in/photolist-2jzLSMD-owibiN-odnUjr-osPz9f-2jzHvFy-odnR62-oy8LjH-2jzHvur-odrLYh-osPCWW-osPLX5-osPNGY-ouzgAR-owBspk-odnbzg-odmXw2-ouDA6m-ouzu4X-osPx6N-od9PwP-ouyb7M-2jzHvCc-ouQ6dN-tmCtNN-tyZ6h7-ouDywE-2jzLSAr-x2Z42Z-odmZCL-ouzfSB-odo6Ci-beUYnX-ouDsLw-wACNkH-x4THuS-oeQctw-osPQnS-odmMBG-owBkFv-oeq6Dw-odnGbP-oerGbV-odmHDU-ouRJYt-odmYNj-osPAqy-2jzHvDe-ouRGNX-ouGfSB-odnavG

Chelsea Pensioner picture: https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14576695919/in/photolist-ow74Z6-oddzyj-owimHi-oeBEoi-ow5D8L-osy4uA-oeWnay-oeRsVZ-yaeR4d-oditw1-oeQNSg-oevswT-ovC5K3-odb92d-ovMhhd-odnRkv-ovoJJY-od6nRr-ocTdkq

English Pale map: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Pale_According_to_the_Statute_of_1488_edit.jpg

The Status and Residence of Elderly People in mid 19th-century Uttoxeter, by Shelley Robotham

/ LHL / Leave a comment

From analysis of the census we know that there were 194 people aged 70+ living in Uttoxeter (87 men and 107 women) in 1851.  This equates to 4% of the total population of 4,815. Today the over-70s form 14% of the population of 13,467 – this demonstrates not only the increase in the proportion of elderly people but also the growth of the town as a whole from several phases of house building – in the Victorian age, throughout the 20th century and up to the current day.

Where and how did the mid 19th-century elderly people live?

Out of a total of 1,023 households in Uttoxeter, 154 included people over 70. More than half of the over-70s were living in their own homes and defined themselves as Head of Household (60 men and 49 women).  Many of these had a spouse and other family members living with them.    Only 15% of over-70s were living on their own.  Many elderly people were living with their families in households headed by other family members.   Twelve lived with households other than their families, as lodgers.  Two people were lodging house keepers themselves.

Ten people were living on income from house or land ownership; eighteen were receiving annuities or interest from investments.  There were five Chelsea pensioners.  From 1692 until 1955, all Army pensions were administered by and paid from the Royal Hospital Chelsea; hence all recipients, wherever they lived, were referred to as Chelsea Pensioners.

Eleven widows were living in the almshouses in Carter Street.  By this time the Uttoxeter Charities Committee had taken over the administration of the charities in the town.  Katherine Mastergent’s bequest from 1646 to house three widows of “honest and religious conversation” was amalgamated with John Wright’s bequest and a new almshouse was erected in Carter Street bearing their names. The Lathropp’s Almshouses were also rebuilt in 1849 on the opposite side of Carter Street to house four widows. 

Lathropp’s Almshouses, Carter Street, Uttoxeter

For the less fortunate there was always the Workhouse on the Heath.  Nine men and six women over 70 were living in the Workhouse, representing 12% of all Workhouse residents.

Some census respondents defined themselves by their occupation.  From the census it is impossible to tell whether they were still working or whether they were listing their earlier occupation.  Those like William Smith, the saddler who employed three men, or Thomas Alport, the shoemaker who employed two men, were presumably working in a supervisory capacity.  At a time when there was no state pension it was quite likely that those living in their own homes with no family support would have needed to keep working.  Two people over 80 described themselves as “servants” to the head of household.

As might be expected, most people fell into the 70–79 age group; there were 32 octogenarians (17 men, 15 women) and only four over the age of 90 – Samuel Chawner and Martha Barlow were 90, Elizabeth Roger and Mary Rotherham were both 92.

Sources

P M Turner, The Uttoxeter Charities 1594–1853 (Unpublished Study)

1851 census for Uttoxeter

http://citypopulation.de/en/uk/westmidlands/staffordshire/

https://www.chelsea-pensioners.co.uk/

Irish People in Uttoxeter, Part 1, by Jim Preston

/ LHL / Leave a comment

The 1851 census documents about 4800 people in the parish of Uttoxeter on the night of Sunday 30th March 1851. Birthplaces are recorded. Half of those living in Uttoxeter were born in Uttoxeter. Three-quarters of them were born in Staffordshire.

Of the remaining quarter, many were born in the surrounding counties, especially Derbyshire, and a few from major conurbations such as Birmingham (38), Manchester (7) and London (38). 
Only a smattering were born in other countries. For example, people are shown to have come from France,  Russia, Prussia, India, the West Indies, the East Indies. But whilst there are one or two people in each of these cases, there were fifty-nine people born in Ireland. That seems a lot. Nine people were born in Scotland; one in Wales. The map shows where people of Irish birth lived in Uttoxeter.

Map of people born in Ireland living in Uttoxeter in 1851

The Great Hunger – the Irish potato famine – started in 1845. Over the next ten years one million people died, and a further million emigrated. Ninety percent of the migration was to the United States of America, but many Irish people travelled to Britain and other countries too. 
Over a few posts I intend to do a little research into the Irish of 1851 in Uttoxeter.

The first people I researched were eight Irish born people living in a lodging house in the upper High Street. It must have been a reasonably sized house – or they were living in very cramped conditions – because the lodging house keeper, his wife and their five children also lived there. Four of the lodgers were men in their 20s and 30s, John Sharkey, Dennis Carnel, George Macdonoghue and Edward Muraner. All employed in Uttoxeter as agricultural labourers. There aren’t any references to these men in other censuses or other records, so we don’t know how long they stayed in the area. Dennis Carnell appears on a passenger list leaving Liverpool for New York in 1854.

The other lodgers in this house were a family. John Cunningham, 50, his wife Catherine, aged 38, both Irish, and their four children. John’s occupation is recorded as “beggar.” The two eldest children, John, 13, and Catherine, 6, were born in Ireland. Mary was born in Uttoxeter three years before the census was taken, and their youngest child, Ellen, was born 2 months prior to the census, in Leicester.

From this information we can weave a possible story of the family’s movements and motivations. Two years after the birth of their second child in 1845,the potato blight was at its worst and food was scarce. With family and neighbours in the same plight they had a hard time over the 1847-8 winter. They had to eat the potatoes they should have been planting for the coming year’s harvest. In addition Catherine was carrying their third child. They must have realised something had to be done.

Sketch of a woman and children made homeless by the potato famine (published by Illustrated London News, 22 December 1849)

Perhaps John knew someone in Uttoxeter who said that work was available. They travelled across to England whilst Catherine was heavily pregnant, and were in Uttoxeter when Mary was born in October 1848. John had difficulty finding local work. The nearest he could find was forty miles away in Leicester. The family moved, but two years later John was unemployed again. They returned to Uttoxeter with Catherine pregnant for a fourth time, gaining a fourth child in January 1851. By the time of the census in March, John had still not been able to find employment and was reduced to begging for work and money on the streets.

It must have been a time of despair and desperation for the Cunninghams. Over the ensuing years two John Cunninghams died in Uttoxeter, in 1855 and 1859. Possibly one of them was the father, and the other the son.

Evidence of the survival of the rest of the family is scarce. We do know, however, that the two elder daughters survived because Catherine married in Uttoxeter in 1873, aged 29, and Mary married in Uttoxeter in 1876, aged 28.

Did the eight Irish people lodging in this house arrive in Uttoxeter because of the Great Hunger? With the Cunningham family, we know the dates match, and we know John Cunningham didn’t have a good job to draw him here, so it seems likely the famine necessitated their move. The four male lodgers were employed as farm labourers which in normal circumstances wouldn’t have been a reason to up sticks from their Irish homes. We don’t have any evidence of a long stay beforehand, so it seems reasonable to assume they arrived recently, and they left Ireland because of the famine.

My next post will be about an Irish woman, Mary Taft, who had already left her homeland when the famine started.

Sources

Uttoxeter Census 1851

Registrations of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Uttoxeter

Sketch of a Woman and Children: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Irish_potato_famine_Bridget_O’Donnel.jpg

Infant names in mid 19th century Uttoxeter, by Shelley Robotham

/ LHL / Leave a comment
Wikicommons: Image of Child in 19th-century Christening robe

Many of us take a passing interest in the publication of the most popular baby names each year.  You may know that Oliver and Olivia have headed the charts for several years in England and Wales.  Many parents have given their baby an unusual name which turns out to be the most common name in the class when their child starts school.  Were there similar fashions in the mid 19th century?

A study of the infants on the 1851 census for Uttoxeter has revealed that William and Elizabeth were the most popular names at the time (see tables below).  Mary was also popular, especially when combined with Ann to give Mary Ann.  To receive a second first name was unusual, except in the wealthiest households, and few other babies were given more than one name.  Of course, at this time large families were common and many of these babies arrived at the end of a long string of children – one household had seven children and the last one was named Septimus.

The ONS survey for 2019 reveals that popular culture has an influence on naming, especially for mothers under the age of 25.  Following Dua Lipa’s first UK number one single in 2017, the number of girls named Dua doubled from 63 to 126 in 2019.  In 1851 one little girl in Uttoxeter was called Jenny Lind Richards, presumably with reference to the “Swedish Nightingale” who was one of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century.  However, this middle name did not figure in her baptism record, so may have been a nickname that she acquired in her first few months.   With that exception it is difficult to see a trend for naming babies after icons of popular culture in 1851 – royal names such as Henry, Charles, John and George were all in double figures, but there was only one Albert.  You might have expected someone to name their daughter after Victoria, who had been on the throne for 14 years, but this did not influence the parents of Uttoxeter.  Traditional names such as Sarah, Ann and Emily were more popular for girls and several boys had biblical names (Benjamin, Daniel, Eli and Joshua).  There were none of the unusual names that we see today.

Numbers of each infant name for girls
from 1851 Uttoxeter census
Numbers of each infant name for boys
from 1851 Uttoxeter census

Sources

Office for National Statistics – https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/

1851 Census for Uttoxeter

Uttoxeter’s ‘Aftermath’ Charity (by Jim Preston)

/ LHL / Leave a comment

“Apply to Charities Commission to transfer the following charity moneys to the Aftermath Charity.” This was my first encounter with the word ‘aftermath’ in the Uttoxeter Charities minute book. It seemed pretty clear to me that lots of little charities were being combined into one big one, and that the aftermath of those charities was called the Aftermath Charity.

But later I came across a sale advertisement in the Staffordshire Advertiser, “A piece of Meadowland, situate in the Netherwood… Copyhold of the Manor of Uttoxeter, and the Aftermath from the 8th August to the 24th of December belongs to the Trustees of Uttoxeter Charities.”

It turns out that the ‘math’ part of ‘aftermath’ comes from the Old English noun mæð, ‘a mowing’.  So ‘aftermath’ is grass growing in a meadow after the hay has been mown and removed. The Uttoxeter Charities had the right to that aftermath and it was common practice for charitable landowners to allow the poor to graze their aftermath. 

At some point it looks like the right had been commuted to selling the aftermath to the highest bidder and using the rent for relieve of the poor.  Each August, the Uttoxeter Charities trustees took the highest bids for the six lots of the Netherwood and the Town Meadow aftermath.

The amounts received seem to generally be in the £40-£50 range, as shown in the table below.

Year Aftermath Rental
1883 £31
1884 £40
1885 £47
1886 £49
1887 £69
1888 £31
1889 £46
1890 £44

Reports of a poor hay harvest in 1887 probably explain the high rent that year. For example, the Derby Mercury reported that “The stacks of hay and corn are both much below an average in bulk.”  High demand increased the price.

What about the dramatic decrease in 1888? Bid rigging? No, it looks as if the weather may be the cause. The Buxton Herald reported, “Bad weather prevails everywhere. We read of snow in London in July.” The harvest reports from the Derbyshire Advertiser show the weather had been good for grass: “Hay abundant”, “early hay spoiled, later a very big crop.” Presumably there was more than the usual rain, making the grass grow, meaning farmers had enough of their own grazing in 1888 and didn’t need to buy extra.

I don’t know about the low price in 1883. The Derbyshire Advertiser reported, “The hay crop was a good average one, and was got in good condition.”  Further investigation required.

I now know what aftermath is, how it was used for the poor, and have an idea about why its price fluctuated.

Sources:

Staffordshire Record Office D1194/2: Uttoxeter Charities Minute Book 1883-1950.

Staffordshire Advertiser, 22nd July 1882.

The Derby Mercury, 19th October 1887.

Buxton Herald, 18th July 1888.

Derbyshire Advertiser, 7th Sept 1888.

Derbyshire Advertiser, 21st Sept 1883.