THE CARLTON'S OF KENT
As best as can be determined, I have traced my Carlton heritage as far back as I have been able to, till it gets ‘blurry’ one might say.
My G-G-G-G-G-G Grandfather was John Carlton, born May 27, 1709 in Lyminge, a village in the southeast of Kent, 8km’s from Folkestone and the Channel Tunnel, linking England with France. The road to Lyminge passes through Eltham, on the North Moors of eastern Kent.
His father may have been William Carlton (married to Ann), but this is a grey area and I cannot be sure that is accurate. One of the oldest standing structures in the village of Lyminge is the Parish Church of St Mary and St Ethelburga, originally founded in 633.
Æthelburh of Kent was an early Anglo-Saxon Queen consort of Northumbria, the second wife of King Edwin. As she was a Christian from Kent, their marriage triggered the initial phase of the conversion of the pagan north of England to Christianity.
On January 16th, 1734, aged 24, John Carlton married Susanna White (1712-1754) in Tilmanstone, situated approximately 20km’s northeast of Lyminge. Their son, my G-G-G-G-G Grandfather, Edward Carlton, was born there in 1745.
Edward Carlton married Ann Pilcher (1753-1826), daughter of Nicholas and Alice Pilcher, on September 8th, 1772, also in Tilmanstone. Their son, my G-G-G-G Grandfather, John Carlton (1772-1826)(also born in Tilmanstone), married Sarah Smith.
Tilmanstone village, near the eastern coast of Dover, is situated on the north side of the Dover and Sandwich road, bounded on the north and east by Knowlton and Betteshanger, and on the south and west by Waldershare and Eythorne. In Saxon times, the lands at Tilmanstone were part of the possession of the See of Canterbury.
The name comes from the Old English ‘tūn’ meaning an ‘enclosure, a farmstead’, combined with a warlord’s name; therefore, ‘Tilmann’s farm/settlement’. The Domesday Book chronicles Tilmanstone as Tilemanestone. The parish church of St Andrew in the town dates back to the mid-11th century and an English Yew tree in the churchyard has been dated at more than 1,200 years old. The Normans built the famous church, with additions and extensions made over the next 300 years.
My G-G-G Grandfather, Thomas Carlton (1800-1883), was born in Ospringe, Kent, on November 16th, 1800. According to the UK census of 1801 (March 10th), the parish of Ospringe had 645 people living in an area with a total acreage of 2,874.
The county of Kent is a varied terrain, of rolling downs and broad plains, rich marshlands and fertile valleys. Few parts of England had a more versatile rural labour force during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Kentish farmers and labourers tended to range widely, tackling the various tasks created by the diverse countryside.
Most Kentish village labourers readily moved to new homes in search of better conditions. John like many of these farm workers, would have periodically moved around the south-east in search of better employment. A lot of the movement was seasonal migration, in order to meet the labour demands of the county's varied crops.
Because so little is known of Sarah, it is not known when or where they first met, one might assume in the market town Faversham, where the next record of John is to be found. While I have been unable to find any record of their marriage thus far, John Carlton and Sarah must have married around 1793 - or not - as their first born child, Aaron, was christened in Faversham, on March 30th, 1794. Perhaps they ran from Tilmanstone as Sarah was pregnant? Aaron died the same year as his birth.
Either way, Faversham would have been pretty much viewed as the big smoke in 1793, and a step closer to the fast developing London city. Discounting Canterbury of course. Being the headquarters of the Church of England and Anglican Communion, if prenuptial issues were an issue, it would be unlikely they’d have stopped there.
Faversham’s Market is the oldest in the county, dating back at least 900 years. In the Domesday Book (completed in 1086), it was one of only 42 places in England where a market was recorded.
The Creek at Faversham held twelve feet of water at a high tide, so could accommodate most trading vessels of the mediaeval period. The town thrived under the Normans and a steady trade between London and Europe was established.
Places and people of interest: Ospringe, Faversham, Ulcombe, Bedminster, Hernhill, Challock, Lees Estate, Thomas Chatterton, Geoffrey Chaucer.
Faversham was granted certain rights by Henry VIII in 1546, one of which states that a new market town could not be established within the distance it took to drive a herd of sheep to market in one day, probably in the region of 6 miles. This distance is still law in England today.
In the 21st Century, the picturesque backdrop of old Tudor and Georgian buildings is a scene which has changed little since the days of Shakespeare (who acted there) and Queen Elizabeth I (who visited the town in 1572).
Being a busy port, Faversham was ideally placed to cash in on the boom in building in London from the 18th century and Kentish yellow clay bricks joined oysters and wool as the big trades, shipped directly up the Thames and into England’s capital city.
Edward (1795), John (1796) and Ann (1797) followed Aaron, all listed as being christened in Kent, but not more specific than that. Sarah (1798) and Thomas, two years later (plus Elizabeth in 1802), were christened in Ospringe, which would have then been a rural area, immediately to the south-west of Faversham. So it may be fair to assume that John Carlton was a sheep farmer, quite possibly also a wool trader. Land owner or tenant, it is unknown, but almost certainly a tenant and farm labourer.
Although small, the village of Ospringe was once separate from the hundred (an administrative division that was geographically part of a larger region, in this case Faversham) and would have had its own constable.
The remains of substantial Roman buildings have been found around Ospringe and the village itself lies on Watling Street, nowadays the A2, but formerly used by the ancient Britons and paved as one of the main Roman roads in Brittania. Watling Street also linked Dover with London, so possibly explains John, at some point in his life, heading off down the Roman road from Tilmanstone in search of seasonal or short term employment. Maybe purely to seek his fortune.
The route to Canterbury from London, by way of Watling Street, was made most famous by the storytellers in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. The tales, a collection of twenty-four stories, were written (mostly in verse and in Middle English) by Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. The story-telling is provided by a group of pilgrims, traveling together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral.
The Canterbury Tales is generally thought to have been incomplete at the end of Chaucer's life, although this has never been firmly established. Either way, the book is revered as the author's 'magnum opus', one of the most important works in English literature and the first work to popularise the English vernacular in mainstream literature.
Whatever his situation - and before the ‘modern’ census system was introduced in Great Britain, enabling more accurate accounts of dwellings etc - John and Sarah Carlton lived in or around Faversham, including Ospringe, from around 1793 to anywhere between 1802 and 1804.
Mary (1804-????), Catherine (1806-1829) and Richard (1807-????) were born and christened in Challock, a mostly wooded, large village 13km due south of Ospringe, indicating that the family probably moved during this period. Their last born, William (1811-????) was also christened in Challock on December 1st, 1811.
Challock contains a boundary close to the village centre, which is one of the highest points on the North Downs, a ridge of chalk hills which stretch right down to Dover. Snowfall could be occasionally heavy in the area during the winter months, when the north-easterly winds were blowing.
A smock mill stood to the north of the village. This particular type of windmill got its name from its resemblance to smocks, an outer garment traditionally worn by rural workers, especially shepherds and waggoners.
Smock mills first appeared in Holland in the early 16th century, and were quickly recognised as an efficient way of providing power to pump water and thus drain marshy areas — and then to keep those areas dry thereafter. These mills were later common in Kent, reaching their heyday in the earlier part of the 19th century, after which the advent of steam power started the decline of both them and the more traditional windmill.
“This Parish lies on high ground, in a healthy, though rather an unfrequented country. The soil is in general poor and barren, the upper part of it is covested with slints, and the rest of it a stiff clay. In the middle of the parish is a large common, called Challoch Lees, with a pasture, which extends itself, in two branches, near two miles in length. At the end of the Lees is the principal village.”
The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent. Edward Hasted (1798)
The change of location from Ospringe to Challock may have been significant, perhaps more steady work for John, a change of situation or fortune, an unsettling of some description? Whatever the elder siblings of Thomas Carlton did with their lives is also largely uncertain. There are snippets of information, but Edward, it is recorded, died in 1885 in Challock, aged 90, having spent the majority of his working life as a farm labourer. Prosperity and/or opportunity had seemed to pass the family by and - as it was in the times - hard to find a way to rise above the tediousness of life and the proverbial apple not falling far from the tree.
John Carlton died in Challock 1826 and was buried on the 24th of May.
Not much about his early life is known, but Thomas did not marry until he was 32 years of age.
His wife was Mary Coast (1807-1871), daughter of David Coast (1776-1846), a carpenter, born in Charing.
Charing village had both a market in 1285 and a fair in the fifteenth century recorded. It is sited at the foot of the North Downs and reaching up to the escarpment on the Pilgrim’s Way, an historical route taken by pilgrim’s from Winchester to the shrine of Thomas Beckett, which was one day's walk from Canterbury.
David, the son of William Coast (1744-1826) and Mary Casledon (1748-1829), both of Charing, was the fourth born of eleven children. He was 10 years older than his wife Mary Cock (1786-1870) when they married on July 20th, 1806, in Margate, Kent.
Their first child, Mary, was born almost a year later, also in Margate.
The town has been a significant maritime port since the Middle Ages and it became a popular place for holidaymakers in C18, owing to easy access via the Thames. As a leading seaside resort, David, while he had other options, even London (as a bachelor), may have been drawn toward a more populated area in search of more work.
The surname of Cock is relatively synonymous with the Margate or Thanet area of Kent and it could be presumed that is where he met his wife to be, Mary, daughter of John Cock and Elizabeth (Collins), who were married at St Peter’s in Thanet, in September of 1771.
Thomas Carlton and Mary Coast were married on October 12th, 1832 in Ulcombe, which lies 12.3 miles west of Challoch and eight miles south-east of Maidstone. The name of Ulcombe is derived from meaning ‘deep little wooded valley’, being located on the other side of the Downs from Faversham.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the pre-Roman connected village of Ulcombe was the location of a bell foundry. Bell ringing became extremely fashionable amongst the aristocracy during the seventeenth century, as it provided physical exercise and intellectual stimulation.
Stories of bell’s powers to heal, to drive away evil, to calm storms and to save people from plague, pests and enemies, led to bells being rung at the time of death to keep the devil away from the soul of the departed.
In the rural churches, as with those in Kent, bands of ordinary parishioners took the opportunity to undertake the work and often locals saw an opportunity to earn a few shillings, often transferred quickly from the church tower to the village inn. Standards of behaviour deteriorated, with bell ringers described as layabouts and drunks. Attendance at church services meant a disassociation with any part of bell ringing.
Places and people of interest: W. D. & H. O. Wills, Agricultural unrest, Hernhill, Hothfield Commom, Hamlets of the Blean, Hop pickers.
In the first ‘modern’ UK census of June 7th, 1841 (termed modern on account of the fact that it is regarded as wholly more accurate than any of it’s predecessors), David Coast is recorded as residing in Hothfield, Ashford Borough, Kent. The same information is given at the time of his death, aged 70, five years later on August 18th, 1846.
In 1841 Hothfield is listed as having 408 residents, spread over 1,829 acres of the Chart and Longbridge Hundred. Hothfield itself is completely split in half by Hothfield Common, 143 acres of heathland and lowland valley bogs, today a natural reserve managed by Kent Wildlife Trust.
“Though the land in the parish is naturally poor, it is rendered productive by the chalk and lime procured from the down hills. The inhabitants have an unlimited right of commoning with those of the adjoining parish of Westwell, to upwards of five hundred acres of common, which affords them the means of keeping a cow and their poultry, which, with the liberty of digging peat, draws a number of certificated poor to reside here. It is not a pleasant, nor is it accounted a healthy situation, owing probably to the many low and watery lands in and about it. The heath, which contains near one half of the parish, consists mostly of a deep sand, and has much peat on it, which is continually dug by the poor for firing.”
The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent. Edward Hasted (1798)
The same year, 1841, Thomas and Mary Carlton are recorded as living in Sheldwich, Kent. With them are children, David Carlton (1834-1890) aged 7, John Carlton (1837-????) aged 4, William Carlton (1838-1908) aged 3 and George Carlton (1840-1921) almost a year old, all four registered as also having been born in Sheldwich.
Although no occupation is given for Thomas, it is implied that he may have been a livery servant of some description. Here, his literacy maybe called into question, but as we shall discover later, he could at least write, therefore, presumably read also. But his residence he listed as; Leese.
There is little doubt that he was referring to the Lees Court Estate, of which the village of Sheldwich lies beyond the north-west boundary of the park, which would have been completely surrounded by farmland in the 1800’s, a lot of which still remains today.
Parts of the village church in Sheldwich date back to the eleventh century. Because of the small scattered population the civil parish is joined with those of two smaller neighbouring villages, and is known as Sheldwich, Badlesmere and Leaveland. Most of the parish lies within the Kent Downs.
In 1841, Sheldwich itself had 547 inhabitants, occupying 1,948 acres of the Faversham Hundred (Leaveland 100/381 and Badlesmere 122/782).
The Lees Court Estate was built in 1652 by Sir George Sondes (whose family had bought the property in 1600), on the site of an earlier house. The front of the house is said to have been a design by Inigo Jones, the first significant architect in England in the early modern period and the first to employ Vitruvian (of the Roman architect Vitruvius) rules of proportion and symmetry in his buildings. Sir George was made Earl of Faversham shortly before his death in 1677.
Although leased at times throughout its history (and having a total rebuilt after being gutted by fire in 1910), the once 85,000 acre Estate (now 6,900 acres), has a core of 2,663 acres around the villages of Sheldwich and Badlesmere, with the balance at The Swale Estuary, Oare and Faversham Creeks.
It is possible that Thomas worked here as a servant (owing to his census claim), but I contacted Lees Court Estate and a very helpful employee went to great lengths for me, but could not find any record of Thomas having worked there, although she indicated that records kept in those days were not wholly accurate.
The Estate is currently occupied by the Countess of Sondes (American, Phyllis Kane) and includes three principal traditional let farms and about 550 acres of woodland. There is also a large in-hand farm and around 20 houses on the Estate (occupied by current and retired employees, residential and agricultural tenants), as well as over 100 other buildings.
Amongst her vast raft of patronage, trustee, director or management roles, she is currently the President of the Sheldwich Cricket Club.
Elizabeth (1843-????), Edward Winsor (1845-1861), Emma (1848-1928), Walter (1851-1901) and Richard (1853-????) followed and completed the family.
Thomas Carlton by UK census thereafter:
1851: 50, Farmer 45 Acres. Father and Head of household. Hernhill, Kent.
1861: 60, Farmer 45 Acres. Father and Head of household. Hernhill, Kent. High Street.
1871: 70, Farmer 43 Acres, employs 1 boy
1881: 80, Retired Farmer. Father and Head of household, widower. Hernhill, Kent.
Others: Kate (1870), Arthur G (1872) & Lilian (1878) relationship uncertain. It would appear
that son George took over at Hernhill.
1883: died in Faversham on November 4th and was buried in Hernhill on the 11th.
Mary Ann Carlton (Coast) died on August 15th, 1871.
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My G-G-G Grandfather, Thomas Parsons was born in 1819 in the town of Bedminster, the famous southern suburb of Bristol City, Gloucestershire. His father, George Parsons (1794-1868), was born in the nearby township of Nailsea in 1794, but his mother, Mary (daughter of Henry and Sarah Poole), was also born in Bedminster, in 1798. They were married in 1817....in Bedminster!
When Bristol itself, was little more than a river crossing, Bedminster was already an important township. It received a mention in the Domesday Book and for many centuries was a separate settlement to its eventual usurper.
Neatly located in a rich and fertile valley in county Somerset, Bedminster had become a thriving community by C17, gathered around its parish church. It was sacked and burnt in 1644 by Prince Rupert of the Rhine (a nephew of Charles I) and it took the town over a century to fully recover from the ordeal.
But by the 1780’s - on the threshold of the Industrial Revolution - open-cast coal mining had brought new prosperity to Bedminster. Local industry flourished due to the proximity of iron-ore, coal and timber, primarily sourced from the Forest of Dean, near the Welsh border.
Almost overnight, the town became a power-house of heavy industry, embracing iron and steel production. Folk from depressed areas of rural Somerset, even southern Wales, flocked to the new coalfields in the hope of finding employment.
By mid-C19, there were eighteen pits operating in the Bedminster and Ashton Vale coalfield. Until it was made illegal in 1842, child labour was used extensively underground to drag loads of coal up to the surface.
Some of the earliest tram roads in the UK were built to transport coal to the growing number of local ports in the area. As well as meeting the insatiable demands of the city of Bristol, easy access to the docks opened up trade with Scandinavian countries.
While all this manufacturing had generated considerable wealth, the transformation of the town had been too rapid to implement the urban infrastructure necessary to prevent slum conditions. Manned by a huge workforce, most occupants were packed into high-density terraced housing.
Municipal authorities faced public health problems of monumental proportions. In the filthy courts and alleys of Bedminster, the cholera epidemics of 1830 and 1846 caused more fatalities than anywhere else in Gloucestershire.
The coming of the railways in the 1840s, further enhanced industry attraction toward Bristol. Subsequently Bedminster also benefitted, with engineering, tanneries, glue, paint and glassworks factories opening up in the town.
The opening of the East Street factory of W.D. & H.O. Wills tobacco business in Bedminster in 1886, with a high tea for the 900 employees in their Cigar Room, was significant. The new factory was expected to meet company needs for the remainder of the century, but within a decade it had doubled in size.
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The UK Census of 1841 (June 7th)
The UK Census of 1841 lists Thomas Parsons as a 22 year old, but does not list his occupation. The family were living in Bishop Street, Bedminster; George, 46, Blacksmith. Mary, 45. Thomas, 22. Edward, 21, Rail Police. George, 12.
A little over two miles to the North-West, Thomas’ future wife, Jemima Gwyther (1822-1887)(19) was living in Clifton, with her father James (50), mother Mary (55) and younger brother, John (17). The ages of the two children are inaccurate however, both four years younger than the dates shown at their respective christenings.
Jemima (October 27th, 1822), another brother, James (April 22nd, 1824) and John (January 14th, 1827), were all christened in St. Andrews Church, Clifton.
Clifton was recorded in the Domesday book as Clistone, the name of the village denoting a 'hillside settlement' and referring to its position on a steep hill. It is one of the oldest and most affluent areas of Bristol city, much of it having been built with profits from tobacco and the slave trade.
Situated to the west of the city centre, it was at one time a separate settlement but became attached to Bristol by continuous development during the Georgian era and was formally incorporated into the city in the 1830s. Grand houses that required many servants were built in the area. Until 1898, Clifton St Andrew was a separate civil parish within the Municipal Borough of Bristol.
As best as can be determined, Jemima’s father, James Gwyther Snr (1790-????), heralded from Manorbier, a village, community and parish on the south coast of Pembrokeshire, Wales. He was baptised on November 24th, 1790 at Nash-With-Upton and married Mary John (1790-1861) on October 20th, 1812 in Tenby.
The pathway which led James to Gloucestershire is uncertain, the Gwyther’s of West Wales were predominantly stonemasons and sheep farmers.
Bristol St. Mary Redcliffe
On the 29th November, 1845, 26 year old Thomas Parsons married Jemima Gwyther, at Bristol St Mary Redcliffe.
The Anglican parish church, located in the Redcliffe district, was constructed from C12 to C15 and it has been a place of Christian worship for over 900 years. The church is renowned for the beauty of its Gothic Architecture and was famously described by Elizabeth I as "the fairest, goodliest, and most famous parish church in England.”
Little remains of the earliest churches on the site, although some of the fabric has been dated to C12. Much of the existing building dates from the late 13th/14th centuries, built and decorated by wealthy merchants of the city. The spire fell after being struck by lightning in 1446 and was not rebuilt until 1872.
St Mary Redcliffe’s most famous ‘inhabitant’ is the boy poet, Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), who was born in the writing-master’s house of Pile Street School, just a stone’s throw from the Church. The magnificent Gothic architecture and its memorials to Bristol’s dignitaries, provided the primary inspiration for his quasi-medieval poems and prose. He also composed modern poems, satires and social sketches.
Chatterton’s father (also Thomas), was a musician, a poet, a numismatist and a dabbler in the occult. He died but 15 weeks after his son’s birth and it is believed that growing up fatherless was the catalyst for Chatterton junior later adopting for himself the writing pseudonym Thomas Rowley, an imaginary C15 monk.
Although fatherless and raised in poverty, Chatterton was an exceptionally studious child, publishing mature work by the age of 11. He was a big influence on Romantic artists of the period such as Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth and Coleridge. Unfortunately, his precocious talents ended in suicide, aged just 17.
The UK Census of 1851 (March 31st)
Thomas and Jemima’s first child, Lucy, was christened in the same church on 25th July, 1847, followed by Thomas on the 8th of June, 1851. Although registered as being 0, Thomas arrived in time for the 1851 Census.
The Parsons family are still listed as residing at Bishop Street in Bedminster. Thomas (32), a Sugar Baker and Jemima (29), Dress Maker + Lucy (3), Thomas (0) and a Mary Gwyther (1790-1861), married, born in South Wales, who is listed as first a visitor, but later a boarder.
A sugar-baker was the owner of a sugar house, a factory for the refining of raw sugar from Barbados. Sugar refining would normally be combined with sugar trading, which was a lucrative business.
The latter is most likely to be Jemima’s grandmother, although this is unverified. There are three Mary Gwyther’s in the England and Wales Death Registration Index post 1851, all in Pembroke, Wales in 1854, 1861 and 1862.
Two further children followed for Thomas and Jemima Parsons, James George (30th July, 1854) and George (27th September, 1857), both christened at Bristol St Mary Redcliffe.
Thomas Parsons died in Bedminster in 1857, aged 38.
1861: Jemima Parsons (39), seamstress, is listed as Head of the house at Bishop Street, the only other relative listed is Lucy, aged 13, scholar. Jemima it says, was born in Clifton, Bristol and is widowed.
1871: Clifton, Jemima (49), Lucy (23).
1874: Lucy (27) marries Walter Carlton in Wandsworth, London, ENGLAND.
1876: Walter & Lucy Carlton emigrate to New Zealand, arriving in Nelson on July 4th.
1881: Jemima (59) widower & annuiant. Cornwall Street, Fulham. James George (26) hairdresser/unemployed.
1887: Jemima dies, aged 64 in Fulham, London.
Places and people of interest: Hernhill, Battle of Bossenden.
HERNHILL
(Former names or derivations; Harnhulle, Hearnhill, Haranhylle, Harenhull)
Parish records as entered by Bartholomew (date unknown)
The parish of Hern(e)hill, over which the paramount manor of the hundred of Boughton, is under the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Canterbury. The parish lies near the London road, close at the back of the north side of Boughton-street, at the 50th mile-stone, from which the church is a conspicuous object, in a most unpleasant and unhealthy country.
It lies, the greatest part of it especially, northward of the church, very low and flat, the soil exceeding’s wet and miry, being a stiff un-fertile clay, and is of a forlorn and dreary aspect; the enclosures small, with much, rusit ground; the hedge-rows broad, with continued shaves and coppice wood, mostly of oak, which join those of the Blean eastward of it, and it continues so till it comes to the marshes at the northern boundary of it.
In this part of the parish there are several small greens or forstal’s, on one of which, called Downe's forstal, which lies on higher ground than the others, there is a new-built sashed house, built by Mr. Thomas Squire, on a farm belonging to Joseph Brooke, esq. and now the property of his devisee the Rev. John Kenward Shaw Brooke, of Town Malling.
The estate formerly belonged to Sir William Stourton, who purchased it of John Norton, gent. This green seems formerly to have been called Downing-green, on which was a house called Downing- house, belonging to George Vallance, as appears by his will in 1686.
In the hamlet of Way-street, in the western part of the parish, there is a good old family-house, formerly the residence of the Clinches, descended from those of Easling, several of whom lie buried in this church, one of whom Edward Clinch, dying unmarried in 1722, Elizabeth, his aunt, widow of Thomas Cumberland, gent. succeeded to it, and at her death in 1768, gave it by will to Mrs. Margaret Squire, widow, the present owner who resides in it.
Southward the ground rises to a more open and drier country, where on a little hill stands the church, with the village of Church-street round it, from which situation this parish most probably took its name of Herne-hill; still further southward the soil becomes very dry and sandy, and the ground again rises to a hilly country of poor land with broom and surze in it.
In this part, near the boundary of the parish, is the hamlet of Staple-street, near which on the side of a hill, having a good prospect southward, is a modern sashed house, called Mount Ephraim, which has been for some time the residence of the family of Dawes.
The present house was built by Major William Dawes, on whose death in 1754 it came to his brother Bethel Dawes, esq. who in 1777 dying s.p. devised it by will to his cousin Mr. Thomas Dawes, the present owner, who resides in it.
The village and civil parish of Hernhill is located in the county of Kent, South East England (51.30854° latitude and 0.96169° longitude). The closest city is Canterbury.
It lies three miles east of the town of Faversham, 17 miles east of the major town of Gillingham, 17 miles west of Sandwich and 49 miles east of London. Hernhill falls within the district council of Swale, under the county council of Kent.
The parish includes the hamlets of Crockham, Dargate, The Fostall, Lamberhurst, Oakwell, Staple Street, Thread, Waterham and Wey Street.
Hernhill's most infamous moment occured on May 31st, 1838, an incident known as The Battle of Bossenden Wood. It has often been referred to as the last battle fought on English soil.
The conflict was fought between a small group of labourers from the Hernhill, Dunkirk and Boughton area's and a detachment of soldiers (45th Nottinghamshire Regiment), sent from Canterbury to arrest the leader, the self-styled Sir William Percy Honeywood Courtenay, Knight of Malta, who was none other than the notorious John Nichols Tom (1799-1838).
A wine-merchant and Maltster from Truro in Cornwall, Courtenay, who had a luxuriant coal-black beard and moustache and grew his hair long, spent three years in the Kent County Lunatic Asylum, after standing for parliament in Canterbury and then being convicted of perjury in a smuggling case.
Following his release, he roamed the Kent countryside, gathering in a small band of followers. His charismatic sermonising found support amongst the rural folk (particularly of Hernhill, Boughton and Dunkirk), who were protesting against the 'New Poor Law of 1834', put in place following 'The Swing Riots' uprising in 1830, by agricultural workers in southern and eastern England.
"He was constant in his exertions among the poorer classes, and the influence which he obtained over them was extraordinary. The women excited their husbands and sons to join him, “because he was Christ, and unless they followed him, fire would come from Heaven and burn them”. They asserted, as he had declared, that “he had come to earth upon a cloud, and would go away from it on a cloud”; and instances were not infrequent in which the misguided people, the subjects of his imposture, had actually worshipped him as a God."
From a Newgate Calendar, compiled 1838.
The labourers had been in protest over agricultural mechanisation and harsh working conditions. It began with the destruction of threshing machines (a piece of farm equipment which removes seeds from stalks and husks) in the Elham Valley area (11km's from Hernhill), in the summer of 1830. By early December the vandalism was widespread throughout the entirety of southern and middle England.
On May 29th, 1838 (which was Oak Apple Day, a public holiday celebrating the Restoration), Courtenay and his followers began to march around the countryside with a flag and their symbol of protest; a loaf of bread on a pole. Their activities were relatively peaceful but, possibly mindful of the Swing Riots only eight years before, some landowners started to feel uneasy.
On the 31st, a local magistrate, Dr Poore, issued a warrant for Courtenay's arrest, after he had shot a man at Bossenden Farm, where he and his followers were staying.
The parish constable of Boughton-under-Blean, his assistant and his assistants brother, Mears, had set off early to to arrest him, although it is not clear exactly what the warrant was for, but he was to be arrested with other workers who were in breach of contract with their employers. Courtenay shot Nicholas Mears dead, and the constable and his assistant hastened to the magistrates who sent to Canterbury for assistance.
One hundred soldiers of the 45th Foot were despatched, under Major Armstrong. The regiment had recently returned from India. While they were waiting for the soldiers to arrive, a group of armed gentry and farmers took shots at Courtenay and his band, as they moved around the Hernhill area, then retreated to Bossenden Wood.
Major Armstrong led a troop into the wood through Old Barn Lane, while Captain Reid’s detachment entered the wood further to the east, through Bossenden Farm. Dr Poore, Mr Knatchbull (the magistrate) and the soldiers were waiting at The Red Lion Inn in Dunkirk. John Nichols Tom/William Courtenay was to be captured dead or alive.
The battle lasted no more than a few minutes. On the rioters side, only Courtenay and William Wills had guns. The rest were armed with just cudgels and sticks. Eight labourers or yeomen were killed or wounded. The only soldier to die was Lieutenant Bennett, who advanced too impetuously to arrest Courtenay and was shot by Wills.
So ended the ‘melancholy transaction’ at Bossenden Wood. The bodies were laid out in The Red Lion, which still stands in 2022.
An inquest was held at The White Horse in Boughton, with the jury returning a verdict of 'justifiable homicide' for the deaths of Courtenay and his followers. 30 were arrested and eventually 16 were committed for trial on a charge of murder, where the jury returned a 'guilty' verdict, but with a recommendation for mercy. So the judge commuted the sentences to varying terms of prison and transportation to Australia.
By the standards of the day, sentencing was lenient; transportation and imprisonment with hard labour. It was actually considered, in their favour, that the defendants had fallen under the spell of the charismatic, but clinically insane Sir William Courtenay.
"Courtenay’s madness was camouflaged very successfully, by the considerable amount of common sense which he talked from time to time, on various topics of the day. In all these accounts it is essentially the ignorance and simplicity of those involved in the uprising, deluded by the charismatic influence of a mentally disturbed individual, that is considered to be the root cause behind events that tragically culminated in the massacre in Bossenden Wood. It was the ignorance of the local population rather than the existence of rural deprivation that lay behind the uprising. The main reason why Courtenay was able to impose himself so easily and completely upon the small group in Boughton, Hernhill and Dunkirk who threw in their lot with him was, however, without any doubt, the prevailing illiteracy and ignorance’.
P G Roger; Op cit; p.208
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After the abortive uprising, a lawyer from London carried out a unique scrutiny of labouring conditions in Broughton, Dunkirk and Hernhill. Frederick Liardet (1798-1846) surveyed 151 labouring households, three from each parish. He discovered that in Hernhill and Broughton, agricultural workers formed a rural proletariat; people who owned only their own labour.
But Hernhill, with its larger gardens, was better placed as far as the household economy was concerned. Hernhill gardens attached to cottages varied from 8 to 16 perches, a few had half acre plots and two or three had more than half an acre. Seventeen Hernhill families kept pigs, five had a horse and cart, but not one labourer even owned so much as a cow.
Liardet wrote; 'there was lurking apprehension that the labourer would become more independent and less manageable'. In fact, in the 1841 Census, of 65 labourers who were head of households, only one owned any farm land.
Using the 1851 Census as a focal point to calculate the percentage of households in Hernhill with kinship to other households (Levine-Wrightson technique of family reconstruction); 60% of households were related to other households. If Broughton and Dunkirk are added to the mix, it rises to 65%.
Those with kin in Hernhill, Broughton or Dunkirk families had strong local origins, born either in the parish or within five miles of Hernhill.
Those without kin came from further afield; they were more likely to have come from another country or from more than twenty miles away.
The structures of kinship were well established for folk in Hernhill. They were surrounded by kin. The elderly and poverty were the two key factors, both isolable entities by distinction. Although this would have meant little to C19 inhabitants, to whom kinship was just a part of the neighbourhood.
An overview of life in Hernhill, mid-1800's
In the Hernhill Tithe Award Schedule - dated 6th August 1840, of the 603 inhabitants of Hernhill, there is no record of any Carlton owning land. In 1870, Hernhill was listed in the Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales as consisting of a total of 2,816 acres, with now 747 inhabitants.
"The scenery of this district is peculiarly English. Gently rising hills and picturesque vales, covered with a rich herbage, or bearing the minute and skilful husbandry, succeed to each other. Fields of waving corn are in-dispersed with gardens, hop grounds and orchards. It is a tragedy that the condition of the inhabitants of such a fair a spot should stand in such mournful contrast to its order and beauty."
Frederick Liardet, 1838
At the time, Kent was the orchard of England and the location where most of the hops and grains were grown. It was also predominately woodland, bordering marshes and sheep country.
The woodlands returned good profits for owners, but were a hard graft for wood-workers who harvested the oaks and chestnut underwood.
Barry Reay, author of Microhistories: Demography, Society and Culture in Rural England, 1800-1830, writes that 'visual markers of the rural world of the past have truly gone; the wind-milled village skyline, the wells, smoking chimneys, wash and bake houses, the butcher with it's freshly killed meat hanging outside, the ubiquity of wood as a raw material, seasoned draught horses and waggoner's, children playing on country roads'.
The sounds were also very different. Missing today is the dull 'thud, thud' of the flail (a threshing tool) echoing through the Blean, the repetitive 'clang' of the smithy, the never-ending sound of sawing which drifted over the meadows and orchards from the Dunkirk woods.
A few substantial cottages built by a philanthropic landlords in the mid to late Victorian period remain in or around Hernhill, but the homes of the labouring population have long disappeared. What has become architectural heritage is merely the surviving houses of the landed gentry. The main unit of settlement was the hamlet, the rural equivalent of the urban neighbourhood, if you will.
The Hernhill parish consisted of four main hamlets; Hernhill village (the houses and cottages around the church). Staple Street, which in the 1870's had a population of around 200, all in houses or cottages Dargate and Beesborough (also known as the Forstal).
There were smaller groups of cottages around farms such as Waterham, Way Street and Crockham. Each hamlet had wells (Staple Street had nine) and often a public house or a beer shop; The Red Lion (opposite St. Michaels church), The Three Horse Shoes in Staple Street, Noah's Ark at Beesborough and The Dove at Dargate.
Speak the local lingo...
Like anywhere, the south and south-east of England had it's own peculiarities and idiosyncrasies when it came to locally used terminology, mainly derived to describe other's. 'There's nowt so queer as folk', to coin a famous northern colloquialism.
'Clung' (dull) and 'dunty' (stupid) seem to be fairly direct character assassinations, but clearly there was a lot of moaning and deception going on in downtown Hernhill and surrounds. Try 'feasy' (whining), 'cotchering' (gossiping) or 'glincey' (slippery) or 'flammed' (deceived) and 'ernful' (lamentable).
'Scrumping' was another local term, used when gathering a windfall of apples. But in Hernhill and Broughton, folk used it much more generally and it could also mean 'perks' from an employer...or 'pilfering' from anyone else. Poaching was rife in rural areas, from large poaching gangs to labouring men operating alone or in smaller hunting groups with rifles.
Education
The Church of England School was not opened in Hernhill until 1872, before which it seems that education was limited and done in conjunction with hay-making, hop and pea-picking, orchard work and other seasonal harvests.
Older boys were further employed during the root crops harvest in October and even over the winter months they were active in rook-scaring and the shaving of hop poles.
When labour and the various harvests did not interfere with attendance, illness intervened. The coughing, sneezing and wheezing of those who attended school, made any sort of study difficult, to say the least. Amongst the most prevalent afflictions recorded from the mid 1800's were diphtheria, measles, scarlet fever and whooping cough.
At one outbreak of diphtheria, the District Medical Officer recorded; 'I almost despair of this malady being stamped out, many of the cases being of a mild character, the children after a few days are sent to school with the result that a large outbreak occurs'.
The census of 1871 described Hernhill 5-14 year olds as scholars, but the school log book shows that in fact on good days or weeks only about 60% of the eligible parish population were actually at school and attendance could be as low as 20-30%. Girls often stayed home on Fridays to help their mothers with the all day chore of washing.
New teachers were often horrified that it was quite common to meet boys who lived on farms who simply could not read or write, even though they had been attending school for two or three years. One male teacher (un-named) in 1843 stated that 'the number of months in a year was not universally known' and that he had been unable to find a waggoner able to read the directions on parcels to be sent to London.
Frederick Liardet himself had surveyed forty-two children under the age of 14 who attended Hernhill school, mostly the children of farm labourers. Only six (14%) could read and write. 13 (31%) could read fluently. 9 (21%) could read very little. The remaining 33% could not read at all.
School fees (before 1850) were 6d a week for reading and 13s 5d for reading, writing and arithmetic. Liardet described the practice of schooling in Hernhill as 'old fashioned instruction of the simplest kind'. He noted the use of the Bible to teach reading and the absence of history, geography and grammar. Even those who could read had learned to read in the (New) Testament, so they often floundered when forced to read out of context.
Hop picking in Kent
The first hop garden recorded in Kent was at Westbere in 1523. By the early 1700's, Faversham was being surrounded by small hop gardens. By 1754, about 60 acres were known to have existed, producing enough hops to produce around 10,000 barrels of beer.
September hop-picking became part of the labouring culture of rural Kent and of the docklands and working-class London. Women and children descended on the hop-grounds, year after year, joined by their menfolk on weekends.
Schools closed and schoolmasters acted as tallymen. With payment by the bushel, all hands counted and the whole family would be involved. A good picker could pick around 20 bushel's a day.
Women were considered better pickers than men, who were largely confined to hop-poling (as illustrated in the photo at right, taken in Boughton , date unknown). Hop-tying was done by the acre, almost exclusively by women.
The hop-picking time was also an opportunity for many farm workers to add income and pay off debts or back rents, paying doctor's fees or buying shoes and clothes for the children.
It was estimated that by the 1850's, women who worked in the hop parishes could add about £7 to the family coffers, their 'means of subsistence for winter'.
Walter & Lucy Carlton
My G-G Grandfather, Walter Carlton (1851-1901), was born on January 26th, 1851 in Hernhill, Kent. In the 1851 Census (31st March), his father, Thomas Carlton, is recorded as being 50 years of age and a farmer of 45 Acres.
In the 1871 UK Census, Walter Carlton is recorded as being a 20 year old Carpenter, residing in Newnham, Kent. Living with John and Mary Coast, possibly his Uncle and Aunt. One might assume that the agricultural life was not for him and he learned a trade from his uncle, living in nearby Newnham. Walter Carlton was clearly an ambitious man.
By 1881, Agricultural Labourer, Farmer and Coal Miner were the top 3 reported jobs worked by a Carlton. A less common occupation for the family was Carpenter. 5% were Agricultural Labourers, the most common occupation for a Carlton.
The 1860’s ended in recession in the United Kingdom, with high public debt, after years of conflict. There was a growing strain between central and provincial governments and low levels of net immigration.
In the far away colonies, New Zealand’s 8th Premier, Julius Vogel, was promoting an expansionist policy which, despite some opposition within the colony, included both capital borrowing and the introduction of immigrants on a large scale.
Before 1870, New Zealand was a country largely dominated by provincial interests and 'pork- barrel' (a $$ for local re-election scheme/scam) politics. Vogel, then ‘Colonial Treasurer’, proposed borrowing the massive sum of £10 million as the new colony developed a significant infrastructure of roads, railways and communication, all administered by central government.
The earliest organised attempt to colonise New Zealand came in 1825, when the New Zealand Company was formed in London, headed by the wealthy John George Lambton, Whig MP (and later 1st Earl of Durham). The company unsuccessfully petitioned the British Government for a 31-year term of exclusive trade and for command over a military force, anticipating that large profits could be made from New Zealand flax, kauri timber, whaling and sealing.
But the company's simple business model was focused on the systematic colonisation of New Zealand, as seen by Edward Gibbon Wakefield and explained further in the 'McRae's of Marlborough' chapter.
Sir Julius Vogel (1835-1899), NZ's 8th Premier (and first Jewish Prime Minister), believed that a real opportunity existed for enlisting the direct assistance of the imperial government. In July 1869, he outlined his proposals to encourage renewed immigration, referring to tangible inducements which included ‘deferred payments and guaranteed employment on arrival’. His administration is best remembered for the issuing of bonds to fund railway construction and other public works.
In February 1870, the British Government noted that ‘large numbers of well-conducted industrious labourers’ could not find employment in the United Kingdom, while there existed ‘in most of the Colonies’ a more extensive demand for labour than the labouring class on the spot can supply.
The Liberal Party Prime Minister, William Gladstone, asked the colonies to furnish details of the classes of labour most required.
Vogel’s replies implied planning and organisation on a large scale and the careful selection of migrants. In fact, the Immigration and Public Works Bill, introduced into Parliament in 1870, simply empowered the government to enter into contracts to select and bring to New Zealand, the number and type of immigrants requested by the provincial superintendents. What followed over the next few years was more extensive.
It eventually included the provision of subsidised and free passages, a scheme which allowed relatives, friends and employers in the colony to nominate immigrants, the centralisation of the recruitment drive in the London-based Agency- General and then extensive efforts using recruiting agents and lecturers, to attract particularly agricultural labourers and single women.
In general, it seems clear that New Zealand attracted those its economy most required. Labourers to build the railways, roads, and ports, settlers to establish new farms and agricultural labourers to harvest its crops.
Builders to erect houses and commercial buildings in its rapidly growing urban centres and miners to extract the coal required by a rapidly growing rail system. Steamships and new factories (notably in food processing), all featured prominently amongst the new arrivals from 1871.
In the period from 1871-1875, a table depicting the conversion of Arable land to pasture in England and Wales (International Migrations, Volume II, by Walter F. Willcox), shows that the two countries combined had 14,766 acres of arable land, with 11,799 acres permanently grassed.
The colony drew over a third of its immigrants from an agricultural background. Although there had been a significant rise in agricultural ‘labourers’ it was little more than a quarter among the English/Welsh. Thus, less than 4% of the labourers from England came from London/Middlesex, but well over 20% came from the south-east, with over 12% from Kent alone. Indeed Kent, Oxfordshire and Cornwall, counties in which the rural trade unions were strong, were very well represented in the category ‘labourer’.