On 26 October 1859, cousins Andrew Buchan (23) and Robert Buchan (17), drowned when their boat was overturned by a strong wind in deep water (Robert was incorrectly named Arthur in the article). The cause of death given on their death records was, “Drowning Near the Boat Shore”. John Buchan, Andrew’s brother, certified that both were buried at St Combs Churchyard.
Aberdeen Journal, 5 October 1859, p3, c6
Their fathers, Andrew Buchan and Arthur Buchan, were brothers. Arthur Buchan, father of 23-year-old Andrew, was my 4th great grandfather; and brother of my 3rd great-grandmother, Helen Buchan. Helen was 19 when her older brother, and younger cousin, drowned (she would marry James Findlay two years later). I can only imagine the devastating effect this tragedy had on the family.
Andrew was the one who “left a widow to lament his fate”. He was described as ‘married’ on his death record, but infuriatingly did not give his wife’s name. There was a likely 1857 marriage record to an Isabella Buchan in Rathen, but it was difficult to establish which of the many Isabella Buchans this could have been.
Death Records of Andrew and Robert Buchan (1859)
I had to cough up the credits and order the marriage record to make sure it was the right one. Sure enough, Andrew’s parents were recorded, confirming it was the correct people. Isabella’s parents were also recorded but leads to another issue… which of the many ‘William Buchan and Elizabeth Duthie’ couples are they?
In part 4 of ‘The Hannah Chronicles’, Hannah was involved an incident with a man named Samuel Steele. One of the newspapers reporting the incident, mentioned that William Lamb was a cousin of Steele’s wife.
Samuel Steele was the husband of William Lamb’s cousin
I have since found out that there is another family connection.
Three years after William Lamb’s grandfather Daniel Toon died, his grandmother Mary Kennah, married a man named Robert Fellows. (Note: Since Daniel died before William was born, he may have even looked upon Robert as his grandfather.)
When expanding William Hirst’s tree, I found that his mother’s maiden name was also ‘Fellows’. Coincidences like this need to be explored, and in this case, it turned out that William Hirst’s mother, Ann Fellows, was the sister of Robert Fellows.
William Hirst’s mother was the sister of Robert Fellows
William Hirst’s parents even appear to be witnesses at Mary’s marriage to Robert.
Marriage record showing Thomas and Ann Hirst as witnesses at the marriage of Mary Toon (nee Kennah) to Robert Fellows
When Mary Kennah married Robert Fellows in 1849, her eldest daughter Sarah Toon was about 15 years old. Seven years later, in 1856, Sarah married William Hirst, the son of Robert’s sister.
So, Sarah Toon’s husband was her stepfather’s nephew.
This also means that when Hannah Bates was fighting with ‘William’s cousin’s husband’, she was also fighting with his step-grandfather’s nephew!
Some time ago, I wrote about my ancestor William Wreford’s second wife, Ann Maunder (see post: Good Tithings). I had long thought that Maunder was her maiden name but discovered she was likely born Ann Anstey, and married a man named George Maunder. Today I stumbled on more evidence to support this theory.
William and Ann had a daughter named Elizabeth Ann Wreford born in Tiverton, Devon. While ’rounding out’ her story, I found her in the 1851 census in London. Elizabeth was in the home of ‘Aeneas B. Reid’ and his wife ‘Anne Maunder Reid’, recorded as a sister-in-law. Obviously the name Maunder jumped out at me. Mrs Reid’s age also tied in with the details for Ann and George Maunder’s daughter Ann (her baptism record can be seen in the earlier post).
1851 census image showing Elizabeth Ann Wreford in the home of her half-sibling Ann Maunder
Luckily, I could access the image of the marriage Ann Maunder (jr) to Aeneas Barkley Reid a couple years earlier in 1849. It confirmed her father’s name was George Maunder and also held the signatures of two witnesses: William Wreford and Mary Wreford.
1849 marriage of Ann Maunder to Aeneas Barkley Reid with Wreford witnesses
(I believe these witnesses are likely to be Ann’s step sibling (son of William Wreford to his first wife) and his wife, who also lived in London at the time.)
After this discovery, everything has started tumbling into place. Another half sibling, Mary Anna, who I was previously unable to pin down, shows up in the census record with the Reids in 1861.
1861 census showing Mary Anna Wreford with her half-sibling Ann Maunder
She also appears to have been buried in the family plot of Elizabeth Ann, who had married Alexander Small in 1853.
1863 Tower Hamlets Cemetery burial record of Mary Anna Wreford, showing she was buried in the ‘Smalls’s Grave’
Mary Anna and Aeneas Barkley Reid also show up as witnesses to that marriage,
1853 marriage of Elizabeth Ann Wreford to Alexander Small (note witnesses)
and the Small’s son is recorded with Elizabeth Ann’s brother Willliam in the 1861 census.
1861 census showing Elizabeth Ann’s son Alexander with her half-brother William
What tops it off for me, is seeing that my direct ancestor William Wreford was also buried in the Small family plot (4029).
1866 Tower Hamlets Cemetery burial record of William Wreford, showing he was also buried in the ‘Smalls’ Grave’
All of this ‘coming together’ is very satisfying, and gives me an insight into how much the siblings lives were entwined with each other.
And of course, I’m now pretty confident William Wreford’s wife Ann Maunder was born Ann Anstey.
A tree to help make sense of all this (click to enlarge)
As part of my Ebbans One Name Study, I spent some time researching a man involved in the Agrarian Riots of the 1820s and 1830s. Imagine my excitement when while watching an episode of Who Do You Think You Are, parts of the story began to sound familiar to me and I realised they were referring to the man I had researched!
Part of the episode focused on Ed Balls’ agricultural labourer ancestor, Christopher Green, who was also involved in the riots and charged with arson alongside William Ebbon in 1832. (It can be viewed on the BBC iPlayer – Green’s story begins at 29:45.)
William Ebbon was baptised at St Leonard’s, Horningsheath (later known as Horringer) in Suffolk, on the 4th of August 1799. He was the son of William Ebbon and Temperance Elliss.
Mousehold Heath, Norwich by John Crome (c1816-1818)
By 1821, the family had settled in nearby Winfarthing, Norfolk. In the 1821 census, William was recorded with his parents at the Winfarthing Workhouse. However, they were not inmates, his father was noted as the governor, whereas 22-year-old William was recorded as a labourer.
The show discusses Christopher Green’s arrest for destroying a threshing machine at Winfarthing on 19 September 1822. William wasn’t named as one of the men involved that night, but he was arrested for the same offence 10 days later. He and Ed Balls’ ancestor were both part of the growing movement of disgruntled agricultural labourers who felt forced to act against their livelihoods being taken away from them. One of the main issues was the introduction of new machinery that took even more work away from the already struggling labourers. (For more information see my post about the Agrarian Riots.)
On 29 September 1822, William was involved in the breaking of a threshing machine at Winfarthing during a riot of agricultural labourers. He and a man named Robert Large, pleaded guilty and the court decided that as their conduct was “not having been of an aggravated description”, both were sentenced to be bound in their own recognizance of £20. They were able to do so and were discharged.
Norfolk Chronicle, 14 December 1822, p3, c2
Ten years later, William was again involved in destruction of property. In 1832, he, along with Christopher Green and Robert Hubbard, was charged with “having set fire to the premises of the Manor-house called Winfarthing Lodge, the property of the Earl of Albemarle, and in the occupation of Mr. Daniel Doggett, an opulent farmer…”. The men were committed to Norwich Castle (the county gaol). Hubbard ‘turned approver’ and gave evidence implicating William, Christopher Green and two others, Robert Dixon and Francis Mullett, in the crime of sheep stealing. [Stamford Mercury, 25 May 1832, p4, c6]
Norwich Castle by James Bridges (1833)
Ultimately, the grand jury of the Norfolk and Norwich Assizes held 30 August 1832, ignored the bills of arson against them, and acquitted them of having stolen a ewe sheep, the property of Mr. Edmund Bale, of Tibbenham on 21 December 1831. [Norwich Mercury, 04 August 1832, p3 c1]
The Norwich Mercury reported: “This case rested almost entirely on the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice, who had never mentioned the matter till he was apprehended on suspicion of setting fire to some premises at Winfarthing.” [Norwich Mercury, 04 August 1832, p3 c1]
William Ebbon and his family stayed in Winfarthing for a few years after this, but sometime after 1836, the family emigrated to the United States.
In 1840, William was recorded at Sackets Harbor, Hounsfield, Jefferson, New York and again at Hounsfield in 1855 before the trail goes quiet.
All William Ebbons‘ other ‘accomplices’ remained in Winfarthing. Robert Hubbard, the ‘turncoat’, died there only a few years later in 1835. Christopher Green died in 1860 at the Kenninghall Union Workhouse. Robert Dixon died at Winfarthing in 1865, and Francis Mollett died in the Kenninghall Union Workhouse in 1873.
Has anyone you were researching ever been mentioned on television?
In the 1820s and 1830s, desperate agricultural labourers in England began to revolt. There were a few factors involved in causing this unrest but Land Enclosure is considered to have played a large part.
Agrarian Rioters in 1830
Before Enclosure
Before enclosure, villages used an open field system of farming. Large open fields were divided into strips that would be farmed by its owners. They were often scattered, and there were no fences or hedges to divide them.
There was also an area of common land used for grazing. This was not open to the general public but was land (controlled by the lord of the manor) that people from that village had rights to use. The land would be used to pasture cattle or keep livestock such as geese, and collect turf, firewood, fruit or berries. There would be a communal consensus for when and how the land would be farmed.
After Enclosure
After enclosure, the separate strips were consolidated so that owners had unified pieces of land. These were marked out through fences or hedges with absolute property rights. No communal consensus was needed – owners could do with their land as they wished.
Enclosure of land was not new, but in the late 18th century it was now being formalised with parliamentary acts. A landowner wanting to enclose land in their parish would obtain a private Act of Parliament. Commissioners would then visit the parish to survey the area and hear claims of other land holders or those with rights to the common. The commissioners would then enclose the open fields, allocating a plot of land that was equal in size to the total strips of land a landowner previously held. The common would also be divided and given to landowners depending on their total landholdings in the parish and access they had to the common.
People who previously had common rights lost the ability to use that land to make ends meet and those who still had some rights, such as tenant farmers, were increasingly asked for rent in cash rather than stock or produce.
How were agricultural labourers affected?
Consolidating the land meant that less workers were needed. It became more common for labourers to be paid by the day or week, or employed for short periods such as harvesting, hedging, ditching and threshing. Farmhands became casual labourers with no guarantee of work, and rates of pay dropped because there were so many available workers. The problem grew worse in 1815 when the Napoleonic Wars ended, and many thousands of soldiers returned to the rural labour market.
A Horse Gin in Use (The Illustrated Exhibitor, 1851)
The introduction of threshing machines aggravated the situation. Farm labourers who had previously been employed to manually thresh grain over the winter months, were replaced by cheaper and more efficient horse-powered machines. Groups of agricultural labourers began to rise up, setting fire to farms and destroying machinery.
If captured, the rioters faced imprisonment, transportation, and even execution, so it was not an act to be taken lightly.
If you have ancestors who were agricultural labourers in the 1820s and 1830s, they may well have been involved in the protests.
