John Edgar: Miller and Worried Parent

John Edgar was Johnson and Sarah's eldest child. He was born in Preston St. Mary in 1820 - his christening was on May 12 and interestingly his mother's name is given as 'Hannah' on the transcription of this record, which suggests that his grandmother (neé Hannah Osborn) played a prominent role at the event![1] He's still living at home in 1841 and probably working at the family mill.  A record of 1844 has him at Johnson's original mill in Preston St Mary,[2] and he probably transferred to the new mill that his father built in 1846. [3]

In the first quarter of 1843 he married Mary Ann Norman of Bury St Edmunds; she appears in the 1861 Census return as one year younger than her husband.

The 1851 Census finds his slightly younger brother, Edmund, still living at home. It took me some time to track down John in that Census as his name is mis-transcribed 'Tom' on Ancestry.com. But he's there, living in the Preston mill, and employing one man in the business. He also has an apprentice and a domestic servant. This seems to be the height of John's prosperity. He and Mary Ann have a seven year old son, Jonson (sic but probably Johnson) Edmund (2) and James who's an angelic three months (watch young James carefully). Another record has John still at the Preston mill in 1853,[4] but this mill had a new occupant two years later. What happened to John? The 1861 Census gives us an idea.

In that year John is a miller in Bury St Edmunds about 14 miles north of Preston St Mary. He and Mary Ann have four children (Jonson/Johnson has either died or left home): Edmund (12), James (10), Joseph (8) and Hannah (1). The three older were born in Preston and only young Hannah in Bury. The family are living in Bury, perhaps at number 222 St. Andrews St, but the street naming (which starts off as Cemetery Rd) is confusing  (to me at least). My guess is that John left the Preston mill in about 1854 but his wife went back to Johnson and Sarah for help with giving birth, which, if correct, suggests that the couple didn't leave because of a family row.

 Street Scene, Bury St. Edmunds, c. 1880

"Westgate House Westgate Street Bury St Edmunds" by Unknown - http://www.burypastandpresent.org.uk/bg/BRO_K505_0036.jpg. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons -

There were five windmills in Bury at this time,[5] and I don't know which one John tenanted. One of these mills is last mentioned in 1867, so maybe it was that one, because in 1871 John's still a miller but he's moved again, this time to one of the four mills in Stowmarket, about 15 miles south east of Bury (and close to the former Edgar home village of Combs).

That means he and Mary Ann were almost certainly living there at the time of the disaster that leads off the 'Historic Events' section of the Wikipedia article on the town:

Disaster struck Stowmarket on 11 August 1871, when an explosion at a local gun cotton factory claimed twenty-four lives and left seventy five injured.[6]

Thanks: http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/gallery_10_things_you_might_not_know_about_stowmarket_1_3583335

Only Hannah, now at school, is living with John and Mary Ann in 1871. But something interesting's happening: James, now about 18 and a journeyman butcher, has left home and is living in the same street as his parents - they're at 188, Lime Tree Place and he's a lodger at no. 126. It's easy to see that an 18 year old then or now might want to leave the parental home -but to become a lodger just down the road? That's unusual and there's a possible explanation.

At the Stowmarket Petty Session on October 22 James Edgar was committed for trial on two charges of embezzlement.[7] He'd been taken into custody the day before.

In January 1868 James pleaded guilty at the Suffolk Assizes to two acts of embezzlement the previous October: on the 12th. he'd obtained the sum of 3s 7d. and six days later another 5s. 2d. The victim was Edward Parish, his 'master'. I can't yet confidently identify Edward Parish but I suspect he was the man of that name born in Ipswich in 1828 to non-conformist parents. Religious belief would account for his comment that he had taken James knowing he was not of 'the best of characters' in the hope of reforming him. It seems that even at the age of 16 he had a bad reputation, which he had fully justified by waiting only two weeks before robbing his employer. In passing sentence the magistrate commented that this was a bad case and that the court felt it couldn't take his youth into account. He handed out six calendar months imprisonment with hard labour.[8] Parish had acted as prosecutor, just as Johnson Edgar had when he too had been embezzled by an employee back in 1837.[9] It must have mortified the old man to learn that his grandson was a prisoner.

James's entry in the court register shows that this was his first offence - no previous misdemeanours or felonies.[10] James served his time in Ipswich County Gaol, and his prison record states his level of education as 'imp', which it seems is a possibly inaccurate attempt by a warden to estimate his ability to read and write as 'imperfect'.[11] The jail housed both men and women; one wing was the prison, the other the lunatic asylum. Often described as well-run, and humane, it shut in 1930 and was demolished in 1933.[12]

Ipswich County Jail, c.1840-1850 by Claude Lorraine Richard Wilson Nursey

Colchester and Ipswich Museums Service

Any hope that James had learnt his lesson was quickly quashed. He presumably came out in July or August 1868[13] but before the end of the year he was in trouble again. In the early hours of Sunday, November 29, he and forty to fifty others had been drunk and riotous in Stowmarket's Stowupland Streeet. James had been in a fight when P. C. Barker arrived, the officer told the court, and the other man had run away. Barker had tried to get James to go too, but he refused and was arrested. Also appearing in court was another of the group, George Reynolds, who, Barker claimed, had been misbehaving even though his father had just died. Both he and James were 'very troublesome characters', but 'Edgar was the worst'.This opinion was reflected in the sentences: Reynolds was fined 5s. and costs, or seven days in prison if he couldn't pay, while James was hit for 15s plus costs, with a fortnight if he failed to find the money.Reynolds paid at once, James was allowed a week to come up with his. (Bury and Norwich Post, December 1, 1868, 5).

So it's possible that James was lodging close to his parents because they refused to have him at home. Nevertheless, it seems that he did now change his ways, as I've not found any record of his appearance in the justice system after 1868.

John died in the Cosford registration district in  the April-June quarter of 1874. This includes Preston St Mary, so perhaps he went to his brother Thomas at Down Hall Farm in his last illness or perhaps he inherited something after Johnson's death in 1872 that brought him home - I'll discuss this issue in a future post.

What happened to Mary Ann and James?

In 1881 James was still a butcher and lodging with his aunt the widowed Louisa Williams in Stowmarket. I can't find Mary Ann in the 1881 census but by 1891 John has died and she's a widow living on her own means in the family of  - her son James Westrop(e) Edgar at 98 Union Street, Stowmarket. Although we can't rule out a set of coincidences, this seems to be none other than the man who we're following, who for some reason is now using his middle name as well. In 1884 he'd married Elvina Burrows. He's described  as a general labourer so the butcher's trade obviously stopped yielding him a living. By 1901 he's turned to bricklaying - still in Stowmarket, but Mary Ann, now aged 80, is no longer living with him; she's a lodger with (Ms.) Zilpah Johnson - in Stowupland Street where her son was arrested for disorderly behaviour. Mary Ann died in the Stow registration district in the first quarter of 1910.[14] In 1911 James was still a builder and was living at 15 Union Street in Stowmarket. He and Elvina have had 13 children, 7 still living. James died in the last quarter of 1918 in the Stow registration district.

---

[1] Ancestry.com. England & Wales Christening Records, 1530-1906 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008, and

[2] http://www.suffolkmills.org.uk/newsletters/072%20November%201998.pdf

[3] http://edgarfamilyintheworldblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/the-wealth-of-edgars-johnson-and-his.html

[4] http://www.suffolkmills.org.uk/newsletters/072%20November%201998.pdf

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_windmills_in_Suffolk

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stowmarket

[7] Bury and Norwich Post, October 22, 1867, 8.

[8] Ipswich Journal, January 4, 1868.

[9] http://edgarfamilyintheworldblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/johnson-edgar-1-johnson-has-his-day-in.html

[10] Ancestry.com. England & Wales, Criminal Registers, 1791-1892 [database on-line]. 

[11] http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/forum/topic7073.html

[12]https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8VbdNsRAvPsC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=ipswich+county+gaol+well-run&source=bl&ots=AvdQWZ5ld1&sig=mqBYibUf0iUNPyDAwJjxb99X-uA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAWoVChMI8KjjtNbdxwIVQjYaCh1voAEe#v=onepage&q=ipswich%20county%20gaol%20well-run&f=false

[13] Unless he was held in prison from the day of his arrest (October 21) and his sentence included time served.

[14] http://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=bmd%2fd%2f1910%2f1%2faz%2f000110%2f070

Henry and Sarah Edgar Cross the Stour

As I showed in my first post,[1] our branch of the Edgars spent over half a millennium in the same tiny corner of Suffolk. It wasn't until the Great Disaster of 1880/1881 - the subject of a future post - that we began to scatter all over the world. But one Edgar pioneer actually left Suffolk voluntarily, as it were, some time before 1861. Mind you, he didn't get very far.

Henry Edgar was Johnson and Sarah's second boy and third child.  He was born in about 1826 - the 1841 Census, which finds him still living at home, lists Henry as 15. On June 21, 1849 he married Sarah Kensey (or Kinsey) of Felsham. Felsham's about 5 miles to the north of Preston, and my guess is he met her because he'd become the tenant of a mill there, although I can't be sure of the order of events because I don't know when he took over the tenancy. Sarah was born in Felsham in the period 1821-3 - her age seems to fluctuate in the different census returns!

As I explained in my post on Johnson's economic activities, the family were windmill owners as well as tenant farmers. Henry's elder brother ran Johnson's mil in Preston St Mary, before moving to one in Bury St Edmunds- I'll trace his career and problems as a parent in my next post. At some point in the 1840s Henry decided to follow the same path. I think this must have been before March 1849:

Robert Lee, aged 16, stealing 2 sovereigns, the property of Mr. Edgar, of Felsham, 14 days' imprisonment and to be whipped.[2]

 The first definite record of Henry's work is an advertisement which appeared on July 24, 1850 on page three of the Bury and Norwich Post:

FELSHAM SUFFOLK

TO BE LET

A POST WINDMILL

WITH two Patent and two Common Sails, two pair of French Stones, Flour-Mill Jumper, and Going-gears complete. A very commodious Round-house, together with a convenient DWELLING-HOUSE, stable, Cart-shed, &, now in the occupation of Mr. EDGAR, whose tenancy expires on the 11 October next.

The above Property is situated within 8 miles of Bury, and 6 of Stowmarket.

For further particulars, enquire of Mrs. Barnes, Boxhall.

The first point to  note is that as his tenancy was expiring in October 1850 he must have been there at least a year before that, possibly up to five. That windmill is first mentioned in 1824 and in 1867 it was demolished and the milling moved to Gedding.[3] A little research online helps clarify the nature of the building and its operation:

The post mill is the earliest type of European windmill. The defining feature is that the whole body of the mill that houses the machinery is mounted on a single vertical post, around which it can be turned to bring the sails into the wind. [4]

Post Mill (not Henry's)

"Pitstone-windmill.600px". Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pitstone-windmill.600px.jpg#/media/File:Pitstone-windmill.600px.jpg

That issue of moving the sails so they can take advantage of the changing winds is one of the most important aspects of milling. 'Common sails' were the first type of sail and go back to the middle ages. There were different kinds, but what characterised them all was that the mill had to be stopped to adjust them. 'Patent sails' were a relatively recent invention (1813) and could be adjusted without stopping the mill. 'French stones' are used for milling wheat. A 'jumper' enabled three or four different grades of flour to be produced. 'Roundhouses' were built around the supporting trestles to give them protection and also provide storage space. I don't know what 'Going-gears' are, but they're mentioned in almost all the historical windmill adverts I've found online, so they were obviously standard equipment. There's an excellent website on the history of Felsham which provides a photomontage that enables us to get a sense of the windmill Henry was tenanting and its place in the village landscape:

http://felshamhistory.blogspot.co.uk/

The author tells us that the mill would have rivalled the church tower in height and must have dominated this part of the village. Next to the mill is the Live and Let Live beer-house on Upper Green - presumably Henry's local, as future developments will. prove he was no teetotaller.

In any case, either the owners failed to find a tenant who'd pay a higher rent, or Henry himself agreed to stump up more. In the 1851 Census he's still the Felsham miller living at 5, the Green, and employing one man. Although he's described as 'head' of the household there was nobody else at home for him to rule over. Where was Sarah? She was visiting her father William, 67 years old and a widower. He kept the Bell Inn in Felsham, which might have given her husband ideas, as we shall see. Sarah's mother had died some time between the 1841 and 1851 Censuses.

When we next find Henry and Sarah they've arrived in what is generally regarded as 'the heart of Constable country'.

 John Constable - Self Portrait

"ConstableSelfPortrait". Licensed under Public Domain via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ConstableSelfPortrait.png#/media/File:ConstableSelfPortrait.png

Dedham Vale 1802

"Constable DeadhamVale". Licensed under Public Domain via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Constable_DeadhamVale.jpg#/media/File:Constable_DeadhamVale.jpg

Unfortunately we can't be sure when Henry took the momentous step of crossing the Stour and becoming a publican in Dedham which is just on the Essex side of the river. 

River Stour running through Dedham Vale

"Cmglee Manningtree River Stour" by Cmglee - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cmglee_Manningtree_River_Stour.jpg#/media/File:Cmglee_Manningtree_River_Stour.jpg

Another family is linked to the Sun Inn between 1851-1855,[5] so it must have been after that. The first definite reference to Henry as landlord comes in 1859.[6] The 1861 Census has Henry and Sarah keeping the Sun with the help of John Knock, an ostler aged 65,[7] and the financial support of two married lodgers. Adverts in the local papers make it clear that the landlords of the Sun also supplemented their income by hiring out 'the Large Room' for auctions.

Trade directories link him to the Inn in 1862, 1867, 1870, 1871, 1874[8] so I think we can assume that he stayed at the Sun continuously until his death in 1877. He's also on a list of residents in 1863, and from this we can get an idea of the competition:

Inns and Taverns
Anchor, Robert Smith
Compasses, John Hicks Symonds
Gun, Samuel Askew
Lamb, Samuel Osbome
Marlborough Head, Mary White
Rose and Crown, Arthur George Saunders
Sun Inn, Henry Edgar[9]

The Sun is a splendid coaching Inn in Dedham High Street, with its origins in the fifteenth century. The seventeenth century external staircase was considered a fine feature,[10] as was the view from the courtyard:

(S)ometimes the local church-tower comes in, across the roof-tops, in a partly benedictory and wholly sketchable way, as at the village of Dedham, near Colchester, where the yard of the “Sun” inn and the church-tower combine to make a very fine composition. A relic of the bygone coaching days of Dedham remains, in the small oval spy-hole cut through the wall on either side of the tap-room bay-window, and glazed, commanding views up and down the village street, so that the approach of coaches coming either way might be clearly seen.[11]

You can see that church in the background of another Constable picture:

Dedham Lock and Mill, 1817
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/constable-dedham-lock-and-mill-n02661

But I doubt that the Edgars moved because of the historical associations of the Inn or the romance of the surrounding countryside. We can only guess as to their motives - which might have been as simple as another attempt to raise rent; but what's certain is that the life of a miller was uncertain and the labour was heavy. Periods of enforced idleness (with no earnings) were followed by ones of continuous labour, everything dependent on the whim of the winds. While no-one would claim a Victorian landlord had it easy, the life of the proprietor of a well-established might well have seemed easier and more secure than that of a miller.

In any case, as the years go by we catch a few glimpses of Henry and Sarah.

The first of these, in 1868, brings one of those moments that family historians love: Henry's history links up with that of the broader story of our country. In 1867 the Tory Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, determined to take what one of his own supporters called 'a leap in the dark' in order to steal a march on William Gladstone's Whigs (soon to become the Liberals), gave the vote to most male 'heads' of households in the towns. Henry Edgar's name appears as one of these 'New Voters' on the 1868 electoral register.[12]

The next year shows us a scene, that in one form or another, probably happened a lot. Every year Dedham held a two-day fair,[13] and like other such gatherings in the region this seems to have attracted people keen to get very drunk indeed:

About 2 a.m. on the morning of April 1, 1869 on the second day of the fair, the landlord of the Sun Inn called P. C. Murrells because 4 miscreants were drunk and behaving riotously. They refused to leave. Each was fined 5s. with 9s. 6d. costs, or two weeks.[14]

In the 1871 Census  Henry and Sarah have one servant and an ostler. Dedham's development is typical of nineteenth century Britain. After the construction of the Great Eastern railway in the 1840s the town, which had no station, became a 'social backwater',[15] and no doubt the trade in coach passengers went into gradual decline. The Inn gave the Edgars employment for the rest of their lives, but the evidence of the probate summaries of their wills suggests it was at best a very modest prosperity they enjoyed.

Henry's died  at the Inn on August 15, 1877,  aged 53;[16] he left his wife less than £450.[17]  Sarah was obviously a strong-minded woman as she took over the difficult task of managing a Victorian Inn on her own. Trade directories link her to the Inn in 1878 and 1882,[18] and in the 1881 Census she was employing a live-in barmaid. She had one lodger, who was also her nephew, Jeremiah Pryke (an unemployed engineer), and a visitor.

Sarah had to cope with the efforts of the Church of England Temperance Society which was at work in Dedham in 1882 (and perhaps before), but happily with little effect. In 1895 there were 10 inns, about one for every 150 inhabitants.[19] I suspect Sarah's last years were rather sad though. She died on July 22, 1883 leaving a personal estate of £150 5s. 6d. Bertha Jarrold, spinster of Dedham, was the sole executrix.[20] Bertha was that live-in barmaid in the 1881 Census, and she was then aged 21 - so Sarah, who had no children, also seems to have had no other family or close friends of her own age. Bertha didn't take over the Sun though; later that year one Mr. Page was landlord.[21]

So ended the first Edgar colonisation of Essex. But, as Sarah was spending her last years hosting the Sun, another move into the county - this time enforced by economic necessity - was already taking place.

Note:

For an update on the Sun Inn, see:

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2022/apr/01/pub-walk-the-sun-inn-dedham-essex-constable

---

[1] http://edgarfamilyintheworldblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/the-early-history-of-edgars.html

[2] Bury and Norwich Post and East Anglian, March 21, 1849.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_windmills_in_Suffolk

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_mill

[5] http://pubshistory.com/EssexPubs/Dedham/sun.shtml

[6] http://www.camulos.com/inns/2015part4refs.pdf

[7] There's a question mark here: the street number (9) is different to later Censuses (40) and the buildings in the street are also different. There was a 'Gun Inn' in Dedham, but the details don;t match up either. As the Edgars are linked to the Sun Inn in 1859 and 1862, I've assumed that's where they were in 1861.

[8] http://pubshistory.com/EssexPubs/Dedham/sun.shtml

[9] http://www.historyhouse.co.uk/placeD/essexd08d.html

[10] http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924015353463/cu31924015353463_djvu.txt

[11] Charles G. Harper, The Old Inns of Old England, Volume 2, 1906, 223-225.

[12] Ancestry.com. UK, Poll Books and Electoral Registers, 1538-1893 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.

[13] http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/essex/vol10/pp154-161

[14] Essex Standard, 16 April 1869, 6.

[15] http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/essex/vol10/pp154-161#h3-0003

[16] Essex Standard, 31 August, 1877, 5.

[17] Ancestry.com. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966[database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010.

[18] http://pubshistory.com/EssexPubs/Dedham/sun.shtml

[19] http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/essex/vol10/pp154-161#h3-0003

[20] Ancestry.com. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966[database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010.

[21] Essex Standard, Suffolk Gazette and Eastern Counties Advertiser, 15 December 1883, 2. 

Last of the Summer Wine: Edmund Edgar and the Case of the Duck with a Crooked Tail

Note: This is the first post in a series on the children of Johnson and Sarah Edgar.

The momentous events that were to lead to two court cases involving my great-grand-uncle Edmund Edgar began to unfold on the morning of November 14, 1879. The scene was Monks Eleigh, a picturesque hamlet about three miles from the Edgar base-camp of Preston St Mary, a historic place...

Village sign, from 'Welcome to Monks Eleigh', http://monkseleighpc.onesuffolk.net/our-village/

...whose charms were increased by the River Brett which flowed through the middle. At the start of the 1870s there were about 700 people living there in about 160 houses. But the idyllic setting and the tiny population didn't mean the absence of fear - in fact the inhabitants have always lived under the threat of flooding, and in the late 1870s the riverine location was actively encouraging one particular form of crime. The good citizens of Monks Eleigh understandably liked to feast on their local duck.... 

Duck

...and, as our story begins they were on a hair-trigger because of the terror inspired in their hearts by the sinister figure of the duck-rustler.

On that mid-November morning, George Phillips, a veterinary surgeon, acting on information received, entered the house of Edward Stowe, a local dealer in fowls. Phillips was a few years under 50 at the time, and Stowe about 25. The vet didn't have far to go, as he lived with a large family at 1, the High Street and Philips was at number 44 of the same street. Phillips had known Stowe since he was a child - in fact, when the person he was later to accuse of theft was a boy of 8, he was living next door to the vet at number 2 with his father, Samuel a shoemaker. These points will become important later.[1] He saw two partly-plucked ducks on the table, and claimed to recognise one of them, a drake, by its tail. He removed them and later confronted Stowe with the dramatic words:

You have killed my crooked-tailed drake!

Stowe denied the charge, claiming to have bought the two ducks from Mr. Deacon, the keeper of the White Horse in Lavenham. The resulting disagreement came to court at Long Melford Petty Sessions on November 28 when Stowe appeared before the bench accused of duck theft. [2]

The River Brett at Monks Eleigh today: copyright Jennifer Vaughan, licensed for re-use under Creative Commons license (http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/349550)

George Phillips began the case for the prosecution by outlining the events of November 14 and stressing that he knew the drake was his because of its crooked tail. Daniel Bramford, a blacksmith who lived close to Phillips at number 6,[3] was the first witness. He lived in a house on a meadow that ran by the River  and he testified that on that fatal fourteenth Stowe had come to his house with a boy and asked to take ducks that he said belonged to him. Stowe took three or four ducks - the blacksmith seemed uncertain as to the exact number and was unable to say who they belonged to, but he too had noticed that one of the ducks 'kept his tail down'.

Stowe had told Bramford he'd come for the ducks he'd bought from Alfred Deacon, and the publican came before the court to confirm this.  In a statement that gives an astonishing insight into business practises in the Preston St Mary region, Deacon stated that he'd bought the ducks for 2s. 6d. and sold them on to Stowe at -  the same price! No wonder Suffolk's rural economy was depressed during this period. Oh, and I got the name Alfred from the CAMRA website,[4] which claims that it was our ancestor Edmund who was accused of theft - let this post be a complete and sufficient refutation of such foul lies and let us always remember that we must be ceaselessly vigilant if we are to foil the plots of the enemies of our family.

What then was the true role played in this saga by the Edgars?

Well, who do you think bred those 'very fine' ducks and sold them to the philanthropic Deacon in the first place? And, knowing the Edgar spirit as we do, who would you expect to rise up in court and stand between the unjust (but influential) accuser and his hapless victim?

Edmund and Emily Edgar of course  - it was my great-grand-uncle and aunt themselves who'd been the origin of the ducks that caused so much trouble! Edmund - Johnson and Sarah's second child, and now in his late 50s - took the stand to give evidence that was crucial in exonerating Stowe:

I live at Mill ((actually Hill - the reporter must have mis-heard)) Farm, Preston. On the 13 inst. I sold Mr. Deacon 12 ducks for 2s. 6d. each. There were five drakes and seven ducks, very good ones. I bred the ducks. The ducks produced are two of those I sold to Deacon. I never heard anything against the prisoner.

Then, turning to Phillips-  the accuser - Edmund -upright, magnificent and fearless - clinched the case for the defence:

I can swear to the general appearance of them.

But Mr. Jones, Stowe's indefatigable defence counsel, wasn't leaving anything to chance. He called Edmund's wife, Emily to the stand. Emily deposed as to the selling of the 12 ducks to Deacon and identified the drake before the court as one of that dozen...This was enough for the magistrates and, without further ado, before all the evidence was taken, they acquitted Edward Stowe, who walked from the court without a stain on his character. [5]

River Brett at nearby Hadleigh, copyright J. Thomas, licenced for re-use:

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2941920

You might have thought this would be enough for the honest (as we now know) 'poulterer' - so he is described in the 1881 Census. But Edward decided that he deserved compensation for the inconvenience, expense and damage to his reputation ('no smoke without fire'). In an astonishing development he turned the tables on the vet Phillips by hauling him in front of the court on a charge of malicious prosecution.

The case came up at the King's Bench at Ipswich on February 12, 1880 in front of Mr. Justice Denman. This time Mr. Jones, who had triumphed in the first case, was merely the assistant to the much grander Mr. Bulwer Q. C., M.P., who led the charge for Stowe, with Mr. Baggallay trying to hold the breach for the vet Phillips, the prosecutor turned defendant.

The learned Bulwer began by explaining to the court that his client (wrongly called Stone throughout the newspaper report) was seeking damages for a prosecution brought without 'due and sufficient reason'. He pointed to the harm done to his professional reputation by the accusation of fowl theft. Stowe was not, he assured the court, seeking 'heavy' damages, but only as much as the court thought just and reasonable.

Stowe was called to the stand and went over the story of how he'd bought 13 'very fine' ducks on November 13. He'd had them put in the 'duck court' by the river but they'd got loose and mixed with those of a 'gentleman'. When he went to collect his property, all the ducks came into a riverside orchard and his obligingly separated themselves from the others, so he caught them, took them home and - rather ungratefully - had them all killed. Ten had been plucked, his wife was at work on an eleventh, when Phillips came in and insisted the two unplucked ones were his. Stowe had seen Phillip's ducks in an orchard close to his (Phillip's) house, so he took him there, and pointed out that, contrary to the vet's protestations of being two short, all ten were there. Phillips refused to be convinced and made the accusation that Stowe had 'changed them' - substituted inferior ducks for the two he'd purloined. The poulterer denied the charge, and asked for his two ducks back, but Philips said they were his and he was keeping them. Stowe heard no more about the matter until he was summoned to appear before Melford magistrates on November 28. He'd engaged Mr. Jones and subpoenaed witnesses - the whole thing cost him £10 - and the case was thrown out before he'd finished giving his evidence.

In his testimony Stowe described the events of the fourteenth, claiming to have actually helped Phillip's apprentice drive the vet's wandering ducks home. He told the court that there was a lot of duck stealing on the River Brett and he had himself suffered in this rural crime wave. But perhaps his best moment was when he told the court that Phillips had claim to recognise his two ducks by their 'crook or ring tails' (tails on one side) but that he had triumphantly rebutted him by stating that five others had the same kind of tail, but when he'd told Philips and the vet had simply refused to look at them.

Stowe's case grew stronger still when 14 year old Alfred Watts - it was he who'd plucked the ducks - came forward to confirm his account. True, Watts was his brother-in-law, but the next witness, the landlord Alfred Deacon, had no reason to be biased in his favour, nor did our own Edmund and Emily Edgar, who came to Ipswich to repeat their story. Indeed Edmund's testimony must have delighted Stowe, as he was absolutely sure the ducks were the ones he'd sold, whereas Deacon had not owned them long enough to know them for sure. Emily added the detail that the ducks weighed about five pounds.

Stowe must have thought the money was in the bag when Bulwer produced his final witness, George Taylor, a groom at the Lion Inn in Monks Eleigh - there was no shortage of pubs in that part of Suffolk - who told the court he'd seen three ducks escape from the poulterer's yard at about half past six on the morning of the fourteenth and go down to the river.

But Mr. Baggallay struck back, reminding the jury that the question was not whether or not Stowe was guilty but whether or not Philip's had acted reasonably in prosecuting him. He said his client had been told by 'a gentleman' - Bramford as the court soon learnt - of a possible  theft and when he'd examined the ducks he'd bought he'd found that two of them were of inferior quality.

Phillips himself took the stand and, under relentless questioning, was soon making a stunning admission. He went over the saga from his point of view, claiming that he had good reason to believe that Stowe had been substituting inferior ducks for his own much better ones. He had, he claimed, acted quickly on the day because Bramford had told him the ducks would be killed otherwise and had then taken out the summons on the advice of  magistrate. He refused to believe the witnesses who told a story contrary to his own. He admitted that he had been driving (some form of horse-drawn carriage) within half a mile of Deacon's Inn yet hadn't thought it worth diverting there to check Stowe's claim that he'd bought the ducks from the landlord.  This admission was damaging enough, but, no doubt harassed by Bulwer's questioning, Philips suddenly found himself presenting his jaw for the knock-out punch:

Witness had been wanting to get the plaintiff and his family out of the house in which they were, because of their extreme dirtiness.

'Shit,' we can imagine him thinking, 'I didn't mean to say that'.

But too late; the merciless Bulwer wasn't the one to let a chance like that slip by:

And putting him in prison is a very good way to get rid of him?

The desperate vet didn't answer; instead he addressed the judge and pointed out irrelevantly that his were Rouen ducks and much larger. Mr. Justice Denman seemed willing to help the defendant out here, and, in the course of some merry banter elicited the statement that the dozen ducks in question had 'disappeared in a graduated manner' down various throats. But neither this nor the two final witnesses, Bramford the blacksmith and Woodgate the farmer, who corroborated some details of Philip's account, seemed likely to undo the impression made in the minds of the jury by the confession of the defendant's desire to drive the plaintiff and his family out of the parish.

Justice Denman gave a fair summing-up, the jury retired and if I'd been Stowe I'd have been planning where to enjoy a celebration drink - as I pointed out earlier, he had plenty of choice.

But this matter was not be resolved without one final thunderbolt. The jury returned after just a few minutes:

Mr. Justice Denman: How do you say the prosecution was taken?

Foreman: Not maliciously, but hastily.

The bemused Bulwer asked for a stay of execution, a legal manoeuvre to allow a little wriggle-room for the losing party; Judge Denman granted it, but removed all hope by saying that he in no way disagreed with the jury's verdict. Bulwer's response resonates through the succeeding years and finds an echo in my own breast:

Mr. Bulwer said that perhaps after a few days the first sensation of extreme surprise would pass away.

George Phillip's desire to drive Stowe out of the parish came to nothing. The 1901 Census finds Edward and Alice still living in Monks Eleigh High Street - they've moved from along from 44 to 22, even closer to Stowe, who must heave learnt to tolerate their filth as he was still at number 1. They now have 8 children and he's a 'farmer and dealer', so he seems to have gone up in the world.

But for us Edgars there's a tragic sequel to these events. The next time Edmund appeared in court he was no longer the tenant of Hill Farm but a 'cow keeper and dairyman'.[6] And he wasn't' a witness but the defendant. On Friday July 8, 1881 Edmund Edgar came before the Long Melford Petty Sessions. P. C. Marsh (hiss! boo!) prosecuting proved his case, and Edmund was fined £1 with 5s costs for allowing four cows to stray on the highway at Lavenham.[7]

---

[1] 1861 and 1881 Census.

[2] Bury and Norwich Post and Suffolk Herald,, December 2, 1879, 8.

[3] 1861 Census.

[4] http://www.suffolkcamra.co.uk/pubs/pub/1074

[5] Bury and Norwich Post and Suffolk Herald, December 2, 1879, 8.

[6] 1881 Census.

[7] Bury and Norwich Post and Suffolk Herald, Tuesday July 12, 1881, 8.

The Wealth of the Edgars; Johnson and His Children

What happened to the Edgar family in the nineteenth century is simple: Johnson Edgar (my great-great-grandfather) was a prosperous tenant farmer and owner of a fine windmill and the land it was built on. He died in 1872 and some time in the next ten years financial disaster struck, and Thomas (my great grandfather) plunged downwards in society, probably ending his working life as a domestic servant.

But tracing this story in the documents available to me isn't so easy. I'll try to do so in two posts: the first is about Johnson Edgar and his children in the period ending with Johnson's death, and the second about the fate of his children thereafter.

Johnson was born sometime around 1794, in Preston (now Preston St. Mary, Suffolk). On October 20, 1818 he married Sarah Makin from the neighbouring parish of Kettlebaston and in March 1820 their first child, John, was born.

We first learn something of Johnson's economic activities in the middle of the 1830s when he bought a 'post' mill, one of two windmills in Preston St. Mary.[1] One of the things that differentiates mills is the way their sails are turned to catch the wind, and a site on the windmills of neighbouring Essex describes the way this happened with a postmill:

With the post mill, the sails are built into the wooden body which houses the machinery. The whole mill body is pivoted on a massive wooden post, allowing the body and hence the sails to be turned to face the wind. The body is turned either by using a long lever called a tailpole which can be pushed around by the miller or by animal power, or else by a fantail. ((a system of gears)).[2]

Johnson's mill was a simple affair, with no roundhouse, and using the tailpole method of sail turning.

The 1837 court case I described in the previous post[3] gives us a glimpse of this mill at work: Johnson clearly employed a number of people as the man found guilty of embezzlement was a dismissed foreman. The sale of flour and bran to a pub in Lavenham shows us that the Edgar windmill, like most others at the time, was in  the business of grinding grain into flour. By 1844 at the latest Johnson had passed the mill to his son John (1820/21-1874), and soon after that he put into action an ambitious plan to build a more modern windmill, as we shall see.

We can learn something of the farming side of Johnson's activities from tithe maps drawn up in 1839. Traditionally farmers had to give a tenth of their produce to the Anglican church as a 'tithe' (tenth); this became an economic burden, so in 1836 the Commutation of Tithes Act substituted a direct money payment instead of one in kind; this means that maps had to be drawn up and the value of the land assessed. The Preston St Mary maps show that Johnson was renting a small area of land from a landowner called Johhny Green - who also owned the other windmill in Preston -  but much larger acreages from Sir Samuel Shepherd and Ebenezer Osborn.

Johnson was farming both arable and pasture land, mainly the former. He also had a house, garden, outbuildings, pond and stackyard - an enclosure where stocks of hay, straw or grain in sheaf are stored.

The total rental amounted to about 235 acres and he was expected to pay just over £57 in tithes.

It's hard to decide how much this is worth in modern terms as it depends on what criteria you use; this quote from a 'historic value of the pound' site will give you an idea:

If you want to compare the value of a £57 0s 0d Income or Wealth , in 1839 there are three choices. In 2014 the relative:
historic standard of living value of that income or wealth is £4,480.00
economic status value of that income or wealth is £74,120.00
economic power value of that income or wealth is £180,800.00[4]

In other words, however you calculate it, he was a substantial tenant farmer with a broad range of activities - and the owner of a windmill as well.

The Census taken on June 6, 1841 shows Johnson and his wife Sarah (nee Makin) living at an unspecified location in Preston St. Mary. Johnson (age given as 45) and Sarah (aged 40) have a large family:

John (aged 20)

Edmund (aged 20)

Henry (aged 15)

Sophia (aged 15)

Richard (aged 10)

Everyone was born in Suffolk and Johnson is described simply as 'farmer'. No hired labourers are noted, but I don't know if that was a general practise for this early Census. It's unlikely he had no help but his family to farm over 200 acres.

The 1843 Tithe Map shows Johnson renting 44 acres - in nearby Thorpe Morieux, again from Ebenezer Osborn. The tithe is £11.17.6.  I don't think this meant Johnson had abandoned his rentals in Preston, although it's possible he did so to concentrate on the windmill. I think it more likely that Thorpe Morieux was mapped later than Preston and that he was continuing to farm and pay tithes as in the 1839 maps. If he had cut back on farming this was temporary, as we shall see when we reach the 1851 Census.

In any case by 1846 business was going well and Johnson, described as a 'yeoman', which usually means a small-scale freeholder, bought a piece of land from Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie,  a London knight for £60; it was the opposite side of the road from his mill, and on it he built a fine new 'tower' mill'[5] that made the older post mill redundant - after an attempt to sell it in 1848 it was demolished. The tower mill, which had its own house, is where we find John Edgar in the 1851 Census.[6] The Essex source cited above describes the essence of a such a mill:

The main structure of the tower mill is built of brick or stone and so cannot be rotated. The sails are mounted in a separate wooden cap which is arranged so that it can turn on the top of the tower. This cap is rotated either by hand, usually using gearing worked by chain from below or by a drive from a fantail.[7]

The miller's work was hard and dangerous - there was a lot of potential for accidents. He also had to possess a wide variety of craft skills to do emergency repairs. And he had to work long hours when the winds were favourable.[8]

In the 1851 Census Johnson is described as a farmer of 270 acres employing ten labourers. Edmund and Richard are unmarried and described as farmer's sons employed on the farm, while young Thomas (aged 8) is a scholar, the usual word for schoolboy - watch Thomas: he's my great grandfather and the progenitor of our branch of the Edgars. They also have a domestic servant: Susanna Manning of Kettlebaston, the next parish along.

Where are John and Henry? John, the eldest son, is still in Preston St Mary, but now he's running the tower mill, married to Mary, with three sons of his own, and employing two men, which number probably doesn't include the live-in apprentice. He's got a servant too. Henry, the third son, is doing the same: he's the miller master at Felsham, near Stow, employing one man. This was a post mill, first mentioned in 1824 and which moved to Gedding in 1867 (after Henry had left for another line of work).[9]He married Sarah in 1849, and on the day of the Census she was off visiting her father, a widowed innkeeper in Stow.

The family address in the 1851 Census is Down Hall -  a farm whose owner I haven't yet been able to ascertain. However, in 1853 Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie offered for sale various timbers (oak, ash, elm) on the land of Down Hall Farm, those on the corn fields not being removable until after harvest.[10]  

Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet
Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Barone

Sir Benjamin owned land in different parts of Suffolk including the Preston area, so he's a good candidate for the owner of Down Hall Farm - he was the one who sold Johnson the land for his tower mill.

Parts of Down Hall farmhouse date back to the fourteenth century - this is a detail from some recent repair work: http://www.traditionaloakcarpentry.co.uk/projects-repair-down-hall.php

The 1861 Census shows that things have remained stable for Johnson. He now has 300 acres and is employing seven labourers and two boys, with Edmund  still at home and presumably working on the farm. Richard has left - but Thomas (remember he's the 'founder' of our branch of the Edgars) is now 18 and has probably taken his place as family labourer. But one interesting development is the appearance of Sophia Edgar, aged 6, and listed as 'granddaughter'. Edmund and Thomas are both 'unmarried'; Thomas would have been only 12 when she was conceived, so she might be Edmund's 'illegitimate' daughter, or alternatively from another branch of the Edgars come to live in a more prosperous household. There's a Sophia Edgar whose birth in Thingoe is recorded for the first quarter of 1855, but the Census lists this Sophia as born in Preston and Thingoe is about 15 miles away, close to Bury St Edmunds.

Elsewhere things are also going well: Richard married Sarah Elizabeth Wright, a woman ten years younger than himself in 1861 and is now a 'malster and merchant' employing two men in Bury St. Edmunds. The family have one servant, but she must have been busy as they're listed as occupying numbers 85, 86, 87 and 88 of their street. John is still a miller but now he too is at Bury St. Edmunds. He and Mary have three sons aged 12, 10 and 8, all born in Preston, and a daughter aged 1 born in Bury - so this might seem a recent move. But the evidence is confusing: in 1853 John is still listed as the miller of Preston, while in 1855 the mill is occupied by Robert Bear, who's a tenant, as the Edgars still own it.[11] It's possible John fell out with his father, but the evidence of childbirth suggests he was still visiting Preston, so perhaps he simply went off to pioneer another Edgar enterprise. Henry's also married in 1861 but he's left the mill business for inn-keeping in Essex, this is the first time one of 'our' Edgars is recorded as leaving Suffolk, but he's not gone far as Dedham is only 17 miles from Preston and is on the Suffolk-Essex border. He's host at the Sun Inn and he and his wife have one servant and married couple as lodgers.

In March 1869 Down Hall Farm, 'occupied by Johnson Edgar', and said to be of about 180 acres, was offered for sale at auction. It was one of three farms for sale in Preston, and the auction was to be at the Rose and Crown in Sudbury at the end of April.[12] Another advert, this one on April 30 tells us that all of the farms are in first class agricultural district in easy distance from the important market towns of Bury, Hadleigh, Sudbury and Stowmarket and they have responsible tenants at moderate rents who, with one exception, have four years left on their leases at Michaelmas next. The sale had been put back to May 18 and  George Coote was the auctioneer. 

Courtyard of the Rose and Crown, destroyed by fire in 1922
http://virtualmuseum.sudburysuffolk.co.uk/recent-research/sudburys-freemasons-and-their-hall/

Whether or not this attempt to sell the farm succeeded, Johnson was still tenant of Down Hall Farm in 1871.

What can we learn from the 1871 Census, the last before Johnson's death?

It shows him now employing six men and a boy and farming 172 acres - as this si roughly the size given for Down Hall Farm in the 1869 adverts, it's possible that he was framing both this and other land in 1861. Edmund, on the other hand, has left home and set himself up at Hill Farm in Preston St. Mary with wife Emily, 17 years his junior, and employing five men and two boys and farming 152 acres. The family have two sons and a daughter and two servants. On the day of the Census brother Richard - the malster - was staying with them - the significance of this will become clear in a future post, but if the reader would like to take a guess, it will help to know that Richard and Sarah's son, Harry James Wright Edgar, a five year old 'scholar', appears as 'grandson' in Johnson's household at Down Hall Farm.

When did Edmund start work on his own farm? In June 1869 preliminary notice was given of the intention to sell Preston Hill Farm, which was said to be just under 145 acres and in the occupation of Edmund and Johnson Edgar with possession next Michaelmas.[13] A later notice stipulated this sale too would take place at the Rose and Crown. The only tenant mentioned this time was Edmund and the land described as 'productive' arable and pasture mix.[14] On July 3 the notice added a farm house and 'premises' to the items on sale. In other words, it looks like as if some time in the 1860s Johnson and Edmund leased Hill Farm, but as the decade went on and Johnson got older, he allowed Edmund to take responsibility for it.

John Edgar, the eldest son, seems to have come down in the world a little. He's a miller in Stowmarket and seems to be employing no-one, not even his sons, as only wife Hannah is left at home.  In April 1870 the Preston mill was let to Maurice Pyke.[15] The 1871 Census has him and his wife Harriet at Mill House, Mill Road. We don't know why John left the Preston mill. Henry's still keeping the Sun Inn in Dedham.

It's not clear if Johnson's business was declining, or if he was simply downsizing with age, but although his operation has shrunk in size, as has eldest son John's the family can't be said to be doing badly. The two farmers have about 324  acres between them and are employing 11 men and three boys as well as their domestic servants. John and Richard are at work in other rural trades. And everyone's still in Suffolk or close by.

In other words, although Johnson's own financial position may or may not have been what it once was, it seems the family as a whole was maintaining its economic security and social status, and remaining content to stay in the corner of England where the Edgars had been for over 600 years. Things, of course, were about to change.

Johnson died on March 2, 1872 still at Down Hall Farm.[16]

What happened on Johnson's death isn't clear - I'll have to read his will to find out - but whatever exactly transpired it meant changes for our family. I'll explore these changes in the next post.

---

[1] http://www.suffolkmills.org.uk/newsletters/072%20November%201998.pdf, page 4.

[2] http://www.essex.gov.uk/Activities/Heritage/Documents/Windmills_In_Essex.pdf

[3]https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1658241216551312320#editor/target=post;postID=6911499649072867312;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=0;src=postname

[4]http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/relativevalue.php?use%5B%5D=CPI&use%5B%5D=NOMINALEARN&year_early=1839&pound71=57&shilling71=&pence71=&amount=57&year_source=1839&year_result=2014

[5] Preston St Mary, Tower mill, TL 942 508 

[6] http://www.suffolkmills.org.uk/newsletters/072%20November%201998.pdf

[7] http://www.essex.gov.uk/Activities/Heritage/Documents/Windmills_In_Essex.pdf

[8] https://www.essex.gov.uk/Activities/Heritage/Documents/Windmills_In_Essex.pdf

[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_windmills_in_Suffolk

[10] The Ipswich Journal, Saturday June 11, 1853. Also in BNP, June 15, 1853, 1.

[11] http://www.suffolkmills.org.uk/newsletters/072%20November%201998.pdf

[12] Bury and Norwich Post and Suffolk Herald, Tuesday March 9, 1869, 1.

[13] Ipswich Journal, Saturday June 12, 1869.

[14] Ipswich Journal, Saturday June 26, 1869.

[15] http://www.suffolkmills.org.uk/newsletters/072%20November%201998.pdf, page 2.

[16] The Ipswich Journal,  Tuesday March 5, 1872,1.