Family history – rowleyregislosthamlets.co.uk

Where was Blower’s hill?

Edward Alsop, of Alsop’s Hill and Alsop’s Quarry, died, aged 78 and was buried at St Giles on 7 September 1860, his abode given in the Burial Register as Blower’s Hill. Does anyone know where this was? I didn’t! And no-one in the local Facebook page knew either when I appealed there. But clearly the name was quite unremarkable to local officials who recorded information in parish Registers, compiled Poll Books and drafted Wills. They must have known where Edward was referring to. But I was puzzled, I had seen nothing to indicate that Edward had moved anywhere else, he appeared to have lived all of his life in the Windmill Farm. But I could not find Blower’s hill on any maps or in any online archives.

So I have been exploring down a little local history and genealogical rabbit hole, trying to find out where Blower’s Hill was.

Blower’s hill

The spelling and punctuation vary slightly but usually the Alsop family appear to have spelled Blower’s with an apostrophe – making Blower’s a possessive adjective. And often they did not capitalise Hill, as if it were just a description of part of the landscape, rather than a defined area.

I considered various issues:

What had this area been called before the Alsops arrived?

First of all, although the land there was known later as Alsop’s Quarry or Alsop’s Hill, it must have been called something before the Alsops came along in the mid-1700s. And it would probably have taken a few years/decades/generations of the family living there before it became associated with their name. Even then, although many records and maps show the land they farmed as Alsop’s Hill or Alsop’s quarry, the family appear always to have called it Blower’s hill.

So perhaps the earlier local descriptive name was ‘Blower’s Hill’, either for the windmill, which was apparently a manorial mill, so long established there.

Or perhaps the land was known by the name of a previous owner, since mostly the Alsops used a possessive apostrophe in the name and it was very common in this area for places to be named after their owners, such as Gadd’s Green, Darby’s Hill, Perry’s Lake, etc, etc.

So – were there any Blower families locally?

I searched all four volumes of the Rowley Parish Registers (1539-1849)for the name Blower and found just one! In 1573. a Thomas Davies married Agnes Blowere. So at some point there was at least one person called Blower or Blowere known of in the parish even if it was 200 years earlier! But when I extended the search on FreeREG to surrounding parishes (including 100 additional places within 7.5 miles) I found that , between 1750 and 1850 there were 314 entries of baptisms, marriages and burials in surrounding parishes. There were Blowers in Harborne, Halesowen, Wombourne, many, many in Penn, others in Oldswinford, Brierley Hill, Dudley, Sedgley, and especially latterly, in Bilston and Wolverhampton. Most of those are on an arc to the west of Dudley, between Harborne and Wolverhampton.

I was especially interested to note the marriage of a Susannah Blower to Joseph Hill at Clent in 1769, Rowley was a chapelry of Clent and quite a lot of Rowley people married there. And, of course, there were lots of the Hill family in the Lost Hamlets. And I also noted the marriage of Letticia Perry to John Blower in Sedgley in 1825 – hmmm, Perry’s Lake/Blower’s Hill, are immediately adjacent to each other in Rowley – interesting, perhaps their families had property interests in common!

So although there were very few Blowers in Rowley Regis in later centuries, there were plenty in adjacent areas.

The Electoral Records

Second: Another important clue lay in the Poll Books. Edward was shown in the 1837 and later Poll Books consistently with a house and land at this address, which was described as Blower’s hill Farm. I found Poll Book entries as early as 1837 – just after electoral reform had been enacted which would have given Edward the right to vote – and all of these identify his only property in Rowley Regis Parish as Blower’s hill farm, which was a house and land occupied, implying it was being farmed.

These voting rights were an important part of political and social reform in 19^th century Britain. There are interesting articles with further information here ( https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/what-caused-the-1832-great-reform-act/ ) and here(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Act_1832 ), and on numerous other pages. But it was not universal suffrage, the vote given to all men (and certainly no women!). The right to vote was extended to small landowners, tenant farmers, shopkeepers and all householders who paid a yearly rental of £10 or more. So the holding of property had presumably been checked before being recorded in the Poll Books.

What did the family call it?

Thirdly, at least Edward’s generation of the family were calling it ‘Blower’s hill’, rather than Alsop’s Hill or Windmill Hill, over many years.

Answering my own question!

So I have gone through again all of the records I have found for Edward Alsop, looking carefully at the descriptions in those records.

And, finally, fourthly, looking carefully at the wording of the Probate record for Edward’s Will, shown here, it actually says that he is ‘late of the Mill Farm Blowers-hill in the parish of Rowley Regis.’ And his son Thomas and daughter Rhoda, as executors, are said to be ‘of Blowers-hill aforesaid’.

Which shows, it seems, that Blowers-hill was the name by which the area of land farmed by the Alsops was previously known, and that it and the Mill farm were one and the same place.

Another old Rowley place-name detected and, I believe, placed geographically, at least on my mental map!

Families of the Lost Hamlets, a diversion to the Dingleys, the Ingleys and the Hingleys in the Hill area!

Over the last few weeks, I have been doing some of the basic preparation work for more possible family studies, for the Hipkiss and Whittall families. This is going to be a slow painstaking task, as they were quite prolific and, especially for the Whittalls, the spelling variations make this quite challenging. But I have done a lot of searching through censuses and parish records and made pages and pages of notes. And I am nowhere near ready to write either of them up but I needed a break from the Hipkisses and Whitalls!

So I decided to take a temporary diversion and look at something quite different, to give my brain a rest! I decided to look at the farms in the Hamlets in the 1841 census, starting with Windmill Farm at the junction of Hawes Lane and Tippity Green, the Alsops , millers and farmers, newish (by Rowley standards) to the parish, smallish family, no connections to my tree. Very refreshing.

Ibberty or Tippity Mill, Wilson Jones calls it the Manorial Mill and this is presumably the Mill which the Alsops operated. This photograph appears in his book A history of the Black Country and he appears to have taken the photograph himself. There is no indication of when this was taken but the book was published in about 1950. However, the Mill does not appear on the 1902 OS map so perhaps it was a photograph he acquired from someone else.

Copyright and date unknown but I think this map is part of a copy of the map drawn up before 1800 for the Rowley Regis Enclosures. You can see that John Alsop was renting quite a bit of land here which subsequently became Alsop’s quarry. And in the middle at the bottom is a small oblong which has the name J Alsop , the word Mill and a little diagram of a windmill above the word Mill, although almost obscured by the plot number. So this shows where the Alsops were living, milling and farming. The Mill appeared to have an access road, too which has subsequently disappeared, unless, of course, it later became the site of the Club Buildings? The Alsops had arrived in the parish by 1734, possibly as Millers as there are various Alsops in nearby areas who were also millers.

But, as so often happens, when I got started on the Alsops, they turned out to be quite interesting and worthy of a post of their own to my blog (to follow soon!). And as I started to gather information on the children of Edward Alsop, who was the farmer there in 1841, I found that his second son Joseph had married a Sarah Eliza Dingley and was living in 1841 at the bottom of Rowley Village where he was a shopkeeper.

Straightforward enough so far, and I was interested to see the Dingley name, as I was at school with a Geraldine Dingley, back in the 1970s and I hadn’t come across it in other researches. Because Sarah Eliza had given her full name in the Census, I was able to find her marriage easily on FreeREG, she had married Joseph Alsop at Clent in 1832. And, as I could calculate her birth year from later censuses, I found her baptism on 25^th December 1812 at Halesowen. She was the daughter of Ira Dingley (1789-1864) and Elizabeth nee Cooper (1788 -?), the eldest but one, I found, of about ten of their children baptised at Halesowen church. That sounded good, Ira is a relatively unusual name so should be easy to trace. As indeed he was. We will ignore for now that there were at least three more Ira Dingleys to follow in short order, son and grandsons which did complicate sorting them out later. But never mind…

This family all baptised their children at Halesowen, this was before Blackheath St Paul’s was built but they lived in the Hill area of Blackheath, Long Lane, Cocksheds, Gorsty Hill, Malt Mill Lane.

There are clues in these names, I think – Gorsty Hill was probably rough heathland with lots of prickly gorse bushes, the Long Lane really was a long lane leading from Rowley all the way to the King’s Highway at Quinton, there must have been some poultry business at Cocksheds and a brewer’s Malt Mill somewhere in the area – most pubs brewed their own beer but they needed Malt and therefore maltsters.

I was able to find this later Ira’s children William (1810-1842), Sarah Eliza (1812-?), Elisabeth or Betsy (1815-?), Ira (1819-1855), Henry (1822-1885), Paarai (1823-1905), Neri or Nari (1829-?), Edmund (1829-?) and Edward (1830-?). Imagine what it would have been like in that household? Two people called Ira, one called Paarai and one called Nari? Did you shout for me? Recipe for confusion…

I was particularly interested in Nari or Neri, that really is an unusual name. But I do have two other Neris on my family tree – my great-grandfather and great-great-grandfathers were both Neri or Nari Ingley or Hingley – my aunt knew her grandfather and pronounced his name ‘nar-eye’ but he usually spelled it Neri.

How about that for a coincidence? Neri Hingley/Ingley and Neri Dingley, both living within a mile of each other? They must have known each other, surely?!

Neri Ingley /Hingley

So my 2xg-grandfather Neri Ingley (1824-1901) – the spelling varied between Ingley and Hingley for quite a long time about this period – was baptised in 1824 at St Giles, the son of John Ingley and Mary nee Hackett of Old Hill. This Neri married three times – to Mary Slim (1827-1861), with whom he had eight children, then to widow Ann Aldridge nee Whitehouse ((1823-1869) with whom he had my great-grandfather Neri (1862-1934) and finally to Maria Taylor (1832-1906) with whom he had two more sons. Busy lad.

Just to complicate my family tree, Neri Ingley was my 2xgreat-grandfather through Ann Whitehouse and their son Neri, but his third wife Maria Taylor was also my 2xgreat-grandmother through her first marriage to James Hewitt and their son Joseph. Although the 1861 Census just gives the abode of James and Maria Hewitt simply as Blackheath, they were living next door to William Taylor, who was Maria’s older brother and his wife Phoebe (and his step- daughter Sarah Whittall) and next to them was William Dingley, followed by the Hadley family so it seems very likely from this juxtaposition of families that they were living in this same area around the top of Gorsty Hill as in 1881. And the enumerator, in the description of his route, states that he was starting from the market place in Blackheath and covering both sides of the road towards Halesowen, to the top of Gorsty Hill which confirms this.

Lots more to untangle there – and another Hipkiss!

Neri Dingley

Neri Dingley was born a few years after Neri Ingley, he was baptised at Halesowen in February 1829, the son of Ira Dingley and Elizabeth nee Cooper. I have been unable to find any trace of him after his baptism, he is not listed with the rest of his family in the 1841 Census, he has disappeared. After a lot of checking and head scratching, I have come to the conclusion that Edward Dingley, apparently born about 1830 and Nari may be the same person. Edward appears in the 1841 Census, aged 10, as a son of Ira and Elizabeth but there is no baptism for him, I have checked all the way through the Halesowen Registers. Ira and Elizabeth Dingley had all of their other children baptised, why would they not have Edward baptised? And when Edward marries Matilda Johnson in 1856 he gives his father’s name as Ira Dingley. And he names his second son Nari. I can’t prove it but I suspect Ira became known as Edward.

Ancestry Hints

Perhaps this dearth of information about Nari/Neri Dingley accounts for some confusion. When I started to research this Neri on Ancestry, I was pleased to see that there were 14 hints for him, as although I always check sources for these hints, they can be useful shortcuts. This number of hints is often a sign of someone who has already been fully researched by others and it is possible to check their sources to satisfy yourself that you are researching the same person.

But when I looked at the hints, they all related to Neri Hingley, not Neri Dingley. I know because most of them referred back to my original research on Neri Hingley which had been faithfully copied by someone else! But it did throw me for a little while. They were definitely not the same person. Surely the two men had no actual family connections? I had not found any in my forty years of family history research.

The Dingley family in Long Lane/Cocksheds Lane

While I was doing the basic research on the family of Sarah Eliza Dingley, which was where I first came across the Dingleys, I found myself looking at her older brother, William Dingley, (1810-1842) and filling in his family. There were a number of Dingleys living in Cocksheds Lane, Gorsty Hill, Malt Mill Lane and Long Lane, over a number of decades, another family who tended to settle near each other. One census record in 1881 caught my eye.

Ira Dingley (1836-1894)

Amongst the children of William Dingley and his wife Rebecca nee Hadley, was another Ira Dingley , Sarah Eliza’s nephew who, in the 1881 Census, was living with his wife Phebe and their daughter Eliza in Malt Mill Lane. They had had seven children between 1854 and 1873, with most of the familiar Dingley names, including yet another Ira (1869). Checking for the marriage of Ira and Phebe, I discovered that they had married in 1858 in Halesowen church and that she was a Hipkiss, the daughter of Thomas Hipkiss, nailer. I just can’t get away from Hipkisses, it seems, they lie in wait for me and leap out when I’m not expecting them.

Copyright: Mark Bryan who posted this picture of Malt Mill lane on Facebook in 2015. He thinks it was taken about 1900 and it appears to feature a Chapel Witness Procession, possibly for Whit Sunday. (I wonder whether the little building on the far right was the Malt Mill?)

And the Whittall family

The Whittalls lie in wait, too, it seems. Because by the time of the 1881 Census, Ira and Phebe were living in Malt Mill Lane, next door to a Joseph Whittall, his wife Ann and their son James, Joseph born in Gorsty Hill, Ann in Old Hill and James in Blackheath. No direct connections obvious there, I thought, though worth some more checking.

Also living with Joseph and Ann was a Hannah Taylor who was shown as Joseph’s sister-in-law and her son Joseph Taylor who was 3 years old. Joseph’s place of birth was Cocksheds, so he hadn’t moved far. His mother Hannah gave her place of birth as Chalford, Gloucestershire. That stopped me in my tracks. I already had a Hannah on my tree who was born in Chalford, Gloucestershire – that seemed a strange coincidence – was this the same Hannah? It was indeed. The name had stuck with me because I live only a few miles from Chalford now and know it well.

The Aldridge family

Hannah Aldridge had married Benjamin Taylor in 1872 and she was my great-great-aunt, the daughter of Ann Aldridge (1823-1869) who had been born in Rowley Regis but married a canal boatman David Aldridge from Chalford , Gloucestershire in Dudley in 1846 and had borne him two children, George Aldridge (1848-1908) and Hannah (1850-?) in Chalford before he died in Dudley in 1855, whereupon she had obviously moved back to the Black Country with her two children. In 1841 Ann had been living with her mother Hannah (nee Hodgetts) and step-father James Bird, her mother’s second husband, and she was living with James and Hannah again in Blackheath in 1861 (having been in Chalford with her husband in 1851). Ann’s maiden name was Whitehouse, the daughter of Joseph Whitehouse (1799-1828).

So, if Hannah was the sister-in-law of Joseph Whittall, how exactly was she related to him? Well, Joseph Whittall was the step-father of Benjamin Taylor, Hannah’s husband. Joseph’s wife Ann Whittall in this census had previously been married to Samuel Taylor who had died in 1852. What was this Ann’s maiden name, I wondered? I checked my family tree again. She was Ann Ingley – daughter of John Ingley and Mary nee Hackett. So … Ira Dingley was living next door to Ann nee Ingley who was the sister of Neri Hingley.

But that was not the only link in this complicated family. Ann Whitehouse, mother of Hannah, had married again, after the death of her boatman husband. In April 1862 Ann Alldridge had married – taraaah! – none other than my great-great-grandfather Neri Hingley. So Hannah Taylor, nee Aldridge was Neri’s step-daughter. Hannah was living with her step-aunt in 1881. I’m not sure how that made Hannah Taylor Joseph Whittall’s sister-in-law as I reckon she was his step-niece in law but she was certainly family of some sort! And Ann Whitehouse/Aldridge/Hingley’s son Neri Hingley (1862-1934) had married Phoebe Hodgetts (1865-1922) and had five daughters including my grandmother Beatrice Hingley.

There are two pages of the 1881 Census for Malt Mill Lane which read like a list from my family tree, this seems to have been another area where, once carefully examined, everyone was related to everyone else. Margaret Thompson, your great-grandparents George Eades and Elizabeth nee Harris were on the previous page, so no doubt these families would have been well known to them.

So, I finally arrived at the conclusion that (a) my attempt to move away, for a while, from researching Hipkisses and Whittalls had not really succeeded (and may never quite succeed) and (b) Neri Dingley and Neri Hingley may not have been related by blood but their families were certainly living very close if not next door to each other in the Gorsty Hill/Cocksheds area over a period of several decades and must have been closely socially intertwined. Neri Dingley may even have been named after Neri Ingley/Hingley, as he was born a few years after him.

I think I’ve worked it all out, made all the links, for now. But I have barely started on the other Dingleys so there may be more links to come!

My brain hurts again…!

Families of the Lost Hamlets – Finger-I’ the Hole, the 1841 Census

Having researched the Hill family of Finger-I’ the Hole (later known as Gadd’s Green) at such length in previous posts to my blog, I have been looking at what to explore next. As I concluded at the end of the Hill family study, it is now apparent that, by and large, the families in Finger-I’ the Hole especially and in the adjoining areas were so closely connected that any family I now investigate there will almost certainly link back almost immediately – in one way or another – to the Hill family.

So I have gone back to the 1841 Census to see who else was living in Finger-I’ the Hole in 1841 and whether or how they related to one another. The 1841 Census does not show relationships and adult ages are rounded down to the nearest five years (mostly, occasionally a presumably accurate full age is shown) and the origins of each person are limited to whether or not they were born in the County. So there is a certain amount of guesswork about relationships (which can sometimes be resolved by looking at the next census). I will look at the children shown here in more detail as part of further family studies but am just trying to establish how these mixed households related to each other at this point.

This was the census enumerator’s route which is shown on the first page of each batch of the census. It appears that the enumerator was approaching Finger-I’ the Hole from Tippity Green and he later moves on to Turner’s Hill before returning to The Bull’s Head and Cock Green so presumably the first families listed lived in the first houses he came to as he climbed from Perry’s Lake. There is no mention of Freebodies Farm in this census so it is possible that some of the people listed under Finger-I’ the Hole were living there although none of the occupations are shown as farmers.

The occupations appear to be shown only for the Head of the Household, even though it is highly likely that older sons, the women and some of the younger children would also have been working or making nails. This is better recorded in later censuses.

In censuses, a double stroke after a group of entries indicates that the entries for that household are complete. A single stroke indicates that a sub-group is living in the same house. At the end of the subgroup a double stroke then shows the start of the next household. I am not totally convinced that these were always correctly recorded, perhaps omitted sometimes from the pages I am looking at as at times it appears that there is yet another group living in the same household but the stroke or double stroke are not shown. But I will work on the basis of what is shown. Where I have been able to find the maiden names of the married women I have added these in brackets, these were not shown in the Census.

My apologies that the correct layout for the table has not copied over from Word so some names are spread over two lines – very irritating!

In 1841 then, living in Finger-I’ the Hole, were:

First Group

The Priests, the Taylors and the Hills

Christian name	Surname	Age	Occupation	Whether born In County
William	Priest	45	Nail m[aker]	Y
Sarah (nee Smith)	Priest	45		Y
Elizabeth	Priest	15		Y
Sub-household 1
Joseph	Taylor	40	Nail m	Y
Margaret (nee Bagnall)	Taylor	40		N
Emma	Taylor	12		Y
Josiah	Taylor	10		Y
Thomas	Taylor	8		Y
Mariah	Taylor	6		Y
Sub-household 2
Thomas	Hill	45	Nail m	Y
Catharine (nee Taylor)	Hill	45		Y
Thomas	Hill	15		Y
Eliza	Hill	15		Y
James	Hill	12		Y
Elizabeth	Hill	9		Y
Joseph	Hill	7		Y
John	Hill	5		Y
Catharine	Hill	5m		Y

So were there really three families living in one house here? Three adult men, nailmakers, with their families of one, four and 7 children respectively? It seems there were. Or perhaps this was a once larger house sub-divided, as discussed previously in my blog.

Were they related to each other? Yes, certainly in at least some of the cases.

William Priest had married Sarah Smith at Harborne on 3 October 1813. The parish boundary of Harborne at this time covered all of the Hill part of what later became the town of Blackheath and also included much of Whiteheath. So, although this couple had not been living in the Lost Hamlets at the time of their marriage, they were probably close by.

I have not yet identified how or whether William Priest and David Priest, the husband of Ann Hill and living just a few doors away, were related but I have not yet researched the Priest family in detail so that may yet emerge. They do not appear to have been brothers but I have more work to do on David Priest’s family.

Nor have I yet discovered whether Sarah Smith was a Rowley girl but again, that may become known. Sarah’s age, given as rounded down to 45 in the 1841 Census seems to be given ten years later in the 1851 Census as 43 but it is possible that this is not the same Sarah so more research is needed. There were 17 Sarah Smiths baptised in Rowley Regis St Giles alone, between 1790 and 1810 and another 21 at Dudley St Thomas, so it is not going to be a quick process to identify her with any certainty and for these marriages before Civil Registration started in 1837, family details are not given so I do not know who her parents were!

However, looking at the marriage of the next couple listed – Joseph Taylor to Margaret Bagnall, – I was interested to find that this took place at Kingswinford on 19 May 1823. And on the same day, Thomas Hill married Catherine Taylor, also at Kingswinford – a double wedding of the Taylor siblings, presumably. So finding those two families living together now makes more sense.

So there were connections between at least part of this household and their neighbours but more to be investigated.

Second Group

The Hipkisses, the Whitehalls & the Taylors

Christian Name	Surname	Age	Occupation	Whether born In County
John	Hipkiss	70	Nail m	Y
Ann (previously Nock, Nee?)	Hipkiss	60		Y
Paul	Hipkiss	20		Y
Sub-household
Solomon	Hipkiss	30	Nail m	Y
Sarah (nee Brookes)	Hipkiss	30		Y
Thomas	Hipkiss	9		Y
Hannah	Hipkiss	7		Y
Maria	Hipkiss	5		Y
Ann	Hipkiss	3		Y
(N/k in this census, actually Solomon Jnr)		5m		Y

John	Hipkiss Jnr	30	Nail m	Y
Priscilla (nee Guest)	Hipkiss	25		Y
Selena	Hipkiss	8		N
Henry	Hipkiss	3		N
William	Hipkiss	7m		N
Sub-household 1
Joseph	Whitehall	59	Nail m	Y
Sarah (prev.Taylor, nee Hipkiss)	Whitehall	69		Y
Sub-household 2
Elijah	Whitehall	25	Nail m	Y
Ruth(nee Priest)	Whitehall	25		Y
Sarah	Whitehall	6		Y
Tabitha	Whitehall	4		Y
Emanuel	Whitehall	2		Y

Philiss	Taylor	35		Y
Mary	Taylor	12		Y
Joseph	Taylor	9		Y
Samuel	Taylor	7		Y
William	Taylor	5		Y

Another interconnecting group –

Looking at John’s history, John Hipkiss Senior, from his age in the 1841 Census and at the time of his death in 1850, was born in about 1770. There were three possible John Hipkisses baptised about this time, two at Dudley St Thomas and one at Harborne. Only one was actually born in 1770, John, son of George and Margaret Hipkiss who was baptised on 25 Feb 1770. Another John, son of Edward and Mary was baptised at Dudley on 29 April 1764, which is a little early. The third John was baptised at Dudley on 5 December 1773, the son of John and Sarah. None of these seem to have died in infancy so it is not really possible to know for sure which was this John. However, none of this John’s numerous children was called Edward, George or Margaret so it is possibly the son of John and Sarah that we are looking at.

A Rowley killing

I noted an intriguing burial entry in the St Giles Register on 18 December 1792 when a William Richards was buried with a note that he had been “killed by Jno. Hipkiss”. Sadly I have been quite unable to find out any more about this event, whether or not there was an inquest or a trial, no mentions in the Press and whether this is the same John Hipkiss.

Military Service

Whilst researching, I also came across an entry in the Royal Hospital Chelsea Records for a Sgt. John Hipkiss who was discharged from the 37^th Regiment of Foot in August 1808 suffering from ‘diseased viscera and broken constitution’. I looked up viscera and it apparently refers to the soft internal organs of the body, including the lungs, heart, and the digestive and reproductive systems. Quite a poorly man, then. His age was given as 32 (so born in 1776) and his place of birth as Rowley, Staffs so it is possible that this is the same John. Interestingly there was another Hipkiss from Rowley on the same page of hospital records, a Corporal Joseph Hipkiss who had been discharged in October 1806, following a severe fracture at what looks like Trinidad – although the writing is not good and it may be that this is an obscure medical term I do not recognise. This Joseph was 36 then, so born in 1770. This was during the Napoleonic Wars when Britain was at war with France, which continued until 1815, and 1/6^th of all British men served in the army or navy during this period. They may have been brothers or cousins but Rowley was a large parish. There were probably a lot of Rowley men who served in the army during this time.

John’s marriages and offspring

However, it may have been this John Hipkiss who married an Ann Shaw in Dudley St Thomas in 1794, when he was about 24, the marriage witnessed by Sarah Hipkiss and J Bond. And it may have been this Ann, the wife of a Hipkiss who was buried at St Giles on 26 July 1798. An unnamed child of John Hipkiss was buried at St Giles on 19 August 1798, less than a month later and it is tempting to think that Ann may have died in childbirth and her baby a few weeks later. I cannot be sure but it is possible.

Certainly a John Hipkiss, a widower, married a Sarah Day, a spinster at Dudley St Thomas on 15 January 1799, just a few months later. Joseph Hipkiss, the son of John and Sarah was baptised at St Giles on the 5 January 1800, possibly or possibly not the Joseph Hipkiss buried at St Giles on 20 July 1802. Mary, daughter of John and Sarah Hipkiss was baptised at St Giles on 12 February 1804. On the 14 September 1806, Sarah, wife of John Hipkiss was buried at St Giles and only three weeks later, John, son of John Hipkiss was also buried there. Draw your own conclusions, but sadly I suspect that John had lost another wife and child in childbirth. And it seems possible that John had at least one living child to care for and would need another wife.

In addition to the birth of Solomon to Ann Nock, there is a baptism on 25 December 1807 of a John Hipkiss, son of Jno. and Ann Hipkiss at St Giles. Where does he fit into the picture? – I really don’t know since Ann Nock and John Hipkiss were not married until 25 November 1811. Perhaps John Snr managed to fit in yet another marriage in between which I have not yet found!

So I think it is fair to say that John Hipkiss Senior, as he appears in the 1841 Census, had a fairly complicated marital history. But it appears that he had at least one son – Solomon Nock– born before he married Ann Nock and that this Solomon was still living in his house with his own family and who continued to use the name Solomon Hipkiss for the rest of his life. Next door to them was John Hipkiss Jnr, born to John and Ann in 1807. There had also been twin sons James and Daniel born to John and Ann, and baptised on 8 December 1811, just a month after their marriage. I wonder whether the curate had realised that John and Ann were not actually married and put pressure on them to marry before the twins were born? Little Daniel’s burial on 1 January 1818 has a note that he, aged 3 weeks, had been found dead in bed with his mother. His twin James was buried a few months later on 29 April 1812, aged 20 weeks, of a bowel complaint.

Solomon Hipkiss and his family are in the household of John Hipkiss who appears to be the right age to be his father. However, I can find no trace of baptism for a Solomon Hipkiss anywhere in the area. He is very consistent in the 1841 Census, later censuses and his age given at the time of his death in 1884 that he was born in about 1810 in Rowley Regis and, since he was living with John Hipkiss it seems likely that he was John’s son.

So I looked at children called Solomon who were baptised in Rowley Regis at about that time and there were three.

Solomon Priest was baptised on 26 October 1806, the son of Mark and Rosanna Priest. But this Solomon died in 1808 so that rules him out.

Solomon Trowman was baptised at Rowley on 28 April 1811, the son of Thomas and Mary Trowman. But this Solomon appears to be alive and living in Cradley Heath in 1841 so not our Solomon.

The third Solomon was Solomon Nock who was baptised at Rowley on 24 December 1810, so exactly the right date. He was the ‘base born son’ of Ann Nock. Aha! And – oh look – I see from FreeREG that John Hipkiss, widower, married Ann Nock, widow at St Giles, Rowley Regis on 25 November 1811, less than a year after Solomon’s birth, their marriage witnessed by none other than Timothy Hill and also Richard Gaunt who was the Parish Clerk and probably frequently acted as a witness to marriages. Timothy’s wife Maria had been a Hipkiss until her marriage. Was John Hipkiss related to her? Very probably! So this was presumably the Ann who was living in the household of John Hipkiss in the 1841 Census and it seems likely that Solomon was John’s son, as he subsequently used that name.

Also in the house in 1841 was Paul Hipkiss, who had been baptised at St Giles on 5 September 1819, the son of John and Ann Hipkiss of Finger-I’ the Hole, John’s occupation given as a labourer. In later censuses Paul is shown as Ann’s son (John’s son, too presumably but he was deceased by that time).

It seems that the John Hipkiss Junior who appears next in the census is the John who was born in 1807. He died, aged 40 and of Gadd’s Green, in 1847 and was buried at St Giles on 28 December 1847 so from the age and date it seems likely this is the same person. Poor chap was noted as having died, on 23 December 1840, of rheumatism which seems unusual as a cause of death but medical diagnoses were somewhat inexact at that time. His death was registered by John Hipkiss of Gadd’s Green, his father and his death certificate was uncertified so that there is no knowing what a medical practitioner might have put. His death was followed in 1850 by that of his father, who died of old age, aged 80, also of Gadd’s Green and who was buried on 21 July 1850 so both of these Johns were gone before the next census.

John Hipkiss Jnr was living with his wife Priscilla nee Guest. They had married at Dudley St Thomas on 26 March 1832. The witnesses at the marriage were Thomas Allen and Thomas Whitehall, a name which will recur in this family. Their children Selina, aged 8, Henry aged 3 and William, aged 7 months were, unusually for this hamlet, noted as not having been born in Staffordshire. It took a while to find out more about Selina since she was born in 1832, before the start of Civil Registration but I eventually found her baptism at Christchurch West Bromwich where she was baptised as Ann Selina on 31 Jul 1836 with an incomplete note of her birth date as 19 ? 1832, with no month shown. I found a birth registration for a Henry Hipkiss on 1 July 1838 when the family were at Rood End, near Oldbury and Henry was also baptised there on 12 Aug 1838. In both baptisms the family were living at Rood End and his father was noted as a collier. The birth of William Hipkis was registered in the Kings Norton Registration District, William was born on 31 October 1840 in Streetly Street, Kings Norton and his father’s occupation was shown as a miner. He was baptised on 22 November 1840 at St Nicolas Kings Norton when his father was still shown as a Coal Miner.

However, by 1841, only a few months after William’s baptism, the whole family had moved back to Gadd’s Green, possibly because of his illness and so that his family could support them.

Sub-household:

The Whittalls

Also, apparently living in the household of John Jnr, was Joseph Whitehall, aged 59, as his name was shown in this census with his family. Elsewhere he is shown as Whittall and there are several other variations of this name in use around the area! There is only one likely marriage for Joseph and his wife Sarah, (aged 69) going by ages of themselves and their children’s ages and that marriage took place at Dudley St Thomas on 11 April 1813, both Joseph Whittall and Sarah Taylor being widowed.

Sarah Taylor’s previous husband was Josiah Taylor and they had been married on 13 September 1795 at St Giles. She had eight children with him, from Sarah Taylor in 1796, Mary in 1796, Catherine in 1799, Joseph in 1799, Elizabeth in 1803, Benjamin in 1803, Phillis in 1805, to Ann in 1806.

Joseph and Sarah remained in Finger-I’ the Hole, or Gadd’s Green as it was subsequently known until their deaths, Joseph died in 1855, aged 75 and Sarah in 1863, aged 93 (according to the Burial Register entry, although I make her age 88), both were buried at St Giles.

More connections:

Hmm, some of those names ring bells. When I look back to the first group, living in the household of William Priest, there are the two Taylor siblings, Catherine and Joseph who had a double wedding in 1823 in Kingswinford. And the ages of those two siblings match, given the five year variance in the 1841, with Sarah’s children. And it appears that this is who they were. Their re-married mother was living next door to them in Finger-I’ the Hole, in the household of John Hipkiss. And, guess what Sarah’s maiden name turns out to be, when I find the marriage of Sarah and Josiah Taylor? Yes, Sarah was a Hipkiss… And Sarah’s sister was Maria who was married to Timothy Hill, also living in Finger-I’ the Hole, whose family was the subject of my last family study.

Joseph and Sarah’s son Elijah Whitehall was also living with them in 1841 and he had been baptised at St Giles on 10 November 1813. By 1841 Elijah had married Ruth Priest at Dudley St Thomas on 1 June 1836, a first marriage for both of them, and their three children Sarah aged 6, Tabitha (sometimes known as Sabia or Sabiah), aged 4 and Emanuel aged 2 had been born. I cannot find baptisms for any of the children at present. The family were great users of biblical names and it is interesting to speculate that they were early Dissenters who had their children baptised by Methodist or Presbyterian ministers. Their use of unusual biblical names implies a good knowledge of the Old Testament. In later years, Elijah and Ruth had added Paarai (later known as Pharoah) in 1841, Mabel in 1844, Mary in 1846, Charity in 1848, Priscilla in 1851, Abraham in 1854 and Ruth in 1857. Elijah and Ruth remained in Gadd’s Green and Tippity Green for the rest of their lives, Elijah died in 1874 and Ruth in 1883, both were buried at St Giles. I will do some more work on the Whittalls in more detail at some point.

Phillis Taylor: Also with Joseph and Sarah was a Phillis Taylor, born in about 1805 – probably Sarah’s daughter from her first marriage, as the age is correct. Along with four Taylor children – Mary aged 12, Joseph aged 9, Samuel aged 7 and William aged 5. In the 1851 Census, Phillis is still living in Gadd’s Green with Sarah and Joseph Whittall and is described as a widow. It is possible, of course, that Phillis Taylor married a Taylor so did not change her surname but I cannot find a marriage for Phillis anywhere in the area. I found a baptism on 16 August 1829 for a Mary Ann Taylor at Dudley St Thomas, daughter of Phillis Taylor of Rowley, also a baptism for a Joseph Taylor, also at Dudley St Thomas, on 12 August 1832 when Joseph was described as the son of Samuel and Phillis Taylor of Rowley Regis, Samuel’s occupation given as a nailer. Phillis continued to live in Gadd’s Green, with various members of the Whittall/Priest/Taylor families but no husband, until her death in 1882.

Curiously I have found a Samuel Taylor, living in Rowley Village in 1861, aged 57 who might be about the right age to be this Samuel . He is a nailer, married to a Mary and has three children – Edward aged 18, Hannah, aged 12 and James aged 9. I was also interested to see that this Samuel was living next door to an Issachar Hipkiss (later known as Hezekiah) who was the son of James Hipkiss and Phebe Moreton – Phebe was the sister of Thomas Moreton who was married to Elizabeth Hill. This may be a coincidence but there do seem to be a lot of links between the Hipkiss/Hill/Taylor families, to say the least.

3^rd Group

Christian name	Surname	Age	Occupation	Whether born in county
William	Woodall	45	Nail M	Y
Elizabeth (nee Whithall)	Woodall	40		Y
Edward	Woodall	15		Y
Pheby	Whitehall	30	Nail M	Y
Mary	Whitehall	10		Y
Samuel	Whitehall	7		Y

Goodness, what a small household, only 6 people, but still two families.

To look at the second part of this household first, Pheby Whitall was the daughter of Joseph Whittall/Whitehall, living next door in this census, by his first wife Mary Worton who had died in 1810 a few months after Pheby’s birth. Mary and Samuel appear to be Pheby’s illegitimate children, had been baptised at Dudley St Thomas, Mary Ann on 12 September 1830, and Samuel on 4 May 1834, both described as children of Phebe Whittall of Rowley and both noted as illegitimate. So these three fit easily into the web of family relationships in Finger-I’ the Hole.

Woodall, however, is not a common name in the Lost Hamlets area, although there were Woodalls in the Rowley Parish Registers as early as 1611 and a William Woodall as early as 1626 when Elizabeth, daughter of William Woodall was baptised. In later times, the Woodalls tended to be in the Old Hill/Cradley Heath area or Dudley/Tipton/Sedgley. In fact I find that William is definitely a favourite Woodall name, it recurs constantly through the generations.

The age of 45 in the 1841 census means that William was aged between 40 and 44 so that indicates a birth year of between 1796 and 1801 and he was born in Staffordshire. When I searched FreeREG for the baptism of a William Woodall in this period in Rowley and the surrounding area, there were only two baptisms, one at Dudley St Thomas on 6 March 1796 of William, son of John and Mary Woodall, and the other at Tipton, for William, son of Thomas and Ann Woodall. The latter William appears still to be in Tipton in the 1851 Census so it may well be that the William in Rowley was the son of John and Mary baptised at Dudley St Thomas, remember that residents of Turner’s Hill and often Finger-I’ the Hole/Gadd’s Green frequently used Dudley rather than Rowley church.

The only marriage I found for a William Woodall marrying an Elizabeth was on 23 April 1821 at Dudley St Thomas when he married Elizabeth Wythall, both of Dudley. Wythall is not a common Rowley name either. This stymied me for a while. ( I can be quite dense at times!) Until it dawned on me… Hmm, was this a corruption of Whittall/Whithall? And sure enough, Elizabeth Whithall, the daughter of James and Phebe (nee Downing)Whitehall was baptised on 1796, so a good fit for this Elizabeth. And Elizabeth’s brother Henry Whittall was married to Mary Hill, eldest daughter of Timothy and Maria Hill. So that would account for this couple living in the Hill stronghold – Hill family connection firmly established!

I found a baptism at the Old Hill Primitive Methodist church, dated 9 April 1851 for an Edward Woodall which stated that he was born on 3 August 1823, that is, baptised as an adult, and that he was the son of William (a nailer) and Elizabeth Woodall, his abode given as Old Hill. And sure enough, William and Elizabeth are living in Garratts Lane, Old Hill in the 1851 Census and Edward, now a nailmaker and aged 26, is living at the ‘Back of Garratts Lane’, with his wife Ann and three children, Elizabeth aged 6, Jane, aged 3 and Edward aged 1month.

So, as I suspected at the end of my Hill family study, the Woodall family is also closely linked to the Hill/Whittall tribe!

The Priest household

Next along the row is the household of David and Ann (nee Hill) Priest which also includes Ann’s brother Joseph Hill and his family: I list them here for completeness but both families were covered in detail in my study of the Hill family.

Christian name	Surname	Age	Occupation	Whether born in county
David	Priest	35	Labourer	Y
Ann (nee Hill)	Priest	35		Y
Timothy	Priest	10		Y
William	Priest	9		Y
Mary	Priest	7		Y
Elizabeth	Priest	5		Y
Sub-household
Joseph	Hill	20	Coal Miner	Y
Betsey (nee Jones)	Hill	20		Y
John	Hill	5		Y
Cathrine	Hill	2		Y

The Moreton Household

The final household in Finger-I’ the Hole is that of the widow Elizabeth or Betsey Moreton, nee Hill. Again, this family was covered in detail in the Hill family study so they are included here just for completeness.

Christian name	Surname	Age	Occupation	Whether born in county
Elizabeth	Moreton (nee Hill)	35	Mail M	Y
Emma	Moreton	15		Y
Mary	Moreton	12		Y
Thomas	Moreton	8		Y
William	Moreton	5		Y
Elizabeth	Moreton	2		Y
Maria	Moreton	10		Y
Sub-household
John	Simpson	20		Y
Fanny	Simpson (nee Hill)	20		Y

The sub-household consists of John and Fanny Simpson. John and Fanny were married on 12 Apr 1841 at Dudley St Thomas. John Simpson was a minor, a bachelor and a Miner, with his abode given as Dudley Wood. Frances or Fanny, his wife, was Frances Hill, of full age, also of Dudley Wood. John’s father was Joseph Simpson, a potter and the bride’s father was Thomas Hill, a miner. Interestingly, the witnesses at the marriage were Thomas Hill and Elizabeth Moreton – and here they are, living with Elizabeth on 6^th June when the Census was taken. Was this Thomas Hill the same Thomas Hill who is listed in the very first household in Finger-I’ the Hole in this census? Well, it seems not as that Thomas and Catherine were not married until 1823 but there was another Thomas and Catherine Hill pairing who baptised other children, mainly in the Handsworth area at about that time. It is intriguing, though, that Elizabeth Moreton was clearly closely involved. I have not yet been able to link the Thomas Hill in the first group to the rest of the Hill family but will continue to work on this.

Summary

So there we have it, as I suspected at the conclusion of my Hill family study, it transpires that everyone living in the hamlet of Finger-I’ the Hole in 1841 was closely related to the Hill family. It seems extraordinary to me that the entire hamlet was inhabited by one family but it appears that this was the case.

I do not know the logistics of this, how ownerships or tenancies of the various parts of the family passed between members of the family, how it was decided who would live here and who would live just down the road in Perry’s Lake or Hawes Lane. But we already know that there were members of the Hill family living there for hundreds of years…

So, who owned the properties in Finger-I’ the Hole?

The Enclosure Act and Award 1807-08

About 300 acres of common pasture in Rowley in 228 separate holdings were ‘enclosed’ under this Act and various freeholders were mentioned in this. Richard Bate, a farmer bought some additional land adjoining his existing holdings at Tippity Green, Isaac Downing did the same at Turner’s Hill. Richard Gaunt acquired land at Portway Hall. Some of these names recur in later records.

The 1841 Poll Book

On Ancestry, there is a Poll Book for 1841 which gives the names and abodes of those qualified to vote in the Parish of Rowley Regis, the nature of the qualification to vote – ie. the land or property held – and where this property was. Interestingly, there are no Hills listed as voters in the Parish, so presumably they did not own land in the area but there are various other familiar local names.

A William Bennitt owned a freehold house and land in Oakham;

Benjamin Bate held freehold houses in Tippity Green; Ferdinando Smith of the Grange at Halesowen also owned freehold land and premises there. (I have a feeling that Ferdinando Smith may have been connected with the Earl of Dudley but I may be wrong!) I am slightly puzzled that the Earl of Dudley does not appear in this list as I suspect he owned a great deal of property in the area but I cannot find his name or title in the list, perhaps nobility were not permitted to vote in elections for the House of Commons, although no doubt they made their preferences known to their tenants.

Joseph Bowater is listed as the owner of a house and land at the Bull’s Head;

Other owners are listed as holding property –

John Bate lived in Garratt’s Lane, but owned one third of a house and land in Cock Green, the Bate family were in the licensed trade and owned the Cock Inn and Benjamin Bate, mentioned above, also had houses at Perry’s Lake.

Joseph Cookes, of a local farming family, had a house and land in the Knoll (Knowle), and Edward Fletcher of Netherton owned a freehold house and land there.

Charles Cox lived in Hall Street, Dudley but owned a house and land in Oakham, William Cox owned freehold land in Portway. Other voters in Portway included Joseph Green Bourne who lived in Dudley, the Rev. William Lewis who lived in Sedgley, John Mallin who also lived in Portway, John Taylor who lived in Birmingham, Joseph Woodhouse and John Williams who each owned a house and land and also lived on Portway.

Owners of land on Turner’s Hill included Joseph Downing who also lived there, Jeremiah Detheridge and Edward Foster who both lived on Portway Road, Benjamin Thompson who lived in West Bromwich, William Woodhouse who owned and lived in a house there and William Jewkes who lived in Dudley but let his house on Turner’s Hill to James Hipkiss (who is not listed as living in Finger-I’ the Hole in 1841but is listed as living just up the hill on Turner’s Hill). As might be expected John Levett had a house and land at Brickhouse and James Adshead Levett owned houses at Perry’s Lake.

Two members of the Hipkiss family appear on this Poll Book list: Joseph Hipkiss is listed as owning freehold houses at Springfield, William Hipkiss also owned a house and land at Springfield Colliery.

The Woodhouse family are also well represented: William Woodhouse owned and occupied a house and land at Oakham, Joseph Woodhouse lived in Kidderminster but owned a freehold house and garden at Portway, let to Joseph Lowe. Benjamin and Thomas Woodhouse, publican at the Wheatsheaf and farmer respectively are both listed as owning houses at Lye Cross.

Samuel Whitehouse is listed as occupying a house and land at Lye Cross Farm and John Whitehouse as owning a freehold house at Causeway Green.

There are dozens of entries in the Poll Book relating to other parts of Rowley village and the wider parish but I have concentrated on the owners of land in the immediate area of the Lost Hamlets.

There are only two specific references to Finger-I’ the Hole in the list, Samuel Partridge who lived at Long Lane, Halesowen owned a freehold house and garden there and William Partridge of Oldbury also owned a freehold house and garden, which was let to John Hipkiss. Partridge is a name I associate with the Long Lane/Quinton area (a dear life-long friend of my mother named Partridge lived off the top end of Long Lane until well into the 1980s and many of her family were from Quinton) which is indeed where Samuel Partridge was living. Perhaps their two houses were adjoining and let to various connections of the Hill family.

Or perhaps some properties in the area were under the direct control of the Earl of Dudley who was the Lord of the Manor, and were rented direct from him, which might account for the apparent continuing occupancy over such a long period of time.

But there were no Hills, no Moretons, no Whittall/Whitehalls, appearing in the Poll Lists for the Lost Hamlets area. Two members of the Hipkiss family appear to have owned houses in the Springfield area and there are members of the Priest family listed but they are all based in the Cradley Heath area where the Priests had a strong association with the Presbyterian chapel there. Some of the houses described as Turner’s Hill might also have been around Finger-I’ the Hole. So it is clear that the Hills and their immediate family were tenants of some sort and not land owners, which ties in with their apparently fairly humble status generally. This would have been the case for most ordinary people in those days, home ownership was not a common experience for humble folk.

What next? Further research on-going!

It seems possible that there were also family connections between the Hill and also the Hipkiss, Priest and Taylor families with Cradley Heath, Old Swinford and Kingswinford so there is more digging to be done there. Interestingly, whilst looking at members of the Hill family, I notice that a Thomas Hill was at one stage the curate at Oldswinford so that may help to explain family connections in that area!

I am also now working on the Priest and Hipkiss families to work out how or whether they interrelated and I will also be doing more work on the Whitehall/Whitall/Witall/Wytall families so more family studies are in the pipeline.

And I confess to being tempted to do a similar exercise as this for Perry’s Lake/Tippity Green in the 1841 Census and, perhaps, in due course, Turner’s Hill to further track the close contacts between these communities. But it is painstaking work, made even slower these days as I am finding that I must check that people are not duplicated on my own family tree, having arrived there through different connections. Knowing now, as a result of this research, how interrelated the local populace were, the ‘Merge with duplicate’ button on my family tree on Ancestry is coming into use more often! And, having merged duplicated individuals, the same exercise then has to be undertaken for their immediate relatives! I have eleven Edward Coles, ten Thomas Hills, ten Joseph Priests, for example, all with sufficiently different year of birth to make it likely that they are separate individuals but needing to be checked- So updates may take a little time.

Yes, I am a glutton for punishment but I hope that my faithful readers will find something here of interest!

Families of the Lost Hamlets – the Hill family 9 – an overview

In all, Timothy Hill (1763-1831) and Maria Hill nee Hipkiss (1782-1855) had seven children between 1800 and 1823, including Benjamin who may or may not have been the son of Timothy’s first wife Ann Priest or of Maria, his second wife. I have been aware of the number of children they had almost since I started my family history research but until now I had not realised how closely they all remained in their community.

Perhaps unusually for that period, it seems that all seven survived into adulthood and childbearing age. Although it is possible that there were other children that I have not found who lived only short periods or were stillborn.

Timothy was about 68 when he died. Two of the Hill sons died relatively young – Benjamin aged 44 in a colliery explosion and Joseph aged 49. Joseph was also a miner but the burial record contains no clues about his death. Samuel lived the longest of all the children, to the ripe old age of 90, very unusual for those days.

And the four girls also all lived long lives, most of them staying within the close neighbourhood of the Lost Hamlets. Maria, their mother, had lived to be 73. Mary Hill was 81, Ann and her sister Elizabeth (Betsey) were both 86 and Jane was 77 when they died. These were unusually long lives for those times, these girls must have inherited some strong genes!

Perhaps living up on the hill above the main settlements meant that they had space to grow some of their food, fresh air, free mostly of much pollution and similarly their water supplies from local springs were probably purer than water in wells lower in the valleys. Whereas many of the men were in quite hazardous occupations, their lungs subjected to constant exposure to coal dust, furnace fumes and quarry dust, with no safety equipment which may have impacted their health, not to mention the hazards of explosions in mines and quarries. But the women and children nail makers would also have worked in the dusty polluted air inside poorly ventilated nailshops.

Grandchildren

So how many grandchildren and great-grandchildren did Timothy and Maria leave?

Child No of children No. of grandchildren

Benjamin 4 27

Mary 9 53

Ann 6 28

Elizabeth 8 64

Jane 10 68

Joseph 5 27

Samuel 4 3

Total: 46 270

So, from their seven children, Timothy and Maria had about 46 grandchildren and the extraordinary total of about 270 great-grandchildren, 213 of these through their daughters so not bearing the Hill surname. Many of these stayed in the immediate area of the Lost Hamlets. So, I think it is fair to say that the Lost Hamlets were well populated with this family and their close connections.

I say about 46 and 270 grandchildren and because there are a couple of instances of people marrying their cousins so Timothy and Maria would be their grandparents twice over and there are also some children whose exact parentage is unclear. There may also have been some children who died in infancy who I have no information about. And a few people simply could not be traced after a certain point and they may have had more children wherever they were.

The Hill children married mostly local people, usually very local. Surnames of spouses in that generation include Whittall, Priest, Moreton, Taylor/Bridgwater, Hackett, Williams, Jones, Bate and Smith.

In the 1841 Census there are twelve households listed under Gadd’s Green or Finger-i-the-Hole, as it was known then, but I can only see one family listed there which is not named either Hill or one of the first four of these names – he was William Woodall. And even then, I suspect I will tie him into the Hill family at some point as he has a Pheby Hipkiss living in his household. So it appears to me that this hamlet was essentially a Hill family enclave. There were certainly Hills in Rowley as early as 1604, as mentioned in the Parish Register and it is likely that they were in the Lost Hamlets area then.

Timothy and Maria’s grandchildren married spouses called Tibbetts, Pearson, Worton, Pritchard, Steadman, Lowe, Whitmore, Blakeway, Jarvis, Parish, Cole, Hemmings, Bowater, Ingram, Leech, Homer, Slater, Priest, Redfern, Siviter, Beet, Parsons, Stokes, Nock, While, Payne, Westwood, Cox, Perry, Raybould, Pockett, Allen, Barnsley, Groves, Ennis, Fellows, Hadley, almost all of these familiar Rowley names.

The next generation linked with Bastable, Gazey, Horton, Harvey – and I have barely looked at that generation, there will be more names.

And yet there are other Rowley names which do not appear – no Parkes, Darbys, Rustons, Levetts, who were all farmers or business people. It appears generally that the Hill family married into families like themselves, nailers, labourers, miners, foundrymen, quarrymen – not many rags to riches stories but plenty of hard working people.

Family life for this part of the Hill tribe essentially centred – literally for centuries – around Gadd’s Green, on the Hill above Perrys Lake and Tippety Green which also provided homes for many of the overspill, which then edged along into Hawes Lane and Siviters Lane.

As I related in a previous post (Tales of Old Portway – https://rowleyregislosthamlets.uk/2023/10/15/tales-of-old-portway/) in a newspaper report about Portway, the reporter noted that “The cottage is said to be over 300 years old and one family – that of Hill, members of which reside in an adjacent cottage – lived there for nearly 200 years.” That 300 year old cottage was built then in about 1600, which ties in neatly with the first mention of John Hill in 1604.

This map shows Gadds Green in 1902 and there are only perhaps twelve cottages shown, none of them of any great size but as I set out in a previous post, (A Hall House at Gadd’s Green?) I think that the group of buildings shown on the right of the green circle on this map was where the Hill’s, in all their nomenclatures, lived and that it is likely that their house started as a hall house and was later sub-divided.

And when these descendants moved away they often stayed in close proximity to other members of the family, little colonies of Hills. And there were other Hill families in the area, these articles relate only to Timothy and Maria’s descendants.

Overcrowding

And the crowded conditions in which many of them lived and on which I have commented several times in these posts, were recognised by officialdom. In his 1875 report on living and sanitary conditions in Rowley Regis, Dr Edward Ballard (who prepared similar reports for many surrounding areas for the government) noted specifically:-

“Overcrowding of cottages, although, of course, not universal, nor perhaps very general, must, from my observation in this matter, be pretty common in many parts. Some of the worst cases I chanced to fall upon during my inspection were at a group of cottages at Gadd’s Green; in Mrs Siviter’s cottage at Hawes Lane, Rowley, and in one of the old cottages opposite the gas-works at Old Hill. In some of the instances of overcrowding which came under my observation, lodgers were taken in; in others the occupants belonged to the same family, but were grown-up sons and daughters of the tenant of the cottage with (in the worst case of all) a number of illegitimate children of two of the girls.”

I remember reading that paragraph for the first time, sitting in The National Archives in October 2023 and mentally noting the specific reference to Gadd’s Green. But it was only re-reading this section of the report last week that the penny dropped and, having done those detailed reports on each of the Hill children, I knew exactly which family Dr Ballard was referring to!

Improvements to Housing

The general overcrowding in the parish and the poor conditions of many cottages was to lead in the 20^th century to a huge programme of house building which led to the local council setting out big new estates around Britannia Road, below Britannia Park and below Rowley village in the Throne estates. Houses in poor condition were regularly inspected, condemned and either improved or demolished and the tenants were offered new houses.

The detailed inspections which were undertaken, to meet the obligations increasingly imposed on local councils by various housing legislation, can be seen free online in the Annual Health Reports which were made by the Medical Officer and Sanitary Inspectors to the Rowley Regis Council. Some of these are available at The National Archives and others can be downloaded from the Wellcome Foundation. If you search online for Wellcome Foundation and then search their site for Rowley Regis Health reports there are three pages listing reports, and you can download any of them to read later. They date from the early 1890s to the 1960s and make very interesting reading, dealing with all aspects of health, births and deaths, housing, sanitation, water supply and refuse disposal, many reports listing all the staff by name. And there were remarkably few staff with a lot of duties, especially in the earlier years! I have not found the reports for every year but enough to be able to observe the changes that came over the area.

What a contrast it must have been to move from a poorly maintained damp possibly subsiding two up two down cottage with no damp courses, earthern floors, poor water supply and little or no sanitation, into a newly built house with generously sized accommodation and front and large back gardens, a three or four bedroom house with a separate kitchen and bathroom, all on spaciously laid out and designed estates, not just long straight rows of cottages as had sprung up in Blackheath in the mid-late 1800s, all within easy walking access of Blackheath town, shops, churches and chapels, schools and all the facilities they needed. And very often with familiar faces living nearby as the worst areas were cleared.

Conclusion – Kith and Kin in the Lost Hamlets

I hope that my readers have found this long and detailed account of one family in the Lost Hamlets interesting and that it may have been helpful to anyone with Hill ancestors. I am seriously considering combining all these articles into an e-book to keep all the information together.

It seems likely to me that, for centuries, these small communities in these hamlets were very insular and did not really regard themselves as part even of Rowley village proper, until the growth of Blackheath, better housing and opportunities in industry enticed later generations away from the hill.

This family study has, for me, illustrated very clearly the intrinsic web of kith and kinship which existed in the area of the Lost Hamlets and the extent to which people in the Hamlets married the boy or girl next door. (Originally, “kith” meant one’s native land or country, then broadened to include friends and neighbours, kin meant immediate and wider family.)

I follow the blog of another One Placer who is working on a OPS of a village where his ancestors lived. Over the past couple of posts he has been describing how he now has one large tree which covers most of the people which he refers to as a ‘forest’, rather than a tree. I think there is something in that analogy but in my case I do not think the Lost Hamlets or even the Hill family amount to a forest. So I looked up other words for a group of trees and I decided that the word to describe the kinship in the Lost Hamlets is a ‘spinney’ which is apparently defined as “A thicket or small wood, often on higher ground”, a thicket by the way is “a dense, tangled mass of shrubs and small trees” which seems very appropriate. So my Lost Hamlets families are all part of the Lost Hamlets Spinney!

A ‘spinney’ on a hill! Copyright Mark Schofield and Glenys Sykes

It is now apparent that as I research for more family studies in this area that I will keep finding they were also kith and kin and will link back to this research and the work I have done on other families, more trees and shrubs within the Spinney! And I observe that such webs of kinship were the norm in many small places and in small places within larger places. Tribes might be another description, although that can have sinister connotations these days. But tribes looked after their own and protected them. This, albeit a long time later, is my tribe.

How astonished these people would be, I suspect, to stand in Tippity Green today and see that almost all of the places in which they, their ancestors and many of their descendants lived their lives have completely disappeared. More astonished still, perhaps, to know how much information about them we are able to put together two hundred years later, how could they have imagined such interest in them and their lives?

But these small hamlets and the people who lived in them will not be forgotten, at least by me!

Families of the Lost Hamlets – the Hill family 7 – William Hackett and Matilda Ennis

“Cradley Heath & Stourbridge Observer – 29 October 1864. Copyright BNLibrary.

This is an extended account of the lives of Matilda Ennis, her husband William Hackett and her children. I outlined this briefly in my piece on Jane Hill’s children but this gives a longer explanation of my researches into this matter. A full transcription of the newspaper article appears below, the article appeared verbatim in at least two newspapers I have found, so probaably in others, too.

“SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF A CHILD

An inquest was held on Friday last, at the Shoulder of Mutton, before Mr E Hooper, Coroner, on the body of Emma Hackett, aged 6 months.

Henry Duncalfe, surgeon, West Bromwich, deposed to having received the Coroner’s precept to make a post-mortem examination; that he had found the body in a very emaciated state, but every organ of the body healthy. The stomach contained half a teaspoonful of liquid, but there was no trace of poison. There was no doubt in his mind that deceased had died from want of nutrition, and it was clear that she could not have had any food for nearly two days before death; but if she had been purged, it was possible that if she had food within two days all traces of it would have disappeared.

Jane Hoddy swore that she lodged with Miss Matilda Hackett, the mother of deceased who was living apart from her husband. She had known deceased for six weeks, and she had been very delicate. Mr Phillips, who had been attending her, pronounced her to be in a decline, so she had heard Mrs Hackett to say. Mrs Hackett went from home on Monday morning week and never returned till the following Wednesday night. Witness attended the deceased. She took a quantity of bread and milk. Up to Friday she had not been purged. She was taken much worse on Saturday and no doctor was sent for. Deceased died on Sunday morning.

Matilda Hackett identified the body as being that of her daughter Emma and proved her death. She at first denied that any woman had been in her house on the Sunday before deceased died, but on the Coroner pressing the question, she said there had been some women there.

Sarah Edwards swore that on Wednesday last she heard that Mrs Hackett had gone from home, and her child Emma was dead. She also heard they would let no person see it. She went to the house and found two women there. They said Matilda had gone to Dudley. They said Emma was in bed. She went upstairs and on removing the bedclothes she found the child lying in its own filth, and must have been in that state a long time. She had not been purged. One of the women said she had taken more care of the deceased than the mother would have done if she had been at home, for she had given her her own breast which the mother would not have done.

Thomas Bevington, Police Constable, deposed that on Monday he had received information that Hackett’s child had been poisoned, whereupon he went to Mr Philips [apparently a local doctor] and told him what he had heard. He said reports must not be attended to, but he did not give a certificate. The case caused much talk in the neighbourhood and an inquest was much desired. Consequently he reported the whole of the facts to the Coroner. On Sunday, before the death, there had been several prostitutes in the house.

The Coroner, in addressing the jury, stated that all the evidence had been laid before them that could be obtained , and upon that evidence their duty would be to find a verdict; but at the same time he must caution them against placing too much reliance on the mother’s evidence, considering the unsatisfactory manner in which she had tendered it.

The foreman said the Jury returned a verdict that the deceased had died from exhaustion, produced through want of sufficient nourishment; and they were of opinion that the n-mother’s conduct had been most inhuman, but that the evidence, in their opinion, was not quite sufficient to warrant them in committing her for manslaughter.

Matilda Hackett was called in, and severely admonished by the Coroner, who informed her that in as much as the deceased was the fourth child she had lost under similar circumstances, he considered it his duty to cause a strict watch to be kept upon her movements, at the same time informing her that she had very narrowly escaped a verdict of manslaughter. In his opinion, she had been guilty of very disgraceful conduct.”

This sad tale was a newspaper report which I found while I was researching the Hill family, and working on William, son of John and Jane Hackett (nee Hill). William Hackett had married a Matilda Ennis at Dudley St Thomas in April 1856, so his wife was Matilda Hackett. Could this be her?

The 1861 Census showed that there were three Matilda Hacketts living in the Rowley/Blackheath area at this time – but one was too old to be the mother of the child. Another was the wife of Thomas Hackett, she had been Matilda Willetts and they were living in Hyam’s Hill in 1861 with their five month old son and next door to her parents. The other Matilda was married to my William Hackett and in 1861 they were living in Blackheath with a son George who was 7 (her illegitimate son born in 1854, so some time before the couple married) a daughter Elizabeth, born in 1857 and a son John who was 1 month old. Was this the same Matilda?

I checked the 1871 Census for Matilda Hacketts to see whether these Matilda Hacketts were still in the area. I found the first Matilda mentioned above still with her husband Thomas, now in Halesowen Road with the son who had been five months old in 1861, now 11 plus three more children born in the interim. So it did not seem to be her.

What of the other Matilda Hackett with her husband William? They were not in Blackheath in 1871 and I could not find either Matilda or William Hackett of the right age nearby.

I checked what children the couple had had. I checked for birth registrations and found the birth of George Henry Ennis in the first quarter of 1854, with no MMN so probably illegitimate. This was confirmed when I found his baptism in Dudley on 3 September 1854, which listed his mother, of Queen’s Close, Dudley but no father. This also recorded his date of birth which was 17 January 1854. So he was the eldest child listed with the family on the 1861 census.

Then there was Elizabeth, born in 1857, John who had been born and died in 1858, John who had been born and died in 1861 and Eliza, born in 1862. Then there was an Emma born in 1864. Oh dear. This was sounding familiar.

Back to basics then.

Matilda, I discovered had been born in Dudley in 1835, the child of quite a big and apparently respectable Dudley family. Her father Benjamin had died in 1835, the year she was born but she had five older brothers of whom only two survived infancy and an older sister. Her uncle Joseph Ennis was a stone miner but later the gate keeper at Dudley Castle for many years.

A general search for Matilda found another marriage. Matilda appeared to have remarried in Smethwick in 1868, describing herself as a widow. But I couldn’t find a death registration for William Hackett between 1861 when he was listed in the Census and 1868 when Matilda re-married. I checked FreeREG for burials, too but couldn’t find a burial either for a William Hackett of the right age. But it was not unheard in this era, because of the expense and difficulty – and stigma – of divorce for ordinary people, for separated couples to ‘marry’ again, possibly in an area where they were not known and to pretend that they were widowed. Matilda seemed to have married Thomas Lane, a carter, at Smethwick, as Matilda Hackett and with her correct father’s name. The happy couple had a son Thomas Charles Jabez Lane in the third quarter of 1869.

But I now knew that I was looking for Matilda Lane, not Hackett in the 1871 census. But I could not find a Matilda Lane in the 1871 Census either , so where was she?

I searched the 1871 Census for the children.

I found an Elizabeth Hackett of the right age and born in Rowley Regis, living as a servant in Oldbury Road, Smethwick and the family for whom she worked, although a name I did not know, had two younger children of 7 and 6 who had been born in Rowley Regis so the family had obviously lived there at some recent point. The husband was a Railway Contractor so perhaps he had been involved with the building of the railway there – I see that the station at Blackheath had opened in 1867 so the dates for that are exactly right. So this may well be William’s daughter. And by this time, I later discovered, Matilda was also living in Smethwick…

Then I looked for George, under the surnames of both Ennis and Hackett. Nothing for George Ennis but there was a George Hacket living in Halford Street, Smethwick – the same address given as the abode of Thomas Lane, father and son in their various register entries. George was with his mother Matilda Jones, and his sister Eliza H, aged 7 and an Albert Hacket, aged 4 who had been born in Spon Lane, Smethwick and, although he had been given the surname Hackett there was no Mother’s Maiden Name, so this implied that he was illegitimate. George and Eliza appeared to be the right children. But Matilda, who was 35, was shown as being married to John Jones, aged 26, a puddler and he was noted as the father-in-law (step-father) of the children George, Eliza H(?) and Albert Hacket. Was this Eliza the Eliza Jane born in 1862? The age in this census suggests she was born in 1864 but I cannot find such a birth registration so it may be her. Or did that earlier Eliza die – or was there another baby?

And where did John Jones come from?

I then discovered that Matilda’s new husband Thomas Lane had died, aged 29 in July 1869 and was buried in Smethwick. His abode was given as Halford Street, Smethwick.

And the baby Thomas Charles Jabez Lane also died, in the third quarter of 1870, aged 11 months and his burial entry shows the same address. Oh my, another infant death and another dead husband.

Thomas Lane had only died in July 1869 – and little Thomas only in 1870, surely she had not married again so quickly? Well, yes, she had.

Matilda Lane had married John Jones at St Stephen’s, Birmingham on the 5^th April 1870, just nine months after Thomas Lane died and while the baby was still alive. In 1881 the family were still at Halford Street with another son Reuben, aged 7, son of Matilda and John Jones. Albert Hacket was also still there, aged 15.

But in 1891, although John Jones and Reuben were in Smethwick, John Jones’s wife was named Louisa and her age was twenty five years younger than Matilda. Matilda had died in 1886.

So Matilda‘s life story was that she:-

Had one child in 1854 – George Henry Ennis who survived into adulthood.
Married William Hackett in 1856 and had five children, Elizabeth 1857, John 1858-1858, John 1861-1861, Eliza Jane 1862-?, and Emma 1864-1864. At least four of her children died in very early infancy, of diarrhoea or (implied) neglect and she was separated from William by the time of Emma’s death in 1864. Reprimanded by the Coroner who was going to have a watch kept on her. There is the implication that she was – at the least – sharing a house with prostitutes and that the deaths due to neglect of her children was well known to local people who were disturbed by this.
Had a son Alfred Hackett in 1867, father unknown, born in Smethwick, who survived into adulthood.
Married Thomas Lane in 1868, he died in 1869. Thomas Lane, at least, did not die due to Matilda’s negligence. His death certificate says that he was crushed by a wagon upsetting on him – what terrible luck, after only 15 months of marriage. , their child also Thomas died aged 11 months in 1870, of diarrhoea.
Married John Jones on 5 April 1870, had a child Reuben in 1874, was still with John Jones in 1881.
Matilda died in Derby on 19 August 1886, aged 51, of Diabetes which she had suffered from for 9 years. Buried in Derby.

John Jones

It appears that John Jones had moved to Derby at some point between 1881 and 1885, where he must have worked as an iron puddler. After Matilda’s death, he married Louisa Hinton in Derby in the last quarter of 1886. They had two sons and were still living in Litchurch, Derby in 1891. Sadly both of those babies died within weeks of birth so Matilda was not the only mother whose children did not survive those early months. However, by the time of the 1901 Census the couple were back in Smethwick and in 1911, they were living in Dawley in Shropshire where John was working as a Roadman for the County Council. John had been born in Wellington, Shropshire so he had returned to his roots. Curiously, although they had married in Derbyshire, Louisa and her family came from Dudley and they had lived in Dudley until at least 1871: the link is in their occupations again – Louisa’s father had been a furnaceman, John was a puddler. I have lost track of the couple after 1911, too many John Jones around!

Matilda’s surviving children

Those children who survived infancy become difficult to trace after this.

George Ennis or Hackett does not appear to be in Derbyshire with his mother and step father and I cannot find any definite record of him after 1871.

I think I have found Eliza in service in Handsworth in 1881 so she did not move to Derby with her mother and step-father. This census entry states specifically that she was born in Blackheath, rather than Rowley Regis. She may well have married after that but I have not yet found her thereafter.

Alfred Edward Hackett must have moved to Derbyshire with his mother and John Jones as he married there in 1888, two years after his mother’s death. He had one daughter Edith Ellen in 1890 and appears to have remained in Derbyshire for the rest of his life, dying in 1922.

Reuben Jones was in Derby with his father in 1891 and may well have remained there as there is a record of a Reuben Jones of the right age being buried in Derby in 1944. However, his date of birth in the 1939 Register does not fit with the birth registration for Matilda’s son so this is unclear.

Matilda as a mother

If Emma was William Hackett’s child, he and Matilda were together – at least part of the time – until no later than 1864. But if the hints of prostitution are correct, Emma may not have been his child. Whoever her father was, however, it seems clear that Matilda did not find motherhood easy and was inclined to neglect her children. She did not even register all their deaths herself, after the first, shown below. The death of the second child called John was registered by a neighbour, the death of Emma by the Coroner.

The first infant John died aged 4 months from ‘lientery’ as shown on the partial death certificate above– a form of diarrhoea where food passes undigested through the body which had been of three moths duration. Why would a four month old baby be given food, almost from birth? Would he not be breast fed? Apparently, though, it was common for babies to be fed ‘pap’, a mixture of bread and milk, especially in orphanages where there were no wet nurses available.

The second John died aged 6 months, also of diarrhoea, this death was registered by his half-brother George Hackett, by then 16. This was in 1861 – why was the death not registered by Matilda or by William? Had they already separated by then? Was Matilda in denial or unwilling to register the death? Just as she apparently left the dead body of six month old Emma in her bed and left the town for several days.

The death of little Thomas Lane, aged 11 months in 1870 (who also died of diarrhoea after only six hours of illness) was registered by a neighbour Adeline Smith who had been ‘present at the death’. Curiously this neighbour and her husband had also witnessed the Lane’s marriage. And yet, I cannot find any trace of a woman of this name (or her husband) in the 1871 census, only a few months later, anywhere in the area.

The report in the account of the inquest mentions a comment by one of the women in the house where little Emma’s body was found had said that this woman ‘had given her her own breast which the mother would not have done” could perhaps imply that Matilda may have had an aversion to breastfeeding which could account for a lot if this had been a problem with all her babies and would account for them being fed on unsuitable food at an early age. Not every woman finds motherhood easy or natural.

Given what we also know about sanitation and water supply in Blackheath, it is not perhaps surprising that some babies died of such things but there does appear to be an unfortunate pattern in these deaths. Or perhaps Matilda was just in denial or unlucky.

What happened to William?

Another mystery. William Hackett, coming from a prolific family where children – legitimate or not- were cherished and cared for within the family group, must have found his situation after this death and inquest, appalling and shameful although no reference or reproach was apparently made to him by the Coroner, nor does he appear to have given evidence to the inquest which may be telling in itself, as it may imply that William was out of the picture by this point.

I have looked at every local burial and every death in the country of a William Hackett between 1861 and 1867 when Matilda re-married and ruled them all out on age or other grounds so I cannot find any evidence that he died. There was a William Hackett living in Cradley Heath in later censuses who was about the right age but I also found the same family in Cradley Heath in the 1861 and 1871 census so this was not our man.

And yet it seems strange for him to abandon children? Would someone from his family not have taken him in in his distress? Had all the children he knew to be his died? Did he change his name and move away, or emigrate and start a new life? Did he kill himself somewhere he was not known and was buried unknown? A brick wall I shall no doubt return to and look at again from time to time. But, of all the Hill descendants I have looked at, in all my years of family history research, this is undoubtedly the saddest story I have found.

Families of the Lost Hamlets – the Hill family 6 – Jane

Jane Hill was baptised at Dudley St Thomas on 2 July 1809, daughter of Timothy and Maria Hill. She married John Hackett , also at Dudley St Thomas on 29 December 1828. The witnesses were Henry and Mary Whitehall but we know them as Whittall – Jane’s eldest sister and her husband. The name was fairly flexible at this time and as most people were illiterate they could not know whether the clerk or priest had spelled their name in a different way from the priest in their local church. And I have noted that Henry Whittall was a witness at most of the family weddings.

I have not been able to find out much about John Hackett. He was a collier and he was literate enough to sign the Register at his marriage. He was born in Staffordshire, we know from the 1841 Census, the only one he appears in. From the age given at his death he was born in about 1808 but how accurate that was we cannot know. I cannot find a baptism for him but then, neither can Ancestry, FreeREG, FamilySearch or FindMyPast nor anyone else researching this John Hackett on Ancestry. But it seems likely that he was fairly local and there were certainly Hacketts in Rowley Regis at this time.

Jane and John Hackett had nine children in the fourteen years they were married – Rebecca (1829), John (1831), William (1833), Thomas (1837), Jane (1839), Sarah (1840), Joseph (1843) , Alice and Leah, (both 1844, Alice in the first quarter, Leah in the last quarter.).

In the 1841 Census John and Jane are living in Perry’s Lake, with their first seven children Rebecca, aged 12, John, aged 10, William aged 8, Thomas aged 4, Jane, aged 2 and Sarah, aged 1. Thanks to a Death Certificate uploaded to Ancestry by another researcher, (Thank you, Nigel Croft) I know that John was killed in a fall of coal in a pit at Rowley Regis on 27 April 1844, his death registered by the Coroner so there was clearly an inquest, although I have not been able to find any press reports of it. John was buried at St Giles on the 30^th April 1844, leaving Jane with eight children to care for and another on the way.

By 1851 Jane was back in the Hill enclave at Gadd’s Green, living in the household of her younger brother Joseph Hill, his wife and two daughters. With her are Thomas aged 14, Jane aged 12, Sarah 10, Joseph 8, Alice 7 and Leah 6. So the three eldest children were living elsewhere – Rebecca was married and her brother John was visiting her, William – by then about 18 – was, I think, lodging in Perry’s Lake, with the Griffiths family, he was working as a coal miner.

On one side of Joseph’s household were living David and Ann Priest, with their six children, on the other side a Thomas and Catherine Hill with their five youngest children (not in this direct line of Hills – as far as I know, so far…!) and beyond them Elijah and Ruth Whittall and their eight children. More connections in the Hill dynasty, to be discovered in due course, I am sure.

The 1861 Census finds Jane living in Rowley Village as a lodger in the household of John Taylor, 35, a nailer and only a couple of doors from the Ward Arms so probably in Hawes Lane. With her are Joseph, Alice, Leah and another child Ann who was 7.

Yet again, they are surrounded by familiar names. On one side is Jane’s son Thomas Hackett with his wife Jane and one year old son John, lodging with him is William Stokes with his wife Sarah nee Hackett, Jane’s daughter and their son John, aged 3 months. Next along the road is Elizabeth Hopewell with her family. Elizabeth was a widow but we have come across the family before and Elizabeth’s later born son Edward Hopewell (or Brooks or Oakwell which were names he used at various times) who, a few years later , was to marry Jane’s great-niece Phoebe Priest, the granddaughter of David and Ann Priest. And next along, with his family is Henry Taylor who may well be related to John Taylor– yet to be determined. The Taylors are another family who are not just a genealogical rabbit hole, they are a whole genealogical warren! But the pattern is the same. Even as the family spread out from their base at Gadd’s Green, they go only a short distance and even then, live surrounded by family connections.

By 1871, Jane Hackett had become Jane Taylor – yes, another Hill daughter marrying a Taylor… On the 9 July 1865 Jane, aged 56, married John Taylor – or Bridgwater, it says in the marriage record, aged 40, no details given of the groom’s father. The witnesses at the marriage are Jane’s son Thomas Hackett and his wife Jane. Presumably the John Taylor she had been lodging with in 1861. I have Bridgwaters in my family tree but let’s not go there. At least, not at this moment… but I see that Timothy Hill’s mother was a Bridgwater, too. As usual, the more I look at local families the more the Lost Hamlets web continues to expand. By now they were shown as living in Club Buildings and were there also in 1881.

Although John used the name Bridgwater at this marriage, thereafter they used Taylor in all records, including his death and burial. Other researchers on Ancestry show Bridgwater as his birth name which is quite possible, if his mother subsequently married a Taylor and he then used his step-father’s name, this was not uncommon. But I have been unable to find a baptism in the correct period for this John under either name.

Jane and John Hackett’s children

Rebecca 1829-1910

Rebecca was born in 1829 and was baptised at Dudley St Thomas on 16 August 1829. Her father’s occupation was shown as a Collier and his abode as Oldbury, although this might have included areas around Whiteheath. Certainly by 1841 the family were living in Perry’s Lake.

Rebecca married Samuel Barnsley on 24 May 1847 at St Giles, when she was living in Perry’s Lake and he in Spring Row. He was a stone quarry man, as was his father, also Samuel. Samuel had been baptised at Dudley St Thomas on 8 April 1827, the abode for his parents, Samuel and Charlotte Barnsley was shown as Oakham.

Their first daughter Priscilla was born in 1847, followed by nine more children – Sarah (1849), Samuel (1851), Mary Ann (1853), Rebecca (1853), John (1858), Mary J (1860), Lavinia (1862), Annie (1867) and Thomas (1869).

Samuel died and was buried at St Giles on 14 June 1893, aged 66 and of Church Row. Rebecca lived in Rowley for her whole life. She died in 1910 and was buried at St Giles, on 26 July 1910, aged 81, of 39, Hawes Lane.

John Hackett 1831-1909

John was baptised on 24 April 1831 at Dudley St Thomas and in 1841 he was living with his parents and siblings in Perry’s Lake. By 1851 he is shown as a visitor with his sister Rebecca and Samuel Barnsley in Perry’s Lake, aged 20.

On 20 June 1853, at Dudley St Thomas, John married Priscilla Groves, the marriage witnessed by his cousins Eliza Whittall and Joseph Hill. His occupation was shown as a miner. In 1861 they were living in Peartree Street, Old Hill with their daughters Catherine – sometimes Caroline, Ann and Louisa. Their neighbours? Well, I notice that on that one page of the census, with twenty five people listed, there are families named Priest (two families), Groves, Barnsley, and another family of Hacketts. On the previous page are Priests, Willetts, Halls. I think we can assume they were surrounded by kith and kin! A fourth daughter Martha came along in 1862 and a fifth, with the unusual name of Viannah or Vihannah in 1865. Martha and Vihannah were to marry Saunders brothers at a later time.

In 1871, the family are still in Reddall Hill, plus Alice Hackett, who is John’s sister. Although there is a child William, born in 1869, apparently listed as the child of John and Priscilla in this Census, it is my opinion that William is in fact the son of Alice Hackett, John’s sister who is staying with them as she is shown as the head of the sub-household and his name appears as her son below hers in the list. His birth was registered without a Mother’s Maiden Name which indicates that he was illegitimate. In any case, by this time Priscilla was about 50 so the child is unlikely to be hers. In this entry John is listed as Thomas, a coal miner but the remainder of the family is correct, so this must be an error, unless John had become John Thomas – not noted anywhere else.

By 1881, John and Priscilla had moved to Bowling Green, near Netherton – foreign parts, more than two miles from Rowley! Here John was shown as a nail maker but his two daughters Louisa and Martha are chain makers and Vian as a nail maker. In 1891, John and Priscilla were living in Brook Lane, Reddall Hill where John had apparently taken employment as a labourer in a Timber Yard. They were shown as lodgers but were living with Alfred and Martha Saunders, Martha being their daughter. Alfred is shown as Arthur in this census but is Alfred in all other records so this appears to be an error, he was also a chain maker, in those few miles from Rowley village, chain making was much in evidence in this area, nail making not appearing on this sheet of the census return.

Priscilla died in 1892 and was buried at St Lukes on 4 August 1892, aged 60 according to the Burial Register which is also the age shown on the death registration. But this is another instance of varying ages in different records. I cannot find any record of baptism for her. But in the 1841 Census she was shown as 15, so could have been up to 19, giving an approximate year of about 1826. In 1851, still living at home with her parents in Plants Green, she was 27, again computing to 1824. In 1861 she was 28(!), in 1871 51(1822), in 1881 61(1820), in 1891she was 69 (1822). So, somewhere between 1822 and 1824 is my best guess which would have made her much nearer to 70 than 60 at the time of her death. But she was several years older than her husband so perhaps she was coy about her age and possibly even her children did not know her true age.

John Hackett in the 1901 Census was with his sister Alice Fellows at 61 Enville Street, Stourbridge, a retired Miner and aged 70. He died in 1909 and was buried at St Luke’s Cradley Heath on 25 March 1909, aged 76 and his abode given as 24 Petford Street.

William Hackett (1833-?)

William was baptised on 15 September 1833 at Dudley St Thomas and is living with his family in Perry’s Lake, in the 1841 Census. In 1851, when his mother was a widow and had moved back to live with her brother, he was lodging with the Griffith family in Perrys Lake and working as a coal miner.

On 21 April 1856 William, son of John Hackett, miner, deceased, had married Matilda Ennis, daughter of Benjamin Ennis, at Dudley St Thomas and in 1861 they were living in Blackheath, with George (7), Elizabeth (4), and John, (1 month).

Elizabeth had been baptised at St Giles on 11 October 1857, I cannot find a baptism for John.

George Henry Ennis, son of Matilda Ennis, according to the record of his baptism at Dudley on 3 September 1854, had been born on 17^th January 1853 so William was probably not his father, although it appears that George used the name Hackett thereafter.

It appears from a newspaper article I found that several of Matilda’s children died in early infancy, at least one of them of neglect and it also appears that by 1864 Matilda and William were separated. Matilda goes on to marry twice more before the 1871 Census, and in 1881 she was living with her third husband in Smethwick. That husband remarried in Derby in the last quarter of 1886 and I found that Matilda had died there, of diabetes, aged 51. I may do a separate piece about Matilda as her life was so complicated.

William is also elusive after this point. I cannot find William after 1861, but nor can I find a death for him. The situation with Matilda must have been deeply humiliating and the loss of several children with possible implications of neglect must have been utterly heart-breaking for him, coming as he did from a family where children, whatever their birth circumstances, seem to have been cherished and welcomed.

Perhaps William moved away, perhaps he emigrated, perhaps he simply chose to disappear – it is impossible to know but it is a sad story.

Thomas Hackett (1836-1919)

Thomas was baptised at Rowley Regis on 28 August 1836 and in 1841 he was in Perry’s Lake with his family. In 1851 they were in Gadd’s Green.

On 29 August 1859, Thomas married Sarah Jane Whittall, daughter of Samuel and Mary Whittall (nee Hipkiss) of Portway and in 1861 they and their one year old son John were living in Hawes Lane, (possibly Club Buildings although the census does not specify this), part of that little group of Hacketts, Taylors and Hopewells we have already noted in connection with Thomas’s mother Jane.

By the time of the 1871Census Thomas and Sarah Jane had joined other relatives in Barrow-in-Furness where they were living, along with other Black Country furnacemen, amongst a whole community who these pages of the census show were mainly drawn from Staffordshire and Worcestershire – later censuses show that Thomas was working at the Bessemer Steel Works who obviously recruited workers from the many blast furnaces in the Black Country.

Some statistics

In his book The Little Book of the Black Country [i]Michael Pearson gives some interesting numbers of industry in the Black Country.

In 1800 there were 160 collieries, producing 500,000 tons per annum.

By 1868, there were 540 collieries, producing 10,206,000 tons per annum.

In 1796 there were 14 blast furnaces, by 1806 there were 42.

By 1868, there were 167 and iron production ran at 855,000 tons of finished product from 2,100 puddling furnaces.

20,000 people were employed in the Black Country Iron Trade which had doubled in 68 years. So there was plenty of experience for Barrow-in-Furness to call on.

By 1860, within five miles of Dudley, there were:

44 pits

181 blast furnaces

118 iron works

79 rolling mills

1,500 puddling furnaces.

No wonder the Black Country was black!

But although these numbers obviously declined and the heavy industry now disappeared I can remember looking out from the Grammar School on Hawes Lane in the winter and seeing the glow of numerous furnaces even in the early 1960s. Today the closure of some of the last remaining blast furnaces in the country has just been narrowly averted – what a change. So many skills, so much experience gone – which can probably never be recovered. Let’s hope we don’t suddenly need to have a steel industry again.

Steel Working in Barrow-in-Furness

The Morecombe Bay Partnership say the following about the Iron Works there:

“In 1859 Schneider, Hannay and Company established the iron works in Hindpool, marking the beginning of what would be the largest iron and steel works in the world. Twelve blast furnaces were built in the 1860s producing 5000 to 5550 tones of iron each week. In 1866 18 Bessemer convertors started making steel from the iron smelted at the iron works. By 1903 7000 tons of steel was produced a week. A large amount of the steel was used to make rails for railways all over the world. From 1962 no new steel was made, instead scrap was melted to produce steel. The steel works became part of British Steel in 1964 and the works closed in 1983. All that is left is the slag banks which have now been landscaped and opened from walkers.”[ii]

By 1871 Thomas and Sarah Jane had had four children – John (1860-), Mary Jane (1867- born in Rowley), Alice (1869 – born in Barrow), and Eliza (1870). They went on to have Ellen (1873), Thomas (1875), Sarah (1876), Louise (1878), Rose (1880), and Frederick (1882), ten in all. And boarding with them in the same house in 1871 were Sarah Jane’s brother Reuben Whithall (24), plus Benjamin Tibbetts (22), Samuel Ellis (18) (from a distant part of the country called Wednesbury so not a familiar name!), and one other Rowley man whose name I cannot read, also 18. And one 11 year old servant girl. Imagine the washing and cooking required to look after three children under five and those five men working in hot filthy conditions.

Thomas and Sarah stayed in Barrow-in-Furness for the rest of their lives, Sarah appears to have died between the 1891 census when she was still in Barrow, listed as a grocer at 2 Lincoln Street, with her family and 1901 when Thomas is listed with a different wife.

This article in the Barrow Herald, dated 14 September 1895, seems to indicate that Sarah was still alive and well and still in Barrow in 1895 but in Newbarns, not Lincoln Street. I cannot find a death registration or a burial for a Sarah Hackett of the right age in the years between 1891 and 1901. Had Thomas and Sarah separated?

Thomas appears to have married again, to Alice Standbridge in Coventry in 1897. Alice’s initials appear differently in different records so it has not been possible to find her before the marriage to Thomas.

Thomas died in Barrow in January 1919, a few years after Alice. I cannot trace a burial for Sarah Jane but Thomas and Alice were buried in the same grave so what happened to Sarah is something of a mystery.

Jane Hackett (1839-1907)

Jane was baptised on 14 April 1939 at St Giles, Rowley Regis. She was at home with her family in 1841 and 1851. In 1861, there is a Jane Hackett, aged 23 and born in Rowley, living as a lodger in Cherry Orchard, Old Hill, with William Chapman and his family. Also lodging with the Chapmans is a miner named Thomas Bagley, aged 24 born in Dudley. I have no real evidence that this is the correct Jane but she is the only single Jane Hackett of the correct age in the area. Jane did not die or marry between 1851 and 1861, and I cannot find her living with any of her family so it is probable that this is her.

In 1861 Jane had a daughter Ann, followed by George in 1864, Maria in 1867, William in 1869, Sarah in 1874, and Jane in 1876. During the whole of this time Jane Hackett was apparently a ‘lodger’ in the household of Thomas Bagley, the one who had also been lodging in the same house as Jane in 1861. The births of all of these children were registered as illegitimate. Jane is shown as Hackett and ‘boarder’ in 1871 and Bagley in later censuses and the children were shown as the children of Thomas Bagley but listed as Hackett. Until 1881 when Jane is shown as the wife of Thomas Bagley and all the children are shown as his children and listed as Bagley, the name most of them appeared to have used. So it seems extremely likely that Thomas Bagley was the father of them all.

In 1880 a last child was born but this one, Thomas, was registered as Bagley with a MMN of Hackett and was always known as Bagley. This might be taken to imply that Thomas Bagley and Jane Hackett had married by this time. However, I cannot find a marriage for Jane Hackett and Thomas Bagley at any time anywhere in the GRO records.

In 1901 Jane can be found in Harborne, listed as Jane Bagley, widow, visiting her married daughter Maria.

Jane died and her death was registered as that of Jane Bagley aged 69, of Elbow Street, Old Hill and she was buried as Jane Bagley in St Giles on 15 May 1907. One can, of course, in law, call oneself any name one likes, providing we do not do so to deceive and it appears that for nearly forty years Jane was to all intents and purposes, the wife of Thomas Bagley. There is no obvious reason why they did not marry, although it seems likely that Thomas was himself illegitimate so perhaps he saw no need. Or perhaps he had a previous wife living, although he described himself in censuses as unmarried and I cannot find such a marriage. We shall never know.

Sarah Hackett (1840-1865)

Sarah was baptised at St Giles, Rowley Regis on 8 Jun 1840.

On 19 September 1859 Sarah married William Stokes at Halesowen and in the 1861 Census she and William and their son John, aged 3 months are living with Sarah’s brother Thomas Hackett in Hawes Lane, next to Sarah’s mother Jane. In 1864 they had a daughter Ann but Sarah died on 30 August 1865, of Typhoid Fever, having been ill for three weeks. She was buried at St Giles aged 26, on 3 September 1865.

It is possible that John was the baby John Stokes of the Village, aged 11 weeks who was buried at St Giles on 9 May 1861 .There were three John Stokes born in the first quarter of the Dudley RD but this is the only baby of that name buried in 1861 in the area around Rowley which does seem a bit of a coincidence. I cannot find John with his father after that date. Nor can I find William Stokes with Ann in the next census, nor in fact William himself with any certainty. So the whole family seems to have disappeared, sadly. It is possible that they moved to a distant area but I cannot find them, if they did.

Joseph Hackett (1841-1925)

Joseph was a dream to research, he was where I expected him to be, when I expected him to be, no mysteries, no disappearances, such a pleasure!

Joseph was baptised on 20 November 1842 at St Giles. Born a few months too late for the 1841 Census, he was living with his mother in the 1851 and 1861 censuses. On 16 July 1865 Joseph married Sarah Ann Perry at St Giles, Rowley Regis. Sarah’s family lived in Rowley village, with their eleven children, next to the Ring of Bells pub which was opposite the parish church (as you might guess from the name of the pub!).

Sarah had an illegitimate daughter Sarah Jane in 1864 and she lived thereafter as their daughter and was listed as Hackett in censuses. However, when Sarah Jane married in 1895, she used the name Perry, not Hackett and gave no details of her father so it seems that Joseph was not her father.

Joseph and Sarah lived on Dudley Road, Cock Green for the rest of their lives and Joseph worked as a coal miner all of his life. In 1911, aged 68, he was still working as a miner/loader (underground) although by 1921 – when he was 79 and six months, he was finally described in the census as retired. The ‘old age pension’ had been introduced on 1 January 1909 with a non-contributory pension of 5 shillings (25p) per week to individuals aged 70 or over, a significant step in providing financial security for the elderly.

They had fourteen children, according to the 1911 Census, although I can only find birth registrations for thirteen, including Sarah Jane. Of these two had died so twelve survived. If a child was born dead that birth would not have been registered but no doubt the couple would have counted such a child as one of their own which may account for the different number. So, there came Hannah in 1866, Phebe in 1867, Thomas in 1868, Joseph in 1870, Polly in 1872, Harriet in 1875, John in 1877 who died in 1878, Benjamin in 1879, Selina in 1882, Jim in 1885 and Clara in 1889.

Sarah died in 1924, and was buried at St Giles on 26 August, aged 80. They had been married for 59 years. Joseph followed barely six months later and was buried at St Giles on 18 April 1925, aged 83 and of Dudley Road where they had lived all their married life.

Another fourteen grandchildren for John and Jane Hackett, most of whom appear to have stayed in the Rowley area.

Alice Hackett (1843-1924)

Alice was baptised on 16 July 1843 at St Giles, Rowley Regis. In 1851 and 1861 she was living with her mother, in Gadd’s Green and then Hawes Lane. In 1869, it appears that Alice had a son William, as he is listed after her in Reddall Hill, where she was lodging with her older brother John and his family. I think that this is the William Hacket, aged 2, of the village who was buried at St Giles on 14 Jun 1872 as I cannot find this William after that date and he is certainly not living with his mother at any later points of record.

On 14 October 1872, Alice married Noah Fellows who was a maltster and in 1881 they were living with her mother and Jane’s new husband John Taylor in Hawes Lane, together with their children John Thomas (1873), Ruth (1875), Noah (1877) and Alice (1879). Another son Joseph was born in 1882 and William in 1885.

Noah Fellows, you think – well, that’s a distinctive name, should be easy to track him. Except that there were three Noah Fellows born, one in the September quarter of 1846 in the Dudley RD, one in the following quarter in the Stourbridge RD and one in Shifnal in Shropshire in June 1848. I’m sure they are all closely related and in the same family at some point but fortunately in censuses, the two I am interested in each usually say where they were born – in Cradley or in West Bromwich. Alice married the Noah who was born in Cradley and at a later stage they moved back to Cradley, and then to Wolleston.

Noah died in 1914. Alice died in January 1924, in Stourbridge. Their children seem to have settled slightly further afield than most of the Hill decendants, settling either in the Stourbridge area, where Noah’s family were from, or in Birmingham.

Leah Hackett (1844-1864)

Leah was baptised on 26 January 1845 at St Giles. In 1851 she was living with her mother in Gadd’s Green in her uncle Joseph’s household. In 1861 she was again, aged 16, with her mother in Hawes Lane where her mother was lodging with John Taylor.

In the last quarter of 1862, Leah married Titus Hadley somewhere in the Dudley RD. Unfortunately I cannot find any details of where this marriage took place or exactly when. Both of these parties have unusual names and both appear to be the only ones born in the relevant period so it would look easy to trace them. It ain’t necessarily so…

I was able to find two men named Titus Hadley, in the 1861 Census, one born in 1842, and the other in 1845. One of these, Thomas Titus Hadley, was living with his parents and family in Shepherd’s Fold in Blackheath. The other, born in Causeway Green, off Penncrickett Lane, was living in Club Buildings with his grandmother Martha Westwood, aunt Phoebe Westwood and sister Martha Hadley. This seems the likely candidate to me, given the, by now, frequently evidenced tendency of local people in this area to marry their neighbours. Leah was just along the road in Hawes Lane at this time.

Which of these is the Titus Hadley referred to in this press cutting, I am not sure.

It coincides almost exactly with the Rowley Titus’s later marriage to Emma after Leah’s death, the paternity hearing being reported in September 1865 and Titus married Emma in October 1865 which may or may not be relevant. Or this may have been the other Titus Hadley.

It seems likely that Titus and Leah Hadley were the parents of Samuel Hadley, whose birth was registered in the first quarter of 1864 and who was buried on 21 July 1864 at St Giles, aged 6 months and of Club Buildings.

Leah died and was buried on 4 April 1864, aged 21 (according to the Burial Register entry although her death registration has her age as 19 – let’s say she was about 20… ), three months before baby Samuel.

There were actually three male children born to Hadley/Hackett parents in just three years – John in 1862, Samuel in early 1864 and William in the last quarter of 1864. (Another child, Edward was born to this combination in 1866 when Leah had been dead for two years. So there must have been another Hadley/Hackett marriage in the village. I will probably find it at some point.) So William cannot have been their child but John possibly could. I cannot tell unless I buy the birth certificates, a temptation I am currently resisting. However, I cannot find baptisms for John or Samuel, nor a burial for John so these are unknowns at present. Later Hadleys were certainly active Methodists so it is possible that babies were baptised in the Methodist tradition, for which records are patchy at this period.

After Leah’s death, Titus re-married to Emma Whithall in October 1865 at Halesowen, (who was on the same page in the 1861 census, living with her father William in Club Buildings.) They had four sons, Joseph, Titus, Alfred and Jason and lived in Birmingham Road and Station Road, Blackheath until Titus’s death. He was buried on 6 May 1922 in St Giles, aged 81.

So these were the nine children of John and Jane Hackett, nee Hill.

Ann Hackett 1854-1923

And then there was Ann Hackett, the daughter apparently born to the widowed Jane Hackett on 7 February 1854 in Rowley village, father unknown. Oddly, this Ann seems to have been baptised as the daughter of Jane Hackett of the village, but not until 2 Mar 1868, when she would have been fourteen. In 1861 and in 1871, Ann is living with her mother and step-father.

I do wonder whether Ann was actually the daughter of Jane Hackett’s daughter Jane. Jane Hackett, nee Hill would have been 45 in 1854, her daughter Jane would have been 15 so either would be possible. There is no way of telling from the birth certificate , it merely says Jane Hackett as the mother. However, in the censuses, Jane Hackett Senior describes Ann as her daughter and I have left her as that in the family tree. It was not unusual for parents to raise a grandchild, particularly one born illegitimately to a young girl so it does seem possible to me. The only thing which gives me pause is that Jane named her own first-born daughter of her marriage, in 1861, Ann. Although that was also the name of her husband’s mother so he could have decided that.

In 1873, Ann Hackett married Benjamin Tibbetts in the Ulverston Registration District, presumably the same Benjamin Tibbetts who had been lodging with Ann’s half brother (or uncle!) Thomas in Barrow-in-Furness in the 1871 Census and presumably they married in Barrow.

Elizabeth was the first child born to Benjamin and Ann, she was born in 1874 in Barrow-in-Furness. But by 1876, when their second daughter Annie was born they were back in Rowley Regis, living in Hawes Lane in the 1881 Census. The Tibbetts family lived in Hawes Lane until by 1901 they were at 70 Rowley Village. Later children were William Benjamin (1882), Jane (1883-1890), Mary (1886), John Thomas (1888), Harry (1890), George Frederick (1894) and Lucy (1902).

In the 1911 Census, which asks how many children were born alive in the present marriage and whether they were still alive, Ann says that there were thirteen children, of whom 7 were alive. I can only find birth registrations for nine, however but spelling errors in one or other of the surnames might have prevented me from finding the others.

In 1821, Ann was still living in 7 Hawes Lane and was recorded as a “Midwife Certificated”, so apparently still working at 68 years and 4 months. No doubt she would have been a familiar figure in the local community. By 1821 Annie was lised as a widow and there is a death registration for a Benjamin Tibbetts in the last quarter of 1915 which is for someone of the correct age; however, I cannot find a burial for him. He had worked as a labourer at the quarry for the whole of his working life in Rowley, perhaps he is one of those anonymous faces we see in old photographs of quarry workers.

Annie died on 4 Nov 1923 and was buried at St Giles on the 8^th November, aged 70.

Finally…

John Taylor, or Bridgwater, second husband of Jane,died in 1882 aged 55 and was buried at St Giles on 25^th April.

Jane Taylor, previously Hackett, nee Hill of Club Buildings, survived him by four years and died in 1886, aged 77 and was buried at St Giles on 21 July 1886.

Jane Taylor, nee Hill, had at least 9, probably 10 children and they in turn added at least 69 great-grandchildren to Timothy and Maria Hill’s dynasty.

Only two more of Timothy and Maria’s children to come in the next instalment, with possibly another diversion en route!

[i] The Little Book of the Black Country by Michael Pearson, The History Press. ISBN 978 0 7524 8783 0

[ii] https://www.recordingmorecambebay.org.uk/content/stories/iron-steel-works-barrow-furness

Families of the Lost Hamlets – the Hill family 5 – Elizabeth

Here is the next instalment about the Hill family, about Elizabeth, the next daughter of Timothy Hill and Maria Hipkiss. It was going to be about Elizabeth and her sister Jane but was too long and complicated before I had even finished Elizabeth so Jane will be in the next instalment.

ELIZABETH HILL (1806-1892)

Elizabeth was the first member of the Hill family that I researched when I started my family history journey in 1980. She is my great-great-great-grandmother. And, because she lived in Gadd’s Green she was perhaps the start of my interest in that place and therefore planted the seed which grew into this One Place Study all these years later. So I have a fondness for Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was born, probably in 1806 or thereabouts and was baptised on 16^th March 1806 at St Giles, the daughter of Timothy and Maria Hill. There were no details in the Register at this period of abodes or occupations.

On 26 December 1825, at Tipton church Elizabeth married Thomas Moreton (thought, by me at least, to be Ralph Thomas Moreton, born in Harborne – see my previous article on this[i]). The witnesses were Henry Whittall, her brother-in-law, who had married her older sister Mary in the same church two years before. The second witness was Thomas Shorthouse.

Many marriages at this time took place on Christmas and Feast days as they were the only days working men got holiday. The 25^th December 1825 was a Sunday so presumably men got the Monday off instead.

I do not know why several weddings of Rowley people took place at Tipton at this time, there may be family connections in this case.

Another Moreton wedding at Tipton

And in November 1826, another wedding took place in this church which was of Phebe Moreton, (sister to Ralph Thomas Moreton) who married James Hipkiss. Another Hipkiss connection! The witnesses at this wedding were Thomas Moreton (brother of the bride and my 3xgreat-grandfather) and another familiar name – Thomas Shorthouse, presumably the same Thomas Shorthouse who had witnessed Elizabeth’s wedding a year earlier! Thomas Shorthouse does not appear on my family tree. Yet!

James and Phebe Hipkiss then settled – where else? In Finger I’ the Hole, later known as Gadd’s Green, just a couple of doors away from David and Ann Priest, and Phebe’s brother and sister-in-law Thomas and Elizabeth Moreton and their family.

Phebe Moreton, (also born in Harborne parish to Francis and Ann Moreton, like Ralph Thomas) had given birth at the Poorhouse in Rowley in 1822 to a ‘base-born’, an illegitimate son Thomas, according to the record of his baptism on 24 February in 1822. So Phebe had been in the Rowley area for several years. And Harborne was not as far away as it sounds – the parish of Harborne stretched right out to parts of Whiteheath so the family might have been there. This Thomas was living with Phebe and James on Turner’s Hill in 1841 so he had evidently not been cast off when his mother married.

Back to Elizabeth:

Elizabeth and Thomas Moreton had several children. The first, Emma, was baptised on 15 October 1826 at Dudley St Thomas, the daughter of ‘Thomas and Betsey Morton of Dixon’s Green, labourer’. Dixon’s Green is just past Oakham on the way to Dudley, so very close to home. Their next daughter Mary Ann was also baptised at St Thomas on 16 August 1829 but this time the parents were shown as Thomas and Elizabeth Moreton of Rowley. After that came Maria (1831) and Ralph Thomas (1832) and William, my great-great-grandfather who was baptised on 2 April 1837 . William was a posthumous baby, his father Ralph Thomas had died and was buried on 2 October 1836 at St Giles, aged 36 and of dropsy, according to the burial register. So Elizabeth was left with five children to bring up.

However Elizabeth went on to have three more children in the years after Thomas’s death – Elizabeth in 1839, Eve in 1842 and Edward in 1844. No clues exist in records as to the identity of their father but family legend has it that all three were the children of George Smith, of Oakham (just up the hill) who was the famous (or infamous) hangman. The other legend about him is that he sold, as grisly souvenirs, pieces from ropes he had used to hang people, allegedly giving rise to the phrase ‘money for old rope’.

Elizabeth continued to live in Gadd’s Green until 1871 when she is found living in Siviters Lane with her daughter Mary Ann, Mary Ann’s husband Joseph Taylor and their five children. But by 1881, she was back in Gadd’s Green, living with her daughter Eve and her husband Joshua Taylor and nine of their fourteen children. Elizabeth was also living with Eve and her family in Gadd’s Green in 1891.

Of Thomas and Elizabeth’s children:

Emma Moreton (1826-1895)

Emma was baptised on 15 October 1826 at Dudley St Thomas. Her parents may have been living in Dixon’s Green at this time. She had an illegitimate son John Moreton,( sometimes later known as Priest or Redfern – it’s confusing!) John was baptised on 13 June 1847 at St Giles. There is no indication who his father was.

Emma married Thomas Priest,( sometimes known by his step-father’s name of Redfern, just to add to the complications), on 10 June 1850 at Dudley St Thomas. Thomas was the illegitimate son of Ann Maria Priest, he was born in Rowley in 1826 and was living with his mother and stepfather on Turner’s Hill in 1841, listed as Thomas Priest. In the 1851 Census, Emma and Thomas were living in Gadd’s Green with Emma’s son John Moreton, now aged 4 and shown as Priest, their eldest child Sarah, then aged 1, in the household of Ann Hipkiss, aged 73 and Paul Hipkiss aged 32, although I have not yet worked out whether there is a connection with the other Hipkisses in this family group. It seems quite possible if I can just untangle it!

By 1861 Thomas and Emma had moved to Turner’s Hill where they lived between Thomas’s Redfern step-father Joseph Redfern and his half-brother – also Joseph Redfern. In this census Thomas Priest is listed as Thomas Redfern but as his family of Emma, John and their other children are living with them, it is clear that this is the correct family. I suspect that, living in a family group, the Enumerator Richard Bate who was local, perhaps knew that Thomas had grown up in the Redfern family, probably thought of Thomas as a Redfern and listed him accordingly! Or he may just have made an error in transcribing his notes.

Thomas and Emma Priest had nine children together: Sarah’s birth was registered in the first quarter of 1850, so just before Thomas and Emma married and she was registered as Moreton so she was illegitimate. It is quite possible though that Thomas was her father and she appears as Sarah Priest in 1851, 1861 and 1871Censuses. However, I have not been able to trace Sarah after that 1871 Census, neither death, censuses nor marriage as either Priest or Moreton so she will have to remain a mystery for the moment.

Thomas and Emma Priest’s other children were Joseph (1854), Thomas (1857), Ann Maria (1858-1858), Elizabeth (1859), Ann Maria (1859), Mary Ann (1862), Eliza 1864) and Emma (1867-1944).

Mary Ann Moreton (1829-1886)

Mary Ann, Thomas and Elizabeth’s second daughter, was baptised on 16 August 1829 at Dudley St Thomas.

This is getting to be a familiar start to these pieces – it appears that Mary Ann’s daughters Hannah (1853) and Sarah (1856) were illegitimate, born several years before Mary Ann married in 1859. Certainly the birth registrations for both girls showed no name for the father and were both registered under the name Moreton, although later they appear to have used the surname Taylor, their stepfather’s name. I cannot find a baptism for Hannah or Sarah. Although the family were living next door to the Methodist chapel between Perry’s Lake and Gadd’s Green at this time so it is quite possible that they were baptised there. Records for that chapel have never been traced.

I also noted the birth of an illegitimate Eliza Moreton in the second quarter of 1852 in the Dudley Registration area and her death in the last quarter of that year. I could not find a baptism for this child, but I found her burial at St Giles, aged 8 months, of Gadd’s Green. So I did not know who the mother of this child was. I was tempted to send for a digital copy of the birth certificate, as this would tell me. But frustratingly, the GRO Website told me that technical reasons, a digital copy was not available so I would have to send for a more expensive paper or .pdf copy. Then I thought of buying a digital copy of the Death Registration as with luck, this would fill in the gaps. And it did. Eliza was the daughter of Mary Ann, the first of her children. She had died at only 8 months of a ‘bowel complaint’ with no medical attendant involved. Poor baby.

There was also a baptism on 10 July 1859 at St Giles, for an Emma Moreton, daughter of Mary Ann Moreton of Gadd’s Green. It was one of two Emma Moreton’s born that year, both with no father shown so perhaps two of the Moreton sisters had daughters called Emma that year. Since this child does not appear with Mary Ann or in the area in the 1861 Census or thereafter, I suspect that she may be the Emma Moreton whose Death Registration was in the last quarter of 1860, aged 1. This Emma Moreton was buried at St Giles, on 11 November 1860, aged 1 year and 5/6, that is 1 year and ten months which would put her birth in something like September 1858, which fits with the second illegitimate Emma Moreton registered that year in the last quarter of the year. I have not yet discovered who the other illegitimate Emma Moreton was!

It seems that it was quite usual for the Moreton girls to have one or two (or more!) illegitimate children before they got married, whereas their mother had three after she was widowed! With Mary Ann, however, she had four which may all have been the children of one relationship or may suggest a certain promiscuity, or even that Mary Ann was following the ‘oldest profession’ before she married. I hope I do not offend any other Hill family historians with that observation but the family patterns do seem to indicate a fairly relaxed attitude towards extra-marital encounters and the outcomes!

Mary Ann Moreton then married Joseph Taylor, at Dudley St Thomas on 18 December 1859. Thomas was a Boilermaker and gave his abode as Dudley. The witnesses at the marriage were Eve Moreton, the bride’s half sister and Joshua Taylor. In fact it was a double wedding because Eve Moreton married Joshua Taylor the same day and Mary Ann and Joseph were the witnesses to their wedding! From their respective father’s names Joshua and Joseph were not brothers but may well have been related in some way. Research continues on that.

In 1861 Joseph and Mary were living in Gadd’s Green and all the surviving children were shown as their children and listed under Taylor but by 1871 they had moved to Siviters Lane where Mary Ann’s mother lived with them for a time, I also found the family there in 1881 although by that time Elizabeth Moreton had returned to Gadd’s Green to live with daughter Eve.

In all, Joseph and Mary family consisted of six children, five daughters and one son (only the latter four of these were apparently Joseph’s). These were Hannah (1853), Sarah (1856), Ann Maria (1864), John (1866), Elizabeth (1868),and Mary Ann (1869). (Hannah later married a Job Taylor, too – the mind boggles, I have not done any work on that generation yet!)

Mary Ann Taylor, nee Moreton died in 1886 and was buried at St Giles on 8 November 1886, aged 57 and ‘of Rowley village’. Joseph Taylor died in 1901 and was buried at St Giles on 7 November 1901, aged 70.

Maria Moreton (1831-?)

In the course of my researches into infant births in the Hill family, I found a baptism at St Giles for a Sarah Moreton on 26 Jun 1854, an illegitimate baby and her baptism gives her mother’s name as Maria Moreton of Gadd’s Green, who was Mary Ann’s next sister. Unfortunately I can find no trace of Maria after that census. It is possible that she married but if so, I cannot find the Civil Registration entry for it. Nor can I find a death. Perhaps Maria went into service elsewhere, although I have not found her in any censuses, I suppose it is possible that she emigrated, although the family seemed to stick very close to Rowley. Nor can I find any trace of Sarah after her baptism, no census entry in the next census in 1861, no death entry, just another brick wall. Watch this space!

Various trees on Ancestry appear to confuse Mary Ann Moreton and Maria but they are definitely separate people, both appear on the 1841 and 1851 Censuses and were each baptised on different dates.

Ralph Thomas Moreton (1832-1894)

Thomas Moreton was born to [Ralph] Thomas and Elizabeth Moreton in 1832, this is the approximate year which computes from six censuses and his death registration.He was not baptised, however, until 2 April 1837 when he was baptised at Dudley St Thomas at the same time as his younger brother William. By this time his father was dead, having died in October 1836. In most records he was recorded as Thomas Moreton but not all, at baptism he was baptised as Ralph Thomas, his death was registered as Ralph Thomas and he named his son Ralph Thomas, it seems to have been a family name!

Thomas was at home in Gadd’s Green with his mother and siblings in the 1841 and 1851 Censuses. On 6 September 1857 Thomas married Mary Ann Siviter at Dudley St Thomas.

Mary Ann Siviter was a minor, according to the record and no details were given of her father in the marriage record so she was presumably illegitimate.

Mary Ann’s year of birth has been a puzzle to work out. In all of her records Mary Ann gave her place of birth as Rowley Regis. But her age varies between censuses. In 1841, she was five months old, giving a birth year of 1841which is, let’s face it, most likely to be accurate, it is difficult to make a mistake of several years at that point! And in 1851, she was ten, then in 1861, 1871, and 1881 her age gives a year of about 1835 – but in those years she was shown as being the same age as her husband Thomas so this may have been an error or whoever was completing the form genuinely believed they were the same age. In 1891, the birth year is about 1841, in 1901, she was noted as 57, giving 1834 again and in 1911, it is back to 1841. But in 1911, she is listed as an Old Age Pensioner and to claim that she would have had to prove her date of birth. So it seems likely that this is the correct year. And there is an illegitimate Mary Siviter born in the last quarter of 1840 which would tally with the 1840/1 date. And this would make her seventeen at the time of her marriage so she was indeed a minor.

And I did find a baptism for a Mary Ann Siviter, born to Judith Siviter. This baptism was at St Giles on 12 November 1843 and Judith Siviter was the only parent listed. In 1841 Judith Siviter was living in Treacle Street which was in Springfield, with three children Elizabeth, aged 5, Samuel, aged 3 and Mary Ann. Judith was also from a Rowley family. So Mary Ann grew up close to the Moretons, who were living just up the hill in Gadd’s Green.

[Ralph] Thomas and Mary Ann Morton (at about this point the name began to be spelled without the ‘e’) lived in Cock Green, later described as Dudley Road, Springfield and had eight children. These were: Emma (1853), John (1855), Eliza (1860), Joseph (1864), Ralph Thomas (1866-1923), Sarah Ann (1869), William (1871) and Samuel (1877).

Ralph Thomas Morton’s death was registered under that name in the first quarter of 1894 and he was buried at St Giles on 28 March 1894, aged 58 and of 102 Dudley Road. His widow Mary Ann Morton died in February 1913 and was buried at St Giles on 18 February 1913.

William Moreton 1837-1899

William Moreton was my great-great-grandfather on my dad’s side. He was baptised on the 2 April 1837 at Dudley St Thomas. William’s father had been buried in October the previous year so he never knew his father. But his family continued to live in the Hill enclave in Gadd’s Green!

In 1841 and in 1851 the Moreton family, with the widowed Elizabeth as the Head of the household, were in Gadd’s Green, in 1841 with a couple living with them as lodgers. In 1851 Frederick Whittall, Elizabeth’s nephew and his wife and two young children were living with them. It must have been quite crowded with twelve living there. William was 15 in 1851 and working as a coal miner.

On the 4 April 1858 William married Elizabeth Beet at St Giles and their first daughter Mary Jane (also known as Polly) was born in August 1858. William and Mary eventually had thirteen children: Mary Jane (Polly) (1858), Emma (1861), Ralph Thomas (1863-1863), Elizabeth (1864-1865), Ann Maria (1866-1866), Alice – my great-grandmother – 1868-1902, Joseph (1871-1871), Sarah (1872-1872), William (1873-1928), Hannah (1876-1953), Ann Eliza (1878), Minnie (1881-1956, and Edward (1885).

Elizabeth Beet was born in 1839, the daughter of Joseph and Mary Ann Beet (nee Parkes). The Beet family were originally from the Nuneaton area but had been settled in Rowley Regis since the early 1800s. They were distantly related to John Beet, the ‘Squire’ who had also been born near Nuneaton and who lived at Rowley Hall until his death in 1844. Whether it is coincidence that Elizabeth’s father at one time lived in Spring Row which was apparently ‘retainer’s cottages’ for Rowley Hall or that they later lived in Beet Street, I do not know. Certainly John Beet’s widow was described in 1851 Census as the ‘owner of Land and houses’ so it is possible that she developed the land off the Causeway that became Beet Street, and allowed Joseph to rent a house there. Or it might simply have been that the street was named for a local family as so many were in Blackheath – Darby Street, Hackett Street, etc. My distant cousin (through the Beet family) Margaret Thompson will no doubt have more information on this than me! Our great-grandmothers were sisters.

In 1861, William, Elizabeth and Mary Jane and Emma were lodging in Rowley village. By 1871, they had moved to the fast expanding new town of Blackheath and were living in the Causeway, although this may have been what later came to be known as Beet Street, which was off the Causeway, as this was where they lived later. In 1881 and 1891 they were living at 14 Beet Street.

Health – Drainage and water supplies in the area

You may note from the lists of children that several of William and Elizabeth’s children died in infancy in the 1860s and 1870s. I do not know the specific reasons for the individual deaths but am reminded of a Report which I found in The National Archives a couple of years ago. This Report, entitled “Dr Ballard’s Report to the Local Government Board on the Sanitary Condition of the Registration Sub-District of Rowley Regis” and was dated April 1875. This Report was commissioned as part of the Government’s efforts to prevent Cholera outbreaks. Fortunately it is a typed copy of the report, rather than manuscript. Most of the correspondence in this file is manuscript so I’m not sure how this came to be typewritten but very grateful it is!

I will at some point do an article on the whole report because it gives a detailed account of how our ancestors in Rowley Regis were living but one paragraph had stuck in my mind. It is discussing the contamination of water sources in various places but singles out Causeway and Beet Street in Blackheath.

It reads:

“In one well in this village [Blackheath] where the surface of the water stood at a level of 8-10 feet from the surface of the earth, I was told that there was scarcely any water to be had in the summer time. It was situated in ‘The Causeway’, in an undrained, unpaved yard abounding in surface nuisances [Nuisances in this context has a specific meaning relating to sources of contamination], with a large accumulation of sewage water in one corner, and a row of leaking overfull privies at one side of it. In Beet Street, the pump well for the supply of a row of cottages is situated in a narrow passage between the cottages and a row of nail-shops. Slops and sewage were stagnant in an imperfect channel close to the pump, and the inhabitants told me that the water could not be drunk on account of its sickly and bad flavour and that they got water where they could. Not far from this place in High Street, I found in a yard a well about 40 feet deep to the surface of the water but water was trickling in from the surface soil through the brickwork at a depth of about 6 feet. The quality of this water thus polluting the well may be estimated from the fact that a few yards off from the well there were a privy ashpit full of excrement, an enormous heap of filth, and accumulations of sewage water, besides other surface nuisances.”

This Report was written by an experienced medical professional who had carried out inspections all over the country and prepared many such reports. The language may read more like a sensationalist report in a newspaper but I found it sobering to realise the terrible conditions our ancestors lived in and surprising, quite honestly, that so many survived at all. It is not a criticism of the inhabitants who were clearly doing what they could to obtain potable water and in another section Dr Ballard notes “Many of the cottages in the District are clean and decent, and if it were not for want of proper drainage and of good water supply, and for the abominable privy nuisances and filth about them, would be wholesome residences enough.”

So perhaps the high rate of child deaths should be viewed in the light of these findings. The yards the children, often barefoot I imagine, (and adults) had to walk through and play in were a constant threat to their health, it seems and there would have been little clean water for washing. It was to be more than twenty years after this report before any substantial improvements to drainage and water supply in the area were made and then only at the continuous strong urging of the Government officials. Cholera, enteric fever and similar diseases continued to be a problem in the worst areas during that time, the great frustration of the officers of the Government Health Ministry is apparent in the correspondence in the files at Kew between them and local officials.

Willliam died and was buried at St Giles on 18 March 1899, aged 63 and of Blackheath. In 1901 Elizabeth was living at 28 Hackett Street, a widow and the head of the household, with her sons William and Edward and her married daughter Minnie and Minnie’s husband Richard Woodward and their son Aaron. Elizabeth died in 1909 but I have not been able to find a burial for her.

Elizabeth’s other children

Now we come to Elizabeth’s other children Elizabeth (1839), Eve (1842-1912) and Edward (1844). As previously noted, I have been told that the father of all three of these children was George Smith, the Dudley hangman, who lived at Oakham. I have no proof of this but family stories often have more than a grain of truth.

Elizabeth 1839- ?

Elizabeth appears with her mother in the 1841 and 1851 Censuses at Gadd’s Green, aged 2 and 12 respectively.After that things are less clear. I suspect that it is this Elizabeth who married Frederick Parsons in 1860 at Dudley St Thomas, where no details are shown for the father of the bride.

In 1861, this couple are living in Blackheath where Frederick is shown as being born in Chadwich, Lancashire. However, in the 1841 and 1851and several later Censuses, there is a Frederick Parsons of the correct age who was born (and living in the first two censuses mentioned) in Chadwich, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire! Which is just a few miles away and seems a lot more likely than Lancashire.

I am fairly confident that this is the right couple as, in 1861, they have a lodger who is Pheby Moreton, Elizabeth’s aunt, previously living on Turner’s Hill. But by 1871 Pheby is living in the Causeway, as the head of her own household.

But of Frederick and Elizabeth Parsons, I can find no trace after that. I can find no children born to the pair, nor a death registration for a Frederick of the right age.

In the 1871 and 1881 Censuses, there is a Frederick Parsons of the right age, born in Bromsgrove, living with a William Parsons and his wife in Aston, Birmingham. But he is described as unmarried. Could the marriage have failed and Frederick moved away? Or had Elizabeth died? In 1882 this Frederick Parsons married Harriet Haynes in Aston and they continued to live in Erdington with their several children until I last found them in 1911. By 1921 Harriet was a widow but I have not been able to identify a likely death registration for Frederick. There is a death of a Frederick Parsons in the Aston Registration District in the first quarter of 1910 which is for a man of the right age but since our Frederick was alive in the 1911 Census and indeed completed and signed the Census form, it cannot be him. Another unresolved life.

So what happened to Elizabeth Parsons, nee Moreton? I cannot find any trace of her after 1861. She does not appear to have died or remarried and I cannot find her under either name in any of the later censuses. But, unless they obtained a divorce, how was Frederick able to re-marry? Perhaps, as people often did in those days, they split up, pretended to be unmarried or widowed and went through a form of marriage with someone else. Or Elizabeth may have been living with someone else, recorded under his name, there is no way of checking that. But she does not appear to be with any of her close family in later censuses so must remain a puzzle.

Eve Morton 1842-1912

Eve was baptised, the daughter of Elizabeth Moreton, on 16 March 1845 at St Giles. A note on the entry in the Baptisms Register says that she was aged 3 years but I cannot find any trace of her birth being registered in or around 1842. She was baptised on the same day as her future husband Joshua Taylor, I noticed when I looked at the register, who was six years old then, she was three! Their first meeting?

The rest of her life, however, is much better documented.

Eve Moreton married Joshua Taylor at Dudley St Thomas on 18 December 1859 when she would have been 17. The witnesses at the marriage were Mary Ann Moreton , Eve’s half sister and Joseph Taylor. In fact it was a double wedding because the two couples married the same day and were the witnesses to each other’s weddings! From their respective father’s names Joshua and Joseph were not brothers.

Eve and Joshua had twelve children, according to the 1911 Census (which asks how many children have been born alive to their marriage): Fanny or Frances (1860), Elizabeth (1861), Mary (Polly) (1862), Ann Selina (1864), George (1866), Elizabeth (1869), Emma (1870), Samuel (1873), Sarah Ann (1875), Eleanor or Ellen or Nelly (1879), Anne (1883), and Harry (1884). This last child is shown in the 1891 and 1901 censuses as the child of Eve and Joshua but his birth registration and baptism show that he is the son of Fanny, their eldest daughter. This leaves only eleven children that I have found birth registrations for. There are Birth and Death Registrations for a John Taylor in 1865 who may be the twelfth, although I cannot find a burial to confirm this.

The 1901 Census shows a Henry Taylor (aged 17), Mabel Taylor (7) and Ivan Taylor (1) all as children of Joshua and Eve. In fact, as noted above Henry is the son of Fanny, and was baptised as such on 16 April 1884 so he was their grandson. Ivan, whose birth was registered in 1899, again as an illegitimate Taylor birth, was baptised as Ivan Gould Taylor on 4 June 1899, the son of Nellie Taylor of Gadd’s Green so he was also a grandson.

Mabel Taylor proved difficult to allocate to one of the daughters, although her birth was registered in April 1894 again as an illegitimate Taylor birth, I could find no baptism for her to give me a clue, although I found quite a lot of other information. Mabel married Charles Knight (of Perry’s Lake, of course!) on 13 June 1915 at St Giles. He was killed in a mine explosion and buried at St Giles on the 27 October 1915, only four months later, his abode given as Perry’s Lake. There are numerous reports of the accident and a couple of reports of the funeral, one of which notes that Mabel was supported by her mother but the mother is just about the only person in the report who is not named! Mabel probably needed that support because she was heavily pregnant, giving birth to their daughter Edith Eva Knight on 19^th November 1915, only a couple of weeks later. Mabel re-married on 28 April 1919 at St Giles, to – ah, another Ingram connection! – Ernest Reuben Ingram of Tippity Green. All very close to home as usual. At the time of the marriage, Mabel’s abode was shown as the Portway Tavern, Perry’s Lake. They had a son Jack in 1920.

So who was Mabel’s mother? I had to buy the birth certificate to get the answer. Mabel’s mother was Emma Taylor, Eve and Joshua’s daughter, so again she was a grandchild, not a daughter as shown in the census.

But it does appear that Eve and Joshua were very happy to help raise their grandchildren and it is possible that some of them believed Eve and Joshua to be their parents.

Eve Taylor, nee Moreton, died and was buried at St Giles on 20 June 1912, her address given as Gadd’s Green where she had been born and where she lived her entire life. Joshua Taylor had died the previous year and was also buried at St Giles, on 26 Sep 1911, aged 71.

Edward Moreton 1845-1909

The last lap of what has been a complicated research project and the last of Elizabeth Moreton, nee Hill’s children.

Edward was baptised on 16 March 1845 at St Giles, the son of Elizabeth Moreton, father unknown but possibly George Smith.

Edward married Mary Ann Nock in the last quarter of 1867, at Dudley St Thomas. Mary Ann’s son George had been born in the Dudley Registration District, in the first quarter of 1867, so it was not clear whether Edward was his father. Nevertheless George is shown in the 1871 Census, in the Causeway, Blackheath, listed as George Morton, living with Edward and Mary Ann and their daughter Elizabeth, then 7 months old. They had also had a son Joseph in 1869 who had died in the same year.

Mary Ann Moreton died in the second quarter of 1872, aged 28. I have not been able to find a burial for her but it seems quite likely that she was buried at St Paul’s, Blackheath and those records have not yet been added to FreeREG. Baby Elizabeth Moreton also died in the third quarter of 1872, leaving only George of their children.

Edward re-married on 16 August 1874 at Halesowen, to Sarah Stokes. Sarah had been born in Cradley where she and Edward later lived but her parents Benjamin Stokes and Mary Bridgwater were both born in Rowley Regis.

I think this is the same Edward, he was aged 30, a miner and a widower which all seem to fit. In the 1881 Census this Edward was shown as born in Rowley which also fits. With Edward and Sarah in Overend, Cradley were Sarah’s son Arthur Stokes, aged 9 and Thomas (3) and Harry Morton (9 months).

Not listed is George. Nor can I find any trace of George Moreton or Morton after the 1871 Census. I cannot find a death, a burial, marriage, a census entry, he has disappeared. Perhaps he was taken in by a relative, an aunt or grandparent and appears in censuses under their name, but as I am not sure which of the several Mary Ann Nocks was his mother, I am unable to look into this at the moment.

At least, that is what I wrote then, anyway. But, as you know, I enjoy a challenge…

Where was George?

I thought that perhaps George had been taken in by family after his mother’s death in 1872 and that I might find him with family in the 1881 Census. And it has become clear that this extended family is usually very ready to take in any number of grandchildren!

But which family? I had checked all the likely Moreton parents, grandparents and siblings, no sign of George there. Hmm, perhaps his mother’s Nock family? Since I knew Mary Ann’s approximate year of birth was 1845, (from the 1871 Census and her age at death) I looked for the baptism of a Mary Ann Nock in Rowley in 1845 and there was, on 16 March 1845, a baptism of a Mary Ann, daughter of Hannah Nock of Yew Tree. This tallied with a birth registration in the last quarter of 1844 for an illegitimate Mary Ann in Dudley Registration District. So this seemed a reasonable possibility to look at first.

Now I already had some Nocks in my tree so I rootled around those and found that there was one branch which was in Yew Tree Lane. And, curiously this family – William Nock, a nailer of Yew Tree and his wife Mary had had three daughters baptised in one ceremony on 1 July 1845, with their ages shown in the Register entries. All were adults or at least teenagers, Eliza (13), Martha (17) and Susannah (24). This was just a couple of months after Mary Ann had been baptised. Another family, Titus and Phoebe Newton, a farmer of Blackheath, also baptised six adult children the same day and three other teenagers were also baptised. How odd. But no Hannah listed there with the other baptisms.

So I checked the 1841 Census for William’s family, and there was Hannah listed, aged 15 and with her younger sisters Martha and Eliza. The 1841 Census, remember, rounds ages down to the next five years so Hannah could have been up to 19. Were Susannah and Hannah the same person? I have sometimes seen Rosanna spelled Roshannah in local registers, might this name have been the same, a pet name, abbreviated?

So I decided to investigate Susannah a little more. She married Joseph Portman on 5 December 1847 in Christ Church, Oldbury and I was able to find them in 1851 in New Ross, Blackheath with their son William James, in 1861 in Shepherd’s Fold (very possibly the same place as 1851 with a new name and both of them yards away from Yew Tree Lane and Susannah’s family), with daughters Elizabeth, Susanna, Parthenia and Ellen, in 1871 in Halesowen Street, Blackheath with the same girls plus Samuel, and in 1881 now living in Coombes Wood Cottages, Gorsty Hill, with Ellen, Samuel, and – oh, look – her grandson George Nock, aged 14 and a labourer at the Tube Works! Bingo! So perhaps George was not Edward’s son, and his grandmother took him in when his mother died.

However George had survived to marry Mary Ann Oliver in 1896 at St Giles and they had six children, eventually moving to the Quinton area. George was a socket maker at the Tube Works, in the 1911 census he names this as the Anchor Tube Works but the enumerator has crossed the name out and added ‘Iron and Steel’. So perhaps not Coombs Wood, although he may have worked there earlier when he was living in Coombs Wood Cottages. I have been unable to trace any of the family after the 1911 census and wonder whether they emigrated as there is a George Nock, mechanic, on a ship sailing to Canada in April 1914. But it was satisfying to track George down to his maternal family and expand that Nock twig on the family tree.

Back to Edward and Sarah Morton who lived most of their married life in Overend, Cradley and went on to have more children, nine in all. These were Thomas Henry (1878), Harry (1880), Mary Elizabeth (1882), Leah (1885), Harriet Lily (1886), Katie Ann Eliza (1888), James Edward (1890), Howard (1892) and Francis William (1896). In the 1911 Census Sarah, by now a widow, states that she had eleven children in this marriage, of which one had died but I have been unable to find any other birth registrations. She may have included her son Arthur in her total. The family continued to live in Cradley until at least 1911.

There is a death registration for Edward Morton of a similar age in 1909 in the Stourbridge Registration District which I think is this Edward but I have not been able to find a burial for him. Sarah died in 1927, aged 75 but, again, I have not found a burial record for her.

ELIZABETH MORETON, nee HILL died in February 1892, fifty six years after her husband and was buried at St Giles on 14 February, aged 87 ‘of Gadd’s Green’. She had had 8 children and at least 71 grandchildren, most of them staying in the lost hamlets, or in Rowley village and Blackheath.

You really could not be much more a part of the Lost Hamlets than this family.

The next instalment is about Jane Hill, the next sister.

[i] https://rowleyregislosthamlets.uk/2024/11/03/chipping-away-at-the-brick-walls/

Families of the Lost hamlets – The Hills 4 – John and Timothy Hill, a side branch!

JOHN HILL 1826-1896

Ann Priest nee Hill appears to have had an illegitimate son John who was baptised on 22 October 1826 at Dudley St Thomas, described in the Register as the ‘son of Ann Hill of Rowley’.

In the 1841 Census John was living with John and Jane Hackett in Perry’s Lake. John and Jane Hackett already had six children at that time so again, the house must have been fairly crowded and one wonders why they also took in a lodger. The answer quickly becomes apparent when I realised that Jane was Ann Hill’s sister, married to John Hackett in 1828. More of Jane elsewhere. But John was still very much in the care of the Hill family.

The next event I can find for John Hill (who is my first cousin 4x removed, through Timothy Hill) is his marriage to Fanny Cole, also of Perry’s Lake, (who is also my first cousin 4x removed but through Edward Cole) on 19 October 1851 at Dudley St Thomas. They had five children: Thomas (1852), Phoebe (1856), Edward (1859), Joseph (1861-1864) and John (1866). John and Fanny remained in Perry’s Lake for the rest of their married lives, Fanny only moving a little way away after John’s death.

John Hill died on 4 January 1896 and was buried at St Giles on the 8th January, aged 70, of Perry’s Lake. Probate was granted to his wife Fanny in February 1896 in the sum of £50.

Fanny later moved to Hailstone Terrace, Tippity Green and was living there in the 1901 Census, (where she was wrongly recorded as Frances, she had actually been baptised as Fanny) with her daughter Phoebe Ann and Phoebe’s second husband Alfred Brewer. Incidentally this was next door to none other than Reuben Ingram, who with his wife Mary Maria, Timothy Hill’s half-sister, had witnessed the marriage of John’s brother or half-brother Timothy all those years before.

Fanny Hill, nee Cole died in 1908 and was buried on the 11^th April at St Giles, aged 80 and her abode given as Tippity Green – she had never lived more than half a mile from her roots in the Lost Hamlets.

TIMOTHY PRIEST OR HILL 1830-

Timothy was something of a mystery to me for a long time. Timothy is listed in the household of Ann and David Priest in the 1841 Census. The 1841 does not give relationships but he is the first of the children listed as aged 10 (and children are shown with their actual ages in the 1841, not rounded up or down). As Ann and David were married in November 1830, it would be reasonable to assume that he was their eldest son.

[There is another Timothy Priest, son of Benjamin and Sophia Priest of Old Hill who was born in the same period in 1828 and many of the references I have found in my research relate to him so are not listed here. A marriage in Dudley in 1851 to Susannah Penn was for Benjamin’s son and a death of a Timothy in 1852 (suggested by another tree on Ancestry as being this Timothy) was for a child aged less than a year, so not our Timothy again.]

I could not find my Timothy Priest anywhere in the 1851 Census when he would have been about 20. But there was no death or burial recorded for any other Timothy Priest in the whole country between 1841 when he was present with his presumed family in Gadd’s Green and 1851 when he is not.

But there was someone called Timothy living with David and Ann Priest in the 1851 Census at Gadd’s Green who was aged 22 and a coal miner but his name is shown as Timothy Hill and he is listed at the end of the family list along with John Hill who was 24. As related earlier, John was the illegitimate son of Ann Hill, and I have puzzled during previous researches about where this Timothy Hill fitted in to the Hill family tree as I could find no baptism for him in the area.

Now I wondered whether Timothy was also an illegitimate son of Ann? David Priest and Ann Hill were married in November 1830 and Timothy was said to be 10 in the 1841 Census so born in about 1830 or 1831. So it is quite possible that he was born in 1830 before that marriage, was shown as Priest in the 1841 Census and reverted to the name of Hill later. This was before Civil Registration began so there are no clues to be found there. I cannot find a baptism under either name nor trace that Timothy to any other family.

But to all intents and purposes Timothy Priest, having appeared in the 1841 Census, disappears without trace after that date.

Interestingly, I then found a marriage on FreeREG for a Timothy Hill on 11 September 1853 at Dudley St Thomas, when he married Hannah Slater of Dudley, he was of full age (21 or over). There is no information entered in the Register for the father of this Timothy which implies that he was illegitimate. He was a miner and his abode was given as Dudley which fitted with the missing Timothy. (Remember that parts of Turner’s Hill and Oakham came under Dudley parish and many members of the Hill family used Dudley St Thomas for baptisms and marriages). One of the witnesses to this marriage was Reuben Ingram and the second was Mary Priest. And where was Reuben Ingram (born in about 1833 so pretty much a contemporary of Timothy Hill) living in the 1851Census? Why, on Turner’s Hill, just a few hundred yards from the Priest family. Was the Mary Priest the Mary Maria Priest who was the daughter of David Priest and Ann Hill, so a half sister to Timothy Hill/Priest? It seems likely to me. I later discovered that Mary Maria Priest married Reuben Ingram just three months later on 18^th December 1853 at Dudley St Thomas when the witnesses were apparently Timothy Hill and Hannah Slater (which is slightly odd as she was Hannah Hill by then but it takes brides a while to get used to their new names!) so the ties are strong.

The presence of these two, both of Gadd’s Green and Turner’s Hill as witnesses to this marriage made me consider that Timothy Hill and Timothy Priest might be one and the same person.

At the time of their daughter Eliza’s baptism at St Giles on 26 November 1854, Timothy and Hannah Hill were shown as living in Tippity Green, so very much in Hill home territory. By 1861, Timothy was living in Peartree Street, Old Hill, (another address which recurs in my research on this family) with Hannah and their children Eliza (1854), David (1856), John (1858) and Elizabeth (1860). Again, interesting names, especially David which may have been a nod to Timothy’s stepfather. Many of the men living in Peartree Street in that census were miners, either in coal or in stone mining so they may have moved to be near the mine where Timothy was working. In the 1871 Census, the family had moved to Halesowen Road, Old Hill with the same children and also an Elizabeth and a Stephen Slater, all born Rowley Regis, these latter two were the mother and brother of Hannah.

In 1873 there was a death registered for a Timothy Hill of the right age and a burial at St Luke’s, Reddal Hill which gave his abode as Old Hill. Hmm, could this be him? I could not find my Timothy Hill in any other records after this date.

So I splashed out and bought the digital image (£3.00!) of this Timothy’s death certificate to see whether there were any clues there. And oh, yes, there were clues, worth every penny, whoop, whoop! The place of death was Old Hill, the date of death the 19^th February 1873 and the occupation of this Timothy as Colliery labourer, all of which fitted my existing information. The cause of death was ‘chronic bronchitis’, poor Timothy who had been a miner all his working life.

But the real bonus of this certificate for me was when I reached the information about who registered the death. I saw that the death was registered not by his wife Hannah as I expected but by Ann Priest of Gadds Green, Rowley Regis. The very person I had suspected was his mother! Perhaps she had helped to nurse Timothy in his chronic illness. So far as I am concerned this is the clincher which confirms my theory – which documents the definite connection between Timothy Hill in Old Hill and Ann Priest nee Hill in Gadd’s Green.

So these were John and Timothy Hill, illegitimate sons of Ann Hill with no clue as to their fathers. But remaining very much part of the family of Timothy and Maria Hill, it seems and adding another nine Hill great-grandchildren to the tally in Perry’s Lake and Old Hill.

Families of the Lost Hamlets – the Hill family 3 – the older girls, Mary and Ann

MARY HILL (1801-1882)

Mary Hill was the oldest daughter of Timothy and Maria Hill. She was baptised on 12 January 1804, at St Giles on the same day as her next sister Ann. The Register entry notes that she was 2 years and 6 months old so must have been born in mid 1801. It appears that this branch of the Hills could be a little haphazard about getting their babies baptised!

The next event of note in her life was her marriage on 17 November 1823 to Henry Whittall, which took place at Tipton St Martin church. It was quite a grand building, erected in 1795-1797, so probably quite a contrast with the already dilapidated St Giles.

Henry was a Rowley Regis man, too and was baptised at St Giles on 24 March 1805, the son of James Whitehall and Phebe Downing, both good Rowley surnames. Whitehall and Whittall along with several variations seem to be interchangeable in records at this period. There were several weddings at Tipton involving the Hill family at about this time and Henry Whittall is named in many family weddings of the Hill family as a witness.

The Whittall name, I know, has persisted in the village. There was a Rita Whittall in my year at primary and secondary school so Whittalls were certainly still around in the 1960s and may well still be. This is perhaps not surprising as by my reckoning Henry had many male descendants who remained in the village and immediate area.

Henry and Mary Whittall had nine children: Frederick (1825-1915), Sarah (1825-1893), Eliza (1828-1829), Emma (1831-1896), James (1832-1879), Eliza (1835-1883), Thomas (1837-1903), Mary (1840-1853) and Fanny (1844-1913).

The family lived in Perry’s Lake in the 1841 Census where Henry was listed as a nailer. Alas, in 1848, Henry died, of dropsy according to a note in the Burial Register, and he was buried at St Giles on 19 November 1848, aged only 48, leaving Mary to raise their children. Mary continued to live in Perry’s Lake until her own death in 1882.

Of their children:

Frederick Whittall (1824-1915)

Frederick was born in late in 1824 or very early in1825, he was baptised on 16 January 1825 at Dudley St Thomas. He married Mary Ann Whitmore in Oldbury in 1846 and they had six children Ann (1848), Henry (1850), Eliza (1853), Joseph (1857, Mary (1863 and William (1866). They lived in Gadd’s Green at first but by had moved to Blackheath by 1861, living in 1871 in the Causeway and then in in Powke Lane for the next three censuses. Mary Ann died in 1895 and was buried at St Giles. Frederick re-married in 1897at Holy Trinity, Old Hill to widow Sarah Adams, nee Lowe. Sarah had been married three times before Frederick and had several children with each of her previous husbands, though none with Frederick – her family tree is, shall I say, very complicated… Frederick Whittall died in 1915 and was buried at St Giles on 6 April 1915, at the age of 91, his abode given as 46 Oldbury Road..

Sarah Maria Whittall

Sarah was born in 1826, or at least baptised on 26 March 1826 at Dudley St Thomas. She married John Blakeway, on 10 August 1845 when she was just 20, at Christ Church Oldbury, in 1851 they were living in Hawes Lane. They had five children, William (1848), Sarah Ann (1850), James (1857), Henry (1860) and Samuel (1861). John Blakeway was a Boiler Maker or Boiler Smith and this may have been why the family moved to Ross by 1861 and later to High Street Blackheath to be nearer his employment. Sarah died in 1894, John in 1906, both were buried at St Giles.

Eliza Whittall

Poor little Eliza was baptised on 1 Feb 1829, at Dudley St Thomas. She died of ‘chin cough’ (whooping cough) and was buried at St Giles on 2 August 1829, aged 1.

Emma Whittall

Emma was baptised on 12 Sep 1830, at Dudley St Thomas. She married William Jarvis, a widower, on 28 June 1852 , also at Dudley. They had seven children: James (1853), Henry (1854), William (1856-1861), Thomas (1859), Caroline (1861), Mary (or Polly) (1863), and David (1872). The family lived with Emma’s mother in Perry’s Lake in 1861. In 1871 William Jarvis appears to have been living in a lodging house in Dudley. He does not appear again in censuses with his family and must have died between the 1881 and 1891census, as Emma was described as a widow in the latter but I have not been able to identify an exact date for his death. So it seems likely that Emma and William were separated. Emma continued to live in Perry’s Lake until her death in 1896. I have not been able to find burial details for either Emma or William.

James Whittall 1832-1879

James was baptised on 12 August 1832 at Dudley St Thomas. He married Caroline Hill, his first cousin by his mother’s brother Joseph Hill, on 15 May 1865 at Dudley St Thomas. They lived in Siviters Lane where they had two children Eliza Whittall (1870) and John Fred Whittall (1875). Caroline had also had an illegitimate child Joyce before her first marriage in 1857, and a daughter Patience in 1859 by her first husband Joseph While (1833-1861). James Whittall died in 1879, aged 47 and was buried at St Giles. He had not moved beyond Rowley Village. Caroline subsequently married John Payne in 1881when she moved to Hackett Street, Blackheath, and later Powke Lane.

Eliza Whittall

Eliza was baptised on 29 March 1835 at Dudley St Thomas. She married Abraham Parish at Dudley St Thomas on 13 November 1853 and in 1861 they were still living in Tippity Green. They had seven children George (1855), Alice (1857), Sarah (1859), Charles Thomas (1860), Eliza (1864), Abraham (1866) and Mary Maria (1871). By 1871 the Parishes had moved to Grout Street, West Bromwich where they kept a pub and they remained there until Eliza’s death in 1883, aged 49. She was buried in West Bromwich.

Thomas Whittall (1837-1903)

Thomas was baptised on 24 January 1836 at St Giles. He married Phoebe Cole (also from Perry’s Lake) in 1861 and they had ten children: Kate or Katherine (1862), James (1863), Elizabeth (1866), Mary J (1869), John (1871), Edward (1874), Alice (1877), William (1878), George (1881) and Isaac (1884). In 1871 they were living in Siviters Lane, until 1891 when they were at 89 Rowley Village. In 1901, their address was shown as 87 The Village, so they may have moved one door along or the houses may have been re-numbered. Or the enumerator may have made a mistake! Phoebe died in 1900 and was buried at St Giles on 10 January 1900, having just seen in the new century. She was 57. Thomas died in 1903 and was buried at St Giles on 16 December 1903, aged 64, his address still given as 87 Rowley village. Another branch of the family who did not move beyond Rowley village.

Mary Whittall

Mary was baptised on 6 December 1840 at St Giles. In 1841 and in 1851 Censuses she was at home with her family, in 1851 at the age of 10, already listed as a nail maker, no doubt supporting her by then widowed mother. So there would have been six of them nailmaking, a crowded workshop if they were all working together at home. Mary died and was buried on 8 May 1853 at St Giles, aged 13 and Perry’s Lake, according to the Burial Register which added that hers was an ‘Accidental Death’. Curiously her death was registered in the West Bromwich Registration area, not Dudley so she did not die at home. The West Bromwich Registration area covered Oldbury so her death may not have been in West Bromwich itself. I have not been able to find any reports of an Inquest or details of this accident and am resisting the temptation to buy her death certificate!

But if anyone knows what happened to poor Mary, I would love to hear about it!

Fanny Whittall

Fanny was the youngest child of Henry Whittall and Mary Hill. She was baptised on 19 July 1846 at St Giles and would have been only two years old when her father died in 1848. In 1841 and in 1851 Censuses she was at home with her family, in 1851 when she was six, she was the only member of the family who was not listed as nail making but nor was she listed as a scholar so presumably she was not attending school. By 1861, still living at home in Perry’s Lake, Fanny was listed as a nailer although her older brothers James and Thomas had now become miners, rather than nailers.

On the 25 Dec 1863 Fanny married Henry Thomas Hemmings (later known as Thomas) at Dudley St Thomas. Their first three children Sarah Ann Hemmings (1864), Martha Susannah (1867) and Harry (1870) were born in Rowley Regis but by 1871 the family were living in Bordesley, Birmingham and their next two children Eliza J (1872) and John T (1875) were born there. The family remained in Birmingham, in Deritend and later Aston for the rest of their lives, Fanny dying there in 1913 and Henry Thomas in 1919.

Later years of Mary Whittall, nee Hill

Mary’s age is correctly stated in the censuses in 1841, 1851, and 1861. But in 1871, when her daughter Emma and her family were living with her, Emma was shown as the Head of the household and Mary’s age as 74. So a few years had been added. In 1881, Mary was now listed as the head of the household, although Emma was still living in the house and this time Mary’s age was shown as 84. Which was at least consistent with the previous census.

It seems to me that these small changes merely reflect the fluid living arrangements which seem to have been a theme of the Hill family in the hamlets. In the following year, when Mary was buried at St Giles, the Burial Register lists her age as 88 so she had acquired yet another four years in only one year! But the truth is that in those days people did not generally keep such accurate records of their age and some may not have known their exact age. In fact Mary was 81. But she was one of the several Hill sisters who lived long lives.

So Mary and Henry Whittall gave Timothy and Maria Hill nine grandchildren, the vast majority of whom stayed very close to home, in the hamlets, in Rowley or Blackheath. And of those seven grandchildren who lived to child-bearing age, they in turn gave Timothy and Maria forty two great grandchildren, the majority again staying in the area.

ANN HILL (1804-1890)

Ann Hill was baptised (and probably born) in 1804.

Ann had an illegitimate son John in 1826 and another, Timothy in about 1830. They are the subject of a separate article.

She married David Priest on 30 November 1830 at Old Swinford. At first I had my doubts about whether this was the right Ann Hill but checking the entry on FreeREG I saw that one of the witnesses was her brother-in-law Henry Whittall, popping up again, and by 1841 David and Ann were living in Gadd’s Green, in what appears to have been an extended family group of various Hills and in-laws.

David Priest gives his place of birth as Rowley Regis but he is another whose age varies from one record to another. In the 1841 Census, his age was shown as 35 which means that, since adult ages were rounded down in that census to the nearest 5 years, that he could have been anything from 36-39, giving a birth year between 1802 and 1805. In the 1851 Census his age is given as 40 which points to 1811but this is very much the outrider and may have been a recording error. In 1861 his age is shown as 58 which gives a birth year of about 1803. His death registration and burial record in 1869 show his age as 65 which brings us back to 1804.

There is only one baptism for a David Priest in this period that I have been able to find and this was for a David who was baptised at the Park Lane Chapel, Cradley Heath in 1807, the son of Joseph and Elizabeth Priest of Rowley Regis, Elizabeth nee Sidaway. Entries in this nonconformist register include people from Dudley and Kingswinford so it seems that either people travelled to Cradley to worship or the Minister travelled around the area, baptising children when he visited, rather than immediately after their birth, as tended to happen in the Church of England. Another child of Joseph and Elizabeth, Abraham, was baptised in 1814 and recorded in the same register, with, again, the abode of the parents given as Rowley Regis. To add to the confusion, it appears that there was another Joseph and Elizabeth Priest couple in Rowley Regis one or perhaps two generations earlier. And, of course, they all used the same names for their children…

Ann and David Priest had five children listed in censuses: Timothy –see separate article- (1830-1873), William (1832-1907), Mary Maria (1834-1925), Elizabeth (1836-1858), and Ann (1841-1926). As described in a separate article Timothy was Ann’s son but almost certainly not David’s.

David Priest died in 1869 and was buried at St Giles on 28 July 1869, aged 65 and of Gadd’s Green. Ann lived in Gadd’s Green her whole life, until her death in 1890. She was buried on 16 February 1890, the burial register entry says that she was 88 and her abode Gadd’s Green.

Of their children:

William Priest (1832-1907)

William married Mary Bowater (1831-) on 28 November 1864 at Dudley St Thomas, and then moved to Dog Lane (later known as Doulton Road) where they lived with his in-laws. Mary had already had an illegitimate son William in 1855 and a daughter Elizabeth in 1860, father or fathers unknown. William remained living in this road until his death in May 1907, when he was buried at St Giles, aged 75. He and Mary had four children – Sarah Jane (1865), John (1867), Ellen (1869) and Sarah (1872).

Mary Maria Priest (1834-1925)

Mary who is also been mentioned in the article about John and Timothy Hill, married Reuben Ingram, on 18 December 1853, a marriage witnessed by her half-brother Timothy Hill and Hannah, whose marriage Mary and Reuben had witnessed in the same church just three months earlier. Reuben and Mary had eight children: Elizabeth (1859), Jane (1860), John (1861), Mary (1864), Robert (1867), Reuben (1868), Hannah (1873) and Ann (1875).

In 1861 Reuben and Mary were living with their children Elizabeth and John, with Mary’s parents David and Ann Priest in Gadd’s Green. They were still in Gadd’s Green in 1871, though no longer with Mary’s parents. In 1881 they were in Perry’s Lake, as they were in 1891 and 1901. In 1911 their address is shown as 15 Tippity Green but as the previous address shows in census returns as the first house in Perry’s Lake, it may well have been the same house! That was also the address shown in the Burial Register when Reuben was buried on 30 May 1919, aged 86. Mary Maria outlived Reuben by a few years and was buried at St Giles on 20 November 1925, ‘aged 92, of Tippity Green’ (the Burial Register actually has Perry’s Lake added in brackets so their house was apparently right on the border, I suspect that there was no gap between the two settlements!).

Elizabeth Priest (1836-1858)

Elizabeth was one of the few Hill girls not to live to a great age. She died of Typhus Fever in March 1858, of Gadd’s Green, aged 22 and was buried at St Giles on 7^th March.

Ann Priest (1841-1926)

Ann had a daughter Sarah Ann who was baptised on 24^th August 1862 and another daughter Phoebe who was baptised on 16^th November 1865, at St Giles with their abode given as Gadd’s Green. Both daughters appear in the 1871 Census, living with Ann and her mother at Gadd’s Green. Also in the house as a lodger is Joseph Leech, a farm labourerwhose place of birth was shown as Cheltenham in Gloucestershire. Ann married Joseph Leech on 15^th February 1874 at Dudley St Thomas.

Ann’s illegitimate daughter Sarah Ann Priest married Joseph Westwood Smith in 1885 (witnesses Reuben Ingram and Phoebe Priest, just in case I was wondering whether this was the right Sarah Ann!) and they had five children, living in Perry’s Lake and Tippity Green thereafter, within the Hill stronghold.

Her other illegitimate daughter Phoebe Priest married Edward Hopewell or or Oakwell or Brooks in 1890 at Reddal Hill. They had four daughters. They lived in Gadds Green, (with Phoebe’s mother Ann and her husband Joseph Leech) and Tippity Green until Phoebe’s death, at the age of 50 in 1916. They lived in Ross and Shepherds Fold. Readers of previous posts may remember that I did a piece on the Hopewells/Oakwells in the early days of this blog. At that time, I did not think that I had any connection with this family – but I was wrong.

After her marriage, Ann and Joseph Leech had two sons Joseph Richard in 1875 and David in 1878. Sadly they both died and were buried at St Giles on the same day 10^th February 1878, aged 3 and 1.

Without buying the death certificates it is not possible to know why these infants died at the same time although there are various possibilities, including childhood illnesses such as measles, diphtheria and whooping cough which frequently proved fatal in those days.

Ann and Joseph Leech’s daughter Ellen was born shortly afterwards in the July/Aug/Sept quarter of 1878. Fortunately she survived infancy but I see that on the 1911 Census there is a note that she had a ‘crippled leg’ which she had had all her life. Perhaps this was why Ellen never married and she died quite young at the age of 35 and was buried at St Giles on the 13^th December 1913, when her abode was given as Tippity Green.

The grandchildren and great-grandchildren tally again

So Ann and David Priest gave Timothy and Maria Hill five grandchildren, the vast majority of whom stayed very close to home, in the hamlets, in Rowley or Blackheath. And of those five grandchildren who lived to child-bearing age, they in turn gave Timothy and Maria twenty-eight great grandchildren, the majority again staying in the area. Making seventy great-grandchildren from these two sisters and more to come! I wonder how they were able to keep track…

The Hill family in the Lost Hamlets – so far!

I think these figures show why tracing and documenting even this one branch of the Hill family is such an undertaking and how very close to the area of the Lost Hamlets most of them stayed – the grandchildren may not have borne the name of Hill if they were descended from the girls but it becomes ever clearer to me as I research that apparently unconnected neighbours and family groups were quite often siblings and cousins, once the web is untangled. Essentially it appears that a majority of the residents of Gadd’s Green in the mid and late 1800s were related in some way to the Hill family! And other descendants clustered in Siviters Lane and Ross in later years, again living next door to cousins or siblings.

I have still to post on Timothy and Maria Hill’s other children Elizabeth, Jane, Joseph and Samuel Hill, all of whom also had children. But these two sisters have provided enough material for one article so the story will be continued in the next instalment, on Ann’s illegitimate sons John and Timothy!

Why I love family history, local history and my OPS…

There are many people who really do not understand why I love family history so much, why I spend so much time working on my One Place Study, what it is that keeps my interest. And, generally, those people have no interest at all in the subject. Fair enough, they have interests of their own which would undoubtedly bore me rigid!

But I recently came across this article by Marc McDermott which articulated very clearly what this research means to me. I will quote a few bits but the whole piece is worth reading.

https://www.genealogyexplained.com/blog/the-ghost-in-your-dna-why-you-feel-connected-to-ancestors-youve-never-met/comment-page-1/?unapproved=25838&moderation-hash=7d278591a7cf9756009806bf7a35cf24#comment-25838

Marc thinks that genealogy changes the way we see ourselves in the ‘grand tapestry of time’. I think he is right, that has happened to me, especially since I have been studying the Lost Hamlets in detail.

He talks about the feelings you get when you first see the handwriting and signatures of your ancestors on documents. “Because suddenly, this isn’t just data. This is a human being, moving a pen across paper, having no idea that their great-great-grandchild would be studying their handwriting centuries later.”

“That document you’re staring at? They touched it. Their hands were there. Their hopes were fresh. Their future – your past – was unwritten.”

He thinks of these documents as more than just documents, but as windows, portals, time machines transporting us to their lives all those years ago. The places they lived in, the paths and streets they walked, the churches where they married, many still standing, still holding services, still “echoing with centuries of prayer”, including those of our ancestors.

He describes how we find ourselves learning about the local history of where our ancestors lived, wanting to know what was happening in their day, what challenges they faced, why people arrived or left the village or even the country. And he has found that one effect of this is that time seems to diminish, that through studying maps, old photographs, the very landscape, we walk through their footsteps across time.

Then he talks about DNA, how we inherit their genetic code, the shape of your nose, the colour of your eyes, the way we laugh or walk – parts of them live in us. This is certainly true in my family, I realised only a few years ago that my brother and I had exactly the same laugh; a picture of my granddaughter at eight, bears a striking resemblance to a picture of me at the same age. I can trace the distinctive wavy hair at my forehead through several generations of Hopkinses. My hairdressers have learned that they have to work round it, it will not be straightened! Marc suggests that we inherit work ethics, talents, interests from our ancestors without realising it. “Whispers in your DNA”, he calls it, finding pieces of ourselves scattered through time.

Two hundred years, he points out, is just three or four lifetimes. “Your great-grandmother held your grandmother. Your grandmother held your mother. Your mother held you.” We are three embraces from history, three sets of arms link us directly to people who lived through events we read about in history books.

Of course, those ancestors never knew we would exist. They never knew that their decisions would “ripple through time to shape our existence”. They could not know that all these years later someone carrying their DNA would be learning about them. Someone marrying in 1875 would have had no idea that they would be creating a lineage leading to us. But we genealogists now are the people who get to join the dots, to see how their stories led to us. So we are living the culmination of “hundreds of lives, hundreds of choices, hundreds of moments of courage and resilience”. What a thought!

Marc points out that if any link in these genetic chains had been broken, we – as an individual – would not exist today, we would not be the same mixture of genes which produced us as people. Each of us comes, he avers, “from an unbroken line of survivors. Warriors. People who survived wars, plagues, famines, revolutions, who watched their world change and adapted”. We are each of us “the culmination of countless victories over death, disease, poverty and despair”.

We family historians are, he says, time travellers, story tellers, keepers of a flame which would otherwise go out. We find out old stories, rediscover forgotten names, draw back lives from the mists of time where no one remembered them. We can reclaim pieces of our heritage.

He goes on to suggest that in the future our descendants will do the same about us, google our neighbourhoods, walk our streets on Google maps, look at our signatures and photographs and feel that same sense of connection that we feel as we research. We are, he says, the link, the bridge between past and future, between what was and what will be. Genealogy, he says, is about “understanding your place in the grand sweep of time.”

He finishes by saying

“Remember: They lived their lives never knowing about you.

But you live yours knowing about them.

And that makes all the difference.

Own it. Honour it. Keep it alive.

Because you’re not just discovering your ancestors. You’re discovering yourself.”

I loved this article, I recognised many of the things he talks about, share many of his observations but he also made me look at some things in a new way, perhaps it will do the same for you!