#16 Mary Temperance Sheaf & Elizabeth Sheaf - The nature of nurture.

I have been trying to round out the family of my 3 x great grandparents William Harbidge Sheaf and Mary Tomes Holland but have for a long time been unable to track down one of their younger daughters, Elizabeth. I have already written about her brothers Charles Holland Sheaf  and Jamaica George and of course the youngest family member Great Aunt Lou. I find this family particularly interesting as I am descended from two of the siblings, Jamaica George and Thomas Holland Sheaf. In the last week I have discovered the whereabouts of Elizabeth and found that her story is inextricably entwined with that of her slightly older sister Mary Temperance Sheaf.

Mary Temperance was born in 1819 and christened at Bidford on Avon. Elizabeth was born about 1825 but I have not been able to find any baptism records for her. At the time of the 1841 census both girls were still living at home, on the family farm at Bickmarsh, no doubt helping out in the house and looking after their younger siblings. By this stage their father had tragically drowned so their mother was managing quite a substantial farming enterprise.

In October 1841 Mary married a young fellow called James Price who hailed from Bushley about 20 miles away. For the first few years of their married life they were in the Welford on Avon district where they had 4 children; William Henry, Emily Martha, Timothy and Mary Jane. Some time between 1846 and 1851 they moved to Birmingham where James worked as a Corn Factor - a trader in grains. In about October 1852 another daughter was born, Fanny Elizabeth however Mary died shortly afterwards. Fanny's birth was registered in 1852 but she wasn't christened until 1854.

During this time, Elizabeth seems to have been working away from home in Cold Overton, Leicestershire as a matron in a girls orphanage. Certainly this is the most likely entry in the 1851 census.

What happened in the next couple of years is unsure, but in 1858 Elizabeth and James Price registered their marriage in Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales. Elizabeth's next younger sibling Samuel was also in Wales working as a banker, so he may have been the reason they ended up there. I can only assume that at some stage Elizabeth had been called upon to help James with his young family of five following the death of their mother.

In 1861 the family are still in Wales, at Llanfoist also in Monmouthshire. James is a farm agent and has a farm of about 148 acres. Young Timothy and Fanny Elizabeth are still living with them. Sometime during the next 10 years James dies as he does not appear to be in the 1871 census and Elizabeth has moved back to her home territory and is living in Moreton in Marsh, Gloucestershire. Emily and Fanny are living with her and they are running a small Governess School with at least 5 children boarding with them. Elizabeth describes herself as widowed.

Elizabeth and Fanny are still living there in 1881 but Elizabeth appears to have retired and calls herself a "superannuated governess." The entry for Fanny is not so easy to read but it appears to be "invalided governess" so presumably her health was not good. They are the only househoulders - there are no boarding children and no other staff.

I am sure that Elizabeth died sometime between the 1881 and 1891 census although I have not yet confirmed this through the records other than by her absence in the census. By 1891 Fanny has moved back to Wales and was living in Blaenevon with her older sister Mary Jane and her husband Edward Saunders.

Goodness knows whether Elizabeth found happiness in her marriage to James but I like to believe she found happiness and satisfaction in raising her sister's children. In every census during the time they are together she is described as their mother, not their step-mother and their relationships continued long into their adult lives. From a very young age she had responsibility for nurturing children who were not her own - her younger siblings, the orphanage girls, her sister's children and finally her young pupils. She accepted these challenges and ended up molding an independent life for herself.

#15 George Holland Sheaf - Jamaica George revisited.

A while ago I wrote about my 2x great grandfather George Holland Sheaf and the mystery that surrounds much of his life (and death) in Jamaica. You can read that post here to refresh your memory. It seems however, that sometimes one only needs to wait before new information comes to light. As more and more records from around the world get digitized, more information is available to family researchers.

Just on the off chance I did another search for George Holland Sheaf and I have to say I was very, very surprised to see new results. The first new bit of information about him was that he did NOT die in about 1865, but lived until 1 Feb 1893, aged about 75. His death is recorded as having occurred at Bruce Hill in Kings District, Westmoreland, Jamaica. From the little I have been able to find out about Bruce Hill it appears that distant family connections probably through the Moores and the Tates owned this property. He is recorded as being a widower (which we knew) and a pauper (which we did not know).

The second somewhat startling discovery was that at least two of his children, other than Louisa our great grandmother, survived into adulthood. His eldest child Mary Moore Sheaf born in 1849 lived until 1909. She is recorded as dying a spinster at a place possibly called Barnes, Kings District, Westmoreland and her occupation is given as seamstress. Her younger brother George Kemble Holland Sheaf, born in about 1857, also survived childhood and lived until the age of 66, dying of fever in 1922. His death is recorded as having taken place at Friendship, Westmoreland. He also never married and is recorded as having been a carpenter.

Now all this just raises more questions! What happened to the other children? Who looked after them? Why was Granny Sheaf, Louisa, raised by Episcopalian Missionaries (so the story goes) and who were they? Did Granny Sheaf even know that she still had siblings alive after she left Jamaica? Was her father George Holland Sheaf somehow disowned by his wife's family the Briggs? Was he a wastrel? (Possibly, I would suspect!) Aaaaaaargh!!! So many little mysteries to solve!

#14 Culpepper Goddard - To the Manor Born

This week I have been trying to tidy up the Goddard ancestors on my Sheaf line and it has been proving quite tricky, even with the newly discovered help of Parish Register transcriptions from the Wiltshire Family History Society. The Goddard family was numerous and influential in this part of England but sadly they had very fixed ideas about the naming of children, which makes it a little tricky sorting out where everyone fits in! There are even instances of families with two Thomases or two Johns (usually designated the elder and the younger) but my word, where is the occasional Tibbot or Aubrey when you want one!

This led me to think about the person who connects the Goddard name to our family tree and she in fact has a beautiful and unusual name. Culpepper Goddard, my 8 x great grandmother was baptised in Miserden, Gloucestershire on the 10th August 1641. Her parents were Richard Goddard Esq of Swindon, Wiltshire and Culpepper Sandys. The name Culpepper was the maiden name of her grandmother Margaret, who had passed it on to her own daughter and thence to her granddaughter. Culpepper was the second daughter of Richard and Culpepper; the first being Sandys Goddard who had also been born at Miserden the year before. I wondered for a while why these first two children were baptised at Miserden when Richard was 'of Swindon' and all the later children were baptised at Swindon, however it became clearer when I realized that the Sandys family were based at Miserden. Culpepper Sandys' father William died several months before Culpepper Goddard was born so no doubt that would be reason enough for the baptisms at Miserden.

Richard and Culpepper went on to have three more daughters - Ann, Joan and Bridget - before Culpepper (the mother) died some time after Bridget was born. Richard remarried in 1648 and he and his new wife Ann Bowerman had a long awaited for son, Thomas, who went on to great prominence as High Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1675. Richard died soon after young Thomas was born, so his new bride Ann was left to raise her own son and five step-daughters.

Richard was obviously quite a canny man and made sure he had made adequate provision for his daughters, so as to ensure good marriages for them. In Feb 1647/48 he entered into a sale of land along with his kinsmen Thomas Sandys of Miserden, George Fettiplace of Lincoln's Inn and William Lawrence of Broome in order to settle money, in trust, on his daughters Sandys, Culpepper, Ann and Bridget. I presume from this that Joan had died as a youngster.

In 1657, Culpepper received an inheritance from her bachelor Uncle Thomas Sandys, consisting of a gold ring with four diamonds in the form of a cross. I like to imagine that she may have worn this at her wedding which must have taken place fairly soon after. The exact details of when and where she was married are not yet discovered but certainly by 1661 she was wed to John Colles of Guiting Power in Gloucestershire and was a mother to a daughter called Culpepper!

Manor House near Guiting Power

© Copyright Roger Davies and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

It seems that the daughter gene continued on very strongly in this part of the family as John Colles and Culpepper only had three children, all daughters; Culpepper born in 1661, Eleanor (our ancestor) born in 1662 and Ann.

At some stage in their married life, Culpepper's bachelor uncle Edmond Goddard came to stay or live with them. When he died in October 1676 he was buried at Guiting Power and his will records bequests to his nieces Culpepper, Bridget and Ann as well as to his nephew by marriage John Colles.

The next mention of Culpepper comes in some legal documents of 1678 where she is named as the wife of John Colles. Also mentioned are two of her sisters, Ann and Bridget, described as spinsters and of Catislade, which was the name of the Colles manor where Culpepper and John were living. It appears that Culpepper as the elder and married sister was looking after the younger girls. I wonder how John coped with his wife, two sisters in law and three daughters? I imagine he went out a lot!

Culpepper was widowed in Jan 1694/95 and her husband John was buried in the church at Guiting Power. Not having any sons to take charge of the Manor, John's will is somewhat complicated. In essence he leaves the property to his good friends Nathaniel Lye (his brother in law, husband of his wife's sister Bridget Goddard) and George Townsend (his nephew, son of his sister Ann), with the income to be divided between his wife Culpepper, his brother William and his unmarried daughters Eleanor and Ann. Quite how the manor ended up back in the ownership of Eleanor and her eventual husband David Hughes I am not sure. Cetainly the incomes from his messuages, tenements, cottages and etc should have provided nicely for his wife and children. I just hope Mr Lye and Mr Townsend played fair!

The next evidence I have for Culpepper is her burial record in Guiting Power on 15th March 1707/08. She was 67 years old. What is interesting though, is that she obviously wasn't living in the manor at the time of her death. I have found an inventory taken after her death which indicates she was living in lodging rooms in Painswick, Gloucestershire. In her will, she divides most of her goods and chattels between her three daughters and I was very excited to find that her special diamond ring, received from her Uncle Thomas Sandys, was mentioned specifically and was bequeathed to her eldest daughter Culpepper.

I suppose the message I take most from Culpepper's story is how financially dependent women of these times were on their fathers, husbands, uncles, brothers in law and nephews. I am reminded of Mrs Bennet in Pride and Predjudice, who in spite of her annoying manners, really does understand the need for her daughters to be financially secure before the estate is entailed away, leaving her children potentially homeless and without prospects.  At all stages of her life Culpepper was forced to rely on men for her security and I hope that the fact she ended up in lodgings in Painswick isn't a result of the system failing to provide for her.

#13 Mary Gifford - Three times a Lady.

Sometimes in the course of my research, an ancestor seems to emerge from the past and draw attention to themself, almost as if to say "Don't forget about me!" Mary Gifford has been spotted waving at me from the 16th century several times in the last couple of months, so I am acquiescing to her demands to be noticed.

Mary Gifford was born in about 1550, a daughter of John Gifford and Elizabeth Throckmorton, making her my first cousin 13x removed. I'm always happy to include first cousins in my family lines, as growing up I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a plethora of cousins who added so much to my life that it would seems surly and ungrateful not to recognize cousins just because they happened to be born 13 generations earlier!

At this stage, I have 6 siblings for Mary, some of whom have amazing stories of their own, but they will keep for another day.

In about 1572, Mary married Richard Baker of Sissinghurst in Kent. When I discovered the marriage, I already had Richard Baker in the family tree. His father Sir John Baker was peripherally associated with the Courthoppes and Sheafs in Cranbrook, Kent. I even suspect that Sir John's grandmother was Benet Sheaf, but I have no concrete evidence of that....yet! Richard and Mary had 4 children John, Thomas, Chyrosgena (sometimes recorded as Grisgone) and Cicely. Chrysogena was named after one of Mary's sisters. Richard was responsible for enlarging Sissinghurst into a fine Tudor residence. In fact so fine was it, that in 1573, Queen Elizabeth spent three days there on her summer progress. One can only imagine the anxiety (and the cost!) to Richard and Mary at hosting the Queen and her court, even though it did result in a knighthood for Richard.

Sissingurst, now famous for its Vita Sackville-West gardens, with the remains of the Tudor buildings in the background. Photo by Klaus D Peter, Germany.

Sir Richard Baker died in 1594, but Mary did not long remain a widow, for later in that same year she married Richard Fletcher, newly made Bishop of London. Fletcher was also a man with connections to the Sheaf family and Cranbrook. His brother Giles had married Joan Sheaf and his father Richard, who had been Vicar of Cranbrook, officiated at the 'hatching, matching and dispatching' of many other Sheaf family members.

Unfortunately for Mary, her somewhat precipitous second marriage was not universally approved of. Both she and her ecclesiastical husband were in conspicuous disfavour with Queen Elizabeth for marrying without her express consent. The Queen objected to the marriage of all bishops, and thought it especially indecorous in one only two years a widower. Fletcher was forbidden the court and suspended from performing all episcopal functions.

Mary was described as a handsome woman, a 'fine lady' but her reputation was tarnished and she was ridiculed by satirists of the day as a whore and "my Lady Lecher", which conveniently rhymed with Fletcher! Poor Richard died soon after on the 15th June 1596; still largely in disfavour, debt ridden and surrounded by a fug of tobacco smoke. It is most likely that at this point Mary returned to Sissinghurst to be near the children of her first marriage, especially to her two daughters Chrysogena and Cicely who were then in their twenties and who were said to be especially devoted to her.

In about 1597, Mary Gifford married for the third and last time. Her new husband was Sir Stephen Thornehurst of Forde in the Isle of Thanet, Kent. They were together about thirteen years, until Mary died in 1609. Her husband buried her in the St Michael Chapel of Canterbury Cathedral under a splendid monument. Lady Mary reclines somewhat jauntily at the feet of Sir Stephen, not looking in the slightest bit pious or repentant, dressed in her Tudor finest; for all the world as if to say "Well yes, here I am! What took you so long?"

#12 Tibbot Bowker - What's in a Name?

Woah! My Sheaf ancestor rate has really ground to a halt over the last month or so as I have been consorting with ancestors of a very different sort! But life has settled again to something approaching normality and I once again have evenings at home in order to do some research.  This post's ancestor is a very new discovery and comes with a most interesting name.

Tibbot Bowker is my 11x great grandmother and was born in 1551 in the village of Quinton, once in Gloucestershire but now part of Warickshire. Her parents were Thomas and Elizabeth Bowker and she was one of at least 8 children. Tibbot was baptised on Valentine's Day, 14th February, in 1551. This means she was probably born either on or just before that date as most of the sources I have looked at suggest that baptisms occurred very soon after the birth of a child. I am guessing that high child mortality rates and the potential for dying outside the bosom of the church meant that time was of the essence.

In all probability, her father Thomas would have carried her to the church; Elizabeth, her mother, staying at home because the Church generally followed the old Jewish custom of keeping women from holy places for several weeks after childbirth. At the church, Thomas, the newborn Tibbot and the selected godparent would have been met at the door by the parish priest. The baby would be blessed and salt would be placed in her mouth to represent the getting of wisdom and also to exorcise any demons. Then Tibbot would have been carried into the church and up to the font where she would have been immersed in the water, wrapped in a chrysom or christening gown and officially named.

But just where does the name Tibbot come from? It originally was a nickname for Theobald, an Old German masculine name meaning "brave people." But it didn't stay that way. The fashion for girls' names at the time was to feminize boys' names by adding"-ot" or "-et." ,so it didn't take long for Tibbot to switch sides! After about 1300, Tib, Tibbot, and Tibet were considered the sole property of the girls; until the name faded into obscurity altogether. During the late 1500s it was certainly a fashionable name in the villages of Upper and Lower Quinton. There are several instances of the name being used across different families in the area, and yet I have not come across the use of this name in other parishes associated with my ancestors. Interestingly, "Tib" was also a very popular name for medieval female cats! (The males were often called Gib, pronounced with a hard g.)

At the age of twenty, our Tibbot married a young local man called Thomas Ryland, (sometimes spelled Rilande). I have found baptisms in Quinton for four children of Thomas and Tibbot and I suspect there may be more, as the first one is in 1580 about 8 years after their marriage. Sometimes children were baptised across a couple of parishes so I need to do some further scouting here.

Tibbot died in March 1612/13 at the age of 62 years and her burial was recorded in the parish register as Tibbot Rilande, wife of Thomas Rilande the elder.

#11 George Holland Sheaf - Jamaica George and the Lost Children.

My 2x great grandfather George Holland Sheaf was born in 1817, a son of William Harbidge Sheaf and Mary Tomes Holland. He was the third born of their eleven children and was baptised in Bidford on Avon on the 15th Jan 1818. The family were farmers living in the hamlet of Bickmarsh near Bidford on Avon and by the time of the 1841 census, Mary and her two eldest sons Thomas and George were farming the property and providing for all the younger children; William Harbidge Sheaf having died suddenly in 1837.

Sometime in the next few years, George left his home and family in England and set sail for the colony of Jamaica. I have no record of exactly when he departed England or arrived in Jamaica but by 1847 he is recorded as being a "planter" there. As a young man of limited means, there is no evidence that George owned any land and most probably would have been employed as a manager on either a sugar or tobacco plantation.

At about this time George married a young English woman whose family were also on the island seeking to make their fortune. Cornelia Martha Briggs was born in Hackney but her mother Deborah Heath Moore was from a family that had long been settled in Jamaica and did own significant amounts of land and many slaves. I have never been able to locate a record of their marriage but it is generally assumed they married in Jamaica rather than in England. The were living at Kings Pen in the county of Westmoreland and George was now a "pen keeper". Pens were livestock properties rather than horticultural ventures and so the main activity would have been raising cattle. Kings Pen was under the ownership of George's mother-in-law Deborah Heath Briggs and it seems he was employed by the family company as a manager.

In an 1837 claim for compensation it is recorded that Kings Pen had 71 slaves with a value of  £1332. Slavery had finally been abolished in the British Caribbean in 1833, but in the way of all big social changes it took some time for this to filter through to the business practices of Jamaican agriculture. Cynically, I will also say that those who stood to lose the most quickly found a 'work around' by negotiating a settlement that established a system of apprenticeship, tying the newly freed men and women into another form of unfree labour for fixed terms. It also granted £20 million in compensation, to be paid by British taxpayers to the former slave-owners.

In 1849 the first of George and Cornelia's children, Mary Moore Sheaf, was baptised at Westmoreland. Four more children followed in relatively quick succession: William Robert Sheaf in 1851, Minna Cornelia Sheaf in 1853, George Kemble Holland Sheaf in 1857 and Charlotte Elizabeth Ann Sheaf in 1859. Then in 1863 my great grandmother and the last of their children Louisa Althea Sheaf was born.

Just what happened next is still something of a mystery, despite the best efforts of several different researchers. We know that in October 1865 George's wife Cornelia Martha died. She was buried on the 29th October at Westmoreland. This was a time of great political and social turmoil in Jamaica which resulted in an uprising fuelled by the widespread poverty in Jamaica which had been exacerbated by extremes of weather and outbreaks of disease and I wonder if she succumbed to one of the many epidemics of something like cholera or smallpox.

Our last record of George Holland Sheaf is also in 1865 as a signatory to an open letter to the Governor of Jamaica, Edward John Eyre (yes - the same one who did exploring in Australia!) to support his actions in putting down the uprising and punishing those involved. 

The letter starts: May it please your Excellency, 
We, the undersigned Inhabitants of the parish of Westmoreland, beg respectfully to express to your Excellency, the satisfaction we feel from the continuance of peace and tranquility generally throughout the colony, during a period in 
which we had reason to fear, from discoveries made in the recent lamentable insurrection in St. Thomas ye East, that a great and general danger, was to be apprehended. 

We are happy to assure your Excellency, that in this part of the island, a loyal and peaceable feeling seems now generally to prevail, and that the labouring population are willingly engaged in their usual avocations ; and we are of opinion, that this result has been largely promoted by the judicious measures taken by your Excellency's Government, for the preservation of peace, during a time of great excitement and alarm. 

The letter continues for several more paragraphs in a similar vein -very much stating a case of "nothing to see here!"

Moving from the big picture back down to the more personal aspects of these events, we just don't know what happened to George Holland Sheaf after the uprising. The family tale is that during a bad hurricane or as a result of the hurricane George rode on horseback with the youngest child Louisa (my great grandmother) and took her to a place of greater safety and then he died or was killed in an accident soon after. The fate of all the other young Sheaf children is also a mystery but seems to suggest that they too died at about that same time. Other than their baptism records and a handwritten slip of paper with their names and birth dates found in my great grandmothers purse they have disappeared from the records too.

I find it sad and a little disconcerting that events which are not so far back in our family history are so shrouded in uncertainty and I live in hope that one day I will discover a little more.

#10 Thomas Kemble Holland - A Man of Pleasing Manners.

Thomas Kemble Holland was my 4 x great grandfather and spent most of his life in and around the parish of Mickleton in Gloucestershire. He was born to David Hughes Holland and his second wife Jane Stokes in 1767 and was baptized in the church at Weston Subedge. He had two older half-sisters from his father's first marriage to Mary Ashwin and, in 1768, a younger brother was born and named David Hughes Holland after his father. When Thomas was only 6 years old, his father died, leaving his mother Jane to raise her own two small boys as well as her two young step-daughters. It appears that she was supported in this by Thomas's grandfather John Holland of Mickleton.

In 1791 Thomas made a very advantageous marriage to a young lady called Temperance Tomes who was from the well-respected Tomes family of Long Marston . According to Ian Tomes who is the keeper of much of the Tomes family history, at the time of their marriage Thomas Kemble Holland had property worth about £20,000. The National Archives currency converter has this at about £1 120 600 today! He was described in the family record as a 'gentlemanly man of pleasing manners, but very passionate....intemperate'. Ironic really, given that his wife was called Temperance!

Between 1793 and 1808 the couple had 10 children, 8 of whom survived past infancy. The children were all baptized in the church of St Lawrence in Mickleton. My ancestor Mary Tomes Holland, was the second oldest child and was born in 1794. By about the time the last child, Charles Wynne Holland, was born in 1809 the family story is that Thomas had squandered his fortune. I find this somewhat concerning as in 1796 Thomas had been made trustee of two inheritances for his much younger cousin Charles Wynne, who was only nineteen at the time and who was considered " unable to take on the burden" of the significant estate. The evidence certainly is that Thomas wasn't the greatest financial manager so I hope that young Charles Wynne had something left of his inheritance by the time he came of age!

By the time Thomas Kemble died in May 1815 he still owned some land in and around Mickleton and he was able to leave cash bequests of about £300 each to his living children. The Tomes family records say, with some nuance of distaste, that he 'died from the effects of hard drinking.' Thomas was buried in the churchyard at Mickleton on 19 May 1815 and was survived by his wife Temperance.

Church of St Lawrence, Mickleton
© Copyright David P Howard and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence