27 January 2009

A publican, a weaver & a currier

The title sounds rather like the opening line of a joke, but . . . .

George Frederick Brown, my g-g-g-grandfather (no, I'm not stuttering, that's great-great-great), was born today in 1827 in Norwich and christened at "St Martin at Palace" in the city. His parents were Thomas, a weaver, and Bridget - a Scot from Leith. So far, she's the only celtic relation I've found. George married Ann Moore on 1st January 1851 at Thorpe Episcopal in Norwich and they begat Mary Ann who went on to marry my g-g-grandfather James Freeman.

In the 1851 census George is at the Thorpe Road Lunatic Asylum . . . but, no, not an inmate -none of the family has yet been officially certified nuts. Then he and Ann go to London - Shoreditch, Bethnal Green & Mile End being the places I found them in the successive census returns - that's me, by the way, trying to avoid saying "censuses" as I'm never too sure of the plural noun; any advice happily taken on the subject.

Then their daughter & her husband move out to Hemingford Grey and George & Ann follow them; by 1891 George is the innkeeper of the Woolpack Arms in Fenstanton, a nearby village to Mary Ann & James. Plainly being a publican was harder work that he realised as he died the following year or maybe the country air just didn't agree with him.

Today's marriage is between Millice Culpin and Sarah Squires Barrett, who tied the knot in Little Downham, Cambs, in 1846. He was a Currier who, although born and brought up in St Ives, set up business in Stevenage and, as a true son of the Culpin lineage, this apple didn't fall far from the tree - he may have opted for a variation on the blacksmith role but two of his sons (of the twelve children he and Sarah had) did carry on the strict family tradition! Millice & Sarah left the town in the 1880s and moved to West Ham, which was probably a small village in Essex then, where Millice died in 1888. Sarah lived on to move to the South Coast and died in Ramsgate in 1915. She's buried in St Nicholas churchyard but I've seen no sign that Millice is there too - but, having said that, I have no idea where the church is, all my information has come from elsewhere.

Meteorological update - there's a strange yellow orb in the sky. Any offers?

No comments: