Pelsall Common

[chafox]

 Several interrelated families with gypsy origins:

STACKHOUSE;  LEA: CLAYTON: WHITEHOUSE: BENTLEY

They  seem to have settled in Pelsall towards the end of the nineteenth century. Many became coal miners.

Anyone know these families, or the area, and have information about life on Pelsall Common.

Is it common for a gypsy or traveller  population  to settle down into an area like this for the sake of coal mining?


Terry

[An65]

Lots of Rom settled during winter months either in lodgings or houses - sometimes even paying rent on the house for an entire year simply to get out of the weather during the cold winter months. Come the spring theyd be back on the road in vardos or tents, working the same routes through the counties where they knew they would find regular work. Occasionally theyd turn up on the census as an "Ag Lab" because they took "winter work" in the village.

For many and varied reasons (some known only to themselves) theyd settle. Often theyd eventually buy a house due to old age, my great grandad bought a house when the horse trade began to die and he turned his hand to scrap.
Whilst it may not be exactly common, theres no reason why a family wouldnt decide to settle and turn their hands to coal merchanting, but the actual reason behind their decision might well remain lost in the mists of time.

[chafox]

 That's interesting

Do you think that where the census says "coal miner" it may mean something different from what we understand as coal mining, that it might mean something outside of the big colleries, and selling something they'd  cut  independently somehow?

You see "coal miner " and you automatically think of deep pits and  big mine companies.

Terry

[An65]

I would imagine they worked in a colliery under a company - I dont really know that much about the mines, but I would think it would be both hard and dangerous to try and "dp it yourself. Having said that, in certain areas I believe people used to hunt the beaches for some kind of coal that appeared on the shoreline. Not sure when that would be nor how accurate it is, but knowing the Roms gift for using any resource at their disposal you never know. Long shot tho. Likihood was they worked for somebody.

[chafox]

 What puzzles me is Pelsall Common as an address.
This goes on, for the Stackhouse family at least, decade after decade. From 1841 to 1881.

If they were coal miners, you get a picture of them living  in terraced housing, slum  tenements, houses in courtyards, that kind of thing, and yet here they are every ten years on Pelsall Common, Lesser Common, Upper Common - are they still in carts, tents, caravans?

if they are miners, would they be still living like that?

And the ones who settled, from other families, of mine, they started by being in encampments on Norton Canes Common, then  Pelsall Common, 1881, 1891, and then became miners after that.

 I guess I'm  wondering how long it takes a traveller to settle, completely, and change their lifestyle.

[An65]

mmmmm.
1841/51 census enumerators didnt actually have to include anyone not living in a house. Some did, some didnt.

Does it actually SAY they are in tents/vans/camped in the open air etc?
If it appears that they are living in houses as opposed to tents/vans or something else specifically written by the enumerator, it suggests they were in permanent housing of some kind.


Do they appear at the end of the census? (one of them, those not living in houses appeared at the end but I cant remember which, either 61 or 71.) After that they appear wherever their stopping place occurred on the enumerators route.


You do realise that they may have "wintered" at Pelsall common prior to going back on the road during the summer - and were caught by the census before going back on the road? Census's were generally taken around March/April.

They could have been doing all sorts of things as "miners" perhaps they looked after the pit ponies (rom love horses) or something like that, as opposed to actually mining the coal. It depends on how in depth the enumerator wanted to be.

How long does it take a traveller to settle........ ah. how long is a piece of string?

Some decided to integrate into gorja society and did so very quickly, others found the wanderlust too great and never truely settled. There are quite a few families living in houses even in todays world who up sticks and go off to camp at Appleby fair, and many more who have a trailer by the house and often sleep in it instead of the house during the summer months. One generation might settle and the next go back on the road. Its in the blood...

[chafox]

 
thank you, but I know all of this.

The tent reference is at the end of an 1861 E D for one of the Staffordshire  districts.

I don't think you have seasonal coalminers do you?

the families who settled are on the common for a short period of time, but some of the other families, who married into the main one, like the Stackhouses,  and the Claytons, seem to have been  on the common for longer periods of tme,  more so with the Stackhouses.

The thing is, are they gypsies(or travellers) because they are exhibiting some of the same behaviour? Their daughters are  marrying with aliases, fathers using mother's maiden names, marrying close relatives of themselves, or  their previous partners; seeming to exchange partners within the family, and I am trying to track these interlinked, collateral  families as far as possible.

 The Claytons have been easy: Charles Whitehouse married Elizabeth Clayton, who called herself and her father Holland, not Clayton, but the Claytons have been easy to find throughout the cenuses, a family of tinkers and licensed hawkers. It's the 1861 census for them that says "in tents." 1861 is, as I'd expect, the first sound reference for them.

Another  son, Isaiah Whitehouse, has a daughter Christina ( unknown mother)  who marries in 1900 as Stackhouse. Calls her dad Isaiah Stackhouse. The witnesses are William and Mary (nee Perry) Stackhouse.  This William  seems to be  in the 1881 census  with the Stackhouse family on the common. As a grand-son, along with two sons from Mary Lees ( previously Mary Stackhouse's ) prevous marriage/ relationship. No mother. And he isn't in the 1891 census.

that's one of the tangles around the marriages of the various sons that I'm trying to decipher.

two other brothers I haven't even begun to decode yet.

Terry

[david_bate]

Hi Terry.

The Stackhouse family lived in Pelsall for a long time. My 6x gt grandfather Hugh Stackhouse was born in Pelsall and baptised in 1690. The bapistms of Samuel and Sarah Stackhouse's children are listed on the fly sheet on one of the Pelsall chapelry books. They look like they were added from another source, they cover a period from 1750's to 1770's

Dave

[chafox]

 I really am not sure of the Stackhouse connection to my own family.

Christina and William Stackhouse,  whose mother it appears my relative ancestor Isaiah Whitehouse
lived with,  were grandchildren of Samuel Lees and Mary.
 Mary was originally married to Joseph Stackhouse before  marrying Samuel Lees.
In 1875 Jane Phillips married their son Josseph Stackhouse.
At some point they separated, and Jane moved in with my ancestral relative Isaiah.
There were two children, William, who went to live with Mary Leas, and his uncles and aunts;
and Christina, who went to live with Isaiah,  and then jane disappears out of Isaiah's life, too.

I hope that makes sense, I've tried to untangle the knots as best as I can.


I mention all this, to show you where  my family link is. Would that be, by the sound of it, the same family that you are descended from, David?

Terry