I Might Be Able to Help with Ancestors Living in Taunton 1820's to 1830's

[Lentilsoup]

Les
Please could you see if there are any Bakers who are blacksmiths.  Looking particularly for Robert Baker.  Baker is to Taunton what Smith is to the rest of the country!  Your did a look up for me before for another blacksmith.  Let's hope this one is there.
Many thanks
Sue

[JVH]

And I've just found, courtesy of kind helpers on this site, that my great grandfather was Edwin Palmer Smith, not Edward, and contrary to family lore, rather than his wife leaving him and the kids, he seems to have abandoned them, so in 1901 they were in the Taunton Union Workhouse!  Talk about skeletons in the closet.

John

[Les de B]

Hannes - sorry I couldn't be of any further help.

John - there are plenty of skeletons in the closet "out there" to be found.

Sue - bad luck again. Baker does not appear in the General Index. In the Professional/Tradesman index the only Baker surnames are listed under "Cabinet Makers" and "Coopers".

Not forgetting, the book is not an offical record, but the memoirs of a local resident. Although the author does name quite a few people, I presume(?) he forgot about some too. I just wish I could find something of interest for one of my fellow RootsChatters 

Les

[Lentilsoup]

That's ok Les - thank you for looking.
I think they must have been pretty down the food chain.
Sue

[pgmpgm]

Les,

I've only just joined the forum and picked up this thread.  In a posting in January 2009 you mentioned rightly that the book does not cover BISHOPS HULL, but there is an interesting foonote on page 49 of the 1992 edition mentioning RUMWELL, which is in the parish of BISHOPS HULL:

"Sixty years ago it was dangerous to go very far into the suburbs at night, as robberies with violence were very common.  The following places had a bad reputation, namely Quaker's Burying Ground, Rumwell, and the low road by Fairwater.  Of course this was before the canal and railway were constructed, and before there were any police, or the suburbs lit with gas.  Doctors and others, who were obliged to go into the country at night, never stirred without a bludgeon or a life protector.  These life protectors were made of twisted whalebone, and loaded with lead at each end."

Since reading this I tend to keep quiet about my Rumwell ancestors!

Regards, Peter

[Les de B]

Hi Peter, and welcome to RootsChat - a great site for family researching.

I have the same 1992 edition, and you are correct about the mentioning of Rumwell, which I was unaware of it being in Bishops Hull.  Yes, 2 sets of eyes are better than one.

  Hope you found the book as inteersting as I did. There's some good first hand information in it, and that's why I started this topic, hoping to help some one with a least some snippet of information. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to help too much with the majority of requests 

Les

[pgmpgm]

Les,

Thanks for the welcome.  I am sorry to say I haven't read the book from cover to cover as my interest lies mostly in Taunton Deane, not Taunton itself.  But it is a fascinating book.  I had hoped that RICHARDS the blacksmith mentioned on page 6 might have been my ancestor Peter Richards from Trull.  But Pigot's Directory 1830 has him listed as Thomas RICHARDS.

Another book I find very useful is Robin Bush's "Somerset : The Complete Guide".  He concludes his entry on Bishops Hull with a note on Rumwell, which contains this comment related to my previous posting:

"Also on the A38 a steakhouse preserves the name of Stone Gallows ; with Ilchester, one of the two principal execution sites in the county, in use by c. 1575 until 1810 and chiefly remembered for the notorious day on 15 April 1801 when nine men were hanged together for theft."

Clearly it had lost its deterrent value by the 1820s/1830s.

Keep up the good work!

Peter

[Hanford]

Hello,

Could you pretty please see if there any Annely/Anneley's in the book you have? 

[Les de B]

Sorry Rachey, nothing in the book's indexes with same/similar spelling.

Les