whepstead... Farrow/Seeley

[patridee]

 Am really pleased to have heard from you. I never thought I would actually have contact with a distant relative. This is really exciting. We were down in Suffolk this last week, and also visited Whepstead.We found the farm where James and rachel lived in the 1871 to app. 1875. It is a farm called Dodds Farm in Whepstead. It is a beautiful thatched cottage farmhouse.

Thanks for the details about john's parents George and Mary that will help in my search.
Did your George stay in Suffolk ? My John James moved to Sheffield West Yorkshire. They are in the 1881 census.
Would love to keep in touch.

Patridee

[JustinL]

How do you know that James and Rachel were at Dodds Farm (is that Upper Dods Farm)? Have you found him a directory?

The 1871 census is fairly vague and suggests somewhere closer to Melon Green.

See this earlier topic http://www.rootschat.com/links/08ps/

George didn't take to the outdoor farming life and headed to London in the 1870s possibly even with his wife-to-be, the Whepstead girl called Isabella Hammond, who was living with her widowed father at The Holes in Stonecross Green in 1871. She and George wed in Shoreditch in 1879. In subsequent censuses, George was employed in the cabinet-making trade in London (Chelsea then Tottenham).

Isabella died in London in 1922; George then returned to Bury, where he died in 1940.

Justin

 

[patridee]

I found him in the 1871 census as a farmer. Then the researcher in the records office,at
Bury loooked in one of her directories and found him at Dodds farm. She photo copied it
for me, and also the ordanance survey map of the area and a sale notice for the farmhouse, buildings, cottage, gardens and 17 acres of land. This belonged to a Mr. John Mead.
 So I am thinking this could be when John James went to live in sheffield. He is there in the 1881 census with a wife Phaney, born in Yorkshire, they have 3 children Alice 4, Annie 3, and Arthur 1 ( my grandfather). 

I haven't found where out where John and Rachel where at this point yet.

[JustinL]

That's fascinating. Was James leasing the 20a. from John Mead or was that at a later date?

Do you recall which directory he was recorded in? I have been scouring the online historical directories to no avail.

Interestingly, Dodd's Farm is not even listed in 1869.

The 1871 census reports that James farmed the 20a. with his two sons only (an older son had died in 1869). I wonder if it simply proved too much for them, or there was a bad harvest making the farm unviable. Although James' widowed father, John, was living with the family and recorded as a labourer, he was over 70 and unlikely to have been able to help.

In 1881, James was once again a farm labourer living at Mill House with wife, children and father John. What on earth prompted John James to go to Sheffield? Are there any family legends?

I see from my records that John James and Phaney went on to have a further 7 children!

[Suffolk Mawther]

Most likely directory would be one of the White's Gazetteer and Directory of Suffolk.  I only have the 1844 and 1855 ones at home and in 1844 Dodds Farm is listed (at that time farmed by Walter Wallace).
It is not listed in 1855.

Pat ...

[patridee]

    I think it was either kelly's directory of 1871 or the one already mentioned.
    Which of the elder sons had died in 1871 and do you know of what ?.
     
     I am wondering if when John Mead sold his estate whether the new owner
     also wanted the tennants out, and brought his own tennants in. Seems strange
      for John James to have gone all the way to Sheffield just after. That is my next visit
     to the records office in Sheffield and more searching.

      I dont live far away so it easy to reach. D

[JustinL]

The elder son was William James Farrow, b. 1849, buried in Whepstead on 6 Jul 1869.

I believe there was a White's directory in 1874. He could have been in there too.

Have you found (or looked for) this John Mead in the 1871 census? I see that a Thomas Mead farmed Cage's farm in 1855.

Pat - this has all inspired me to take another look at my Farrow ancestors. I just fired an email off to Jill Orriss hoping for great results only to realise that she had recently passed away. A very sad loss indeed.

Justin

[Suffolk Mawther]

Hello again Justin,

Jill's loss has been felt by many Suffolk researchers.  I am hoping to find out what has happened to all the fiche she had purchased from Suffolk Record Office over the years that she so generously shared with us all.

Good news is that the 'new' Suffolk Surnames List should be live before too long and hopefully we shall get the 'Suffolk PR Look Ups Exchange' back to full working order 

Just noticed that in the 1844 White's is listed, under farmers at Whepstead, one Thomas Maid - now as White's is notorious for spelling errors, I wonder if this should read Thomas Mead?

All three branches of the SRO have a good selection of all the Suffolk directories, and I think my photocopied notes on our village came from the 1874 White's at Bury St Edmunds.

Pat ...

[JustinL]

Hello Pat,

Those fiches do represent a fabulous resource. Fingers crossed that they turn up.

I had seen Thomas Maid, but had not put two and two together; you could well be right.

How do you interpret the two vertical lines || between some pairs of names?

Were they also farming the land of the farm above or below?

Justin