Supervisor Machynlleth 1796

[mazi]

Googling “supervisor of excise history” will throw up the other rootschat thread, also on British history online  pages from a supervisors book, giving a flavour of the huge number of items liable to tax.

No easy task in this very welsh town, a popular smugglers route

Mike

[sianb]

Thank you for the help.
May be a daft question, but what would they be smuggling through Machynlleth, it was a market town? I think I need a good social history of the town as well. Any recommendations, I've not come across much online.
Mike, I will Google that.
Sian

[mazi]

Thank you for the help.
May be a daft question, but what would they be smuggling through Machynlleth, it was a market town? I think I need a good social history of the town as well. Any recommendations, I've not come across much online.
Mike, I will Google that.
Sian

Barrels of French brandy were popular, up the Dovey estuary on the tide, then on horses thro the town and inland from there.

Further down the coast at Solva in Pembrokeshire the old smugglers paths are clearly noted, one passes across a friends farmyard

[sianb]

  Wow. Where there's a will there's a way!

[DCB]

Probably not of interest at this stage, although it might help to trace his early career and occupation, but I think I have found Sarah's baptism, given her age on the second marriage.

11th February 1771 at Evershot, Dorset, daughter of John and Martha. Approximately 8 miles from East Coker, where John married Martha.

Also Mary on 12th May 1773, born 9th November 1772, and John on 11th February 1776.

At Cerne Abbas, Robert Chaffey Packer and Elizabeth Packer on 22nd August 1785. He is on the 1851 census in East Coker.

What might help, although an expensive gamble, is that Robert, widower, married again in 1847 to Mary Crode in Netherbury, Dorset. It confirms that his father was John but, unfortunately, only a transcription. The certificate might help to clarify his father's occupation. His former wife, Phillis died in 1842.

It might be worth a post on the Dorset board, in case anyone can view the image.

Memorial inscription East Coker:
Coped Stone, flaking and falling apart, nothing legible) Robert PACKER, born Jan: 9, 1784, died Feb -- 1855 (PR: buried 17 Feb 1855, aged 75). Phillis Packer, born Jan: 13, 178-, died March 22, 1842 (PR: aged 60, i.e. born Jan 13, 1782)

David

[sianb]

Thank you David. I had some, but not all of this information.
Siân

[mrs.family]

Just seen this and chipping in my two penn'orth - I live in Taunton in Somerset and there is a Packer family here. If you want me to do any look-ups at the Heritage Centre, I can do that.

[sianb]

Thankyou mrsfamily. That is very kind of you. I shall get checking.
Best regards
Sian