A Life Cut Short- Elizabeth Bell, Mereworth, Kent

 

In a former blog, I wrote about the puzzle of John Billinghurst or Bell, born in 1800 at Mereworth, Kent, England. He was the illegitimate son of Sarah Billinghurst. In this blog I am continuing the story of the family of Josiah Bell and Sarah Billinghurst who married in 1801, in St Lawrence, Church of England, Mereworth after the above mentioned John Billinghurst, alias Bell was born.

Josiah Bell was the third child of Josiah and Mary Bell (nee Carpenter) and was baptized at St Lawrence, Mereworth on 17 March 1754. He married in the same church, on 9 November 1801, Sarah Billinghurst. She was the daughter of John and Sarah Billinghurst and was also baptized at Mereworth on 16 September 1764.

Elizabeth Bell, the eldest child of Josiah and Sarah Bell (nee Billinghurst)
was baptized at Mereworth on 29 May 1803. When Elizabeth was born her mother was 39 years of age.
Elizabeth Bell grew up in Mereworth. She was thirteen years of age when her father, Josiah Bell died in 1816. His death impacted greatly on the family.
Elizabeth remained single and died at 18 years of age. She was buried at Mereworth on 2 December 1822.

We can gauge very little on the life of this young woman with the bare dates of her baptism and burial. However, in the Mereworth Parish Chest, there is a list of medicines and medical expenses the parish overseers paid, for the care of their poorest parishioners.

In the list for 1822, we find many entries for members of our Bell families. In particular, we find numerous mention of medicines for ‘E Bell’. She may have always been in poor health, but we can gather she became very ill several months before her death and that every medical assistance was given her by the parish overseers.

I have extracted the following from the parish accounts.

July 27- E Bell Diuretic mixture 2/6
Aug 4- E Bell Mixture repeated 2/6
Aug 6- E Bell Eight powders 2/6
Aug 14 – E Bell Diuretic mixture 2/6
Aug 19 – E Bell Two blisters to the legs 3/-
Aug 24 – E Bell Large tonic mixture 3/-
Aug 28 – E Bell Large box ointment 9d
Aug 31 – E Bell Two blisters to the feet 2/6
Sep 3 – E Bell Large box ointment 9d
Sep 7 – E Bell A tonic 2/6
Sep 10 – E Bell Box of ointment 9d
Oct 14 – E Bell Box of ointment 9d
Nov 6 – E Bell Box of ointment 1/-

We do not know the cause of death of Elizabeth Bell, but it appears from the above entries it must have been a blessed release.
One can only imagine what her mother, Sarah, must have endured. She survived another six years before her own death in 1828, leaving a sorrowing son of 22 years.

St Lawrence, Mereworth, 2004- Copyright, Nola Mackey

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Bell Ancestors,Coming to Australia-Robin and Mercy Bell,1838

Robin Bell (b 1785), the third son and fourth child of Thomas and Ann Bell of Mereworth, married Mercy Cheeseman in 1811 and had a family of ten children.

This family emigrated to New South Wales on the Woodbridge in 1838.

In the late 18th Century, England was again at war. The most terrible effect was a great depression it brought about in agriculture. It was essential the land produce an ever-increasing amount of food and although land enclosure had been going on for a long time the pressures of war hastened the movement. Many more taxes were introduced and although they mainly applied to the rich landowners they had a roll-on effect to the labourer in that as his taxes rose the landowner used them as an excuse to pay his workers less. By 1795 in the south of England agricultural labourers were paid only a pittance compared to what they had been and attempts were made to supplement his income from the parish poor rate. Many people resisted this step and tried to do without this assistance because of the stigma associated with it. They were willing to work, but there was no work. Of course, the Industrial Revolution played its part too.

We know that by the early 1830’s conditions had become so terrible that some agricultural labourers caused riots. In some effort to assist the poor, workhouses were set up all over England. It was probably about this time that Robin and Mercy Bell and family were forced to return to Mereworth from East Farleigh where they had lived and worked for a number of years.  (Mereworth was Robin Bell’s parish of birth, so became responsible for him and his family in times of unemployment and destitution).

At the same time, the colonies were calling for more agricultural labourers for the expanding wool trade. Immigration was encouraged but only the richer farmer could afford to go.

By 1837 the first of the assisted immigration schemes to Australia were in place. The summer of 1837 in England and Europe was cold and wet which led to a very poor harvest for that year.

This was probably one of the catalysts that led James and George Bell of East Farleigh, the sons of Thomas Bell (b 1782) and his first wife Mary, to sign on as sailors on board the convict ship Asia to work their way to Sydney in late 1837. See former blogs My Bell Ancestors-George Bell (1817-1894) Sorting Red Herrings posted 3 July 2015 and My Bell Ancestors-George Bell Red Herrings Sorted posted 1 February 2016.

The bad summer of 1837 was followed by a very harsh winter with much snow.

Many families were literally destitute and starving. Several of our Bell families like many others decided to emigrate, hoping to make a better life. The ‘bait’ as it were, was the dream to be able and own land after a few years working in the new colony. This was a dream they couldn’t have realized if they had stayed in England. Having decided to emigrate the families had to full-fill very strict conditions for a free passage to Australia. Many applicants were turned down as they were not able to fit these conditions. Robin Bell (b1785)and his family of Mereworth, Kent, were able to satisfy the conditions to emigrate to Sydney, as most of their family were adults and employable. See former blog “Robin and Mercy Bell of Kent, England, and Scone in New South Wales”, posted 1 September 2012.

With the bounty System for New South Wales, the male members of the family would have applied to the Workhouse Union Clerk at Malling for an assisted passage. He would have sent their application onto the Agent General for Emigration in London. Writing back to the clerk at Malling the Agent-General would announce that the Surgeon Superintendent of a certain bounty ship, such as the Woodbridge, or his agent, would be available to interview applicants on a certain day in the workhouse boardroom. The necessary certificates had to be presented at the interview. The applicant had to produce certificates certifying to moral and industrious habits, good health and practical knowledge concerning his given occupation. These documents had to be signed by the parish clergyman and other respectable inhabitants in the parish where the applicant resided. The applicant also had to tender certificates to his age and that of his wife and children. These were usually extracted from the parish registers. It is probable that Robin Bell and his family made the original application sometime in February 1838.

Other specified conditions for passage to Australia included a certain amount and type of clothing. Luggage packages were not to exceed 18″ deep and every steerage passenger before embarking had to put sufficient linen and other changes of clothing for a month into a box, not more than 15″ square as only these small boxes were allowed in the steerage compartment. All other luggage was stored(preferably in a tin-lined trunk), in the holds to be retrieved and brought onto the deck in calm weather about four or five weeks into the voyage.

Eligibility for free passage was determined by the Superintendent or his Agent at the interview. The successful applicants would then be advised the ships departure date and the necessity of reaching the place of embarkation a couple of days before the date of departure so their luggage could be examined for correctness under the rules of passage.

Preparations would take several weeks to complete, as the clothing alone which was all made by hand would take time. Parish Overseers Accounts in the Parish Chest Records for Mereworth, Kent, give a great insight into the lives of our Bell families, as these show us that the Mereworth Parish Overseers paid for the shoes and clothing to be made to allow our Bell families to emigrate. Also the tin lining for the trunk and tools for their trade. Emigrants were expected to travel to the place of embarkation at their own expense. Again the Mereworth Parish Overseers assisted. Note the ‘landing money’ which was given to the emigrants on landing in the colony.

Original Parish Chest, St Lawrence Mereworth, that once held the parish account books including the Overseer of the Poor. Copyright Nola Mackey-2004

“1838 – An Account of Moneys Spent by me for the parish of Mereworth to assist in clothing and other expenses attending so many poor families who were emigrating from this parish to New South Wales”

April	Gave Robt Bell by check To purchase tools etc				£4
	Paid Mr. Farrant a bill for Robt Bell and family				£6
	Pd the Revd Mr. Jebb for Robt Bells Family To receive at Landing in Sidney (sic)				£10

 

Robin and Mercy Bell were also known as Robert and Mary Bell in the Mereworth records.

The family was given ten pounds on landing in Sydney to help them live until they could arrange employment.

The Woodbridge left  England on 7 May and arrived in Sydney on 15 September 1838.

In the next blog, I will give more information on the voyage of the ‘Woodbridge‘ itself.

Sarah Cornwall Cheeseman – A Delightful Chance

This year as I have returned to researching my ancestors, it has be a wonderful chance to catch up with many cousins of all degrees. We have had such fun getting newly, or reacquainted, over photographs, documents and other family memorabilia.

Blogging has also allowed me the delightful chance of acknowledging the very best practises in ‘family history’, in that many people have contacted me with encouragement and offering information and assistance, some from the other side of the world.

In September 2012 I blogged about the daughters of James and Mercy Cheeseman of Staplehurst, Kent, England. In that blog I mentioned how the Parish Chest records had given me much information about this family. James Cheeseman is said to have gone to fight in the Napoleonic Wars in late 1803, and never returned home. His widow, Mercy, later married Robin Bell, the brother of my ancestor, Thomas Bell. The marriage had taken place at East Farleigh, Kent in 1811.

St Mary’s East Farleigh, Kent   [Copyright- Nola Mackey, 2004]

I have often noted in my blogs that I have been researching my family history for nearly fifty years. One of the loveliest things about being a long term family historian, is the wonderful and valuable network, I have built up over many years. For instance, when I became a member of the Kent Family History Society forty years ago, I found so many members living locally in Kent were willing to assist in any way they could, and I in turn was able to help many, with ‘twigs’ of their family, who had emigrated to Australia, at sometime. Many of these friendships remain today, although the contact may only be at Christmas, or even less frequent.

However, while we are beavering away at our own research, if we come across any material we think might be useful to any one in the ‘network’ we pass it on. This happened to me to me a few weeks ago. It had been many years since Margaret H. had been in contact with me, but she had been researching one of her ancestors, who had gone off to the Napoleonic Wars, and had come across probable regimental details of our James Cheeseman, and knew I would be interested.

She had also read my blogs and knew I was looking for information on Sarah Cornwall Cheeseman, the eldest surviving daughter of James and Mercy Cheeseman (nee Cox). Margaret not only gave me the date and place of Sarah Cornwall Cheeseman’s marriage, but also details of their children and subsequent life, which I have been able to follow up in on-line indexes of baptisms, marriages and burials as well as census returns. I had also purchased many records of Kent over the years, and those too have also been useful for my current research.

Briefly, Sarah Cornwall Cheeseman was born 13 April 1804, at Staplehurst, Kent, some months after her father went away to war. She was named ‘Sarah Cornwall’ after her paternal grandmother, and baptised at All Saints, Staplehurst. For some years the ‘parish’ paid Mercy Cheeseman, the wife of James, some four shillings a week for the care of her family. [Further details of these payments and other information about this can be found in “Mercy Cheeseman-Bell,” Nola Mackey, Bell Family Newsletter, No 42, July 2001.]

All Saints, Staplehurst, Kent   [Copyright – Nola Mackey, 2004]

Mercy Cheeseman had an illegitimate daughter, Elizabeth in 1806. Mercy and her two daughters moved to East Farleigh, with Robin Bell in 1808. Robin Bell and Mercy Cheeseman married in 1811. This couple had a number of children born at East Farleigh, before the family finally emigrated to Australia in 1838.

Sarah Cornwall Cheeseman grew up in East Farleigh and went into service at a young age. She had an illegitimate daughter born in August 1821. She was baptised at St Mary’s, East Farleigh on 19 August 1821, and given the name Hannah. [Ref: East Farleigh Parish Registers,(microfilm, P142-1-1, p34), purchased from Kent Archives and Library of Kentish Studies, Maidstone ]

It is possible, and indeed probable, that she was left in the care of her maternal grandmother, Mercy Bell at East Farleigh.

Robin and Mercy Bell had had a family of six, by this time, but two had died in infancy.

Hannah Cheeseman, the infant daughter of Sarah Cornwall Cheeseman, died at seven weeks of age and was buried at St Mary’s Churchyard, East Farleigh on 14 October 1821.

Meanwhile, as coincidence would have it, Sarah Cornwall Cheeseman had gone to Maidstone and had been married that very day, at All Saints, to Isaac Wheeler. This couple had a number of children over the next twenty years. All were baptised at All Saints, Maidstone:- Henry, 1823; Susannah,1826; Mercy, 1828; Charles,1830; Isaac, 1833; Sarah Ann Elizabeth, 1834; Sophia, 1836 and Harriet, 1838.

Baptismal Font, All Saints Maidstone,Kent   [Copyright- Nola Mackey, 2004]

This family can be tracked through all the census for Kent, in on-line subscription sites. Sarah Cornwell Wheeler and her family stayed in Kent, when her mother, step-father and their family emigrated.

Although this is not my direct line in the Bell family, I still get the greatest pleasure in being able to help other family historians make a little progress in their ancestral quest.

A Window in Time – My Bell Family in East Farleigh, Kent, England.

My maternal Great- Great- Grandfather, George Bell, arrived in Sydney in 1837, as a sailor on the convict ship, ‘Asia’.

He was the fourth son, and eighth child, of Thomas and Mary Bell (nee Battlemore), and had been born at East Farleigh, Kent, England in 1817.

I’m in the process of finding out as much information as I can, not only for my ancestor, George Bell, but also his eleven siblings. I have been preparing ‘time-lines’ for each one, from which I write a biography, or life story.

Despite gaps in surviving parish records I have been able to locate most of the baptisms, and in some cases burials, of members of this family in various church registers throughout Kent, England.

However, if we are to write a ‘family history’, baptism and burial records are not enough to build up a picture of a person. We need to gather as much information as we can from a number of sources.

In England, prior to the establishment of the Poor Law Unions in 1834, the parish was responsible for its poor.

‘The Parish Chest’, which is a large wooden chest, can still be found in most parish churches all over England. This purpose built chest originally housed not only the registers of baptisms, marriages and burials of the parish, but many other records, which although not created for family history research purposes, are useful resources for such, just the same. These include apprenticeship indentures, settlement certificates, bastardy papers, militia lists, overseers minute books and accounts , and churchwardens account books. Not all these have survived for every parish, but I found some of those for East Farleigh had survived from 1800 to 1830, and this was the time period I was interested in. One set of records I had found useful in research in other parishes I have researched, was the Overseers Account Books, so I concentrated on those records to start with. These had been deposited with the Kent County Archives (now the Kent History and Library Centre)and had been filmed by the Church of Latter Day Saints Genealogical Department. They were available on microfilm through their Family History Centres and I was able to order the film and view it at the Grafton centre.

These records were in two lists. The first list was for those who paid the parish poor rate. This ‘tax’ was collected by the church overseers, from the more affluent members of the parish, for distribution to those in need of assistance. There were no Bell family members listed as paying this ‘poor rate’ at any time between 1800 and 1830 in East Farleigh.This meant as agricultural labourers they did not earn enough money to pay this tax.

However, I was more interested in finding if they were recipients of parish welfare. There were two instances found for this period. I found my ancestors had applied for parish assistance for a short period in 1816. This meant that despite difficult times, for most of the time, Thomas Bell was able to earn enough money to support his large family. Remember to receive parish relief you had to be born in the parish, if not, and you fell on hard times, you were sent back to your parish of birth. If you were allowed to remain in the parish, the parish overseers ‘billed’ your parish of birth, which left a paper trail.

The entries in the Overseers of the Poor Account Book distribution list was as follows:-

30 April 1816 – gave young Bell – 3/-

5 May 1816 – gave Mary Bell – 3/-

14 May 1816 – gave Mary Bell – 5/-

22 May 1816 – gave Mary Bell – 4/-

29 May 1816 – gave May Bell – 4/-

5 June 1816 – gave Mary Bell – 4/6

11 June 1816 – gave Mary Bell – 3/6

20 June 1916 – gave Mary Bell – 3/6

20 October 1816 – paid for relieving Bell’s daughter- 4/-

The Napoleonic Wars finished in June 1815, with the Battle of Waterloo, and many thousands of soldiers returned home to try and find work, both in the cities and on the land. That summer was a very poor season, followed by a severe winter and again followed by a poor harvest.

Scattered throughout these records was assistance given to the widows and wives of ‘Militia men’, but no Bell entries were recorded.

St Mary’s, East Farleigh, Kent

In April 1816, Mary Bell, the wife of Thomas Bell, had a daughter, who was baptised on 16 April, at St Mary’s East Farleigh, and given the name ‘Elizabeth Ann’ . I believe she was perhaps a sickly child and the above entries most probably had to do with her care. Whether it was to have a doctor or nurse visit, or to do with her ‘wet nursing’ we do not know, but as she had been born in the parish, she was entitled to make claim on the parish funds if her parents did not have the money for her care. She died and was buried on 7 October 1816. The above entry on 20 October was perhaps for her final ‘medical expenses’ and burial.

There is only one other entry in the parish poor list for our Bell family. That was in 1827 when Thomas Bell applied for assistance to bury his wife, Mary.

Although ‘Elizabeth Ann Bell’ the daughter of Thomas and Mary Bell only lived a few months, these entries in the Overseers Account Book help to give a glimpse of this little girl’s struggle for survival. As there were no entries between the end of June and early October, her parents may have had some hope that she was going to gradually get stronger . However, she lost the battle at about seven months of age and was buried in St Mary’s Churchyard.

In fact, eight of the twelve children of Thomas and Mary Bell, are known to have been buried in St Mary’s churchyard. The family or parish, may have erected markers at the time, perhaps in wood, but they have disappeared in the last two hundred years, so their graves are now unmarked and unknown.

Churchyard, St Mary’s East Farleigh, Kent, England

This does not mean they are forgotten . I always try to find more than birth/ baptism and death/ burial dates for everyone in my family history. .