William Ginn of Braughing d. 1766

William was the heir to William Ginn, Miller of Braughing (see post of 4th September ), and presumably looked forward to taking over Gatesbury Watermill.  As it turned out, this all ended disastrously.

It is not clear what happened.  Did William Snr delegate enough responsibility to William? -  i.e. was he trained to take over the family business?  It is uncertain, but it is plain that William Jnr got heavily into debt, having borrowed from his mother (and possibly others) and was forced to sell the Mill by 1723 (Land Tax).

William married Sarah Russell at Braughing in 1708, his father having died the year before and initially things were probably alright, although William obviously had siblings who drew on his father's estate.  We get some first hand testimony of his predicament in 1715, because in that year the new Vicar of Braughing did a tour of his Parish (with a view to assessing the due Tithes).  He kept a journal, which survives (HRO) and in April of that year he called on William.  The Vicar was not at all happy, noting that he would be collecting a much lower Tithe from William (as compared to his father) and saying "he has but one  cow, no hogs at all, and I am to bait him [abate or reduce the tithe] by six shillings until he lays some down or increases his stock".  William had the Mill and five fields.

In I717 William gave and signed the marriage bond on the licence for the marriage of his sister Ann when she married Edward Wilson, a yeoman of Royston (ERO - see below) and still had Gatesbury Watermill then, being described as a Miller and was still calling himself a Miller in 1723 when he apprenticed his son William to his (William snr's) brother Thomas, Citizen and Master Carpenter of London.

 

From 1723, William had to find alternative employment.  He went to work for the local gentry.

The Calvert family owned Furneux Pelham and much of the local area.  When William sold the mill he bought a cottage in Braughing Street (the High Street, such as it was) and this was but a short walk to Furneux Pelham.  He worked for the Calverts.

                         Portrait of an English gamekeeper of 1720

We can be pretty sure that William was working there as early as 1726, because he named one of his daughters Honor, that rare forename, and undoubtedly she was called after Honor Calvert, wife of the Lord of the Manor, this lady dying prematurely the year before Honor Ginn's birth (1725).

William did quite well in the employ of the Calverts.  By 1746 he was the Calvert's Head Gamekeeper (Sporting Licence Records - HRO) and in the same year he also worked as gamekeeper for the Brown family of Great and Little Hormead.  We can imagine a grizzled, weatherworn man in tricorn hat, with a number of gundogs at his heels, out in all seasons and well represented by the rare surviving portrait of an actual gamekeeper of the period shown above.

Throughout all these years William continued to own the cottage in Braughing Street.  This was held freehold, and thus gave William the vote (see Poll Book).

By 1762 (now 81) old William had given up work, and had apparently moved to Calvert land.  His will suggests that he had moved to Furneux Pelham (the Calverts lived at Pelham Hall, which is still there, the gardens often open to the public).  I have wondered if William moved out of the Braughing cottage to allow his son and family to take over.  He may have moved to servant’s quarters at the Hall, or been allocated a cottage on the estate.  This old man had been a loyal servant of the Calverts.

It seems pretty clear that William's daughter, Honor, looked after him in his old age; she clearly lived in Furneux Pelham (perhaps in service at the Hall).  I assume that it was for that reason he left her all what money and goods he had.  William Jnr received the proverbial shilling, not an insult, but a note (for legal purposes) that the old man remembered him (so that he could not later say the old chap was non compus mentis through old age).  William Jnr had, after all, received the only real thing of value that William had - the cottage.

Sarah Ginn had died in 1756.  I cannot find a baptism entry, but she must have been at least 70.  Old William died in 1766, he was 85 and his original will (Guildhall Library -Peculiar Jurisdiction of St Pauls) with his signature is shown above.  All that fresh air had agreed with him.

William and Sarah had seven children:

William - the only son and heir.  See later post

Mary - turned up in 2007.  She is in the Fleet Marriages indexed by the Herts FHS but somehow missed from the actual index.  She married Thomas Johnson of Braughing (likely links to Furneux Pelham) in London in 1750.  She was forty and no children are known or likely.

Sarah - married Edward Warren at Braughing in 1738 

Susannah - is untraced

Honor - married Thomas Bull (likely son of William - a witness to her father's will) at Furneux Pelham in 1767.  She was forty one.

Ann and Elizabeth - died in infancy