Benjamin Ginn of Ware died 1813

 If you refer back to Richard Ginn of Ware died 1697 (post of 2nd August 2020) you will note that he had a son Benjamin (1687-1760).  This Benjamin married a Mary Richardson at Ware in 1716.  Benjamin and Mary had three children including a Judith, a Benjamin jnr who was born in 1717 and a John.  We will explore all this in a later post or two.

Benjamin jnr (1717-1798) was a Labourer/Maltmaker (both brewing and barging the produce down the River Lee into London were major trades in Ware) - and he married  Mary Barnes in 1740.  This Benjamin also had a good number of children and, again,we will deal with this in other posts.  Because this post is solely taken up with Benjamin and Mary's son, also Benjamin, who was born in 1755.

Ben Ginn took up the plastering trade, though records suggest he was also not afraid of doing a bit of painting and decorating.  So, obviously, most of his work would have been for the middle classes and the gentry.  Plasterers did not of course simply plaster walls, but put in decorative ceilings, alcoves and the like, not to mention rendering exterior walls.  The very sort of thing the 18th century gentry loved.  I would not be surprised if some of his work survived.

Ben married Rachel Hobbs at Ware in 1779.  They were obliged to marry in an Anglican church.  But it is clear that from early on they were non-conformists - ie Independents.  A meeting house for  Independents was opened in Ware in 1778, and Benjamin and Rachel attended it from their marriage.  It has within the last decade been converted into apartments, but the original building  survives and is shown here before the conversion

Ben and Rachel had eight children, all baptized at the Old Meeting House.  There was a burial ground and the records survive, but no Ginn was buried there.

At some point (Land Tax) Benjamin bought  a house in Kibes Lane in Ware, the family seem to have lived there.  This property qualification gave him the vote - he is in the 1805 Poll Book.

And so we move forward,  Now I was born in the Lee Valley and spent the first fifty five years of my life there.  Some of my ancestors have been there for centuries.  The River Lee has been vital to the economy of South Eastern Hertfordshire since Saxon times, and Ware being a major malting and brewing town since the middle ages, needed the Lee to transport its produce to London.

Over the centuries, new waterways and canals were created, deepened, widened and cut  at the London end to make access to London easier.  Ben Ginn's great Uncle Richard had been a Bargeman in the 1720s, and the barges and boats that went down the River Lee and canals were charged a toll to pass at the various Locks on the way, these being managed by Lock Keepers and Toll Collectors.  It became  a habit to appoint  these posts from men living in various towns on the River Lee - Hertford, Ware, Cheshunt, Waltham Abbey etc.

I have had correspondents over the years who have queried the fact that there is no burial entry for Benjamin Ginn in Ware.  Some had even linked his burial to the wrong guy.  Well I cannot tell you why it happened, though I can guess, but on 22nd June 1809 "Benjamin Ginn of Ware, plasterer" was appointed "Collector of Tolls" at Limehouse Lock, which is now in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, a long way from Ware (NA Rail 845/8).

There were two lock -keepers and two toll collectors, each with their family lived in a cottage by the canal and they worked turn and turn about in twelve hour shifts as it was of course a 24 hour job.

My suspicion as to the "why" is Benjamin's health,  The guy was 54 in 1809, he had likely been a plasterer, often in confined spaces, for forty years.  The trade (like coalmining) gives you Silicosis.  In addition, 18th century plaster contained a lot of animal hair (horse, cow even dog) scraped off the floor of the slaughter house in unsanitary conditions which contained disease, even anthrax apparently.  My feeling is that Ben had lung disease, he needed fresh air.

                                       Limehouse Cut in 1809

So Ben and Rachel moved into one of the cottages.  The men were given lanterns to collect the tolls at night and often the families helped out.  It was obviously a responsible job, Ben had to keep  accounts.

The family as I say had to live in one of the cottages,  These, together with the whole Lock grew to be in disrepair by the 1850s (the Limehouse Cut had been channelled out in the 1760s) and the old cottages were demolished and rebuilt.  The later cottages are shown below.  They give us some idea as to what it was like during the Napoleonic Wars.

Benjamin Ginn died in 1813, he was 58.  He is buried at St Anne, Limehouse.  His death is also recorded in NA Rail 845/8.  He was buried in May 1813 and a month later Rachel and any kids that were left had to leave as a new Collector was appointed.   She went back to Ware and died there in 1823 aged about 60.

Benjamin and Rachel had eight children

Benjamin - later a Surveyor.  He will be dealt with in a later post

Thomas - a Plumber - see next post

Joseph - was born in 1786.  There is no record of him dying in infancy but I have never come across anybody that could potentially be him.  There appears to be no Napoleonic War record for him in any service.

Ann - died in 1807 aged 19

Edward - died infancy

Daniel Hobbs - there were two.  The first died in infancy.  The second was born in 1795 but I have never found any trace of him

Mary - is untraced

Peter Ginn of Hertford died after 1675

 It was not my intention to regale you with the story of Hertford in the English Civil War, fascinating though that is to me. If it seems that way, my apologies.  But Hertford is the theatre in which this post is set, and the characters mentioned here are the "players" who in their lifetime performed this play. 

Peter Ginn was born in Datchworth in 1612, the son of John Ginn jnr and his wife Helen (nee Plumb) in my last post.  His father died when he was ten and his mother brought him up.

Peter trained as a Blacksmith/Farrier.  He worked on his own account and moved to Hertford by about 1640.  On 28th November 1643 he married a lady called Grace at Hertford, All Saints, there was a double wedding (two are bracketed in the record) and for some reason in the confusion her name was not recorded.   I suspect that Grace was a widow.

Now the English Civil War began in August 1642.  It had been coming for years.  Hertford declared for Parliament, but a few of the aristocracy and gentry in the county stayed loyal to King Charles the First who in that month issued his Commission of Array (under the Great Royal Seal) to Hertford, ie calling on the gentry to raise troops for the King.

                 The Commission of Array for Worcester

Enforcing the Commission of Array at Hertford was entrusted to Sir John Watts of Ware, son of Sir John Watts the elder.  He came from an old Hertfordshire family.  His grandfather, also John, had run privateers (ie he was a pirate) against the Spanish in the days of Queen Elizabeth and in 1588 had volunteered into one of his own ships to fight the Spanish Armada.  He made a huge amount of money.  He was later made Lord Mayor of London.

His father, the elder,  had been a soldier as a boy under Queen Elizabeth. He went to Holland in 1624 with the disastrous Count Von Mansfeld Expedition (where Henry Ginn of Anstey clearly died - see post of 19th July 2012) but unlike poor Henry he had the money to extradite himself before the final debacle and returned to England and was then signed up in October 1625 for the equally disastrous Cadiz Expedition against the Spanish.  You would have thought that the Watts family would have had more sense than to risk their lives again for the feckless and arrogant Charles Stuart who would never have returned the favour, but not a bit of it.  In August 1642, Sir John Watts jnr rode into Hertford with a few gentry to raise the King's standard and recruit a troop of cavalry.

He went to the Old Bell Inn in Fore Street.  Unbeknown to him, Parliament had raised the Trained Band (the Militia) and some 500 men armed with pikes and muskets and likely the odd obsolete bow and arrow had congregated there,  Hertford had a gunpowder magazine.  The Parliament men lined up against the walls of the Old Bell we are told.  Sir John  and his men beat a  retreat.

The Old Bell Inn dates back to the 1500s, it is now known as the Salisbury Arms and has been for two hundred years.  There is some suggestion in the records that Peter and Grace later held the Inn or at least had some connection with it, in fact I am suspicious that Grace was the widow of the landlord, had children from her first marriage and held it until a son may have come of age.  We will never know. We can see the Inn from a drawing of the 1790s below.   The building on the left is the Shire (Town) Hall which was built in the 1760s and is still there.  In  the 1640s this was a timber framed building.

Hertford was a member of the Eastern Association, a group of eastern English counties that had declared for Parliament against the King.  The west of the country was largely Royalist, and it is fair to say that the Midlands saw much of the fighting,

Hertfordshire raised a number of Regiments of Foot, Sir John Norwich's Regiment of Horse (see post re Richard Ginn of Ware of 2nd August 2020 ) some cavalry troops and a good number of Militia units.  One Regiment of Foot was under the command of Colonel Sir John Wittewrong* (of Flemish descent) a Hertfordshire knight.  He had been knighted by Charles 1st in 1640, so he must have had mixed feelings when (mostly because of his religion ( he was a Non Conformist) a couple of years later he found himself taking up arms against the King.

                             Sir John Wittewrong in later life 

Whilst Hertfordshire needed soldiers, it also needed men with the ability and experience to raise the money and resources to feed, supply and keep them active in the field.  Enter Gabriel Barbor of Hertford.

Gabriel Barbor* (born in the 1570s and thus in his 60s) was a prosperous London Merchant who whilst keeping his businesses there, had come to Hertford by about 1620.  He has been described as an "extreme Puritan" and had been circulating pamphlets against the divine right of kings in the 1630s.  He was the sort of man who might have gone with the Pilgrim Fathers to the New World on the "Mayflower" in 1620, and indeed he had interests in Virginia and his son William and family were to move to the New World after the English Civil War.

Barbor leased the property called "Lombard House" which is still there (The Hertford Club) and although refronted two centuries ago, is still pretty much the same at the back adjoining the river, and if you look carefully you might see Barbor waving at you out of the windows !

Gabriel Barbor was made the head of the Hertford Committee, who ran the administration for Hertfordshire's part in the war for Parliament.  By all accounts he was very good at his job, raising taxation without causing riots, suppling men and materials.  But there was always a shortage of horses.  These were needed in the fields and to get the harvest in, yet the army demanded them to draw wagons and obviously for the cavalry regiments and good mounts for officers.

There are various surviving letters from Gabriel Barbor to the front.  In 1643 Colonel Sir JohnWittewrong's Foot Regiment was in the garrison at Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.  Aylesbury saw some action during the Civil War as it acted as one of a series of strongpoints that guarded the Eastern Association from the Royalists in the west who probed the defences.  In Wittewrong's regiment were Captains John and William Barbor, two of Gabriel Barbor's sons.  The letter below to Wittewrong with transcription shows the plight regarding horses and Barbor's zeal for the fight.  I am fond of the comment calling for "stoute harts and faces like lyons"

You shall by *George Peach or his captain receive £200 for your soldiers.   I pray make a receipt and send itt.  Also ther being your 6 horses for wagon or scowtes, one bay gelding is reserved for my sonn John, so that be being willing, his owne gelding instedde thereof be imployed as you shall appoint.  I am in great hast. The Lord preserve you, your officers and regiments with the town they inhabit. I will be careful to procure what may be gotten for you and yours before all others. The Lord give you stoute harts and faces like lyons

I am your humble servant

Gabriel Barbour

Hartford 26th May 1643

There are one or two payments in the records of the Hertford Committee for payments to Peter for services as a farrier.  But the fact that Grace is mentioned  more often in contrast to Peter, suggests that he may well have been away in the forces for at least some of the time.  Alan Thompson in his work on the English Civil War in Hertfordshire (which mentions Peter and Grace), highlights the fact that the women had to cover while the men were away.

                                           Before Naseby

There were ups and downs in the First English Civil War, but Parliament won when in 1645 Fairfax and Cromwell gained a crushing victory over the King at the Battle of Naseby or "Naseby Fight" as our ancestors called it.  Parliament called for dinners to be held to celebrate the victory "Thanksgiving Dinners".  These were not wild parties, many men were religious,and the one in London featured the men singing the 46th Psalm ....

Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth.

 He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire

  Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

We know that the Thanksgiving Dinner in Hertford was held at the Old Bell Inn and Grace Ginn was paid for the meal as shown in the accounts of the Hertford Committee.  So she seems to have had some connection with the pub, what and how I do not know and likely never will.  This is the Salisbury Arms (as is) today, scarcely changed from 230 years ago.

Gabriel Barbor died in 1647 - he was about 70.  His will (PCC) is obviously largely taken up with his family, and surprisingly (although he likely fell out with most over religion - he certainly did with Wittewrong) there is no mention of the gentry with whom he must have associated to keep the wheels turning.  But he left small bequests to some of those who clearly assisted him, house servants apart these included "my late servant* Henry Peach". ."*Goodwife Downes the wife of Downes the Sergeant" and "Grace Gynn the wife of Peter Gynn".

In late 1647, the New Model Army was largely camped in Ware.  It was in revolt.  Generals Cromwell and Fairfax came to Hertford and reputedly stayed in the Old Bell Inn before they went out to the Army and calmed them down.

We hear very little of Peter and Grace after Barbor died.  There was a second Civil War which ultimately led to the execution of the King in 1649.  Peter is mentioned as a witness to the will of an Innkeeper in Hertford ( a fellow called Styles) in 1653 but that is it.

The Hearth Tax records note that they lived in a 2 hearthed cottage, likely a cottage with adjoining smithy.  They lived in All Saints.

We know that the couple lost both of their known adult sons, Peter jnr the last in 1668 which likely contributed to Grace's death in 1670.  She was likely in her 50s.

Peter Ginn was alive in 1674 living in the same cottage aged 62, but there is no trace of him after that.

Peter and Grace had their children during the period of the Civil War and Commonwealth - a period when records were notoriously poorly kept.  I have been surprised before, so the fact that I only know of two sons does not mean there were no other children

Their children:

John - died in his late teens

Peter - a smith, he died in 1668 aged 24

The Players*

George Peach - you may be curious about George - I was.  He was a Tailor in Hertford.  He married a Martha Minors in London in 1637.  They had Martha and Thomas ((the records are few)  He was obviously in one of the Hertfordshire Foot Regiments (likely Wittewrong's) from what Barbor says.  That regiment was broken up in 1645 and the men sent to other regiments including those in the New Model Army.  George survived the wars, he came home to Hertford and bought the Cross Keys Inn which was around the corner from the Old Bell.  It had gone even before I was born in the 1950s, but only just - here it is on the far right in 1823 and a century later.

George Peach died in 1657 (will PCC)  accounted a Gentleman.  I doubt he was that  much past 40.  John Downes, eldest surviving son of Hezekiah  (see below) was sole witness to his will.

Henry Peach - the late servant of Gabriel Barbor was likely brother to George and a young man in 1647.  The Peach Boys do not seem to have been locally born.   He would seem to be the Henry Peach, Gentleman of Ware mentioned later in Herts Archives records.  In 1680, he gave evidence defending a man accused of being a closet Papist.  Catholics, closet or not, were still viewed with fear in Protestant England - reference the Rye House Plot in nearby Hoddesdon in 1683 against the King's popish tendencies.

Sir John Wittewrong - He was a young man of 25 when made a Colonel and must have been somewhat shocked that the King who had knighted him in 1640 had his head removed from his shoulders in 1649.  Oliver Cromwell died in 1658 and the Parliamentarian government collapsed in short order.  There was a movement to bring the Royal family back (although not on the same terms as before) and Charles 2nd (son of his executed father) came to England in 1660.  Wittewrong wiped his mouth, welcomed the new King and was made a Baronet for his trouble.  He spent the remaining years of his life in the more peaceful pursuit of recording the weather - his weather diaries survive, as allegedly do a pair of his boots !  He died in 1693.

Goodwife Downes - was Priscilla Downes, wife of Hezekiah Downes snr.  They had a Hezekiah Jnr in 1619 who lived.  Hezekiah was a Blacksmith like Peter Ginn.  Chauncy says that Hezekiah snr was made Sergeant at Mace to Hertford Borough in 1631 and he held that post (holding the ceremonial mace at Borough functions) into the 1640s.  So he is "Downes the Sergeant",  The Mace (believe it or not) survives, ironically bearing the Arms of Charles the 1st.  It has been re-gilded, the gentleman below showing it off

Barbor seems to suggest that Hezekiah senior was away.  A Hezekiah Downes (I had assumed the junior but this may be wrong) was in Sir John Norwich's Regiment of Horse.  Priscilla died in 1654.  Hezekiah in 1665 (will Herts Archives)

Sir John Watts - the elder died in 1649 , the year that his King was executed.  The younger fought for King Charles in the War.  As a Royalist in a county that declared for Parliament, he had his Ware estate confiscated.  He gained some revenge however when the monarchy was restored in 1660.

Gabriel Barbor - died as I say in 1647.  He left four sons - William, John, Gabriel (a Surgeon) and Joseph.  His one daughter Elizabeth married Isaac Puller, who was also a member of the Hertford Committee, Justice of the Peace, Mayor of Hertford and even several times MP for Hertford before 1660.

There is a great story here, largely fantasy, concerning The Barbor Jewel which is at the Victoria and Albert Museum.  It is an onyx cameo of Queen Elizabeth 1st dating from the 1570s which the V & A say was reset in diamonds, rubies and pearls in about 1615.  The rear of the jewel has been enamelled with an Oak Tree - the "Hatfield Oak" (Hatfield near Hertford) which Princess Elizabeth was in legend standing under when she heard the news she was Queen in 1558 .

The Barber family story (written by another Gabriel in 1724) is that William Barbor a Grocer of London (Gabriel our hero's father who died in 1586) was a fervent protestant who having escaped burning at the stake because Protestant Elizabeth became Queen, bought the jewel in her honour. He was further to decree that all Barbor men were to have a daughter named Elizabeth in the Queen's memory.  It is fancy, but a lovely story.  My guess is that the jewel came into the family through one of Gab Barbor's wives. He would scarcely (being a Puritan) have indulged such a thing.  But it is, I think you will agree -a lovely thing

John Ginn of Burnham Green in Datchworth died 1610

 I have been nudged by a correspondent who has seen my original research  to put this post in the blog.  I was loath to because I cannot definitely say (the blog before 1700 is mostly based on wills and land inheritance and there is none of that here) that the John Ginn here connects to the Aston family, but I have always thought he does.

What we know for certain is that John Ginn of Aston who died in 1557 (see post of 12th June 2012) had two living sons with the christian name John when he died.  This was not uncommon in the Tudor period because of the high mortality rate amongst children.  John Ginn the younger was on my calculation about 15-17 when his father died.  I suspect that he might have been called Jack on  a day to day basis to distinguish him from his brother.

What we also know for certain is that Henry Ginn of Aston (John jnr's nephew - see post of 8th Sept 2012) was in dispute with the gentry Boteler family, Lords of the Manor of Aston, from when his father died in 1592. Harry was scared off.   He sold the lease of Garetts and was in Burnham Green in Datchworth by 1596 or so.  We also know that Henry was in touch with his wider family until he died in 1632 (his Uncle Arthur of Anstey mentions him in his will of 1630).  So it is quite possible that he sought the comfort of being near an uncle when the excrement hit the fan.  That uncle could have been this man, John Ginn of Burnham Green.  But I cannot prove it as I say -  and a problem is that the Datchworth parish registers do not survive for before 1570 or so - so conclusion drawing is risky.

John Ginn of Datchworth, assuming he is John Ginn the younger, inherited £20 when his father died in 1557.  He would not have received it until the 1560s.  John married (presumably in Datchworth but I do not know who, in about 1568.  I do not have his wife's name.

John Ginn was a labourer, husbandman.  It was common for a man to buy or lease a small piece of land, or even carve a spot out of the common and build himself a house upon it.  We have a fascinating description of how this worked in Gough's "The History of Myddle".

Neither the Manorial Rolls for Datchworth ot Welwyn survive for this period and I sadly know little about him, other than he lived in Burnham Green,

John died in 1609/10, he was about 70  He left a will (Hunts Archives) which does not tell us much

Their children

John and his wife had six children.  The family must have lived in fairly comfortable conditions because we have baptism dates for five of the six and all lived to at least their mid 20s

John - he married Joan Freeman in 1601 when he was about 30.  They had three children and then Joan died in about 1610.  John remarried a Helen Plumb in 1611.  He had three children by Joan and one son by Helen viz

       Edward died infancy

        Isobel died infancy

        Mary - who is untraced

        Peter - see next post

John junior died in 1622.  His widow Helen remarried John Gregory of neighbouring Welwyn in 1631.

Mary - was born in 1570 - she married John Adcock in 1608

Elizabeth  - was born in 1576 - she married Shadrack Wells in 1610

Joan - was born in 1579 - she was alive in 1609 aged 30 but she was disabled or unwell because her father was anxious to provide some little care for her.  I sadly have not traced her

Ann - was born in 1584 - she married Edward Ripley in 1612

Margaret - was born in 1589, a year after the Spanish Armada - she married Richard Woodley in 1616

William Ginn of Sacombe and Tasmania died 1846

 Every tragedy falls into two parts: complication and unravelling...By complication I mean all that extends from the beginning of that action to the part which marks the turning point to good or bad fortune.  The unravelling is that which extends from the beginning of the change to the end.

Aristotle

My 4x great grandfather John Cooledge stole a little food and was transported to Australia as a convict, leaving a family behind.   He died in Tasmania, in Hobart Hospital.  His wife and family were placed into Buntingford Workhouse and only two children of that whole family survived that experience.  It was shocking to read the workhouse records.  So this post has some meaning for me.

William was a descendant of John Ginn (see my post of 25th July 2014 ).  His further ancestors will be dealt with in later posts.  He was an agricultural labourer.

 19th cent labourers - I love the guy with the top hat

William married Hannah Surridge at Sacombe in 1826, Hannah came from Bennington.  Sacombe was and is a quiet rural village, not a place where there would be much happening or with plenty of work opportunities.  The couple were poor.

Now sometimes I know something without knowing  I know something.  And so it is here.  I had actually uploaded this post when "the penny dropped" that I knew more.

Hannah was born to Thomas and Ann at Benington in 1806.  The couple had indeed married that year, Thomas Surridge being a widower.  But Tom did not come from Benington, he came from Sacombe Green, his father being Wiliam Surridge (a labourer who owned a few bits of land) and who died in 1810 leaving a will.

And Thomas Surridge had the wherewithal to buy a copyhold cottage at Sacombe Green in 1816 (DE/AS/2389 Herts Archives) see extract which sale was finalised to him in 1819.  He was variously described as a Labourer/Carpenter.  

Now I am a property lawyer- deeds are what I do.  And I have turned up those deeds.  Tom Surridge converted this one house into two cottages before 1820.  And I know that William Ginn and Hannah were tenants of one of these cottages.  I also know that there are two farm cottages at Sacombe Green which are historic and listed buildings (for planning purposes) and their listing description says that this one house was converted into two cottages circa 1800 (the house has elements going back to the late 1600s).  I am certain that this is all one.  So we can see the house, cottages below.

William and Hannah had had two children when in 1829 they applied under the Poor Laws to move to Cheshunt, a small town on the London Road where there would have been plenty of opportunities.  The rules were that if the destination parish Overseers of the Poor thought that the family would be a burden on the parish and claim poor relief (paid for by the local taxpayers) then they could turn the couple away and send them back to Sacombe.  This is what happened.  (Settlement Records Herts Archives).  I have always thought that if the family had been allowed to settle in Cheshunt their story would have been very different.

William and Hannah continued to have children and we move forward to 1841.

Now 1841 was a significant year for several reasons, some trivial, some not.

For a start - it was the year that Britain saw its first Christmas Tree - a German tradition brought into England by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort.  It was erected at Windsor Castle.

Queen Victoria had a lovely Christmas that year, writing in her journal on Christmas Eve 1841

Christmas, I always look upon as a most dear happy time, also for Albert, who enjoyed it naturally still more in his happy home, which mine, certainly, as a child, was not. It is a pleasure to have this blessed festival associated with one’s happiest days. The very smell of the Christmas Trees of pleasant memories. To think, we have already 2 Children now, & one who already enjoys the sight, — it seems like a dream.

And a fine time would have been had by all of the aristocracy, gentry and the factory owners who took the riches of what was at the time the richest and most powerful nation in the world.  But the nation had crippling inequality, the wealthy few exploited the impoverished masses just as the slave owners had once exploited the slaves.  The poor could barely feed themselves in the good times, and these were not good times- 1841 was notable for another thing - it was a year in a decade which came to be known as "The Hungry Forties"

Thirdly, in Spring 1841 Thomas Surridge, now nearly seventy. sold the two cottages for nearly twice what he paid for them.  William Ginn was said to be in possession of one of them.  See extracts below (DE/AS/2390).  If Bill Ginn were only paying a nominal rent to his father in law, this could have crippled him financially.

And also in 1841- Hertfordshire saw the creation of its first professional police force - the Hertfordshire Constabulary.  The Metropolitan Police (one of the first professional police forces in the world) had been created in London in 1829.  It replaced an archaic system.  But the freedom loving British would not tolerate an armed force wearing the uniform of army red (the "Peterloo Massacre" of 1819 was fresh in the public mind) as that might induce riots.  So our police were to be the unarmed "boys in blue".  It is clear that Hertfordshire recruited some men from "the Met".

So we come to Saturday, 18th December 1841 - quite literally, the week before Christmas.  Bill Ginn would have had little work this time of the year but obviously decided that his six children would have a full belly that Christmas.   As a consequence he and Hannah were not to have the "dream" Christmas of Queen Victoria, but rather a surreal nightmare that would change their lives forever.  I knew the outcome years ago - but in 2007 turned up the whole sorry tale (full papers survive QSR 66) at Herts Archives.

Thomas Mardell was a local farmer in Sacombe.  He was also (for many years) one of the Overseers of the Poor, ie in charge of parish poor relief, which I am sure had brought him into contact with the Ginns. There was probably no love lost.

Thomas Mardell had 141 sheep in a field near Sacombe that Saturday, except his shepherd counted and noted that there were only 140.

Mardell was to say that he and the shepherd were able to track Bill and the sheep, but this seems unlikely and I suspect that somebody snitched.    Whatever the truth, Mardell and the shepherd approached the privy of Bill's cottage on Sacombe Green and noticed "ground fresh moved" and blood.  Mardell withdrew and the shepherd went to fetch the Hertfordshire Constabulary.

Chief Inspector Driscoll and Constable Thresher attended the scene later the same day, near dusk.  It was nearly the shortest day so this would have been about 4 pm.  Constable Thresher was Charles Thresher, he got my interest as the next year he indirectly features in the story of Billett King Genn of Cambridge (see below) and Charles was  later to find his own life turned upside down +

The police found William near his cottage.  Thresher held him fast while Driscoll searched the cottage.  They found a sheep's paunch (tripe) concealed near the fire place.  It was now dark and they left with William and locked the cottage up.

The police returned the next morning ie the 19th and opened up the cottage, Hannah was there.  They thought that she was trying to conceal something and moving her out of the way found the head of a sheep and a sack of mutton beneath her.  A butcher from Hertford was later to give evidence that all of the mutton was fresh killed and poorly butchered.

Nathaniel Surridge was the Parish Constable - ie the civilian appointed by the parish to keep the peace in the village. He was also Hannah's first cousin. He confirmed all that the police had said, and further mentioned that they had found a sheepskin in a pond near Bill's cottage.

William Ginn denied any knowledge of the sheep - but his fate was sealed.

William was put in Hertford Gaol - now long gone. His conduct there was bad - he was obviously traumatised.   His trial was delayed and he was not actually tried until 14th February 1842, 180 years almost to the day before this post.  He was sentenced to be transported for 10 years without possibility of return.  It was his first offence ever.

He then went to the prison hulks on the Thames to await his sentence being carried out and was there for five months.  The hulks were dismasted ships, many of them old warships from the Napoleonic Wars.  Discipline was very strict and life was tough.

                   An early photo from the 1850s showing prison hulks on the Thames

William was transported to Australia on the "Triton".  It took several months and he sailed into Hobart, Tasmania on 19th December 1842, a year to the day since Driscoll and Thresher had searched the cottage that Sunday morning.

We know from the records that William was 5ft 6 ins (about average for the time amongst the poor) had dark brown hair and beard, with blue eyes.

The convict regime in Tasmania had toughened in 1841 and new arrivals were to be put in what were  effectively chain gangs for the first two years after their arrival, carrying out government projects, road building and the like.  He went to Westbury. Whilst acting as cook to the gang he not unsurprisingly stole some extra food and was put in solitary for six days. The convicts were paraded on what is now the Village Green, below.

There was a Probation Station at Westbury which is where William went at the end of his two years, he now being assigned out to work (not for wages of course) for the local free settlers.  We know that he was assigned to a William Chitty.  He was still working for Chitty in 1845 when he was disciplined for drinking in a disorderly house after hours.

Had William lived, he would have got a conditional pardon in a few years, freedom, but not to return home.  This was sadly not to be as he became ill- we do not know what the problem was, and died in Westbury Hospital on 10th September 1846 - he was 45.  A descendant (ironically a good number of Bill's descendants emigrated to Australia) has told me that the convict dead from the hospital were buried in unconsecrated ground near the still to be completed Anglican church in Westbury.

Back in Sacombe, Hannah was made aware that William had died- thereafter describing herself as a widow. She took in laundry to try and survive. She never remarried and lived with her daughter Mary - dying at Sacombe in 1883.

William and Hannah had six children

Mary Ann - married William Luck at Sacombe in 1855

Thomas - married Emma Ruddell at Sacombe in 1864

Sarah - married James Kirby at Sacombe in 1852

William - married Mary Bradley at Sacombe in 1867

Charles - married Eliza Parker at Sacombe in 1863

Emma - is untraced

+ Charles Thresher who held Bill Ginn that day is an interesting cove.  He was born in London's west end.  Yet he married Ann Ellwood at Cambridge in 1832.  In 1836 he joined the Metropolitan Police.  At the inception of the Hertfordshire Constabulary in 1841 he clearly transferred.  His boss in Hertfordshire was a chap called Bailey, a former army man who was the "top man" at the Police Station at Stevenage.  There is an article on the Cambridge Police called "Provincial Police Reform in early Victorian England" by Roger Swift that deals with the early history of what became the City of Cambridge professional police force which was set up in 1842.  The new local authority were Tories (the liberals had lost the election) and they wanted an authoritarian police force.  They invited applications for a Superintendent of Police (largely an administrative post) and four people were shortlisted.  Three were serving police officers and all former army men, including Bailey, but one was "Mr Genn of Cambridge" this is Billett King Genn of Cambridge (see post of  10th October 2019) whose only qualification for the role (he was a Draper) were his connections - he was a member of the Garrick Club for a start.  Needless to say he did not get the job - but Bailey did.  And Bailey brought two serving Hertfordshire police officers with him to Cambridge in 1842 including (you guessed it) Charlie Thresher.  The outsiders were not welcome in Cambridge- Bailey was a martinet who never escaped his army roots and had the Cambridge force (who were supposed to be armed with cudgels) engaging in sword drill !  The liberals in Cambridge called the Tory council's recruits the "Hertford Pets".  But these "pets" prospered for a while at least, and Charles Thresher was made an Inspector of Police and Clerk to the Market (he enforced market regulations) in 1843.  But Bill Ginn could have told him that life throws you "curve balls" and so it proved.  For in 1849 Inspector Thresher both lost his job in the police and went bankrupt.  Th sorry tale is in the "London Gazette" the "Jurist" of 1849 and 1850.  It is unclear whether he lost his job and went bankrupt, or went bankrupt and accordingly lost his job.  But in any event, in a time when you went to prison if you were a defaulting debtor,  the former policeman was petitioning to avoid prison.   And he did - because in 1847 he had remarried an Ann Moore at Granchester near Cambridge, and in 1851 we find him (Trade Directory) pulling pints as the Landlord of the "Green Man" at Granchester which pub is still there.  Funny how life turns out

Uriah Ginn of St Giles Cripplegate, London died 1715

Uriah here is the son of Uriah snr of Cheshunt in my post of 10th November 2019 .  I did not know he even existed until late 2021 (no baptism record survives - he was born during the Commonwealth in circa 1658) and this research is a work in progress.  He does not have any descendants and you may think that this will be a boring post - but you would be wrong - Uriah was a Stationer - ie a Bookseller, unique in this blog.

 A local man called Robert Dewhurst had a charity school built in Cheshunt in 1640.  The original building still stands (below) and is used as the dining room for the now much larger and modern Dewhurst Primary School .  It is now part of a  State School, a school that my father (I come from Cheshunt) attended in the 1920s, my Dad and Uriah played in the same playground, 250 years apart. So Uriah and I come from the same town and have a personal link.

Originally the school was set up for "poor boys" ie those whose parents could not afford schooling for their children.  It was as stated in its constitution "for the teaching of them to read English so that they may know God the better and also to write and cast accounts so that they may be better able to be apprenticed to some honest trade or mystery"

Most of the boys went to manual trades, but the more academic went elsewhere and in early 1674 Uriah was apprenticed to a Thomas Harris a Stationer of London "he dwelleth in Camomile Street within Bishopsgate" (De/Ds/8/1 Herts Archives)

Camomile Street is still there but bears no resemblance to what it looked like in 1674.  It had escaped the Great Fire of London in 1666 and was a short street of less than forty buildings off of Bishopsgate Street - a map of 1682 shows it below.

 It is apparent that Uriah finished his apprenticeship and continued as a Stationer the rest of his life.

Stationers of this period were not what we think of.  It is true that they sold paper and pens, copy and memorandum books - but they were mainly publishers, printers and booksellers.  Thomas Harris was not a member of the Stationers Company and this is important, he was a bit of a pirate.

As a lawyer and collector of  antiquarian books this interests me. You see today we can access any book we wish to read, but this was not true in the 1600s.  The Stationers Company in the City of London had a monopoly on the publishing of books and were able to censor those that were published.  No book could be published without it being exclusively licensed to a particular stationer, and that licence was in perpetuity - ie for ever.  The book and pamphlets that were published were devoured by the literate public and were the internet of the day.  The Stationers Company controlled it all.  This applied even to classical, long dead authors - no licence - no book - and if the stationer with the licence refused to publish a new edition you could probably not get access to the book as there were no public libraries.  End of.

 
In an age of freedom of religion, of revolutionary political thought, of science (this was the time of Isaac Newton) this was not acceptable and in 1694 the Licensing Act (which gave the Stationers Company the power) was not renewed.  For a time there was chaos as any publisher or printer could publish anything without payment to anybody, including the author.  Authors were outraged, as Daniel Defoe (who wrote Robinson Crusoe) put it. he could work for 7 years to produce a book and as soon as he issued it it could be copied by anybody.  Defoe was reputedly born in St Giles Cripplegate and died there in 1731.

                                               Daniel Defoe

So, in 1710 they passed the Copyright Act, which was so revolutionary (the British were the first to make copyright law) that it is still quoted in British and American courts as the foundation of copyright today.  There were two basic rules- living authors could have exclusive rights to the income from their labours and could choose their own publisher for a period of 28 years from when the book was published, and there needed to be libraries and a copy of every published book deposited within. Private libraries sprang up everywhere.  The author had protection and the public who might not be able to buy a book, would still be able to access it.  

In 1989 (when I started this research) it was unthinkable to me that one day I might be able to post my research online and within a second it could be read around the world !  Uriah lived through such an information revolution. It must have been quite exciting.

Now there were two types of stationers, those who worked in shops and what our ancestors called Walking Stationers, and they were what it says on the tin.  Walking Stationers (in an age of pedlars and hawkers) would walk around London, particularly the City and near St Pauls where booksellers congregated, with  a basket, a trestle table or mobile booth that they could set up - selling books, prints, pamphlets, notebooks - you name it.  Think of the print and booksellers in Paris beside the Seine and you get the idea.  Some of these men were blind and one or two of them depicted in engravings as below - you can see St Pauls in the background.

I think that there is no question that Uriah was both sorts of stationer.  We know that he operated out of a shop, and the records suggest that he looked a good deal older than his years, which would accord with an outdoor life.

On a personal note, he married a lady called Ann, likely in about 1690.  There is no marriage entry I can find and it may be that like a lot of people at the time they simply too oaths to each other rather than formally marry in Church. They appear to have lived in a rented room in St Giles, Cripplegate.  This was a populous parish (three Ginn men and their families in this blog lived in that parish between 1710 and 1730 - they may came across one another as one was a churchwarden).  

In 1695 for a few years they introduced a tax on christening, marriages and burial in church.  The aim was to raise money and men to fight for the Protestant cause in the Nine Years War (don't ask) another one of the religious wars on the Continent of the 17th century.

To back this up the government took a form of census of householders and their families.  The vast majority of these records sadly do not survive.  But for Londoners (Inside the [City] Walls and Outside they do) and from these, now indexed on British History Online, I know that Uriah, wife Ann and son were already in St Giles Cripplegate in 1695, so they were there for at least twenty years.  The amazing thing is that they lived in Grub Street Precinct, Grub Street being the place of origin of what we might call the tabloid press.  Books, leaflets and news sheets, poetry, travel, amusing, serious, informative, often bawdy or downright pornographic were all produced there..  A living was to be made out of these and the British Press was born !

Ann Ginn "wife of Uriah Ginn, Stationer" took a fever (in an age without antibiotics it could have been anything) and died at St Giles Cripplegate in 1714.  The parish officials kept wonderful records (they had three burial grounds and access to three more) and she was buried in the Lower burial ground+ - that is the churchyard.  Uriah was said to have died "aged" (he could not have been 60) in 1715.  He was buried in the Upper Burial Ground in Whitecross Street in Islington no less, sometimes referred to as the burial ground of "The Bear and Ragged Staff" which was an Inn close by+.

Their children

Charles - there are no baptism records, but, amazingly, the 1695 Tax records denoted a son Charles  (5-10 years old I would guess) alive at this time.  There is no further record of a Charles Ginn in the London or Middlesex records before the 19th  century.  But the St Giles records are very accurate and complete, so Charlie seems to have survived to at least his teens.  Where he went, as yet, I have no idea.

+ The church and the Lower burial ground were blitzed in WW2.  Ann now lies under paving - the area was flattened.  Uriah met a worse fate, the Upper burial ground is covered by the Peabody Estate, and most of the human remains found at the time of the excavation were removed and buried elsewhere.