Some "Uncommon" Moves

 John M Pollock Member FACHRS

 My approach to family history is Gladstonian I try to follow every trail to its source. This involves tracing the careers of the siblings of ancestors and some affiliates as far as possible. The 19th century is the most fertile ground, since the registers of birth, marriage and death connect to census returns, wills and back to parish registers and other documents. In the process I sometimes come across events that are unusual.

According to Ravenstein (Pryce and Drake, 1994), most migrants move short distances, most long migrations are to one of the great cities and most migrants are adults moving on their own. In Pooley and Turnbull's (1998) sample of 16,091 life histories, farmers migrated shorter distances than any other occupational group. I have found 11 families moving long distances from one rural area to another in the 19th century. Most were tenant farmers for all or part of their careers. All but one of the families originated in Lincolnshire: those of the maternal ancestors or who married relations.

Thomas Walkenden was tenant of Chapel Farm, which is partly in Barton upon Humber and covers most of Saxby all Saints. In 1834 Thomas was married with 4 children when his landlord decided to take the farm in hand and become Squire. Thomas moved from the northern wolds to Rushall down Farm, near Pewsey, on the northern slopes of Salisbury Plain, a distance of some 250 miles before any railways were built.

After some 20 years Thomas was unable to make a living on Rushall down and moved again, this time to Saundby, opposite Gainsborough in Nottinghamshire. With him went his wife and 4 of his 8 children. Thomas died in 1867 and was succeeded in turn by his sons Lee and Thomas. Thomas was born at Chapel Farm and Lee on Rushall Down. Lee suffered from back injury and retired. Thomas junior apparently went bankrupt and became a railway porter, first in Greater Manchester and then in Brigg, a few miles from where he was born. The two youngest sons, Martin and Charles migrated more conventionally to London to become railway clerks.

William Harrison was a second son. He first farmed in Spridlington, the village in which he was born. While still there in 1855 he married his second wife. Mary Thirlwell, who was born in Rievaulx, North Yorkshire. The wedding took place in Fletching, near Uckfield in Sussex, where her father was bailiff and farmer. Both Thirlwell parents were born in Yorkshire. In 1860 William moved to Woldingham in surrey with his wife and four children, three by his first wife and one of Mary's. He was first a farmer and finally Steward and Bailiff of an estate of over 1000 acres. In 1861 the Woldingham farm bailiff and his wife and son plus three agricultural labourers, two wives and five children ‑ 18 out of a population of 36. all came from Lincolnshire.

In the July 1874 Catherine Sarah, William Harrison's eldest daughter, married Jesse Wilson, a tailor from Market Rasen and moved there with him. By 1891 William had also returned to Lincolnshire, as a farmer in Holton Beckering. His daughter, Annie Elizabeth married Charles Hooker there. He lived in Crowhurst, Sussex.

William's younger brother, Levi Harrison was even more mobile. He married in 1861 and immediately moved to Limpsfield in surrey, where he was a farmer. By 1867 he was back in Lincolnshire as a Miller in Market Rasen. By 1873 he was living in Stapleford, Nottinghamshire and in 1870 was a dairyman in Lincoln.

Joseph Cottingharn married in Faldingworth, Lincolnshire in 1861 and immediately moved to a farm in Hamworthy, Poole. Between 1863 and 1871 his business must have failed, for he moved to Lincoln with his wife and two sons, where he was a mechanic. Later he moved the short distance to Middle Rasen and became a millwright.

Thomas Cottingharn, brother of Joseph, was a farmer in Faldingworth, Lincolnshire, when he married in 1842. His first wife died and he remarried in 1853. In about 1855 he moved to a farm in Hainfield, Poole, where he died in 1863. His wife returned to Faldingworth with her children and became a charwoman.

John Cottingharn, a distant relation, was living with his parents in Snarford in 1851. By 1881 he was a farmer in Corfe Mullen, Poole with a niece as housekeeper. Unlike the other migrants he did not return to Lincolnshire, but retired to Windborne, where he died aged 88 on 20 January 1904.

Thus we have 10 families from Lincolnshire and one from Yorkshire that migrated south. Four have not been traced further. Of the remaining six, one man died and most of his family returned to Lincolnshire, one retired and died in Dorset. The remaining families returned north ‑ three as a result of complete or partial failure and only one after a long and successful career. The movement of families from one rural area to another may have been uncommon in the 19th century but some certainly occurred.

References Pooley, Colin and Turnbull, jean (1998) Migration and mobility in Britain since the 18th century, London

Pryce, W T R, and Drake, Michael (1994) Studying Migration in Pryce, W T R (ed.) From Family History to Community History, Cambridge