Thomas Blockley

TThhoommaass BBlloocckklleeyy HHiiss SSttoorryy The story of a Shropshire lad Preface lue Peter is a children’s B television programme that has run in the UK for many years. As a child, it was a ‘must see’ programme, shown twice a week every Monday and Thursday1. The programme was a mixture of general entertainment and magazine type articles. In what I believe was the early part of the 1970s they ran an article about The Boer War and, more precisely, about the gift sent out by Queen Victoria to the troops in South Africa to wish them a Happy New Year for 1900; a tin of chocolate. That programme became the start of an interest that started slowly and gained momentum over the next forty years. My family had one of those chocolate tins and inside was a medal and a letter. I don’t recall the exact events or timeline but I do know my curiosity was raised and I asked lots of questions but got very few answers. I have recently tried to ascertain the date that the programme was aired but to no avail. My grandfather, Harry Blockley, died in May 1973 and the tin had been given to his brother Thomas, who had died during The Boer War. I was told he was his oldest brother. He was buried in South Africa but there the information ended. Nobody really knew anything. I don’t recall if this information came from my Grandfather, from my Grandmother or indeed from my father. What I do know is that nobody really knew anything and this, almost more than anything else, raised my interest. I wanted to know more but didn’t know how to discover further detail. My grandfather was the youngest child from a large Victorian family and had moved away from the area where he was born. There was little known about many of his siblings and the possibility of getting more information was extremely limited. I was to spend the best part of the next two decades not exactly desperate for information but certainly curious about my Great Uncle and his story. It would be a massive untruth to suggest I strived for information but periodically, be it because of an article I may have read or a television reference to the Boer War, I would think of Thomas and muse on how a young man from a rural part of south Shropshire could end up dead in South Africa. It bothered me that he lay there forgotten and unknown and this, I think, was the driving force for me to gain more knowledge about him. I needed to find out more. 1 TBC Lineage The origins of the surname Blockley are difficult to trace prior to the 16th Century. Parish Registers record Blockley’s around several areas of England including London, Somerset and Yorkshire but by far the largest numbers are in, and adjacent to, the counties bordering Wales - Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire and Shropshire. On 2 June 1573, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Johanes the son of Richard married Catherina the daughter of Griffith in the Shropshire Parish of Alberbury. Whilst there is no record of his age it is reasonable to assume Johanes, the Latin spelling of John, would have been born around 20 years earlier, the early 1550’s. It is equally safe to assume that Richard, his father, would have been born around 1530, halfway through the reign of one of England’s most notorious monarchs, King Henry VIII. Catherina died in 1611 and was buried in Alberbury. She was described in the parish registers as the wife of Johanes Blockley of Pecknall. Johanes Blockley of Pecknall was buried in Alberbury 16 years later, in 1627. Pecknall is a hamlet approximately one mile west of Alberbury and located in Montgomeryshire, Wales. If one travels there today there is only a road, Pecknall Lane, and a few isolated farms. Whilst we can’t establish an explicit link it is reasonable, given the dates stated above, to assume that Roger Blockley, who when his daughter was baptised in the Parish of Alberbury in 1611 was described as ‘of Pecknall’, was the son of Johanes Blockley and grandson of Richard. Roger, we can evidence and as can be seen in the following pages, was the direct ancestor of Thomas Blockley. oger Blockley married Elizabeth Dychfeilde on 7 June 1607, the same year that R Jamestown, Virginia became the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. Roger and Elizabeth were married in the Parish of Wem in the County of Shropshire. Little else is known of Roger or Elizabeth other than the details gained from the Parish Register; Roger being described as a Husbandman, a term used to describe a small tenant farmer or landowner and Elizabeth simply as a Spinster. It is reasonable to assume that Roger would have been born some 20 or so years earlier, the late 1580’s, which provides the earliest confirmed date in the story which would end some 320 years later, on a battlefield in the south of Africa. We know that Roger and Elizabeth had at least two children. In 1612 Elizabeth was born and 1615 saw the birth of John. Roger was buried in Alberbury in 1659. ohn Blockley was baptised on 1 October 1615 at Baschurch, Shropshire and on 26 JNovember 1639, at the age of 24, he married Ann Fletcher at Alberbury, Shropshire. Their first child, Roger, was not born until 1650, some 11 years later but his birth was quickly followed by Edward in 1652 and then, over the next 12 years by Richard, Rebecka, George, Francis and Anne. John lived through one of the most tumultuous periods in English history that saw the English Civil War, the execution of King Charles I, Oliver Cromwell established as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth and then the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. John died at the age of 82 and was buried in Alberbury on 12 January 1697. It is reasonable to assume that John, Ann and their family worshipped at St Michael and All Angels Church, Alberbury but whether they lived in Alberbury or the outlying area is not known. dward Blockley was baptised in Alberbury on 20 April 1652 and at his marriage to E Margaret Peate, of Alberbury, in Alberbury on 5 May 1683 he too was recorded as from Pecknall. Edward and Margaret’s first child, Elizabeth, was born in 1684, followed by Nathaniel in 1687 and John in 1691. Edward was buried at the relatively early age of 42 in Alberbury on 22 February 1694. St. Michael and All Angels, Alberbury Modern OS Map of the area around Alberbury athaniel Blockley was also baptised in N Alberbury, on 8 May 1687. He married Elizabeth Clark of Kinnerley, Shropshire, in Oswestry, Shropshire on 11 September 1723, at the age of 36. Nathaniel and Elizabeth had at least two children, a son John born in 1726 and a daughter Margaret born in 1731. Nathaniel’s burial is unclear as there were two Nathaniel Blockley’s in the area at the time. A Nathaniel Blockley was buried at St. Peter’s, Melverley, Shropshire on 3 January 1741 but it is more likely that ‘our’ Nathaniel was the one buried as Alberbury in March 1732, suggesting he died at age of 45. ohn Blockley was baptised on 4 September 1726 in Alberbury. He was at least the Jsevent h generation of the Blockley’s to live in and around Alberbury. John married Margery Blayney in Chirbury, Shropshire on 14 April 1751 at the age of 24. It is safe to assume that John and Margery set up home in the area because all eight of their children were baptised in the Parish of Chirbury between 1752 and 1768. There second son was Thomas. John’s move some 11 miles south to the Parish of Chirbury ended the direct lineage in the Parish of Alberbury. homas Blockley was baptised on 8 December 1754 in Chirbury, Shropshire. On 30 T July 1778, just two years after the United States declared Independence from Britain, he married, at the age of 23, Sarah Bibby in Chirbury. Thomas and Sarah had nine children between 1782 and 1802. The eldest two were baptised in Chirbury, their third child Thomas and fourth George were baptised in Trelystan, Montgomeryshire and the youngest five children baptised in Chirbury. Thomas was buried in Chirbury, Shropshire on 24 December 1836, age 82. St. Michaels, Chirbury homas Blockley was baptised on 19 February 1786 in The Church of St. Mary, T Trelystan, Montgomeryshire, approximately half a mile over the Welsh border (and said to be the only entirely timber framed church in Wales.) At the age of 18, on 17 February 1805, Thomas married Jane Harris in Chirbury, Shropshire. St. Mary, Trelystan, Thomas and Jane had 10 children, all baptised in Chirbury, between 1805 and 1822. Their third son they named George. He was born on 8 March 1809 and buried just 19 days later, on 27 March 1809. When their next son was born in 1812 they too named him George. On 1st July 1837 the mandatory civil registration of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales was introduced. Just under four years later, on the night of 6 June 1841, the United Kingdom Census of 1841 recorded the occupants of every UK household. Described as the "first modern census" it was the first to record information about every member of the household. It formed the model for the subsequent ten yearly UK censuses, although each went on to refine and expand the questions asked of householders.

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