Sudbury Registration District
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Suffolk Mortlocks The recoverable part of the Suffolk story seems to start early in Tudor times in Haverhill, where it is on an equal footing with the start of Mortlocks in Essex at nearby Birdbrook; some individuals had landholdings in both parishes. These records will be found under Essex, which is the starting point for these trees. However, in 1569 there died Henry, a tenant of Stonehall Court manor, Moulton; but he was succeeded by his daughter and heiress Margaret Pinder, so had no living male issue. One thing that stands out in some of the villages, notably Clare and Shimpling, is how there might be several Mortlock families with children all of an age. It is difficult to imagine today what it must have been like to grow up in a relatively closed community, surrounded not only by siblings but also by close cousins of one’s own age. In Shimpling in 1861 there were three Mortlock families all living next door to each other, others not far off. For the parents one supposes that there was a level of mutual support totally missing today. Besides paternal connections there will also often have been distaff relationships. In the parish registers, besides Mortlock the same names recur and recur. At the humblest level, where perhaps the typical ag. lab. never left his immediate neighbourhood - something borne out by Cobbett - the choice of a mate probably lay exclusively within one’s own village. This implies centuries of in-breeding, suggested by the manner, as remarked before, that the same East Anglian surnames are repeatedly joined to Mortlock, leave alone instances of brothers and sisters marrying sisters- and brothers-in- law. The Suffolk Mortlocks start off as yeomen, substantial people. Their status can be finely judged by George Gent, second husband of the widow of Thomas Mortlock of Haverhill, having to lay out £3100 on an annuity for her jointure - this in 1689, when a labourer would be lucky to see a shilling a day. Later on there are a large number of skilled craftsmen, their trades passed on from father to son - blacksmiths, clockmakers, carpenters - but in the end there are just too many sons and many take a tumble down the Jacob’s ladder of opportunity and end up as ag.labs - landless peasants. Their womenfolk eke out the family’s living as perhaps dressmakers, or in trades long lost to us such as horsehair weaver or straw plaiter. The censuses show us children as young as eleven listed as labourers. In spite of this inauspicious start some of these climb out of their rut into suburban respectability. Perhaps when the going gets tough, the tough get going. The Suffolk exercise has provided some interesting lessons in pronunciation and geography. Cowling is Cooling; Haverhill is Hayverel; Ousden is Owsden; Thorpe Merieux is Thorpe Meroo; and so on. Horningsheath is Horringer and now so spelt; Shimplingthorne is now Shimpling, in line (confusingly) with its namesake in Norfolk. There are two Denhams and two Eyes, and several Fordhams, and so forth. Abbreviations in this county: IJ = Ipswich Journal BP=Bury Post Suffolk Mortlocks 1 RJHG 05.05.2019 The Sudbury Registration District Glemsford Besides being the source for the Bradfield Mortlocks which follow, Glemsford appears to be the origin for at least some of the Mortlocks of Hundon(see above). A dynasty of Philips originating in Glemsford finished up in Great Cornard as millers. Eventually, on 24.4.1833 (only two years before his death), Philip III put his mills up for sale. They were described as a water corn mill of four stones with an inexhaustible supply of water and with navigation to Manningtree and Mistley; and a post mill of two stones on the east side of the road from Sudbury to Cornard [BP]. Philip IV ended up in Colchester. Philip III’s brother William, also a miller but a journeyman, migrated out of the county to Chelmsford. The Bradfields The Bradfield Mortlocks are originally from Glemsford. As will be seen from the tables they had farms in various locations all the way to southern Norfolk and near Lowestoft, following a line of good land that curves north-east from south-west Suffolk. Shimpling The twentytwo pages of Shimpling trees continue (arguably) from a progenitor from Glemsford, illustrating a three and a half century continuity, mostly at that humblest level in society, the agricultural labourer. Those that ‘bettered’ themselves had to do it by leaving these Suffolk roots far behind. One might wonder why men from Suffolk would finish up in Burton on Trent. William (1854- 1923) was one of the Suffolk men (see also Denham) who followed the barley crop to Burton where it was malted and then turned into beer. This was a development that followed the arrival of the railways which facilitated the centralisation of brewing on the Trent and also the movement of the labour necessary for malting the barley at its destination. The Staffordshire people called these East Anglians “Norkies”, presumably meaning “from Norfolk” - the migrants came from both counties. Their work done, they returned to East Anglia ready for the haysel (haymaking), the grain harvest and so to the next malting season. The fact that they were in effect recruited as a group probably explains another thing that would otherwise be obscure, which is why both the Shimpling and Denham migrants, who would normally not have been known each other, all finished up in the same street - Thornley St. That this was an annual migration, complete with families, also explains why William’s first two children, although born in Stapenhill near Burton, were baptised back among their roots in Shimpling. William eventually stayed on, working first for Allsopps and then for Bass and then setting up on his own as a grocer and bottler in 1883. He also acquired a farm, the land later becoming public allotments named the Mortlock Allotments after him. William was a member of the local Oddfellows. One can wonder what he would have made of Bass being bought out by Belgians. His son Albert Thomas followed him as a grocer and bottler. The next son, William George, Suffolk Mortlocks 2 RJHG 05.05.2019 farmed locally but later moved to Kent, possibly after army service in the Kaiser’s War. Their sister Alice ran the Acorn Inn for Bass Charrington and survived her husband (who, unfortunately, slit his own throat) to become, eventually, the oldest licensee in Burton. The Norkie story is told more fully in “Where Beards Wag All” by George Ewart Evans, 1977 The dates under Letitia Mortlock bear study. The children were those of her eventual husband, so we must assume that she followed her man back to Neath where they waited patiently for his first wife to die. Much the same applied to Emma’s eventual (1927) marriage to Herbert Mortlock, cousin to her long-deserted first husband, Herbert’s cousin Abraham Hayward. These are not the only pieces of juicy scandal buried in the tables. The usual bucolic illegitimacies triggered by the blooming of the sukebind apart, there is also Ida May’s alleged siring by the Bishop of Colchester to titillate. As people used to say, “We don’t have much money but we do see life”. The tables themselves are rendered more complicated by the cousin marriage of Margaret and Alfred, the brothers Edward and Thomas marrying two Sparke sisters, and Charles’ marriage to his cousin Alfred’s widow. It will be seen how some Shimpling Mortlocks radiated to or had links with the nearby Cosford registration district, principally with the villages of Alpheton and Cockfield. A Samuel from Shimpling appears to have settled in Maldon, Essex (with a Shimpling bride) which may say something about the Essex Mortlocks. The more wayward Mortlocks of Shimpling were perhaps redeemed by Samuel Mortimer Mortlock (see chart Shimpling (16)). After being a policeman in Shimpling, Samuel joined the Metropolitan Police 26.1.1874. He served as PC 357K at Mile End and at Arbour St, Stepney. Judging by the number of assaults on him recorded in The Times, [and Reynold’s Newspaper, 18.12.81] he seems to have had quite a vigorous career. On one occasion he received a cut over his left eye but the Bench had no sympathy - the medical students he arrested asserted that they had been hit from behind, and the magistrate said that Samuel and his sidekick had exceeded their duty, and let the miscreants off. He crowned his career by having a finger bitten off in 1886 [Lloyd’s Weekly, 18.4.86]. (George) Abraham of Shimpling emigrated to Hull and founded a dynasty of seamen - quite an adaptation for inland farming folk - at about the same time that Henry did the same from Mildenhall, except that his clan later became established at Grimsby. For George/Abraham‘s rackety life see Shimpling (18 & 19). NB the number of marriages to FLACK in Shimpling (see also www.flackgenealogy.com). Some Shimpling Mortlocks emigrated to Canada and the United States - to Washington State via Manitoba, and, a little less far away, to New Hampshire via Nova Scotia. Suffolk Mortlocks 3 RJHG 05.05.2019 Cavendish In 1791 John and then Richard had land straddling the mutual boundary of Cavendish an Glemsford, where Richard was born. Richard Richard’s son George had moved back earlier from Cavendish to Glemsford. An internet correspondent to curiousfox has identified the Mortlocks of Cavendish (and their relations the Cutmores) to be particularly likely to be on parish relief. In 1861 John Mortlock of Cavendish was in jail in Portsmouth, crime unspecified.