James and Susanna Pollard James and Susanna Pollard Benjamin S. Beck Privately printed in 2000 by the author, 72 Milton Court Road, LONDON SE14 6JJ All rights reserved. © Benjamin S. Beck Contents Beginnings ..............................................................7 Early childhood .........................................................11 Schooldays ............................................................. 13 From schooldays to marriage ...............................................23 Marriage, and a new family ................................................29 Horsham ............................................................... 41 In the cold ............................................................. 45 Change of direction ......................................................57 Park Farm .............................................................. 73 Final years .............................................................79 Afterword: What became of James and Susanna’s children and grandchildren ........85 Appendix: Five-generation Outline Pedigree of the Pollard family ................ A1 5 6 Beginnings James Pollard’s paternal grandfather James Pollard, a shopkeeper in Horsham, Sussex, died six years before James was born, but his paternal grandmother, Mary (née Hall), lived well into James’s lifetime, so I will have more to say of her here.1 His maternal grandfather, Thomas Hughesdon, a blacksmith from Deptford, Kent, also died before James was born. Though his maternal grandmother, Grace Hughesdon (her maiden name is not known), lived into James’s lifetime, she died soon after James’s 3rd birthday, and it is doubtful whether they ever met, let alone whether he is likely to have remembered her.2 There is a problem with identifying Susanna Bourn’s paternal grandparents John and Elizabeth Bourn. Though their names are known, there appear to have been two couples bearing these names, at around the same time, in the Horsham/Warnham area. Given, however, that Susanna’s parents were apparently members of the Horsham General Baptist church, it seems likeliest that the couple referred to in the records of this church were her grandparents. If this is correct, she could not have known her grandfather, as he died poor in Nuthurst, Sussex, the year before she was born. Elizabeth Bourn (née Holland) outlived her husband by a few years, and Susanna was probably around the age of five when she died.3 Her maternal grandfather Henry Penfold may have lived into Susanna’s lifetime, but was certainly dead before 1798.4 Her grandmother Elizabeth Penfold (born Furlonger) lived locally, probably into about Susanna’s eighth year, so again it seems likely that Susanna would have known her and remembered her in her later life.5 1Public Record Office RG 6/610, RG 6/847, RG 6/715, RG 6/1135. 2London Metropolitan Archives DW/MP/124/020/a-b, Greenwich Local Studies Library microfilm NX 52/1, LMA microfilm X097/250. There is a little uncertainty about the death identification of Thomas Hughesdon, which merits discussion in this footnote. Very curiously, he was baptised in 1746 with the name of ‘Haddock Thomas Hughesdon’ [microfilm of Deptford St Paul parish register at Lewisham Local Studies Centre]. Though I have not succeeded in locating his marriage, at the baptism of James’s mother in 1767 he is again referred to as ‘Haddock Thomas Hughesdon’, though subsequent baptisms of his children just call him ‘Thomas Hughesdon’. Each of these refers to him as a blacksmith, of Flaggon-row, and later of King Street, Deptford St Nicholas. ‘Thomas Hughesdon’ was buried at Deptford St Nicholas on the 17th May 1781. However, the West Kent Marriage Index has an entry for the 9th January 1798 for the marriage to a widow named Elizabeth Lister of one ‘Haddock Thomas Hughesdon’. Given the unusual name, I suppose one has to consider the (surely remote) possibility that there were two different blacksmiths working in Flaggon-row, Deptford, in the 1760s, one called ‘Thomas Hughesdon’, the other ‘Haddock Thomas Hughesdon’. But given that Catherine’s mother described herself as a widow in 1784, on her daughter’s marriage bond, this 1798 Haddock Thomas simply cannot be Catherine’s father. Regrettably I have not identified anyone else he could be, though on the assumption that ‘Haddock’ was a family name, it seems possible this was a son whose baptism I have not found; given that I have not established the date of her parents’ marriage, (Haddock) Thomas and Grace could well have had children earlier than Catherine, whose baptism is the earliest I have found. I have found no other evidence, in the parish registers of Deptford St Nicholas and St Paul, for the baptism or marriage in this area of any other Thomas Hughesdon who could qualify as Catherine’s father. 3PRO RG 4/2729, West Sussex Record Office PAR 106/30/3, WSRO PAR 106/1/1/3. 4The problem is distinguishing whether records are really referring to Susanna’s grandfather, or to another Henry Penfold, possibly his son. Susanna’s grandfather was born around 1707, so could just about have been the peruke maker of South Street, Horsham, recorded in the 1790 poll book; and maybe even the gentleman of Horsham recorded in a 1793 conveyance of a Horsham inn variously named the Bell, the Green Dragon, and the Star. But it surely cannot have been this Henry Penfold who was a recorded voter in the 1806 election in Horsham, so I feel it is more likely that it is this later Henry Penfold who is referred to in the earlier records also. [Surrey Marriage Index, WSRO PAR 106/30/3, PRO RG 4/2729, William Albery: A Parliamentary History of the Ancient Borough of Horsham {1927, London: Longmans, Green & Co.}] 5Surrey Marriage Index, PRO RG 4/2729, Leonard J. Maguire: Records of the General Baptist Meeting House (now Unitarian), Horsham, Sussex. Vol. I {1981: privately published}. 7 James and Susanna Pollard James Pollard’s father Samuel Pollard was born in Horsham on the 21st December 1760.1 As a young man, he began his independent working life (it seems more than likely that he had helped out, even earlier, in his father’s shop) as a carpenter in Clapham, Surrey. 2 James’s mother Catherine Hughesdon was born in Deptford, probably in 1767; she was baptised at St Nicholas’s parish church in Deptford on the 12th July of that year.3 How Samuel and Catherine met is unknown, but they were married on the 20th July 1784, at Holy Trinity Church in Clapham.4 As Catherine was a minor (apparently just 17 years old), the marriage was by a licence obtained the day before, witnessed by her mother, who gave her consent.5 Samuel was a member of Horslydown monthly meeting (of the Society of Friends), and it is no surprise that Friends took exception to his “Marriage by the Priest to a Person not of our Society”.6 By 1785 the couple had taken up residence in Horsham, and it was Horsham Friends who acted upon the request of Horslydown monthly meeting by visiting Samuel and reporting back to them, in favourable terms. They found that, up to the 5th December 1787 (the date of the report) “his attendance of Meetings has been pretty constant and his Conduct in other respects so far as appears to us.” In the following February Horsham received a further communication from Horslydown, to the effect that, until Samuel had condemned “his former Outgoing of being Married by a Priest”, “we do not consider it proper to pass by the offence.” On the 9th March 1788 Samuel wrote the following note to Horsham monthly meeting, which they in turn copied to Horslydown: “To the friends of Horsham Meeting Under a weighty consideration of the many offences I have been guilt of, particularly that of being Married by a priest it appears to me to be my duty to condemn them all in this Manner, being fully convinced they were not of the Truth, and I am truly desirous that the friends of that Meeting of which I have been so unworthy a Member may have no further Grief or Trouble on my account. – Saml Pollard. On the 4th May 1788 Horslydown replied: . “believing the same to be sincere, it is agreed to accept his Acknowledgement, hoping his future conduct will continue to demonstrate the sincerity thereof.”7 Samuel was quickly rehabilitated, for by January of 1789 he had begun attending Monthly Meeting regularly on behalf of Horsham Friends, and by September of 1789 he had begun representing his monthly meeting at Sussex and Surrey Quarterly Meeting. He was to attend both faithfully, throughout the rest of his life.8 Quakerism, of course, was part of the culture into which Samuel had been born, for the Pollards had been Quakers since the 17th century. Certainly his mother had always taken an active part in the administration of Quaker affairs, having attended Women’s Monthly Meeting in Horsham from at least 1766. By 1778 she had begun participating in meetings of Ministers and Elders at Horsham, and did so regularly from 1783. And in June 1787 she subscribed three guineas towards the construction of the new meeting house there.9 1PRO RG 6. 2LMA DW/MP/124/020/a-b. 3LMA DW/MP/124/020/a-b, Greenwich Local Studies Library microfilm NX 52/1. 4William Pollard: ‘Some Descendants of James and Mary Pollard’, Ms book in my possession (hereafter referred to as ‘Pollard book’); LMA P95/TR11/109/001 (X078/020). 5LMA DW/MP/124/020/1-b. 6RG 6/609. 7Surrey Record Centre 6189 Box 5. 8SRC 6189 Box 6, East Sussex Record Office SOF 1/3. 9SRC 6189 Boxes 6 & 7, ESRO SOF 1/3. 8 James and Susanna Pollard In 1789 Mary Pollard rented a property in West Street, Horsham, at a rental of 3s. 10d., and was assessed on it in February for 7s. rates, and in December for 5s. 3d. She had this property for at least the next ten years. Next door – apparently – lived Samuel, from 1789 to 1791, paying the same rental, and assessed for the same level of rates, as his mother.