The Risbridge and Thingoe Registration Districts
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The Risbridge and Thingoe Registration Districts Clare and South London The Lewis mentioned above, who was bailiff of Clare in 1601, and who contracted successive marriages there in 1588 and 1598, was not the first Mortlock there; Robert Mortlock was of sufficient substance to be modestly taxed in the 1524 Lay Subsidies. Mathew, who left only daughters, was Lewis’ contemporary but may or may not have been a near relative. The later Clare family seems to start with Thomas, a clockmaker in Stradishall. He must have had links with the Denham Mortlocks, for he was granted settlement there, with his family, in 1772. As will be seen the Denham Mortlocks already had links to Clare; and Clare also had a link to Wicken in Cambridgeshire. Thomas was burgled in 1744. One wonders if his stock in trade was insured Clearly one needs not only skill and training, but also substantial working capital to be a clockmaker. This Thomas may have been the father - how else would he get both name and apprenticeship - of the next Thomas, clockmaker, and also of the Elizabeth whose illegitimate son William fathered a traceable line of skilled craftsmen and, via his son Richard, an ironmongery business. Altogether there are well over a dozen Clare Mortlocks following skill-of-hand professions, half of them watchmakers. However there were ultimately not enough apprenticeships to go round the surviving children. Some later Mortlocks were labourers and servants. William (1797) moved to Cavendish, and when his sons grew up two moved to Chatham to enlist as Royal Marines and Benjamin joined the army. Another group of close relations migrated to East Plumstead where they will have had the comfort, in an alien urban environment, of useful mutual support. As to the apprenticeships, these have to be presumed; they are not traceable (thus untaxed) so must have been something within the family; what is noticeable about these Mortlocks is demonstrable manual dexterity. One of the clockmakers, perhaps finding Clare rather crowded for his skill, moved to Marazion in Cornwall which is about as far, within the United Kingdom, as any Mortlock migrated. The story of the Mortlock clockmakers of Clare is told at greater length, separately, in the article Good With Their Hands. Many of the Clare lines lead to Woolwich, for a time a close-knit clan of greengrocers. Descended from them are the three Mortlocks who worked at Adnams’ brewery in Southwold in the first half of the “last” century. They are mentioned in R & S Clegg’s book Southwold published by Phillimore in 1999. Here Frank remembers his father Rocky, a boxer with a broken nose, bringing home sugar mice from the brewery - not ready-made ones, but the strings from the sugar loaves with a useful lump of sugar still attached. In 1981 Frank took charge of the drill and discipline of the Southwold & Reydon Corps of Drums - his father had been in this band in its previous incarnation. I have included here some records from Cowlinge, Stradishall, and Stansfield because of their geographical position. Suffolk Mortlocks 1 RJHG 05.05.2019 The Mortlock girls’ school in Clare was nothing to do with the clockmakers - the Mortlock ladies involved were part of the China dynasty and I have written this up in their narrative. It is yet another puzzling example of unrelated Mortlocks coming into a Mortlock village when they have the rest of East Anglia to choose from; in this case from Wimpole via Kings Lynn. There were two more clockmakers in Clapham (south London) - a connection with Clare may be presumed but is not easily visible. It his highly probable that the Richard who was a butcher in Lambeth was brother to the Clapham clockmaker Samuel. I have been told that his dates of 1749 to 1830 support this but have been unable to find a south London burial record for him for 1830, let alone one confirming his age. However the idea of two brothers both taking their skills to the same area seems highly plausible. I have therefore interpolated this tree immediately after the trees for Clare. It will be seen that another Mortlock migrated to Lewisham, founding a dynasty of gardeners. Denham, Horringer and Chevington We are now in the Thingoe deanery and Registration District. The trees for Chevington and Denham are cross-related so they can be taken together. As the twentieth century dawned two of the Denham men had finished up as coal miners, William (1950) in Brandon Byshottles in Co. Durham and Harry (1850) in Benwell in Northumberland, the latter probably via Staffordshire, his wife’s county of origin. Let’s pause to think what it must have meant to go down into a pitch-black pit, choking with dust, sweaty-hot and cramped for hours at a time. No more haw and hedgerow, no more lark and larkspur, no more checking the rabbit snare. Above ground the Suffolk accent must have stood out as a joke to the northerners, whose own dialect - dialects were stronger then - would have been close to incomprehensible. What hardships must have obtained in rural Suffolk to make this a better option! One who stayed behind comes briefly to light in Curtsy to a Lady, by Zöe Ward (pub. Lavenham 1988): she tells how, in Horringer before the First World War, one Zip Mortlock ‘from the Monument’ always took the same ‘dinner’ with him every day, viz., a herring and a piece of cold rice pudding wrapped up together in a piece of newspaper, which he would consume every mid- day, wet or fine, winter or summer, sitting on the handle of his wheelbarrow in the Pleasure Gardens. One of the Joseph Mortlocks in the table must be eponymous to “Joe Mortlock’s Cottage” in Chevington. Mortlocks from the Denham line emigrated to America while it was still a colony, and to Australia in 1857. Of these latter, descendants of Joseph (1832) and Ann (Godfrey), 243 descendants came to a reunion in 1981; 52 carried the name Mortlock; of these 40 were males. Suffolk Mortlocks 2 RJHG 05.05.2019 Mortlocks from the Denham/Chevington line will be seen to have radiated to Barrow, to Little Saxham, and to Moulton, Gazeley and Higham which three are all in the Newmarket registration district; and, perhaps more predictably, to the town of Bury St Edmunds. From Barrow there is a radiation to Cheveley in Cambridgeshire and from thence to Walthamstow in Essex. Some of the unattributed West Ham records may well belong to this Denham/Chevington group of Mortlocks. Some Denham/Chevington Mortlocks emigrated to Canada and New Zealand Hargrave Following an early eighteenth century family which does not obviously connect to any others, there is another moving from illegitimacy via pauperism to migration around the county, and another with connections to Barrow and Flempton and Hengrave which also seems to have had a bumpy ride through life. This is not the only example where illegitimacy seems to have spelt economic doom not only for the unfortunate mother but also for the stigmatised child. Another Mortlock family (shown as part of the Blacksmiths’ trees) migrated to Hargrave from Cheveley in Cambridgeshire, whither they seem to have come from Wicken via Wood Ditton. Suffolk Mortlocks 3 RJHG 05.05.2019 Clare (see also Cambridge, china Mortlocks (NZ branch)) ----- Robert in 1524 Lay Subsidies; Thomas and another in Kentford ?Haverhill V 16.5.1588 | 29.1.99 Dorcas =========(1)Lewis(2)======= Anne SEXTIN Clare bailiff Clare PRENTIS +29.11.1598 | of Clare 1601 | ?+1612 cf BStE CRO HA516/2 | ---------------------------------------------------- | | | | | Dorcas Thomas Lewis John Sarah 21.5.88CL 23.5.92CL- | 2.3.95CL- 25.5.97CL 25.9.00CL | 11.8.59CL (&see HA516/2~) V | ?+15.12.1753CL Denham | +32.pp | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | Elizabeth Thomas John Richard Samuel Lewes 29.4.1620CL 25.5.23CL 2.11.29CL 29.6.34CL 19.3.36CL 9.12.39CL ?deed 1651 =1658 (Stoke by Clare) Sarah HARDY ~ by which Sarah succeeded to one of Lewis’ leases in Clare 2.5.1603 29.5.1610 Margaret(2)=========(1)Mathew(2)========= Margaret BROWNE BURNS/BARNES Clare +3.11.32CL Clare +29.3.39CL | | | ---------------- Marie | | 4.11.04 Prissila Margaret 24.5.10 +19.12.29CL =13.8.33 Richard MI/ULLION for Roger, ‘Able Man’ of Clare 1638, see Wicken, Cambs Robert ====== Martha | Keren 4.12.1729CL Susan = 5.10.1740CL Samuel HILLS Mary +9.3.1768CL Elizabeth = 13.10.1794CL John SKILTON Suffolk Mortlocks 4 RJHG 05.05.2019 Clare(2)(CL) [RD Risbridge(RB)] ----- ---------------- see also “Suffolk Clocks and Clockmakers” Haggar & Miller, Antiquarian Horological Soc. 1974 Denham(2) V 16.3.1739 | 4.8.1745 Mary ASHBY =========(1)Thomas(2)=========== Mary FLACK Dalham 4.1.09 Stradishall +19.7.1771CL GtSaxham- | 1788 | clockmaker~ | {SL=Stradishall | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | | | | | James Richard | Elizabeth Sarah John Samuel Sarah | | 5.11.47SL 28.5.49SL | 7.9.51SL 25.10- 21.4.56CL 3.2.58CL 10.3.65CL- | | | -?1830 | | 15.12.53CL | | ?12.1.41CL | | V ? | V V V Mary | V S.London Ms | next W +13.pp 10.7.64 | V | page Horringer | +24.pp | | | 17.7.1768 Mary Thomas ========= Rhoda 24.7.68 31.8.1746SL-15.5.88CL Clare HAMMOND Horringer clockmaker1768 | | |------------------------------------------ | | | | | | (illegitimate) Thomas Rhoda Sarah Zakariah Mary male b.12.2.1777 15.12.68CL 28.10.70CL 4.7.73CL 3.3.76CL- 26.9.79CL at Wickhambrook workhse | =26.11.95 13.11.79CL to Anne OAST V (York) +7.pp Joseph DUTTON ~ 2 silver watches & an elegant pagoda-top long-case clock stolen 11.9.44; granted settlement in Denham 28.10.72[Bury CRO,FL501/7/290] V V | 8.4.1772 James ============== Catherine DEWBERY 5.11.1747Stradishall Stoke by Clare (sent back to Clare 2.3.1772) | | -------------------- | | James8.11.74SbC Sarah4.2.80SbC V W | 16.9.1808 John(2)=========================(2)Mary BARFIELD of Wimbledon 1808 St Giles,Camberwell(lic.) (witn.Richard MORTLOCK, hence attribution but see CL(15)) | --------- | | Jessie Harriett 25.10.1809Wimbledon 1813-7.11.13Wimbledon Suffolk Mortlocks 5 RJHG 05.05.2019 Clare(3)(CL) [RD Risbridge(RB)] ----- ---------------- previous page | James LEWIS of Clare --------- Elizabeth MORTLOCK unm.