|
William Howcutt – the
forebear we share
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
William, son of James & Mary
(Ward) Howcutt, was christened at Brixworth on 11 December 1726. He is the
person through whom all the people called Howcutt who are now living in the
British Isles have their surname. William was ten years old when his
mother died when giving birth to her tenth child and just over eleven at the
time of his father’s marriage to Anne (Satchwell)
Ekins. His step-mother and his father followed each other to the grave within
37 days early in 1742/3, leaving William an orphan in all senses of the word
at the age of 16. If the provisions of his father’s will (which was not
proved, probably because it appointed Anne as executrix and she had already
died) were followed, William would have shared the value of property at
Brixworth and Holcot with his surviving siblings.
These were his older sisters Sarah and Anne, Elizabeth (who died unmarried in
1743) and a younger brother Joseph. William evidently retained
ownership of at least some of his father’s freehold property as the poll book
for the parliamentary election of 1748 lists him as a voter who qualified as
a Brixworth freeholder. [1] However, William was not living there at the time
as his residence was recorded as "Thingdon"
(i.e. Finedon, which is about 13 miles east of
Brixworth). On New Year's Day 1757, William
Howcutt, a miller of Brixworth, obtained a licence for his marriage to Sarah
Allom. The ceremony was performed at Brixworth on the next day. William was
30 years old but his wife only 17, having been baptised at Brixworth in 1739.
It appears that both her parents, Thomas Allom (1712-1786) and Eleanor
(formerly Poole) (1713-1781) were living in the village, as were many of her
other relations. Both the bride and
groom made a mark in the parish register. As at a later stage of her life
Sarah signed her name, it is quite possible that she was already literate
when she first got married but chose not to sign the register because her
considerably older husband could not do so.
William and Sarah lost no time in
starting a family; their first child, William being baptised on 25 September
1757. The Brixworth parish registers and bishop’s transcripts - if read on
their own - create problems in accounting for all of their other children.
Between 1757 and 1770 various children of William & Sarah Howcutt (a
miller) are recorded in those sources and between 1766 and 1776 children of
James & Sarah Howcutt (a miller) also make their appearances. But
William's brother James had been buried as a baby in 1737. How can this problem
be solved? The answer is found in an index analysing the parish register
prepared by James Jackson, who was vicar of Brixworth from 1735 to 1770. [2]
The children whom the parish register and bishop’s transcripts ascribe to
James and Sarah are shown in Jackson’s index as William and Sarah's
offspring. The accuracy of the analysis is confirmed by the will of John
Allen - the second husband of Sarah Allom - that refers to Thomas Howcutt as
his "son in law" (i.e. step son), whereas when Thomas' baptism was
recorded in the parish register and bishop’s transcript in 1776, his father's
name had been written as "James". It seems likely that William was
nicknamed James and this name found its way into some of the church records. William and Sarah's children who
were recorded in one form or another in these documents are:
William
and Sarah had another son, George. He does not appear in the Brixworth parish
records. This son was left £20 both by his stepfather John Allen (1811) and by
his brother James (1828) and was probably the same person as George Howcutt
who married Ann Smith at St Leonard's Shoreditch, London in 1801. [5] Towards
the end of William’s life, the open fields of Brixworth were enclosed on the
authority of an Act of Parliament. This provided for commissioners to
apportion the land involved between the various proprietors of rights in
those fields. Amongst the parcels of land allocated by the award which they
issued on 18 May 1781 was one of 1 rood 27 perches with a yearly value of 8s.
8d. at the south-west corner of what are now known as Harborough Road and
Kennel Terrace which was awarded to “William Holcot”.
The award also listed the properties at Brixworth that had been enclosed
before the recent Act. This largely consisted of houses within the built-up
area of the village and their immediate grounds. William Howcot
was one of the 68 proprietors of the ancient enclosures, his being described
as: “a messuage or tenement with the
yard garden and appurtenances thereunto belonging the property and in the
possession of the said William Howcot containing
ten perches is of the yearly value of one pound one shilling and six pence.” [6] The
award does not say where in Brixworth the property was located.
On 17
September 1782, William Howcutt was "very weak in body" and made
his will, leaving everything to his wife. A codicil dated 23 October 1782 stated
that he had received a bequest of £30 from Richard Britten of Pitsford and
that this also was to go to Sarah. Richard Britten left bequests to a number
of William's relatives (on the Ward side), so he was probably a kinsman.
William Howcutt did not live to enjoy that money, as he was buried on 1
November 1782. His tombstone, which stands to the right of the path just
before the entrance to Brixworth church and close to the tombstone of his
grandfather Thomas Ward (1670-1731) was still partly legible in 2011. The
exact date of William's death is uncertain, but his tombstone seemed to
record it as 29 October 1782. [7] William made his mark to confirm both the
will and the codicil. Sarah
remained a widow for just over a year, as on 11 January 1784 she married John
Allen at Brixworth. On that occasion, she clearly signed the register. John
Allen was a farmer who had been allocated land in the enclosure award that
lay immediately to the west of the plot that William had received.
It was
not long before disputes arose between John & Sarah Allen and William's
oldest surviving son, James. These disagreements were settled by an Indenture
dated 24 December 1785 by which the windmill "near the Great Turnpike
Road" at Brixworth which had been occupied for many years by his father
went to James, subject to a rent charge of £3.10.0 a year for life to James'
mother. [8] Sarah
(Allom) (Howcutt) Allen outlived her second husband and was buried at
Brixworth on 4 February 1821, aged 81. Notes [1] The county franchise at that time was,
with few exceptions, restricted to freeholders with a freehold value of 40
shillings a year. See “The History of the Parliamentary Franchise” House of
Commons Library research paper 13/14. By Neil Johnston, 2013. Pages 7 to 9.
URL:
http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP13-14/RP13-14.pdf
[accessed 9 November 2016] [2] Northamptonshire Record Office: ML 380. [3] James had children with Hannah Murden, to whom he was not married. [4] He was probably Joseph Howcutt who
married Elizabeth Linnett at St Dunstan, Stepney in
1804 and who died at Lambeth Workhouse in 1841, aged 70. [5] George & Ann Howcutt had at least
eight children born and/or baptised in the London area between 1801 and 1827. [6] Northamptonshire Record Office: Inclosure Volume 1, pages 93 to 203; those relating to
William Howcot are pages 165 & 189. [7] The exact date of William’s death is
uncertain. In 1964, the date on his tombstone was transcribed as “22 October
1782”, but this is before the date of the codicil to his will. The plausible
numbers that are most readily confused with “22” are “28” and “29”. [8] The Howcutt windmill stood to the south
of Spratton Road, a short distance south-west of the Workhouse which was
erected in the 1830s. The location of the windmill is shown precisely on a
map of the parish made in 1846. The site is now occupied by houses on the
west side of Brampton Way. A road called Windmill Glade, which is situated further
south, off Froxhill Crescent, presumably
commemorates the Howcutt mill, though it does not occupy the site. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
