Excerpts from "WITHERS OF BISHOPS CANNINGS, WILTSHIRE: yeomen, Quakers, cottagers & farmworkers", 1.12.2005, by Margaret THORBURN

 http://www.oocities.org/keeto111/withers/mt.html 

Version 17.4.2006,  22kb

Margaret may be reached at christa"at"le-bureau.co.uk 
or via her daughter Jenny at jenny"at"sedgy.net 


scanned & uploaded by
   KIT WITHERS
email kitw"at"slingshot.co.nz 2006 - (I write "at" for @ to foil spammers.)
101 Allington Road, Karori, Wellington 6005, New Zealand
Telephone +64 4 934 4477 

CONTENTS

1.  Excerpts from "WITHERS OF BISHOPS CANNINGS, WILTSHIRE: yeomen, Quakers, 
cottagers & farmworkers", 1.12.2005, by Margaret THORBURN

2. Attending school at Bishops Cannings, by Margaret THORBURN

1.  Excerpts from "WITHERS OF BISHOPS CANNINGS, WILTSHIRE: yeomen, Quakers, 
cottagers & farmworkers", 1.12.2005, by Margaret THORBURN.

1406 Wm WITHERS held the office of woodward of Chyttoe (where the woodland of 
the manor of Canings lay 5 miles to the NW) who paid 693 2d, which he delivered
to Henry BRETON, receiver general of the See of Salisbury.

1406 fines (fee to manorial lord at start of land tenure) by indenture for 21
years: Thomas SLOPER 70s, Wm WETHERS 6p, John SMITH 6p. - Translated from Latin
Gothic script by E Mgt THOMPSON; held in last 1/4 of the Simpson Box of 
reference library of WANHS, Devizes. - Any chance of a photo?

1549 Wm WETHERS in goods 10p Lay Subsidy (a tax of moveable goods)

1550 "for sale of wood 69s 2d of the price of divers trees & twigs sold by 
William WITHERS this year out of the Bishops wood in Cannings called 
Ayrshanger, as appears by the bill of the parcels on the rath of the same 
William" - Minister's a/cs of Edward 6 transcribed by E Margaret THOMPSON 

1573 survey of the farm at Roundway MVc xxiii for John NICHOLAS "I have 
(exchanged) in Edyeanger, by the land of WITHERS of Cannings, in the east, 
9 yards". A hanger is woodland growing on a steep slope... There is a remnant 
bya trackway to the N of the present Beckhampton Rd...

1597 Thomas WITHERS in goods 4p Lay Subsidy
1611 Thomas WITHERS in goods 3p Lay Subsidy
1628 Joane WITHERS in goods 1p Lay Subsidy

1646-1731 Court Books (WSRO 248/91) Lands held by Ralph [36], Wm [38] & Robert 
[34], sons of Thomas WITHERS [3] for the terms of their 3 lives or the 
longest liver. -p5 of MT.

1647 Thomas WITHERS held 3 allotments of land & a leasehold for 14 years of 6 
acres of meadow & pasture & divers parcels of land in the common fields 
amounting to 30 acrew for a rental value of 14p (WSRO 248/101,6). The rest was 
a copyhold valued at 28P with a rent of 3P 6s 8d plus a heriot (usually a best
beast or a sum of money - p13) at the end of the copyhold tenure. This included
a dwelling house, 2 barns, a stable, oxhouse, orchard & 3 closes, 3 acres of 
meadow including 1 acre called Stoneacre (NOW the Rectory garden N of the 
churchyard!) & common pasture on the downs & common fields for 240 sheep, also 
further up on the downs rights of grazing for 12 beasts. There were 62 acres of
arable in the common fields. The third was aother copyhold held in the right 
of his wife under the rent of 4 marks & the heriot of a pony at death of the 
copoyholder. The estate was valued at 24P & consisted of a dwelling house, a 
barn, a stable, an oxhouse alongside an orchard & backside, 2 meadows (in 
dolemeads) 2 little grounds. There were rights of pasture for 200 sheep & on 
the common fields & for 10 beasts on the cowdown & 61 acres of arable. It all 
amounted to at least 164 acres with rights to grazing for 2 flocks of 200 sheep
each & for the cattle, on the extensive downland. - p5 of MT.

  After the restoration of the king in 1661, customary tenants are recorded 
coming to the manor court to pay homage & be amerced (ie showing contrition by
making payment). In 1661 Wm [38], Ralph [36] & John [35] were amerced & a 
further 10 defaulters in 1666 including John WITHERS [35] & Thomas WITHERS the 
younger [33?]: (WSRO 248/91/222) - p10 of MT.

  1659 The manor court records a redivision of a small amount of copyhold
land to Jason [361] son of Ralph [36], who had recently died in Wm PENN's new 
colony in county Chester, PA & to Wm WITHERS [38?], & together paid the entry 
fine of 20P - (WSRO 248/91/52) p10 of MT.

  In 1684 Wm WITHERS [38?] & Edward & Wm NAISH carved their names on the N 
wall of the NE chapel in the Church of St Mary the Virgin, BC. Again below the
doorway the names of Wm WITHER [383? -38 d1698] & Wm NAISH are carved dated 
1700. - p10 of MT. (Photos of these carvings appear between p9 and 10. 

By 1684 he renewed his "fine" before the manor court, based on an "entry" of
1638 [of his father?]. At the same court (WSRO 248/91/52) Thomas WITHERS "by
his own purchase took of the lord here in full court, by the hand of the 
Steward & by the Rod" a cottage called Yonder Cotty & a little close of grass
next to a little close of grass, next to late parcel of customary tenement 
called Westend Copyhold, for 2s yearly rental, & paying the entry fine of 30P. 
This was shared with kinsmen of the ASHLEY family [cf 354]. The last entry
Feb 1731 in this court book was for the copyhold held by Abraham ASHLEY [3545?]
& his 3 sons Jacob, Isaac & Walter for the entry fine of 105P & yearly rental 
of 8s8d for Yonder Cotty & also 1 messuage called Sims with adjoining garden & 
orchard & 2 closes of meadow called Nettlehills & 6 acres of arable in the 
common fields. -p11 of MT.

p 15:

By the 18th century ... the copyhold family farms could not sustain [all the
descendants]... In 1720, revised in 1738, a survey of the manor of Bishops 
Cannings was drawn & assessed by John OVERTON & his son (WRO Bishoprick 49). 
The survey recorded all the acreages of the tythings in the parish & 
landholders. In Cannings, William [38?] & Ralph WITHERS [36?] held a copyhold 
called Black House, lately held by Elizabeth WITHERS [m2 of 38?] consisting of 
1 messuage & its appurtenances in "Canons" with several parcels of land there 
containing 97 acres 1r 27p, value 47P, with beast leaze on the down & common & 
for 200 sheep in ye fields. William WITHERS also held a small freehold of 4 
acres 1r 36p. It was also recorded there were 11 cottages in the Green at 
Cannings, one held by John MINTY.... - p15 of MT.

1.10.1711 [Wilts.] Court Roll abstract (National Archive (Kew) Crest 38/2056) 
records the arable, lands, meadow & pasture & common of pasture for cattle & 
sheep in Cannings called SLOPERS [so presumably inherited from his mother] 
thereto in the tenure of Ralph WITHERS deceased, since in tenure of Richard, 
John & Wm COX, now deceased, & then to W SOLOMON & James GENT for lives. This 
entry points to a change of direction of the former copyholds held by the 
WITHERS into other ownerships. James GENT a notable brewer & mayor of Devizes 
- COLMAN 1991, "The Baker's Diary", Wilts CC & WAHNS. - p15 of MT. The COX 
family may be that in will of 13 who m'd 135 of /nash/nash.html]

 An abstract of title from Court Rolls (in the NA Crest Box 38/2056, reference
library of WANHS, Devizes) for 1 close of 3 acres of meadow called House Mead,
in Horton, formerly held by Jason WITHERS [361?], now held by SLOPER. 
  Perhaps more telling of the decline of the WITHERS' copyhold estate is 
revealed in the court roll of May 1755 (from another abstract in the NA Crest 
Box) `also one mesne (ie home farm) or tenement & 3 yardlands lying in 
Cannings Episcopi & Roundway called by the name West End & then formerly in 
the possession of Thomas WITHERS, & since Sara & Susannah NASH & granted to 
Geo WILLY & Willy SUTTON & James SUTTON Esq by copy' (the latter were 
successful clothiers in Devizes; JS 1725-88 is the husband of 35111 1 above]).

 There is the suggestion from these records that members of copyhold tenants 
of long standing were dispersing into other areas of expanding trades, or 
perhaps some stayed to work the fields & animal husbandry as undertenants to 
absentee landlords who had their business & trade in Devizes. [p16:] Turnpike 
roads were being built & later the Kennet & Avon Canal & the Great Western 
Railway. By the latter end of the 18th C Mark SLOPER held the copyhold estate 
of WITHERS as described in the Enclosure Award 1794, 20 when .. piece of land 
were being exchanged `in lieu & exchange for pasture land called Stubbhayes or
Stoney Croft now the property of Mark SLOPER in respect of his copyhold estate
called WITHERS (no 397 on Map B) 2 acres 1r 8p to James GENT. See also a 
reference to George SLOPER master baker in Devizes (1753-1810) who in 1787 
held copyhold land in the value of 615P in Bishops Cannings (COLMAN 199,55,
85). The turnpike road from Devizes to Beckhampton (now A361) passes close by 
West End at Bishops Cannings, was finished by 1820. (The former route higher 
on the downs in the N remains as green trackways.) The inn on the old road 
became defunct & turned into cottages for farm workers. The making of the road
(by many labourers) must have displaced a cottage, as again the NA Crest Box 
there is a record f a `newly created messuages or cottage divided into 2 
tenements & yards, gardens & bakehouse, lying on the N side of the turnpike 
leading from Devizes to Marlborough, & now in the occupation of James MINTIE 
& John WITHERS as tenants to the said Nanny HAZELAND who paid the quit rent of
10s in 1827.' The Enclosure Award was a hard task for the surveyor & 
commissioner William TUBB [in Bishops Cannings] when he started in 1794, who 
complained that there were so many small pieces of land dispersed & 
inconveniently situated held by several owners incapable of any considerable 
improvement'. One of these old enclosures was a messuage or cottage with an 
outhouse & home close called Cotty's Homestead now held by Eleanor SUTTON. The
SUTTON family also held West end farm (of Cannings Canonicorum) which was 
adding to the large estate of the Sotheron Estcourt during the 19th C. The 
Enclosure Award also records an old enclosure with no house held by MINTY & 
WITHERS at West End. 

The Tithe Award of 1841 (WSRO T/A Bishops Cannings) contains detailed info 
with a map & number of landholdings & tenements. 40 copyholders were recorded,
albeit with small amounts of land, 2 acres or less & a cottage.

 Tithe Award of 1841 (WSRO T/A Bishops Cannings)
In the 5th Schedule for tithes which belong with the land of owners ie
 impropriators - John WITHERS, a house, garden - homestead.

No 296 James MINTY, Sarah WITHERS, house & garden 24 perches, copyholders at 
 Hazeland, near West End on turnpike.
No 370 Sarah & James MINTY 36p house & garden (end of Church Path round corner
 into Village St)
No 351 Wm BEASANT, Wm MINTY, Edward WITHERS, house & garden 1 a copyhold
 opposite West End farm.
Tithe free - James MINTY & SLOPER owner/occupier homestead 25p
No 572 2 cottages, late Shepherd Shore Inn, old brick & thatch each with 2
 rooms, larder, wants repair. Opposite on other side of turnpike road. No 574
 barn, both alongside Wansdyke. [A photo of Wansdyke looking E from Morgan's
 Hill from
Archaelogy in the field by AGS CRAWFORD 1955, precedes p15] (Info from 1855
 survey Z4. 1881 census records Thomas & Mary Ellen WITHERS (nee MINTY)
 [3836 7356] & their 6 chn living there.)

Purchase by the Crown - Indenture 29.12.1858.
By the 19th C the various landholdings which formed the manors of the 
Bishoprick & Dean & Chapter were in the lordship of TH Sotheron ESTCOURT, MP 
for Devizes, who'd held the tenure on a 21 year lease over 3 lives. After 1835
this long established system was changed into the adin'n of Ecclesiastical 
Commissioners who, to raise significant funding towards the spiritual needs of
an expanding urban population, decided not to renew the Sotheron ESTCOURT 
lease & instead sold to the Crown Commissioners in 1858 (THORBURN 2002: The 
Bishoprick Estate to Crown Estate: effecting the purchase of Bishops Cannings 
in 1858, WANHM vol 98 327-336) surveys & valuations were carried out (CERO Z4 
no 6871 41855).
 The Tithe Map was used as the base map so numbers can be matched for the 
properties & the survey describes the condition of the cottages & farmhouse. 
Mark SLOPER occupied the former WITHERS' farmhouse Black House, then Blackwell
now Blacklands, described as a 'house, with 5 rooms, dairy room, bakehouse, 
oven house, washhouse, open low house, cowhouse, cartshed and a piggery. 
 [The house is nearly opposite The Crown at B.C.]
Nearby on the corner opposite The Crown Inn, was a row of 3 tenements no. 392,
held by Wm. SLOPER of 3 rooms each, the west one 'not worth repair'. 
(Fred MINTY occupied the last one and died there five years ago in 2000).
 Simon and John MINTY held 2 tenements built of brick nog and thatch (no. 370)
in the Street. Old Shepherd Shore to the north west by Wansdyke had two 
cottages in what formerly had been the Inn on the old road, built of brick 
and thatch, each had 2 rooms and a larder, 'wants repair'.
Hopefully improvements were made after the purchase of the Bishopric Estate in
{p17} 1858, so that by the time of the 1881 Census my great grandparents 
Thomas WITHERS [3836 7356] and his wife Mary Ellen (MINTY) had sufficient 
space for their family of six children.
Next door lived their kinsmen, the WILTSHIRE family.
The steward of the Longleat estate, Thomas DAVIS, author of the General View 
of Agriculture of Wiltshire, 1794 (W AHNS ref. Lib) and active improver who 
doubled the rental value of the Longleat estate, but was deeply aware of the 
social costs, wrote:
'There are numberless villages which supported a substantial yeomanry of 20 or
30 copyhold or leasehold tenants living on their own estates, £20 - £30 a 
piece, and attending for their own sakes to all the minutiae of a farmer's 
profits; now all are in the lord's land and let to no one, or at the utmost to
two farmers, and the houses turned into cottages for the habitation of a 
miserable, dispirited set of labourers, the descendants probably of the 
original owners. This is not the tale of fiction nor the language of romance 
.... It is a fact, staring in broad daylight in nearly half the villages 
throughout the west of England (Bath and West of England Agricultural Society 
Papers X, 1805 : 38-56) (Bettey, 1986,200).

Postscript My grandmother, Louisa [3836 7356 4], was one of the six children 
of Thomas WITHERS [3836 7356] and his wife Mary Ellen (MINTY) who were living 
at Shepherd Shore in 1881 and at Hill Barn in 1891. The six year old girl 
walked the mile to school in Bishop's Cannings and was the ten year old who 
did not attend school because of 'a pain in her head'. On the 26 January 1952 
she die of a cerebral haemorrhage in her feather bed in the house attached to 
Sudbury Court Farm, Middlesex. She was tended by her daughter Edith May 
[3836 7356 42] (my mother) and by her son John [3836 7356 41], and by her 
beloved husband Fred CURTIS. The story of their lives in the 20th century has 
been described by me in other collections of unpublished files.

2. ATTENDING SCHOOL AT BISHOPS CANNINGS, by Margaret THORBURN (5670)
received 25.2.2006.

My grandmother Louisa WITHERS [3836 7356 4], born 1874, attended the school at 
Bishop's Cannings near Devizes trom the age of 5 years along with her brothers 
and sisters, Mary, Thomas, Sophia, Ellen, Dora, John and Ruth. At first, they 
lived at Shepherd Shore, just over a mile away in the downland by Wansdyke, 
where there were other farm-working families with children. Latterly, the 
family lived at Hill Barn Cottages, a little nearer the school.

The 1870 Education Act formalised church schools into the state system with 
required standards, trained school masters and mistresses, a charge of 1d. 
per week, and by 1876, school attendance was compulsory. A school building, 
now a village hall, was built in 1830 and measured 30 feet by 30 feet, with a 
central stove, two rooms, built of flint with a thatched roof. 'Offices' were 
outside. The children of Bishop's Cannings were expected to behave well, 
diligently learn their reading, writing and arithmetic, attend regularly, 
achieve their labour certificates, and would leave school, hopefully literate 
by the age of 10 years.
  
Keeping records of the school year was the duty of the headmaster, Mr OLIVER, 
and once a year the school was visited by the Inspector, whose reports are 
included in the Log Book. Mr OLIVER's copper-plate writing gives a 
straightforward account of the days and months of teaching trom the years 1871 
- 1907. Exasperation of the slowness of his pupils' progress emerges trom his 
writing, mixed with a sense of sympathy for their lives so closely linked to 
the seasons, the land and family labour, and also the wide spread of illness, 
which afflicted them. When lighter events, such as teaching the children a new 
song, the arrival of new books, a half-day holiday, the Vicar's garden party 
in July, are recorded, there is a feeling of pleasure for the children. But 
you can almost hear him heavily sighing as he writes 'Standard I very dull and 
backward. It is impossible to make such children bright and intelligent'. 

School attendance was always enumerated, as initially payment was related to 
numbers of children. As the years progressed, the numbers of children 
registered increased, and how the total of eventually 90 children fitted into 
the two roomed schoolhouse seems hard to believe. But probably it was rare to 
have a totally full schoolhouse as absences were frequently affected by 
weather, field-working and illnesses.

A whole range of diseases afflicted the children - mumps, whooping cough, 
measles, scarletina and ringworms, apart from coughs and colds. In 1885, 
typhoid fever broke out in the parish. Continuous sickness in a family group 
was a great drawback to school learning. Often the older girls were kept at 
home to help their mothers with the younger children.

In March, the older children were usually absent when they helped with the 
potato planting, and again in June for the haymaking, when children were 
required to take the food out to their parents and older working children in 
the fields. Once the corn harvest was under way by mid August, school ceased 
and gradually there was a return to school in late September after gleaning 
was finished. Such interruptions meant children easily forgot what they had 
learnt.

In May 1876, Thomas [3836 7356 2] aged 7 years and Sophia [3836 7356 3] aged 6 
years from Shepherds Shore my grandmother Louisa WITHERS' older brother and 
sister returned to school after six months' absence, 'both backward and 
stupid'. In this case the most likely reason was because their parents could 
not afford the 1d. per week per child.

The variable weather at any time of the year made it difficult for children, 
especially the younger ones, to walk to school and back and forth home for 
dinner at midday. Not infrequently the cold and wet meant the little children 
did not get to school. On 18 January 1881, the Headmaster writes 'a dreadful 
snowstorm set in at about 10 a.m. which lasted for thirty-six hours and in 
many of the roads it was 8 - 10 feet thick. The children could not get to 
school any more during the week'. On 24 January he writes that 'the dreadful 
bad weather has prevented 53 children from getting to school, so little 
progress'. The 'dreadful snowstorm' caused the death of Charles CURTIS who 
succumbed to the intense cold on his journey over Roundway Down back to 
Heddington. He was the father of Fred CURTIS then aged 10 years, who was to be 
Louisa's future husband, and father of my mother (see W.F.H.S. October 2003, 
page 15). In June of the same year 32 children were absent with whooping cough 
and mumps, and as only 23 were present, the Vicar closed the school.

Louisa's health seems to have been poor. In 1882 she and her younger sister 
Ellen [3836 7356 5] were sent home both suffering from ringworm. The following 
year Ellen was away sick. In June, Louisa, now 9 years, is recorded as 'very 
dull' and that her mother called at the school to say Louisa often complained 
of pains in her head. In January 1884 Mrs WITHERS called again at the school 
to say Louisa, 10 years, was too weak to attend, and that 'she suffers very 
much in her head since her last illness'.

Six years later it is recorded that her younger brother John, aged 6 years, 
had returned to school after an absence because of whooping cough. His school 
career does not sound one of promise, as three years later in 1892, John aged 
9 years, was compelled to return to school by the Attendance Officer of Calne 
District. By then, the family was living at Hill Barn Cottages. A year later 
in August 1893, his father Thomas WITHERS [3836 7356] died from a head injury 
as a result of an accident by falling off a wheat rick.

Sophia [3836 7356 3] married Thomas GRUBBE and they were living at Cherhill in 
1901 with their four young children. Louisa [3836 7356 4] married Fred CURTIS 
at Calne Registry Office in 1894, and they went to Bromham to work at 
Netherstreet Farm and lived in a new Crown Estate house with pumped water and 
a large garden. Within a few years they moved with their three young children 
to Sudbury Court Farm, Middlesex, where Louisa and Fred lived for the rest of 
their lives, dying within two months of each other in 1952.

Ref: Church of England School Log Book, Bishop's Cannings 1871 - 1904 
(Wiltshire Record Office, Trowbridge)