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STEPHEN AND ELIZABETH SHERWOOD

 (continued)

Hertfordshire Militia

            Like his father Stephen and brother John Sherwood, Stephen’s name also appears in Hertfordshire militia lists. In fact Stephen’s   name appears on three militia ballot lists. He first appears in   Weston in 1775.  He then appears on the Clothall list in   1778.  In 1780 Stephen is once again shown.  Most importantly in the ‘Other Information’ column on the 1780 ballot, Stephen   is listed as ‘having served.’  We   know for certain that Stephen served in the Hertfordshire militia.  What we don’t know is the years his service covered.  We can hazard a guess though, due largely to the existence of the Clothall Surveyor records. These records show payments for work done on the roads in the parish.  They also record money received from those individuals who were unable to do their statute duty.  Defaulters (those who failed to carry out their responsibilities) were required to pay the equivalent of a day’s pay, which for a labourer was about two shillings. The money was collected by the surveyors of the highways and recorded in the surveyor’s accounts.

          Stephen is listed in the surveyor’s records over a sixteen-year period, from 1776 to 1792.  He is recorded as either being paid for working on the roads or for paying     for defaulting on his statute duty.     There are three consecutive    years where Stephen doesn’t appear in these records.  They are   1778, 1799 and 1780. It is of interest to note that men were exempt from statute work while serving in the militia.  It may be that Stephen served in the militia for this period, from 1778 to 1780.  

          On the surveyor’s accounts for the year   1778, there is a list of Clothall men who were required to do statute duty for that year. Stephen’s father -in-law William Ward is on the list, but Stephen isn’t. For the year 1779 there is no record of Stephen paying statute duty.  For 1780 there is ‘A list of labourers charged with highway duty and an account of money received from them.’ Once again Stephen Sherwood is not on this list. And yet he appears in the surveyor’s accounts in 1777 and in 1781 as having paid his statute duty.  A tentative conclusion to be drawn from all this is that Stephen was conscripted into the militia as a result of the 1778 ballot.   He may have served for the years 1778, 1779 and 1780.

             It is of interest to note that the   Hertfordshire militia was embodied for full time service from May 1778 to March 1783.  This covered the period when the British were at war with the Americans.  The Americans declared their independence from Great Britain on the 4 July 1776.  With the outbreak of war between the two countries (the war ended in April 1783) Stephen would have been placed on permanent duty.

          Jack Parker was involved in transcribing the original militia lists into book form for the Hertfordshire Family and Population History Society.  In 1999 he sent me the following.

The Hertfordshire Militia was embodied at St Albans in May 1778 for service, and in June went to Coxheath camp, Kent and in November was stationed at Tunbridge and adjacent places.  In June 1779 they went to Warley Common in Essex (a large scale military camp) and in November they went back to Hertfordshire presumably St Albans.  In June/July 1780 they were sent to Hyde Park in London to help in putting down the Gordon riots.  Of course by then Stephen Sherwood may have finished his service.

When not embodied they were at home but had to do specified periods of training, rather like the Territorial Army in the U.K but when embodied they were a proper military unit under military discipline, and were sent wherever the government wanted them, usually to back up the Regular Army or replace regular units sent abroad.  Men from the same general area were usually posted to the same company to enable local training to be done.  Later, men from the militia were encouraged to volunteer for service in the Regular Army, especially during the Napoleonic Wars.  Once his service was completed he would have no further liability, not like modern day reservists.

Those selected for militia service between the years 1757 and 1786 were required to serve for three years. On being called into service each man received payment of one guinea.  In peacetime militiamen lived at home, but were required to spend two to three weeks each year at camp in training.  Those who were conscripted   were not required to serve overseas. 

             The idea of compulsory military service or conscription was very unpopular with most people.  As a consequence protests and riots were not uncommon.  It wasn’t until 1831 that compulsory military service was abandoned and replaced by a system which called for volunteers.

            In May 1791 Stephen was convicted of assaulting Hannah Field of Clothall and sent to jail for one month.  He was also fined three shillings and fourpence.  We can only speculate as to who    Hannah Field was. She may have been the same Hannah Field who married Daniel Starkey at Clothall in September 1796.  Hannah was a widow when she remarried.

There were four jails or bridewells in Hertfordshire at this time.  Hertford, Hitchin, Buntingford and Great Berkhampstead.  It is still to be determined which one of these jails Stephen was sent to.  Conditions in jails at this time were atrocious. Deaths in jail from stays as short as a fortnight were not uncommon. 

            There is no doubt that Stephen survived his time in jail.  The last mention of Stephen Sherwood that can be found in any records is the Clothall Surveyors accounts for   4 May 1792. On this date he was paid fifteen shillings for working twelve days on the parish roads. 

            Stephen died sometime between 4 May 1792 and   6 May 1796. The latter being the date Elizabeth appears as a widow in Surveyors records.    When, where and how Stephen died is still to be determined.  There is the possibility he enlisted as a soldier in the war with France.  On 1 February 1793 France declared war on Great Britain.

When her husband died Elizabeth was in her late thirties with five young children to support.  The oldest Ann was 16, William 14, Sarah 11, Mary 7 and Lydia 2.   In 1798 Ann Sherwood married Freeman Clare at Bygrave, Hertfordshire.  Bygrave is four kilometres northeast of Clothall as the crow flies. The following year, on 18 August 1799, Elizabeth age about 40 married John Dixon in the Clothall parish church. Witnesses to their marriage were Judith Ginn and Thomas Sparks.   John Dixon does not appear to have been born in Clothall or lived there for any great length of time.  There is no mention of him in Militia or Surveyors records.  The couple had two children. John Dixon junior was baptised at Clothall 23 March 1800 and Jane 26 December 1802.  Jane died less than two years later in 1804. Elizabeth’s father William Ward died the previous year.

In 1808 Stephen and Elizabeth’s daughter Mary Sherwood married Joseph Biggs at Clothall. They lived at nearby Kimpton in Hertfordshire and had eight children.  John the youngest of the family was born in 1831.  He left Kimpton and settled in Franklin, Idaho in the United States.  

Elizabeth’s son John Dixon married Ann Davis at Clothall in 1821.They had six children, five sons William, James, Charles, Noah and Israel and a daughter Esther. They were all born at Clothall. In 1841 the family were still living  there.

Esther the youngest of the family was working as a servant at Eton College in Buckingham in 1881.  She was 41, and single. 

            In 1827 Stephen and Elizabeth’s youngest child Lydia died at Clothall.  She was about 33 years old. The following year Elizabeth lost her   husband John Dixon, making her a widow for the second time.  Five years later in 1832 tragedy struck again when Stephen and Elizabeth’s second youngest child Mary Biggs nee Sherwood died at Kimpton.  Mary would have been about 43.

Elizabeth’s Move to Fowlmere

Some time prior to   1841 Elizabeth Dixon left Clothall and settled in Fowlmere.  In June 1841 Elizabeth   together with her son William Sherwood and his wife Elizabeth were living in the farmhouse at Brook farm. Brook farm was owned by the Nash family.  William worked there as the farm manager.  On the 1841 census in the column headed ‘Occupation’ next to Elizabeth’s name the words ‘Independent means’ are written.  This indicates that she was not reliant on the parish for support. Less than two years later her son William died from tuberculosis.  He was in his early sixties.  William’s death left both his wife and mother in a difficult situation. Both probably relied on him as the sole provider.  They had not only lost a husband and son but also the family breadwinner and somewhere to live.  A new farming bailiff or farm manager would need to be appointed to run Brook farm and he and his family would no doubt have expected to live in the farmhouse. 

The move to the workhouse  

We can’t be sure just exactly when Elizabeth moved to the Hitchin workhouse.  It was most likely quite soon after William’s death.     Elizabeth Dixon because of her age (she was close to 83  by this time) and because she now had no one to support her, had little choice but  to spend her remaining days in a  workhouse.  The reason that she was placed in the workhouse at Hitchin was because of settlement laws.  If a person was not able to support themself or have someone else support them, then responsibility for their care fell on the parish. It was the job of the Overseer of the Poor to collect a poor rate from the wealthier classes and oversee payments to the needy.  This method of looking after the poor was known as outdoor relief.   Because Elizabeth was originally from Clothall, a removal order would have been issued to have her returned   to Hertfordshire.    

With the establishment of the New Poor Law in 1834, harsh, new changes were to be implemented.  Outdoor relief was to be phased out.  In its place each parish was to form a union with other parishes in order to build a workhouse to accommodate the poor.  The Hitchin Poor Law Union was established in the summer of 1835.  It consisted of twenty-eight parishes one of which was Clothall.  The Union was governed by a Board of Guardians who were elected to represent the parishes in the Union.  One of the first things   the Board did was to arrange the building of a workhouse. A site was selected near Bedford road in the town of Hitchin, Hertfordshire.  The building was completed in early January 1837.  The workhouse was still standing in 1972 and was then part of the Lister Hospital.   A   master and matron were appointed and it was their job to see to the day to day running of the workhouse.  The   workhouse   opened on 6 February 1837 and the first paupers were admitted. 

Conditions in the workhouse were oppressive to say the least.  The intent was to discourage all but the very desperate to seek relief.  For many paupers it was a choice between starvation and the workhouse, which was hardly a choice at all.  Those who made up the workhouse population were the sick, the elderly, orphans, lunatics and the unemployed.  Upon entering the institution families were split up.  Husbands and wives and parents and children were separated.  Uniforms were worn, and strict rules had to be followed.  The diet was monotonous and rations meagre.  The work for the able bodied was often hard labour, breaking rocks or picking oakum. Children were quite often hired out of a day to work in factories. The more enlightened establishments provided schooling for the young. 

The   Hitchin workhouse had one hundred and fifty-eight people staying there on the night of 6 June 1841.  Eighty-one were males and seventy were females.  The oldest inmate was a ninety year old woman and the youngest a one year old boy.  Fifty-year-old James Harrison? was in charge of running the workhouse.  His wife Elizabeth was the workhouse matron.  William and Elizabeth Geary? were the schoolmaster and schoolmistress.   Their ages appear to have been rounded down to the nearest multiple of five years. A common practice on this census.  The two teachers had fifty-eight students in their class.  Thirty-two boys and twenty-two girls. The youngest was three and the oldest fifteen.  By 1842, a schoolroom for eighty children had been built.

A wide variety of occupations were represented in the workhouse.  These included farm labourers, labourers, a charwoman, a leather tanner, a brickmaker, washerwoman, tailor,  a porter (an attendant at a door or gate) a grocer, maid servant, milliner, printer, cow keeper, straw plaiter, sawyer, shepherd, and chambermaid.  Eight inmates were listed as ‘idiots.’

 Not long after opening,  the workhouse accommodation was found to be  inadequate.  One of the problems was an unexpected increase in the number of poor people seeking accommodation in the winter of 1841-42.  The Poor Law Commissioners (in London) asked Oswald Foster the workhouse medical officer to report on the situation.  He was asked to look at the health of the occupants and the number of persons who could be properly accommodated.  Foster wrote in February 1842 that there were 312 inmates in the workhouse.  It was his opinion that the facility should hold no more than two hundred persons though there were he conceded  beds for two hundred and sixty.  He went on to say that the building was very badly ventilated and that a filthy smell greets you as you enter some of the rooms.  The smell was particularly bad in the old men’s day room, the able bodied men’s and women’s night rooms and two rooms which were occupied by women with children.

Overcrowding and poor ventilation in the rooms were a major concern.  The two rooms used by the women with children were intended to hold six to eight.  They were now according to Foster    accommodating up to twenty-two people. 

In the ‘School Department’ boys slept up to six in a bed, three at the head and three at the foot.  Skin diseases amongst the children were according to the medical officer very common.  The yards, particularly the boys yard was flat and covered with gravel.  When it rained it became muddy and the mud was carried into the building making it damp and dirty.

It was suggested that separate rooms   be provided to treat the sick.  Some of the rooms that were occupied by   the sick had brick floors which became very damp during bad weather.  The doors to these rooms opened out into the yards exposing the patients to the cold, draughts and changes in weather.

The Board of Guardians response to Foster’s report was hardly positive. Before forwarding it on to the Poor Law Commissioners, the Board made a number of comments.  They did concede that there had been a large increase in pauper numbers in the workhouse over the past three months.  This they felt was only a temporary situation and not likely to reoccur. They also agreed that beneficial changes could be made to the male and female probationary wards and the sick wards.   This was about all they were willing to concede. The Board suggested that things were not as bad as the medical officer had indicated.  Foster they claimed had looked at the workhouse in terms of its suitability as a hospital and not as a place to house the poor.  They maintained that the building had been designed to hold two hundred and forty people and not the two hundred favoured by Foster.  As for the terrible smell coming from the old men’s room, the Board suggested that this was simply a result of their dirty habits. Hopefully some beneficial changes were made to the workhouse after the report was received by the Poor Law Guardians.  

If Elizabeth entered the workhouse soon after William died in 1843, then she spent the last seven years of her life there.  Her death occurred on Tuesday  19 November 1850.  She died at the age of ninety-three  due to "Old age " The informant (the person providing the information) was Catherine Moles.  Catherine was  also   living in the workhouse and present when Elizabeth died. Catherine and Elizabeth may have known each other before they both ended up living in the workhouse. Catherine was born in Clothall about 1818. In 1841 she was living at Shaw Green, Clothall with Thomas Mole age 40, a farm labourer and Susanna Mole age 60.Thomas and Susanna's ages were most probably rounded down. Thomas may have been Catherine's father and Susanna her grandmother.  Living with Catherine was her daughter Mary who was just four months old. 

            In 1851, Catherine appears on the Hitchin Union workhouse census.  With her were her two daughters Mary age 10 and Ann age 6.  Both girls were listed as paupers.  Catherine was 32 years old and unmarried.  She too was listed as a pauper.  Her occupation was straw plaiter.  A straw plaiter made straw plaits which were used in making hats.  Both of Catherine’s daughters were born in Clothall.  Mary was born about 1841 and Ann about 1845. Sometime after 1846 (Ann was baptised in Clothall that year) Catherine and her daughters entered the workhouse. 

Elizabeth Sherwood died at Hitchin and was brought back to Clothall to be buried, possibly by her relatives.  It may have been her son John Dixon who arranged for Elizabeth’s body to be brought back.

Elizabeth’s was not an easy life. She worked in the fields for over thirty years collecting stones to support her family.  She  survived most   of her children and   two husbands. She spent the last years of her life alone without family in a workhouse. An institution not known for its care and humane treatment of the old, the poor and the sick.

We are indebted to her in that she provides a critical link between the Sherwoods of Clothall and the Sherwoods of Fowlmere.  On census night in June 1841 Elizabeth Dixon was not   in Clothall, nor was she present at the Hitchin workhouse.   Instead she was twenty kilometres or so away in the neighbouring county of Cambridgeshire. She was staying with her son and daughter-in-law William and Elizabeth Sherwood.  All three spent the night together in the farmhouse at Brook Farm.

            At the time of the 1841 there were four generations of our family living in Fowlmere. Elizabeth Dixon, nee Sherwood age 82, her son William Sherwood age 57 and wife Elizabeth age 50. Living in the village with them were William and Elizabeth’s  three children Charles age 28, Jane 26 and William junior 23.   Charles and Jane's children were also living in the village at this time.  Charles’ son Arthur Sherwood was my great grandfather. He was just four months old.

© R J Sherwood. 2001

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