Hannah Waters & Richard Martin

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Helen Glenmire Davidson


  Hannah Waters & Richard Martin
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William Martin
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Isabella "Jennie" Martin m. James "Harry" Davidson
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Helen Glenmire Davidson


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Richard Martin

Birth:

1795, East Grinstead, Sussex, UK 

Parents:

Richard Martin and Ann Cooper

Death:

2 March, 1843. East Grinstead.

Hannah Waters 

Birth:

1795, East Grinstead, Sussex

Death:

11 August, 1857, East Grinstead.

__________

Marriage:

9 September, 1819, East Grinstead, Sussex.

Children:

Ann (b. 1820)

William (1821-1902) m. (2) HannahBrown 1891, East Grinstead.

George (b.1822)

 

Mary (b. 1823)

Jesse (b. 1825)

Jane (b. 1827)

  

James (b. 1829)

Henry (b. 1832)

Elizabeth (b. 1824)

Alfred (b. 1836)

In 18th and 19th century England and probably for decades before, the life of an agricultural labourer was the destiny of a considerable number of English people.  An "ag. lab." as they were listed in various English censuses, was a farm labourer who was given accommodation, often a cottage to live in, by the farmer in return for work. ....He and his family would have done a lot of digging ditches, helping plough fields, and other semi-skilled, but probably back-breaking work. And this is how it would have been for decades in the farms around the mid-Sussex town of East Grinstead where generations of the Martin family lived. 

The area known as the High Weald, on the edge of which East Grinstead is located, has been described as:

East Grinsttead itself has a long history. in the 21st century, it's been described as a "well-heeled commuter town", being only 45kilometres from London, but back in the last century or two, it would have been a much more modest, but still an important market town.  Its High Street is claimed to have one of the longest continuous runs of 14th-century timber-framed buildings in England.

Richard Martin and Hannah Waters were both born in the dying years of the 18th century, and while we appear to have a record of Hannah's baptism in 1795 at East Grinstead, Richard's entry into the world is much more elusive, so we are reliant on information recorded in the 1841 census, and the meagre details on his death certificate.

In what was probably a close-knit rural community around the outskirts of East Grinstead, it's not surprising that Richard and Hannah, by then in their early twenties would have met and married.  The ceremony was carried out in East Grinstead itself, almost certainly at  the church of St Swithuns (left), in 1819 - where their couples first child, a daughter Ann,  was baptised six months later.

Ann was the first of 10 children, with her brother William the next to arrive. (Nearly a century later William's own daughter Isabella 'Jenny' sailed away from East Grinstead to marry one of our Australian Davidsons of New England). For Richard and Hannah, eight more children, four boys and four girls, came in quick succession, none more than two years apart.

By the time the first general census of England was taken in 1841, the couple's eldest children had left home.  Richard and Hannah were living and working at Brook Farm, on today's Turners Hill Road just outside East Grinstead, with five of their children, the youngest, Alfred, only four years old. Richard and Hannah were said to be as 45 years of age at the time, although this particular census was noted for rounding adult ages to the nearest 5 years.  On the census form,  both 15 year old Jesse and 13 year old Jane have ditto marks beneath their father;s "ag. lab" description, suggesting that both teenagers were also farm workers.

By the time that census was taken, Richard was probably in poor health.  In less than two years, he was dead, succumbing to tuberculous aged only 49.  His death certificate noted he had suffered from consumption, the 19th century term for TB.

By the time the next census was taken, in 1851, Hannah had moved on.  She was living as a pauper in a place simply described as "leading to Thornhill", with her 14 year old son Alfred who was working as a 'carter boy', plus unmarried daughters Elizabeth  and Jane, and Jane's one year old daughter, Emily. 

In August 1857, Hannah herself died from tuberculosis, falling to the disease which had taken her husband 14 years earlier.