HENFIELD
One day about 20 years ago I paid a visit to West Sussex County Records Office and spent the morning trawling through frame after frame of murky images on a seemingly endless reel of microfilm looking for references to the name CHERRIMAN within the Henfield settlement, bastardy and apprenticeship records. Needless to say when I found nothing throughout the 18th. and 19th. centuries I became rather despondent. The CHERRIMAN family settled in Henfield at the start of the 18th. century and by the 19th. century were a reasonably large family within the parish. After lunch I settled down to search the Churchwarden and Overseers receipts. It was in the latter category that I hit gold. These were real Parish Chest records which had survived on scraps of paper - a bit like the bottom of my shopping bag where receipts tend to build up at an alarming rate.
William CHERRIMAN had been born in Henfield in 1741. As a young man he travelled to Ringmer some 20 miles to the east where he married 16 year old Elizabeth MILES on 15 November 1769. In the spring of 1774, having produced three children, the couple fell foul of the Settlement Laws. On examination William declared that he had been born in Henfield which resulted in a Removal Order being served. During the following seven years a futher three children were born in Henfield: Thomas, John and Lucy.
Times were hard and the parish came to the assistance of the family by providing new shoes. Those for William cost 3s 3d whilst those for Thomas and John were 3s 1d and 2s 9d - all came with hobnails in the soles to increase their durability. As winter approached Elizabeth was pregnant with their next child but food was scarce. On 29 November the Overseers of the Poor came to the aid of three families by giving them barley. William WEST and William CHERRIMAN were both given 8 pecks costing £1 (1 peck is approx. 14 lbs.); Harry EDE must have had a smaller family for he was given just 4 pecks at 10s. A week later five sacks were sent to assist those unfortunates who found themselves in the workhouse.
William and his family were not yet in need of the workhouse but they could not survive without some help. On 6 December Richard LEWIS billed the parish for 10s 6d - the sum required for delivering William and Elizabeth's new baby. Three days later the parish were paying out another 4s to William as an allowance. The new addition to the family was a baby girl and she was baptised Jenny on 6 January 1782. Over the next five years Elizabeth had another three children and then, in December 1789, William and Elizabeth had twin boys. The babies, Richard and George, were poorly at birth and were privately baptised just in case they did not pull through. Two and a half years later 51 year old William died and was buried on 29 June 1792. But Elizabeth was again pregnant and gave birth to Abraham in the Autumn.
In December 1796 William and Elizabeth's daughter, Lucy, died at the age of 17. The parish bought her coffin from Mr. MARTIN for the sum of 3s - she was buried the day after Christmas.
Some five years after her husband's death Elizabeth again became pregnant. Dinah was baptised on 29 January 1797 and buried on 14 February. On this occasion Mr. MARTIN's receipt shows that the coffin was for the child of 'Dame CHERRYMAN' rather that 'CHERRYMAN daughter child' as Lucy had been described two months earlier. More evidence to the illegitimate birth appears in the Overseers accounts dated 1797 Chichester Ephphany Sessions when Alexander COMBER is shown as 'begetting a child on the body of Elizabeth CHERRYMAN'. This part of the case cost the grand sum of £7 16s 2d.
On 15 May 1797 Joseph, the tenth child of William and Elizabeth, was provided with breeches at the cost of 3s 3d a pair. James WOOLGER appears to have been even more in need for he was given two pairs at the cost of 6s. Abraham and Richard were OK for trousers but they needed hats which were provided at a cost of 2s 3d and 2s respectively. The following month all three boys needed shoes. Joseph's, being the largest, cost 5s 9d; Richard's 5s 2d; whilst little Abraham's cost 4s 4d. George, Richard's twin brother, did not feature on this receipt but by October he was having his shoes mended for the sum of 8d. Joseph worked really hard throughout the summer and on 5 October needed his shoes 'sould and naild' at the cost of 2s 4 1/2 d. Elizabeth was being paid 1s 6d per week out of the poor rate but another member of the village - Widow WICKHAM - was raking in 6s 6d.
Over the next few years the Overseers accounts continue to show similar payments for the children. By 1804 George was 15 years of age and the accounts show a payment of £5 2s to Thomas LANAWAY for keeping George CHERRYMAN for 51 weeks at the cost of 2/- per week. Thomas operated the Tanyard where cattle hides were scraped, cleaned and soaked in urine as part of the tanning process. No doubt George formed part of Thomas' labour force and was paid by the parish for his trouble.
Henfield is situated within the Low Weald of Sussex where the soil is generally heavy clay. The community was dependent on agriculture with mixed farming, cattle fattening and dairying providing employment. The village had not been granted a market but did have two fairs a year - one on St. George's Day within the town and on the common and the other on St. Margaret's Day at Pilory Green. The course of the River Adur provides the natural boundary to Henfield Parish on the north and north-west where two sources of the river unite near Lashmars Hall. The river continues to define the boundary on the western side whilst the northern and southern boundaries are defined by tributaries.
It is likely that Richard, twin brother of George, left the village in his late teens to seek employment elsewhere. To the north only one road led out of the parish over one of the tributaries to Shermanbury and Cowfold. To the south the road led to Upper Beeding, whilst to the south-east a road led to Woodmancote and then wound its way back towards the north to Twineham and Bolney. Just to the north of Woodmancote the Blackstone Bridge provided another crossing point over the tributary. Richard appears to have taken this route for on 2 August 1815, at the age of 26, he married Sarah HEASMAN in Twineham.
TWINEHAM
Twineham was a small village with a population of only 238 in 1801 compared with 1037 for Henfield. Richard had no inclination to return home so the couple made their way north to the more wooded parish of Bolney which during the 1801 census had a population of 497. It was there, just five months later in January 1816, that they too fell foul of the Settlement Laws. Sarah was heavily pregnant and the Parish of Bolney did not want the expense of supporting strangers. A removal order was served on 12 January and confirmed at the Quarter Sessions. On marriage Sarah had inherited her husband's parish of settlement so the couple were sent back to Henfield. Their son, Thomas, was born in Henfield in the Spring. From then on they and their expanding family settled in Henfield. The local surgeon C. MORGAN put in a bill for 5s on 12 March 1819 for vaccinating 'Cherryman and child'.
By 1833 Richard and Sarah had four children and their second son, Richard, was apprenticed to the farmer Geoge HERRINGTON. A receipt dated 25 March 1833 shows the parish paying £2 12s to Mr. HERRINGTON for Richard's keep for 52 weeks. According the the tithe apportionment list George HERRINGTON was the occupier of a farm in the north-east of the village (Nymans Farm) owned by Lucretia WOOD. Lucretia also owned a cottage and garden in the Neptown area of the village occupied by Richard CHERRIMAN.
Richard's younger brother, Abraham, travelled a little further afield and reached Ardingly when he was in his mid 20s. This parish was half the size of Henfield and 16 miles to the north-east as the crow flies - right up in the High Weald. It was there on 15 July 1818 that he married 17 year old Elizabeth BOTTEN. Three months later the couple had a removal order served on them by the parish who wanted them despatched to the neighbouring parish of Lindfield. A question must have been raised as to where Abraham had actually been born and the order respited. By January the Quarter Sessions were examining the case again and this time it was quashed. A few days later Elizabeth gave birth to a baby daughter, Mildred. By the next Quarter Sessions in April it had been decided that Henfield was the rightful parish of settlement and this time there was no disputing the fact and the order was upheld - with the inclusion of baby Mildred. Abraham, like his brother, settled down and raised his family in Henfield.
Suffice to say that 'Dame Elizabeth' lived to the ripe old age of 90 and was buried in Henfield on 25 May 1843. No doubt at the expense of the parish!
How am I related to this branch of the CHERRIMAN family? Well, the William CHERRIMAN who was married to 'Dame Elizabeth' was the second son of William CHERRIMAN and Mary PEPPER. This couple were my 6xGt. Grandparents via their youngest son Thomas who by the 1770s was in West Grinstead. In the grand scheme of things this is a very distant connection but tracing this branch of the family through the parish receipts has given me a much better understanding of life back then.
It is interesting to note that William and Elizabeth's third child - William CHERRYMAN born 1774 in Ringmer- travelled to America with his family in 1824 having, it seems previously served in the War of 1812. For the first 20+ years they settled in Monroe, New York before moving west to Cattaraugus. I would be delighted to hear from any American cousins who might be out there to learn more about this pioneering branch of the family.
(this is not a direct link but does give the required info.)
As a point of reference if any reader would like to include this blog or a specific post as a Web Link to their family tree on Ancestry or other family history site be my guest. All I ask is that my research is not Copy and Pasted somewhere else and made to look like original work. Web Links are the way to go. I am able to give advice on how to do this on Ancestry but other sites may be different.
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