Friday 1 February 2013

Where was your family on the 7th June 1841?


“On Monday next, the 7th of June, an attempt will again be made to form a Speculum Britannice, or mirror of the inhabitants as to their condition and locality, when they arise from their slumbers on the morning of that day, to give an exact picture of the then living generation, and to perpetuate a description of it for present and future use. This will be found no easy task, it will require all the assistance which the appointed officers, the local societies, the clergy, and others can give to render it complete as a national work. The institutions at Falmouth, Truro, Tavistock, Plymouth, and elsewhere should be on the alert. A statistical view of eight miles round St. Andrew's church, Plymouth, showing, inter alia, how the population is located, as well on the water as on the land, would be a valuable present to the British Association on their meeting at that beautiful harbour in August.”

For the Ebbott family the 1841 census revealed that most of the extended family were still living nearby each other, except for John’s Aunt Elizabeth who had moved the furthest away after getting married.  All of the families were engaged in some sort farming.
The distance that John's extened family lived away from John's Parents, note the circles  appear at 4km intervals.

John is only one year and living with his parents on the farm, and his mother is pregnant with his brother Julius.  His maternal grandmother, Grace Bone, has just died two before the census was taken, so his paternal grandmother, Mary Ebbott, has left her family to go and visit John Bone and help where ever she can, perhaps to assist with Grace’s funeral arrangements, leaving her husband at home.  Accompanying her is only one servant, Sarah Pearce. After all her own daughter and John's mother Sarah is heavily pregnant with her second child she can hardly be expected to leave her leave her baby behind and is in no fit state to travel.

So much for a quiet country life!



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