Week 27: My ancestor was a gamekeeper or bailiff

[Jill on the A272]

Week 27: Gamekeeper/bailiff

This is an opportunity to showcase a gamekeeper or bailiff from your family tree, you might want to offer a short biography and speak about their work eg
Name
Birth location/date
Family background
Where you've found them on the census
Their workplace/employer
Any tips on researching this occupation?

[Next week: Needlemaker]

[Darksecretz]

John Wenden Jaques was born in 1817 in Essex a gamekeeper and married Sarah Robinson.

Now John has lead me a right old merry dance. I first knew of him when he married Sarah... as she is my 2nd great-grandaunt. They marry in 1850 in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire and to begin with live with Sarahs mother also Sarah. I then found John in 1861 a widower and living back in Ardleigh Essex with his parents. Fast forward to 1871, he has moved and is now living in Shropshire and is married again to Elizabeth and they have a young family... from 4yrs to 5months
in 1881 I can't find John with Elizabeth but I did find him in prison in Wales for neglecting to provide for his wife and children!

the last sighting I had of him was in London spending a bit of time in and out of workhouses during 1885/1886 and then the trail went cold... nothing. I did eventually find him he had moved from the big smoke and had gone as far away as possible.. deserting his family and leaving them to fend for themselves. He was eventually found in Cornwall! where he had died alone in a workhouse.

[jenoco]

One of my 3x great grandfathers Spurgin Philbrick/Philbrook (known as John) was a gamekeeper in Woodham Walter, Essex according to the marriages of two of his children. He was the youngest son of Egerton Dansie Coleman Philbrick and was presumably got his first name from his grandmother's maiden name. He was born in Hatfield Peverel in 1775 and died in Woodham Walter, Essex in 1843.

My great great grandfather was a factor Crowsley Park, Oxfordshire - I'm not sure if his occupation would come under this heading. He was born in 1836 and married Elizabeth Goodall in 1857. John lived in the same house from 1861 until his death in 1915. The house remained in the family until the 1950s. It was offered to my parents but it is well off the beaten track and about three miles from the closest school and shops so no good to a family with three young children and no car.

We're lucky enough to have lots of pictures of this side of the family. Two pictures - then and now.

[ozgirl]

OH's Great Great Grandfather Michael George Barnett was born in Hever, Kent in 1844. He started his working life as an ag lab, but by 1871 was Gamekeeper for John Erskine Campbell Colquhoun on his country estate just outside Westerham in Kent. By 1891 George was Head Gamekeeper, and stayed in that position until his death in 1913. We have a very old, very basic truncheon which could possibly have been used by George, or some of his sons who worked with him. (Thank you to WDYTYA who provided me with the information that truncheons were frequently used by gamekeepers to stop poachers!)

The estate that Colquhoun bought was called Well House, but he renamed it Chartwell. His grandson later sold the place in 1922 to Winston Churchill. At that time the family still lived in cottages attached to the estate. One of George's granddaughters married one of Churchills gardeners. One of the family legends involves Georges son Joseph, who was a trained bricklayer. Story goes that Joseph, who was employed on the estate, was the person who originally taught Churchill how to lay bricks - a hobby that Churchill later put to good use, building a wall in the garden that is still there.

[jenoco]

I forgot to mention my 2x great grandfather Matthew Balls, who was a farm steward/bailiff. Matthew was born 12 January 1812 in Wrentham, Suffolk; he married Jemima Swan in Uggeshall, Suffolk in 1836. Their only daughter, Jemima, was baptised in November 1836. Matthew was an ag lab and he appears on the 1841 and 1851 census with the same occupation.

In September 1854, Matthew advertised his household goods for sale in the Ipswich Journal as he was leaving the neighbourhood. In 1861, he appears in Tannington, Suffolk as farm steward to John Ling, who farmed 220 acres.

Matthew died 31 December 1883 in Uggeshall; his estate was valued at £59.10s