Author Topic: Brummit's Ropery Lincoln  (Read 16053 times)

Offline hoppout

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Brummit's Ropery Lincoln
« on: Friday 14 January 11 17:38 GMT (UK) »
A long time ago, Alan 7636 asked about  Brummit's Ropery Lincoln, which is where my great grandfather William Roberts lived during the 1870s. One of Alan's surname interests was Wheatley, and William Wheatley, blacksmith, was also living at 5 Brummits Ropery at that time. Any interest?

Offline Alan7636

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Re: Brummit's Ropery Lincoln
« Reply #1 on: Saturday 15 January 11 16:27 GMT (UK) »
Hello Hoppout

Yes this is certainly of great interest to me. The original request by me in January 2008 was for the location in Lincoln of Brummitts ROW as the birth certificate of my mother stated she was born at number 5 in May 1905. However later investigation showed her baptismal records from St Paul in the Bail stating she was living, less then a month later, at 5 Brummitts ROPERY in the St Pauls Parish.

As for your message a William Wheatley born in Lincoln in 1849 to Henry & Margaret Wheatley is my 1st cousin 3 times removed. At present I have only traced him as far as the 1861 census.

In the 1871 census the William Wheatley you mention is shown as living at 5 Brummitts Ropery and is the son-in-law of your Great Grandfather William Roberts and his wife Harriet, their daughter Mary Ann having married William Wheatley at St Paul in the Bail on the 9th Feb. 1868. There are however a number of points that stop me at this stage from saying that your William Wheatley and mine are one and the same person.

One is that the Lincolnshire Marriages Index for the above marriage shows the Grooms father as also being a William not Henry.

It is of course possible that the Index is wrong; I have seen the given names for grooms and Brides fathers incorrectly stated before, however the BIVRI also shows the same details plus it gives Williams age as being 21 so that would equate to a birth in 1847/48. 

On FreeBMD there are two records for the birth of William Wheatley in Lincoln, one is in the Sep Q of 1848, which is, I suspect is your William the other in the June Q of 1849, which I believe is mine.

I anticipate visiting the Archives at Lincoln in about 2 weeks time and I will check the Parish register for that particular marriage to see what it says but I fear it will be the same as the two above mentioned records.

Another strange and interesting fact about 5 Brummitts Ropery is that in 1911 a great aunt of mine, Winifred Bradford nee Wheatley was living at that same address with her husband Thomas and Daughter Elsie.

Alan
Hogan (Lambeth, Southwark, Ireland)
Maddigan (Lambeth, Southwark, Ireland)
Masters (Lewisham, St Pancras, Clerkenwell)
Knowles (Salford, Manchester)
Farrow (Staffordshire, Manchester)
Atkinson (Lincolnshire)
Ball (Lincolnshire, Rutland)
Hicks (Lincolnshire)
Wheatley (Lincolnshire)
Pearson (Lancashire, Cheshire, Pawtucket USA)
Wilson (Yorkshire)


Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Offline hoppout

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Re: Brummit's Ropery Lincoln
« Reply #2 on: Sunday 16 January 11 15:11 GMT (UK) »
Hello Alan

Thank you for replying so swiftly; it took me three years! The Brummitt's Ropery query gets more interesting by the hour.  A few points to make, and I am sure I will be making more later. I have been looking up my records and see that the 1871 census RG10/3374 F21 gives the occupiers of 5 Brummitt's Ropery, Reservoir Street, Ln St Pauls, gives the following: William Roberts, 44, sheep dipper, b. Swineshead; Harriet Roberts, 41. wife, b. London; William Wheatley, 22, son-in-law, blacksmith, b. Ln; Mary Ann Wheatley, 19, heads wife, b Scotherne; John Robert Henry Wheatley, aged 3, son,  b Ln; William Ernest Wheatley, son, 7months (both grandsons).

As William and Mary Ann were married in 1868, Mary could only have been 16 years of age (the legal minimum) and and JRH Wheatley would be born soon after - perhaps a shot-gun wedding. However, William Ernest did not survive infancy and died in 1872, in Lincoln.

After a lifetime of journalism and writing, my instincts lead me to believe that we are on the same track and that the address of both our families is the clincher.

As it happens, William Roberts and Mary Ann did not stay together; William took up with another Mary Ann (Clayton), and together they ran The Strugglers Inn in Lincoln, and Mary later became publican at the Fox & Hounds on Steep Hill. William died in 1897 in Lincoln workhouse.

More later

Hoppout

PS: As this is my third post, perhaps we can be on more personal terms next time




Offline Redroger

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Re: Brummit's Ropery Lincoln
« Reply #3 on: Sunday 16 January 11 16:13 GMT (UK) »
A point should be made that may alter the discussion somewhat, prior to 1929 the legal minimum age for a girl to marry with parental consent was 12.
Ayres Brignell Cornwell Harvey Shipp  Stimpson Stubbings (all Cambs) Baumber Baxter Burton Ethards Proctor Stanton (all Lincs) Luffman (all counties)


Offline Geoff-E

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Re: Brummit's Ropery Lincoln
« Reply #4 on: Sunday 16 January 11 16:36 GMT (UK) »
A point should be made that may alter the discussion somewhat, prior to 1929 the legal minimum age for a girl to marry with parental consent was 12.

She said she was 19 though  ;D http://tinyurl.com/6hk83xa
Today I broke my personal record for most consecutive days alive.

Offline Alan7636

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Re: Brummit's Ropery Lincoln
« Reply #5 on: Sunday 16 January 11 18:26 GMT (UK) »
Hi Geoff and Roger welcome to the discussion, glad you  have joined in, with you 2 it usually leads to a really intriguing story.  ;D  Anyway to continue.

Hoppout I did say I had little information on my William Wheatley, well I have spent today tracking him down and it turns out he was a Stonemason by trade and in the 1871 census he was to be found in York living with his Uncle John so I think we can finally discount our respective Williams being one and the same.

However this is where the discussion starts to get rather spooky, and Geoff may well remember this, in the early 1830’s my Great x 3 Grandparents, Philip & Mary Ann Ball were the 1st publicans of the Strugglers Arms, or to be precise Mary was the Beer House Keeper, Philip had his own business of Brazier. He was notorious in Lincoln as having destroyed part of the castle walls for which he was imprisoned many times. Mary Ann kept the Strugglers right up until she died in 1866.

So Hoppout we may not be linked as distant relatives but certainly our ancesters paths would have appeared to have crossed.  :D

Alan
Hogan (Lambeth, Southwark, Ireland)
Maddigan (Lambeth, Southwark, Ireland)
Masters (Lewisham, St Pancras, Clerkenwell)
Knowles (Salford, Manchester)
Farrow (Staffordshire, Manchester)
Atkinson (Lincolnshire)
Ball (Lincolnshire, Rutland)
Hicks (Lincolnshire)
Wheatley (Lincolnshire)
Pearson (Lancashire, Cheshire, Pawtucket USA)
Wilson (Yorkshire)


Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Offline Geoff-E

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Re: Brummit's Ropery Lincoln
« Reply #6 on: Sunday 16 January 11 19:08 GMT (UK) »
I'm not sure if we've found the place on a map before ... so here it is.

Go to http://www.old-maps.co.uk/maps.html

Search Lincoln Castle and select the last option that shows up.

Change the co-ordinates to 497457 371942 and click Go

Select the 1887-88 1:500 Town Plan (on right)

Zoom in and see Brummitt's Ropery East just to the west of Westgate Implement Works.  A little further west see Brummitt's Ropery West. :)
Today I broke my personal record for most consecutive days alive.

Offline hoppout

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Re: Brummit's Ropery Lincoln
« Reply #7 on: Monday 17 January 11 00:08 GMT (UK) »
Well, Alan,  would you believe it? And thank you Geoff for the info and coordinates.  My name is Peter, aged 74  and I live in Ipswich, a town in the news after its football team took a 7-0 thrashing by Chelsea, then went and beat Arsenal 1-0 in the Carling Cup semi. As I said, I am a writer and I write lots for Lincolnshire magazines.  I will have one in the next Lincolnshire Poacher.

I recently wrote the following about the Strugglers Inn

Cathedral dog was stuffed by my ancestors

The item came at the very end of the first of the BBC’s two Antiques Roadshow
programmes from Lincoln Cathedral, and then came the shock realisation that my
ancestors had played a unique role in Lincoln’s macabre history.

Presenter Fiona Bruce showed a stuffed lurcher dog in a glass case and asked if
anyone knew the name of the animal.

I knew not the name of the lurcher, but I do now know that my maternal great

grandparents, William Roberts and Mary Clayton, must be the ones who had the

animal stuffed.

Fiona told viewers that the lurcher had belonged to the poacher William Clark,

“the last man to be hanged at Lincoln Castle, just a stone’s throw from here, in

1877, and his faithful dog used to follow him to the local hostelry, the Strugglers Inn

(interpreted by Fiona as ‘struggling meaning hanging‘),  and when without his master, 

he pined away.

“The landlord had him stuffed and placed across the bar.  He was then found, a few

generations later, stuck away unwanted and unloved, and he was given away to the

castle museum where, in a touching end to the story, he was reunited with his owner,

William Clark, who is buried in the castle grounds. But one mystery remains: what’s

the dog’s  name? No one has been able to find out.”

Fiona invited viewers to ‘phone in if they could solve that particular mystery.

My great grandparents, who remained unmarried,  were in charge of  the Strugglers

Inn from 1875 to 1890, and although William Roberts (who was by trade a sheep

dipper)  was listed as the landlord, I strongly suspect that it was Mary Clayton, with

her family experience of the licensed trade, who ran the pub. She went on to become

sole publican of the Fox and Hounds Inn on Steep Hill after they left the Strugglers.

Roberts died a pauper in 1900 after living in Lincoln workhouse.

As for William Clark, he was sentenced to death at Lincoln Assizes on March 8th

1877, for the murder of Henry Walker, a gamekeeper at Norton Disney,  the previous

month.  He was arrested at Lowestoft, and at the trial two colleagues testified that they

had been with him when he shot  Walker dead.

The hangman, on March 26th 1877 was William Marwood, a cobbler, of Church Lane,

Horncastle. At the age of 54, he persuaded the governor of Lincoln Castle goal to

allow him to conduct an execution. The efficient way in which he conducted the

hanging of William Horry without a hitch on April 1st 1872 assisted him in him being

appointed hangman by the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex, for which he was paid a

retainer of £20 a year plus £10 per execution.

Marwood developed the “long drop” technique of hanging, which ensured that that

the prisoners’ neck was broken instantly at the end of the drop, resulting in the

prisoner dying of asphyxia while unconscious.

 This was considered somewhat more kind than the slow death by strangulation

caused by the “shot drop” method, which was particularly distressing to prison

governors and staff who were required to witness executions close up following the

abolition of public executions in 1868.

It would seem that my great grandparents looked after the lurcher during the

period of Clark‘s  trial.  The dog is said to have walked over to the castle to wait for

its master, but pined to death after the execution was carried out. It’s ghost is said to

haunt the castle grounds at night .

The Strugglers Inn, which my younger daughter Alison visited with friends last


year, was the nearest licensed premises to the castle regularly used by the

prison warders to ply prisoners with alcohol,  to make it easier for them to face the

horror of the  morning executions.  However, some prisoners struggled with the

warders on being returned to the prison, hence another story which gave rise to the

name of the pub.

The story was of particular interest to me for as a young reporter in Lincolnshire

during the 1950s and ‘60s,  I covered several murder trials when Assizes and Quarter

Sessions were held inside the castle walls.




Offline hoppout

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Re: Brummit's Ropery Lincoln
« Reply #8 on: Monday 17 January 11 16:12 GMT (UK) »
Alan
In all the confusion over ancestors and the Strugglers, we seem to have lost sight of 5 Brummitt's Ropery. I followed Geoff's accurate coordinates and found the Ropery both east and west. The fact that we both had ancestors possibly living in the same house, does seem too much of a coincidence. Was the area part of the workhouse set-up at one time? Or was it allied to a nearby foundry?

Incidentally, my maternal gt grandfather William Roberts is listed on the board of past publicans of the Strugglers. The poor old boy was born in  one workhouse (Boston) and ended his life in another (Lincoln). He had a pauper's funeral. His partner Mary Clayton died at the Fox and House in 1911 and is mentioned in both the Steep Hill publications.

I guess this closes the correspondence on this subject.

Hoppout