Mary Ann Keep [Wickens]

[Capetown]

On the 1851 Census for

Aldermaston, Berkshire

Richard PHILLIPS is aged 47 and a Land Agent, born Herefordshire.

On the National Archives is listed....

Will of John HIGFORD, formerly PARSONS, of Newark House, South Hamlet, Gloucestershire

Date: 29 January 1852

Held at the National Archives, Kew

Can be downloaded for £3.50

[boscoe]

Right, 52, 53. So they were there by August. My sloppy years misstatement. Reading Wikipedia, it become clear why Joseph went there. [The typed manuscript in Reading Library that I read years ago had many errors, based on the writer's memory]. Aldermaston changed hands. The new owner's middle name is Higford. Joseph went to Hempstead to help let [rent] 218 acres after a Higford died. He must have gained employment at Newark there and then. He was forced back to Aldermaston in 1860-61 when Newark was let for a school. Now an undergardener, 1861, sometime afterward they moved to Hants, he as a laborer, 1871, and to Surrey, again as a gardener, 1881, 1891, before dying there.
I still hope to find out who this Richard  Phillipps is, cited in the 1853 ad.
Many thanks to all for helping me fill in the spaces.

[boscoe]

On the same London Road in Woolhampton in the 1830s was a Sarah Keep, b. 1774-1776 at Bix, Oxfordshire Census 1851.  Would your parish link tell me anything, such as she was Mary Ann's mother?
And, in Aldermaston, there is a William Keep, farmer, having children 1835-1845. Could he be a brother?