I don't know if they would have Freemen's Registers in villages, here in Liverpool we have them and when an apprentice comes out of his time he could petition for admission to freedom. There are Registers and Committee Books and usually give the date they were sworn, and their master or father, together with their dates of swearing, since this was something that was passed along.
I've found people with many different occupations listed, joiners, coopers, hairdressers even. Worth checking to see if there are any for the area you are interested in as often birth or death dates are noted.
I would expect that there may be church records with details of accounts listing those burials which have been paid for by the parish. Ask your local Record Office for advice on these as they might be held at a County Record Office, I'm sure they will be able to point you in the right direction.
Have you checked the national archives site and A2A? There may be Removal Orders or Settlement Certificate details for the family.
Also search the same sites for any Filiation Orders in case he was illegitimate (often filed under the mother's name). It's surprising how many women actually filed these Bastardy Bonds.
Check for grave records as well as burial records, a less well off family member may have been allowed space in a grave bought by another relative.
I can't stress enough to investigate other lines that may be related to yours, as I've recently found out in my own research a sideline might well provide a vital clue and if I hadn't been looking laterally I wouldn't have made the connections I did.
Try to keep an index of what records you searched and what dates they covered and take a note of every mention of the surname you are looking for, don't just rely on your memory and try to make time to search a wider time span than just the one person you are looking for, it might save you a lot of time and effort at a later date.
Sorry for waffling a bit but they were just some thoughts that have proved useful to me in the past.
