As I have been researching Copford for some years, I have amassed a large amount of information and was interested to see your notes re the `Bewers`.
This family crops up in my draft book in relation to a cottage and four acres of land which was held from the Manor of Copford. I feel sure that they will turn out to be `your` Bewers. If so, I will keep an eye out for further details. The following is the extract that I have written which mentions the Bewers. I have included all the info as some of the other names may mean something to you!.
Brewery Field Cottages -™ 446 -& 445 Tithe Map
(formerly Hasletts/Hempstalls & Bewers Farm)
(Demolished/Decayed)
This holding is remembered as a small, low cottage with thatched roof and its land lay around it. The site is still easily identifiable but any trace of the buildings is long gone.
In 1736, Thomas Bewers held the copyhold which was still said to be occupied by Jonas Dennis. The Dennis family farmed Roundbush Farm so Hasletts was probably used as accommodation for agricultural labourers. The same year, Thomas Bewers took out a mortgage on the property with Thomas Barnard, Vicar of Earls Colne which had to be repaid a year later at the Vicar’s house.
Thomas died in 1738 and left the cottage and four acres to his son of the same name. Thomas Jnr. was only twelve years old at the time and his guardian was John Barker of Lexden.
By 1752, the rental value of the property was £3 a year and the quit rent to the manor remained at 4d. Daniel Burdox, then holding Bockingham Hall and Walnut Tree Farms amongst other places, was renting what was by then called `Thomas Bewer`s Farm`.
In 1773, John Skinge was admitted at the manor court. Whether he came into the property by inheritance or purchase is not clear - he was related to both the Cleer and Stilleman families. He died in 1787 leaving his wife Mary a life interest and then it was to go to John Munson, a cordwainer.
Mary Skinge appears on a manor rental in 1798 but must have died by 1803 when the property changed hands again. At this date, the manor records relate that Thomas Bewers (or Buers), a Copford labourer, was the son of the Thomas Bewers who had been admitted in 1738 (age 12) and the elder brother of John Bewers, a gunner in the Royal Artillery. Perhaps the manor steward was just trying to make sure that the Bewers had no further claim to the property. When a Thomas Bewers had died in Copford in 1777 the overseer paid carpenter Nathaniel Cobb 8s to make a coffin for him so it appears that he then had no property. It was Joseph Sach who was admitted to a moiety (or share) of the property in 1803 and there was no further mention of the Bewers/Buers or of John Munson the cordwainer. Joseph had paid the rates on the property at least between 1773 and 1776, so seems to have already been the tenant before his purchase, although, again he would not have been in residence being a wealthy farmer who lived elsewhere.
Regards
Christina