Tilden Barham b abt 1817 Fairlight

[birdlip]

Hi there,

Oxon, I had to smile at your vivid description, but if your wife has had that kind of frustration with these publications, then I do see why you're so keen for me to be cautious.

Thanks very much for your offer of those census entries, I really appreciate it. I'll be out of action for most of the weekend, our son and his family are staying for a couple of days, but I'll check in on Sunday night hopefully.

regards birdlip

[oxon57]

OK, here we are.

Dittos expanded.
All these with Samuel in are in Fairlight.

1851, HO107/1635/71/19 - no specific address given.
Sch. 58
Samuel Barham, Head, Widr, 68, Game Keeper, Sussex Westfield
Sarah Pankhurst, Visitor, U, 84, -, Sussex Peasmarsh
Catharine Burr [or Bun?], Niece, Wid, 37, House Keeper, Kent Headcorn

1861, RG9/559/49/10 - Keepers Lodge.
Sch. 55
Samuel Barham, Head, Mar, 79, (Game Keeper), Sussex Westfield
Elizabeth Barham, Wife, Mar, 63, -, Sussex Ewhurst
Sch. 56
Sarah Pankhurst, Lodger, Un, 93, Formerly (Domestic Serv.), Sussex Beckley
I don't know why those brackets are there, but they do look to me as if they have probably been written by the enumerator rather than being a checker's mark when classifying things, so I've left them in.

1871, RG10/1027/52/10 - Keepers Lodge.
Sch. 50
Samuel Barham, Head, Mar, 88, Game Keeper, Sussex Westfield
Elizabeth Barham, Wife, Mar, 73, -, Sussex Ewhurst

Samuel, as we know, died 1879, but...
1881, RG11/1025/13/20 - Elizabeth is still alive and has gone to live in Hastings (St Mary in the Castle), where she is a lodger, with her own schedule, at 109 St Georges Rd.
Sch. 106
Elizabeth Barham, Lodger, W, 83, -, Sussex Ewhurst
I doubt if they are relevant, but, in brief, she's with a Daniel Sargent (52 "Ickelsham" = Icklesham), his wife Sarah (53 Hastings) and unmarried step-daughter Mary A. Baker (28 Hastings).

There's a death on FreeBMD 1881 December quarter for Elizabeth Barham, 84, Hastings 2b 29, so I imagine that's her going. I don't have a burial for her, so I think not back at Fairlight, which seems to be covered then, I would guess *probably* not in Hastings (but it's not my territory and I'm not absolutely sure if *everything* in Hastings is covered then, as I don't know all the parishes there) so *possibly* back in Ewhurst where she was born, as that's definitely not covered.

Incidentally, I notice you said earlier "we knew nothing about Samuel's second wife". R.G.F-U says he basically got his information from Tilden, doesn't he? Perhaps Tilden didn't approve of the second marriage. My wife finds she's up against this sort of thing all the time. If there's a divorce, or a partner just ran off, or anything else that "we don't want to talk about", it simply gets left out, as if it never happened. A couple who never actually married are likely to be listed vaguely as, say, "married in London" - don't give a date, and pick somewhere nice and big with lots of churches, so (bearing in mind what it would have involved in those days) you're fairly safe reckoning that nobody's going to go round every single one trying to find the "marriage", conclude that it didn't happen, and argue with you. She has one where, for reasons of consanguinity, the couple could not have married - they are conveniently shown as "married abroad". Well, you can't *prove* that they didn't flit off to some unknown country where the laws were different and get married there, can you?

[birdlip]

Wonderful Oxon, thank you very much for all that.

Catherine, born at Headcorn, the niece/ housekeeper on the 1851 census, is presumably a daughter of Samuel's brother "Lewis of Headcorn", or I suppose could be from Margaret's side. I wonder who Sarah Pankhurst was? She's there as a visitor in 1851, then as a lodger by 1861.

I'd say you'd be spot on about the family reaction to that second marriage...not that I know, but I can imagine!