Robert (1762-
Robert and Martha lived in the vicinity of the hamlet of Preston, Herts. An unofficial
census of Preston in 1821 showed Robert Currall, an agricultural labourer, living
at Jack’s Hill, Hill End -
It seems likely that Robert was living in Hill End as early as 1781 because the Hertfordshire
Militia List (Link ML) shows a Robert Currell as living in Langley from 1781-
Robert was apparently the only son of Robert and Mary Currall (sic). He was baptized two miles away from Willian in Graveley, Herts on 3 July 1762.
He met Martha Dearman who was baptized in the city of Hertford on 29 March 1769.
The couple married at All Saints Church Hertford on 14 November 1784.
Back at Hill End, Robert and Martha had a least nine children, six boys and three
girls (see link below tofamily tree). They were all given biblical names -
Despite their taste for Old Testament names, Robert and Martha were not conscientious about baptizing their children. Joseph, Sarah and Samuel were baptized together on 10 July 1808. The clergyman (with the sort of aside which warms the hearts of family researchers) recorded the extra information that they were aged 8, 6 and 4 years respectively.
Robert died in March, 1832 aged 74. Nine years later, in 1841, Martha was surviving
on charity and parish aid and was living at the Biggin Charity House, Biggin Lane,
Hitchin -
Mary Currell (bap. 1797) Settlement Order
Robert and Martha’s daughter, Mary Currell (baptized 4 June 1797) was named in a document in St Pauls Walden’s parish chest. She was the subject of a Settlement Order. (See below for more information concerning Settlement Orders.) On 20 August 1819 the overseers of the parish acknowledged that she, ‘the single woman and the child of which she is now pregnant’ were legally settled in their parish. Her son, William was duly baptized there on 26 March 1820.
Joseph (1800-
Like many of the Currells, having newly-
Joseph set a trend for other Currells by marrying a Fairey -
Joseph Currells’s settlement certificate
‘The poor are always with us’, and from the 16th to the 20th century each parish was responsible for financially helping the ‘deserving poor’ who lived (or were ‘settled’) within its boundaries.
People were considered to be ‘settled’ in a parish if they were born to ‘settled’ parents there, or if a woman married a ‘settled’ man, or if a man was hired for a full year in the parish.
Poor relief funds were raised by a local rate on owners of property. Anyone who
moved into the parish was a potential drain on its relief fund -
The Justices of the Peace in the parish would quickly investigate newcomers to decide who would foot the bill if they fell ill or destitute. This was called a Settlement Examination.
If it was deemed likely that the in-
The Settlement Examination and Removal Order documents were kept in the Parish Chest for future reference. ‘In Hertfordshire the survival of examinations is comparatively rare’, but the record of Joseph’s examination has survived and is a ‘mine of genealogical information’:
‘Six years ago next spring I let myself to Mr. George Roberts at Kings Walden Lodge ’til the Michaelmas (29 September, when half year rents were due) and I served him ‘til that time.
At the Michaelmas, I let myself to him for another year at five shillings a week
and five pounds wages as shepherd. I stayed in my service the whole year and received
my wages -
I am married -
We are living in the parish of Hitchin and are chargeable to it.
The mark of X Joseph Currell’.
The Justices of the parish of Hitchin were attempting to ‘remove’ the Currells to Kings Walden, parish but Joseph’s case was that he had been hired in the parish of Hitchin for a year and more at Kings Walden Lodge which was within the Hitchin parish boundary.
The churchwardens and overseers of the poor in Kings Walden appealed against the order on 28 March 1833 and the case was set for the Hertford Quarter Sessions on the 7 April. The decision of the court is not on record, but two years later the Currells were living in Preston which is mainly located in the parish of Hitchin. Thomas was still a shepherd.
After Thomas’ birth in 1831, Joseph and Susan had children at regular intervals -
Joseph and his children, even after they married, lived in Preston and Kings Walden for all of their lives. The women were all straw plaiters.
Joseph died on 10 November 1863 in Preston of “old age”. The informant was Catherine Winch.
Susan Currell – midwife and nurse
After her husband’s death, the censuses of 1871 to 1891 indicate that Susan served
the community as a midwife. She was living at Little Almshoe with her daughters Catharine
and Lucy and had her grandchildren, William Currell and Ellen Shambrook for company
in 1871 when she described herself as a ‘midwife’. Then, in 1881, she was at the
Holly Bush Hall public house at Kings Walden. She was said to be a ‘monthly nurse’
. She attended mothers after the birth of a child. She was aged seventy-
Maybe I am being unfair to Susan by noting these observations. She was clearly providing a needed service. I wonder how many of my relatives she brought into the world!
In 1891, Susan had retired as a midwife and was living with her daughter, Catharine and her husband George Shambrook at 9 In Row, Hitchin.
Susan died in 1892, aged 90.
My great grandfather, Thomas Currell was conceived out of wedlock, illiterate, had two wives and eleven children and then disappeared without trace.
He lived within a radius of two miles of Preston, Hertfordshire all of his known
life and was usually described as a labourer apart from one occasion when, aged twenty,
he was called a ‘horse-
Thomas himself was baptized on 18 September 1831 in Kings Walden. His parents were Joseph Currell (a shepherd) and Susan (nee Fairey) who had married four months earlier and were living in Hill End, near Preston. In January 1833, Joseph declared on oath that Thomas was then about a year and a half old.
In 1841, Thomas was at his widowed grandmother’s home in Preston, which was two houses
away from his parents’ dwelling. Ten years later he had left home but was still living
in Preston and working as a horse-
Mary Ann Currell (nee Watson)
(1834-
By 1850, he had met and courted Mary Ann Watson. She was the daughter of John (a labourer) and Sarah (nee Dollimore) and was living in Gosmore, a village between Preston and Hitchin.
Mary Ann was about eighteen years old and at the end of the year their first child, William, was born.
The couple were married on 28 January 1855 at Ippollitts Parish Church
A few months later their second son, George, was born but he died when only one year old. There was some compensation because a third son, John, was born shortly afterwards. By 1859, two daughters had arrived, Mary Ann and Clara (who was born on Christmas Eve, 1859) and the family was living in Gosmore.
In the meantime, Thomas had a brush with the law. The Hertfordshire Mercury carried this report in May 1856: ‘William Winch and Thomas Currell of Preston were charged with setting snares to take hares on land belonging to Charles Chomley Hale Esq. at Kings Walden. Winch who is an old offender and was seen to set the snares, did not appear. Currell was seen by one of Mr Hales’ keepers to follow Winch to where the snares stood. Both the defendants had been at work in the same field. Currell having borne a good character, the Bench ordered him to pay 5s and issued a warrant against Winch.’
When Mary Ann was heavily pregnant she was involved in an altercation with a neighbour:
‘ASSAULT. Robert Beech was charged with committing an assault on Mary Ann Currell.
It appeared from the evidence that both parties resided at Gosmore and lived next
door to each other and that the assault arose through a child of one being on the
other's premises. Fined 10s including costs.’ (Hertfordshire Mercury -
Shortly after this altercation, tragedy struck. Thomas’ wife, Mary Ann, died on 28
August 1862 from puerperal fever. This is an infection of the placenta site which
occurs shortly after a woman has given birth. In those days, the infection was often
transmitted by the mid-
Thomas did not grieve for long. He began a relationship with his first cousin, Mary
Fairey. Mary was born in Preston in the summer of 1842 -
Rather predictably considering Thomas’ track record a daughter, Emily (my grandmother), was born 22 December 1863 in Preston.
In early January, 1864 (when he walked from Gosmore to Preston to the home of his uncle, Samuel Fairey, probably to visit Mary Fairey and his newly born daughter) Thomas was involved in an incident which was widely reported in the news (Link: Preston Hill Robbery). He passed a dying man at the bottom of Preston Hill. The case is fully recounted on another web page, but I have amalgamated his witness statements to give an impression of Thomas Currell, the man.
Thomas Currell (aged 33): ‘I am a labouring man, living at Gosmore. On Monday evening,
the 11th January, I was going from home up to Preston. I started about 25 minutes
past 7. I looked at my clock before I started out of the house. It is about a quarter
of an hour’s walk from my house to the bottom of Preston Hill. When I got to the
bottom, I saw a man lying by the side of the road with his feet on the rails and
his head on the road. He seemed quite a strange man to me. He was lying on the left
hand side of the road coming from Preston to Hitchin. His head was next to the road.
He was lying across-
This statement gives an insight into the world of Thomas – even including some of
the expressions he used. The most striking characteristic was the reason he gave
for not helping a man he thought was drunk. He had recently helped an inebriated
man, but as he had been “abused” he had decided he would never give such assistance
again. Once crossed, he would not forget the slight – holding the injury close to
his chest. When I read this account to my wife, she said, ‘That’s your Dad talking!’
-
Thomas and Mary were married on 2 November 1867 at St Mary’s Church, Hitchin. Their witnesses were George Shambrook and Catharine Currell (Thomas’ sister) who were to marry three years later.
In 1871, the Currells had moved to Gosmore where they stayed until 1880. They had a further six children.
Thomas Currell -
From 1881, Thomas is untraceable. Mary Currell (who was then living in a ‘two-
The mystery deepens. Mary had two sons, Frank and Albert, who were baptized on the
same day,14 January 1883. She stated at the baptism that she and Thomas Currell were
Frank’s parents but that Albert was the son of Mary, a ‘single woman’. Frank was
born in the late autumn of 1880 and was therefore conceived earlier that year. Albert
was born in early 1882 and conceived in about March of 1881 (just before the census
in April). This would seem to indicate that Mary had an extra-
Perhaps Thomas then lived with someone else or changed his name. Maybe he was in
prison or in an asylum. I have trawled the burial records of Hitchin and Kings Walden
as well as the Death Indexes from 1880-
Life continued for Mary and her family. In 1881 she, together with her step-
There is a postscript to this saga. In 1891, Albert was living in nearby Ley Green.
He was in the household of William (Mary’s brother) and Mary Ann Fairey (nee Currell
-
In 1891, Mary was still plaiting. Her son, Henry, was living at home and paying his way as a labourer. She was caring for three children. Some financial further help was provided by a lodger, Amos Fairy, her brother (a widower), who was a woodman and who had three young children with him. She was paying rent of 3s 15d a week.
Ten years on, in 1901, Mary and her daughter, Phyllis, were plaiters. Her son Henry
was a roadman, Frank and Fred were labourers and the sounds and smells of young children
were provided by Mary’s grandsons, William, Arthur and George (who were the sons
of her daughters, Lizzie and Phyllis) -
Sometime between 1901 and 1910, Mary moved to a small cottage near Bunyan’s chapel
at Preston Green. It had two bedrooms and one living room. This had a polished,
bare-
Mary died on 1 December 1924 from ‘senile decay and chronic bronchitis’. The death
was registered by her daughter, Emily. She is remembered as a ‘tiny, slight, little
lady’ and as being ‘very poor’. She was one of only two village families who were
exempt from paying school fees because of her poverty -
X marks Mary Currell’s home at Church Road.
Link to Currell’s family tree.
Link to discussion of the Currells in the parishes around Hitchin: Norton, Baldock, Aston, Willian and Graveley.
Sources: Hitchin and Ippollitts parish registers, Censuses 1841-
Thomas Currell – a witness in a court case
Mary Currell
X
