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Thomas was born in Ticknall in 1825 to John and Elizabeth Dunnicliffe.[1] (Elizabeth was part of the vast Banton family of Ticknall; this wouldn’t be the only connection Thomas has with the Bantons.) The Dunnicliffes go back, as far as I can tell, to Thomas’s grandfather Samuel who was born in Ticknall in 1754. Thomas’s…
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Martha and Thomas, both garden labourers, eventually become closely linked with one another, but each has a full life before they meet so we’ll look at each individually first. Martha Martha was born in 1805 in Ticknall to John and Sarah Saunders, one of 8 children.[1] Aged 21 in 1826 she married Samuel Hickinbotham, an…
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Thomas was a Ticknall boy through and through, with the Mason line going back in the village to his g.g.grandfather, William in 1685.[1] Thomas as born in 1807 to Francis and Mary.[2] Like many of the men in Ticknall at the time, Francis was a Labourer.[3] Thomas followed his father and was a Labourer all…
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Following on from my last article about illegitimacy, this piece looks at three cases of illegitimacy within the same family; mother, daughter and granddaughter. Each has a different conclusion. In the case of the granddaughter, we question how mothers of newborn babies were treated, when they were obviously struggling with what we would see today…
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In the course of my research into the servants at Calke Abbey, I have come across numerous cases of illegitimacy. I’m sure we all know about the shame and stigma which was attached to single mothers in Victorian times and beyond, but it wasn’t always the case. Prior to a New Poor Law introduced in…
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In 1857 in the early hours of Monday 12th January, on a cold, clear moonlit night, the quiet and peaceful atmosphere of the fields between Calke and Smisby was broken by the shouts, screams and thuds of a fight between about 12 poachers and 7 gamekeepers. Poaching was an almost normal part of rural life…
Hard Times
Life around these parts was not without its difficulties in times gone by.
