Thomas and Mary Mason, Garden Labourers

20 January 2024

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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 his life, starting initially in the Lime Quarries.

He married Mary Marshall in St Helen’s Church, Ashby de la Zouch on 28^th September 1829.[4] Mary was born in Coleorton, Leicestershire in 1810. They settle and start their family in Ticknall, living in a cottage on Banton’s Lane. They have 5 children in the first 10 years of marriage, but sadly the two eldest sons, Francis and Charles, die in infancy. They have 11 children altogether with Mary being pregnant roughly, every two years.[5]

Thomas does not, as far as I am aware, work for the Calke Estate as a full time Labourer, but he is, every now and again on the farms and in the Park, employed usually at busy times like Harvest. Mary also helps in various years with the haymaking, along with lots of other women from the village.[6]

In February 1864, both appear in the Time Books for Estate Workers as full time Garden Labourers. Thomas would do the heavier work like digging, lifting, feeding the boilers with coal etc. Mary would be tasked with weeding, planting and watering. For a woman who was fairly fit, strong and healthy and had no young children to care for at home (their youngest, George was 9 by then), it was a good way of bringing an extra wage in. They worked in this capacity for the Estate until May 1868.[7]

Living on Banton’s Lane they would have had a short 20-30 minute walk through the woods to Middle Lodge and then down the drive to the Gardens.

Not one of their children followed in their parents footsteps. The boys worked in the Brewing Industry or worked on the railways. All were married but moved away from Ticknall. Fanny moved to Osmaston, William to Romiley, Cheshire, Letitia, Mary and Clementina to Burton upon Trent, Eliza to the Isle of Man, Thomas to Derby and George to Nottingham.[8]

When Thomas died in 1878 aged 71, Mary went to Burton to live with both her daughters in turn until she died in 1901.[9]

[1] Ticknall Parish Records – ancestry.co.uk Dec 2023
[2] Ticknall Parish Records – ancestry.co.uk Dec 2023
[3] 1841 Census Ticknall – ancestry.co.uk Dec 2023
[4] Church of England births marriages and deaths index – ancestry.co.uk 2023
[5] Census Returns 1851-1871 Ticknall – ancestry.co.uk Dec 2023
[6] Time Books for Estate Workers – Calke Archive DRO 2023
[7] Time Books for Estate Workers 1864-1868 – Calke Archive DRO 2023
[8] From Census Returns – ancestry.co.uk Dec 2023
[9] Birth, marriage and death index- ancestry.co.uk Dec 2023

One response to “Thomas and Mary Mason, Garden Labourers”

john decamps
25 January 2024
To continiue with the Mason’s, Mary and Thomas, a son no doubt and wife had two daughters, one Lottie and cannot remember the others name, and one son Tom who I knew from my early days from 1946 until his death in possibly the early seventies age unknown. They lived right next to the Arch bridge, in the beautiful house with a massive garden and I lived in the cottages the other side of the Arch next to the Market Place from 1946 to 1947/8 then moved to the local shop aged 8. I delivered newspapers twice a day to their house for 15 years so knew them very well.
At that early time Toms dad was extremely old, walked with a stick and his wife was a smaller lady than her two daughters. Us kids used to sit on top of the Arch and shout to torment Old Tom calling him by his nickname old KAKY, and he’d be waving his stick at us.
The whole family worked in their butchers business, having a shop next but one to the Wheel Inn, and killed the animals at their home next to the Arch. I used to be frightened when walking past the buildings seeing dead skinned animals hanging up through the open doors and would run past with eyes shut. They delivered meat in a blue Ford 8 van, a very early model which made a funny tut tut sound. It had spoked wheels.
In those days fridges were unheard of, so once you received your weekly meat it had to be inspected closely for fly blows and maggots, even being wrapped up as somewhere along the way flies would have been on the hanging animal carcasses in their store sheds. I remember my mum taking meat back to shop to get it exchanged a few times.
Young tom retired and closed the butchery business possibly about mid 50’s, often Tom would labour on farms with threshing corn and mangle plant hoeing/singling and potato picking. It must have been in the seventies when he died.
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