Hethel

Martha Anne Blackwood

‘All are of the dust, and all turn to dust again’ – (Ecclesiastes 3)

Martha Anne Blackwood was born in 1874, in the small settlement of Hotspur, at a crossing of the Crawford River, about 60 km north of Portland, Victoria, in Australia. Martha was the eleventh of twelve children of James Blackwood and Hannah Mickleborough.

Her parents were born and raised in Hethel, a small rural parish to the south-west of Norfolk, in England. They married in 1832. James Blackwood was my first cousin 3x removed, and would have been a companion of the children of my great great grandfather, Robert Blackwood (1809-1867).

Indeed, it was not only James and Hannah who migrated to Australia in about 1857. They were preceded by his sister, Susanna, and her husband, Robert Lane, who settled in Longford, Tasmania. And they were followed by their brother, Isaac, who settled in Digby, about 20 km north of Hotspur.

And between the three siblings, they eventually had at least twenty-four children in total. It can be no surprise that there are lot of Australians who can trace their ancestry to Hethel, in Norfolk!

In 1899, Martha Anne gave birth to a son, Clement. The father’s name was not recorded on the birth record. In the photo, taken in about 1912, Clement has his hand on his grandfather’s shoulder. To me, that gesture suggests that he respected the old man.

Hannah & James with their daughter, Martha Anne, and her son, Clement (photo from internet)

Clement eventually moved from Hotspur, and by 1932 he was living at 51 Bancroft Street in Portland, being employed as a labourer. At the same address was listed Annie Elizabeth Victoria Blackwood, Clement’s cousin and eleven years his senior. She died in 1971 and in the probate records, she was listed as a spinster. Clement died in 1977.

Nothing further is known about Martha Blackwood, until the following report that appeared in the Portland Guardian on Thursday 23 August 1951.

ELDERLY WOMAN FOUND BURNT

An aged woman who dwelt alone in an old bush cottage near Hotspur was found dead last week, apparently having been burned to death during the night or early morning. She was Mrs Martha Anne Blackwood, aged 78. The dead woman was found during the morning by a lad named Edge, who delivered bread once weekly to the cottage, lying on the kitchen floor with all her clothing burned off. The body was brought to the Portland mortuary, where a post mortem examination was held, and an inquest opened by Mr. W. H.Matthews, J.P., of Heywood. After evidence of identification, the inquest was adjourned to a date to be fixed. The post mortem examination revealed that Mrs Blackwood had suffered extensive first and second degree burns and some asphyxiation. The cottage in the heart of the bush in which Mrs Blackwood lived, was built of large wooden slabs and it is probably the fact of its stout construction that it did not ignite. It is thought that Mrs Blackwood, who was in the habit of sitting dozing in front of a fire set in the large open-type colonial oven rather than going to bed, and who habitually wore a heavy shawl, fell forward into the fire. A kerosene lamp was still burning when the body was discovered. Mrs. Blackwood, who is survived by a son, Mr. Clem Blackwood, of Portland, had lived alone for some years. She had persistently rejected suggestions that she should leave her home and go elsewhere where she would be cared for.

It was a tragic ending to the life of an independent old woman.

I do not know where Martha was buried or whether her grave was ever marked. I would like to think that her remains were taken to the Hotspur graveyard to join those of many of her siblings. Unfortunately, the Hotspur graveyard today looks forlorn and neglected, with few marked graves.

Hotspur cemetery in recent days (photo from Internet)

But there is at least one Blackwood grave there and perhaps there are others.

The grave of James Nehemiah Blackwood (1854-1923) & Mary Black (1852-1916)

One day, before it’s too late, I hope that a descendant of the Blackwood family will visit the Hotspur area to record and photograph for posterity the little that remains of their roots.

Before all is reclaimed by the bush.

The Missing Link

Until very recently, if I were to have been asked to name a deceased person with whom I would most want to spend a short time, without hesitation it would have been Robert Blackwood of Wreningham in Norfolk, England.

Who was he?

He was an agricultural labourer who married a Mary Watts in 1756, in the adjacent parish of Hethel. They had nine children.

Extract from the Hethel parish records documenting the marriage of Robert Blackwood and Mary Watts

It is significant that Robert Blackwood could sign his own name, in an era when most people could only make a mark, as did Mary Watts and one of the witnesses. None of the Blackwood children were able to sign their own name.

Robert died in Hethel in 1782 and his wife in 1800. They were my 4th great grandparents, and I am descended from their son, John.

Given the opportunity, of all the deceased people I could spend with, why would I choose him?

Because he has been my genealogical ‘brick wall’. For about 35 years, on and off, I had been trying to find his birth record, without success. My father had never heard mention of him, but he did say that his father had once told him that the Blackwood family was from Bungay, on the Norfolk/Suffolk border.

It was later, when I was researching in the Norwich archives, that I decided to take a side trip to Lowestoft, where I was told that there was a copy of the Suffolk records. It proved to be a worthwhile trip, for I found evidence of a Blackwood family residing in the Bungay area in 1688-1700 – James and Elizabeth Blackwood, with children James, John, Elizabeth, and Robert.

So, my grandfather’s claim proved to be true, but which of the three Bungay sons was the father of my 4th grandparent, Robert of Wreningham. Over time I carefully searched all the parishes in a wide radius, but the missing link eluded me. I found the marriage of Elizabeth, but no sign of the sons nor the birth of Robert.

Until one day last year when I received a mail from a lady in Australia. She had come across my blog, when researching information on Blackwoods in Norfolk. She was also descended from Robert of Wreningham and had hit the same ‘brick wall’. But using a genealogical site, to which I did not have access, she found the birth of a Robert Blackwood (born 1723 in Bixley), and his father James, that approximately matched up with dates and the names of my families in Wreningham and Bungay. As the Blackwood surname was relatively rare in Norfolk in that era and in that area, I am convinced that we have found the missing link.

Then, following up on my knowledge of the Bungay family, the lady found a copy of James Blackwood’s will in the Sussex archives and transcribed it.

So, what do we now know of James, Robert of Wreningham’s grandfather?

From the record of his death, we estimate that he was born about 1668, and his wife was called Elizabeth. We don’t know where he was born, nor where he was married. He owned a public house, The Crown, in Bungay. He left a will in 1700 and he died shortly after.

*An extract from the will of James Blackwood, written not long before his death*

I am not certain of the location of the public house. There was a pub called ‘The Crown’ at 24 Cross Street, but it closed sometime between 1925 and 1930. On 22 February 1777, the Ipswich Journal advertised a ‘Crown’ for rent at the end of Cross Street, on Market Place and that pub appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1905.

An extract from the Ordnance Survey map of 1905

The Crown Inn was at 24 Cross Street, Bungay, but the business no longer exists. The building now houses retail shops

So my Blackwood ancestral linenow looks like the following:

James Blackwood (c1668-1700) = Elizabeth?

-> James Blackwood (1692-?) = Elizabeth Smith

-> Robert Blackwood (1723-1782) = Mary Watts (c1733-1800)

-> John Blackwood (1764-1848) = Mary Harvey (c1764-1847)

-> Robert Blackwood (1809-1867) = Susannah Ringwood (1811-1889)

-> William Blackwood (1847-1927) = Lucy Ann English (1846-1934)

-> Leonard Clive Blackwood (1881-1965) = Agnes Pilgrim (1883-1958)

-> Harry William Blackwood (1918-1995) = Beatrice Elizabeth Stewart Douglas (1924-1985)

-> Leonard Douglas Blackwood (1946-)

I doubt if we will ever uncover any more evidence from Bungay, so now we now have the challenge of finding the birth of James Blackwood, his marriage, and the identity of Elizabeth.

As always in genealogy, when one door closes, two more open.

And I wonder what ever happened to that silver tankard…

Charles Ringwood (1831-1914)

Charles Ringwood was born on 6 November 1831, in Hethel, about 10 km to the south-west of Norwich, in Norfolk, England. He was the eldest son and the third child of William Ringwood, a shoemaker, and Hannah Peachment. William’s father was my 4th great-grandfather. In about 1832 the family moved to nearby Wymondham, where they had four more children.

The Church of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) was founded by Joseph Smith in 1830 in the US. He died in 1844. About 1840, his eventual successor, Brigham Young went to England to recruit new followers. In 1844 more than 70,000 people migrated from Europe to join the Mormons. The mass migration from Nauvoo, Illinois, west to Utah, took place in 1846/7.

In 1853, when he was 22, William’s eldest son, Charles, left England to join the Mormons in Salt Lake City. He traveled out with the Claudius V. Spencer Company from Liverpool. They set sail on 23 January on the ship, Golconda and after a voyage of 44 days, they reached the mouth of the Mississippi River.

There they had to wait for twelve days until a steam tug carried them to New Orleans, where they arrived on 26 March. From there they continued on another steam boat to Keokuk, Iowa and finally overland to the staging post at Kanesville, Iowa, present day Council Bluffs.

Keokuk to Council Bluffs

About 250 individuals and 40 wagons were in the company when it began the final stage of its journey, crossing the the river Missouri about June 3, and arrived in Salt Lake Valley on 24 September 1853.

Council Bluffs to Salt Lake City

In 1855 Charles married Dinah Elizabeth Forster. In 1866 Charles spent six months serving as a 2^nd Lt. with Major A. Barts Infantry in the Blackhawk war. Dinah died in March 1869, two weeks after giving birth to her seventh child.

In June 1869 Charles married Caroline Althea Robbins and in the next 25 years Charles and Caroline had a further 14 children, only seven of them surviving infancy.

In the 1871 UK census, of the original Ringwood household in Wymondham there only remained the parents, William and Hannah, the eldest daughter, Mary Ann, and her two children – Emma and Charles, of unknown fathers. Later in 1871, the parents, daughter and grandchildren followed Charles in migrating to Utah.

Although I had found possible evidence of their deaths in Salt Lake City, I could not envisage William and Hannah undertaking such an arduous journey, as both of them would have been well into their seventies at that time. Not only did they have to travel across England to a port and undertake the ocean crossing, but they then had the long and sometimes dangerous journey across the United States to Utah. I had the evidence, but I really did not trust it.

So I remained in doubt for many years, until it occurred to me to find out when the railroad first reached Salt Lake City. And I came across the explanation that I was looking for – the line was opened in 1869, with a branch line north to Ogden in 1870. No doubt it was still not easy for the two in their mid-seventies, but there was now no doubt in my mind that they did it. So, William and Hannah Ringwood spent their last years in Salt Lake City, both dying a few months apart in 1887.

Charles himself died in 1914. On his death certificate his former occupation was recorded as a police officer. The cause of death was given as old age and ‘paresis of bowel’. Caroline died the following year.

Over the past years I have gradually traced and recorded the descendants of William Ringwood. My research is not yet complete, but the descendants already number in the several hundreds.

But the validity of my research was always based on Charles Ringwood and his parents being those of Hethel and Wymondham in Norfolk. I remained reluctant to make that assumption. And then in recent days, I came across a paper called ‘History of Charles Ringwood by Flossie Ringwood Gray‘, a daughter of Charles Ringwood.

I no longer have any doubt. We are cousins.

Hotspur

I have been researching my family history and those of others, for more than thirty years. If individuals were still alive in 1837, when UK registration of births, marriages and deaths became mandatory, I was almost always able to find them. For those who died before 1837 and had moved away from their parish of birth, prior to the expansion of the internet and database access, it would have been a matter of luck to locate them.

I had four cousins from Hethel, in Norfolk (see here), that seemed to have disappeared. They were present in the 1851 census, but not in that of 1861. Over the years, I repeatedly searched, but in vain, until I stumbled on some Australian sites. It turned out that all four Blackwoods had emigrated to Australia in the late 1850s.

Three of my missing cousins were siblings – Susanna, James and Isaac. Their grandfather, John Blackwood (1764-1848) and Mary Harvey, were my third great grandparents.

Susanna was the first of my cousins to migrate. She married Robert Lane in 1845 and in 1855 they set sail for Australia, with their three children. By that time three of her four sisters and her father were dead, and her mother had remarried.

On 6 October 1855 they set sail for Australia from Liverpool on the maiden voyage of the ill-fated ship, the ‘Schomberg’, with 430 passengers on board. It made landfall off Cape Bridgewater on Christmas Eve but next day it ran aground on a sand bank a mile east of Curdi’s Inlet, near present-day Peterborough. No lives were lost and the next day the passengers were transferred to a passing steamer, the Queen, on her way from Warrnambool to Melbourne. Due to dangerous seas, the wreck was eventually abandoned and subsequently broke up. The captain was later committed for trial for neglect of duty, but was acquitted, due to lack of evidence. (see here)

Victoria map — The coast of Victoria, where the *Schomberg* ran aground near Peterborough

The family survived the wreck, but lost all their furniture. From Melbourne they were eventually taken on to Tasmania, and settled at Longford, where they had five more children.

In 1852 James Blackwood married Hannah Mickleborough and they had two children in Norfolk. On 14 May 1857 they sailed to Australia from Plymouth on the ‘British Empire’, arriving at Portland, Victoria, on 2 September. They were accompanied by William Blackwood, a cousin of James, together with William’s wife and daughter. James and Hannah settled in Hotspur, in Victoria, where they had a further 10 children.

Hotspur map — Map of southern Victoria, showing the location of Hotspur

Hotspur developed as a small settlement on the banks of the Crawford (aka Smokey) River in south-western Victoria in the 1840s. As with many of these early townships, it developed near a creek or river crossing, which provided a major obstacle for early travellers, with their heavy bullock-drawn drays and wagons, and consequently they camped on the banks. Soon one or more inns were constructed to cater for the constant stream of travellers from Portland Bay to the early pastoral runs of the interior, and a settlement was established close to this difficult river crossing point. (Ballarat & District Genealogical Society)

James Blackwood and his family became established in Hotspur, as evidenced by Blackwood’s Road, running some 4 km from the town to a junction with the Condah-Hotspur lower road.

gif — Map of Hotspur, with Blackwood Road

BlackwoodJames_HannahMartha — James Blackwood with his wife, Hannah Mickleborough, daughter Martha and her son Clem

John James and William Thomas were two of the grandsons of James and Hannah Blackwood (their parents were Robert & Agnes Blackwood), and they both served with the Australian Infantry (1st AIF 6th Battalion) in the First World War. William, a private, was killed on 4 October 1917. He is buried at the Oosttaverne Wood Cemetery at plot IV C 11. The cemetery is located on the N336, just over halfway from Leper to Warneton.

BlackwoodJ_FeildR_wives — Photo taken c1920

OOSTTAVE1 — Oosttaverne Wood Cemetery, where William’s grave is on the right, to the rear (photo from internet)

BlackwoodAgnes_neeWilson — Agnes Blackwood, formerly Wilson, wearing ‘widow’s weeds’, after the death of her son

(Note: The three family photographs are from the website of a distant relative, Gary Ayton at his web site)

Like many rural settlements in Australia, the local Hotspur community commemorated the involvement of 40 of their young men, who participated in World War 1, by planting an Avenue of Honour. The Hotspur Avenue of Honour is a little unusual in that the trees were native Australian Kurrajong trees, whereas many similar avenues were planted with imported trees such as elms or plane trees. In addition, was erected a Roll of Honour for the 35 who were ex-students of Hotspur State School. The Roll of Honour is now housed in the Community Hall.

hothroll — Hotspur State School roll of Honour

The Avenue of Honour began in front of the ‘Rising Sun Hotel’, and each tree
displayed the name of the soldier, the unit in which he served, and the name of the person who planted the tree. Fifteen of the soldiers were killed in service. John Blackwood’s tree was number 7, planted by Miss P. Blackwood and number 27 was that of William Blackwood, planted by Mrs R. Blackwood. The planting ceremony took place on June 2, 1918. In June 2001, The World War 1 Avenue of Honour was restored, with a ceremony to commemorate the 40 soldiers from the district and the unveiling of a new brass plaque with their names, mounted on a large rock.

(Note: The information about Hotspur comes from here)

William and Sarah Blackwood, together with their young daughter, Caroline, accompanied James and his family from Hethel. They eventually settled in Creswick, Victoria, about 18km north of Ballarat. Creswick was a gold mining town, founded only six years earlier at the start of the Victorian gold rush.

Caroline married John William Russell from Boorowa and had the first of their eight children in 1876, at 12 Gardiner Street, Creswick, opposite St. Andrew’s church. Caroline’s last two children, Leila and Richard, both died in their early teens in 1899 and 1903 and this was cited by Bill Russell, one of Caroline’s great grandsons, as the cause of her sudden death ‘of a broken heart’ in 1904. Caroline was outlived by her mother, Sarah Anne, who died in 1916, aged about 86. The house on Gardiner Street has since been demolished.

Much of the information about Caroline and her family came from Bill Russell. He twice visited Hethel and on one of the occasions found an old Blackwood tombstone propped up against the wall of the church. He took a photograph of it, but was not able to remember what he did with it. He also mentioned a portrait of Caroline that used to hang on the wall of her house in Creswick and an obituary of Caroline that appeared in the Crestwick Adviser on 28 June 1904, both of which have also been misplaced.

I do not know when the third sibling, Isaac Blackwood, migrated to Australia and nothing is known of his life until c1873, when he married Susan Simkin, a local girl, in Digby, Victoria. They had four children, three in Digby, and the forth in Ballarat. Isaac died in Portland in 1919.

I lived in Australia for five years, from 1971 to 1976. I left to see something of South and Central America on an extended trip, intending to eventually return. When I do finally get back, one of these days, I want to visit the graveyard in Hotspur and walk along Blackwood’s Road.

I am certain that I will not feel like a stranger there.

Lucy Ann

I was 42 when I first became a father. To say that the news ‘rocked my boat’ would have been an understatement; it was more like a tsunami hitting me. I had never had any roots, and if any had ever started to sprout, I moved to new pastures. If I ever thought about having children, I would have dismissed it as something that might happen one day, but not just yet. I was a nomad at heart. Some would say I still am.

But I eventually got used to the inevitability of fatherhood, although I could only ever envisage having a daughter. I was never ‘one of the lads’; I loved women and their company. The idea of having a smelly little snot-nosed son did not much appeal.

Eventually ‘launch day’ arrived and the only name for the baby that we had considered was Lucy Ann. If the baby turned out to be a boy, we would cross that bridge when we came to it. At least that was how I remembered it.

So, the baby had no name for the first couple of days, until someone in the hospital suggested the name Andrew, as he was born on Saint Andrew’s Day. I happily agreed and added Douglas, which was my own second name and my mother’s maiden name.

It was not until after a couple of days at home that I was left alone with Andrew, while his mother went grocery shopping. Predictably the door had barely closed, when he evacuated his little bowels, and left me in previously uncharted territory. By the time I had completed the clean-up, he and I were the best of friends and all that winter, during the weekends, he used to lie in my arms, while I watched rugby and other sports on the television.

Then there was Robert Charles, again not a girl, followed by John William, most definitely not a girl. When Philip James was born, the idea of a daughter called Lucy Ann was abandoned; four children under seven is quite a handful in any society, especially when there are no relatives to help out.

lyndhurst-school-photo-5-page-001 — Clockwise from the left – Andrew (Barcelona), Robert (Barcelona), John (London) and Philip (Basingstoke)

So who was Lucy Ann, after whom I had wanted to name a daughter?

Lucy Ann English (1846-1934) was one of my great grandmothers. She was married to William Blackwood of Hethel, about whom I mentioned in a previous article. I have no idea what her name appealed to me, but I loved the sound of it.

She was born and raised in Mulbarton, a few kilometres south-west of Norwich. She had a younger brother, James, born in 1849, but two years later her mother, Lucy, died in Thorpe Lunatic Asylum of an internal hernia. Perhaps it was the result of a difficult birth. Lucy Ann’s father remarried in 1856, but his new wife died less than three years later.

english-lucy-6-nov-1851 — The death certificate of Lucy English, formerly Lucy Baldry

Lucy Ann’s grandfather, James English (1788-1861), lived in the same village with his third wife, the previous two having died. When I was researching this branch of my family many years ago, I was unable to locate James in the 1841 census, but found him in both the 1851 census and that of 1861. It puzzled me, for he was nowhere to be found in the UK. I wondered if he had gone abroad for a few years.

It was not until quite recently that I discovered where he was in 1841. He was not with his wife in Mulbarton for a very good reason. He was in the County Gaol & House of Correction of Norwich Castle. At the Count Session of 30 June, 1841, he was convicted of larceny and sentenced to imprisonment. He was perhaps lucky to have been imprisoned in England, for up until a few years earlier, he might have been transported to a penal colony, such as Australia.

Lucy Ann would have known her grandfather, James. She was 15 when he died. I have no idea if she knew of his imprisonment, but I suspect that, in a small village, it would have been common knowledge.

There are many James in my ancestry, both in England and in Ireland. In his second name, my youngest son carries their memory. Many Australians are proud of having been descended from a convict. In its way, it is a form of inverted snobbery.

I can identify myself with that.

It was in mid-1985 that I first became interested in genealogy. My mother had recently died and I realised then how little I knew of my ancestry.

My father was of no help in getting me started on my research; he said that he knew no more than I did. He left home when he was 16 and it is quite probable that his parents never told him some of the less-than-flattering facts about some of their numerous siblings, facts than I subsequently encountered. His parents were a very Victorian couple. For many people of that era, illegitimacy, unmarried cohabitation, and divorce were scandalous and best not spoken of.

Both my parents were only-children, so I had no uncles or aunts to turn to for their possible input. I had to start from scratch.

In 1985, family research was both time-consuming and relatively expensive, compared to recent years. There were no computers, no databases, no software and no internet. Research was carried out on the original documents and charts of ancestry were drawn by hand. One wall of my study was eventually covered with a huge chart holding 2+4+8+16+32=62 ancestors for each of my parents.

As the records for Ulster were held in Belfast and I was living south-west of London, I started my research with my father’s ancestry.

He was born in Norfolk, as were both of his parents. The records for English births, marriages, deaths and census returns, dating back to 1837, were held in London, and over many months and numerous visits, the chart on my study wall began to fill up. And as far back as 1837 I found that all my father’s parent’s ancestors were also born in Norfolk.

To go back before 1837, one had to visit the relevant county record archives, which in my case meant a long drive to Norwich and an overnight stay. Once having obtained a reader’s permit, one could submit a request to have access to the original documents of a given parish and 20-30 minutes later, they would arrive from the archives and research could begin.

Initially I concentrated on the Blackwood line and after a couple of visits I found that four generations of my father’s ancestors had lived in the two adjoining parishes of Hethel and Wreningham. The oldest event that I found was the marriage of my great (x4) grandfather, Robert Blackwood, in Hethel in 1756.

To this day, I have not been able to locate his birth. Every line on an ancestral chart eventually ends in a brick wall, and breaking one down inevitably leads to two more.

Hethel was a small parish with no village as such, just an ancient 11th century church, and a handful of farms. In 1841 there were 211 inhabitants, but by 1901 the population had dropped to 153. In 1841 there were 15 Blackwoods living there, but by 1881 there was only one, my great great grandmother. She died in 1889.

An airfield was built there during WW2, after which it was closed. Today it houses Lotus Cars. Hethel is also known for having an ancient thorn tree, reputed to be more than 800 years old, the oldest on record.

Hethel is about 10 km south-west of Norwich and it was on a beautiful summer day in 1986 that I first went there. It is not on a main road, and is only accessible down narrow country lanes. When the trees and hedgerows are in full leaf, it is easy to miss the turning.

I parked beside the church gate and went in. The graveyard was largely uncared for, the grass was long, and there were several large clumps of nettles. I had a very strange feeling that I had been in that graveyard before, but of course that was impossible. It was probably just the nervous anticipation of finding evidence of my ancestors.

I did not start looking at the nearby gravestones, but went straight into a clump of nettles away to the left of the entrance, and with my foot trod them aside, to fully reveal two adjacent gravestones. They were the graves of my great great grandparents, Robert Blackwood (1809-1867) and Susanna Ringwood (1811-1889).

Of course, most people would say that it was just a coincidence that I went straight to those graves, but I am not so sure. I clearly remember feeling as if I was being led directly to them.

I have been back to Hethel twice since then, the last time in an overnight snowfall, just before Christmas. There was a strong easterly wind blowing and it was bitterly cold.

There were no leaves on the trees and of course no nettles. The graves of my great great grandparents were clearly visible, leaning to one another, as if she had moved closer to him for warmth, sleeping on his shoulder.

The graves of Robert Blackwood and Susanna Ringwood

The inscriptions on the gravestones are now very eroded and difficult to read. One day in the not distant future they will be completely illegible.

Neither of my great great grandparents could write; they signed their name in the parish registers with a mark, an ‘X´. They were undoubtedly poor – he was an agricultural labourer, and he died at the age of 59, whereas she lived for another 22 years.

It was possibly their son, my great grandfather, William Blackwood (1847-1927), who had the gravestones erected. He was the first of the Blackwoods to be able to write and he worked as a miller, with his own mill in Harleston, 18 km south on the Essex border.

I once came across a beautiful expression in a book I was reading:

Existimos mientras alguien nos recuerde (We exist as long as someone remembers us)

If I ever succeed in publishing, in some form, my series of articles, perhaps one of my descendants will one day read this, and be motivated to visit the churchyard in Hethel, as I first did, now more than 30 years ago.

And in so doing, our family links with the past will be refreshed, and some of those who came before us will be remembered.