Wreningham – The Irish Rover

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…

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.

Tag: Wreningham

The Missing Link

Hethel