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The Wright family during their stay in Earl Shilton. |
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Family Tree |
Charles Wright 1862-1952 |
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A closer look at the Wrights reveals that their sojourn in Earl
Shilton endured for approximately one hundred years, from about
the middle of the nineteenth century to the middle of the
twentieth. A period during which three generations were born and
bred there, ensuring the continuity of the male line, and a time
during which William Wright in particular, or more precisely his
immediate descendants, left their respective families to branch
out laterally.
To clarify these three generations were headed by William
(1814-1897), Charles (1862-1952) and Charles William
(1887-1970). Thomas coming before them, and being the originator
in the district, and John Trevor (Jack), being the last of the
line, born there and departing later to end the five
generations’ time in and around Earl Shilton.
Many of these other lateral descendants, from William’s
daughters, extend now to third and fourth cousins still residing
locally, and yet largely unrecognised to each other under their
many differing names, the male line, however, is now extinct in
Earl Shilton. One of these branches, although still using the
Wright name, actually emanates from an illegitimate birth to one
of William's daughters, therefore, as they are using her maiden
name that family cannot be classed as a continuation of the male
line. Perhaps this might seem chauvinistic by today's standards
but it is still considered a correct assessment by genealogical
conventions.
Although William Wright was baptised in the parish church in
1814, he only took up residence about 1850; the male line then
lived in various locations in Earl Shilton until 1946. It was
John Trevor Wright who then left the area to resume his married
life, after interruption by the war, and later nurture the next
generation in Boston, Lincolnshire.
Between 1828 and 1872 there was one other Wright family living
in Earl Shilton, although after a little research it could be
shown that there was only a tentative connection between it and
the family of the main investigations. This other Wright family,
headed by another William Wright who became established by 1851
as a farmer of 220 acres in Church Street, had connections to
the Wileman, Hobill and Oldacre families through marriages.
However, they also seem to have become extinct in Earl Shilton
after 1872 and yet again their family continues in collateral
lines under other names. Correspondence with a descendant of
this line now living as a third generation immigrant in New
Zealand, was recently established, indicating another interest
in the life and times of the Wright family.
The first recorded evidence of the Wrights in the district was
in 1810 when Thomas Wright, William's father, married the widow
Alice Harrison, on 11th March 1810 in the parish church at
Kirkby Mallory, subsequently settled in Normanton Turville and
started a family there. Marriage in Earl Shilton before 1854 was
not possible, as the church, dedicated then to St Peter, was
only a chapelry of the parish church of Kirkby Mallory. Baptisms
and burials had, however, been conducted there since the
buildings dedication and certainly since parish records
commenced in the 1520's.
The parish church was largely rebuilt in 1855 and rededicated to
St Simon and St Jude, following Earl Shilton's reconstitution as
a parish separate from Kirkby Mallory in 1854, by an order of
the Queen in council. Records of a church, existing on the
present site, and the adjoining castle extend back well beyond
the appearance of the Wright family however, at least as far as
the Domesday survey when the Normans assessed that ‘Sceltone’
was worth 70 shillings and had the benefit of a priest.
Thomas and Alice's first-born daughter Ann was baptised on 5th
August 1810 at the Parish Church in Earl Shilton. The rest of
their children followed suit over the next few years until their
last, George, was baptised in Thurlaston, as by then, in 1831,
when Thomas would have been about fifty and Alice somewhat
older, the nearer church at Thurlaston would probably have been
more convenient. During this period, the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries, it was usual to have children
baptised at the earliest opportunity, as child mortality was
quite high. In common with others the Wrights followed this
tradition, allowing us now to estimate birth dates fairly
accurately and prove the point that little, in family affairs,
has changed over the years. Thomas and Alice’s daughter baptised
in August of the year in which they were married, in the
previous March, leaves us to speculate on their activities and
reasons for their union. Although Thomas never actually lived in
Earl Shilton, it was he who had moved into the locality from the
small hamlet of Burton Lazars near Melton Mowbray, sometime
between 1790 and 1810. He had settled in Normanton Turville to
establish what, after a short period while he was a farm
labourer, developed into a family business of Higglers and
Carters. Incidentally, Burton Lazars was also the birth place of
William Wright the farmer referred to earlier, and although the
probability that he was a distant cousin of Thomas is strong,
further research is necessary to prove the blood ties.
It is not clear why Thomas settled in Normanton Turville. The
large estate, attached to Normanton Hall, may have provided work
for the Agricultural Labourer, and later the need for
transportation of produce may have offered more work and an
income. This estate, founded by the first of the Turvilles - one
of William the Conqueror's Nobles - had, like many similar
country land-holdings, been in decline for some time when Thomas
settled in the area with his wife Alice.
By 1861 there was no trace of the Wrights at Normanton Turville
and the steady decline of the hamlet continued until it became
completely defunct by the 1900's. The estate and the Hall in
particular, however, survived in various levels of ruination
until the building was finally demolished in the middle 1920's.
The building, presently used as a dwelling, is in fact the
converted remains of a small chapel originally built for the
Roman Catholics by the Worswicks in 1875. It is more likely that
the move by Thomas Wright was prompted by the generally improved
prosperity of the villages and hamlets in the area, where the
cottage based hosiery industry, relying on the hand-frame
knitters, was booming. The strict controls and heavy financial
demands of the London based Framework Knitters Company drove
manufacturers to the Midlands and especially to Leicestershire
where the local breed of sheep grew wool most suitable for
worsted spinning and knitting.
The revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars raging abroad made labour
scarce and the demand very high for hosiery, including many
types of garments, socks, stockings, shirts, cravats and gloves.
The need to service these outworkers was also evident and must
have presented opportunities to the Wrights as Carters. Also, at
that period, a number of smaller landowners and farmers operated
hand-frames, and thereby combined the two lifestyles of farming
and hosiery manufacture in the countryside. Although William
Iliffe had begun manufacturing hosiery in Hinckley on a large
scale, sometime after 1640 following the arrival of the first
knitting frame, generally the trade was still rooted in the
villages. For a time hand-frame knitting was so successful it
became the county’s only industry employing whole families from
the youngest – hosiers started work at about 12 when they could
reach the foot pedals of the frame – to the oldest. This village
based industry giving the need for the finished products to be
collected and transported to the larger traders and wholesalers.
Victory at Waterloo in 1815 signalled a deep economic depression
as soldiers returned to swell the labour force and demand for
the hosiery products slumped. A Parliamentary Commission on the
state of the framework knitters, published in 1845, showed that
shortly after the war with France, a weeks wage had fallen from
14 to 7 shillings, and this was only the beginning. The decline
of the cottage-based industry accelerated as steam and gas
powered hosiery factories began to develop, adding further to
the depression. As the 'hungry forties' expired, Earl Shilton
was perhaps a little fortunate, as boot and shoe manufacture now
developed at a pace in the area. Thomas Crick, who had
manufacturing premises in Leicester, and had established himself
as a leading industrialist, handed out work to the decaying
framework villages. Earl Shilton and Barwell being amongst the
first to benefit. The method of production, known as the
'basket-work system', where the uppers were cut and closed in
the factory and the making of the shoe - the attachment of the
soles to the uppers - was completed in small workshops and
attics in the villages, would again require the services of
carters to transport the goods to and fro.
Thomas and his sons, Thomas and John, had thus firmly
established themselves as carters by the 1840's and 50's, having
dropped the claim to be higglers for whatever reason. Could it
be that 'higgling' or 'haggling' carried the stigma sometimes
attached to tinkers and other traders that bartered their goods?
A higgler was variously compared to a peddler, huckster, hawker
or even a costermonger. It is now difficult, however, to clearly
identify any specific commodity that they may have dealt in and
carting was becoming more clearly recognised as a trade with
prospects as the need to transport goods was mounting.
But what of William? Although his brothers Thomas and John had
joined their father's trade there was no sign of William during
his teenage or twenties in Earl Shilton, but in 1847, when he
was about 37 years old, his first child, daughter Elizabeth, was
born in Stretton, Warwickshire. It seems he took to other
pastures and started a family of his own in Warwickshire. After
extensive searching no record of his marriage between 1838 and
1852 can be found, either in local records or at the General
Registry, London, however, he had returned to Earl Shilton by
1851 and set up home with his 'wife' Ann and daughter Elizabeth
in Lower Church Street. William's brother, Thomas, died in 1860
and as his father had died sometime earlier. William was now
free to take up the old family business of higglers. Since by
1861 his family had grown to four daughters and a son, not
including Elizabeth who had also died a few years earlier, now
needed support. A return to higgling by William prompts some
speculation - why did he go to Warwickshire and why was he the
odd one out not involved in the carting? Was there some family
rift or simply a normal desire to find a partner and produce a
family of his own? On his return to Earl Shilton, between 1845
and 1851, unlike his siblings he had already started this
family. Brother Thomas for instance was still at home with his
parents and continued so for at least another ten years, beyond
the age of thirty. A clue to another possibility is in William's
residence at the 'Marl Pit' in 1861, extraction of the valuable
clay like material known as 'marl', commonly used as a calcium
rich fertiliser during the nineteenth century, would contribute
to the family upkeep by generating wares for the higgling trade.
The site, incidentally, is still known as 'Marl Pit Farm' and
the large depression, in the surrounding land, records the
evidence of these earlier extractions.
During the 1850's, despite much poverty that still existed and
the spectre of the soup kitchen, set up to assist the destitute,
the people of Earl Shilton generously contributed to the appeals
made by the church for funds to maintain the church fabric and
establish day-schools. These day-schools were intended for
weekday education of the village children, as opposed to the
already established Sunday schools. With funds raised by
subscription and a parliamentary grant the Earl Shilton school
was built in 1858, a comparatively large building with room for
200 children costing £1,050. Following on from the rebuilding of
the church in 1855 at a cost of £3,500 it is obvious the appeals
for contributions at this very difficult time were exceptionally
well supported. Some of William's offspring took advantage of
the new school, Louisa and Charles both being scholars in the
1860's and 70's, while their elder sisters were employed in
local stocking factories, which had managed to survive the slump
and, incidentally, continued production well into the twentieth
century. During the nineteenth century the term ‘scholar’ has to
be treated with some caution as it could refer to anyone aged
below one to the then ‘full’ age of twenty-one. It is known in
the family, however, that Charles and his siblings did attend
day-school periodically at this time.
As the close of the nineteenth century drew nearer the old
basket-work system died out. Largely influenced by the National
Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives, founded locally in 1874, as
the members pushed for better conditions in the engine powered
factories and an end to the often exploited and cheap laboured
outwork system. New inventions and powered machinery, as adopted
by the manufacturers in Leicester, further fuelled the move to
the factory manufacturing system and by 1896 there were twelve
independent boot and shoe employers in Earl Shilton, in what was
fast becoming the centre of the footwear industry.
For whatever reason, William returned to general labouring
towards the end of his life, which finally came in December 1897
and thus left his son, Charles, to continue the line, as his
uncles had remained bachelors and as far as is known had no
issue. Following his early education at the church schools,
Charles entered the boot and shoe factories as a shoe finisher,
where he remained for most of his working life. The Wright
family, like the vast majority of those living in the eighteenth
century, was devoted to following their religious convictions
according to the rites of the established Church of England. At
some period, either while Charles was a child or possibly later
during his adulthood - his wife Julia could have been party to
the decision - they were converted to following a branch of the
dissenters, known as the Independents. In 1669 Archbishop
Sheldon ordered an inquiry into the number of dissent groups in
Leicestershire and, although during the early years of these
churches it is difficult to make any clear distinction between
them, the Earl Shilton group was listed as being Presbyterian.
However, they considered themselves to be 'Independents' and
followers of the doctrines of Robert Browne whereby they, the
members, governed themselves. Although dissent in Earl Shilton
reaches back as early as 1651, when the Baptists - probably
developed from the earlier group of the 1640's at Broughton
Astley - first started to hold their secret meetings in private
houses, by 1831 there were 430 Independents, four times the
number of Baptists. This popularity may have accounted for the
Wrights' choice and conversion. Having been established in 1810
with only five members and a meeting place of a barn in Wood
Street, the Independents membership had doubled by the end of
the first year and had continued to rise at a rate that demanded
a dedicated meeting house. Therefore, due mainly to the generous
endowments of a Mr Isaac Basford, in 1824 the Independents'
present church building was erected. At a total cost of £1,400,
with 500 ’sittings’, a Sunday school building was also provided,
but it is not evident whether the Wrights took the provision of
reading and writing, together with religious instruction into
account, or possibly the installation of an organ in the 1860's
may have been a factor of persuasion.
Charles' children, however, 'enjoyed' both Sunday school at the
Independent chapel and day-school at the church school gaining a
basic education in the arts of reading and writing, together
with instruction in the dissenters’ approach to religion.
Although by now, in the middle of the nineteenth century,
nonconformist views and doctrines were accepted, establishment
in the previous century had been more difficult. Occasionally
some recording of nonconformist's family affairs was made in the
parish registers along with the majority of the parishioners.
Some of the clergy, however, were still unable to mask their
distaste for dissent, as shown by the rector of Blaston. For
example, on the 15th May 1719 when he recorded that "Jane
daughter of Samuel Porter & Jane his wife (two damned and
Damnable Barngoers) was Baptised (the father sayth) by one David
Soames, a Presbyterian, ergo having no more Lawful Authority to
baptize than a chimney sweeper".
The dissenters meeting houses, or churches as they are now
called, still survive in Earl Shilton with the one exception of
the Primitive Methodists’ building, which was demolished in the
1970’s. Although the remaining church buildings are occasionally
restored the old Sunday school rooms in all cases have been
replaced with modern function rooms which still serve the
general community. Play-schools, dancing classes, concerts,
exhibitions and bazaars are common activities, together with the
traditional Sunday functions and weekday meetings of the
different church memberships.
Continued on page 2.