Hussey Family

The Hussey family

Herbert Hussey was the joiner and carpenter on the Cheswardine Estate

A recent story has come to light as a result of information received from somebody who had looked at the Cheswardine Manor website. Herbert Hussey was the head joiner and carpenter for the Cheswardine Estate in the period from about 1870 until after 1891, and may have been responsible for the refurbishment of the main staircase at Cheswardine Hall.

Herbert was born circa 1847, the fourth of six children, at Croxton, Staffordshire, which is about 5 miles ENE of Cheswardine Hall. His parents were Thomas Hussey (born 1804 at Acton, Cheshire) and Mary Ann Plant (born about 1813 in Eccleshall, Staffordshire). Thomas Hussey was also a joiner and carpenter, and before the 1851 census he moved to work for the Charnes Estate, which is a further 2 miles north of Croxton.

By the time of the 1861 census, Herbert had become a carpenter’s apprentice, presumably with his father, who was still employed on the Charnes Estate. However ten years later, in 1871, Herbert had moved to Adbaston, Staffordshire, a few miles to the south east of Cheswardine. Herbert had by then married Sarah Annie Walton, who was born in Cheswardine in the spring of 1866. Her parents were John Walton, born 1797 in Soudley and Elizabeth Cope (nee Beeston) born 1815 in Market Drayton.

Herbert and Sarah had a large family, numbering 15 in total, the first, Martha Hussey, born in 1868, but dying in 1870, evidently of rachitis (rickets).

By 1881, Herbert, who was then 34 years old, his wife Sarah and their family, numbering 7 children, were living at The Hall, Soudley, all of the children over 5 years of age being recorded as scholars.

In 1889 a presentation was made to Herbert by his workmen, amounting to £1 :9s :6d, or £1.48, then, equivalent to about £726 of comparable average earnings in 2007. A picture of this document is shown below, and the donors have been identified in a chart at the end of this page.

In the 1891 census, Herbert was still recorded as a carpenter. The family may have moved, as he was now living next door to the Robin Hood Inn at Soudley (or possibly at Soudley Park Farm), with his wife, Sarah and their 8 children; William Hussey (aged 17) and Walter Hussey (aged 15) being described as carpenter’s apprentices.

His occupation had evidently changed by the 1901 census, as he had moved with his family to a house below Compton House, in the main street of Cheswardine, and was now described as a farmer. Sarah, his wife, and three children, the unmarried Sarah Mary Ann Hussey, aged 33, and Hugo Hussey (aged 14) and Grace Hussey (aged 11).

In the 1911 census, the latest census available, released in January 2009, Herbert, now aged 64, was again recorded as a farmer, and was still with his wife Sarah, also 64 years old. The census records that they had been married for 45 years, and that of their 14 children born alive, only 8 were still living. Sarah Mary Ann, Walter, Horace, Hugo and Grace were all still living at home, and all remained single. Herbert Hussey died on the 24 March 1923 in Cheswardine. 

Herbert's son, Horace Finnimore or “Phillimore” Hussey married Alice Mary Madders, from Doley Mill on the 1st March 1927 at Swithun’s Church, Cheswardine.  They subsequently had seven children, six girls, and a boy, Robert John Hussey, born 1936 and died in 2004 in Cheswardine. The family continues to live and work in the parish, running a dairy herd at Doley Farm on the Eccleshall road out of Cheswardine.

Herbert Hussey  ~ 1847 to 1924

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