Thomas s/o John Perrett chrs May 8, 1808, Amport, Hampshire, England -
He married Mary Rance at Wildesham, Surrey, on February 13 1830.
When his daughter Lena was married in Henley , Oxfordshire, on January 11 1881, she said her father was a bailiff. In the census taken that year, she is listed as being from Amport, Hampshire. In 1891 this was changed to Cholderton, Hampshire.
Miss S M Fletcher, Archivist of the Hampshire County Council, explained that "Cholderton is a tithing within the parish of Amport. I checked the Amport baptism register between 1852 and 1855, but did not find the baptism of Lena Emily Perrett. there was an Emily Perrett , daughter to Thomas baptised on the 13th January 1850, but the father's occupation was given as labourer, so I do not think this could be your Emily. I checked the Amport marriage register for the 1830's, but did not find a reference to a marriage of Thomas Perrett. I also looked through our personal name index, but did not find any references to a Thomas or Lena Emily Perrett." Nor does the I.G.I. contain any record of a second Thomas Perrett in Amport. Added to this we have Emily's residence in Henley during 1881 (see below) - Might she have been a servant?
I have come to the conclusion that my great great grandfather Thomas Perrett is the 73 year old shepherd of that name who is mentioned in the 1881 census. At that time, he was living at Sarson road, Amport with his 50 year old daughter Jane and 23 year old grandson William (also a shepherd). The census listed Jane's birth in Bagshot, Surrey. This led me to find both records of Jane's birth, and the marriage of her parent's marriage in Wildesham, Surrey, some six months earlier.
LIVING IN SURREY
Mary Rance came from Windlesham, Surry where the parish register states:
March 1828, baptised at Windlesham, George Gale Rance, son of Mary. The entry in the parish register says "illegitimate."
Three more entries describe the beginnings her marriage with Thomas Perrett:
1841 CENSUS - Sarson Lane, Amport
17 Feb 1842, at Amport (registration district of Andover, sub-district ofLudgershall, Counties of Southampton & Wiltshire), birth of Fanny, daughter of Thomas Perritt, labourer, and Mary Perritt (formerly Rance).
1851 CENSUS - Amport, Hampshire,
1861 CENSUS - Amport, Hampshire,
Also in 1861 census - Fanny Perrett, age 17, (was) in Amport, working as a servant in the household of James Wells, a farmer of 45 acres employing 6 men."
1871 CENSUS - Amport
Note: My researcher, Kim McDonald "There were no other Perrett families in Amport in 1871, nor did I see any George Rance."
1881 CENSUS - Sarson Lane, Amport
On her 1881 marriage certificate, in Henley on the Thames, Lena Emily Perrett described her father as a bailiff. Kim McDonald replied:
"Oh, yes, I meant to mention that I looked up the definition of "bailiff" in my Dictionary of Occupations" (you said that Thomas was described as a bailiff on Lena's marriage certificate to Stephen Hales). A bailiff was "an agent or steward of a landlord or landowner who usually collected rents on behalf of the landowner. A bailiff also had the power to evict tenants, impound and sell property or stock to recover debts owed, on direction of a court." From the descriptions of Thomas' occupations in the various censuses (I haven't looked at the 1881 census myself, and I don't recall if you told me his occupation on that, although you probably did), I doubt that he was a bailiff as such, although he may well have been acting in some sort of similar capacity for a local landowner in Amport. More likely is that Lena slightly elevated her father's occupation for the marriage register."
In Thomas Hardy's FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD. Giddeon Oak, the hero of that story, was a shepherd who rose to be a farm bailiff (foreman), and eventually had enough money to purchase 200 sheep and rent some land to put them on. Disaster struck, and he became a shepherd again.
1891 CENSUS - Amport
1901 CENSUS
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