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My 3xgreat grandfather, James Mason, was born at Dedham in 1789 and baptised at St Mary’s church in April 1791, aged two, the son of Thomas and Sarah Mason. His parentage is confirmed in the parish record for his second marriage in 1850 (see below).

James was paying rates at Dedham from 1816, as his father had done before him. In 1822 he was chairman of the vestry and in 1830 the rate books indicate he lived at Hill Farm. This may have been the family home James took over from his father once the latter had moved to Brightlingsea (see Thomas Mason).

After this he was, like his father, at Brightlingsea, Essex. He farmed at Moverons, the neighbouring farm to his brother Robert Mason of Brightlingsea Hall. They were both on the Brightlingsea electoral register for the General Election of 1847, which returned the Whig Lord John Russell to power. Russell was in favour of the repeal of the Corn Laws so what we know of the Masons and other farming families in northeast Essex at the time would suggest their votes more likely went to Russell’s opposition, Lord Stanley’s Conservative Party.

James married Phoebe Simson Wilmar Witheat (1793/4–1849) by licence at St Mary’s church, Dedham on 10 January 1816, in the presence of Harriet Mason and Robert Mason – presumably his siblings – and Mary Witheat and Sarah Witheat – presumably Phoebe’s sisters. George Witheat, Phoebe’s father, was also a witness.

Their first daughter, my great-great grandmother, Phoebe Simson Maria Mason, was born at Dedham in 1819. They had at least five more children before James’s wife died suddenly on 13 May 1849, while visiting her son James junior at Brantham, Suffolk.

Three months after his wife’s death, James placed an advert in the Essex Standard:

Notice of Sale at Moveron’s Farm, Brightlingsea. Mr J.G. Fenn is favoured with instructions from James Mason Esq. whose lease expires in the above next Michaelmas, to sell by auction in the middle of September next the whole of his Superior Live and Dead Agricultural Stock.

Included in the two-day sale were thirty-seven head of horse, including several cart geldings and colts (one of whom, Boxer, a two-year old colt, was described as ‘highly commended at the last Meeting of the Royal Agricultural Show, and afterwards sold for 200 guineas’), a riding mare, two ponies and some grey fillies. Also up for sale were over a hundred head of swine, various heifers, bulls and milch cows and a flock of about 2000 ‘superior and well-selected’ half-bred Down and Norfolk ewes and lambs – including 190 ‘fat wether’ sheep. James Mason was farmer of some substance at Brightlingsea.

With the lease and livestock at Moverons Farm disposed of, James moved to East Hill, Colchester. The following year, wasting no time, he married for a second time. His second wife was the fifty-year-old Mrs Martha Bond (1800–82), widow. She was born at nearby Thorrington, the daughter of Zachariah Childs, another farmer. According to the newspaper announcement of the wedding, Martha was of Sidmouth Terrace, Walton-on-the-Naze. However the marriage record itself gives her place of residence as Clapham, south London, and she and James were married at Trinity Church, Clapham, on 21 May 1850: the only evidence that James ever ventured beyond his Essex home. Despite the Clapham connection, it seems more likely that James and Martha met at Brightlingsea. Martha appears to be living on the main street there in 1841 – a few doors along from Lazarus Roberts, whose son James Mackenzie married James Mason’s daughter Phoebe at All Saints Brightlingsea in 1847.

With his new wife, James took on the lease at Pete Hall farm (also called Peet/Peat Hall), at Peldon, near West Mersea, Essex. A fire had destroyed the original farm buildings in the 1840s and it may be that James took up tenancy on completion of the New Hall in 1850/51.

He was here in 1851, farming 358 acres and employing eight men and six boys (this is about right – the general reckoning was one man or boy per 25 acres). He probably took the farm over from a Martin Harvey, who was tenant there in 1841, as shortly afterwards there was some dispute with Harvey about the sale of farming stock: the case was taken to court and reported in the Essex Standard. Harvey was described in the 1851 census as a ‘farmer out of business’. One of Harvey’s daughters must have impressed the songwriter George Cooper junior, who wrote ‘Thro the Meadows, Oer the Vale’, ‘a fairy song composed and dedicated to Miss Harvey of Peat Hall, Mersea’, dated 1828. This must have been for either Sarah (born 1825) or perhaps more likely Emma (1822).

At Pete Hall James presumably received visits from his daughter Phoebe and her husband James Mackenzie Roberts, who would have travelled up from their London home until they, too, settled in northeast Essex, in 1852. In 1858 James Mackenzie was appointed architect for the proposed restoration of St Mary the Virgin at Peldon. This may well have been at the recommendation of his father-in-law.

James Mason was still farming at Pete Hall in 1861. Simon Eagle conjectures that he may have transferred the tenancy to the Eagle family on Lady Day (25 March) 1869, or the previous Michaelmas (29 September), these being the traditional dates for changing agricultural tenancies.

He died aged eighty, at North Hill, Colchester, on 27 June 1869, outliving his son James junior by twelve years. He was interred at Colchester Cemetery and left Martha a little less than £3000: a healthy sum in 1869.