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Some additional information about the Leaman family provided by Jill Hammersley
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The Leaman Family (page 110)
I fully appreciate your comments concerning constraints you made on the amount of content. I would still like to suggest the inclusion of the SWHT Information Leaflet - Poor Relief to be included in the Internet References area. This leaflet I have found to be extremely helpful in explaining, in particular, The Settlement Act section laying down the qualifications for gaining settlement. Maybe these could be included in the text. (I noticed you did reference SWHT on page xii for general purposes).(Author's note: the SWHT leaflet, available online, has been added to the References listed on the Overall Resources Index Page).
John and George Leaman
Considering the amount of references concerning the Leamans to be found in the Poor Records it has taken a while to fathom out what exactly had been going on. I found your text on p. 113 a little muddled concerning George and John's cases. Impossible to explain fully – a chapter in itself! Regardless of this I thought you may be interested in what happened to them in the end. John and Gertrude had six children, none were bound over. They lived at Dipley from 1816 until John died in 1843, buried in Widecombe. Gertrude remained until 1849 but finally got removed permanently to Tavistock Work House in 1849 where she worked as a weaver. She died in 1865 whilst living in one of the Tavistock Union almshouses. As yet I have no records of them spending any of their time in Lydford Parish. George lived at Dipley from his birth in 1816 until 1870. He married in 1839 and had 7 children, none were bound over. I have not found any records that suggest he spent any time in Lydford Parish. Sadly, I have not been able to find what happened to either of them after 1870 but have accounted for most of the children. Still researching this issue.
Lydford being John's and therefore George's legal place of settlement??????
This still puzzles me. John's parents lived in Manaton and also spent time managing the Newhouse Inn.
This may explain why all the children were baptised in Widecombe Parish Church. Clement, John's father was also buried there.
When John returned to his father around 1804 he had a hiring agreement for 4 years with his father training and working as a thatcher,
He paid into the Poor Relief funds. George was born in Widecombe, had a hiring agreement of more than a year, worked in Widecombe and got married in Widecombe plus paid Poor Relief rates.
My only thoughts are that during John's apprenticeship at Prince Hall Estate it was moved into Lydford Parish although your chapter on the subject of this happening states this occurred from 1818. His service ended in 1800.
(Author's note: This provides a possible explanation that has just occurred to me:
Prince Hall was always in Lydford parish as was the Forest Quarter as a whole.
It was just an ‘arrangement’ (albeit one that had existed for nearly 600 years - since Bishop Bronscombe’s Ordinacio) that the eastern forest quarter was counted as a part of Widecombe for certain purposes
– because of the proximity of Widecombe church. So, especially after this arrangement ended c. 1818, Widecombe would have sought ways of returning those to Lydford whose place of legal settlement was Lydford and of course that would have applied to John if he was apprenticed there.
His misfortune must have been that he applied to the Overseers for some form of poor relief at that time (probably because of his broken leg) and they took advantage of his past apprenticeship to try to get him removed).
William Leaman. Page 82.
William was one of John's brothers. He did an apprenticeship that ended in 1809. He became an agricultural labourer and returned to the Newhouse Inn with his wife and worked on land over the Foales Arrishes area close to the Inn. He aquired more newtakes and is recorded as being a Yeoman later in life.