George Harrison - Emma Hawkins - Jane Fox - Richard Fox & Hannah Maria Aston - John Aston & Elizabeth Smith - Richard Aston & Mary Dobbs - Joseph Dobbs & Mary - Richard Dobbs & Grace Godwin
My Welsh grandfather George Harrisons grandparents Jane Fox and John Hawkins had come to Wales from the Forest of Dean and I have been looking to see what I can discover of the lives of their ancestors there. The people of John Hawkins's and his married life with Jane Fox I have already looked at in some detail in a former blog. And I now look to the ancestors of Jane, who was of the Foxes, a surname associated with the red hair her people would have historically had. Jane's mother, Hannah Maria, was descended from Astons and Dobbs, and more besides, all families which had for generations lived in the Forest of Dean.
Underlined place names associated with my Forest of Dean ancestors
How to unravel the lives of these ancestors and to bring their stories to life? For one thing, I note that in the 1851 census for Coulway, when there were Foxes, Astons and Dobbs all living next to one another, old John Aston was marked as being blind, and it is upon researching in the newspapers that I have found out why. All relates back to an accident in 1830, when John and a mining colleague were both blasted by gunpowder. Both were marred with blindness by the incident.
The story of how John Aston became blind, as written of in the Cheltenham Chronicle in the summer of 1830
It was on the 17th July, on a Saturday, that John Aston and Thomas Phipps, were about to blast part of a rock near Coleford. It was Thomas himself how put our John at risk, for he was the one to hold 3lbs of gunpowder in a bag, while smoking a pipe, a spark from which fell upon the powder; which then exploded, throwing the two men to a distance of several yards. They were both badly injured and were now blind.
John Aston and his wife Elizabeth are seen here in the 1851 Coulway census, elderly and on parish relief, now being in their 70's, note being made in the margin that John is blind. They had lodgers sharing their home with them from Ireland, Wales and Herefordshire, and right next door was the family of John and Elizabeths married daughter, Hannah Maria Fox, to help keep an eye on them, with granddaughter Jane Fox being at that time nine years old. In the cottage on the other side were some cousins from the Dobbs family.
1851 Census Coulway, Newland, Forest of Dean
Foxes, Astons and Dobbs living next to one another on Coulway in 1851
Richard Fox age 37, farm labourer, born West dean, and Maria, his wife (Hannah Maria née Aston), age 28, born Coleford Children: Jane (who would when older marry John Hawkins), 9, Elizabeth, 6, George, 4, and Maria, 11 months, all born Coleford Hannah Maria's parents next door: John Aston, age 70, parish relief, born West Dean, blind, and his wife, Elizabeth (née Smith), age 74, born West Dean; Lodgers; William Caise, age 49, labourer, born Whitchurch, Herefordshire; John Hughes, age 48, hawker, born Flint, Wales, and his wife Ann Hughs, age 41, born Dublin, Ireland
Coulway, alias Coalway, where these families lived, was the name of an ancient trackway, the settlement thereabouts being a mile from the town of Coleford. Although mining had been the earlier profession of Richard Fox, he now preferred the rustic work of a farm labourer. Back in 1838, before his marriage to Hannah Maria Aston, Richard was listed as a freeminer of the Forest, aged 24 and living at Lane End, Coleford. Freemining was an ancient right for all those born within the Forest, by which any man over the age of 21, who had already worked underground for a year and a day, could open up a 'gale' and dig for either coal, iron or stone.
In 1841, when Hannah Maria Aston had still been a girl, she was living at home with her family on Lord Hill, at the Lane End of Coalway. The family, as always, had lodgers, two being from Ireland. John Aston gave his occupation as a squarrer and I've yet to find out what this was, but it may be related to the quarries. John and Elizabeth's grown up son, Henry Aston, lived just next door with his wife and children. These families liked to keep close connections with one another. Even when relocating to Wales they would often return for family reunions.
1841 census Lord Hill, Coleford Tithing, Newland
John and Elizabeth Aston in 1841
John Aston, Hannah Maria's father, was also one of the forests famed freeminers, so I don't know if the term 'squarrer' was in some way related to this. He was registered as a freeminer (three years before the first census) on 10th October 1838, at the age of 57, his address at the time being Coalway Lane.
It was in between the census years, in 1846, that the potato crop for the foresters failed, as it was likewise so in Ireland and up north in Scotland, and throughout Europe even. The foresters survived such times due to there being plenty of chestnuts, crab apples and blackberries to live on. Such seasonal gathering of foods from the wild is an old family habit my own family still had and which I am still inclined to today, to collect foods from the wild, such as chestnuts, for roasting in the fireplace and blackberries for bramble jelly. Even as a child I remember collecting winberries in the Welsh hills.
Back in 1814 there had been a plague of mice in the Forest, for which efforts were made to destroy them, varying from cats, to traps and poisons, but nothing seem to work, until one of the miners, named Simmons, pointed out that when the locals sank wells and pits the mice would fall in and unable to get back out again would die. It was for this insight that many holes were dug, each one about two feet deep, and indeed the mice fell into them in great numbers. Simmons and various other men were paid for the amount of 'tails' they brought back from the pits, amounting in all to 100,000 perished mice. John and his wife Elizabeth Aston would have been in their 40's during the time of the plague of mice, and in their 60's when the potato crops failed.
Throughout much of history the Forest people were considered to be uncivilised, wild and robust. Indeed they were a feisty lot, unconcerned with the dictates of outsiders. They often resorted to riots, in which even women and children would get involved. One of the riots, which took place in 1795 when John Aston and Elizabeth Smith were teenagers, was ever remembered among the people and was known as the Bread Riots. The foresters had always been reliant on the farmers living around the forest for the flour by which to make their bread, which was a long honourable exchange, fuel from the forest for corn from the pastures. All changed in this regard when Britain, as a nation, engaged in a war against revolutionary France, and it was ordered by the government that the corn be redirected into feeding the army and navy. Inevitably there would be consequences to this. The foresters, in need of their daily bread, took to raiding the passing carts of corn, forcefully taking the food to be divided among their own people. The authorities had to resort to the calvary to stop the mobs from continuing this sabotage. The ringleader in the raidings was said to be a highway gangster, deer stealing rogue named William Stallard, who escaped retribution for five more years, ultimately being caught for horse stealing, for which he was sent to the gallows. The rioters not only raided carts, but also boats of corn in transit on the river Severn, and it was never just the men doing this, but also many of the women and children. Again the Calvary was sent in and the ringleaders caught and executed. It was thereafter recognised that indeed the forest people were in a state of famine and something needed to be done to help them, for which the Crown requiesced and distributed £1,000 worth of grain to the poor distressed locals.
John Aston lived for the last part of his life, in his late 70's, and seemingly by then a widower, at the Lonk, also known as Joyford Hill, deeper into the Forest. This was where his married daughter Hannah Maria had moved to. Likely he himself went there to not be alone and to be looked after by his loved ones. Therefore it was at the Lonk that he died, in 1859, aged 80. He was buried at Christ Church, near Berry Hill. Two years later, in the 1861 census, one can see his daughters family, the Foxes, living at the Lonk, and one can deduce from the recorded birth location of their 14 year old son, George Fox, (this not having been mentioned in the former census), that the family had been in Wales for a while at the mining town of Blaenavon. Next door in the Lonk there lived another of my ancestors, a widower, John Hawkins, with his two young daughters and his mother in law. It is this neighbour, John, who regardless of his older age charmed Richard and Hannah Maria's teenage daughter Jane Fox, soon enough marrying her and they making a new life together in Wales.
1861 The Lonk, West Dean
Richard and Hannah Maria Fox living with their children at the Lonk in 1861. Around 14 years previously, they had briefly gone to live in Wales, as one can see from the birth in Blaenavon of their son George. Next door is a widower Hawkins with his daughters and mother in law Sarah Price. It is this John Hawkins, aged 39, who would charm and end up marrying Jane Fox, the teenage girl next door.
Over the next page one can see the Fox family baby John, aged 6 months and a lodger from Herefordshire, William Dew
Returning to Hannah Maria's parents, her father, John Aston, had married his beloved, Elizabeth Smith, in Newland, on the 3rd July 1803. Sussing out ancestral Smiths, with this being such a common name, is not always easy, but luckily I found Elizabeth's family, long in Newland, there having been three generations of Henry Smith's, with their wives Jane Evans, Susannah, and Anna.
The Forest had always been abundant with iron works, for which Elizabeth Smith's ancestors, as indicated by their surname, would most likely have been descended from local metal working communities, this being an ancient art of the Forest and a skill handed down from generation to generation through families. These people, living in the wilds, made their iron from 'ore and cinder', dug out from the earth, and it was since time immemorial their protected right and privilege to do so. One of the types of ore they used was bluish with shiny silver specks, there being much of this about, although the iron it made was somewhat brittle. The other ore they used, called 'cinders', were the remains of discarded much more ancient smithy workings, and this was tougher and better than any other iron known of anywhere else in the world. Many coins and fibula brooches (used to fasten ones cloaks) have for years been dug up and metal detected in the vicinity as well as a brass dancing goddess-like figurine, of but four inches in size, found in one of the old cinder piles. The oldest fibula brooch find in Britain comes from a ditch near to Cirencester decorated with a face, snake and spiral designs.
As for the Aston surname, this referenced peoples who lived at rocks and in groves of ash trees. The furthest back I have got back with my Aston ancestors so far is to John Aston of Whitecliff, of whom I few details, but that he had a daughter Ann and three sons, John, Benjamin and Philip. Whitecliff was indeed, as it name suggests, a small settlement by a rock face. It was John's son Benjamin who was my ancestor, born in Whitecliff in 1563. Of Benjamin I know that he tragically died of the plague in Newland in 1613.
The Dobbs surname was associated with painting or 'daubing', and that has rock and cave association too, from as far back as ancient cave art made from natural ochres. The Forest of Dean had many springs of an umber and reddish colour, which flowed through caverns of ochre. The ochre, for its great abundance, was also a renowned product of the Forest, for which it could have been so, that the Dobb families were involved in gathering the red and yellow ochres, which would be used in art and architecture, as a coloured wash upon buildings and in the marking of sheep.
The waters of the Forest were sacred even, there being still an ancient healing well in there called St Anthonys Well. This was especially favourable to bathe in at the time of the sunrise, and during the month of May, and was a place to visit nine times altogether for best effect.
As far back as the 1300's the Forest people had the repute of being a brave race, skilful with bow and arrows in the hunt, and able sappers and miners in their daily work. For their strength they were sometimes useful to former Kings in military operations. As said before though, they were feisty, and would raid boats on the Severn. Even in 1808 they were said to be 'not very orderly'. In 1810 it was said of them that their condition was nearly as wretched as anything now existing in Ireland and as 'exceedingly excitable'. The people were holden unto bizarre superstitions, resorting to wise men, charms and incantations, believing in the evil eye and also in witchcraft. For so many generations they had been isolated that they were unaware of the goings-on of the rest of the world. They greatly cared for those among them who became sick or were injured, though did not extend such kindness to those considered to be strangers and outsiders. Traditionally, for hundreds of years, they drank cider, their clothes were made from home spun wool, woven and knitted, and their cottages were turf roofed and very basic, with low doors, and a fireplace and chimney one end of the cottage. Or even they would lived in caves and ancient mines with rock walls leaning up against them for shelter. They are said to have loved football and dancing, having their own 'dancing greens', They remained a wild people, up until the establishment of churches and schools within the Forest, with the aid of poor relief to those in need and rules to regulate the miners, all of which was reckoned to have at last civilised them.
In February of 1662 there was a 'dreadful storm of wind', for which numerous oaks and beeches were blown over, and the roads were impassable until the blown down trees were cut away.
It was in 1638 that the enclosures had begun, in the most wooded parts of the Forest, leaving an equal part for the locals to pasture, getting rid of the deer and ejecting forest dwellers, upwards of 2,000 from their cottages, just as had happened countless times before anyway, such people being labelled as illegal squatters. Such an interest in the wood of the Forest, for which people were often to be ejected, was essentially for timber supply to the royal navy for shipbuilding, but there were other projects as well, such as the building of a gaol on the site of the old Gloucester castle, as well as a house of correction within the Forest itself, which required 1,690 trees. To be ejected for such reasons would not have pleased the people or accorded them any rights, being a people referred to as poor squatters living freely with their animals roaming around. They were considered a menace as they would cut wood for their fuel, to build their huts, to make fencing for their gardens and for the miners to create their mines. Every time outsiders came to pull down the peoples properties and fencing the locals would react with threats and insults to those doing the authorities dirty work, putting them in fear for their lives, so that they wished not to continue.