Ann Caesar married William Linfield at St. Nicholas’ Church, Brighton on 30th September 1850. She was the only daughter of Benjamin and Anne Caesar of Godalming and had been born on the 9th November 1822. The Caesar family were well known and respected in the district. Ann had six brothers, the youngest of whom was Julius, the well-known cricketer who played for Surrey and England, being in the first teams to visit America and Australia. Continue reading Ann Caesar – the wife of William Linfield (1822-92)
Category Archives: Lin(d)field History
Henry Gordon Linfield (1889-1975)
My father and his brothers and sisters were reared on very strict ‘Wesleyan’ principles. Sundays were sacrosanct – chapel morning and evening, and Sunday school in the afternoons – and no food must be cooked, so all meals were cold (though I gather it was considered acceptable to have hot boiled potatoes with lunch, provided they were peeled the night before and left to cook slowly on the kitchen range before leaving). Card games, in fact all games, were banned and only special ‘Sunday’ (i.e. very religious) books were allowed. Continue reading Henry Gordon Linfield (1889-1975)
Don’t forget the ecclesiastical courts
I have mentioned in previous articles how certain records, such as probate documents, can provide a unique insight into the everyday lives of our ancestors. We are therefore very fortunate as family researchers when we come across this type of record; in effect, they can bring people to life who may have died centuries before. Another very useful source of information which can bring people intimately alive are the records of the ecclesiastical courts. These are the courts of bishops and archdeacons administering church law, and their records survive from the 15th century. Typically they deal with such matters as heresy, non-attendance at church, behaviour at church and in the churchyard, betrothals, wills, allegations of slander, immorality, tithes, the maintenance of church property and so on. Penalties could include excommunication but more usually they involved a remorseful declaration of guilt before the church congregation. Since a large proportion of the cases concern fornication and adultery, not surprisingly the term “Bawdy Court” was commonly used to describe these courts. Needless to say, the records provide an interesting – and often very amusing- insight into everyday parish life which is quite unique. Although the proceedings are recorded in Latin, the Attestations (Depositions)- of most interest to the family historian – are in English; and the witnesses are identified by name, condition, occupation, age, and length of abode in the parish concerned. Continue reading Don’t forget the ecclesiastical courts
Serendipity – The Corporal of Abu Klea
While most material uncovered by family historians is the result of painstaking research, once in a while the odd gem comes to light purely fortuitously. This happened to me a few months ago when I was in the Public Record Office examining Lin(d)field military records. I was idly browsing among the military reference books while awaiting the arrival of some documents when I spotted a small thin volume entitled The Abu Klea Medal Roll. This immediately caught my interest, because although territorial recruitment was still in its infancy in 1885 (the year of the battle), I knew that a significant proportion of the British force involved in it was made up of the Royal Sussex Regiment, and it was therefore just possible that a Lin(d)field could appear on the roll. I was therefore highly gratified (and excited) to be rewarded with the mention of a Corporal H J Lindfield, not as it turned out a member of the Royal Sussex but of the Medical Service Corps, (a forerunner of the RAMC), so presumably a medical orderly. Why my excitement? Most people today have never heard of this battle and its significance has been long forgotten, so some explanation is necessary. Continue reading Serendipity – The Corporal of Abu Klea
An Inn Spectre Calls
It was a busy night in the Chequer Inn in the centre of Steyning, with winter around one corner and karaoke around the other. My wife and I were seated at the far end of the Saloon Bar, next to an out-of-tune piano and as far as possible from the strains of ‘Suspicious Minds’ being belted out in the Public Bar with scarce a thought for melody or accuracy. Continue reading An Inn Spectre Calls
The Monks Gate Murder
by Kairen Bright, Malcolm Linfield & Alan Lindfield
One of the questions frequently asked of family historians, is whether they have found any murderers in the family. Quite why we have this morbid fascination with murder is a mystery, but the fact remains that most families have at least murderer lurking somewhere in the genealogical cupboard, and the Lin(d)field families are no exception. There are in fact several instances of murder in our records, in which either the perpetrator or the victim is a Lin(d)field. Elsewhere in this issue, NICK LINFIELD tells the story of WILLIAM DE LINDFIELD, who was walled up alive in Bramber Castle. Definitely a case of malice aforethought! Continue reading The Monks Gate Murder
The Storrington Linfields & their poor relations of Sullington and Washington: part 2
My first instalment of this family history of my branch of the Linfield tree (Longshot, Vol 2 No 2) needs some clarification, as some confusion may occur if one fails to realise that PETER LINFIELD’S (1734-91) two sons, WILLIAM (1769-1835) and EDWARD (1774-1861), both had two sons named WILLIAM and HENRY. They can be seen on the Register format listing in the article on the Monk’s Gate murder elsewhere in this issue. Peter’s eldest son, William, married HARRIET STANFORD and formed the trunk of H. STANFORD SMITH’S researches in the 1950s. Both WILLIAM, and his brother, EDWARD, my great great great grandfather, were both described as butchers in various documents, but it is obvious that the major Linfield farming interests in Storrington were the inheritance of his sons, William and Henry and not his nephews, William and Henry, my direct ancestors. We can only fill in the story of the fifty years from Peter’s death in 1791 to 1841 by some future research into the archives of the Egremont/Wyndham family of Petworth House, especially any details of land ownership and farm tenancies (See Joan Ham: Storrington in Georgian and Victorian Times, 1991 and Lord Egremont: Wyndham and Children First, Macmillan, 1968.) Continue reading The Storrington Linfields & their poor relations of Sullington and Washington: part 2
William Penn and the Quaker Linfields of Sussex
Introduction
Earlier this year, on October 14, we celebrated the 350th anniversary of the birth of WILLIAM PENN (1644-1718), undoubtedly the most famous of the early Quakers. Among his many achievements was the foundation of his utopian colony in America where people were allowed to worship without fear of persecution. Yet he also spent a large part of his life in Sussex, where he lived in a mansion house at Warminghurst near the village of Thakeham. Until the establishment of proper Quaker Meeting Houses, Friends would assemble at other members’ homes, and after their arrival at Warminghurst in 1676, the Penn household was also made available for this purpose. Warminghurst came into the area of the Horsham Monthly Meeting, and when Penn left England in 1682 for his first visit to America, he took with him many Quakers from the local area. In 1691 he helped to buy a property at Coolham, some four miles away, where the Thakeham Meeting House was established. Subsequently known as the ‘Blue Idol’, this famous building is still used to this day as a place of Quaker worship. It receives many visitors, often from the United States, who, among other things, come to savour the atmosphere so redolent of Penn’s era. Continue reading William Penn and the Quaker Linfields of Sussex