Person:George Males (3)

George Males was born around 1750, the son of Mary Males, formerly Dearman, and her husband John Males, a yeoman farmer. No baptism has been found for George. His elder and younger siblings were all baptised at Cottered in Hertfordshire, which may therefore be where he was born too.

Some time between 1757 (when George's youngest brother was baptised) and 1762 (when George's eldest sister married) the family appears to have left Cottered and moved about nine miles south-west to Codicote. They lived at Codicote until the mid 1770s, then moved back to the Cottered area, where George's father took a lease on Shaw Green Farm in the neighbouring parish of Rushden in 1774.

George was married at Cottered on 26th October 1775 to Mary Hadey. They went on to have a son called James baptised at Cottered in 1777, then twins called John and George in 1778. Mary died shortly after giving birth to the twins, aged 22. The twins were baptised on 5th December 1778 and Mary was buried seven days later. One of the twins, John, died later that month too.

After Mary's death George moved back to Codicote. He married a widow called Mary Childs there on 15th January 1780, but the marriage was to be a short one; Mary died less than three months later.

By 1782 George had moved to the village of Pirton, about eleven miles north of Codicote. George's sister Abigail had moved there with her husband a few years earlier. George married for a third time on 20th May 1782 at Pirton, to a widow called Mary Dawson.

George and Mary went on to have three children baptised at Pirton between 1783 and 1788. Militia lists from the 1780s describe George as a farmer of Pirton.

Back in Rushden, George's father died in 1793.

George's wife Mary died in 1806, being buried at Pirton on 21st October 1806.

The following year, George's mother died over in Rushden. George was named as one of the beneficiaries of her will.

George lived to be well into his eighties, if not early nineties. He was buried at Pirton on 30th December 1840.

1.   Deaths index, in General Register Office. England and Wales Civil Registration. (London: General Register Office).

   d. George MALES, December Quarter 1840, Hitchin Registration District, Volume 6, page 391, aged 87 [1752/3]

2. ↑ England. National Burial Index.

   bur. 30 Dec 1840, Pirton, Hertfordshire: George Males, 88 [1751/2]

   Needs to be confirmed at Hertfordshire Archives.

3.   Militia Lists transcript Pirton Local History Group.

   Militia Lists
   1782: George Males, farmer of Pirton
   1784: George Males, farmer of Pirton
   1785: George Males, farmer of Pirton

4. ↑ No baptism record has been found for George, but he is named in his mother's will. The ages quoted when he died suggest he was born around the early 1750s, whilst there is a gap in the baptisms of his known siblings between 1748 and 1752.