Person:Elizabeth Little (21)

Elizabeth Little’s origins have yet to be established. The age given when she died suggests that she was born around 1748. Elizabeth’s first confirmed sighting is on 24th August 1771, when she married Thomas Tuff, a gardener and seedsman. They married at Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire, where they settled after their marriage, having thirteen children baptised there between 1772 and 1791. Three of their children died as infants, and another died aged twelve in 1786.

Elizabeth’s eldest daughter married in 1790, and Elizabeth’s first grandchild was born later that year. Elizabeth lived to see at least sixty grandchildren born in her lifetime, although some of them died young.

Elizabeth’s son Thomas died in 1825, aged 49, leaving a widow and several children, the youngest of whom was just a baby.

Elizabeth died in 1828, being buried at Wootton Bassett on 8th April 1828. She was said to be 79 years old. She and Thomas had been married for 56 years. Thomas survived her by three years. He wrote his will the year after Elizabeth’s death, at which time he owned two houses on Buthay, a street near the parish church in Wootton Bassett. Thomas had inherited a house on Buthay after his mother’s death in 1786, so it seems likely that Elizabeth and Thomas had probably lived on Buthay themselves during their marriage.

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Burials register, in Church of England. Wootton Bassett Parish Registers, 1584-1938. (Chippenham: Wiltshire Record Office).

   BURIALS in the Parish of Wootton Bassett in the County of Wilts in the Year 1828
   No	Name	Abode	When buried	Age	By whom the Ceremony was performed
   488	Elizabeth Tuff	Wootton Bassett	April 8th	79 [1748/9]	T.H. Ripley Vicar