Person:William Winters (9)

William Winters was baptised on 24th May 1767 at Nettleden in Hertfordshire, which at the time was technically a chapelry of the parish of Pitstone in Buckinghamshire but was administered for some purposes with neighbouring Great Gaddesden. William was the the son of a couple named John and Ann Winters.

When he was 22 years old, William went to work for a man named John Smith of Tipple Hill in the parish of Caddington, a few miles north-east of Great Gaddesden. He started work there on Michaelmas Day (29th September) 1789 and worked there for over a year. Just over a year after moving to Caddington, William was married to an Elizabeth Emley on 11th October 1790 at Caddington.

William had clearly not lost his connections to Nettleden; the couple had their first child, Harriet, baptised there on 23rd January 1791 (less than four months after their marriage). They then returned to Caddington, having another four children baptised at Caddington between 1793 and 1801.

Elizabeth died two years after the baptism of their fifth child, being buried at Caddington on 30th November 1803. William was left with the couple's five children to look after, who were aged between two and twelve when their mother died.

Both William's daughters married in 1808 and he became a grandfather the following year.

Nearly seven years after Elizabeth's death, William remarried. His second wife was a widow named Elizabeth How of Hemel Hempstead, and they married at Great Gaddesden on 17th September 1810, when William was 43 years old. They had three children: George at Great Gaddesden in 1810, David at Caddington in 1813 and Sarah at Great Gaddesden in 1815. William's daughter Harriet died in 1815 aged 24.

In 1816, William was living in Great Gaddesden with his second wife and their three children, along with William's youngest child from his first marriage. For reasons that are not recorded, the family needed to seek poor relief from the parish. They turned to the parish authorities at Great Gaddesden, but the authorities there clearly did not think they were responsible for the family. Under the settlement rules of the time, everyone had a legal parish of settlement which was responsible to pay poor relief to people in need belonging to that parish. One of the ways in which you could change your legal place of settlement was to work continuously for over a year in a parish. Great Gaddesden's authorities clearly suspected that William's legal place of settlement was not Great Gaddesden. The local magistrates were called to examine William under oath about his employment history. He recounted that the last place he had worked an unbroken year in the same parish was 27 years earlier, when he had gone to work for John Smith at Tipple Hill in Caddington.

Accordingly, the magistrates granted the Great Gaddesden authorities a removal order, allowing them to remove William, Elizabeth and children Joseph, George, David and Sarah from Great Gaddesden and present them to authorities at Caddington.

Having been removed to Caddington, it appears that William remained there for most of the rest of his life. He lived to see great grandchildren; his daughter Martha's son James had a son William in 1837, who appears to have been William's first great grandchild. William's daughter Martha died in 1840 and her son James was accidentally killed in 1841, so for a time William had a great grandson but the two intervening generations had both died.

Towards the end of his life, William lived in the Luton Union Workhouse (after a change in the law in 1834 Caddington no longer looked after its own paupers, but formed a Poor Law Union with the town of Luton and several other nearby parishes). William appears in the 1841 census in the workhouse, described as a pauper and agricultural labourer.

William died in 1842, at the age of 75. He quite likely died in Luton, probably in the workhouse, but was buried back at Caddington on 11th September 1842.

1. ↑ Church of England. Great Gaddesden Parish Registers. (Hertford: Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies).

   May 24th 1767
   Baptized at Nettleden William Son of John and Ann Winter

   Nettleden's baptisms, marriage and burials were entered in the Great Gaddesden registers at this time. Whilst no named connection has been found, this baptism has been linked to the William Winters who married Elizabeth Emley and later Elizabeth How on the basis that it is at about the right time to correspond with the age quoted at William's burial, and in an area where the adult William lived at different points; whilst he lived most of his adult life at Caddington, his first child from his first marriage was baptised at Great Gaddesden, his second marriage and two of his children from that marriage's baptisms were at Great Gaddesden and he was removed under the poor laws from Great Gaddesden back to Caddington in 1816. No evidence has been found suggesting that the William Winters baptised in 1767 died young or married anyone else.

2. ↑ England. 1841 Census Schedules for England and Wales, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. (
   Kew, Richmond, Greater London TW9 4DU, United Kingdom:
   The National Archives (abbreviated TNA), formerly the UK General Register Office.)
   Class HO107; Piece 4; Book 25; Folio 5; Page 7, 6 Jun 1841.

   Address: Union Workhouse, Luton, Bedfordshire
   William Winters, male, 75 [1761-6], P[auper] & Ag labourer, not born in county

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

   d. William WINTERS, September Quarter 1842, Luton Registration District, Vol. 6 page 67

4. ↑ Burials register, in Church of England. Caddington Parish Registers. (Bedford: Bedfordshire Record Office).

   BURIALS in the Parish of Caddington in the County of Bedford in the Year 1842
   No.	Name	Abode	When buried	Age	By whom the Ceremony was performed
   935	William Winters	Luton	Sept[embe]r 11	78 [1764/5]	W. Mellard, Vicar

5. ↑ Removals, in Church of England. Great Gaddesden Parish Registers. (Hertford: Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies)
   D/P39/13/2, 12 Nov 1816.

   To the Church-wardens and Overseers of the Poor of the Parish of Great Gaddesden in the County of Hertford and to the Church-wardens and Overseers of the Poor of the Parish of Caddington in the County of Hertford.
   
   Hertfordshire to wit} Whereas Complaint hath been made unto Us, whose Names are hereunto set, and Seals affixed, being Two of His Majesty's Justices of the peace in and for the County of Hertford aforesaid (One whereof being of the Quorum) by the Church-wardens and Overseers of the Poor of the said Parish of Great Gaddesden That William Winter and Elizabeth his Wife and their four Children namely Joseph aged 16 years George aged 6 years David aged 2 years and Sarah aged one year or thereabout have come to inhabit the said Parish of Great Gaddesden not having gained a legal Settlement there, nor produced any Certificate owning themselves to be settled elsewhere, and that the said William Winter and Elizabeth his Wife and their four Children are actually become chargeable to the same: We the said Justices, upon due Proof made thereof, as well as upon the Examination of the said William Winter upon Oath, as othre Circumstances, do adjudge the same to be true, and do also adjudge the Place of the legal Settlement of the said William Winter Elizabeth his Wife and their four Children to be the Parish of Caddington in the County of Hertford.
   
   These are, therefore, in His Majesty's Name to require you the said Church-wardens and Overseers of the Poor of the said Parish of Great Gaddesden on Sight hereof, to remove and convey the said William Winter Elizabeth his wife and their four Children namely Joseph George David and Sarah from and out of your said Parish of Great Gaddesden to the said Parish of Caddington and them deliver unto the Church-wardens and Overseers of the Poor there, or to some or one of them, together with this our Order, or a true Copy hereof, who are hereby required to receive and provide for them according to Law.
   
   Given under our Hands and Seals, the twelfth Day of November in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and sixteen.
   W. Bingham
   J. Halsey
   
   Hertfordshire to wit} THE Examination of William Winter of the Parish of Great Gaddesden in the County of Hertford taken and made before us two of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the said County, this 12th Day of November in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and sixteen who saith, That about 27 years ago last Michaelmas about a fortnight before Michaelmas he let himself to John Smith of Tipple Hill in the Parish of Caddington in the County of Hertford as a Servant in His [laundry?] that he entered on his said service on Michaelmas day and continued in his said service till the Michaelmas Day following and received a full years wages that he hath done no subsequent act to gain a settlement elsewhere and believes the Parish of Caddington to be the place of his legal Settlement that he is Married to Elizabeth his present wife; that he hath by a former Wife one Child namely Joseph aged 16 years or thereabouts and by his present wife three Children, namely George aged 6 years David aged 2 years & Sarah aged one years or thereabout Sworn before us
   W. Bingham
   J. Halsey
   
   The Mark of X William Winter