Jack and Alexander are related to the Fletcher family via their maternal grandfather Malcolm Hudson, b 1934, and his maternal grandmother Tamar Fletcher, b 1860.
Tamar's grandfather was John Fletcher, b Cropton.Levisham 1777/78. He married Adah Berryman b 1776 on April 18, 1806, probably at Middleton Parish Church. They are known to have had six children: :: John bapt Cropton Dec 27, 1808 (probably an infant death). :: George 1811 to 1886. :: Tamar bapt Cropton, April 16, 1813. :: John bapt Cropton, Nov 5, 1815 :: Maria bapt Cropton, July 5, 1818 :: William bapt Cropton, July 22, 1821.
John Fletcher senior was a tailor, and the was followed in the trade by his son George.
Adah and George can be found in the 1841 census. Adah is said to be age 60 (1781) but we know that she was born in 1776/77; it would appear that the enumerator has rounded all adult ages to the nearest ten or five! No-one else with them, so possibly John senior has died by this time.
Amazingly, we have photographs of John Snr and Adah, which have passed down the family. See Hoggarth pictures, right.
John and Adah's son, William, was born July 22, 1821, and he went into farming, moving around the area. He apparently left the Cropton area to move a few miles to Marton, where farmland is far more productive, working on the the farm of John Wildsmith..
On Valentine's Day 1852, he married Elizabeth Jackson, the daughter of George Jackson, the Marton shoemaker (cordwainer), at All Saints, Sinnington.
In 1861, William and Elizabeth are living East End of the Village, Sinnington, Pickering: William 40 Ag lab Elizabeth 31 Adah 8 Jane 7 George 5 Tamar 6mo
The family continued moving around farms in the district, living at Coneysthorpe (the estate village of Castle Howard, made famous by the TV programme Brideshead Revisited), and then to Salton.
In 1871, the family are Broats Farm, Salton: William, 50, Head, Manager of a Farm of 40 acres , b Cropton Elizabeth Wife, 41, b Marton Tamar, Daur, 9, Scholar, b Marton Maria A., Daur, 8, b Coneysthorpe William, Son, 5 b Coneysthorpe Rachel H., Daur, 3, b Salton.
William and Elizabeth had ten children in all.
Tamar Fletcher Jnr went into service at the age of 11, and in 1881, she was a live-in domestic servant for John Corner, a farmer in Appleton-le-Street. In January 1883, at the age of 22, she gave birth to an illegitamate son, Herbert, who was born at her parents' cottage in Normanby. Bryan Hoggarth (see link, left) has a theory that, in the Moors, illegitimacy did not have the stigma that it did elsewhere: it showed that a woman was fertile before she married; this may well be the case, looking at the number of illegitimate first children. Herbert's son Thomas, the father of Glynne Fletcher (link on left), later emigrated to Australia,.
Shortly after Herbert's birth, Tamar's parents, William and Elizabeth emigrated to Canada with their younger children. Tamar did not go with them: this may have been because she had an extra mouth to feed, but the story has been passed down in the family that she thought it was a punishment; she told how she ran several field with Herbert in her arms, and tears streaming down her face, following her parents' cab to the railway station. She never saw her family again. (WB: this gives us links to the Fletcher, Bradburn and Crawford families of Tilsonburg; if you are related, please get in touch!).
In April, 1884, Tamar married Danvers Hoggarth aat the Primitive Methodist Chapel, Cleveland Terrace, Whitby, and they set up home in Great Barugh. They lived their for the rest of their lives, bringing up nine children. See the Danvers and Tamar page. Note the link, right, to listen to Tamar talking about country life.
