Susan Budgen (1795-1870) and George Tulley (1787-1837).
My 4th great-grand aunt and uncle.
Susan Budgen was baptised on 19 April 1795 in St Nicholas’s Church in Worth to parents William Budgen and Betty Streeter and grew up in the village.
She married George Tulley on 16 October 1820 at St Andrew’s, Nuthurst, Sussex, about 11 miles from her home. He hailed from Slaugham, a village between Nuthurst and Worth, and was born in around 1787 to parents John and Mary Tulley. He was baptised at St Mary’s in Slaugham, said to be aged about five, on 7 December 1792.
George was described as a farmer on the first two baptism records for his children but from the 1827 baptism of his third child he was listed as a victualler or publican.
The Sussex Advertiser of 13 May 1833 mentioned the sale by auction of several pieces of land in Slaugham that were occupied by a George Tulley. It’s possible this was our man but there were others by the name in the area. The sale was on behalf of the executors of a John Tulley of Bath, who must’ve been a relative. George was occupying a messuage or tenement, large garden and three fields of excellent meadow land totalling five acres called Polestub or Pollards, yielding an annual rent of £12 9s. He was also occupier of a barn, stable, yard, cow hovel, cart shed, other outbuildings and about 10 acres of good arable land, all called Parcel of Herrings. The annual rent was £19.
Whether this was our George or not, he died aged just 47 in 1837. He was buried in Slaugham on 20 January. Susan took on the pub licence and was listed as a publican in her own right in the 1841 Census, and although the pub itself was not named it was the Half Moon in Warninglid (a settlement within the Slaugham parish).
Documents from 1843 relating to the commutation of traditional tithes, and their replacement with a levy, showed Susan occupying about seven fields in Slaugham as well as the pub and its gardens. The fields, with such names as Great Blackmans and Cricketting Field, were given over to pasture, meadow and arable. All the property and the pub, on which she had to pay £2 13s 1d to the rector, were owned by John Stoveld Esq.
The 1851 Census and Kelly’s Directory for Sussex of that year showed Susan at the Half Moon.
The Sussex Advertiser of 11 March 1856 reported on the meeting of the Cuckfield Petty Sessions at which the transfer of the pub licence was made from Susan to her son George Jnr.
By the 1861 census Susan was living with her agricultural labourer son Joseph in Slaugham. Susan was buried in the village on 14 November 1870, said to be aged 78 and from Horsham. Her son Joseph had, by this time, moved to a hamlet near to Horsham with his family and was working as a cowman so it’s likely that she had moved there with him. The hamlet was Crab Tree, close to the village of Lower Beeding.
Susan and George Snr’s children were:
- Harriet Tulley (1821-1909) was baptised in Slaugham on 25 March 1821 and married agricultural labourer Charles Gander at St Mary’s in Bolney, Sussex, on 19 October 1840. Subsequent census returns showed them and their family in Bolney, Lower Beeding and Horsham. But by 1871 they were at a farm in Slinfold, Sussex, and Charles was listed as a farmer of 185 acres. He died in the village on 6 November 1891, leaving effects valued at more than £2,500, and Harriet went to live in Billingshurst, Sussex, as a widow. She died on 1 April 1909 and was buried back in Slinfold on the 6th.
- William Tulley (1822-1846) was baptised in Slaugham on 15 September 1822 and was buried there on 11 May 1846. There’s no evidence that he married.
- Francis Tulley (1827-1881) was baptised in Slaugham on 4 February 1827. He married Fanny Pellett of Ditchling, Sussex, at St Nicholas’s in Brighton, Sussex, on 4 October 1849, at which point he was described as a servant. By the 1851 Census he was the collector of road tolls at Cuckfield, Sussex, and the couple had started a family. Ten years later they were still in the village but he was working as an agricultural labourer. They then returned to Slaugham, where he was listed in 1871 as a stonemason and in 1881 as a hawker. He died on 7 September 1881. Fanny died in 1891 and was buried in Staplefield on 24 January that year.
- George Tulley (1829-1901) was baptised in Slaugham on 5 July 1829 and had a number of occupations over the years. He became a publican when he took over the licence of the Half Moon in Warninglid from his mother in 1856 – the same year he married Philadelphia Baines. The couple had children. By 1871 George was a dairyman and living in West Ham, Essex. Ten years later he was a gardener in Leatherhead, Surrey. In 1891 the couple were back in West Ham, George listed as a milkman. Philadelphia died in 1896 and was buried in West Ham on 3 November. George’s death was registered in West Ham, Essex, in 1901.
- Joseph Tulley (1831-1892) was baptised in Slaugham on 10 July 1831. He married Margaret Gasson in St Mark’s, Staplefield, Sussex, on 30 April 1861. The couple settled in Lower Beeding, Sussex. They had a family and Joseph worked as an agricultural labourer. They both died in 1892 and were buried in Lower Beeding – Margaret was buried on 31 March that year and Joseph died on 13 December and was buried on the 16th.
- Charles Tulley (1833-1870) was baptised on 3 March 1833 in Slaugham. He was a carpenter at the 1851 Census, then worked as a wheelwright and for a time was employed by and boarded with a wheelwright in Charlwood, Surrey (1861 Census). He died in Horsham, Sussex, on 23 March 1870. He was buried on Slaugham on 28 March. It seems he never married.
- John Tulley (1834-1935) was baptised in Slaugham on 23 November 1834 and became a carpenter. He married Maria Rudrum of Camberwell, Surrey, at St John’s in Lambeth on 10 March 1863 and had several children, moving around the south east of England as he built up his building business. Census records placed them in the Brighton area in 1871 and 1881; Croydon in Surrey in 1891 and around Bournemouth in Hampshire from 1901. He retired in his 50s. Maria died on 25 March 1913, leaving an estate worth more than £14,400. John lived to a grand age and died in his 102nd year on 21 October 1935. One of his passions was gardening and growing chrysanthemums (Hampshire Advertiser 26 October 1935) – he’d even survived falling through his greenhouse at the age of 95 without injury (Bournemouth Graphic 26 October 1935).
Sources:
Birth, marriage, death and burial records including civil registrations from the General Register Office, census returns and other records at Ancestry.co.uk, Findmypast.co.uk and Sussex Family History Group.
British Newspaper Archive, titles referred to in text.
Tithe Maps and Apportionments in England and Wales, 1775-1936 (Ancestry and National Archives).
Slaugham Archives.