Thomas Finch (1795-1852) and Sarah Chisley (1803-1848).
My 3rd great grand-uncle and aunt.
Baptised at St Mary’s Church in Reigate, Surrey, on 4 April 1795, Thomas was the oldest son of Thomas Finch and his wife Ann Burley.
Young Thomas married Sarah Chisley by license in Reigate on 27 July 1820. She was from the Liberty of Kingswood in Surrey, born on 9 January 1803 to labourer Thomas Chisley and his wife Ann and baptised at St Peter’s in Walton-on-the-Hill in Surrey on 27 July. The surname was also spelled Cheasley. As Sarah was a minor at the time of her marriage, she needed the formal consent of her labourer father before the ceremony could take place.
Thomas and Sarah had a number of children, who were baptised in various parishes locally, including Gatton and Reigate, suggesting that Thomas was moving around regularly for work.
The 1841 Census showed them living in Colley Cottage, Reigate, with Thomas working as an agricultural labourer. Sarah died relatively young in January 1848 and was buried in Reigate on the 16th of the month.
The 1851 Census revealed a marked downturn in widower Thomas’s fortunes as he was living at the Reigate Union Workhouse, listed as a farm labourer. Three other Finches were also residents of the Earlswood Common institution – his daughters Ann, Emma and Jane. Why he opted to go into the workhouse with them isn’t known but it would’ve been because he was too ill or too poor to support himself. Peter Higginbotham’s exhaustive website on workhouses explains what he and his children would’ve faced on admission and how distressing the experience must’ve been.
On top of the in-built procedural horrors of the workhouse, there may have been much wrong with the Reigate institution judging by a report drawn up by the Assistant Poor Law Commissioner at the time the Finches were in residence in 1851. The commissioner attended a Board of Guardians meeting that discussed charges that the Master was quietly depriving adult residents of their rightful amount of bread, that the Matron neglected to make visits to the Infirmary and “had not sufficiently attended to the regular supply of clean clothing”. The pair were also said to exhibit overbearing conduct and violent tempers. It was suggested that they be called on to resign. Although it’s not clear from the surviving papers what the result of all this was, the inspector stated in his report: “There is no suspicion or imputation of fraud on the part of the Master, who is in many respects an excellent officer. The infirmity of the paupers is chiefly attributable to the Matron.”
The inspector also gave a potential reason for why Thomas had to resort to the workhouse: “There is generally full employment for rural labourers at this time at good wages from 10/s to 12/s per week. But there are not withstanding an unusual number of the more able chaps in the workhouse – almost all however single men of loose character. This has arisen in great measure from the abolition of the practice which prevailed in all previous winters of giving able men out relief on the condition of coming to the workhouse to perform an allotted task of work…” So was Thomas a ‘loose character’, the victim of a change in arrangements or just ill and unable to work?
He did not live long after his experience in the institution. He died around the new year of 1852/3 and was buried at St Mary’s in Reigate on 5 January 1853.
Sarah and Thomas’s children were:
- Henry Finch (1821-????) was born when his parents were living in the Liberty of Kingswood in Surrey. He was baptised at Walton on the Hill on 18 February 1821. He was listed in the 1841 Census, when the family were living in Reigate, but I have not traced him beyond this. He may have emigrated – a Henry Finch, born in England to father Thomas around 1820, died in Michigan in 1902 – but there are other candidates.
- Thomas Finch (1823-1823) was baptised at Gatton in Surrey on 5 January 1823 and died in December of the same year, when the burial record showed the couple were living in Ewell, Surrey. He was buried in Reigate on 6 December.
- Sarah Finch (1825?-1902). I’ve yet to find a baptism record for Sarah but census returns noted that her place of birth was Kingswood in Surrey. She married local farm labourer William Kent in Reigate on 16 August 1846 and had a family with him. Subsequent census returns placed them in either Reigate or neighbouring Redhill. William died in 1892 and was buried on 10 February in Redhill. Sarah, who had worked as a laundress for a time, died in 1902 and was buried in Redhill on 29 December.
- Eliza Finch (1828-1917) was baptised in Walton-on-the-Hill on 24 February 1828. She married twice and was widowed twice, with both her husbands dying young. She married labourer George Kent in Reigate on 12 September 1846 but he died in 1848. The 1851 Census recorded her in Camberwell, working as a house servant, but she then married carpenter George Sanders / Saunders at St John’s in Croydon on 29 August 1858. Curiously, he’d been recorded lodging with her first husband’s parents in the 1851 Census. In 1861 the couple were living in Reigate with their children but George died in 1863. Eliza went on to live with her son in Redhill (1871 Census) and then with several unmarried daughters in Croydon, Surrey (subsequent census returns), for some years working as a laundress. She died in 1917 in Croydon.
- William Finch (1831-1925) was baptised on 20 March 1831 in Reigate and spent many years working as a platelayer on the railways. He married local woman Harriet Weller on 14 April 1856. They raised a family and lived in and around Reigate and Redhill for many years, although the 1911 Census recorded William in Nutfield, Surrey. Harriet died in 1909 and was buried in Reigate on 20 February. William didn’t retire until the age of 88, according to the Surrey Mirror of 7 November 1919. This noted that he had worked on the building of the Redhill to Reading line before moving on to other work. He finished his employment with lighter work as a sweeper at Redhill railway station. The 1921 Census recorded William living with his son William in Tonbridge. He died in 1925.
- John Finch (1833-????) was baptised in Walton on the Hill on 27 October 1833 and working as an agricultural labourer at the time of the 1851 Census, when he was living with his sister Sarah and her family in Reigate. I’ve not been able to trace him after this. Other John Finches were living in the area at the time but none match his details.
- Ann Finch (1836-1883) was baptised in Reigate on 14 August 1836 and married bricklayer George Thornton of Croydon, Surrey, there on 29 August 1858. They appeared together in the 1861 and 1871 census records living in Croydon and without children, Ann latterly listed as a laundress. In 1877 George was sentenced to two months in prison with hard labour for assaulting his wife, with the paper reporting that he had hit her in the face and knocked her to the ground. The court heard that the couple were in the process of separating (Croydon Chronicle 10 November 1877). What happened to Ann is unclear. I suspect she was the woman living with two other women in St Peter’s Street, Croydon, at the 1881 Census. She was listed as single, was working as a laundress and was four years younger than her real age but her place of birth matched. She was also most likely the woman whose death was registered in Godstone, Surrey, in 1883 – her birth year was given as 1838, which is close enough, and there are no other candidates. After his release from prison, George remained in Croydon. He died there in 1908.
- Emma Finch (1838-1876). Emma was baptised in Reigate on 13 January 1839 and, like her sisters Ann and Jane, was recorded in the local workhouse at the 1851 Census – along with their widowed father. She married labourer John Sherlock at St John’s in Croydon on 22 July 1860. The couple settled in the Reigate area and had several children but Emma died young in 1876 and was buried in Redhill on 13 May. In subsequent census returns, John was recorded in his home village of Nutfield in Surrey. He died in Reigate hospital in 1903 and was buried in the town on 25 February.
- Jane Finch (1842-1919) was baptised in Reigate on 10 April 1842 and married railway labourer James Miles there on 18 March 1860. Census returns to 1871 showed them in Reigate and Redhill but baptism records of their children showed that they had lived elsewhere in Surrey as well, including Caterham. From 1881 the family was recorded in Camberwell, Surrey, where James worked on the roads and Jane as an ironer. James died in 1911 and was buried in Camberwell Old Cemetery on 17 October that year. Jane was buried there on 9 May 1919.
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 Surrey Family History Centre in Woking.
British Newspaper Archive (titles in text).
Reigate Workhouse report: The National Archives (Catalogue ref: MH 12/12577).