Howes Family History
Thomas Howes
Thomas Howes (1834-1869), my 2 x great Grandfather was born in Hinton and baptised in the parish church of St Mary at Woodford on 31st August 1834. He was, like his forbears, an agricultural labourer working in his early years for farmer William Howes, at a farm called ‘The Lodge’ in Preston Capes. The 1851 census shows him there at the age of 16. On Christmas day, 25th December 1858, in the parish church of Priors Hardwick, just over the county boundary in Warwickshire, he married 21-year-old Eliza Gubbins, daughter of William Gubbins, a labourer. A son, Harry, was born in Hinton on 16th September 1859 but only seven months later both he and his mother became gravely ill and on 22nd April 1860, he died and was buried at Woodford parish church on the 25th April. Eliza died in Hinton on 27th April 1860 of ”Phthisis Pulmonalis“ (Tuberculosis) and was buried at St Mary’s on 1st May. It would seem that Thomas might not have been at home at the time as the registrar was informed of Eliza’s death by Rebecca Fairbrother who was “present at the death”. In the 1861 census Thomas is living with his father, James, and his sister, Ann, in Hinton, still a farm labourer and now described as a widower.
His second marriage was to Sarah Ann Willett, 29-year-old daughter of William Willett, himself an agricultural labourer, at the parish church of St Mary in Duns Tew, Oxfordshire on 10th April 1862. Previous to the marriage the 1861 census shows Sarah Ann to be working as a servant to Mr Job Milione in Hellidon. Thomas was also living in Hellidon at the time of his marriage. Family folklore tells that the Howes family males were the best poachers around Priors Marston and Hellidon. Perhaps Thomas met Sarah Ann on one of his outings. They had one daughter Mary Ellen born in August 1863 and two sons, William James born on 1st October 1865 and George Thomas born in September 1867. On 10th October 1884 in Hinton, Mary Ellen had a daughter, Lillie Jane Howes, whose father is not recorded on the birth certificate. Mary Ellen went on to marry William Muddiman, a shoemaker from Daventry. George Thomas, a farm labourer, later to become a platelayer on the Great Central railway, married Kate Wilkins, daughter of stockman, John Clipstone Wilkins, and had five sons (including Francis Clipstone “Sailor” Howes and Richard Arthur “Dick” Howes), and two daughters. They lived at the bottom of Pool Street in Hinton.
While working in Hinton as a farmer’s carter on the 22nd February 1869, Thomas was run over by a horse-drawn wagon carrying oil caulk, and fatally injured. According to his death certificate, he lived for five hours after the accident. An inquest was held on the 24th February by the Northamptonshire coroner Robert Weston, which declared his death as an accident, and he was buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s parish church at Woodford on the 25th February 1869.
The 1871 census shows Sarah Ann, aged 39, now a widow and lacemaker, living in Hinton with her three children and her sister-in-law, Ann Howes daughter of James. Sarah Ann went on to marry widower William Cleaver of Woodford at Daventry Register Office on 18th March 1873 and had one son, George William, and one daughter, Sarah Matilda, by him. The 1881 census shows her living at 6 First Street in Woodford with her second husband and four of her five children, Ellen having presumably left home to work. In the 1891 census she is shown as a widow again and living in Hinton with three of her five children and her granddaughter Lily Jane Howes. Sarah Ann died while living in Castle Road, Woodford on the 3rd June 1923 at the grand age of 90. Dr. A. Glencorse Hays certified her death as due to “senile decay”. The informant was her grandson, Percy Muddiman of 24 London Road, Daventry. She was buried in St Mary’s churchyard at Woodford on 7th June 1923.