A Tailor of Wicken

This story is inspired by the 52 Ancestors prompt “Fashion”, which made me think of clothes and those who make them.  William Henshaw was a tailor the village of Wicken in Northamptonshire, England.

William was born on 2 March 1713* the fourth child and first son of Jonathan Henshaw, a carpenter, and his wife Amy Bloncke**.   He was baptised in the local parish church six days later on 8 March.  His siblings were: Anne, Mary, Alice, Amy and Elizabeth (twins who died in infancy), Judeth (died in infancy), Elizabeth (died in infancy), Sarah (died in infancy), Martha, Charity (died in infancy), Major, Keziah and John.  William’s early life was filled with the tragic deaths of 6 of his fourteen siblings, followed by the death of his father, Jonathan, in Mar 1729*.  Mother Amy was left a young widow with eight children to look after.  The older daughters may have helped out and there may be been support from Amy’s siblings and Jonathan’s brother Thomas.  Children Anne and Major Henshaw both died young, in 1746, before their mother who died in 1749.  Anne from small pox.

Photo thanks to www.lacma.org
 (https://collections.lacma.org/node/233631)
Public Domain as far as I am aware

At the time that so many of William’s siblings died in infancy, infant mortality was high at every level of society.  Even then Queen, Anne, lost all but one of her children under the age of four; that one child only survived to the age of eleven.

Around the time of his father’s death, William would have been old enough to be apprenticed, so presumably that is when he started working as a tailor.  I haven’t found a record of an apprenticeship.  William worked as a tailor at a time of extravagant fashions, the Georgian era.  The owner of the Wicken Manor, Charles Hosier, had made his fortune from making gold thread, which was used to embroider elaborate designs on clothes.  Wicken also had a lace making industry, which provided employment for some of the women.  It is unlikely that William made elaborate clothes with gold thread or lace, like in the photo, for the villagers but maybe he got fancier commissions from the nearby towns of Towcester and Buckingham.  In the 18^th century, all clothes were made for measure, there were no clothes shops stocked with ready to wear clothes, so William would likely have had plenty of work to keep him busy, even if the clothes he made were not the height of fashion.

In January 1735, William Henshaw married Anne Betts in Adstock, Buckinghamshire.  They had one daughter, Sarah, who was born in 1740.  I think Anne died in 1750, although the burial record gives her name as Sarah.

The following year, in October 1751, William married Sarah Horseley, in Wolverton, Buckinghamshire.  William and Sarah also had just the one child, Ursula Henshaw (my ancestor), born on 31 January 1753.  Sadly, Ursula would never really have known her father.  William died in Jul 1754 and was buried at Wicken.

His widow, Sarah, had two more “Henshaw” children, Job and Mary, before she was re-married in 1765 to Alman Bone.

My appreciation goes to the vicars of Wicken who kept very informative parish registers.

 

Notes on lineage: Me > Mum > Daphne Madge Smith > John Henry Smith > Harry Smith > Eliza Roberts > George Roberts > Richard Roberts > Ursula Henshaw > William Henshaw

 

*I have used the Gregorian Calendar dates, which for January to 24 March were the prior year earlier according to the Julian Calendar until it was replaced in 1752 in England.

**I am not really sure of the conventional spelling.