Introduction

It may appear strange to the casual reader that we have dedicated a whole page to a family seemingly unrelated to the main parts of our extensive tree. However, as the story unfolds, we have discovered a fascinating insight into the workings of a Victorian village and how, unwittingly and perhaps inevitably, the main characters were repeatedly interconnected and were involved in the main historical events of Cottingham.

Our most direct link is Elizabeth Tilley. Eldest of the three daughters of John Tilley and Susannah Ingram, she was born in the village in 1801. She was baptised at the parish church of St Mary Magdalene on Sunday, January 25th that same year. Nothing more is known of her childhood or early adult life.

Land owners, copyholders and simple tenants

The village of Cottingham and the adjacent hamlet, Middleton, lie on the edge of Rockingham Forest in Northamptonshire. Much of the history, legal and socio-economic framework of the area was set in train by the Norman Conquest in 1066 and the actions of King William I thereafter. The effects of Forest Law and the Game Laws on the local peasantry have been touched upon in the first part of the article The Crane family of Cottingham. Strict regulations were imposed regarding what activities could be carried out and who could hunt game within the forest and harsh penalties were imposed upon miscreants.

By the fourteenth century, large tracts of land had been cleared and sold off to the wealthy to raise revenue for the Crown but the Forest Law was maintained. The situation changed drastically between 1348 and 1350 when the Black Death swept across Europe into England, killing between 40% and 80% of the population in any given area. This led to significant problems for the landowners because of huge labour shortages. Some found the answer in turning their land to the grazing of sheep and harvesting wool which was in great demand on the continent. Others turned to offering concessions to their tenants in return for their employment. One of the main advantages for the peasant was secured tenure of the land for their lifetime under a legally binding document. The exact terms and nature of the peasant's service obligations varied from one manor to the next. They were written in a book kept by the lord of the manor's steward who gave the tenant a copy. This practice became known as copyholding. The crucial point was that the copyholder remained a tenant and land remained in the ownership of the lord of the manor. Forest Law and its restrictions remained in force. The copyhold could, however, be passed on to their successors when the copyholder died, on payment of a suitable death duty.

The manor around Cottingham had been held by the Abbot of Peterborough until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. In 1612 it was passed into the hands of trustees on behalf of 70 copyholders who between them paid a total of £1,868 10 5d in proportion to their quit rents (1). The old manor house, originally called the Berystead is now known as Bury House.

In the mid nineteenth century, the position of copyholders had changed. In Cottingham and Middleton in particular they had achieved a degree of social standing within the community. Copyhold was still passed down through the generations from father to son. By the time of the events in our current story, most of the copyholders were local tradesmen. If a vacancy arose, it would be filled by another worthy recommended by the existing copyholding body. They took on local civic roles such as overseers or baliffs. In Cottingham, they took responsibility for and raised funds to install a public water supply. A plaque listing the names of the copyholders was placed on the well head at the cross.The copyholders held their own records and met for a dinner annually.

Copyholders still exist in Cottingham today although now the title is mainly ceremonial.

Further Reading

We would like to thank Dr Peter Hill for his advice and critique on Copyholding which forms part of the background to this article. Peter has written many books of local and historical interest on Northamptonshire in general and the Rockingham Forest in particular. Other titles include "Secret Northamptonshire", "Folklore of Northamptonshire" and "A History of Death and Burial in Northamptonshire".

Peter is a director of Rockingham Forest Trust.

Enter John Neville Chamberlain

All the evidence suggests that John Neville Chamberlain was a self-made man. His own submissions for the England census returns confirm that he was born on February 14th 1810 in the town of Rothwell, some eight miles south west of the village and on the outskirts of Kettering. No birth or baptism records survive locally to confirm his parentage or family background.

As a young man, probably still in his teens, he moved to Cottingham. There, he met Elizabeth Tilley, a woman nine years his senior. They were married on June 6th 1830. Over the next four years, they had three children (a daughter, Ann, and two sons, John and Alfred). By 1841, the family were living in King Street (the original name for Church Street) where John had established a grocery shop. In a family service at the church on October 2nd 1842, John and the children were baptised together.

Over the years, John's business continued to prosper and he expanded his activities into a general dealership. Their household continued to expand too. Elizabeth's elderly parents had never been afluent and were now in receipt of Parish relief. John and Elizabeth gave them a home. To help with the chores, Elizabeth's 14 year old niece, Louisa (daughter of John Tilley and Mary Asher), came to stay as a domestic servant. After she left school, daughter Ann took up work as a straw bonnet maker. Tragedy struck in the summer of 1849 when Alfred, their younger son, died of an acute intestinal infection at the age of 15 years.

Son John had been born on September 9th 1832. In the late 1840s, he moved to Leicester to take up a position as a grocer's assistant to Horatio Edwin Emberlin and Thomas Claridge. The pair had founded a number of grocery shops in Leicester, a partnership which was formally dissolved in January 1852. On his own, Horatio's business expanded to incorporate a wholesale grocery and cheese manufacturer. John Chamberlain worked at the Gallowtree Gate store. During his stay, he met Eliza, the daughter of Thomas and Maria Siddons from Glenfield on the western edge of the town. Thomas was a journeyman joiner and carpenter. Eliza, who had been born in 1833, was living at Kirby Frith Hall in the household of Isaac Hodgson, a retired banker from Liverpool now a County Magistrate. His wife was much younger than him and he was having his five children educated at home. Eliza was employed as a classroom maid. John and Eliza were married at St George's Church, Rutland Street, Leicester on July 8th 1856. The ceremony was witnessed by his sister Ann and her boyfriend, James Cooke.

Continued in column 2...

A change of trade.

Back in Cottingham, trade continued to thrive. John Neville Chamberlain was no stranger to the Petty Sessions of Kettering Court. He was firm in pursuit of customers who defaulted on their credit. Examples included Robert Maydwell who owed £2 2s 6d, Thomas Crane, 16s 11d (5.a) and Mr and Mrs Phillips, £2 8s 3d for goods purchased prior to their marriage (5.b). He had a minor brush with the Weights and Measures Inspector in November 1843 when discovered using faulty scales. This led to a thirty shillings fine at the same Petty Sessions (6.a). He was summoned for failing to pay the full toll (six pence) at a toll gate in Rockingham in 1853 (6.b). He was ordered to pay the deficit of one and a half pence and thirteen shillings costs.

Towards the end of the next decade, John senior had given up the Church Street grocery business in favour of his son and had moved on to pastures new. It seems likely that he used some of his wealth to invest in land and property in the village and with it assumed the rights and responsibilites of a copyholder. Although it cannot be shown to be the actual lot, a 19 acre plot of arable and pasture copyhold land on the road between Cottingham and Rockingham previously occupied by Brian Sculthorpe was offered for auction in June 1854. (7). During that decade, Brian lived in Middleton with his wife Eliza Woodock and their family. In 1851 their neighbours were retired farmer John Aldwinckle and his wife Elizabeth Woodcock (Elizabeth was Eliza's aunt) who were employing a 19 year old servant, Elizabeth Tilley, whose aunt was John Neville Chamberlain's wife.

Elizabeth's parents died within days of each other: Susannah on January 26th, John on February 4th 1855. They were buried together in St Mary Magdalene churchyard. February the following year saw the end of the war in the Crimea. A large celebration was organised with processions, bands and feasting over two days that summer in which the whole village took part. The houses were decorated with flags and bunting and triumphal arches were erected across the streets. John's contribution consisted of "a rural gallery, composed of flowers and greenery, flung across the street near his house, which often during the proceedings was filled with ladies, forming a charming picture" (8).

By the beginning of the next decade John, Elizabeth and daughter Ann had moved around the corner to a house in High Street. It was situated next door but one to The Spread Eagle public house. The house was built of stone, roofed with slate and had a water supply from its own well. The shop frontage housed a grocer and general dealership. Accommodation consisted of downstairs and upstairs sitting rooms, three bedrooms, kitchen and cellar. At the rear was a stable and warehouse, sty, cart dock and garden. Another of Elizabeth's nieces, 23 year old Susanna Crofts, was living with them as a domestic servant. Susanna was the daughter of Elizabeth's younger sister, Ann Tilley, who had married agricultural labourer, Richard Crofts. The family lived in Desborough.

John junior and his new wife soon settled into the house in Church Street. Their first daughter, Annie Maria was born in 1858. Initially he was employed as the Parish Constable. He then took over the running of the grocery business and had started to produce fresh bread on site. Within three years he had employed an assistant baker and a boy to make deliveries.

In the November of that year, John entered the auction market again. Although the origin of the name "Ruff's House" is not known, it is presumed to be the building between John's own house and the Spread Eagle. At some stage this property demolished for there is now just space between these two buildings. Described as being occupied by a William Tilley, this is not a known relative of Elizabeth. Similarly the position of Blackfall in the Forest Wood is not known for certain, Thomas Bradshaw was a farmer of 60 acres and lived with his wife Mary and family on Rockingham Road. Mary was the sister of Peake Reynolds who, in 1861, was the licencee of the Spread Eagle.

In 1860, Thomas Dolby, one of his previous employees and tenants, was charged with theft of coal from the premises (worth one shilling and sixpence). He was found guilty and sentenced to six weeks imprisonment with hard labour (5.c). John Neville's entry in the census for 1861 lists him as a master brickmaker employing a man (William Jarman, who had been making bricks in the village for 20 years) and two boys. His brickyard and kiln were situated on Rockingham Road, a mile or so north of its junction with Blind Lane. Adjacent to the yard were five cottages which he also owned. It is of note that both the cottages and the house in High Street are adorned with commemorative plaques bearing the initals "I.N.C." and a date. It was common practice for builders to be commissioned by those either purchasing or altering a property, especially during the 19th century, to have their own initials and the date inscribed in thuis manner. In a nod towards the classics, a capital "I" was substituted in Latin fashion where an owner's name began with "J".

In 1862, John was installed as a Guardian for the Poor Law Union of Cottingham. (9) Initially constituted under the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 to administer the workings of the workhouse and to collect the Poor Rate, further powers in relation to health, housing and sanitation were devolved to the Unions as the century progressed. At the same session farmer William Linnell was appointed Guardian for Burton Latimer.

On July 7th 1863, John's daughter Ann married James Cooke. By this time, he was a tallow chandler and farmer from the village. He managed 44 acres and employed two men and two boys. They continued to live in Church Street.

The end of an era

By 1871 John senior was both a draper and a landowner. It also appears that he continued to be actively involved in development and construction of infrastructure for the village. In 1874 a clothing manufacturing factory was opened on Rockingham Road which was to provide employment for many inhabitants for the next century. This was established by Frederic Wallis from Kettering and John Linnell from Burton Latimer who sold their wares under the brand name 'House of Burleigh'. The factory became known as Burleigh House and on its front face bears a plaque with the inscription "I.N.C. 1872". The siting of the factory on Rockingham Road would certainly have been most convenient for the brickworks. Another property which bears a similar plaque was built next door to house the factory's manager.

The day of the 1871 (Sunday April 2nd) census found him at home on his own. Elizabeth was away visiting her daughter Ann and her husband. Clearly, neither of the couple were well, and Ann died five weeks later of pulmonary tuberculosis. She was 40 years of age. James Cooke succumbed on December 3rd 1872 to typhoid fever. Both were buried in St Mary Magdalene churchyard in the plot next to his parents. Elizabeth was soon to follow. She died on November 4th 1874.

Shortly after Elizabeth's death, John retired and moved to Leicester. The previous year, he had divested himself of much of his Cottingham property. An auction consisting of three lots was held at the Red Lion Inn, Rothwell, on Thursday July 10th 1873. Lot 1 was a four bedroom house in the High Street with two parlours, kitchen and workshop. Lot 2 was his own house and premises and the next door property occupied by Mr Chandler, the baker. As well as the house and shop, it contained a bakehouse with two ovens and large storage facilites. Lot 3 consisted of a plot of arable land, said to be suitable for development, near to Rothwell.

Once in Leicester, he met and married Martha Goddard, the daughter of a joiner and loom builder who was 35 years his junior. They married in 1875. He bought a large house in Mere Road near to Spinney Hill Park. There was a noteable houseful over Easter 1881 with three of Martha's siblings (Eliza, Elizabeth and Charles), three of John's grandsons (John Henry, Ernest and Percy), three lodgers and a house servant in residence.

John Neville Chamberlain died on May 29th 1885. His body was returned to Cottingham where he was buried next to his wife, Elizabeth Tilley, in the family plot directly behind the church. The spot is now marked by a small monument. Despite a lifetime of business activity and appartent wealth accrual, he left very little when his will was published on July 24th the same year. His personal estate amounted to £145 and this was left to Charles Goddard, his sole executor and sister of his wife, Martha.

Martha stayed on at Leicester for a couple of years. Then in the spring of 1889 she married John Martin (no known relation to other Martin families in our interest), an engraver and silversmith from Birmingham. At the same time, her brother Charles married Clara Walker from the town. John and Martha moved north to Sheffield leaving the house in Mere Road to Charles and his new family. In a curious footnote, the Martins were entertaining a visitor from Leicester at the time of the census of 1901: 54 year old Emma Tansley (again, as yet unrelated to the Tansleys in our tree).

John Chamberlain, grocer

Meanwhile back in Cottingham, John junior's business was flourishing. He remained in charge of the Church Street business which consisted of a grocery shop and a bakery, employing two men. He also farmed a smallholding of twenty acres. He remained active in the community. He followed his father into a local Guardianship position. He also served on the Rural Sanitary Committee.

He too had exposure to the Petty Sessions on occasions from both sides of the dock. He was summoned under the Weights and Measures Act when a four pound weight found to be 2 drachms short and a two pound weight was one drachm short (one drachm was one sixteenth of an ounce!) (6.d). He was fined £2 plus costs. On March 17th 1869 he successfully sued William Miller, a butcher from nearby Wilbarston for assault (6.e). The latter was fined five shillings. He was also responsible for the appearence of two lads - Henry Crane (13 years) and Benjamin Tansley (11) - in Court in 1879 charged with the malicious damage of trees (6.f). They were let off with a caution. In 1887, two other boys, Alfred Tansley (12) and George Chappell (10) were arrested and charged with stealing money from the shop's till (6.g). They pleased guilty and were sentenced to six strokes of the birch each. Like his father, he pursued villagers through the Courts for unpaid debts.

It is on record that in September 1873 he applied to the local police court for a licence to sell sweets in the shop (10), a tragic irony given what was to follow in the village some eighteen months later. At half past nine on the morning of May 1st 1875, a young boy walked into the shop clutching three halfpennies in his hand asking for sweets. A few hours later John learned that the boy was dead, brutally slain by his next door neighbour. The full horror of the circumstances of the murder were to emerge at the inquest held at the Spread Eagle Inn on May 4th and at the Magistrates' Court in Kettering one day later at which he was called to give evidence (see: Death for Threeha'p'orth of Suckers).

John and Eliza's oldest daughter, Annie Maria, was born in 1858. She lived with her parents until her early twenties and helped in the shop. A curious entry in the 1881 census has her listed with the family of decorator Henry Martin in Market Harborough, Leicestershire. She is described as a visitor rather than a relation or domestic employee. We have found no connection between this Martin family and others featured in this article or present in our database. Annie Maria gave birth to a daughter she named Lilian Maud on January 24th 1883. In that same summer, she married John Haynes. After that she disappeared from the records. Lilian Maud, listed in the census as Haynes, was living with her grandparents in 1891.

Continued in column 3...

John Chamberlain, grocer (Continued)

John and Eliza had six more children. First son, John Henry was born in 1862, followed by Ernest Albert (1866), Percy James (1867) and Archibald Siddons (1875). A daughter they named Elizabeth Mary died aged sixteen months in 1864. A third daughter, Edith Ann, was born in 1871.

At the time of the census in April 1881, only their two youngest children (Edith and Archibald) remained at home. However, working with them as a domestic servant was 15 year old Harriett Tilley (the daughter of James Tilley and Martha Hector), who was Elizabeth Tilley's grandniece. By the late 1880s John was feeling the need for a change of scene. He too, followed his father's earlier example, giving up the Cottingham business and moving to Leicester. He became a commission agent (a salesman who derives his income solely from commission on sales). The family set up home at 50, Evington Street in the Highfield district of the town not far from where his father had lived. For a time, their near neighbours at No 65 were Annie and Clara Jarman, the spinster daughters of John Neville Chamberlain's longtime brickmaker employee, William Jarman.

Another Tilley in the family

Eliza died on August 13th 1894. She was 61 years of age. Her body was returned to Cottingham for burial. Within three years, John Chamberlain had married again. His new bride was Mary Flint Tilley, a 50 year old spinster from Rothley, a village 5 miles north of Leicester. Mary was one of the daughters of John Tilley, a grazier, and Elizabeth Budge who had moved to the midlands from Bristol. After John Tilley died in the late 1850s, Mary's mother set up a grocery business in the village. Mary had an older sister, Elizabeth, who had been born in 1834. For many years Elizabeth was the matron of the female Asylum in the Newarke, Leicester. Elizabeth never married but did have a daughter, Mary, born in 1868.

After their marriage, John and Mary Chamberlain moved into a house in Victoria Avenue, a cul de sac off the London Road. Sister Elizabeth Tilley moved in with them. John died on February 12th 1908. He was interred with his first wife, Eliza, in the family plot on the left hand side of the main path in the graveyard of St Mary Magdalene Church, Cottingham. Mary continued to live at Victoria Avenue with her sister. She died in 1926.

Despite intensive research, no connection has been found between the Rothley Tilley family and the Tilley families from Kibworth Beauchamp, Thorpe Langton or Cottingham.

The third generation

Whilst he was in Leicester in the early 1880s living with his grandfather, John's oldest son, John Henry Chamberlain, was serving an apprenticeship with a chemist. He married 20 year old Lilian Mary Moreton, the daughter of a butcher from Nuneaton, Warwickshire, in 1885. The pair moved back to Cottingham by the end of the decade to take over the house in Church Street and expand the business vacated by his father. Lilian's sister, Louisa Annie, moved in with them to work as a dressmaker. John and Lilian had a daughter, Lilian Mary, in the Spring of 1891. Louisa Annie moved away again in 1894 to marry butcher's manager Francis Hawkins. They settled in Somerset. By 1911, John Henry had taken over the running of the Cottingham subpost office. They had given a home to Mary Ann Moreton, Lilian's now widowed mother.

Second son Ernest Albert Chamberlain married Katherine Sarah Eames in a ceremony in Market Harborough. Prior to the wedding she had been working as a housemaid for Henry John Bigge, a clergyman "without care of souls" (a clergyman without a parish of his own) in the village of Hallaton, Leicestershire. They settled into the property in Church Street, Cottingham, where Ernest worked as a baker. Initially, Katherine's younger sister Elizabeth lived with them.

They were to have five children, three sons and two daughters. They continued to live in the village. Ernest died in December 1925, Katherine on May 30th 1950. Younger daughter, Dorothy Kathleen Chamberlain married Horace Buswell in 1930. She took over the proprietorship of the post office in Church Street from John Henry and continued managing it until she retired in the late 1950s.

Youngest son, Archibald Siddons Chamberlain, had moved with his parents to the Evington Street, Leicester house. There he became a clerk. He married Beatrice, the daughter of florest and fruiterer George Draycott from Humberstone, Leicester in 1895. They moved to Paddington, London where he became a bookkeeper for a wholesale drugs firm.

Devana Road

Special mention needs to be made of third son Percy James Chamberlain. Moving with his parents to Leicester, he became firstly a clerk and then commission agent in the grocery trade. In 1899, he married 32 year old Louisa Kate Burr. She was the daughter of a tobacconist and confectioner from Hampstead in London. They set up home in Dronfield Street. Louisa gave birth to a son, Stanley John, in 1900 and a daughter, Irene May, in 1904. After the turn of the century, Percy became a commercial traveller.

By 1911, they had moved house again to 71 Devana Road, a street to the south of the town running parallel to the main London Road. An entry in Kelly's Directory for Leicester confirms that they were still in residence there in 1916. The same directory also indicates that their near neighbours (ten doors away at No 99) were the family of Police Constable William Craxford. William had married Beatrice Edith Tilley in Cottingham in 1912 and had moved to Leicester immediately afterwards. Their daughter, Iris, had been born in 1913. Seventy years later, Iris wrote the letter to George William Craxford, William's nephew, (see: "Murder Most Foul?? In Cottingham???") which in large part was the impetus for the research which led to the founding of this web site.

In summary, we can show these relationships as follows. Beatrice Edith Tilley was (John Neville Chamberlain's wife) Elizabeth Tilley's great grandniece and first cousin twice removed. Percy James was John Neville Chamberlain's grandson (John Chamberlain's son). Thomas Christopher Claypole, the seven year old murdered in Cottingham in 1875 by Henry Crane was William Craxford's half brother. John Chamberlain was the grocer who sold the 'suckers' (sweets) to the boy on the fateful day.

Acknowledgements

We would like to record our thanks to Sandy Hall for her diligent searches of local records in Rothwell and for her help in providing background information for this article. Thanks too are due to Mike Cassell for his help in rationalising some of the Tilley history prior to their move to Cottingham and for elucidating the business of Horatio Edwin Emberlin. They are both active contributors to RootChat.Com the Index of Genealogy, Family History and Local History; Sandy to the Northamptonshire forum and Mike to the Leicester forum.

References

1. Cottingham & Middleton: Heritage Resource Centre Rockingham Forest Trust
2. Family tree graphic: Freeware Graphics: Vintage Kin Design Studio, Australia
3. Kirby Frith Hall, Glenfield: Photograph from The Kirby Frith Estate Sale by Auction brochure, Wednesday 29th September 1915. © The Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland. Reproduced with permission.
4.St George's Church, Rutland Street, Leicester: Photograph: © 'NotFromUtrecht', Wikimedia Commons and licenced for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence
5. Reports from Kettering County Court: Northampton Mercury: British Library Newspaper Archive
a. Saturday 7 November 1863; b. 22 December 1866
6. Reports from Kettering Petty Sessions: Northampton Mercury: British Library Newspaper Archive
a. Saturday 25 November 1843; b. "Gigs and Traps" Saturday 27 August 1853; c. Saturday 24 November 1860; d. Saturday 4 March 1871; e. Saturday 20 March 1869; f. "Wilful damage by boys" Saturday 22 March 1879; g. Saturday 16 April 1887
7. "To be sold by auction": Arable and Pasture Copyhold sale: Northampton Mercury Saturday 17 June 1854: British Library Newspaper Archive
8. "Cottingham Peace Rejoicings - Better Late Than Never": A report of the celebrations to mark the end of the war in the Crimea: Northampton Mercury Saturday 28 June 1856: British Library Newspaper Archive
9. Report: Northampton Mercury: Saturday 12 April 1862: British Library Newspaper Archive
10. Application for a sweets license: Northampton Mercury Saturday 16 April 1887: British Library Newspaper Archive

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Page added: February 23rd 2013
Last update: November 7th 2019

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