Feltwell Norfolk

The First Part of the Walden Family History

(1767-1900)

The Children of

Robert Searles Walden

(The Elder)

Written by

Robert Graham Walden

1999

In 1813 her sister Mary Barnard, when 43 years old, married an important Feltwell individual, Ambrose Whiteman, but as mentioned, this union produced no children. Ambrose was a wealthy landowner and one of the earliest proponents of Methodism in the village who was known for his hospitality to visiting preachers. Ambrose also had a sister, Ann, who had married John Forster of Feltwell and their daughter Jane married Elizabeth’s son Robert. Robert’s full name was Robert Searles Walden but as he was to give the same name to his first son, he was sometimes referred to as Robert Searles Walden the Elder. The wedding took place in St Nicholas’ Church on 24^th March1818.Thus Ambrose was an uncle to Jane Forster via his sister but also aunt to Robert The Elder via his wife, Mary. In the circumstances one can well imagine that Jane and Robert would have been a very special couple to the childless Ambrose and Mary.

Similarly, I do not know the fortunes of the youngest sister, Jane. At the 1841 Census she was just 12 years old and living with Mary Ann at The Crown pub, (presumably as ‘domestics’ of some kind) and she was still single ten years later. The middle sister Elizabeth however, resided in the village throughout her relatively short life; at the age of just 38 years old (with her parents, Grandmother Elizabeth and great aunt Mary having died by then) she was described as a ‘farmer of 246 acres’. Just five years later and still a spinster, (her eldest brother, Robert Searles Walden the Younger having already emigrated, she died.

It may be tempting to think that road accidents were few and far between in a village like Feltwell in an age long before the motorcar or even the railway locomotive. I recall an horrific account by the poet John Keats (who originally trained to be a surgeon in London) of how a young girl of about nine years old was horrifically injured by a runaway horse and cart and who, while still conscious, was then butchered to death on the operating table. Surrounded by jeering, drunken students, the teaching surgeon who attempted to amputate her crushed leg with non-sterilised implements and without any anaesthetic, could not cope with a severed artery. When things went wrong ‘The Good Old Days’ certainly had their drawbacks! The reliance on horses as a mode of travel meant that they had to contend with the equine temperament and this could be every bit as dangerous as the reckless motorist today.

On Tuesday 14th March 1826, Mary Whiteman’s husband, Ambrose, while out riding, was thrown from his horse and suffered critical injury. He immediately called his nephew, Elizabeth’s son Robert the Elder, to act as his sole executor and made his Will the next day. According to the account by the Rev. Daubeney, he lingered until the Saturday when he died.

Ambrose had been a driving force behind the introduction of Methodism in the village. In 1811 he had been instrumental in acquiring or building the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Hill Street and adjacent to his residence, Hill Farm. This attractive house, otherwise known as The Laurels or sometimes as Daubeney’s, still stands and should not be confused with the grander, Hill House. According to the information sent to me by the late A J Orange (our families were related by marriage: Citrus and Forest he called us!) Ambrose bequeathed to his family (i.e. his sister, nephews and nieces) a number of properties in the village. The bulk of his estate however he left to his wife Mary for her life and thereafter to his niece Jane (nee Forster), wife of Robert Walden the Elder. Incidentally, as well as Hill Farm, this included "The Barracks" or "Grange View Cottages" at the bottom of Munson’s Lane which were subsequently sold but which were later both purchased and sold on again by my grandfather, Jane’s great grandson! Thus from 1826, the Walden family’s future was made financially secure by what was undoubtedly a major tragedy for them and the village.

The three male children of Robert and Jane Walden were Robert Searles (The Younger), William Whiteman and Henry Forster. The origin of the second names Whiteman and Forster is evident from the above background introduction and similarly, Searles was a family name from Wells on the Walden side. Although Robert the Younger had been born at Wells he came to Feltwell as a baby and as both his mother and three of his grandparents came from the village, I think he can be properly considered a Feltwell man.

Nevertheless family contact with Wells was maintained for many years (the family owned land there in Burnt Street) and visits to Thetford also appear to have been quite regular. In July 1837 for example, the teenage William and Henry and their young sister Elizabeth were all up for baptism/confirmation on the same day at the Wesleyan Chapel in Thetford. This would surely have been a real family affair and one can imagine the family group, albeit missing a proud mother, journeying along the old Brandon Road towards Weeting and then on to Brandon and Thetford itself.

Whether Robert was not really interested in farming or whether the family farm could not support everyone is not known but his early twenties Robert apprenticed in the village to John Moore as a grocer’s assistant. Unlike today’s shopkeeper, there were real skills to be learnt as a grocer. Before the invention of the refrigerator, certain foods had to be stored in a special way to keep well or not to taint other foods. Cold meats had to be cut and sliced properly. The keeping of proper ledgers and accounts would have been essential if the business was to remain on a sound financial footing. Goods bought in bulk would have needed weighing and packing for sale. Add the need to deal and negotiate with other merchants and suppliers and it can be seen how a good village grocery shop could have provided plenty of training for an aspiring merchant or businessman.

Exactly how Robert and his bride travelled and whether they were realistic in their aspirations is not known but one can imagine the emotional farewells as they said goodbye to family and friends in Feltwell, Mundford and Thetford whom they had to assume they would never see again. They would almost certainly have made their journey via the bustling port of Liverpool. This in itself would have been an adventure and an entire industry had evolved in that city to ensure emigration was properly organised and no doubt that emigrants were parted with as much of their cash as possible before departure! Probably other Norfolk emigrants would have been there and possibly people known to them. Elizabeth was certainly already expecting when they made the voyage and the hardships endured during the weeks spent crossing the Atlantic can only he imagined. Their firstborn arrived in the same way and was given the same name as his cousin born ten years earlier, Frank Ashby Walden.

Coinage was in short supply in remote and rural places and their son Robert William produced his own, very authentic looking tokens to give to customers instead of change. The advantages to the business were obvious to all .(See picture link 'Coins') Coincidentally, about this time, one of’ Robert’s nephews (my great grandfather, Henry Barton Walden, a stonemason) was returning from London to settle with his family and run a shop in Feltwell. A tradition that continued with his daughter Ruth and her daughter, Gertie Walden who died in 1986.

In 1876 Robert and Elizabeth had a visitor; Robert’s younger brother, William Whiteman Walden.

Apart from emigrating like Robert, William’s life was very different from his brother’s. He married young, a Feltwell girl, Rachel Barton at St Mary’s Church in 1843, witnessed by Martha Spencer and Rachel’s brother George. William was just 22 years old and Rachel was still a minor. Seven months later she produced their first son. She was to produce a total of 10 children over the next 17 years (two of whom died in infancy) as William tried to make the grade as a farmer, moving in 1847 to St Mary Magdalen where he leased land which he worked himself. By 1850, however, he had moved to Walsoken where he was described no better than a ‘general labourer.’ No doubt he had plans and dreams for his young family. If so, sometime between 1852 and 1855 they had gone forever.

The entire family moved to Shaftesbury Street in Newington, south London (probably travelling by the new railway to London through Cambridge and Ely, which had been completed a few years earlier). Although Rachel at least managed an extra year off from child rearing, (she already had 6 children by this time), that the family had suffered some form of disaster was apparent by these circumstances. Working class south London was not the long-term destination of an aspiring gentleman farmer...

"...Some time before your father was born. I was in the cattle dealing line - sheep, pigs and calves and cows in the year 1846. I realised from pigs alone £76 and in 1847 I rented a small farm 26 acres six miles from Kings Lynn. Then I planted 6 acres of sweed (sic) for seed, for cleaning the land. Which was very foul with twitch grass - and buying and planting the turnips, which I had to draw 8 miles, and had to hire for all- (as I only had a market nag). It cost me when I had finished £51 for the 6 acres. Well I had such a splendid crop and sometimes that sort of seed fetch £1 per pack. It was a new thing m that part to see such a crop - it got noised about I should get a large fortune by it. Well when it was in the ‘red row (sic) a seedsman came down from Lynn and wanted to see this crop of seed he had heard so much about. I took him down to the field and it surprised him to see such a splendid crop and ask me what I would take for it just as it stood, he to do the cutting and threshing. I said I should have to see Father before I sold – he knew Father well. Oh said he, I know what he will say – keep it another week so it gets more weight but he said, I want colour. Well said he, I’ll give you £350 for six acres – here’s £50 to bind the bargain – no I must see father first I’ll let you know in the morning. I went over to father’s that night, 33 miles from where I hired – Father said, no don’t this week unless he give you £400. Well I went and told the seedsman. He begged me to take his bid and he would send men to cut it down there for if there came a storm, then it would not hurt it so much. That was on Wednesday morning and on Sunday night at ten o’clock, there arose a storm. Hail Rain and blowing and in the morning I went down to the field and the storm had threshed the seed out on the ground and all I could gather of it did not make me quite £15. That took all my profit away that I had made. I had to sell what I had to get the lease cancelled and get out. That loss I never did recover……."

William now faced immense problems. He had to work to bring in money for his family whilst his young family needed looking after; his eldest daughter was barely ten and could not have acted as surrogate mother to so many. Help was at hand however. Close by lived a 22 years old woman who had lost her father. She was called Ellen Morgan and William very sensibly, married her less than two years after Rachel’s death. At this time William called himself ‘a general dealer’ whereas his children referred to him at the time of their own marriages as either engineer or farmer. There was probably some truth in all of these descriptions, as he would have tried his hand at anything that might bring in some money.

His second son, William Henry was a witness at the wedding who himself married just two years later. The eldest son Robert eventually set up home in nearby Lambeth with his 16-years-old sister and a twelve-years-old brother. This left four siblings living with William and Ellen. William wasted little time in extending his family further and in September 1865 they were joined by the first of 7 children Ellen was to bear him. She was called Rachel Matilda no doubt after Rachel his late wife but also after one of Rachel’s daughters who had been given the identical name but did not survive childhood. Rachel was born in Bethnal Green workhouse and although it was quite common for mothers in overcrowded homes to use the workhouse as a kind of labour ward, it certainly suggests that William and Ellen were on very hard times. Moreover, when Ellen registered the birth two weeks later, the workhouse is given as her place of residence.

By the birth of his next daughter in 1867 William at least had work of some kind as a stockman out at Stapleford Tawney, a small hamlet in south Essex. The number of children he had fathered must have been partly to blame for his lack of prosperity but

"My Dear Father. Feltwell 4th August 1873.

I must conclude now with my kindest and dearest love to all from all.

I remain your affectionate and ever loving son, Arthur Forster Walden,

Arthur never did make it to America and William never saw his first wife’s children again. In the letter he wrote home to his granddaughter Rachel in 1900. William clearly remembered Feltwell St Mary’s for his religious upbringing had made its mark even if his faith had been tested over the past 60 years or so:

"I should very much like to have had the wedding group but unavoidable things must- or should be - looked over-was very pleased to have the record of your wedding. I think it must have been quite a surprise to Feltwell people. Especially to the old time folks.

Why, had I been there with you I should have just gloried in it. For it was at that very altar on the 22nd August 1843 that myself and your Fathers mother were married or made one- it is well to have a home of your own providing we don’t set our affections too much on this world’s goods - our duty towards God who is the giver of all things that we possess is to use them aright and for his glory… So you see that, that what our Lord said come to pass with me. In the world ye shall have tribulation - so if you should meet with any loss do not lay it to heart. For if you have done your best you may be sure it is the way in which God wishes to lead you. Haste happy day. That day we long to see. When every son of Adam will be free."

William Whiteman Walden died in Detroit on the 12th June 1902 aged 80. His youngest daughter, Rose Ellen (Nellie), died on the 19th March 1969 - 125 years after the birth of his first son.

Unlike his brother Robert Searles the Younger, Henry Forster Walden seems to have been happy living a life outdoors. He was practical and competent. to a degree his brother William probably was not, but like William suffered his own personal tragedy.

Unlike his brothers, he married neither young nor old but at the age of 32. He married at the independent chapel in Thetford in 1857 as his brother Robert was to do four years later. (The Methodist influence on the family was still very strong and the family was particularly close to a Brandon preacher, a Mr W Goodson). His bride was a 23- years -old Feltwell girl called Ann Gee and whose family had been in the village for many years. She described herself as a dressmaker and so presumably shared some of Henry’s practical qualities.

He described himself as simply "an engineer" whereas four years later at the age of 36, when he and Ann were living in Cock Street, he described himself specifically as a "locomotive engineer". Although the railway was through to Norwich and King’s Lynn by this time, the description almost certainly refers to agricultural traction engines. In Victorian times they would travel the locality with their crew, threshing the ricks after harvest as well as ploughing in pairs. Feltwell’s fields could have provided enough work for their owners without travelling too far. Kelly’s directory of Norfolk also describes Henry as an engineer as late as 1879, the year he left the village and his country. The Rev. Daubeney in his little ‘blue booklet’ specifically refers to his practical bent. "Mr Waldren (sic) was known as ‘Schemer’ Waldren from his aptness in scheming and making things."

The Rev Daubeney credits Henry with building the Mission Hall in the grounds adjacent to Hill Farm. Assuming he was writing in the 1940s, his reference to ‘some 70 years ago’ would probably date it to the late 1860s or 1870s. It still stands today and apart from its original function and as a Sunday School, it has served as Scout Hut and venue for numerous Church jumble sales.

By 1871 Ann had borne him four children and they had moved into Hill Farm ("The Laurels"), his spinster sister Elizabeth having died four years earlier. The family employed a 20 year old Margaret Johnson as a servant girl but the farm had shrunk from 246 acres often years previously to just 28 acres and employed just one man. In the spring of the same year Ann gave birth to their fifth child, a daughter, Edith Gee Walden. Baby Edith survived a few months; Ann did not. She was 37 years old.

Thus Henry, at the age of 45, was alone with his young children just as William had been 9 years earlier, though I suspect the support Henry received from the village community may have been greater than that William received in south London. Nevertheless, Henry was very much alone with his children. His parents and aunt were long dead, his eldest brother had emigrated and his other brother William was struggling to bring up his own extended family in London. He still had his faith and his friendship with the Rev. Goodson. Six months later on the 21st November he married Eliza Smith at a Baptist chapel in Cambridge. The daughter of the late William and Rebecca Palmer, Eliza was 38 years old and the widow of Samuel Smith. William Palmer had been one of the village’s blacksmiths and the families would have known each other well although at the time of her marriage she was resident in Cambridge.

There was clearly considerable convenience for both parties in such a marriage but she gave Henry much needed support (although no children) until her death thirty years later. Moreover, eight years later, she accompanied her husband, his family and the Rev. Goodson to the other side of the world to New Zealand. (Note: in his notes the Rev. Daubeney incorrectly states that they emigrated to Australia. Although many boats did call there first, en route to New Zealand, it should be remembered that he was quoting Mr Addison writing some twenty years before him and some fifty years (i.e. the 1920s) after the event).

In 1899, Clara’s sister Beatrice died of pneumonia leaving two youngsters. Henry would undoubtedly have seen the parallel with his own life. Three years later Clara herself died of pneumonia and exhaustion aged 37 years and leaving four little ones, the youngest being only 9 months. The countryside was damp and in parts quite swampy and life was undoubtedly hard. Whilst life in England would have been no guarantee of longevity, one wonders how much strain their new life in New Zealand imposed on the family. The third sister, Dora, was the only one of Henry’s five children to survive him but even she died in her late fifties.

Robert G Walden (January 1999)

Note: Since this story was written we have established that John James Walden, husband of Elizabeth Barnard, died in Wells-next-the Sea on 6 January 1822