In our
day, North Tawton is separated from South Tawton
by the A 3072 - the route from Crediton which joins the
Barnstaple road just north of Okehampton. North Tawton is an ancient market town
of some size and, with its bridge over the River Taw, was an important
wool town until very recent times.
Like
Molland, the parishioners of North Tawton set about making
detailed plans for what to do if there was an invasion. But it was a
fairly large town, not a village, and in order to see the size of their problem,
the officials there decided to take a census of the entire population. The task was divided
between 9 or 10 of the leading citizens who went from house to house,
listing not only the names and true ages of the people in each household
but also their trade and the physical condition of the older inhabitants. The loose sheets of paper they used in
that winter of 1803/4
still exist in Devon's Record Office - true the ink is a little faded
and some of the spelling is decidedly shaky but there it is - a town
census listing almost 1200 men, women and children who were standing by,
ready to be evacuated if the need arose.
Among the names recorded are those of
Ann Stentiford
(34) widow
Joanna
Stentiford (11) child
Jane
Stentiford (7) child
William
Stentiford (6) child
Richard
Stentiford (4) child
This is
the family of Ann Stentiford who we met first in in the years before
1800 and who we wrote about in Issue 6. And now we
can detect the presence of another girl in this family, named Joanna. Her
sisters Elizabeth and Ann were away, serving their apprenticeships - we
already know that
Elizabeth had been apprenticed in 1799 before her father died. We know
too that young Ann was apprenticed to John Orchard at Higher Bood in 1800 when
she would have been 8. Jane (also already known to us) was
apprenticed a few weeks after this Census was taken to Richard Blatchford
at West Hill but , in this Census, is mention of an older girl called Joanna.
If we go to
the Sampford Courtenay Parish Register, we can see there the beginning
of the younger Ann Stentiford's enthusiastic career as a single parent. On 10 Jul
1808, her daughter Deborah was baptised privately, then, on 1 Sep
1811, there is another baptism recorded for a base born child - this
time it is a boy named William and the mother is described as Joanna
Stentiford. Since sometimes "Ann" and "Joanna" are used
interchangeably in registers, this child too might, perhaps, have been considered
as belonging to Ann
but now, through our findings in North Tawton, we can identify another mother for little William.
It looks as
though the family's stay in North Tawton was of a temporary nature - the
Overseers of the Poor in Sampford Courtenay probably had no suitable
accommodation for them and paid to board them out in a neighbouring
parish - perhaps they thought it was one fewer problem to worry about if
the invasion did occur.
Joanna's brother William was apprenticed to John Kelland at Hatherdon in 1805 and Richard
was sent to Withy Brook to work for Joseph Cockram in 1807. We must
assume that their mother Ann returned to the parish of Sampford
Courtenay shortly after the date of this Census, since all these
apprenticeship indentures were made by Sampford Courtenay Parish
Overseers.
