St Osyth in Essex

The strangely-named village of St Osyth lies about twelve miles (19 km) from Colchester, heading south-east towards the coast of Essex in southern Englad. It's named after a legendary seventh-century chieftan's daughter, Osyth or Osgyth (pictured here in an illuminated manuscript about her life).

She apparently left her arranged marriage to become a nun and set up a convent in the village of Chich or Chicc. She was beheaded by raiding Viking pirates in about 700 AD. Later Chich became known as St Osyth, though the earlier name continued to be used. Osyth's ghost, carrying her head in her hands, is said to haunt the Priory built in her honour in the 12th century.

No such drama was involved when Robert Beales moved to St Osyth around the time of his marriage to Hannah May in 1809. He was a carpenter, from Combs in Suffolk, and perhaps came to St Osyth looking for work. His family would remain in the village for several generations.

Gatehouse and walls of St Osyth Priory
 (image by Stephen Dawson)

Robert Beales might have found work as a carpenter on the grounds of St Osyth's Priory or in the house itself. The walls and gatehouse of the Priory were a dominant feature of the village, taking up one quadrant of the cross formed by the two main streets. At the time of the dissolution in 1539, under King Henry VIII, it was one of the richest monasteries in Essex. After its closure, it became a private home.

Robert and Hannah had seven children before Hannah's death in 1830, including James (b 1814) from whom my family line came. Most of them were baptised in the ancient church of St Peter and St Paul in St Osyth. The widowed Robert married Mary Ann (surname unknown, but possibly Farthing). She had no children as far as I know. Robert died in St Osyth in 1854.

19th century Ordnance Survey map (from Vision of Britain)
Click to see larger version

The land around the village, which is mostly flat, was used for grazing animals, and growing wheat, barley and oats. Instead of following his father into carpentry, Robert's son James became an agricultural labourer. He may have worked on the farm belonging to his father-in-law, John Potter. In the 1851 census the Potters were said to own a farm of 5 acres, employing one man. They lived next door to James and his wife Hannah.

St Osyth marsh
(image by Paul Franks)

Ten years later, in 1861, James and his family were living in a cottage on Wigboro Wick, a farm and hamlet located between the village of St Osyth and the salt marshes that separated it from the mouth of the Colne River. ('Wick' means a farm or settlement and there are several farms in the area with the same suffix).

They were still there in 1871. Their son James, also an agricultural labourer, lived, and probably worked, on the same farm, with his wife Rosanna (or Rosina, nee Bines) and their children.

Farmland around St Osyth. Wigboro Wick farm
 is near the top of the picture. (Image by Terry Joyce)

By the time of the 1881 census, Beales was the third most common surname in St Osyth. The older James was by now a stockman at Wigboro Wick. He died in 1887 at the age of 73. The younger James and Rosanna had moved to a house closer to the village, in Mill Street. This ran past the Mill Dam lake, formed by a dam across St Osyth Creek. Next door to James lived his brother George and his family. Both James and George were employed as agricultural labourers. Like their father, the two brothers became stockmen, looking after the farm's horses, as they grew older.

St Osyth seems to have been a quiet place in the 19th century. When it was mentioned in the Essex newspapers, it was mostly just a two-line report about the local flower show, an outbreak of disease on a farm or a fund-raising tea at the vicarage. Occasionally there would be something more out of the ordinary - a drowning off the coast, or an archeological find. The Post Office directory of 1874 shows all the usual occupations found in a village of this era - bakers, shoemakers, drapers, hairdressers, carpenters etc, along with services needed by farmers such as blacksmiths, wheelwrights and seedsmen. There were five beer retailers listed.

The agricultural depression of the late nineteenth century had a dampening effect on this rural community. According to speech to Parliament given by the Member for Colchester and reported in Hansard in June 1894, the state of things in Essex was "serious and urgent".

"The time was when Essex was one of the most prosperous agricultural counties in the whole Kingdom; it was one admirably adapted for corn growing; but the years since 1875 had been a period of accumulated decline, 19 years in which not one year had been a good one, with the exception of 1887. Even in that year the farmers did no more than pay their way, and then on the top of all came the worst season agriculture had ever known, to wit, the year 1893."

The depression, combined with industrialisation, led to villagers, particularly the young, moving to larger centres such as Clacton, Ipswich and London, to find work and St Osyth went into decline.

My great grandfather, William James Beales, left St Osyth and moved to Colchester when he married in 1891. But his parents, James and Rosanna, and several of his siblings and cousins, remained in the village all their lives. The last of the Beales family descended from Robert Beales left St Osyth in the 1970s.

William Beales' wife Eliza Whybrew was born in Adelaide in South Australia, and that is where we'll go next in this journey through places where my ancestors once lived.

General Sources:

St Osyth Conservation Appraisal and Management Plan

History of St Osyth (History House series)

Vision of Britain - St Osyth

Were James and William Beales brothers?

Here's the next family history "mystery" that I've yet to solve.

Robert Beales, born about 1785, was the great grandfather of my great grandfather, William James Beales. Robert and his wife Hannah (surname uncertain, but possibly May) had a number of children baptised in the church of St Peter and St Paul at St Osyth in Essex, or in nearby St Andrews, Weeley, between 1810 and 1827. Their names can be found in the baptism records on the freereg.org.uk search site*. Their eldest son, James, who is my direct ancestor, was born about 1816.

In the 1841 UK census the only Robert Beales of the right age living in the St Osyth area was married to Mary Ann, and they had an adult son, William, living with them. The same is true in 1851. What I'm still trying to discover is whether this Robert Beales is James Beales' father, or part of another family. And was William a brother to James, a cousin or half-brother, or unrelated?

It's quite possible that by 1841 Robert had remarried. Hannah's last two children were twins, Elizabeth and Benjamin, who lived only a few weeks after their birth in 1827. Perhaps she died in childbirth or soon after, though I can't find any record of her death.

The freereg.org.uk site has a marriage between a Robert Beales, widower, and "Merab" Farthing in St Osyth in July 1833. Could the strange first name be a poorly written "Mary Ann"? The date would be consistent with Hannah dying sometime soon after 1827.

According to the 1851 census William was born in St Osyth about 1819, which would fit in the gap between the birth of James and his next sibling Eliza, born about August 1820. The difficulty with adding William Beales to the list of Hannah's children is that his name doesn't appear among the baptisms recorded in the St Osyth area.

Was he perhaps born somewhere well beyond St Osyth? I can't find a baptism for any William Beales with a father named Robert anywhere in Essex, or the next county, Suffolk, between 1815 and 1825, even allowing for the various misspellings of Beales. Perhaps he was simply left unbaptised for some reason - some crisis in the family, or a period of dire poverty, for instance.

Nothing in William's own story gives any clues as to who his parents were. He enlisted in the 21st foot regiment in 1839, but was discharged a few months later after he lost the sight in  both eyes due to complications from smallpox, which is probably why he was still living with his father and mother (or step mother) as an adult. In 1852 he married Mary Ann Dale. (Sorry about the confusing repetition of first names!) He found employment as a broom maker. His army records don't name his parents, and his marriage certificate would only name his father, which doesn't help.

One detail that makes me think that William's father Robert may not be the same man as James' father is that William's father is described as a carpenter on the census records of 1841 and 1851. On most of the baptism records for Robert and Hannah's children Robert's occupation is given as labourer. Carpentry was a skilled trade that most people followed for a lifetime after being an apprentice. It would be unusual (though obviously not impossible) for a labourer to become a carpenter late in life.

For now, that's as far as I can go with solving this one. It doesn't affect my direct family line, but it would be nice to know where poor blind William fits in.



*For the record, the children of Robert and Hannah that I've been able to find are:
Hannah Beales 1810–
James Beales 1814–1887
Eliza Beales 1820–
Rebecca Beales 1825–
Elizabeth Beales 1827–1827
Benjamin Beales 1827–1827

Images: 1. Church of St Peter and St Paul, St Osyth, by Peter Stack
2. The chancel of St Peter and St Paul by John Salmon

Rosanna (Rosina)Bines

It's difficult to know what name to use for the woman who would become William Beales' mother. Her birth, late in 1846, was registered as "Rosana" Bines and that's how her name is spelled on the 1851 census. But in 1861 she was recorded as "Rosina" and in 1871 as "Rose Anna".

When she married James Beales in 1867 she was "Rosanna". The confusion is perhaps an indication that she and her family were illiterate and didn't really know how her name should be spelled. For this post, I'll refer to her as Rosanna.

Rosanna Bines was the first child of John Bines, an agricultural labourer from Little Clacton in Essex and his wife Eliza Barnes from the adjacent Great Clacton. Rosanna lived in Little Clacton until her marriage to James Beales, then spent the rest of her life in St Osyth, less than 7 kilometres (4.5 miles) away. Apart from her name appearing on the census every 10 years, and the records of her birth, marriage and death, her life went mostly unrecorded.

But not quite. Surprisingly, photographs of her still exist. The copies I have posted on this blog came from the internet some time ago, but who originally posted them and when is unknown. (If you know, let me know and I'll give them the credit.) I've also received copies of the same pictures from a cousin.

In the oldest of these, probably a wedding photo, a young Rosanna sits in a voluminous white dress besides the heavily bearded James Beales, looking a little startled by the camera. She holds a book in her hand, most likely a prayer book. James is neatly but rather shabbily dressed.

Many years later she and James have their photos taken with their grown up children, all dressed in what would surely be their Edwardian Sunday Best and wearing buttonholes. It's not clear whether the two photos - one with their daughters, the other with their sons - were taken on the same occasion. The clothes that Rosanna and James are wearing and the barn wall behind them are different in the two photos.

In these photos, Rosanna looks composed and remarkably well preserved for someone who has given birth to 15 children. Only two of her children failed to reach adulthood. Emily died in 1895 at the age of 9. The other child missing from the photo was possibly Ann*, born in 1874, who died in 1876.

None of the Beales' children seem to have been baptised as infants. Their names are absent from the on-line records of either the parish church of St Peter and St Paul or the Wesleyan Methodist church in St Osyth.  Other Beales names are recorded, presumably cousins and more distant relatives. Whether this was because the family belonged to a non-conformist church or sect, or they simply didn't have any religious affiliation before they joined the Salvation Army is another unknown.

They wouldn't have had to look far to find an alternative to the local Church of England parish. Essex seems to have attracted a number of unusual religious groups in the 19th century. St Osyth had a chapel belonging to the New Church, or Swedenborgians, based on the teachings of Swedish theologian Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772).

The Peculiar People, a puritan offshoot of the Wesleyans founded by Robert Banyard in 1838, was also active in east Essex at this time. They believed strongly in healing by faith and refused to allow their children to be vaccinated against smallpox or to receive medical treatment. The deaths of some of their children led to the parents being taken to court.

St Osyth is reputed to be the driest place in England. Perhaps it was the salubrious climate, her life as a farm labourers' wife or the disciplines of the Salvation Army lifestyle that preserved Rosanna's health. She lived to the venerable age of 85, dying in 1931.

* Some online family trees list Anna Maria Beales as a child of James and Rosanna, but the only child I can find by that name was born in 1881, the same year as John Beales, and seems to be the child of George Beales. Possibly Ann was also known as Anna Maria. Her birth in 1874 fits in well between the births of George and Alfred, though I don't have confirmation that she was a child of Rosanna and James.

William James Beales

When Eliza Whybrew married William Beales in the autumn of 1891, she was marrying a man whose childhood was distinctly different to her own. Whereas she had spent her childhood moving from place to place with her father's army regiment, Bill had always lived in the same small village where his father and his grandfather had spent their whole lives.

Bill was born and raised in St Osyth, on the coast of Essex. His father James Beales was a farm labourer and horseman, and his mother Rosina (or Rosanna, nee Bines) the daughter of another agricultural labourer from the nearby village of Little Clacton. The extended Beales family was a large one - in the 1881 census Beales was the third most common name in St Osyth. 

James and Rosina with their sons c 1900(?)
Bill is on the far right

Like Susan Whybrew, Rosina Beales gave birth fourteen times*, but all except one of her children survived childhood (Emily, born in 1886, died at the age of 9). Life in St Osyth was certainly not luxurious, but it was stable and the village was perhaps isolated from many of the epidemics that spread rapidly through larger towns.

William received a very basic education at the local school. By the age of 12 he was already employed as an agricultural labourer. The Elementary Education Act of 1880 made school compulsory until the age of 10, and the school leaving age in England was nominally raised to 13. However, if parents could produce a certificate to show that their child had reached a satisfactory level of education, they could be employed sooner than this.

The Beales girls with James and Rosina

It's difficult to find out much about the Beales family. They didn't frequent the Police Courts, and they weren't far enough up the social ladder for their social life to be of interest to anyone, so their names don't appear in the newspapers or on local directories. It seems there are no records of baptisms of their children in the parish church registers at St Osyth. Most of what is known about them comes from the census records.

By the time of the 1891 census in April, William had found work as a coal porter and had moved to Colchester, where he boarded with a young couple named Edmund and Mercy Child. There he met Eliza, and they were married in Colchester at the end of 1891.

Though Eliza and Bill were in their early twenties when they married, both had younger siblings who were still toddlers. This was not uncommon in the days when many women produced a child every two years for 30 years. James and Rosina Beales' last child, Hannah, was born in 1890, but David and Susan had another three children born after Eliza's marriage  - James, Ada and Lily - though sadly neither James nor Lily lived long.

Bill and Eliza's first child,  Alice was born early in 1893, followed by Rosina (registered as Rosanna in February 1895), William James (June 1897) and Ada Kate (late 1899). Ernest David was born at the end of 1901, after the census. He was to be the only child of theirs that didn't live to adulthood, dying at the age of five. On the census Ada is listed as 'Adam', though she is described correctly as a daughter aged 1 year old.

In 1901 the family were living in a typical Victorian terrace house ('two up, two down') in Albion Grove in Colchester, not far from Pownall Cresent where David and Susan Whybrew and their younger children lived. Bill was now working as a grocer's porter, carrying goods for the shop owner and his customers and perhaps also helping to keep the shop in good order. It would not have been a highly paid job, so it's likely that the family had to live quite simply.

 A London bread van, circa 1910

By 1911 Bill had a job as a 'carman' with the Co-op, driving a horse-drawn cart. An article written in 1903 about the carmen of London described them as being poorly paid and  working long hours. Perhaps the Co-operative Society were more generous to their employees, but again it's unlikely that Bill earned much.

With the addition of Henry (born 1904 and nicknamed 'Son') and Miriam (born 1906 and known as "Mill", ) the family expanded to 6 children. Some time before the 1911 census they moved to a six roomed house in Campion Road, an even shorter walk from Eliza's parents' home in Pownall Cresent. A young soldier and his wife boarded with the Beales, which perhaps helped to pay the rent.

William and Eliza and their family were very much involved with the Salvation Army in Colchester. Bill played the cornet and was the bandmaster for many years. Eliza was possibly an officer, though that is uncertain. Alice and Ada both married officers and were officers themselves, according to my father. (Officers in the Salvation Army are the equivalent of the ordained clergy in other churches. Both men and women can be appointed.)

Rosina, as a teenager, worked in Ipswich as a servant to Albert Orsborn, who later became the 6th General of the Salvation Army. As mentioned previously, she left the Salvation Army when she married my grandfather, Thomas Ward. William James Beales junior followed his father into the Colchester band after his military service during World War 1. His son Bernard became bandmaster at an early age.

My father tells me that Son (Henry) was seen as something of a black sheep in the family, as he smoked and liked to have an occasional drink. Soldiers of the Salvation Army are supposed to "abstain from the use of all enslaving substances." I'm not sure how long his sister Mill (Miriam) remained in the Salvation Army, but it was she who recalled that her mother was born in Australia, thus setting off my search for the Whybrew and Mason families.

Bill Beales senior retired from his post as band leader in 1938, but apparently continued to play his cornet even when he was too ill to get out of bed. He died on June 13, 1945. He was much respected and his funeral was well attended. He was buried in Colchester cemetery.

William James Beales' grave in Colchester cemetery

Colchester cemetery
(both photos from findagrave.com)

*I've now discovered from the 1911 census that Rosanna gave birth to 15 children, of whom 13 survived.

Beales family gallery

James and Rosanna Beales
 (date and place unknown)

James and Rosanna Beales and daughters (date and place unknown)
Back row: Hannah, Mary, Alice, Rosanna, Charlotte, Eliza
Front row: Ada, James, Rosanna, Ruth
(NB This may not be correct. I have seen the girls' names
 listed in a different order online.)

James and Rosanna Beales and sons:
John, Harry, George, Alfred, William
James and Rosanna

William and Eliza Beales (nee Whybrew) c 1940

(photos courtesy of Pauline Jepson)

Rosanna Bines

Name:			Rosanna (Rosina) BINES
Sex:			Female
Father:			John BINES (1824-1903)
Mother:			Eliza BARNES (1821-1891)
Individual Facts
Birth			abt 1847		Little Clacton, Essex1–2
Death			22 May 1931 (about age 84)		Tendring, Essex3
Marriages/Children
1. James BEALES (1847-1922)
Children			William James BEALES (1868-1945)
			Alice BEALES (1870-    )
			Roseanna BEALES (1871-    )
			George BEALES (1872-    ) Ann BEALES??? (1874-1876)
			Alfred BEALES (1876-    )
			Mary BEALES (1877-    )
			Ada BEALES (1878-    )
			Eliza BEALES (1878-    )
			John BEALES (1881-    )
			Charlotte BEALES (1883-    )
			Ruth BEALES (1884-    )
			Emily BEALES (1886-    )
			Harry BEALES (1888-    )
			Hannah BEALES (1890-    )

More about Rosanna:

Beales family gallery (photos)
Rosanna Bines

Footnotes

        1. 1871 census (UK).

        2. 1851 census (UK).

        3. familysearch.org.

James Beales

Name:			James BEALES
Sex:			Male
Father:			James BEALES (1817-1887)
Mother:			Hannah POTTER (1816-1889)
Individual Facts
Birth			abt 1847		St Osyth, Essex1–2
Occupation			1871 (about age 24)		Ag lab; Wigbro Wick, St Osyth, Essex3
Occupation			1901 (about age 54)		Horse man on farm; St Osyth, Essex4
Death			4 Jan 1922 (about age 75)		5
Marriages/Children
1. Rose Anna (Rosina) BINES (1847-1931)
Children			William James BEALES (1868-1945)
			Alice BEALES (1870-    )
			Roseanna BEALES (1871-    )
			George BEALES (1872-    )
			Alfred BEALES (1876-    )
			Mary BEALES (1877-    )
			Ada BEALES (1878-    )
			Eliza BEALES (1880-    )
			?Anna Maria BEALES (1881-    )
			John BEALES (1881-    )
			Charlotte BEALES (1883-    )
			Ruth BEALES (1884-    )
			Emily BEALES (1886-    )
			Harry BEALES (1888-    )
			Hannah BEALES (1890-    )

More about James Beales

Beales family gallery
Rosanna Bines

Footnotes

        1. 1871 census (UK).

        2. 1881 census (UK).

        3. 1871 census (UK), RG10; Piece: 1677; Folio: 5; Page: 4.

        4. 1901 census (UK).

        5. familysearch.org.

William James Beales

Name:	William James BEALES
Sex:	Male
Father:	James BEALES (1847-1922)
Mother:	Rosanna (Rosina) BINES (1847-1931)
Individual Facts
Birth	12 Oct 1868	St Osyth, Essex1
Occupation	1891 (about age 23)	Coal porter; St Leonards, Colchester2
Occupation	1901 (about age 33)	Grocer's porter; Colchester, Essex3
Death	1945 (about age 77)	Colchester, Essex4
Marriages/Children
1. Elizabeth WHYBREW (1869-1949)
Children	Alice BEALES (1893-1985)
	Rosina BEALES (1895-1972)
	William BEALES (1897-1986)
	Ada Kate BEALES (1899-    )
	Henry John ('Son') BEALES (1904-1986)
	Miriam BEALES (1906-1998)

1. freebmd.org.uk.

2. 1891 census (UK).

3. 1901 census (UK).

4. ancestry.co.uk.

More about William Beales

William Beales