5
Alan March’s Family History
This site is a work-in-progress. There is a massive amount to cover. I have included both male and female lines, and some go back many generations. Keep coming back for more.
I have numbered the generations working backwards from Alan’s as (1)
FARMER EUSTACE and MARY MONK (7)
FARMER EUSTACE was born in 1753 in the parish of Haddenham, Bucks. He was the son of John and Mary Eustace.
Baptism. Haddenham.
1753 Apr 29 Farmer son of John and Mary Eustace.
His unusual baptismal name proved accurate. He came from a long line of farmers and followed in their footsteps.
His mother was Mary Barnard, also of Haddenham, and his grandfather may have been a miller.
Farmer was the third of four children, an older brother having apparently died in infancy.
He was only five when his father died. His family were well-to-do. His mother and the children would not have fallen into poverty, as some widows and orphans did.
MARY MONK was of Stone when she married there. This is 4 miles NE of Haddenham. Her age, given at her burial in 1823, was 69, giving her a birth date in 1753-4. There are two baptisms in Stone around that time.
Baptisms. Stone.
1754 Sep 11 Mary daughter of Henry and Elizabeth Monk
1755 Jan 29 Mary daughter of Thomas and Mary Monk.
The first is a closer fit in age, and Mary and Farmer gave the name Henry to one of their children, but not Thomas. We have found no Henrys in the Eustace forbears, but it was common in the Monk family.
Mary’s mother’s name is given in the index of baptisms as Elizabeth, but we believe this to be a mistake. No wedding has been found between Henry Monk and Elizabeth in the mid-18th century, and this is an anomaly in the list of baptisms in Stone for children of Henry and Mary Monk. We believe her true mother to be Mary Wiggins.
Mary, too, came of farming stock. Her father was a yeoman farmer.
Marriage. Stone.
1785 Oct 5 Farmer Monk bachelor of Haddenham and Mary Monk spinster of Stone.
Witnesses: R Woodman and Sarah Mente.
They were married by licence.
There was some intermarrying between these farming families of Buckinghamshire. Farmer Eustace’s aunt, Rebecca Eustace, had married Abraham Eustace, and Farmer and Mary’s daughter Mary Eustace married her cousin Henry Monk.
Their first child was baptised in Stone. The record uses an unusual spelling of Eustace.
Baptism. Stone.
1786 Apr 24 Mary, daughter of Farmer and Mary Ustes.
Farmer’s ancestors had been in Haddenham for several generations, but he moved away from there. After the birth of their first child in Stone, he and Mary set up home in Ellesborough, 7 miles east.
While Haddenham lies in the Vale of Aylesbury, Ellesborough is at the foot of the Chiltern Hills. The grassy Beacon Hill towers above the village. The church of St Peter and St Paul also stands on a hill overlooking the village.
Four more children were baptised there.
Baptisms. Ellesborough.
1788 Sep 14 Henry
1789 Dec 19 John
1791 Dec 28 Sarah Monk
1793 Aug 25 Elizabeth
Farmer, and later his son Henry, ran Grove Farm in Ellesborough. The farmhouse stands on a medieval moated site with a fishpond.
These moated homesteads are particularly common in middle and northern Buckinghamshire. Grove Farm is one of only a few in the south. When the moat was dug, the earth was thrown up on the inside, forming a mound on which the house and barns were built. Most of them date from the late 12th and 13th centuries. It was a form of fortification in the troubled times of the Barons Wars.
There was a pattern in the Eustace family for the men to die prematurely, as did Farmer’s father and grandfather. Farmer was only 42 when he died on 25 May 1794.
He was buried, not in Ellesborough, but in Stone, where he and Mary started their married life.
Burial. Stone.
1784 Jun 3 Farmer Eustace. Farmer.
The inscription on his gravestone reads:
Sacred to the memory of
Farmer Eustace
late of The Grove Farm, Ellesborough
who departed this life
May 25th 1794 aged 42 years.
Also of Henry
eldest son of the above
who died at the same farm
on the 12th May 1860 aged 72 years.
Mary was left with five young children, the youngest less than a year old.
Their eldest son Henry was only six when his father died. When he came of age, he took over Grove Farm. In the meanwhile, Mary managed it.
Farmer had died the year after Louis XVI was guillotined in the French Revolution. Britain immediately declared war on France.
In 1798, a survey, known as the Posse Comitatus, was held to determine the country’s readiness for war and the resources it had available in men and equipment. Buckinghamshire is the only county to have preserved the full return.[2] It is particularly valuable because it lists the men under their occupations.
No Eustaces are listed among its farmers. But Mary Ewstace appears in a count of the draught horses, wagons and carts available. She has 9 draught horses, 2 wagons and 3 carts. This is the highest total for anyone in Ellesborough, reflecting the Eustaces’ comparative wealth.
Mary is not listed among the farmers of Ellesborough, because the count was only of men of military age, but she was evidently managing Grove Farm during Henry’s minority. Doubtless she continued to live there until her death 29 years after Farmer’s.
She lived through the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, terminating in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
A rapidly rising population in the 18th century led to an increased demand for food, and the war made imports more difficult. It was a time of prosperity for farmers.
Like Farmer, Mary was buried in Stone, though not apparently in the same grave as Farmer. She may have been interred with her Monk forebears.
Burial. Stone.
1823 Mar 18 Mary Eustace of Ellesborough. Aged 69.
[2] Buckinghamshire Record Society.
http://www.bucksrecsoc.org.uk › brs-vol-22
NEXT GENERATION: 6. MONK-EUSTACE
PREVIOUS GENERATIONS: 8. EUSTACE-BARNARD