5

March Tree

 THOMAS BYSH and ELEANOR BYFIELD (8)

 

THOMAS BYSH. His surname is variously given as Bish, Bysh and Bysshe.

Thomas’s burial in 1824 gives his age as 77 years. This gives us a birth date around 1745. At his marriage, he was living in Horne in Surrey.

There are no suitable baptisms in Horne, but there is one in the adjacent parish of Tandridge.
Baptism. St Peter, Tandridge.
1746 born Aug 27, bapt Sep 8  Thomas the son of Henry & Susannah Bish.

The village of Tandridge is 5 mile north of Horne, but the parish extends south for 10 miles.

Thomas was the third of eight children. His mother was Susannah Arnold.

Tandridge is a clustered village, surrounded partly by woodland and partly by fields. It is the largest parish on the lowest land of a ridge.
Its landmark is one of the oldest yew trees in the country. It is thought to be well over a thousand years old.

Thomas came from a family of yeoman farmers, owning several properties in the area.

He was eight years old when his grandfather Henry Bysh died, leaving a £200 legacy to be invested for the education and maintenance of Thomas and his sister and three brothers. Two brothers and a sister were born after that, too late to be included in the legacy.

By the time he was married, Thomas had moved 5 miles south to the village of Horne.

 

ELEANOR BYFIELD. Eleanor was married twice. We find her maiden name of Byfield from her first marriage. This took place in 1759, making the following the most likely baptism.

Baptism. St Denys, Rotherfield.
1737 Nov 6  Ellinor daughter of Amos Byfield and Anne his wife.

Eleanor called one of her sons by the unusual name of Amos, strengthening the likelihood that this is the right baptism. Rotherfield was also the birthplace of her first husband James Apps.

Rotherfield lies just over the Surrey border in the Weald district of East Sussex, seven mile south of Tunbridge Wells.

There is a note in the register which says that her parents were “Travellers”. This could mean that they were Romany, or that they were itinerant labourers who travelled to find work.

We have been unable to find any more about her family. We do not have her parents’ marriage, the baptisms of any siblings, or the burials of her parents. As travellers, they may well have moved away from Rotherfield, but we do not know how far. We have found no record of them anywhere else in the country.

In the 18th century, the road through Rotherfield became the turnpike road from Tunbridge Wells to Lewes. By the time of her first marriage, at the age of 22, Eleanor had moved to Tonbridge, 5 miles north of Tunbridge Wells.

 

Marriage. Ss Peter and Paul, Tonbridge.
1759 Feb 18  James Apps of the parish of Speldhurst and Eleanor Byfield of this parish .
Both sign their names.
Witnesses: Tmos Byfield, William Ellliot

Tonbridge is a market town on the River Medway. Until 1870, it was spelt Tunbridge, but this was then changed to avoid confusion with Tunbridge Wells

Their first child was baptised in James’s home of Speldhurst, four miles south of Tonbridge. This was only six months after the wedding.
Baptism. St Mary the Virgin, Speldhurst.
1759 Aug 20  Thomas

The remaining seven children were baptised further south, in Tunbridge Wells.

 Baptisms. King Charles the Martyr, Tunbridge Wells.
1760 Dec 28  Eleanor
1762 Nov 21  James
1764 Jun born 4, bapt 26  Susannah
1765 Sep born 7, bapt 23  Ann
1767 Feb 15  Elizabeth
1768 born Apr 18, bapt May 8  Amos
1770 Sep 18  Edward

The children’s  baptisms are recorded in the register of Ss Peter and Paul in Tonbridge, but on a page headed “Baptised in Tonbridge Wells”.

We have no record of any of these children dying.

Tunbridge Wells had been a spa town since the Restoration of the 1660s under Charles II. It was popular in the 1700s, with patrons such as Beau Nash. People came to take the waters of its chalybeate spring.

The church of King Charles the Martyr was named for Charles I, who was beheaded by the Parliamentarians in 1649 at the end of the Civil War.

We have evidence of James’s occupation in an apprenticeship in 1766, when James Knight was apprenticed to James Apps, blacksmith of Tonbridge.

Not long after the birth of their last child, James Apps died. He was buried, not in Tunbridge Wells, but in Tonbridge.

Burial. Ss Peter and Paul, Tonbridge.
1771 Dec 17  James Apps

We believe James to have been born in 1724, making him 47 when he died.

By the time of her marriage to Thomas Bysshe, Eleanor had moved to the village of Burstow, 18 miles west of Tonbridge. Thomas was a bachelor, but Eleanor was already the mother of 8 children. She was seven years older than him.

Marriage. St Bartholomew, Burstow.
1774 Oct 11  Thos Bysshe of the Parish of Horne Bachelor and Eleanor Apps of this Parish Widow.
Thomas makes his mark X, Eleanore signs.
Witnesses: George Burr, Philip Francis

They set up home in Thomas’s village of Horne, two miles north. Here, three daughters were born.
Baptisms. St Mary, Horne.
1775 Jun 11  Sara daughter of Thomas and Ellenor Bish.
1777 Nov 17  Hannah
1783 May 25  Phillis

We have no information about Thomas’s occupation. He came from a line of well-to-do yeoman farmers,  and may have helped his father on one of their farms. But he was a younger son, and his older brother Henry would have been the principal heir. Thomas was, in any case, over 40 when his father died. Even before that, his father had sold Snouts Farm, and was living in rented accommodation,

Younger sons often slipped down the social scale. It would seem particularly likely that Thomas would not have been a yeoman farmer like his forebears.

He and Eleanor lived through the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Eleanor died two years after the Battle of Waterloo.

Burial. St Mary, Horne.
1817 Jul 31  Eleanor Bysh. Residence Horne. 82 yrs.

This would give her a birth date of 1734-5, which is close to our date for Eleanor’s birth, though not exact. Older people’s ages were often not accurately known.

Thomas lived another seven years.
1824 Jun 13  Thomas Bish, residence Horne, 79 yrs,

 

NEXT GENERATION: 7. COPPER-BYSHE

PREVIOUS GENERATIONS: 9. BISH-ARNOLD

March Tree