James Cobley (Coverley) (Calverley)

James Cobley was one of Ari’s 3x great-grandfathers, born in 1846 in South Luffenham, Rutland. His father was William Cobley and his mother was Mary Davis.

Corbel on St Mary’s church, South Luffenham

I have just found his baptism at St Mary’s, listed as Calverley:

He appears in the 1851 census, age 5, when the family were living in Barrowden.

Inscribed stone at Appletree Cottage, Barrowden. Possibly an admonition to mourners passing in funeral processions.

By 1861, at age 15, James had left home and was working as a servant for a farmer, Mary Ann Cox.

In 1869 James married Elizabeth Stapleton in Stamford, Lincolnshire, and by 1871 they had moved to the village of Tixover in Rutland, where James worked as a labourer.

The route of the Rutland Round (a 65-mile walk around Rutland’s perimeter) between Tixover and Barrowden.

The couple had six children, including twins Edward Daniel and Thomas Davis (Ari’s great-great-grandfather). In 1881 they were living in the village of Tinwell, near Stamford, at 4 Empingham Road Cottages. James was 36 and working as an agricultural labourer.

The datestone on the forge at Tinwell

The 1891 census record proved elusive as the name had been transcribed as Colley, but he is there, at Village St Cottage in Glinton, Northamptonshire. In 1901 he was at Town St, Glinton. By now the only child still at home was the youngest daughter, Annie Elizabeth.

And in 1911 James and Elizabeth are still in Glinton, and James is a farm labourer, aged 65. He doesn’t give a postal address, but in the census he is immediately after the Blue Bell Inn.

James died in 1923.

Ari, this is how you are related to James:

 

Susan Davis of Imber, silk-spinner

Susan Davis was Ari’s 4x great-grandmother. She was born in about 1832 in the now-deserted village of Imber on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.

The story of the village is told on this website, which includes photos of the people who lived there.

This is Susan’s baptism record from 26 Feb 1837:

(Source: Wiltshire, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813–1916 [database on-line].)

Her sister Charlotte, also “B.B” (base-born, or illegitimate), was baptised on the same day.

In the 1841 census the three of them are living in Marsh Alley, Warminster. In 1851 Susan and her mother are in nearby Chapel Street, and Susan (now 19) is listed as a silk-spinner. (Silk spinning was one of Warminster’s major industries.) The following year Susan married, and children Sidney, Henry, Harriet and Albert quickly followed.

A married daughter, Emily, born in 1864, is living with them in 1891. (Emily married naval stoker Frank Whatley on 22 Jul 1890 and was widowed in 1914 when his ship, HMS Aboukir, was sunk by a German submarine in the North Sea.)

The last census for Susan shows her in 1901, living at 41 Brook Street in Warminster at the age of 70. She died two years later and was buried at Christ Church.

(Source: Wiltshire, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1916 [database on-line].)

Four years later, Susan’s husband married again at the age of 75 but he will have his own page to tell his story!

Ari, this shows how you are related to Susan: