Margaret has contacted the Parwich and District History Society to seek help in tracing more about her family history in Parwich. She has provided the following information based on what she has already established.

If anyone has any information that could help Margaret in her ongoing quest please email parwich.history.society@gmail.com and we will pass it on.

SAINT FAMILY (part of) in Mugginton and Parwich                              

My connection with the Saint family begins with Mary Fanny Saint (born 1872 baptised Alsop en le Dale but lived in Parwich originally) who was my maternal grandmother, but I have quite a lot of information on the various Saint families. This is what I have learned so far, and although there may well be errors in dates etc. I believe most of the detail below, certainly for Thomas Saint younger onwards is reasonably accurate.

Thomas of Mercaston/Mugginton (born 1695 Church Broughton??) married Mary Beeston of Scropton in 1718? and a son Thomas was born around 1720  – on Mary’s death I think he married again to Mary Ride/Ryde of Mercaston in 1728, but these dates and names are difficult to establish for certain because of the sparse records.  Thomas senior may have had at least one sister, possibly Hannah, who married a John Woolley in 1722 at Ripley, as the Woolley name is mentioned in Thomas’s Will (his “brother and sister” John and Hannah, and nieces and nephew Rebecca, Rachel and John), as is a niece Elizabeth Cantrel, his “only son” Thomas, and grandson Samuel, though I do have to double check this. Thomas’s son, Thomas Saint the younger,  Mercaston (1720-1796?) married Mary Baldwin of Radbourne in April 1743 at Mugginton and they had 8 children.  On Mary’s death in 1762 Thomas married for a second time to Alice Beeston of Mugginton in 1765, and they had a further 2 children. The names of the children were:

John, William, Samuel, Thomas, Edward, Mary, Sarah, Joseph, plus Ann and William, born between 1743 and 1772.  

The eldest son John Saint, baptised March 1743? married Hannah Glew in 1775; they had 8 children in the Kirk Langley/Mugginton area.  John of Mercaston died in 1803 and Hannah, a widow, on 21 December 1827 at Alkmonton, near Longford.  Their children were: 

Lucy, Hannah, Isaac, Maria, John, Matilda, John, Lettice. born between 1778 and 1796. 

John and Hannah’s eldest son Isaac Saint was baptised 1784 and married Hannah Bownes of Tupton in 1811 – see below.

Two of Isaac’s sisters Hannah and Matilda married their cousin William Saint, (son of Samuel and Hannah Saint) and most of this side of the family were centred around Mugginton/Longford/ Alkmonton and Brailsford villages, in farming, and although 3 of William and Matilda’s children were baptised at Parwich (Matilda, Anne and Frances between 1814 and 1819); the family were in Alkmonton/Longford in the 1841 census, and Brailsford in the 1851 census.

Isaac Saint married Hannah Bownes of Tupton (daughter of Edward and Elizabeth, baptised 19 Sept. 1790 North Wingfield) by marriage licence North Wingfield in 1811, and had 3 children born Mugginton (1812-1815) but between 1815 and 1817 they moved to Parwich where a further 5 children were born 1817 to 1823. Their children were:

Elizabeth, Ann, John, Edward, twins Isaac and Emmeline (who died soon after, buried in Parwich), William and Sarah.  

Isaac and Hannah farmed at Hallcliffe, 200 acres (plus tenancy of Hill Top farm Parwich) on the 1841, 1851 and 1861 Census.  There are several references in the Parwich church magazines to Isaac, and on the Parwichhistory.org website, including notes written by Joseph Thompson 1833-1909 as follows:-

“There used to be a little odd-looking square old man, by the name of Isaac Saint, who had a chronic weakness for always being Church warden, an honourable office in that day and he generally had his desire satisfied. Being then in power he decided that certain ‘Improvements’ be made at once. The Church warden at this time was diminutive, who by some irony of fate had a very tall, handsome wife; she was caught in a tangent I suppose having been much disappointed in a former love affair………….The tithe was taken in kind then. So every tenth animal not paid for was lawful prey. The animals were shut up in a building and cautiously let out one by one and great was the delight of this little man when the tenth happened to be a fine beast – but sometimes the contrary was the case and he was quite down in the mouth and full of sorrow if the beast were weak and sickly.”

Isaac died July 1864 at Horsley Wood, near Bradbourne (on a carrier’s cart on his way to Ashbourne Market) for which there was an inquest at the Sycamore Inn, Parwich by Coroner Brookes of Bakewell, and Hannah died in 1871, both buried in Parwich graveyard (see headstone).

Elizabeth (b 1812) married Thomas Brownson in 1845 but became a widow in 1849 and was living with her sister Sarah and parents Isaac and Hannah in 1851 and 1861, and with sister Sarah in 1871.

Ann (b 1813) married James Bullock in 1842 and lived in Clifton, Ashbourne in the 1871 census.

John (b 1815) I believe was at Edge Farm Crich in the 1841 census and in 1851/61/71/81 in Lancashire (Newton, Prestwich, Chorley) as farm bailiff, staying with Anne/Alice Brownson, a widow and farmer, on one census referred to as “cousin” and in 1881 as retired farmer with Sophia Howarth, his “niece”, and he appears to have died in the Ashbourne district in 1889.   [I am unable at the moment to work out any possible family connection with “cousin” and “niece”, so wonder if these terms have been misinterpreted when the census records were transcribed, or if I have missed something; John’s sister Elizabeth married a Thomas Brownson but he died 4 years later, and I have no other relative of this name on my chart]. John was selling stock in 1885 according to a local newspaper.

Edward (b 1817) married Dorothy Kirkham in 1842 in Parwich and lived with his in-laws at Church Farm, Parwich on the 1851 and 1861 census, farming 140 acres, before moving to Boylestone between 1862 and 1871, where 3 of their daughters married there.  Following his death in 1887, in accordance with his Will, Blanche Meadow freehold farm and stock in Parwich was auctioned in 1887.

Sarah (b 1823) I believe had an illegitimate child Herbert in 1854 and married John Taylor in 1864, but was a widow by 1871, living in Matlock with her son and later with sister Elizabeth.

William  (b 1821) was in St. John Street, Ashbourne in the 1841 Census in the John Lister household, and was, I think, in Newton, Lancashire in the 1851 Census as a visitor, with his brother John. William, now in Snelston, married Elizabeth Gilman from Sheen/Alstonefield? (b.1835) parents John and Sarah, at St. Peter’s Alstonefield in April 1859, and farmed at Snelston, Derbyshire, till around 1864.  Elizabeth’s mother was staying with them in the 1861 census at Snelston. They had 3 children initially, John William (baptised 25 March 1860),  Robert Edward (baptised 26 Nov. 1861) and Sarah Ann (baptised 13 March 1864), born in Snelston.

William and family moved to Parwich around 1864 probably when William’s father Isaac died in July 1864 aged 81   – there was a disposal sale in November 1864, see footnote) – and a further child Isaac Albert was born (Nov.1866).   Elizabeth, Williams’s wife, died 2 Feb. 1870 aged 34.

William then married Rebecca Saunders, born 1841, the daughter of Richard and Sarah Saunders of Bagthorpe, Nottinghamshire, just 3 months later on 10 May 1870.  Their daughter Elizabeth was born 7 months later on 22 December 1870, baptised 6 August 1871.  In February 1871 Hannah Saint, William’s mother died, and in the 1871 census William and Rebecca with their 5 children were living at Church Green, Parwich, farming. [A branch of the Brownson family was living at Hallcliffe in 1881].  Another daughter Mary Fanny was born on July 28th 1872 making 6 children in total. In 1873 two of the children, Sarah Ann and Isaac Albert by William’s first wife Elizabeth died, aged 9 and 6.  In 1873 William gave up farming to become a grocer, see footnote and sold off his farming stock of animals and farming/dairy equipment. His flock of sheep was particularly fine, apparently. A final son Isaac James was born to William and Rebecca and baptised 24 Jan. 1874 at Parwich.   On 30 September 1874 William (Grocer on death certificate) made a Will and died 9 days later on 9 October 1874 aged 53 from Cirrhosis

Within the next 6 years or so Rebecca and her own 3 children (Elizabeth, Mary Fanny and Isaac James) then moved to Holme Pierrepont, near Radcliffe on Trent, Nottinghamshire (for work presumably) and in 1880 a notice was placed in the local Derby and Nottingham papers on 23 July and 17 September requesting Rebecca Saint to get in touch with Robert Wastell of 303 Strand, London, “re deceased Saint“, presumably her husband William, when she would hear something to her advantage. I wonder if she ever did?  

William’s death and the remaining ** family members’ move away, ends the Parwich Saint connection for my immediate family, but begins a new one with the Saunders and Hollingworths who originated from the Selston area of Nottingham, some of whom moved to Sheffield.

William and Elizabeth Saint’s other 2 remaining children

** William’s (by Elizabeth) 2 eldest sons John William and Robert Edward married and they too moved away from Parwich – Robert Edward, age 19, was lodging with William Conquest at Cromford in the 1881 census, and married Mary Jane de Bank, an Angola wool doubler, in 1881 (daughter of William de Bank of Brixham, Devon and Ann of Middleton) and lived at 53 Bolehill, Cromford, then Moorside in 1911 census and had 10 children between 1882 and 1901. He worked on the High Peak railway as a guard, stationary engine driver then steam crane driver. One son Norman was killed in WW1, and another saw military service from 1917 onwards.

John William was a draper’s assistant in Sandwich, Kent in the 1881 Census and married Mary Ann West b. 1863 Kent) in 1888 in Sandwich. In the 1891 census he was in Ashby de la Zouch with his wife and first born son, Harry (b 1891) then moved down to Sandwich, Kent where 3 more children were born, Eliza Mary (1893), William West (1895) and Beatrice Florence (1899).  In the 1901 census he was living with his wife, 4 children and mother-in-law in King Street, Sandwich and in 1911 at 5 The Butchery, Sandwich.  His wife Mary Ann died 9^th August 1921 Sandwich, Kent aged 58.

Please contact parwich.history.society@gmail.com with any information you are able to provide, thank you.