An English Family History

One of the children of James Grummitt (born 1798) and his wife Ann was another James, born in 1820. This James married four times.

First he married a lady called Rhoda. They had a son called Job. Job died three months after his mother did in 1843.
Then James married Elizabeth Taylor nee Mann on 31st May 1846. She already had a son, Charles Taylor, from her previous marriage. James and Elizabeth had at least four children together. James and Elizabeth's first child, Jane, also died in infancy, in 1847, aged 10 months. Elizabeth died in 1861 of consumption.
By 1871, James was married to another Elizabeth.
By 1881, he was married again, this time to an Ann.

James was also an agricultural labourer all his life, and lived in Clophill for most of his life. He was certainly in Clophill for all the censuses from 1841-1881, but two of his children were born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, one in 1852 and the other in 1855. During the census years 1851, 1861 and 1871 he lived in Back Street, Clophill. By 1881 he had moved to High Street, Clophill. (See the Places photo album for pictures of Back Street and High Street.)

James Grummitt and Elizabeth Mann had four children who survived into adulthood. William (1848) and Mary Ann (1852) lived their lives in England. But the other two children, Alfred (1856) and John (1854) emigrated to Queensland, Australia. Their story is told on a separate page.

Somebody found the following doggerel rhyme relating to publicans in Clophill, thought to be from around the turn of the 20th century. (None of our Clophill ancestors were publicans, as far as we know, but it's quite possible they drank in these pubs and knew the publicans):

Old Jim SHADBOLT hit Joe BILLINGTON,
Made Jim QUIMBY cry,
Turned Joe BOLAS upside-down,
And drank Ann GARNER dry.

Jim Shadbolt: Flying Horse
Joe Billington: Green Man
Jim Quimby: Compasses
Joe Bolas: New Inn
Ann Garner: Rising Sun