Embedded Files
Thomas Hooper and Ann Evans lived in Balham, Surrey. Some of their children were baptised in the parish of Holy Trinity, Clapham, where the vicar helpfully included more information than the basics that were required by law. Usually all you see are the names of the parents, but in this case we also have the child's place, 1st 2nd etc, the father's occupation, the mother's maiden name and the date of birth. Below is the 1802 baptism of Henry Hooper.
So we know that Thomas Hooper was a gardener, and that his wife was Ann Evans, and that Henry was their third son. We have baptisms for two other children in the same church which both also say that Thomas is a gardener. The next step in research is to find the marriage between Thomas and Ann but unfortunately the trail goes cold, and we can't find the marriage. Finding the marriage is important because it reveals where they were living at the time of the marriage. We have seen the registers for the Clapham area so we know the marriage didn't take place there. It's possible that they never actually married.
There is a clue to their origins later on in the 1841 census when they are living in Streatham, Surrey, but neither were born in that county. So Thomas and Ann are as yet the furthest back in the Hooper tree.
For Thomas to earn a living as a gardener meant being employed either as an outdoors servant at a house or estate with its own large garden, or as a jobbing gardener. In this case there was no permanent employment, the gardener would undertake work and be paid on a job by job basis wherever he could find it. It wasn't an easy way to make a living as the letter below illustrates. It was written in 1825 to the newly published 'Gardeners Magazine'.
During the period that Thomas Hooper was living and working, 1780 - 1840, the area around Clapham and Balham was being developed with hundreds of new houses, and there would surely have been plenty of opportunity for him to work in the many new gardens that came with the houses.
In the 1841 census Thomas is aged 75 and still listed as a gardener, living in Balham New Road. The map below shows plenty of large gardens, but by that time age was against him.
His wife Ann died in 1842 in the Wandsworth and Clapham Union workhouse. She had probably fallen ill and was taken there for its hospital facilities.
The Poor Law Union, which included the six parishes of Wandsworth, Clapham, Putney, Battersea, Tooting Graveney and Streatham, was founded in 1836. Its purpose was to centralise the provision of poor relief into a single authority, providing more consistent management (which could be monitored more effectively by the Poor Law Commissioners) and in anticipation of cost savings through economies of scale.
Thomas died in 1845, also in the Wandsworth and Clapham Union workhouse.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse