William Goodhind and Ann Norman were born in the little village of Cullompton in the county of Devon (then known as Devonshire), England. [The county of Devon is located in the southwest corner of the English mainland; Cullompton is northeast of the city of Exeter. I have included several maps on the right sidebar -TSM] William was born on June 18, 1811. Ann was born January 10, 1810. They were married in Cullompton on July 29, 1829.
Their first son William was born on November 25th that same year. Twenty-nine years later, Ann gave birth to their FIFTEENTH child, Alfred in August of 1858!
William was a papermaker by trade, an occupation that would follow the Goodhind family for many generations, even across an ocean. Sometime between 1839 and 1840, the family moved one town south, to the village of Bradninch, also in Devon. But eventually they settled in Dartford, in the County of Kent, by 1848. According to cousin David Goodhind of Kent, "they probably arrived in Dartford because there was industrial unrest in the paper trade of Devon and the main employer in Dartford, T.H. Saunders, was prepared to take on unionized labor."
The 1851 census of Dartford, Kent showed William Goodhind (39 years of age), a papermaker, his wife Ann (41), residing at 14 Hall Place, Waterside (today known as Hythe Street) with children Henry (15), a papermaker, Frederick (13), a papermaker, Mary Ann (11), James Thomas (9), Richard (7), Martha (5), Tom (2) and George (1). [I have included two photos on the right sidebar of Hythe Street today. Photo credits belong to David Goodhind. Thank you, David! -TSM]
William died on January 3, 1888. We do not have Ann's death date.
Beginning in 1859, five of William and Ann's sons emigrated to the United States. We don't know why. Most probably, they were in search of better job opportunities. The five brothers, papermakers all, were: Henry and Frederick, together with their wives in 1859; Richard in 1860; James Thomas in 1863; and John sometime after that. (John was never naturalized as an American citizen; therefore, his date of original entry into America is difficult to track down.)
There is a tradition in the family, according to Alice Marsh Sperl, that "the brothers brought with them a papermaking 'recipe' that proved very successful for them." All five brothers worked in papermaking mills in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Our English Cousin, David Goodhind, is a descendant of another Goodhind brother, Tom, who remained in England. It is interesting to note that there was no oral tradition with David's family as to what happened to these five brothers. No word was passed along down through the years that they had emigrated to the United States. They had simply vanished.
Map of Great Britain
Detailed map of Devonshire (about 1835)
1849 Map of Devonshire
Modern map of Cullompton in Devon
Modern map showing Cullompton and Bradninch
Hythe Street, Waterside, Dartford, Kent
Formerly 14 Hall Place (now Hythe street)
The Parish of Cullompton, in the county of Devon, extends about seven miles along the valley of the River Culm. The name is Saxon meaning "the 'Tun' (town), or settlement, on the Culm." By the 9th century it was part of the personal property of the Royal House of Wessex. Over the centuries, the land was passed down to various royal personages. Like many towns in Devon, Cullompton owed its early growth and prosperity to the woolen cloth industry. The parish church--St. Andrews--was built during this period. The woolen industry, however, declined around the end of the 18th century and in its place paper mills developed.
The first known Goodhind "clans" appear in the Cullompton Parish Register in the year 1689. Most of the records up to 1712 relate to three Goodhind families. It is not known if these three families were inter-related nor is there an indication of where they came might have originally come from. However, in Somerset (the neighboring county to the east), there was/is another group of Goodhind families recorded in the Parish of Saltford. There are still some Goodhind families living in the areas of Bath and Bristolwhich are in the general vicinity of Saltford. There is a Goodhind Street in Bristol and a Goodhind is buried in Bath Abbey.
My particular interest is with William Goodhind, who grew up in Cullompton, Devon and married a local girl named Ann Norman on July 19, 1829 (in Cullompton). At the time of the marriage, William was a papermaker. Just how it was that William got into the papermaking trade is unknown although the Cullompton area had several papermills in operation. Likely, William got into this trade because papermaking offered steady employment and there were enough mills hiring the locals.
Whether William's father (John) at some point entered the papermaking trade or William entered this vocation on his own, for the next several decades the names "Goodhind" and "papermakers" seemed synonymous. The census returns for 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, and 1891 all indicate that most members of the Goodhind family plied their trade as papermakers. Attached is an article I received from a woman in England who has spent a considerable amount of time doing research on the papermaking trade. It is most helpful in understanding what our Goodhinds did to earn a living and the conditions of such an occupation.
Read more about papermaking, according to Ms. Jean Stirk
After marriage, William and Ann stayed in Cullompton for ten to twelve years. Then they moved to the neighboring town of Bradninch and stayed there approximately seven to nine years. Nine (yes, nine!) of their fifteen (yes, fifteen!) children were born in Cullompton- Bradninch. It is interesting to note that the 1841 Bradninch census indicates that William and Ann were living next door to a Norman family--presumably some of Ann's relatives.
According to various local sources, it appears fires occurred with some frequency in Cullompton and were especially destructive to houses because of the straw thatched roofs. The April 28, 1838 issue of the local paper Western Times indicates that one such fire burned the house occupied by a William Goodhind and though it is possible this was William and Ann's place , absolute proof is not in hand. In 1839 there was a particularly dangerous fire in which Cullompton suffered greatly. Over 100 houses and cottages were destroyed.
William and Ann (with kids) packed up and moved to Dartford, Kent somewhere around 1848. According to David Goodhind: "There is a tradition in my branch of the family and I'm sure in others, that the first Dartford Goodhinds traveled across from Devon with all their goods and chattels on an ox-cart in order to find work at the paper mill in Hawley. Hawley is a village a couple of miles outside of Dartford."
Why did William and Ann find it necessary to relocate the family to Dartford? The most plausible answer comes from a piece of information that Jean Stirk has come across in an old monthly circular of the Original Society of Papermakers dated 1902. Commenting on the history of the O.S.P. it says:
All the Devon mills were in a state of unrest in 1847. Dewdray at Hele was in a race with Joynson of Cray (Kent) to produce the finest quality paper by machine. There were strikes and soon men came to Kent ...Excellent workmen they were ... part of the backbone of the O.S.P.
We know that William and Ann lived in or near Bradninch from around 1841 until 1847. We also know there was a paper mill of considerable importance at Hele. This is attested by a comment from the book Devon Villages (by S.H. Burton) which says:
Between James the First's reign and 1835, Bradninch was Borough. Perhaps it was not unreasonable to remove it from the roll, for its councilors were spending half its income on feasting themselves. (That was a much better record than most Devon Boroughs could show). Reasonable or not, the status was removed and, by that day the woolen and lace manufacture had all gone. Even the weekly market was a mere memory. But for the Hele Paper Mills, Bradninch would have sunk to nothing. It is worth remembering that at these mills, the first glazed writing paper in all Britain was produced and that this rural spot manufactured the paper that was used for the Great Exhibition in 1851.
It seems reasonable to conclude William worked at this Hele paper mill and was caught up in the unrest/strikes of 1847. In turn, William decided to leave the Hele mill and go to a mill at Hawley. By 1852, T.H. Saunders had open the Phoenix Mill in Dartford, William's next place of employment.
According to the 1851 census of Dartford, William and Ann had settled among a terrace of houses known as "Hall Place," at number 14, along a street known as "Waterside." Today, the road is known as "Hythe Street." Hall Place still exists although part has been demolished. Hall Place is a row of cottages converted into shops. David believes number 14 was situated where there is now a car sales room. It was in Dartford that the remaining five children were born to William and Ann.
Whatever the living conditions had been in the Cullompton and Bradninch areas from 1810 through 1850, they were terrible in Dartford. Owing to the rapid increase in population (2500 people in 1801 swelling to 10,163 in 1881), the infrastructure such as drains and sewers were not adequate to support the numbers living there. Pools and ditches became stagnant and water for washing and drinking was often contaminated. It also seemed that because of the demand for extra housing, insufficient attention had been paid to the separation of houses from privies. Typhus, bronchitis, smallpox and pneumonia were common. Three hundred and twenty-seven people died in Dartford between February 1847 and February 1848, and in 1849 twenty people passed away due to cholera in Waterside. (Source: The Book of Dartford by Geoff Porteus)
It is simply amazing (and a miracle) that so many of the Goodhinds survived. Actually, death likely did find its way to at least one of William and Ann's children. The second son--James--never shows up on a census return from 1841 onward and he should. Another indication of James' death is due to another James having been born to William and Ann nine years after the first James. It was a custom in those days, having lost a child, to give a subsequent child the same name. However, it has also been known that in large families more than one child would have the same name. It is possible that the first James stayed, for whatever reason, in Devon and did not join the rest of the family in moving to Dartford.
According to various birth certificates, it appears William and Ann moved around quite a bit. Eventually, they settled at 142 Hythe Street, near the Phoenix Public House, where William died at the age of 76 on January 3, 1888. The following note was found at the Public Records Office in London at Somerset House:
Administration of the personal estate of William Goodhind late of 142, Hythe street Dartford in the County of Kent, who died 3rd January 1888, was granted at the principle registry to Ann Goodhind of 142 Hythe Street, widow of the relict. Personal estate £233--14s--8d.
Not much else is known of Ann. She was still alive for the 1891 census, living at 146 Hythe St. (age 80) with daughter Sarah Goodhind (age 39) and a granddaughter Kate Martin (age 16).
[I want to thank David Goodhind and Jean Stirk for their help with much of this information - MM]
Again, our thanks to cousin Malcolm McQueen for sharing this excellent historical background.