A Few Glimpses of the Siblings of Joseph TRENDALL (C1769-1838)

 

Joseph TRENDALL is important in the history of the Trendall family because he lived long enough to have his death registered under the arrangements prescribed by the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1836.  He died on 28^th Nov 1838 at 14 Ashford Street Hoxton, London.  We know a fair bit about his work as a Baker, about where he lived and about how he prospered.  He was my 3 x Great Grandfather

Joseph made a Will on 30^th Oct 1837.  Perhaps he knew he was ill – there is no evidence to support this apart from a rather shaky  signature as a witness to his daughter’s marriage in Feb 1837.  His Will was the usual complex mix of legacies that seem common in the early nineteenth century.  It gives rise to a small mystery in that he makes no mention of his sons William and Thomas (b1820).  He does mention his brother, Thomas TRENDALL,  late of Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire.  In particular he mentions a legacy received from his late brother in the sum of £50.  This useful reference enables us to trace Thomas and in doing so to gain an understanding (or at least a glimpse) of the wider family.  He may also help answer the question of when this part of the TRENDALL family moved to London.

There have been TRENDALLS living in London since at least the seventeenth century but what we do not yet know is if they were part of the wider extended family of which we are a part.  In the case of Joseph the records first place him in the capital renting property in 1804.  But from his Will we know that his brother was ‘late of Chipping Norton’.  This is a possible clue as to the origins of the family.  But Thomas probably did have business interests in London.  The house in which Joseph died was held by lease by Thomas.  Nothing in my recent research has thrown much light on why Thomas would have leased these properties away from home.  From Joseph’s Will it is clear that both were interested in property in addition to their principal trades.

Chipping Norton is in north east of Oxfordshire.  This is not a huge county and has seen significant boundary changes over the last hundred years with some villages ‘moving’ between Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.  The surname TRENDALL and it variants is relatively common in the area and has been so for a very long time.  There is even a small area of woodland known as TRENDELL’S WOOD in the parish of Stokenchurch, not far from the M40.  The use of an ‘A’ or an ‘E’ in TRENDALL/TRENDELL is almost interchangeable throughout this period.  As late as 1878 when  Joseph’s son Thomas died an ‘E’ is used in the register of deaths despite a lifetime of using the spelling which we have come to accept as standard.  The memorial card produced for his funeral uses an ‘A’.

The detail in Joseph’s Will has allowed us to trace Thomas’s Will with a very high degree of confidence that we have got the right man despite the popularity of the Christian name.   Thomas made his Will in 1827 with a codicil in 1832.  We can learn a great deal from these documents including:

 

1.       He was married to Deborah TRENDALL

2.       He had brothers: Joseph, William, Ephraim and James.  The latter was dead by the time the Will was written in 1827.

3.       He had a sister who is unnamed in the Will.  In fact it looks as if a space has been left blank for the sister’s name.  The sister may well have been dead by 1827 but mention is made of her son; Thomas SEARS.

4.       He makes provision for the family of his late brother James.

5.       He makes extensive provision for his wife but does not mention any children of the marriage.

6.       Mention is made of a pub – the Blue Anchor – in Chipping Norton but by the time of the codicil he is living in Eynsham (now a suburb of Oxford).   

7.       There is no mention of his leasehold property held of the Haberdashers Company and occupied by Joseph.

From this information we have discovered more about Thomas.  I will write further details on this shortly but it would seem that he was a well off tradesman.   He appeared as a voter until the time of his death – at this time there were only around 200,000 voters out of a population of 2.6M.  However some of his dealings appear confused and his widow was left to clarify the ownership of some parcels of land after his death.

In November 1828 an advertisement appeared in the Oxford Journal: 

To be let, and may be entered upon immediately, - a house and premises, situated in Charlbury, Oxon, latterly occupied as an old-established Carpenter’s shop, with stabling &c suitable for any business requiring room.  For further particulars apply to Mr Thomas Trendell, Anchor Inn, Chipping Norton; if by letter, post paid”. 

He died on 05 November 1832 and was buried in the church yard at Cogges – a small village near Eynsham.  He had a fine table tomb erected that still stands.  His Will was proved at Oxford by his wife on 09 March 1833 and was confirmed as being of less than £800 in value.

Thomas’s widow, Deborah lived for another eleven years and died 03 April 1843 aged 62 years and was buried in the same grave.  Her death certificate records that she died of Asthma.  In her Will she addressed the problems caused by the codicil to Thomas’s Will and made provision for his legacies to be honoured.  She also left money and property to other family members including her brother Robert Allsop.  When proved her Will was confirmed as being worth less than £1500.

James TRENDALL made a Will on 22 April 1820.  This shows that he, like his brother Joseph, was a Baker and that he was of Lewknor in Oxfordshire.  He left freehold and copyhold property for the benefit of his wife and his daughters Elizabeth and Mary.    He also had three sons, James, Joseph and George.  He was 57 when he died and had married Mary BENNELL in 1795.  As mentioned above Thomas made provision in his Will for James’s family.

It is possible that James was ill by the time he made his Will as he lived for only a few further months dying in August aged 57.

James was buried in Stokenchurch Oxfordshire on 24 August 1820.  Lewknor and Stokenchurch are only a couple of miles apart.   His Will was proved at Oxford on 08 October 1821 and was valued at less than £200.

By co-incidence another James TRENDELL died a few months later in Shoreditch, London and was buried in Bunhill Row Burial Ground.  A few years later Joseph would live in Shoreditch and the land leased by Thomas is between Shoreditch and Bunhill Row.  It is possible that this James was also part of the wider family but the link, if there is one, is at present  unknown.

Mary (James’s widow) lived until 1855 when she died aged 80 and was also buried in Stokenchurch.   In the 1851 census she was living with some of her children.  At the age of 76 her occupation is given as ‘Baker’ suggesting that she worked in the family business with her husband, or took it up on his death.

There is more research to be done to trace the family business but we know from the Registers of Duties Paid for Apprentices Indentures that James had a number of apprentices whilst working in Stokenchurch, this is perhaps suggestive of a successful business.

Of Ephraim and William and the sister with no name I cannot, at the time of writing, find any further trace.  Thomas mentions them in his Will of 1827 and their legacies are mentioned in the Will of his Widow Deborah in 1842 but by this time the document speaks mainly of the issue of James TRENDELL.

The unnamed sister had a son, Thomas SEARS.   The tone of Thomas’s Will suggests that his sister was dead by 1827 but there is no mention of her husband.  This is an obvious line for further research (for example there is a Thomas SEARS who died in 1861 in Stokenchurch).

The fact that at least two of Joseph’s siblings were based in Oxfordshire may demonstrate that he was the person that brought our branches of the family to London at around the turn of the century but it may well be that other parts of the family had already migrated the few miles from rural Oxfordshire to the industrial sprawl of the Metropolis.

The parish registers of Radnage (which lies a couples of miles to the west of Stokenchurch and is now just over the county border into Buckinghamshire) contain a number of entries that could record the birth of Joseph and Thomas.  For Joseph there are two entries, one written on a flyleaf of the register and then, possibly copied in:

This entry occurs in April 1769.  This would match with his death at the age 68 in  1838.

In the same register there is an entry in 1767 for the baptism of Thomas born of the same parents as Joseph (William and Anne).

Assuming that this child was baptised shortly after birth there arises a mismatch with the fact that at the time of his death in 1832 Thomas was described as being of 60 years of age.  This would give him a date of birth of 1772, creating a five year gap. 

There are also entries for the baptisms of an Anne and a Ruth of the same parents.  Banns and the marriage are also recorded for William and Anne in 1767.  Clearly there is much to be done to firm up the nature and relevance of these relationships.

 

Philip Trendall

October 2025

 

This is an update to the note originally prepared 17 November 2013