Following on from the last post, in which I wrote about the links between my farm-labouring Londors ancestors and the landed Hatton family of Barkingside, in this post I want to say more about the Hattons themselves.

The Hatton name has long been associated with Barking. In the mid-17th century, Sir Christopher Hatton, cousin of the Lord Chancellor of the same name, lived at Clayhall and built a private chapel there. However, I’ve yet to find a definite link with the later Hattons of St. Swithin’s Farm and Carswell House, Barkingside.

Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Chancellor

According to other family trees at Ancestry, Benjamin Brett Hatton, who was contemporary with my 3 x great grandfather John Londors, was born in 1793 in Barking, the son of John Hatton and his wife Ann Brett. John Hatton was apparently the son of Shelly John Hatton of Loughton, who in turn was the son of Thomas Hatton of Fryerning.

Benjamin Brett Hatton was John and Ann Hatton’s eldest son. Their other children were: George (born in 1795); Mary Ann (1796); Sarah Anne (1798); John Haynes (1799, died in infancy); Ann Elizabeth (1802);  Jane Anne (1803); and John (1806). All were born in Barking.

On 2 May 1815, when he was 21, Benjamin Brett Hatton married Mary Ann Coleman at St. Botolph’s Bishopsgate. His sister Mary Ann and brother George were witnesses, as was a certain ‘B. Fasson’, who must have been a relative of the Harriet Fasson who married George two years later in Lambeth.

Benjamin and Mary Ann Hatton had four children: Benjamin Brett junior (born in 1816); Harriet (1818); Arthur (1821); and Llewellyn (1824). It seems all of these were born at St. Swithin’s Farm, Barkingside. Given the absence of earlier records, it’s difficult to say how long the Hatton family had been at this location. However, the fact that the area was described as ‘Hattons Corner’ as early as 1841 suggests a long association between the family and the area.

The Hattons’ son Arthur died in 1838, at the age of 17, and Mary Ann Hatton herself died in 1839. The 1841 census finds Benjamin Brett Hatton senior, a widower of 45, and described as a farmer, living at St Swithin’s Farm with his son, Benjamin Brett junior, 23, daughter Harriet, 20, and younger son Llewellyn, 16.

Also at St. Swithin’s at this date was merchant Henry Playford, 20. The son of stockbroker Henry Playford and his wife Eliza, Henry was the future husband of Harriet Hatton. They would marry two years later, on 27 May 1843, at St Mary’s Lambeth. Their son, yet another Henry, would be born in Brixton in 1845.

The household at St Swithin’s Farm was completed by servants Mary Hallam, 20, and Mary Dockrill, 13, the latter probably the daughter of agricultural labourer John Dockrill and his wife Mary who lived next door in Hattons Row and who, like the Londors family, were almost certainly tenants of the Hattons.

The 1841 census also finds Benjamin Brett Hatton’s two unmarried sisters, Mary and Sarah, aged 45 and 40 respectively, both schoolmistresses, living a short distance from St. Swithin’s Farm, at White Hall, Hattons Corner, where their near-neighbours were my great-great-great grandparents, John and Mary Ann Londors.

Victorian schoolmistresses with their class

In 1847 Benjamin Brett Hatton junior married Sarah Martha Rumsey, a widow, at the church of St Saviour’s Southwark. Sarah, who is described as a poulterer, was the daughter of victualler William Rumsey, while Benjamin is said to be a farmer. Both were resident in High Street, Southwark, at the time of their marriage. I wonder whether Sarah was related to the labouring Rumsey family who lived in Barkingside, not far from the Hattons?

Benjamin and Sarah seem to have had one child, a son, also named Benjamin Brett Hatton, who was born on 30 April 1848 at Shoreditch but died a year later in Tottenham. It appears that Sarah herself died not long afterwards, and certainly before 1851, when Benjamin, a widower, was back with his father at Carswell Cottage in Barkingside.

In the 1851 census, Benjamin senior, 57, is described as a landed proprietor, while sons Benjamin, 34, and Llewellyn, 36, are working as ‘wool staplers’ – i.e. dealers in wool – which perhaps gives a clue as to the main activity on the Hattons’ land. The family has a 33 year old house servant, Harriet Hammond.

At the same date Harriet Hatton, her husband Henry Playford and their 6 year old son Henry, can be found living with Henry’s widowed mother Eliza, a fundholder, and his younger brother George, at Sleaford House, Battersea.

On 30 May 1854 Benjamin Brett Hatton junior married for a second time, to Mary Ann Marriot, another widow, who had been born Mary Ann Gregory, daughter of Leytonstone carman George Gregory. The couple were married at St. James the Less, Bethnal Green: Benjamin, described as a ‘dealer’, was said to be living at 14 Fuller Street and Mary Ann at 18 James Street. Mary had married her first husband, auctioneer’s clerk George Marriot, at the same church in 1845. George died some time in the next six years, since in 1851 widower Mary Annn was living with her family in Wanstead, which may explain how Benjamin came to meet her.

Dealers at a wool exchange

Reviewing the evidence from his two marriages, it would appear that Benjamin Brett Hatton junior had a penchant for women whom his family might have regarded as beneath him socially. Either that, or he was in the habit of rescuing poor widows. Benjamin died in 1860, six years after their marriage, at the age of 43, in Mile End Old Town, and the following year’s census finds Mary, widowed for a second time, living in the same area, supporting herself and her two children by working as a charwoman. Arthur Brett Hatton had been born in 1856 in Leytonstone and young Benjamin Brett Hatton in 1858 in Wanstead.

In 1856 Llewellyn, the youngest son of Benjamin Brett Hatton senior, married his cousin , Julia Blanche Hatton. Julia was the daughter of Llewellyn’s uncle George and aunt Harriet (see above). In 1861 Llewellyn and Julia were living in Lorn Road, Brixton, with Julia’s widowed father, George, who worked as a clerk in the Paymaster General’s Office. Llewellyn Hatton was described in the census record as a ‘fundholder’. At the same date, Llewellyn’s father Benjamin, now 66, was living at ‘Hattons Carswell’ in Barkingside, with housekeeper Harriet Hammond.

Ten years later, 77 year old Benjamin senior is still at the same location, but now the address is given at St. Swithin’s Road. He is with the same housekeeper, and also with Benjamin Hatton, aged 13, who is said to be his nephew, though the details match those of his grandson, daughter of his late son Benjamin and second wife Mary Ann.

I haven’t yet found Llewellyn Hatton in the 1871 census. However, when Llewellyn’s father Benjamin died in 1875, Llewellyn, who acted as his executor, was said to be living at Grafton House, Wellesley Road, Wanstead. Both Benjamin and Llewellyn are given the status of ‘gentleman’.  Llewellyn obviously inherited Carswell from his father, as he and Julia, together with their domestic servant Jane Young, are living there in 1881.

Three years earlier, Llewellyn and Julia’s only daughter, Blanche Julia, had married insurance clerk Walter Crouch. She was 18 and he was 38. By 1881, Walter and Blanche were living in Wellesley Road, Wanstead (perhaps in the house formerly occupied by her parents?) with their baby daughter Dora Blanche.

In 1891, Lewellyn and Julia Hatton, now 67 and 69 respectively, are still at Carswell House. Their servant is now 17 year old Harriet Young. They are also there ten years later, but now they have been joined by daughter Blanche and four of her children. Husband Walter was still in Wanstead with their three older children.

The suspicion that this might have been more than a temporary arrangement is reinforced by the finding that Blanche and the children are again (still?) at Carswell ten years later, in 1911, with her widowed father Llewellyn, 87 (her mother Julia died in 1904). Blanche completed the census form on behalf of the family, and we learn from this record that Carswell House had eight rooms (compared to the three rooms in the Londors’ home at Carswell Cottages).

Llewellyn Hatton died at Carswell House on 26 June 1914, at the age of 90. His effects were valued at £6110 0s. 8d. I’m not sure who inherited Carswell and its estate after his death, or exactly when the area was built over. There is a Carswell Close just off Roding Lane South in Barkingside, which I suspect may be on the site of the house and possibly its neighbouring cottages, including the one where my Londors ancestors lived for three generations.