Samuel Taylor had been born in Oakthorpe, Derbyshire. He had been baptised in Measham, Derbyshire on 5th January 1798 and was the son of Thomas (1759 - 1841) and Mary Taylor (ca 1759 - 1823) and his paternal grandmother was Sarah Taylor (ca 1735 - 1821). His parents and grandmother are buried in Wickhamford Churchyard, so must have migrated to Worcestershire at some point before 1821.
The 1841 census, Samuel Taylor and his wife Ann were at Wickhamford Manor, with three servants, and he was a farmer. He had married Ann Baylis at Stanton, Gloucestershire on 28th September 1829, at which time he was a widower. (Also, in 1841, his elder brother John Taylor, his wife, Sarah, and sons John, William and Francis were at Elm Farm.)
In December 1849, the Worcestershire Chronicle carried a report of a suspected burglary at the Manor. Two servants, Heeks and Howes, who reported a break in, were themselves accused of the robbery, but were discharged for lack of evidence. In March 1851, the Worcestershire Chronicle reported on a series of arsons in Badsey and at the Manor. Samuel Taylor’s nephew, Thomas, was arraigned on three charges of arson, but eventually acquitted, as the evidence was all circumstantial. By the census of 1851, Samuel Taylor was farming 790 acres and employing 25 men.
He died in 1856 and was buried in the churchyard on 24th June. In his will, made in 1851, he left £200 to his daughter, Mary, and the residue of his estate to his wife, Anne, and daughter, Jane, in equal proportions. In 1861, Samuel’s widow, 63-year-old Ann, was still at the Manor Farm, living with her daughter Jane, and son-in-law, John Nind. Jane Taylor had married John Nind on 25th February 1857 in Wickhamford church.
John Nind was born in Dumbleton in about 1829, farmed there in 1851 but by the time of the 1861 census, when he was the tenant at Wickhamford Manor. He was recorded as a farmer with 344 acres and employing 16 men and four boys. He had one son at this time, John Samuel, who had been baptised in Wickhamford on 9th August 1857. Other children were – Frederick William, bpt 14/08/1859 (died aged 15 weeks and buried 21/10/1859) and Arthur William baptised on Christmas Day 1861. John Nind’s mother, who lived with the family, was buried on 22/10/1862.
John Nind was one of three mourners from Wickhamford who attended the funeral of Arthur, 2nd Baron Sandys, at Ombersley on 24th July 1860. He was a churchwarden in the village from 1857 to 1869.
It was around the time that John Nind ended his role as Churchwarden that the Vicar, Rev. Thomas Hunt, responded to a questionnaire, in 1868, from Christ Church, Oxford asking for information about Wickhamford. Regarding the Church, the chancel was in good repair but there were other parts needed attention; the churchyard was in a disgraceful state and the village population were described as – ‘moral condition stagnant and indifferent from sluggishness’.
The Worcester Chronicle of 1st September 1869 reported on a sale of stock and implements at Manor Farm, so John Nind was preparing to move out. Nine horses were sold for £40 each, and also sold were breeding yews, lambs and a sow and pigs. The whole sale realised £1,700.
John Nind and his family were in to Beckford for the 1871 census, as he was listed there as a retired farmer. He died on 22nd July 1873 and was buried in Beckford. His estate was recorded as under £5,000. Jane Nind died in 1885.
The Taylor/Nind family had entirely vacated the Manor by 1871; Ann Taylor was then living with her daughter, Elizabeth and her family, the Caldicotts, at Harvey’s Farm in Cow Honeybourne. She died in 1884 and was buried in her husband, Samuel’s, grave in Wickhamford on 30th October, the Burial Register recording that she had been living in Beckford at the time of her death.
Tom Locke – February 2019