Robert Obadiah Hurst
BIRTH 1828 • Nursling, Hampshire, England
DEATH APR 1903 • South Stoneham, Hampshire, England
2nd Great Grandfather, according to my Ancestry Tree. He is also a common ancestor with multiple DNA matches.
Ancestry Synopsis
When Robert Obadiah Hurst was born in 1828 in Nursling, Hampshire, his father, Richard, was 27 and his mother, Mary, was 27. He married Elizabeth Day on 31 August 1850 in Millbrook, Hampshire. They had ten children in 24 years. He died in April 1903 in South Stoneham, Hampshire, having lived a long life of 75 years.
Hurst was a relatively common name with a wide dispersion across England as shown on this Ancestry page.
Baptism
A record in the Hampshire Genealogy Society reveals that Obadiah baptised 7 Sept 1828, son to Richard and Mary Anne in the Parish of Nursling.
A transcript of that record is available at FindMyPast
First name(s) | Obadiah | Parish | Nursling | |
Last name | Hurst | County | Hampshire | |
Birth year | 1828 | Country | England | |
Baptism day | 7 | Notes | Labourer | |
Baptism month | Sep | |||
Baptism year | 1828 | |||
Baptism year date | 7 September 1828 | Record set | Hampshire Baptisms | |
Son or daughter | Son | Category | Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records | |
Father's first name(s) | Richard | Subcategory | Parish Baptisms | |
Mother's first name(s) | Mary Anne | Collections from | England, Great Britain |
Throughout his life, he seems to have used names interchangeably, including Obadiah, Robert, and Robert Obadiah. He seems to have been baptised Obadiah Hurst, and as there was no general Registry at the time, I should logically take this has both his given name at the Title of this article. However, that would possibly lose readers looking for Robert Hurst.
Period Timeline
Period Timeline
To get some sense of the period into which Obadiah was born into, and lived through, we could look at a timeline from his record on TNG.
The screenshot above gives an idea of the look of the data in the timeline from his record on TNG.
Below is the beginning of the associated list.
Date | Event(s) | |
1 | 1828 |
|
2 | 1829 |
|
3 | 1830 |
|
4 | 1831 |
|
5 | 1832 |
|
6 | 1833 |
|
7 | 1834 |
|
8 | 1835 |
|
9 | 1836 |
|
10 | 1837 |
|
11 | 1838 |
|
12 | 1839 |
|
13 | 1840 |
|
14 | 1841 |
|
This is only a short list, with the remainder in the timeline from Obadiah's record on TNG.
There are a lot of significant elements just in this small extract, including things that are central to those engaged in Family History.
I have added Bold to some of them for emphasis.
One of the items, the 18 Mar 1834: 'Tolpuddle Martyrs' transported (to Australia) for Trades Union activities, impacted another part of my family, living in the vicinity of Tolpuddle. Tolpuddle is a village in Dorset, just 8 miles from Dorchester, and about 25 miles from Broadwindsor, both centers for our Dorset relatives.
Below is an article I wrote about Tolpuddle earlier.
The Tolpuddle Martyrs
The Pomeroys of Broadwindsor, it will be of no surprise, lived it the small village of Broadwindsor and the surrounding hundreds and hamlets, in Dorset. It was a rural community not far from the border with Devon. A mere 5 miles in a vaguely South Westerly direction. Today Beaminster is bigger and lies about 2.5 miles East. Dorchester, the county town is only twenty miles away, a 6-7hr walk. Tolpuddle is another rural community, only another six miles East, a days walk in total.
John Pomeroy was born on 31 December 1808 in Broadwindsor, Dorset, his father, George, was 29 and his mother, Frances, was 30. He married Mary Ann Bowditch on 8 September 1830 in his hometown. His father George passed away in December 1831 in Broadwindsor. By 1834 John's family had grown with the birth of a Son and a Daughter.
Also in 1834, just a days walk away, according to the Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum, farm workers in west Dorset formed a trade union. Unions were lawful and growing fast but six leaders of the union were arrested and sentenced to seven years’ transportation for taking an oath of secrecy.
An extract from the museum website.
As the sun rose on 24th February 1834, Dorset farm labourer George Loveless set off to work, saying goodbye to his wife Betsy and their three children. They were not to meet alone again for three years, for as he left his cottage in the rural village of Tolpuddle, the 37-year-old was served with a warrant for his arrest.
Loveless and five fellow workers – his brother James, James Hammett, James Brine, Thomas Standfield and Thomas's son John – were charged with having taken an illegal oath. But their real crime in the eyes of the establishment was to have formed a trade union to protest about their meagre pay of six shillings a week – the equivalent of 30p in today's money and the third wage cut in as many years.
With the bloody French Revolution and the wrecking of the Swing Rebellion fresh in the minds of the British establishment, landowners were determined to stamp out any form of organised protests. So when the local squire and landowner, James Frampton, caught wind of a group of his workers forming a union, he sought to stamp it out.
Workers met either under the sycamore tree in the village or in the upper room of Thomas Standfield's cottage. Members swore of an oath of secrecy – and it was this act that led to the men's arrest and subsequent sentence of seven years' transportation.
In prison, George Loveless scribbled some words: “We raise the watchword, liberty. We will, we will, we will be free!" This rallying call underlined the Martyrs’ determination and has since served to inspire generations of people to fight against injustice and oppression.
It is something of a surprise that someone from a rural background was literate, but that is an aside. It is very imaginable that the deprivations which gave rise to the Tolpuddle Martyrs were also afflicting John Pomeroy and those around him. A wage of 30p a week, which using the Measuring Worth Calculator equates to labour earnings of that income is £249.40 a week (2016), about half of the UK average earnings (2016) and well below the persistent poverty level. Life would have been very difficult as an agricultural labourer, especially with a growing family.
I imagine that similar difficulties would apply to Obadiah's family, as we shall see later that they were also an agricultural based family in a rural community.
Other family in the area
Exploring Obadiah Hurst b 1828
Exploring Obadiah Hurst b 1828
Birth
No birth information at the moment, but presumed to be the same year as the baptism. The parish record may have a note of the date of birth in the margin, which has not been transcribed. I feel a trip to the Hampshire Records Office may be required.
Baptism
A record in the Hampshire Genealogy Society reveals that Obadiah baptised 7 Sept 1828, son to Richard and Mary Anne in the Parish of Nursling.
See above for the transcript.
Census 1831
The 1831 census records were not retained. See explanation below together with general information about the Census.
The Census
Extracted from The National Archives
What is the census and why was it compiled?
The census is a head count of everyone in the country on a given day. A census has been taken in England and Wales, and separately for Scotland, every ten years since 1801, with the exception of 1941.
The object of the census was not to obtain detailed information about individuals, but to provide information about the population as a whole; listing everyone by name, wherever they happened to be on a single night, was the most efficient way to count everybody once, and nobody twice.
How the census was taken and on what dates
In every census year an enumerator delivered a form to each household in the country for them to complete. The heads of household were instructed to give details of everyone who slept in that dwelling on census night, which was always a Sunday. The forms completed by each household, known as schedules, were collected a few days later by the enumerator. From 1841 to 1901 the information from the schedules was then copied into enumeration books. Once the enumeration books had been completed, most household schedules were destroyed, although there are some rare survivals. It is the enumeration books that we consult today online or on microfilm.
The 1841 census was the first to list the names of every individual, which makes it the earliest useful census for family historians. However, less information was collected in 1841 than in later census years. Read section 5 for details of the information recorded in each census year.
The General Register Office was responsible for taking the census, so it used the administrative framework already in place for the registration of births, marriages and deaths. The Superintendent Registrar was responsible for collecting the returns from each Registrar of Births and Deaths in their registration district, and sending them to the Census Office in London. Each Registrar of Births and Deaths was responsible for a sub-district, which they divided into enumeration districts (EDs), and recruited enumerators for each ED.
The dates of the censuses were as follows:
1841 – 6 June
1851 – 30 March
1861 – 7 April
1871 – 2 April
1881 – 3 April
1891 – 5 April
1901 – 31 March
1911 – 2 April
1921 – 19 June
The intended date for the 1921 census was 24 April, but was postponed due to industrial unrest, which the GRO decided would have made it impossible to collect accurate information in some areas.
In the censuses of 1801, 1811, 1821 and 1831 lists of names were not collected centrally, although some are held in local record offices.
...
Unfortunately, the 1931 census for England and Wales was destroyed by fire in 1942, and no census was taken in 1941 because of the Second World War.
People in the census
The following information on individuals enumerated within households is included in each census year as follows (slightly different questions were asked on schedules for institutions and vessels, depending on the location and census year):
1841
first name and surname
age (rounded down to the nearest five years for those aged 15 or over)
sex
occupation
whether they were born in the county where they were enumerated (Y or N)
whether they were born in Scotland (S), Ireland (I) or Foreign Parts (P)
1851 and 1861
first name, middle names (often just initials) and surname
relationship to the head of the household
marital status
age (at last birthday)
sex
rank, profession or occupation
where born – county and parish if born in England or Wales, country only if born outside England and Wales)
whether blind, or deaf and dumb
1871 and 1881
As 1851 and 1861, except for the following difference:
the last column now reads: 1. Blind 2. Deaf and Dumb 3. Imbecile or Idiot 4. Lunatic
1891
As 1871 and 1881 with the following extra details on employment:
whether Employer, Employed, or Neither Employer nor Employed
language spoken (Wales only)
1901
As 1891, with occupation details changed to:
‘Employer, Worker or Own account’
a new column ‘If working at home’
language spoken (Isle of Man only)
1911
As 1901, with extra questions:
For married women only, the number of years of their present marriage, the number of children born of that marriage, the number still living, and the number that had died.
As well as their occupation, the industry in which the person was employed. If employed by a government, municipal or other public body, the name of that body.
Parish and county of birth for anyone born in the UK (which included all of Ireland). If born elsewhere in the British Empire, the colony or dependency, and the state or province.
For anyone born outside England and Wales, whether they were resident or visitor in the country.
Nationality of anyone born overseas whether British by parentage, British by naturalisation (including year of naturalisation) or, if a foreign national, of which country.
In the Infirmity column, the age at which the person had become afflicted.
In 1911 all the household schedules were kept, for the first time (see RG 14), and were not copied into enumeration books. There are instead enumerators’ summary books which list every address, including unoccupied buildings, and the only names they contain are those of the head of each household (see RG 78). These summary books are the only place you will find a description of each building such as ‘House and shop’, ‘Hotel’, ‘Private house’. Unoccupied houses and non-residential properties such as churches and factories are also listed.
Your text...
Children
Your text...
spare
Your text...
more later