Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Charles Cannon

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CHARLES CANNON; 1814 – 1870

Charles was born in the east of the county of Hertford, in the village of Gilston one mile north of Harlow. His parents were James, a labourer, and Amelia Cannon. Charles was baptised in the parish church at Gilston on 16^th January 1814, so he was born either late in 1813 or in early January 1814. As was the case with many poor families at the time the Cannon family was large. Charles was the oldest of ten children[1] born to James and Amelia born between 1814 and 1833.

When the 1841 census was taken Charles was then 25 years old. He was recorded as being at the Plumer-Ward Arms, a public house in Gilston. (Today known as the Plume of Feathers.) The 1841 census contains only limited information and we do not therefore know whether Charles had moved away from the family home and was lodging at the pub, or whether he happened to be staying there at the time the census was taken.

The lot of Charles and other agricultural labourers was hard. Farm labourers invariably started their working life as children. When experienced and working full time, the labourer was expected to turn his hand to a variety of tasks, seed sowing, hoeing and weeding, spreading dung, threshing after the harvest, and hedging and ditching in the winter months. Pay was poor.

“It was customary for unmarried men to let themselves for twelve months as ploughmen and horsekeepers, for a few pounds as standing wages, and a few shillings weekly, which in some cases was hardly sufficient to provide them with bread; and those were considered fortunate who could add to it a small portion of fat bacon – any other luxury was out of the question. On Saturday night these men and boys would make their way into town to spend their few shillings in the purchase of their supplies for the following week. After completing their marketings, if they had a few pence to spare, they would resort to a well-known public house…” (Nash, Reminiscences of Berkhamsted, 1890.)

It became common practice for farmers to reduce their labourer’s pay below subsistence level, knowing the overseer of the poor had an obligation to make it up out of the poor rate. Farmers relied on this to offer only casual employment. Nash commented on this practice:

“It was a common practice with the farmers, immediately after harvest, to discharge most of the men under pretext they had nothing for them to do, advising them to apply to the overseer, who was bound to find them employment or relieve them if there was no work to be done. This was a practice well understood by the overseer, and he would send them back to their masters requesting them to find employment for the men at reduced wages, the deficiency to be made up from the rates. Nash noted that whilst “…honest working men were pauperised against their will,” others, who were disinclined to work, “…found this state of things suited their inclination, and these, under the pretext of seeking work, would absent themselves for days together, probably spending their time in some remote village ale-house.”

Charles married on 28^th February 1843 at the parish church in Gilston. His marriage certificate tells us he was still working as a labourer. He married Ann Page, from nearby Sawbridgeworth, herself the daughter of a labourer. Charles and Ann were to have seven children. On the face of the documents, the couple’s oldest son, Robert, was born sometime before Charles and Ann married. Robert appears in the census of 1851 at the age of 13, which means he must have been born in either 1838 or 1837. Robert was followed by Samuel, born in 1843; Arthur, c.1846; James, c.1848; Charles, c.1851; George, c.1853 and finally Walter, c.1856.

In 1848 Charles became embroiled as a witness in court proceedings involving his younger sister Eliza. A report of the proceedings was published in the Herts Mercury & Reformer of 20^th May 1848 under a title worthy of today’s tabloid newspapers – “Seduction and Housebreaking at Gilston.”  Eliza, aged 24, and working as a servant, had taken up with one William Underwood, also aged 24, a carpenter from West Ham. Early on the morning of 11 April 1848, the couple had broke into the Cannon family home and stole a silver watch, a silk handkerchief, a pair of braces, a waistcoat and pair of boots.

Charles’ sister, Ann, was in bed in the house and heard a noise downstairs. She recognised the two who made their escape, Eliza dropping one of the boots as she went. Charles, together with a policeman went to search for Eliza and William and they were found in the White Hart in Epping.

When the matter came before the court Charles gave evidence as did Ann, although Ann, reluctant to give evidence against her own sister, had to be taken from the court in a swoon at one point. Eliza and William offered no defence and were convicted. The judge, in passing sentence, commented that “It was a disgraceful thing to Eliza Cannon that she should be found in company with Underwood, and there was reason to fear she had given him information which facilitated the commission of the robbery.” The Cannon family forgave the errant Eliza and promised to take her back into their home. On the basis she promised to return to the family on being released from gaol, the judge sentenced her to three months imprisonment. William Underwood was sentenced to six months imprisonment.

Charles was still living in Gilston with his growing family and working as a labourer in 1851, but at some point between then and the next census of 1861, Charles and his whole family moved to Berkhamsted. Charles gave up labouring to become the lodgekeeper on the Ashlyn’s estate. How did Charles secure the position, having no apparent links to Berkhamsted or Ashlyn’s Hall?

The answer may lie with Samuel Adams who is also buried in Rectory Lane Cemetery. Samuel, originally born in Essex, was, like Charles, originally a labourer and by 1844 had moved to Gilston to work  as a bailiff.  By 1852 Samuel and his family had moved to Berkhamsted where he was employed as the farm bailiff on the Ashlyn’s estate. It is unlikely that the two men, contemporaries of each other and both from Gilston, ended up working on the Ashlyn’s estate by chance. We can speculate that Charles had perhaps worked in Gilston with, or for, Samuel who, on becoming bailiff at Ashlyns, employed or recommended Charles for the position of lodgekeeper. 

Charles died in 1870 at the age of 55. He was buried in Rectory Lane Cemetery on 24^th November that year.

His widow, Ann, survived him for a further 29 years. With the death of Charles, Ann had to leave Ashlyn’s lodge house and in the following year we find Ann and four of her sons living in Victoria Road. Robert was working as maltster and Charles a brewer. James and George were both gardeners and Walter was a telegraph messenger boy. Ten years later, all four boys had moved on and Ann was living on her own in Victoria Road. She was then 65 years old and was taking laundry in to support herself. Many an elderly widow would have no doubt feared that if unable to support herself, she would end up in the workhouse. Ann was fortunate to escape that fate, as we discover from the 1889 census that she was one of five elderly widows then living in Sayer’s Almshouses on Berkhamsted’s High Street. In 1681 John Sayer, cook to King Charles II and resident of Berkhamsted Place had left £1,000 in his will for the building of Almshouses and relief of the poor.

Ann died in 1899. We know from the burial records that she was buried in Rectory Lane Cemetery on 10^th October 1899. She was 82 years old. The location of her burial has not been confirmed, but it is likely that she was buried with her husband Charles, particularly as the records show that grave in which he was buried had capacity for two bodies and was full.