Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

John Stratton

1814 –01/11/1845

An early burial, a servant to the Countess of Bridgewater, died at 32, little known about him

• Christopher Dolton

JOHN STRATTON:1814-1845
What little we know about John Stratton is gleaned from information we have surrounding his death. The inscription on his headstone in Rectory Lane Cemetery records his name and the bare facts of his date of death and age:
“This stone is erected to the memory of Mr John Stratton who departed this life 1st Nov 1845 in the 32nd year of his life. ‘These also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.’”

We can deduce from the fact that John was 32 at the time of his death that he must have been born sometime between 1st November 1813 and 31st October 1814.
John’s death certificate provides us with more information. It confirms the date of his death as being the 1st November 1845 and that he died in Berkhamsted. It also tells us that he died of Phthisis, that is tuberculosis, and that he suffered from the disease for 9 months before his death. During Victorian times tuberculosis, or consumption as it was also known, was particularly prevalent amongst the urban poor where overcrowding allowed the disease to thrive. Contemporary public health physicians had a tendency to blame the poor and their poor housing conditions for the disease, but it was by no means exclusive to the poor and it affected people at all levels of society.

The death certificate also reveals John’s occupation. He was a domestic servant to Charlotte Egerton, Countess of Bridgewater. She was the widow of John Egerton, the 7th Earl of Bridgewater. The Earl died in 1823. Charlotte died in 1849. She owned substantial properties, including Ashridge House, Belton House in Lincolnshire and a house in Grosvenor Square London. She was well known for her charitable activities in and around Ashridge and indeed it was she who, in 1842, provided the land for a new burial site for St Peter’s Church, now Rectory Lane Cemetery.

The parish burial records from St Peter’s Church tell us that John was buried in Rectory Lane Cemetery on the 8th November 1845, one week after his death. Buried in the cemetery as he was in 1845, John would have been one of the earliest occupants of the new graveyard. Having worked for the Countess during his life, he also benefited from her charitable gift in death.

We might have hoped to be able to find more information about John Stratton in the 1841 census. The 1841 census was the first modern UK census to record the details of every person and household in Britain, and the earliest census that has survived in its entirety. However, a search of the 1841 census records fails to locate John. There was a John Stratton born in Shenley in Herts in 1814, but in 1841 he was married and was working as a labourer and therefore unlikely to be the same John Stratton with whom we are concerned. As a domestic servant of the Countess of Bridgewater and given that he died in Berkhamsted, one might assume his domestic service was at Ashridge House, but he is not recorded at Ashridge at the time of the 1841 census, or indeed at Belton House or the Countess’ London property at Grosvenor Square. (The Countess of Bridgewater herself is also elusive with regard to the 1841 census. Newspaper notices of late May and early June 1841 around the time of the census say she was in London, giving and attending dinners and other social functions and she might, and possibly also John as her servant, have been thought to have been at the house in Grosvenor Square.)

The death certificate also reveals that present with John at the time of his death was one Hannah Chennells. Hannah, was clearly uneducated; she signed the certificate “X,” “the mark of Hannah Chennells.” Was Hannah related to John? Was she a fellow servant of the Countess of Bridgewater?  Unfortunately, her presence at John’s death also takes us no further. The 1841 census gives us two possible candidates named Hannah Chennells who were living in the area of Berkhamsted. There was a Chennells family living at Place Farm in Gaddesden, including 70 year old Hannah Chennells. There was also a Hannah Chennells born about 1800 who was living with her husband George and their children in Castle Street in Berkhamsted. Her maiden name was Glenister. Apart from the name Hannah Chennells on the death certificate, there is no other obvious connection between either of these women and John Stratton.

There is a memorial wall plaque to earlier Strattons on the North side of St Peter’s Church. The Memorial is to the memory of “Capt. Richard Stratton of London, Deputy Master of Trinity House who died 8th July 1749 aged 77 and of his eldest son Richard Stratton, Turkey merchant and member of Parliament for New Shoreham in Sussex who died aged 18 December aged 53. Henry Stratton his youngest son erected this monument. Henry Stratton Esq. died October 9th 1768 aged 52.” Richard Stratton’s wife, Jane Tomlin, is also buried in the graveyard at St Peter’s. Again there is no evidence of a direct connection between these earlier Strattons and John. Indeed, given that the earlier Strattons seem to have been well to do, unless the family subsequently fell on hard times, it seems unlikely that one of their later members would have ended up as a domestic servant, even to such a prestigious employer as the Countess of Bridgewater.

Sadly, whilst we know John’s occupation, age, date, place and cause of death, we know nothing of his origins – who his family were, or where he originally came from.