CRICK LEATHERLANDS
Crick Village
Crick is three miles from Clay Coton. There are old bridleways (ancient rural lanes) between Crick and Yelvertoft and between Crick and Kilsby. The Crick to Kilsby bridleway is probably 500 years old and was originally a sheep drover's route. It passes beneath the M1 and the West Coast Main Line railway, rising uphill from Kilsby, passing the ventilation shafts of the Kilsby railway tunnel and then descending towards Crick.
Crick lies to the east of the M1 and the railway. It is also close to the Grand Union Canal. Indeed Crick's main claim to fame these days is the Crick Boat Show held in late May at Crick Marina.
Edward Leatherland (1700 - 1763)
My Leatherland ancestors seemed to have moved from Yelvertoft to Crick in the 1720s. The marriage licence for Edward Leatherland (1700-1763) said that he was a servant man of Crick and his three sons were baptised there between 1732 and 1739 (although the first son died just before his third birthday). In 1748 a Northants Poll Book described him as Edward Leatherland freeholder of Crick.
Edward was buried in Crick in 1763. There are headstones / footstones removed from their grave plots along a pathway one of which is marked EL 1763. Edward made a will shortly before he died, it said he was a yeoman and left property and land in Crick to his wife Esther.
Edward had two sons who survived : William and Edward. William is my probable ancestor, Edward married in middle age but never had children.
Edward Leatherland (1739 – 1815)
Edward seems to have lived in Crick for most of his life. He became a weaver. On 18th April 1765 the Crick Overseers of the Poor accounts book recorded a payment : "To Edw. Leatherland a shirt for Thos Davis – 1s". In the Militia List for 1771 he is listed as Edward Leatherland, Crick, Incapacitated By Infirmity, disabled in the thigh by gun. It would be intriguing to know how this happened and whether this was an accident or perhaps a criminal incident.
In 1773 his mother, Esther Leatherland made a will leaving her estate (land in the common and open fields of Crick and the house in Crick where she lived) to her sons William and Edward, although the will did not take effect until her death in 1787.
Edward married in 1781 in East Haddon. His bride was Sarah Palmer. He would have been 42 when he married and there is no evidence that they ever had children. In 1789 his mother's will obtained probate and inherited land / property worth ten pounds. In 1801 Edward Leatherland of Crick was admitted to Northampton General Hospital and discharged three months later as "cured" (the nature of the illness was not stated in the Northampton General Hospital Admissions records)
The Cottages 1-3 Bucknills Lane, once owned by Edward Leatherland (now one house)
In 1806 Edward Leatherland purchased three cottages 1-3 Bucknills Lane, Crick from Zephaniah Edmonds. This information is contained in a conveyance of 1831, whereby the cottages were conveyed from his late wife's nieces. This suggests that Edward was relatively wealthy. Further evidence from the Crick Overseers Accounts Books for 1806 to 1813 suggests that Edward was in modern day parlance a buy to let landlord. For example, in December 1806 the Overseers paid Edward 14 shillings and seven pennies for 25 weeks' rent for Fran. Grim. Grim appears as a recipient of subsistence payments from Overseers so it appears that Edward bought the cottages as "buy to lets" renting them to tenants to supplement his income. Between 1809 and 1813 there are further payments to Edward from the Overseers to Lucy Bradshaw for her rent. Also the Crick Vestry memo book (1797-1823) has an undated List of Rents paid by the Parish which lists sixteen tenants and landlords including “For Lucy Bradshaw, to Ed. Leatherland".
Edward Leatherland died in Crick in 1815. A headstone on the north path of St Margaret's Church is marked EL 1815. Edward made a will the previous year headed "Edward Leatherland of Crick, weaver". It left his house and two tenements adjoining (probably 1-3 Bucknills Lane) to his wife Sarah for life, they were then to go to two nieces on his wife's side. The will also left £280 cash to friends Stephen Whitmell of Crick grazier and John Britain senior of Pitsford Lodge grazier on trust to pay the income to his wife. The probate valuation of his estate was £450. Sarah died a year later. Mary Moor inherited all Sarah's estate, she was a niece on Sarah's side.
William Leatherland (1737-1820)
Edward's older brother William is my probable direct ancestor. The father of an illegitimate son, Overseers accounts show that he was obliged by the Overseers to financially support the child and mother for many years. There is no evidence that he ever married, which is odd. Wiliam appears in militia lists, as witness to a marriage and as a trustee of a cousin's will. He died aged 84 in 1820.
William was the eldest of two sons and probably grew up in Crick. In 1763 when he was twenty six his father died, although he did not inherit under his father’s will as the estate was left to his mother.
In May 1764 a child was baptised in Crick as "William son of Wm. Leatherland & Eliz Clark" . This baptism, together with evidence from Crick Overseers accounts, shows that he fathered this illegitimate child and was obliged by the Overseers to financially support the child and mother for many years, probably under a Bastardy Bond. On 24th April 1767 there was unequivocal evidence of his relationship with Eliza Clark and the child : “Note, this 24th day of April 1767 was 16 weeks pay behind for a child born on the body of Eliza Clark, begotten by William Leatherland, and by him to be paid, one shilling per week, weekly”.
The Crick Militia list of 1777 had note that "William Leatherland, weaver, by a substitute" was drawn to serve in the militia in 1769. In April 1770 the Crick Overseers accounts show that two shillings was paid “To Wm Leatherland for going to Northampton about Sam Slynn”. William’s grandmother was Hesther Slynn so this may be a distant cousin, although I have no idea why was he going to Northampton, why the Overseers paid him and what "about Sam Slynn" meant.
The Militia List for Kilsby in 1777 includes William Leathardlond a labourer in Kilsby. So it seems that by 1777 William had moved to Kilsby which is two to three miles west of Crick. I will detail William's later life under Kilsby Leatherlands.
St Margaret's Church
Crick's parish church is St Margaret of Antioch, parts of which date back to the 12th century. The church is believed to be built on the site of a Saxon church. Various additions were made in the 13th and 14th centuries. In the 1840s it was restored and "re-pewed". The church contains and still uses the organ built for the Chapter Royal at St James’ Palace in 1842. In 1926 when the floor was re-laid in the sanctuary, a late 12th century stone effigy was discovered. The most famous rector of Crick was William Laud who later became Archbishop of Canterbury and was executed during the Civil War.
Crick in Directories
Many directories include lists of notable residents / local tradesmen, and information which helps to build up a picture of the village at the time. Crick features in the 1847 Post Office Directory for Northamptonshire. This tells us that it had 1,006 inhabitants in 1841, that the incumbent of St Margaret's Church was the Rev Charles Swainson, that a village school was endowed by William Hemfray with a bequest of £10 a year for the education of twelve poor children, and that in 1806 Richard Rayson bequeathed £15 a year for the education of 20 children. These sums were being paid to a schoolmaster for the use of a schoolroom, house and garden.
The Post Office Directory lists seven inhabitants described as "Gentry" (including Rev Swainson) and fifty traders. These traders give an interesting picture of the make up of the village. They include :
William Blaney master of the National School, a number of farmers, two blacksmiths, a shoemaker, a wheelwright, a watchmaker, one surgeon (plus a junior surgeon), two bakers, a butcher.
Several of the traders have multiple occupations, for example Edward Whitnell is a "grocer, draper and maltster", Benjamin Rowley ran the Grand Union Inn but was also a lime and coal merchant, John Foster was a "farmer, grazier and brick burner", and William Haddon who ran the Royal Oak was also a cabinet maker.
Vintners Manor, Crick (originally built 1650s, much altered in the 1920s) - said to have medieval vaulted cellars
Greenhill Farmhouse, Crick
Doorway / clergyman's shelter in St Margaret's church, Crick
Militia List
The Northants Militia list of 1777 for Crick reinforces the impression that weaving dominated the village. Crick was much larger than Clay Coton, its militia list has 188 men between the ages of 18 and 45. We also know from the 1801 census (which listed the numbers of people in each village but did not give names) that the population of Crick was 961. The Militia List includes Edward Leatherland a weaver, mentioned earlier. There are thirty four farmers and farmers' sons including some names which crop in the Leatherland family tree such as Watts, Whitmell, and Redgrave.
The striking feature of the Crick list is the dominance of textile workers. There are 44 weavers in the village. There are also a number of other textile workers : two glovers (one with the wonderful name of Packer Gudgin), four woolcombers, a collarmaker, two staymakers, and two cordwainers. There is also a man called John Iliff who was a "hog-gobler" - a gobbler is apparently a male turkey and a hog a pig, although I'm not entirely sure what a hog gobler did !
The Crick militia list goes on to list a baker, a miller, a tailor, a wheelwright (who made wheels for carts), a mason, and a cooper (who made barrels and casks). The other main occupation in Crick in 1777 is servants - twenty are listed, including an apprentice wheelwright and an apprentice joiner.
Militia lists also list men who were too ill to serve in the militia. In Crick there were two men described as "non compos mentis", a farmer "disabled in the thigh by being broke", a woolcomber who was hard of hearing, a man blind in one eye, a soap boiler who was disabled by a broken leg, a rheumatic weaver, one deaf and dumb man, one who was "lame on the left hand", and several men with defective eyesight.
An old lane in Crick