WILLIAM BURDOCK

Subject Name: William Burdock (b1803 – d1882) 

Researcher:  Christine Clarke

William Burdock was born probably in 1803, and christened by his mother Mary Burdock as her ‘base born son’ on 5th February 1804 in the beautiful parish church of St. John the Baptist in Kirdford, West Sussex (1).

After this somewhat inauspicious start, William went on to earn his living as an agricultural labourer, settling down when, aged about 26, he married Ann Glover at the St Mary the Virgin Church in Worplesdon, Surrey on 10th December 1829 (2).

Both William and Ann signed their certificate, something quite notable for that time. 

Ann, who was the daughter of Henry and Olive Glover, was two days short of her 19th birthday at her wedding, having been born on 12th December 1810 in Worplesdon and christened at St Peter’s, Ash, Surrey on 3rd February the following year (3).

William and Ann continued to live in the Worplesdon area, about 20 miles (32km) north of his West Sussex birthplace, for the rest of their lives. 

 In the 1841 Census, the Burdocks were living in Broad Street, Worplesdon with their five children, Henry, age 11, Mary (8), John (3), Frances (written mistakenly as Thomas, 2) and baby Jane, who was two months old (4).  Three further children – Sarah, Thomas and William – followed in the 1840s but in 1849, Ann died age 37 and was buried on 26th November at St Nicholas Church, Guildford (5, 6). 

Being widowed with eight children was clearly a tough situation for William.  The 1851 Census 18 months later showed William, age 48, had remained in Worplesdon with all the family (6).  He was an agricultural labourer, as were his eldest two sons Henry and John along with daughter Mary, no doubt to bring in enough money to maintain themselves and William’s five other children aged between five and 12, all noted as scholars.

As the 1850s wore on, the Burdock family started to go their own ways as they reached adulthood.  The first to leave was William’s eldest daughter Mary who wed local agricultural labourer Thomas Howard at St Mary’s, Worplesdon in March 1854 (7). 

William’s eldest son Henry was the next to move on, marrying Priscilla Cousins in January 1858 in Lambeth, Surrey (8).  He became a railway guard and lived with his wife in Guildford before relocating to Chard, Somerset, where he died in 1900 age 69 (9, 10, 11).

Daughters Frances and Jane were both married in 1860.  Frances wed Alfred Edwards, a labourer, in Norwood Green, Ealing, Middlesex in February (12).  They had seven children, eventually settling in Willesden where Frances remained until 1921 when she passed away age 82 (13, 14).

Jane married labourer Henry Boylett at All Saints, West Ham in October 1860 (15).  She was a ‘minor’ – less than 21 – so her father William would have had to give his permission.  She and Henry also raised a large family of eight before she died age 52 in the Guildford area in 1898 (16, 17).

By the time of the 1861 Census, William, age 56, was still living in Broad Street, Perry Hill, Worplesdon but with just his two youngest sons, Thomas (13) and William (12).  Despite their age, both were working, like their father, as agricultural labourers (18).  William did have more family very close by, though – his eldest daughter Mary, her husband Thomas and their children were living next door (19).

William’s second son John had moved out from the family home sometime before the 1861 Census but remained in the Worplesdon area all his life, marrying Ruth Tayman in Farncombe, Surrey in November 1863 (20).  John worked as an agricultural labourer before branching out into gardening (21, 22).  Ruth must have been resourceful, since as well as raising three daughters and running a home, she was also employed as a grocer, and became a ‘general shopkeeper’ working on ‘own account’ (21, 22, 23, 24).  John died in October 1916 age 78 (25).

William’s youngest daughter Sarah was working as a housemaid for a solicitor in Guildford in 1861 before she married William Hornett, a railway porter, in July 1863 in Datchworth, Hertfordshire (26, 27). The couple moved back to Surrey, raising a large family in Shalford (28, 29).  Sarah passed away there age 81 in 1923 (30).

The 1871 Census showed William had moved in with his daughter Mary and family who were now living in Horsell, just a short distance from Worplesdon (31).  Mary’s husband Thomas was described as a ‘Farmer of 15 acres, Employing 1 boy’.  Despite now being aged about 66 (incorrectly noted as 76 on the Census), William was still an agricultural labourer.  William’s two sons, who he had been living with in 1861 (18), were both nearby – 25-year-old Thomas was a carter lodging in Guildford (32) and William, 22, was working as a groom in Wonersh (33).

At some stage in the next ten years, William was admitted to the Guildford Union Workhouse.  With no admission records in existence, it is not possible to know when this happened, but as Mary was widowed in 1879 (34), it could have been around that time, especially as she was having to care for at least her four youngest children (35).

The 1881 Census, which confirmed William as an inmate of the Guildford Union, contained a rather odd detail, noting him as a brickmaker (36).  It also said his place of birth was not Kirdford but Worplesdon, where he had lived for most of his life, although the Census was more accurate with his age, giving it as 78.

Although William was no longer living with his widowed daughter Mary in 1881, she did have another family member with her in Horsell (31, 35).  Her 32-year-old unmarried brother Thomas, a farm labourer, was lodging with her.  After this, Mary became a laundress for a time (37), staying in the Guildford area until she died in 1913 (38).

1881 saw the last of William’s offspring to marry.  His youngest son William wed Elizabeth Felton in Lapley, Staffordshire, remaining in the Midlands where they raised five children before returning to Guildford (39, 40).  He passed away there in 1931, age 84 (41).

However long William had been in the Guildford Union Workhouse before the 1881 Census will probably never be known, but it seems certain that he would have spent the rest of his life there. He died in the Workhouse on 20th November 1882 age about 80 and was buried four days later in Worplesdon (42, 43).

Despite William’s humble beginning to life and the early death of his wife Ann, he successfully brought up eight children who all reached adulthood, a remarkable achievement in the 19th Century when child mortality was so high that one in four children were not expected to reach the age of five (44).  

Six of his children went on to raise families of their own, making William a grandfather 42 times over – a truly impressive dynasty.

 

There is, however, a tragic postscript to William’s story, concerning his son Thomas. On 25th August 1894, Thomas, 47, was working as a railway plate-layer at Clapham Junction when he stepped in front of a train, killing him instantly.  An inquest found that he had stepped off a line to avoid one train only to be struck by another going in the opposite direction. The verdict was accidental death (45).


April 2021
Updated November 2022 

References

 1)   ‘William Burdock‘ (1804) England, Sussex Parish Registers, 1538-1910, Kirdford. 
Available at FamilySearch.org.uk
2)   ‘William Burdock & Anne Glover‘ (1829) Surrey History Centre; Surrey, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, Worplesdon, St Mary, 1813-1837, Reference WOR/2/3. Available at Ancestry.co.uk
3)   ‘Ann Glover‘ (1810) Surrey History Centre; Surrey, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, Ash, St Peter, 1804-1812, Reference AS/1/6. Available at Ancestry.co.uk
4)   ‘William, Ann, Henry, Mary, John, Thomas (sic, Frances), Jane Burdock‘ (1841) English Census return for the parish of Worplesdon, Guildford, Surrey.  Public Record Office: Class: HO107; Piece: 1080; Book: 8; Folio: 14; Page: 20; Line: 19; GSU roll 474666.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
5)   ‘Ann Burdock‘ (1849) Surrey History Centre; Surrey, England, Church of England, Deaths and Burials, Guildford, St Nicholas, 1813-1866, Reference Gun/4/1. Available at Ancestry.co.uk
6)   ‘William, Henry, Mary, John, Frances, Jane, Sarah, Thomas, William Baindock sic‘ (1851) English Census return for the parish of Worplesdon, Guildford, Surrey. Public Record Office: Class: HO107; Piece: 1594; Folio: 160; Page: 18; GSU roll 193491/2 .  Available at
Ancestry.co.uk
7)   ‘Mary Burdock & Thomas Howard‘ (1854) Surrey History Centre; Surrey, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, Worplesdon, St Mary 1837-1893, Reference WOR/2/4. Available at Ancestry.co.uk
8)   ‘Henry Burdock & Priscilla Cousins‘ (1858) London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, Lambeth, St Barnabas,1851-1876, Reference P85/BAN/009.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
9)   ‘Henry, Priscilla Burdock‘ (1861) English Census return for the parish of Stoke next Guildford, Guildford, Surrey. Public Record Office: Class: RG 9; Piece: 427; Folio: 62; Page: 1; GSU roll 542636.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
10) ‘Henry, Priscilla Burdock, Elizabeth Howard‘ (1881) English Census return for the parish of Chard, Somerset. Public Record Office: Class: RG 11; Piece: 2386; Folio: 84; Page: 48; GSU roll 134157 4.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
11) ‘Henry Burdock‘ (1900) Somerset, England, Church of England Burials, Chard, 1895-1909, Reference number: D\P\chard/2/1/32.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
12) ‘Frances Burdock & Alfred Edwards‘ (1860) London, England, Church of England Marriages
and Banns, Ealing, Norwood Green, St Mary the Virgin,1837-1872, Reference Dro/025/A/01/012.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
13) ‘Frances, Thomas Edwards‘ (1911) English Census return for the parish of Willesden, Middlesex. The National Archives of the UK Series: RG 14; Piece: 7060.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk 
14) ‘Frances Edwards’ (1921) General Register Office, England & Wales Civil Registration Death
Index 1916-2007; Willesden, Middlesex; Jan-Feb-Mar 1921; Volume 3a; Page 313.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
15) ‘Jane Burdock & Henry Boylett‘ (1860) Essex Record Office; Essex Church of Parish Registers,
Church of England Marriages, 1754-1937; Registers of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, West Ham, All Saints,1855-1862.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
16) ‘Henry, Jane, Wm, Eliza, M Jane, James, Henrietta Boylett‘ (1871) English Census return for the parish of Stratford, West Ham, Essex. Public Record Office: Class: RG 10; Piece: 1626; Folio: 115; Page: 110; GSU roll 829932.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
‘Ellen Caroline Boylett’ General Register Office, Jul-Aug-Sep1866 in West Ham Union, volume 04A, page 6. Available at Gro.gov.uk  
‘George Boylett’ General Register Office, Apr-May-Jun 1872 in West Ham Union, volume 04A, page 13.  Available at Gro.gov.uk  
‘Ada Matilda Boylett’ General Register Office, Apr-May-Jun 1876 in West Ham Union, volume 04A, page 34. Available at Gro.gov.uk  
17) ‘Jane Boylett’ (1898) General Register Office, England & Wales Civil Registration Death Index
1837-1915; Guildford, Surrey; Jul-Aug-Sep 1898; Volume 2a; Page 43.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
18) ‘William, Thomas, William Burdock‘ (1861) English Census return for the parish of Worplesdon,
Guildford, Surrey. Public Record Office: Class: RG 9; Piece: 424; Folio: 63; Page: 18; GSU roll 542635.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
19) ‘Thomas, Mary, Henry, Thomas, Mary Ann Howard‘ (1861) English Census return for the parish of Worplesdon, Guildford, Surrey. Public Record Office: Class: RG 9; Piece: 424; Folio: 63; Page: 17; GSU roll 542635.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
20) ‘John Burdock & Ruth Tayman‘ (1863) Surrey History Centre; Surrey, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, Farncombe, St John, 1849-1885, Reference FNC/2/1.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
21) ‘John, Ruth, Priscilla, Ann Burdock‘ (1871) English Census return for the parish of Worplesdon, Guildford, Surrey. Public Record Office: Class: RG 10; Piece: 808; Folio: 28; Page: 21; GSU roll 838695.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
22) ‘John, Ruth, Annie, Ruth Olive Burdock‘ (1881) English Census return for the parish of Worplesdon, Guildford, Surrey. Public Record Office: Class: RG 11; Piece: 773; Folio: 21; Page: 26;
GSU roll 134118 1.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
23) ‘John, Ruth, Ruth O Burdock‘ (1891) English Census return for the parish of Worplesdon, Guildford, Surrey. Public Record Office: Class: RG 12; Piece: 556; Folio: 45; Page: 20; GSU roll
6095666.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
24) ‘John, Ruth, Ruth A Burdock‘ (1901) English Census return for the parish of Worplesdon, Guildford, Surrey. Public Record Office: Class: RG 13; Piece: 598; Folio: 17; Page: 26.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
25) ‘John Burdock’ (1916) Surrey History Centre; Surrey, England, Church of England, Deaths and Burials, Worplesdon, St Mary, 1879-1946, Reference Wor/5/2. Available at Ancestry.co.uk
26) ‘Sarah Burdock‘ (1861) English Census return for the parish of Stoke next Guildford, in the
registration district of Guildford, Surrey. Public Record Office: Class: RG 9; Piece: 427; Folio: 31; Page: 11; GSU roll 542636.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
27) ‘Sarah Burdock & William Hornett’ (1863) England, Select Marriages,1855-1870; Datchworth,
Hertfordshire.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
Hertfordshire Banns & Marriages, Parish Marriages.  Available at FindMyPast.co.uk
28) ‘Wm, Sarah, Maria Jane, Wm Alfd Hornett’ (1871) English Census return for the parish of Shalford, Hambledon, Surrey. Public Record Office: Class: RG 10; Piece: 826; Folio: 55; Page: 25;
GSU roll 838703.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
29) ‘Sarah, Mary Caroline, Albert Edward Hornett‘ (1911) English Census return for the parish of Shalford, Surrey. The National Archives of the UK Series: RG 14; Piece: 3168.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
30) ‘Sarah Hornett‘ (1923) General Register Office, England & Wales, Civil Registration Death
Index, 1916-2007; Hambledon, Surrey; Oct-Nov-Dec 1923, Volume 2A, Page 203.   Available at Ancestry.co.uk
31) ‘Thomas, Mary, Henry, Thomas, Mary Ann, Elizabeth, Fanny, William, Ellen Howard.  William Burdock’ (1871) English Census return for the parish of Horsell, Chertsey, Surrey. Public Record Office: Class: RG 10; Piece: 806; Folio: 19; Page: 3; GSU roll 838694.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
32) ‘Thomas Burdock’ (1871) English Census return for the parish of Guildford St Nicholas, Surrey.
Public Record Office: Class: RG 10; Piece: 813; Folio: 68; Page: 36; GSU roll 838697.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
33) ‘William Burdock’ (1871) English Census return for the parish of Wonersh, Hambledon, Surrey.
Public Record Office: Class: RG 10; Piece: 826; Folio: 105; Page: 16; GSU roll 838703.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
34) ‘Thomas Howard’ (1879) General Register Office, England & Wales, Civil Registration Death
Index, 1837-1915; Chertsey, Surrey; Jul-Aug-Sep 1879, Volume 2A, Page 33.  
‘Thomas Howard’ (1879) Surrey History Centre; Woking, Surrey, England; Surrey Church of England Burials, Horsell, St Mary, 1906-1917; Reference: 6923/14. Available at Ancestry.co.uk
35) ‘Mrs T, Thomas, William, Eliza, Richard, Jane Howard. Thomas Burdock.‘ (1881) English Census return for the parish of Horsell, Chertsey, Surrey. Public Record Office: Class: RG 11;
Piece: 770; Folio: 29; Page: 15; GSU roll 134118 1.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
36) ‘William Burdock.‘ (1881) English Census return for the Guildford Union Workhouse, in the parish of Stoke Next Guildford, Guildford, Surrey. Public Record Office: Class: RG 11; Piece: 778; Folio: 94; Page: 10; GSU roll 134118 3.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
37) ‘Mary Howard, Elizabeth Glover, Richard Howard.‘ (1891) English Census return for the parish of Horsell, Chertsey, Surrey. Public Record Office: Class: RG 12; Piece: 554; Folio: 16; Page: 4; GSU roll 6095664.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
38) ‘Mary Howard’ (1913) General Register Office, England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index,
1837-1915; Guildford, Surrey; Apr-May-Jun 1913, Volume 2A, Page 124.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
39) ‘William Burdock & Elizabeth Felton’ (1881) Staffordshire County Council; Newcastle under
Lyme, Staffordshire, England; Indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths for the County of Staffordshire;
Lapley, All Saints; Reference Number: C13/1/176.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
40) ‘William, Elizabeth, Harry, Charles, Albert Burdock‘ (1911) English Census return for the parish
of Guildford, Surrey. The National Archives of the UK Series: RG 14; Piece: 3074.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk
41) ‘William Burdock’ (1931) General Register Office, England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007; Guildford, Surrey; Oct-Nov-Dec 1931, Volume 2A, Page 151.  Available at Ancestry.co.uk 
42) ‘Deaths, Burdock’ (1882) West Surrey Times & Guildford Gazette, 25 November 1882, page 5.  Available at FindMyPast / British Newspaper Archives.
43) ‘William Burdock’ (1882) Surrey History Centre; Surrey, England, Church of England, Deaths and Burials, Worplesdon, St Mary, 1879-1946, Reference Wor/5/2. Available at Ancestry.co.uk
44) ‘Child Mortality Rate (under five years old) in the United Kingdom from 1800-2020’ Available at Statista.com
45) ‘A Platelayer’s Shocking Death’ Weekly Dispatch (London), 2 September 1894, page 3.  Available at FindMyPast.co.uk / British Newspaper Archives