From about 1899 to 1915, Isaac Harding lived at Hardington, where he worked for William Taylor at Marsh Farm.[1]

Birth

Isaac, the second child of Thomas and Mary Anna Harding, was born at Seavington St Mary in 1851. His father, Thomas, was a farm labourer.

Occupation

Isaac was a farm labourer by age eight, pursuing this occupation until about seventy. Like his older sister, Mary Ann, who lived in Seavington St Mary and Whitelackington her whole life, Isaac was a home bird. This rootedness was in contrast to his three brothers, two of whom emigrated to Australia, and the other ventured to Cardiff.

First marriage

On 24 December 1873, at Kingstone parish church, Isaac married Hephzibah Jane Seward, the daughter of George and Charlotte Seward. Hephzibah’s father was a shoemaker; her mother was a schoolmistress and glover.

Hephzibah’s name and that of her siblings, Japheth and Virtue, suggest she came from a pious household steeped in Old Testament texts and Christian morality.

Isaac and Hephzibah lived at Allowenshay, Seavington St Mary and Whitelackington. They had four sons and three daughters. Their son, Thomas, died in 1892, aged only ten.

Drunk and disorderly

At Ilminster Petty Sessions on 29 July 1885, Isaac and another farm labourer were charged with being drunk and disorderly. The magistrates fined them 2s each.[2]

Hephzibah’s death

Hephzibah died at Seavington St Mary on 28 January 1893, aged 40.[3]

Her untimely death left Isaac in sole care of their three children still at home: Thomas (9), Frederick (8) and Lily (4).

Second marriage

On 24 February 1894, at Seavington St Mary parish church, Isaac married Harriet Ball.

Ten years younger than Isaac, Harriet had grown up in a household similar to Isaac’s, with her father, James Ball, working as a farm at Dinnington and Kingstone. However, in her teens, Harriet went to London and spent more than ten years as a general servant in houses in Hornsey and Hackney. The knowledge and confidence she gained in London may have influenced Isaac’s decision to seek for work further afield.  

Hardington

Isaac and Harriet probably moved to Hardington about 1899. The 1900 voters’ list recorded Isaac occupying a house in the High Street. The voters’ lists from 1902 to 1914 recorded him occupying a house at Hardington Marsh.

When they moved to Hardington, their household included their first child, Emma, and a son and daughter from Isaac’s first marriage.[4] A son (James) and two more daughters (Eva and Nellie) were born at Hardington.

Haselbury

Between 1915 and 1920, Isaac and Harriet moved to Haselbury.

Underpaid by his employer

Towards the end of his life, Isaac suffered severely from rheumatism, likely the result of hard, backbreaking work in all weathers. A Haselbury farmer, Frederick Symes, used Isaac’s ailments as an excuse not to pay him the statutory wage. At Crewkerne Petty Sessions on 10 January 1920, the Agricultural Wages Board summoned Symes under the Corn Production Act of 1917 for not paying Isaac the fixed rate of wages. They established that Symes had paid Isaac 19s for a 54-hour week, which was well below the rate set by law. Symes’s defence that Isaac was not an able-bodied man carried no legal weight. The magistrates ordered Symes to pay Isaac wage arrears of £24.[5]

Freeholder

In September 1924, Viscount Portman sold many properties in Haselbury and East Chinnock to pay death duties. Portman gave his tenants preferential treatment as buyers, and Isaac bought a pair of bungalow cottages at Haselbury, of which he was the tenant of one, for £130.

Isaac’s lump sum payment of wages arrears may have given him the means to buy the property. If he had to take out a loan, he may have repaid it by selling one of the bungalows (possibly getting as much for one as he paid for the pair).

Death

Isaac died at Haselbury on 13 January 1929, and Harriet died two days later. They were interred together in Haselbury churchyard on 19 January 1929.

Despite owning property, neither Isaac nor Harriet left a will, nor did any probate registry grant letters of administration for their estates.

References

[1] Guardian valuations.

[2] Chard and Ilminster News, 1 August 1885, p.5.

[3] Western Gazette, 3 February 1893, p.8.

[4] In March 1901, Isaac’s son, Fred, from his first marriage, was a groom on a farm, living at North Lane, Hardington, with John Robert Leach.

[5] Western Chronicle, 16 January 1920, p.11.