Elias Willmot was a shoemaker at Hardington from 1828 to 1861.

Childhood at Halstock

Elias was born at Halstock on 14 March 1799. He was the son of Richard, a labourer, and his wife, Anne.

Elias’s mother died in September 1800 when he was only 18 months old. His father remarried in 1805, possibly to his late wife’s sister.

Hardington

On 9 February 1828, Elias married Jane Haggett at Hardington. Jane’s father was a sailor.

They set up a home at Hardington, living near Manor Farm.

In 1846 and 1848, Elias won a prize of 7s for the high standard of his allotment.[1]

Elias died in September 1861, aged 62; Jane died in January 1864, aged 61.

Children

Their oldest daughter, Mary, married Carey Burt, a woodsman of Pendomer, and had six children. Their other two daughters died young: one aged 17 and the other 20.

Elias’s only son, John, moved to the Isle of Wight in the 1870s. He worked as a general labourer at Godshill and married a local widow in 1889. He died there in 1901, aged 52.

References

[1] Devon County Chronicle, 29 October 1846, p.3; Sherborne Mercury, 21 October 1848, p.4.