In April 1871, Adam Thomas Rendell was a tenant farmer at Manor Farm; in April 1881, he was a farm manager at White Vine Farm.
Birth at North Perrott
Adam was born at North Perrott in 1846, the third child of Thomas and Jane Rendell. His father was a prosperous farmer who, in March 1851, farmed 176 acres and employed five labourers. His birth certificate and record of baptism give his name as Adam, but when he married, he added the name Thomas and continued to use it.
School at Axminster
In April 1861, Adam was a scholar at a school in Chard Street, Axminster.
Marriage
On 15 March 1870, Adam married Anne Young, the daughter of Albert Young.
Manor Farm, Hardington
In April 1871, Adam was the tenant of Manor Farm, Hardington, where he farmed 256 acres and employed seven men, five boys and one girl.
In November 1872, he hosted a harvest supper for his employees, including roast beef, plum pudding, and a band for entertainment.[1]
Adam and his family left Manor Farm in 1878. On 16 March 1878, he and his wife provided supper for forty people as a farewell gift.[2] Several days later, the village Friendly Society presented him with a silver tea service and a butter dish to show their appreciation for his services as treasurer.[3]
West Coker and Halstock
After leaving Hardington, Adam and his family moved to West Coker, where he continued as a farmer. His daughter Ethel Jane was baptised there on 8 September 1878. Ethel Jane died the following year when the family lived at Wyke Farm, Halstock.[4]
Manager at White Vine Farm
Wyke Farm was part of the Hoskins Estate, which also included White Vine Farm. By April 1881, Adam had moved to White Vine Farm which he managed along with Wyke Farm.[5]
Mental collapse
When he was forty, Adam suffered a severe mental collapse from which he never recovered. His father paid for him to be a patient at a private asylum at Fisherton Anger near Salisbury. In his will, his father instructed his wife to pay the fees of £70 per annum while she was alive and for his trustees to pay them after her decease.[6]
Adam entered the asylum on 10 September 1886 and died there on 6 March 1917 at the age of seventy.[7]
His wife’s later life
After Adam’s institutionalisation, Ann moved to Yeovil to live with her married sister, Sarah Penny. She paid for her daughter, Catherine to attend a private school at Redhill and divided her younger children between both sets of grandparents. By March 1901, Ann was living with her parents at the Laurels in East Chinnock. After her father died, she moved to Court Farm, East Chinnock, with her mother and brothers.
Ann died intestate at East Chinnock on 25 May 1927, at the age of 76, leaving an estate valued at £116-1s-9d.
Children
Adam and Ann had seven children, three of whom died before April 1911.
Circa 1871-Albert Thomas (disappears from the UK record after 1881);
1875-Arthur Young (died in Johannesburg in 1897, aged 23);[8]
1875-Florence (died in Islington in 1899, aged 23);[9]
Circa 1877-Catherine Susan (attended the Royal Asylum of St Anne’s Schools, Redhill; died at Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1922);
1878-Ethel Jane (died aged 11 months);[10]
1880-Adam Percy (started a career as an outfitter’s assistant, but by 1921 was an inmate at Dorset County Asylum);
1882-Maurice William (worked as a shop assistant at Shepton Mallet and Abingdon; served during the First World War; was a private with the 4th battalion of the Royal Berkshire Regiment in June 1921; died at Abingdon in 1932, aged 49).
References
[1] Western Gazette, 22 November 1872, p.7.
[2] Western Gazette, 22 March 1878, p.6
[3] Western Gazette, 29 March 1878, p.6.
[4] Halstock burial register; Western Gazette, 4 July 1879, p.3.
[5] On 23 March 1888, several horses and cattle belonging to “Mr T Rendell, North Perrott” were entered in a sale at Yeovil “in consequence of his giving up Wyke Farm. Halstock Leigh.”
[6] The will of Thomas Rendell, dated 23 November 1899, proved at Taunton on 26 November 1900.
[7] Lunacy Patients Admission Registers, 1846-1921, Civil Registration Death Index.
[8] Western Gazette, 4 June 1897, p.8.
[9] Western Gazette, 13 January 1899, p.8.
[10] Western Gazette, 4 July 1879, p.3.
