Introduction

John Rendell was a grocer at Hardington Moor from at least 1881 until his death in 1896. In 1862, he married Harriet Purchase. Their lives were marked by family crises and displays of mutual support. After Harriet’s mother committed suicide in 1865, she and John lived with her father as well as John’s father in the same household. When Harriet’s brother fell seriously ill, she cared for his young daughter, Addy, for a time.

Childhood

John was born at Hardington in about 1839, the sixth of seven children born to John and Elizabeth Rendell.[1] Both parents were weavers, and the family lived in Barry Lane.

John initially worked as an errand boy before becoming a canvas weaver.

His mother died in 1860, and by April 1861, John was living with his father and sister, Elizabeth, at Hardington Moor.

Marriage

On 20 December 1862, John married Harriet Louisa Purchase, the daughter of Thomas and Grace Purchase. Following their marriage, John and Harriet moved into her parents’ home in Moor Lane, along with John’s widowed father.[2]

Family tragedy

Two and a half years later, the family suffered a terrible blow when, on 17 June 1865, Harriet’s mother hanged herself.[3]

Family unity

By April 1871, Thomas Purchase headed a household that included John, Harriet, and John’s father, who was by then a pauper. Both John and his father-in-law were farm labourers at the time.

The 1881 census recorded the same four individuals living together, but John was the household head. He was a shopkeeper, and his father and father-in-law were weavers.

John’s father-in-law died in 1883, followed by his father in 1884.

Shopkeeper

John was a grocer from at least 1881. The 1881 census recorded him as a shopkeeper, while the 1891 census recorded him as a grocer. Trade directories of 1889 and 1895 listed him as a shopkeeper, and his death certificate recorded him as a master grocer.

Later years

John and Harriet continued to live in the same house. By April 1891, Harriet’s brother, Thomas Alfred Purchase, a grocer and ironmonger at Cullompton, was terminally ill with liver disease. During this distressing time, his daughter, Addie, stayed with John and Harriet.[4]

Death

John died on 2 July 1896, from liver cancer at the age of 56.[5]

Harriet’s later life

After John’s death, Harriet continued to run the shop. Trade directories of 1897, 1902, 1906, and 1910 listed her as a shopkeeper.

Near the end of her life, Harriet moved in with her niece, Grace Watts, the wife of William Watts, the village blacksmith.[6] Harriet died on 15 April 1911, at the age of 67.

Children

John and Harriet did not have any children.

References

[1] Civil Registration Birth Index: Q1 1839.

[2] John’s father may have moved in after Grace Purchase’s death in 1865.

[3] Western Gazette, 23 June 1865, p.5; Sherborne Mercury, 27 June 1865, p.8.

[4] Thomas Alfred Purchase died at Cullompton on 23 July 1891 at the age of 42 (death certificate).

[5] John Rendell’s death certificate.

[6] Grace was the daughter of Harriet’s sister, Ann Bartlett Purchase, who married Edward Marsh.