Introduction
John Stone was a bricklayer from the 1820s until the 1850s. After spending his early years in the Bridport area, he moved to Crewkerne, where he married and settled down. Brickmaking was a demanding physical job that involved digging clay, moulding it, drying the bricks, and firing them. It also required specialised knowledge about the firing process. While these skills were often passed down through generations, there is no evidence regarding his father’s occupation. Nevertheless, John clearly possessed the necessary skills, as around the age of forty, he carried out brickmaking with a small team of labourers at Kingwood, Hardington, possibly for the Hoskins Estate. His son, Robert, joined the estate workforce in 1855.[1] John later returned to Crewkerne, where he died in 1862.
Childhood
According to the 1851 census, John was born at Loders around 1811. The Bridport baptism register contains a record of a John Stone, the son of John and Sarah Stone, born on 5 December 1810 and baptised on 10 April 1811.[2]
By the age of 14, John was living at Allington, just northwest of Bridport, where he worked as a brickmaker.[3] Allington, Loders and Bridport are all in close proximity.
In February 1826, he was arrested for stealing a pair of worsted stockings from William Seaward of Shipton George. At the Dorchester Assizes the following month, he was sentenced to three weeks of hard labour.[4] The prison records describe him as 14 years old, standing 5 feet and a half inches tall, with flaxen hair, a fair complexion and blue eyes. He had a cut on the middle of his forehead, a pockmark on his right eyebrow, and a cut on the back of his forefinger on his right hand.[5]
Marriage
In his late teens or early twenties, John moved to Crewkerne, a market town twelve miles north of Bridport.
On 28 April 1833, he married Phillis Sibley at Crewkerne parish church. At the time of their marriage, John was 22 and Mary was about 23. John signed the marriage, while Phillis made a mark. The witnesses were Phillis’s siblings, Phineas and Frances.
Phillis was the second of six children born to Adam and Sarah Sibley. Her father had been a labourer and later a servant. He died in August 1831 at the age of 51, while her mother lived at Crewkerne until her death in July 1872 at the age of 98.
Married life at Crewkerne
John and Phillis settled at Crewkerne. Their first child, John, was born on 23 February 1835, and baptised at the Wesleyan chapel at South Petherton on 15 March 1835. At the time, John’s occupation was a brick and tile maker.
Over the next nine years, they had three more sons: Robert in about 1836, John on 7 August 1841 and David Hansford on 29 September 1844.[6] However, by April 1846, only one of the sons survived. The use of the name “John” in 1841 indicates that their first son had died. The second son, John, may have died at South Petherton on 19 July 1845 from inflammation of the chest at the age of four, while David Hansford died at Crewkerne on 31 March 1846 due to lung degeneration from birth at the age of one.[7]
In January 1837, John was arrested for stealing four sack bags. At the Dorset Lent Assizes at Dorchester the following March, he was sentenced to two months of hard labour. The prison records describe him as a weaver, aged 26, married with three children. While his occupation and number of children are inconsistent with other evidence, his physical description more or less matches that of 1826: five feet five and a half inches tall, with light brown hair, grey eyes, and fair complexion, as well as a very small cut on the left side of the right eyebrow, another very small cut on the middle of the forehead and a large mole.[8]
By June 1841, John and his family lived at “Back Lane or Rose Lane,” Crewkerne, and he was a journeyman brickmaker. In the mid-1840s, he may have become a general labourer for a while before returning to brickmaking.[9]
Hardington
By March 1851, the family had moved to Hardington, where John worked as a brickmaker, assisted by his son, Robert, and two young men from Crewkerne: John Gosling and Henry Bull.
In December 1856, John was charged with stealing wooden rails from Mr. Dicks of Haselbury. The Magistrates dismissed the case after Mr. Hoskins provided a good character reference for John.[10]
The 1861 census recorded Phillis living at In Barton, Haselbury, but John was absent. Phillis was working as a girth web weaver, and living with her was eleven-year-old Ellen Dodge, the daughter of her sister, Sarah. Phillis may have taken Ellen in after Sarah died in May 1852 at the age of 27.[11]
Death
John died at Lyewater, Crewkerne, on 13 December 1862 from asthma at the age of 52.[12] Phillis died at Crewkerne in December 1864 at the age of 54.
References
[1] Western Gazette, 8 November 1878, p.8.
[2] John was the youngest child born to his parents, and no children were baptised after the new format registers, which included the father’s occupation, were introduced in 1813.
[3] Dorchester Prison Admission and Discharge Registers, 1782-1901.
[4] Dorchester Prison Admission and Discharge Registers, 1782-1901; Dorset County Chronicle, 9 February 1826, p.4; 16 March 1826, p.3.
[5] Dorchester Prison Admission and Discharge Registers, 1782-1901
[6] Birth certificate of John Stone; birth certificate of David Hansford Stone.
[7] Death certificate of John Stone.
[8] Dorchester Prison Admission and Discharge Registers, 1782-1901, Dorset County Chronicle, 16 March 1837, p.3.
[9] Birth certificate of David Hansford Stone; death certificate of David Hansford Stone.
[10] Sherborne Mercury, 9 December 1856, p.2.
[11] The Civil Registration Death Index incorrectly recorded Sarah’s age as 31.
[12] Death certificate of John Stone (age recorded as 60).
