Introduction

Born into a relatively humble family, Solomon Jeffery demonstrated considerable skill and adaptability in elevating his social status from farm labourer to tenant farmer. His life story is particularly noteworthy for his relocation to Hertfordshire, which his daughter facilitated, and retirement to Cambridge.

Early life

Solomon, the ninth child of William and Rose Jeffery, was born at Haselbury in 1815. His father was a farmer who occupied premises in East Street in 1841.

Marriage

On 31 March 1842, Solomon married Matilda Nicholls, a shoemaker’s daughter, at North Perrott.

Solomon began his working life as a farm labourer, likely employed by his father. The Haselbury baptism register suggests that he remained a labourer throughout the 1840s.[1] However, by March 1851, he was a farmer, occupying 31 acres and residing in New Lane, Haselbury.[2] Over the following decade, he expanded his holding to 48 acres, farming with the help of one labourer from premises in North Street known as the “Traveller’s Rest,” which was probably a beerhouse.

Hardington

In the mid-1860s, Solomon’s career suddenly took off when he became the tenant of White Vine Farm Hardington. The 1871 census recorded him occupying 230 acres, employing two labourers and one boy. As the farm belonged to the Hoskins family, they must have been persuaded that he had adequate capital, although no evidence of an inheritance has been found .

Halstock

In 1874 and 1875, Solomon was the tenant of Vale Farm, Halstock.

Corscombe

Solomon lived at Corscombe in 1877 and 1878, during which time his wife died in April 1878, aged about 56.[3] Nine and a half months later, Solomon married Sarah Newland, a widow thirteen years his junior, at Corscombe church. Little is known about her, except that she was born at Harlow in Essex.

In February 1877, Solman’s name appeared in newspaper accounts of a sensational murder trial at Yeovil in which three poachers were charged with the wilful murder of PC Cox four months earlier. A Haselbury labourer testified that he had seen a man on 17 November 1876 riding a horse along a road close to where a bludgeon was later found in a stream. Although he did not know the man, he recognised the horse as one that George Hutchings had purchased from Solomon Jeffery more than twelve months earlier. [4]

Later that year, Solomon’s name appeared in print again, this time for a minor offence. In October 1877, an Excise official visited his farm at Corscombe and discovered he had a dog without a licence. Despite Solomon’s claim that the dog belonged to his son, the Beaminster magistrates fined him 25s. [5]

South Petherton

The 1881 census recorded Somon as a farmer of 82 acres, employing two men and one boy at Moor Farm, South Petherton.

Little Munden, Hertfordshire

By 1882, Solomon was farming in partnership with his son-in-law, John Saunders, at Green End Farm, Little Munden, Hertfordshire. After the partnership was dissolved in 1883, John Saunders moved to Tanworth in Arden, Warwickshire, while Solomon remained at Little Munden.[6]

Retirement and death

By April 1901, Solomon had retired to Chesterton, a suburb of Cambridge, where he lived at 2 Bermuda Row. He died there on 21 March 1911, at the age of 94, leaving an estate valued at £807. His widow died in 1918 at the age of 88.

Children

Circa 1843-Matilda (died in infancy);

1845-Lavinia (married Henry Osborne, a farmer’s son, in 1871; then disappears from the records);

1848-Henry (died in infancy);

1856-Amelia (married John Saunders of Pendomer in 1878, after which she and her husband kept the Anchor Inn at Stoke Abbott in Dorset and then occupied farms at Little Munden in Hertfordshire and Tanworth in Arden, Warwickshire);

1859-John (became a master brewer at Ware, Hertfordshire);

Circa 1866-Solomon Bradford (became a grocer and later insurance agent in Selly Oak, Birmingham).

References

[1] When his first child was baptised in 1843, Solomon’s occupation was recorded as “farmer,” possibly reflecting the status of his father. When his second child was baptised in 1846 and his third in 1848, his occupation was recorded as “labourer.”

[2] In the 1851 census, Solomon’s household is listed immediately after the home of a web manufacturer at “Globe.”

[3] The civil registration death records her age as 53, but she was older.

[4] Dorset County Chronicle, 1 February 1877, p.8; Somerset County Gazette, 3 February 1877, p.7.

[5] Western Gazette, 21 December 1877, p.3; Bridport News, 21 December 1877, p.4.

[6] Bucks Herald, 31 March 1883, p.8. The 1891 census recorded Solomon at “Whemstead” [Whempstead], Little Munden.