Francis Tredwin & Anne Maria Cording (2nd)

Leonard Tredwin & Clarissa Nina Wood	James 1884 to 1885	Son Died within 4 wks	Harold Tredwin & Edith	Edith Tredwin no children	Ernest Tredwin no children	Herbert Tredwin born 1883

FRANCIS TREDWIN (1848-1940)

On the 24th June, 1847, the first Francis Tredwin married Elizabeth Taylor in the old parish church as Sampford Arundel. In the marriage register they are both said to be from this parish though there is no other record of Francis birth or baptism here. He must have been born in 1819 or 1820 since we know he was a year or so older than his wife. She was baptised in the parish church on 20th April, 1821 probably a few months after birth, as was the general custom. She was the eldest of three daughters, bourn to James and Mary Taylor. Her elder brother, John, was baptised there two years earlier.

Soon after their marriage Francis and Elizabeth moved to Wellington. When the 1851 Census was taken four year later, they were living at Upham's Court. Francis is described as a labourer. Francis junior (the subject of this article) had been born on May 9th, 1848, and was then two. Richard must have been born soon afterward. Both were baptised at Wellington parish church, and so were the other two children born at Wellington, John James Taylor in 1855 and Sophia in 1856. the family must have moved back to Sampford Arundel some time between 1856 and 1859 because their next child, Dora, was baptised here and so was their youngest child Elizabeth in 1862. three years later both daughters died, Dora aged five, and Elizabeth aged two-and-a-half, within a week of her sister.

Sampford Bellringers (centre Francis Junior to his left Francis senior)

Milmoor had once been a farmhouse with five acres of meadow attached to it and belonged in 1839 to Thomas Waltham Were, the lord of the manor. According to local tradition there was a tanning yard there. When the Tredwins came to live at Milmoor it was a cottage, sometimes shared by two labouring families. At the time of the 1861 Census Francis Tredwin was 40 and described as an agricultural labourer. Francis junior was 12, Richard 10, John 6, Sophia 4 and Dora 1. His wife's parents, an unmarried sister and brother were either living with them or at the first cottage in Greenway. Ten years later the 1871 Census shows that Francis junior and Sophia had both left home but Richard, aged 19 and described as a groom, and John, an apprentice smith aged 16, were still living at Milmoor. So now was Elizabether Tredwin's mother, Mary, and her unmarried sister Jane, a dressmaker aged 48, for James Taylor had died in 1865 at the age of 85. Mary Taylor died the year after the Census aged 83.

Most of the information we possess about the early life of Francis Tredwin junior (Frank Tredwin) comes from an interview which he gave to a reporter from "The Herald" in 1937 when he was in his 90th year. He must have been between eight and eleven when the family moved from Wellington to Milmoor. As a young boy he remembered helping to carry the stone used in rebuilding Peacehay Farm after its partial destruction by fire, the exact date of which is not known. A lifelong member of the church choir, he could remember the interior of the old parish church before it was rebuild in 1867, "its galleries and windows and the carved oak pulpit, part of which was used in making the present communion table".

The Bristol and Exeter Railway had been opened four years before he was born and he could remember the railway in its early years, "only a few trains, moving slowly-almost creeping along-the line". As the construction of the Whiteball Tunnel was such a relatively recent event, he heard many stories of the years between 1842 and 1864 when hundreds of navvies were working in the parish, and pits were sunk from the Whiteball Hill into the tunnel beneath to remove the earth and rock. One of these concerned Joseph Harrison "whose tombstone he faced as he talked. He was a foreman employed on the cutting of the Whiteball railway tunnel. He was warned by another workman that if he went down the shaft he would never come up alive. He did so and the prophecy came true". The parish register does record the burial of three railway labourers during these years but none of them bears the name Joseph Harrison. Either Francis' memory failed him, or the reporter mistook the name he was given.

Francis younger brother, Richard, became a groom, and later butler to Joseph Hoyland Fox, after the latter had left Woolcombe and was living at "The Cleve", in Wellington. John the youngest became a blacksmith, whilst Francis served his apprenticeship as a carpenter. As a journeyman he was employed in the building of Milverton Railway Station for the new Devon and Somerset Railway (Taunton to Barnstaple). "As he could not get lodgings in Milverton, he used to walk the seven miles from Sampford Arundel to Milverton each morning and evening. This meant leaving home a four o'clock in the morning in all weathers. The work had to be finished as soon as possible, and he was often required to work until late at night. And then the seven-mile walk home. Sometimes there was a foot of snow, often heavy rain." The railway was opened as far a Milverton in 1871 and "he was at Milverton when the first coach, bearing a number of directors, passed through".

He was then 22 and lodging at Marlands, owned by Robert Arundel Were but then occupied by Mary Hill. She was the daughter of John Loney, a retired land steward, who until his death in 1861, lived in the cottage which once stood at the corner of Hart's orchard in Sampford Arundel. She had lost her husband only four years after their marriage in 1831. In 1851 she had been living at the home farm with her daughter Mary, both of whom were described in the census as laundresses. When her daughter died in 1858, she kept house for her father until his death in 1861. Then at some point between 1861 and 1871, she moved to Marlands where at the time of the latter census she was living with Sarah Anne Salter, a niece, born at Bristol. Both were described as laundresses. Francis Tredwin was living there as a lodger. On November 2nd, 1871, he and Sarah were married at the parish church. He was 22 and his wife 21.

The newly married couple went to live with his parents at Milmoor. When his Mother and Father moved from Milmoor to White Ball inn, built where its stables were shown on the tithe map of 1839. Their son, William, born in the first years of their marriage and baptised in October 1972, was then almost nine. At this time he was probably working for one of the two Vickery brothers from Stawley, both of whom were carpenters. Samual, the elder, was living at White Ball with his family at the time of the 1871 census but had left the parish by 1881. In 1871 and 1881 Charles Vickery, some thirteen years younger, was living at the first two cottages known as harts in Sampford Arundel (a third cottage was added about this time). He worked there as a carpenter and wheelwright but left the parish soon after 1881. We do not know for which of the two Vickerys, Francis Tredwin worked but. When Charles Vickery left, Francis Tredwin moved into his former house and set up in business as a carpenter on his own account. If he had not already done so while living at White Ball.

After an interval of ten years, a second son was born to Francis and Sarah and baptised in June 1881 as Francis John. Three years later Sarah died at the early age of 34, leaving Francis a widower with two sons, William now 12 and Francis still under 3, On December 7th, 1884, he married Anne Marie Cording who in March 1880 had been appointed as the first headmistress of the new board school and had since lodged with the Tredwins. Francis was then 36 and his second wife 24. During the next fourteen years, eight children were born to them. Their first son, James, died with in a week of his birth in 1885 and was buried on November 4th at the same time as Francis John, the Younger of Sarah's two sons, who died during the same week. Another of Anne's sons was later to die within four weeks of his birth but she had four other sons, Herbert, Ernest, Leonard, Harold and two daughters Edith and Emily.

Francis and Anne with four of thier children out side the cottages which became the family home

Francis did not own the house in which they had been living with Sarah but in the years of his second marriage it was purchased from the previous owner by Anne Maria's farther, James Cording. He also bought the adjacent cottages and when he died in 1897 left all three to his widow, Mary Ann. On her death the Tredwin's home passed to her daughter, Anne Maria, the next cottage to her son Albert and the third to her other son James. . In 1901 Francis lived in Sampford Cottages, which was now the post Office and his wife Anne Maria was now the postmistress. Living with them was William H aged 27 and a carpenter (from Francis's first marriage), Herbert aged 14, Ernest aged 11, Edith aged 9, Leonard aged 6, Harold aged 4 and a widow aunt Mary Myatt aged 72. When Anne Maria died in 1927 at the age of 68, she left to her husband, Francis, "the use of my dwelling house in which we live, with the old malthouse premises and the yard and garden held therewith, and also the garden known as "Part of Harts" in Sampford Arundel village, which I purchased in the year 1920 from Mrs Nicholson and Mrs Hall… to hold the same for the term of his life."The ladies mentioned were the married daughters of Robert Arundel Were, to whom the Were Estate had passed when he died in 1893, Hart's garden, Meadow and Orchard being part of their inheritance. Harts' "garden" was later to provided the site for Winfields and the present Post Office.

Anne Maria Cording

Like all carpenters Francis Tredwin undertook a wide veriety of work during the course of his long professional life. In April 1881, Anne Maria noted in the school log book a visit by Mr Tredwin to measure the timber needed to have pictures on the walls and a fortnight later that Mr Tredwin had spent two days fising the timber and clock "a great novelty for the children." There are other references to his work in the records, particularly in the churchwardens' accounts, which frequently note sums paid to him for repairs and other work done in the church. He was of course, closely connected to the church throughout his life. From boyhood onwards he sang in the choir. In 1892 he was appointed sexton at a salary of £2.10s.0d p.a. in succession to John Cruise; this was raised to £5.5s.0d p.a. by 1914 during the war years he had to request an increase to meet the mounting inflation. His main task was to dig the graves and fill them in after the burial service. Like many carpenters he made coffins and so established him self as the parish undertaker. A chapel of rest was later erected close to his house. In1894 he was given the additional responsibility of keeping the churchyard in order and mowing the grass, for which he was paid 15s.od. extra and later £1.10s.0d p.a. extra and later £1.10s.0d.p.a. Later still he agreed to supply the church and churchyard lamps with oil.

From 1892 onwards he was a regular member of the church vestry, which re-elected him as verger and sexton each year until 1937, when he decided to retire from the post. He was then nearly 90 and was presented with an oak stool, made from a tree grown et Woolcombe and which he felled himself. He was an active member of the Parish council when this was set up in 1895 to replace the vestry which had handled the civil responsibilities of the parish in previous years. It was said "that his knowledge of the parish was frequently accepted as authoritative and final" by its members… In 1910 he became a sub-postmaster and opened the first post office in the front room of his house. This was later taken over by his daughter Edith. In 1825 He handed over the family business to his fourth son Harold. Two years later in 1927 Anne Marie died and Edie kept house for him until his own death in 1940 at the age of 93. He was buried beside his second wife in the churchyard where he had dug so many graves for others, and which he had looked after for so many years.