Tom Patch

First Home

At what was then the eastern edge of the village, where Brickyard Close is now, there was once just a single cottage with a bit of land attached to it. Tom and Elizabeth may have taken on the tenancy of that cottage as soon as they were married. Their landlord was William Bland. The Blands were a Long Buckby family, but in 1656³ John Bland had married Lettice Miller of West Haddon and they lived here at least until 1661 when their daughter Dorothy was born and baptised.⁴ The widowed Lettice was buried here too, in 1711, but her husband appears to have died elsewhere, perhaps leaving her to return to the cottage in her home village in her widowhood, or perhaps she had never left. Her son Nicholas and grandson William had become Londoners, making careers for themselves as the 17th century equivalent of London cabbies – they worked as Thames watermen.⁵ So the younger generations of Blands had no need of a cottage in Northamptonshire. But when Lettice died someone else needed a roof over his family’s head very badly, and would have been glad to take on the tenancy of the cottage.

Thomas Berridge was a carpenter⁶ and in 1711 he and his wife Rebecca already had 5 children, and more to come. There is no clear evidence that Thomas ever rented the cottage, but Rebecca certainly lived there and is mentioned as the tenant before the Patches. When Thomas Berridge died in 1727, the burial entry in the parish register described him as ‘poor’, and no wonder, with so many mouths to feed on a carpenter’s earnings. By the time she was widowed, Rebecca’s surviving children were all grown up and gone out in the world. She probably began to look about her for some smaller, cheaper accommodation.

The carpenter died in August 1727. Tom Patch married Elizabeth Richards at the end of October in the same year. Had the wedding date been set once an agreement had been made for the newlyweds to take over the tenancy after Widow Berridge moved out?

The cottage was a good size (it would later be subdivided to make 3 cottages) with a homeclose or paddock behind it and Tom and Elizabeth lost no time in starting a family. Tom junior (Tom II) was born in 1728 and his sister Elizabeth followed in 1731, by which time the proud parents had bought the cottage from William Bland.⁷ How did they raise the money? Perhaps Tom sold the Lutterworth cottage, perhaps Elizabeth chipped in with some of her legacy money. It cost them £61 and a shilling. They had more children – but none of them survived infancy. Ann, in 1734 lived for only 3 days, Mary, born in 1736 just made it past her first birthday. Beatrix , named after Elizabeth’s mother, was baptised and buried on the same day in 1739. They must have had hopes of William. Born in 1741 he saw 3 birthdays. But his third was his last. Then there were no more children.

© West Haddon Local History Group (2010)