Tom Patch

New Enterprises

Picture 8. NRO ZB142/80/5 Brickyard agreement, 1821

Tom III seems to have had more practical energy than his father. He did not remarry, but turned instead to new enterprises. The occupational description ‘farmer’ makes sense in the light of an agricultural tenancy on part of what is now White House Farm. He seems to have taken a joint lease with a man called Edward Eaton.¹⁶ But also, the year after his father’s death he mortgaged the cottage for £100 to his brother in law, William West.¹⁷ This perhaps marks the point at which he discovered that the land in his paddock produced a very good brick-earth. He built a brick kiln on the paddock and a hovel in which to work. In the mortgage deed he is described as a yeoman, indicating his owner-occupier status, but when the next deed came to be made, in 1821, his occupation is given as shoemaker and labourer. This suggests he was employing a brickmaker whilst still plying his original trade and perhaps turning his hand to other things as they came up. Farming seems to have gone by the board at this stage.

© West Haddon Local History Group (2010)