Farnham Town & Borough Court Leet 3 April 1663 ~ We present in Dogflud the survaiors of the highway for not mending Bickemead Bridge and for not cleansing the water course in Dogflud & Tho Hole for laying dung in the highway there & wid Mason & Wm Batchelor & Wm Budd & W Inwood & Jn Turner & Jn Martin & Tho Laishford & Fra Maberley for laying dung there. To remove it within a month. Paine 2s 6d. (Record courtesy of Farnham historian, Pat Heather)
MABBERLY was not a Surrey name in the 1600’s; setting aside the Farnham family, only few records from outside Farnham exist in the county for the whole century. Fortunately, we know that Francis Mabberly completed an apprenticeship with The Fishmongers’ Company which entitled him to trade in London and use the Company’s arms.
In 1643, probably a couple of years after he finished his apprenticeship, he married Anne Lickfield; at that time, Francis was living in St Magnus the Martyr Parish in London and I suspect that Francis was a merchant specialising in fishmongering and no doubt had a network of sources for the fish he sold. In later life, he was described as a ‘Victualer’ as he broadened his trade into providing food and drink.
Now, Lickfield/Lickfold was a fairly common name in the Farnham area in the 17th century, and a search of of Lickfold in the area revealed this Will: Ann Quint, widow of Farnham, 16 May 1656. Ann had no surviving children so her Will is full of legacies to many people, including her sister Mary Lickfold for example, and numerous other Lickfold relatives, mainly of Seale, Surrey. The most useful part of the Will was this sentence:
“to my cousin Ann, now wife of Francis Maberley of Farnham, my lease of a house and hop garden at Castle Hill, Farnham and to her son John £1 and goods and to her daughter Ann my scarf and £2, and her son Francis 10s, all at age 21”.
A check of baptisms in Seale church show that Anne Mabberly was the daughter of Robert Lickfold of Seale, and Ann Quint, the daughter of Lawrence Lickfold of Seale, both sons of James Lickfold (Seale yeoman farmer) and his wife Alice. This local connection explains Francis Mabberly’s entrée into the Farnham business community. Farnham was a tightly controlled borough at the time and “strangers” had to be sponsored before they could take up residence.
By the 1650’s, Francis and Anne were well established in Farnham and apparently running a thriving fishmonger’s business as well as running The Bush Inn. Due to the shortage of small change, Francis and Anne had metal tokens made to give to their customers when no farthings or halfpennies (for example) were available. Some of these tokens have survived.
Records mentioning Francis Mabberly and The Bush abound – probably more than for any other single individual in Farnham in the mid-1600’s (the Bishop of Winchester excepted!). Not only was he fined for spreading his dung in Dogflood, he and The Bush Inn are recorded in many other ways.
Expenses of the Bailiffs and Burgesses of Farnham Corporation in the 1660’s:
Spent in wyne at the Bush, when Mr. Singleton was there, and when Mr. Steward Bowles was there, both His Majesties gentleman ushers: 14s. 6d.
Mr. Singleton for a fee, and that spent upon him at the Bush: 15s. 8d.
Paid to Mr. Maberley for 3 salmons as a gift for my Lord bishop: 13s. 8d.
Spent at Mr. Maberley’s, when the Lord Bishops Buck £141. 5s. was consumed (presumably a special dinner for the Corporation members when they received a deer from the Bishop of Winchester – taken in Farnham Park, no doubt. I’ve seen mention of the “Bishop’s Buck” in expense accounts for other places.
Spent at Mr. Maberley’s at a fish ‘dynner’: 31s. 2d
Spent at the Bush, at several tymes for the Justices dynners: various amounts.
Other Records:
Farnham Borough Records reported that Francis Mabberly, fishmonger, supplied the Bishop of Winchester with 33s/8d worth of salmon.
1663: Francis Mabberly, fishmonger, charged for nine hearths in Hearth Tax.
1663 Petition from John Craven, sworn gauger for the Exercise of Farnham, concerning a violent assault upon him by Cornelius Bracketon, inn keeper, and Francis Mabberly, victualler of Farnham. Ordered the case to the Attorney General for his particular care.
1675: Francis Mabberly of Farnham, Fishmonger listed as charged for payment of hearth-tax for seventeen chimneys.
- The first Mabberly record (various spellings) in the Farnham Parish Register is the birth of baby Francis in 1654 during Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate when Parliament passed an Act forbidding baptism and requiring parishes to simply record births. Historians believe that baptism of babies continued in many places behind closed doors!
- Francis was not their first child as the Mabberlys moved to Farnham with at least two children ~ a son John and a daughter Anne (both named in the Will of Ann Quint discussed above).
- Francis and Anne had two more children – William and Elizabeth – but in 1673, Anne Mabberly died and the burial record was typical of that used to document a burial of a married woman: “Wife of Francis Mabberly”. Hopefully her headstone in Farnham graveyard was a little more forthcoming. Some time after this, Francis married another woman called Mary and this is all we know about her. They did not marry in Farnham ~ it wasn’t unusual for second marriages among people who could afford to travel to take place away from the home parish.
- Francis Mabberly died in 1676 from a sickness that caused a sudden death preventing him from writing a Will and we only have a non-cuperative (oral, death-bed) Will. At the hearing held in 1677 at the Surrey Commissary Court, testimony was heard from witnesses Anne Broadbridge and Elizabeth Matthews, who were there when Francis died, confirmed that Francis said on his death-bed that he left all to his wife Mary Mabberly. The court ruled that Mary was entitled to administer the estate which was valued as £241 4s 11d.
- We know who Anne Broadbridge was ~ she was the daughter who moved to Farnham with her parents and married into the Farnham Broadbridge family a month after her father’s death. We have to remember that the probate hearing was not until 2 May 1677 by which time, she was not a Mabberly but a Broadbridge.
- Farnham records have many Elizabeth Mathews ~ it was a common name in the town.
- The absence of a proper Will means that we have no details about the Mabberly children; apprenticeship records exist for both a Francis and a William Mabberly, so we can surmise that the boys were sent to London at age 14 and did not return to Farnham. We know that daughter, Anne, was married, but of Elizabeth Mabberly (age 15 when her father died) I can find no more records.
- Widow Mary only survived her husband by a couple of years and her burial is recorded as ‘Mistress Mary Mabberly, widow‘ ~ the use of the title ‘Mistress’ signifying the status of the Mabberly family in Farnham society.
The family hired John Holland, Attorney-at-Law to go to the probate hearing on their behalf. The two women who were with Francis when he died – his daughter Anne and an unknown Elizabeth – were savvy enough to have adopted marks to represent their names. Anne looks like she could at least write the letter ‘A’, and Elizabeth has chosen a symbol. These two women may have been able to read (not uncommon in families with money) and had taught themselves some rudimentary writing.
Today, The Bush Inn is known as The Bush Hotel, a luxurious establishment, where I am sure no excise officer has ever been assaulted!
Select Sources: Exploring Surrey’s Past website, the National Archives, ancestry.com (with subscription), Google Books and Images.