This week’s Blog is about the Pither family recalled in the road name Pither Close, off Fulbrook Avenue in Spencers Wood. The family was widespread throughout the district, first appearing in documents from the fifteenth century. In our book, More from Our Village of Spencers Wood, there’s an account of Thomas Pither who was the tenant farmer of Highlands when it was sold in 1797.
Whether Thomas Pither was related to Ann, the widow of James Pither who died in 1837, is not certain but it seems possible that he was Ann’s father-in-law. It is however possible to piece together the story of this family of women farmers from their wills and the census records. In the 1841 census Ann, a widow aged 70, is recorded as being a farmer in Shinfield (probably in Spencers Wood), living with her children, Thomas (47), Lydia (35), Hannah (28) and Maria (25). Her oldest daughter, Jane or Jenny, Pither, aged 40 at the time, is also recorded as being a farmer in Shinfield, living with her sister Sarah (30) and two nieces, Margaret Deane, aged 9 and Sarah Deane, aged 7 as well as William Holder, an Agricultural Labourer, aged 25, and two farm boys, Benjamin Long (16) and Richard House (15).
Ann Pither died in 1846. What became of Thomas Pither is uncertain but in the 1851 census the farm is being run by Lydia, now recorded as aged 50, farming 50 acres, employing four labourers and living with her sisters Sarah and Hannah and their older niece, Margaret Deane. By 1861 the farm, now reduced to 38 acres and employing two men and a boy, is being run by Sarah, who is living with her sister Hannah, Margaret Deane and also a ploughboy, George Monger, aged 13, presumably the “boy”
mentioned above. (During the nineteenth century it was still common for younger farm workers to “live in”, only moving out when they married and set up a home of their own, often still “tied” to the farm where they worked). Meanwhile Jenny Pither continued to occupy the other farm, described as being 87 acres and employing three men and two boys. We know the names of two of the men, William Holder, now farm bailiff, and Caleb Cox, a carter, as well as George Fulker, aged 14, a carter’s boy and also Jenny’s other niece, Sarah.
Whether the two farms were actually run independently of each other is open to question. In his will, James Pither left his whole estate to his widow, Ann and in her will Ann left her estate to all four daughters as tenants in common. This could mean that the daughters held different size shares in the farms and that Jenny did hold the largest share. What we do know from the wills is
Left: Wilders Grove Farmhouse, Ryeish Lane as it is today
that although the family owned the freehold of some of the land, some of the land was held as copyhold, a form of protected tenancy, and other land was rented.
By 1871 there has been some consolidation and the farm, which we now discover from the census was Wilders Grove Farm in Ryeish Lane, is described as being 50 acres and employing two men and a boy, and as being run by Jenny. Living with her are her two sisters, Hannah and Sarah, nieces Margaret and Sarah, as well as William Holder, the farm steward, and a boy, James Miles, aged 15. Over the next ten years all three sisters died, Sarah in 1871, Jenny in 1877 and Hannah in 1878. The 1881 census records their two cousins, Margaret and Sarah Deane as living together in retirement in Ryeish Green with a boarder, retired farm bailiff, William Holder. Sarah died in 1885 and Margaret in 1889. This marked the end of this line of the Pither family (although there were others living in Shinfield parish and in nearby villages). William Holder outlived them all. In the 1901 census he is recorded as living with his niece, Mary Holder in Hyde End Road. He died in 1907 living to the ripe old age of 93.
Right: Although this branch of the Pither family died out as the poster reproduced here other branches of the family continued to live in nthe district.
