Although a member of the Society for some years now, I have done little more than scratch the surface of my maternal grandmother's Essex BIRD and HAGGAR (or HAGGER) Epping, Great Canfield and Stanford Rivers ancestry. However, aware that both names are being researched by other members, I have prepared this outline of findings to date, in the hope that it will strike a chord or two somewhere. If there's someone here who sits in your tree too, please get in touch!
The earliest confirmed BIRD in my ancestral line is William, who married Sarah MEAD at Great Canfield on 11 Oct 1780. I have no birth for either of them, so must assume c.1750-60. Unfortunately, the Great Canfield parish registers on fiche at ERO include pages so feint as to be unreadable - William may be there, but I cannot 'see' him. There are, other legible BIRD entries during the 18th century, some if not all perhaps related to William: George SAPSFORD of Great Hallingbury married Anne BIRD on 5 Jun 1760, James (? SPELLER) of Hatfield Broad Oak married Sarah BIRD on 20 Jan 1774, John BIRD wed Millicent HALLS on 31 Oct 1775 and James BIRD, son of Nathaniel and Mary, was baptised on 17 Mar 1771.
The lack of other baptisms may point to non-conformist allegiance, but such was not the case for my William and Sarah. Great Canfield's registers record seven children christened between Jan 1781 (a short pregnancy!) and 1799: Mary, Thomas, Sarah, William, John, George and Edward. Thomas was at Chelmsford with wife Susannah in 1851, John married Lucy TARLING at Epping on 12 Oct 1813, George married Ann CONN at Epping on 11 Oct 1817 (they were at Stapleford Abbotts in 1851) and Edward, my direct ancestor, baptised at Great Canfield on 23 Jun 1799, married Charlotte HAGGAR at Epping on 12 Oct 1826. Why this enthusiasm for 11/12 October, I wonder?
The marriages at Epping may be explained by the family's apparent move there soon after both parents died, Sarah being buried at Great Canfield on 20 Feb 1802 and William on 5 Aug 1804. Although the eldest child, Mary, may be the one who married Thomas PARKER at Great Canfield on 22 Jun 1805, my guess is she is the Mary who wed James PEGRAM at Epping on 28 Sep 1808.
Charlotte HAGGAR (the family name changes to HAGGER sometimes in the parish registers and later census records) was the seventh child of John and Sarah (ne้ BREWER), who married at Stanford Rivers on 1 Dec 1788. Again, these are the earliest confirmed HAGGARs on my tree, with no previous record of that name in the parish registers (so, where did they come from?). Their eight known children were all baptised there between 1789 and 1807: Martha, John, Elizabeth, Thomas, Jane, John, Charlotte and Sarah. The register notes Charlotte's birth date as 24 Nov 1803 as well as her christening date of 20 Dec. It seems that the family remained in Stanford Rivers (despite Charlotte's Epping wedding), as Jane married William WRIGHT there in 1819 and Sarah wed James STANES in 1834.
Edward and Charlotte BIRD produced at least eleven children during their wedded life, as follows (all baptism, marriage and burial events being at Epping):
John, bap 10 Jun 1827, bur 18 Jun 1847
William, bap 29 Mar 1829, marr Sarah MATTHEWS 25 Dec 1860
Sarah, bap 16 Jan 1831, marr William WHEAL 11 Sep 1858
Mary, bap 4 Nov 1832
George, bap 24 Sep 1834, bur (as Charles!) 8 Mar 1835
Alfred, bap 25 Sep 1836
Susannah, bap 9 Jun 1839, bur 19 May 1845
Louisa, bap 20 Jun 1841, perhaps the Louisa whose banns were called twice in Feb 1874, but "not read for third time as it was discovered that Mr Wair was a married man"
Elizabeth, bap 25 May 1845, marr Isaac PEGRAM 25 Dec 1868
Charlotte, bap 15 Jan 1847, marr Henry James WOODWARD 22 Jan 1876
Thomas, bap 26 Oct 1849, bur 23 Jan 1852
In the 1841 Census the family name is rendered as BUDD (as it was also in 1851 and 1861), perhaps because Edward had a strong 'burr' or speech impediment that misled the enumerator. In all three censuses they were at Lindsey Street, Epping, with Edward's widower brother John and two of his sons just two doors away (and correctly recorded as BIRD) in 1841.
Edward fell a fraction short of 'three score years and ten', being buried at Epping on 28 Feb 1869, while Charlotte attained 83 years, her burial taking place there on 21 Jul 1887. In the 1881 Census she is correctly recorded as BIRD.
My direct line was continued by the second Charlotte, my great-grandmother. As noted above, she married Henry James WOODWARD in 1876. He has a somewhat mysterious background. He was born on 11 Jul 1847 at Shinfield, Berkshire, his certificate recording his mother as Susan WOODWARD, and with the father's name blank. He was baptised at Shinfield, apparently as James Henry, on 15 Aug 1847, the register noting his mother as "Susan, spinster". At the 1851 Census, Henry WOODWARD, age 4, born Reading (Shinfield is a little south of Reading) was a Visitor, along with Emily WOODWARD, age 3, at the home of William and Mary Smith, he a farm labourer, at Caversham, immediately north of Reading and just over the county border in Oxfordshire (HO 107/1725). It may be that the Smiths were related to the Woodwards in some way.
In 1851 Susan WOODWARD was in Reading itself, at 13 Thorn Street (HO 107/1692), age 27, an unmarried Lodger in the household of John Perry, 51, a shoemaker. Her occupation is Nurse Maid, place of birth Caversham. With her is William WOODWARD, 4 months, also a Visitor, also born Caversham. These census entries imply that Susan was the unwed mother of Henry James, Emily and William. As for her own origins, she seems to be the Susanna, daughter of Thomas and Ann WOODWARD, recorded in the IGI as baptised at Caversham on 2 Oct 1825 (both the census birthplace and census age fit). If so, then she had several siblings also christened there between 1806 and 1828, including older brothers Henry (1822) and James (1819) who might have been the inspiration for my great-grandfather's naming.
I have yet to locate Susan in any subsequent census, or Henry James until 1881, so I have no knowledge of his movements or occupations prior to his marriage to Charlotte. Although their wedding took place at All Saints, Epping (now Epping Upland and still, as then, some way out of town), the couple presumably favoured St John, originally built as a chapel-of-ease within the village, as their children were all christened there. The first was William Henry WOODWARD, on 11 Mar 1877, and who was buried at All Saints (there being no burial ground at St John) on 30 Nov 1878. Then came three girls, Rosina on 28 Sep 1879 (born at Garden Terrace, Epping), Ethel on 29 May 1881 (born at Bell Common, Theydon Bois) and Caroline on 2(?8) Jun 1885 (born at Epping Long Green). On each of their birth certificates and in the baptism registers their father is named only as Henry.
Henry's occupation at marriage was given as Labourer (all the BIRD and HAGGAR men before were also recorded as this or a variant), but on later certificates he appears as (Nursery) Gardener or Domestic Servant. The occupation of Gardener was also being followed by a number of BIRD menfolk in the 1881 Census, including Charlotte's older brother William. I have yet to trace Henry's later movements and death, but on 3 Jun 1897 he and Charlotte were at Luxboro Gardens, Chigwell, for on that day Charlotte died there of "diarrhoea and exhaustion".
Rosina's fate has also eluded me, despite her moderately uncommon forename. There is a family tale that she ended up in an asylum after her mother's death. Caroline became Mrs Arthur HAWKINS and lived much of her life in Surrey, not far from her other sister, Ethel. Ethel, my grandmother, went to Aldershot as a 'companion' or maid soon after her mother's death. There she met Edwin William BEARDMORE, one of nine children born to William and Sarah Ann (ne้ HOWE), a Birmingham jewellery worker. (This connection was the starting point of my GOONS-registered BEARD(S)MORE One-Name Study.) Edwin had recently come to London and signed-on with the Army Service Corps, being then posted to the huge army barracks at Aldershot. He served in the Boer War and was awarded the Queen's South Africa Medal with three clasps. The story of Edwin's and Ethel's romance, their eleven children (the youngest being my mother) and subsequent life on the Hampshire/Surrey border, where Edwin became a civilian employee of the army, working on target ranges, is quite a tale, but as it has no Essex connections it will not be told here.
I have, of course, accumulated more detail about many of those named above (and others who are most probably related) than is given here. In addition, I have followed through some of the branches, most notably that of John BIRD, who first married Lucy TARLING at Epping on 12 Oct 1813 and after her death in 1835, wed Sarah FOSTER there on 30 Jun 1844. With Lucy he had nine children, then two with Sarah. I will be pleased to hear from any reader with an interest in any BIRD/HAGG*R lines in and around Epping at any time in the last 300 or more years.
Finally, I should like to record my appreciation of help received from fellow ESFH member Andrew Barham, who carried out useful look-ups for me whilst visiting Essex and Berkshire Record Offices some years' ago, also the ever-helpful staff at ERO Southend branch.
(Richard Goring - ESFH Member No. 3770)
Your comments will be very welcome, please contact me at: esx at goring1941 dot freeserve dot co dot uk ('tweak' the foregoing to turn it into a real e-mail address).
Richard's Personal Family History Main Page
Last updated: 16 Jul 2005