Butler and Pub Landlord

Mike Cope recently sent me details of his Swindell ancestry which traces back to Parwich in Derbyshire. One of these ancestors illustrates the move from the countryside to the town.

Thomas Swindell (1808-1872)

Thomas was the youngest son of George Swindell born in 1808 in Parwich in Derbyshire and might have been expected to become an agricultural labourer like his father. It is not known whether he went to Checkley in Staffordshire to work on his brother Samuel's farm or was attracted by the prospects for work at the Phillips' cotton mills there. However in due course he joined the domestic staff at Heybridge, the home of Robert Phillips, one of the mill owners.

In the 1841 census Thomas is a the only male servant in the large but not grand establishment of  Robert Phillips at Heybridge. The Phillips family employed 600 men, women and children in a factory in Upper Team which specialised in (cotton) tape manufacture. On Thomas's 1846 marriage certificate he describes himself as 'Butler'. In the staff in 1841 are his future bride, Mary Tuffnall, and her sister Ann. Elizabeth Ogden, at 70 possibly the housekeeper, was almost certainly the Elizabeth Ogden who was one of the witnesses at the wedding.

Heybridge in 1920, demolished in the 1950s

By 1846 he was butler but married one of the staff and as was then, I believe, normal the couple would be expected to leave domestic service.

Thomas Swindell in 1846

Mary Tufnall in 1846

He first became manager of a pub in Derby, the Woodman's Stroke and then moved down to London by 1861 to run at least three different pubs there. The last of these pubs was the Griffin in St Leonard Street, just north of Liverpool Street Station.

The Griffin, on the corner of St Leonard Street, Shoreditch

Thomas and Mary had two sons and two daughters and established a considerable family in London.

In 1871 he described himself as a 'licenced victualler - not in business' and died the following year.

Parwich

A Swindell family had settled in Parwich by at least 1642 when the first burial is recorded. Thomas's ancestry can be traced back to James Swindell of the Fold who was born about 1698 and died in 1780. I hope to research this branch of the family at some future point but for the moment I would point anyone interested to an article in Newsletter 8 of the Parwich and District Local History Society.

More about the Swindell Surname