Ref Y21
This family is of interest to us through Sarah Aistrope who married Thomas Young (See Ref. Y2), Mike’s 3gr-grandfather, as his second wife, 29.8.1798 at Holy Trinity Church, Hull, by bishop’s licence*. He said he was 25 (actually 38) and she said she was 22. Thomas Young and Sarah settled immediately at Fockerby (where Thomas was the miller).
*A licence was required inter alia if groom and bride were resident in different dioceses, e.g. Fockerby and Garthorpe, despite these two places having, for some time, been practically a single village. The marriage could have been at Adlingfleet, Yorkshire or Luddington, Lincolnshire. Thomas and Sarah took quite a deliberate step further by choosing to marry in Hull (readily accessible by boat from their area).
We speculate that Sarah Aistrope got to know Thomas Young by possibly being enrolled by him as a nursemaid or housekeeper – Thomas’s first wife, Hannah had died just over three years previously, leaving a four year old daughter. We have also noted that a year before the Young-Aistrope marriage, a Sarah Aistrope of Garthorpe had an illegitimate daughter, Sarah, who only lived a month or so. We think this could only be the same lady and the event could have been part of the background to the marriage being elsewhere.
Sarah Aistrope’s origins – Aistrope Marlin family
As to Sarah Aistrope’s lineage, in 1798 she said she was 22 and it seemed reasonable to link her to a baptism at Luddington (Lincolnshire) 19.5.1775 of a Sarah, daughter of John Aistrope of Garthorpe, and his wife Alice. There was a marriage of John Aistrope, shopkeeper, and Alice Marlin (Martin as some indexers incorrectly have it) 7.9.1769 at Luddington Church (which covered Garthorpe), i.e. six years before Sarah’s baptism. (See Ref. Y211 for Marlin.) Luddington is the most northeasterly parish of those that comprise the ancient Isle of Axholme, the latter being that section of Lincolnshire lying to the west of the River Trent.
George Aistrope, one of Sarah’s brothers was a miller. A fellow researcher has him in partnership with Robert Watson of West Butterwick (a small inland port on the Trent) in 1814 but over the period 1812 to 1833 the Luddington baptism register has him as a miller resident in Garthorpe. As the only convenient mill that we know about is the one at of Fockerby, where George’s somewhat older brother-in-law, Thomas Young, was the miller, we are inclined to think that he succeeded Thomas there, perhaps in the early 1820s. Always assuming that the Fockerby Mill survived until then!
Early in 1766, i.e. when our Sarah was not yet one year old, her widowed grandmother Alice Marlin died with the result that her mother (also Alice) was due to inherit a dwelling house in Thorne and received £100 from the estate as well. The latter, which in today’s money is perhaps £13,000 appears to have been intended to “level up” her inheritance to the amount her sisters were to get, as they each inherited a windmill in Thorne. (See Appendix 2 to Y 211 for details of the Will of John Marlin, Sarah’s grandfather.) In his book Tyke Towers – Yorkshire Windmills, Alan Whitworth mentions a mill at Barrow near Wentworth being erected in 1793 at a cost of £382 and a dwelling house barn and stable the next year for £313. In today’s values, the respective amounts are £52,600 and £39,600, so the above £100 seems to have been well judged. As yet, we have not seen how the estate actually turned out but it seems likely that John and Alice Aistrope were suddenly a great deal more wealthy – perhaps of the order of £50,000 in today’s terms.
In his turn, John Aistrope eventually made a Will (9.7.1807) and a fellow researcher has kindly passed on to us the details. Sufficient to say that 5.6.1825 (after his widow’s death) trustees acting for the benefit our Sarah Aistrope (by then Sarah Young) and her children received £121, equivalent to perhaps £12,500 in today’s money. N.B. this meant that her husband Thomas Young, if, indeed, he was still alive, would not have benefited from the windfall.
There were burials at Luddington of John Aistrope, “shopkeeper of Garthorpe” 14.10.1810 (aged 70) and of Alice 19.1.1823 (aged 74). Details of John and Alice Aistrope’s family are given in Appendix 1 hereto.
Variability of the family name
Family historians are quite used to family names being spelt in a variety of ways but this family is particularly noticeable in this respect, with Aysrope, Astrop, Astrup and some others variations. In fact they are all heavily concentrated in Lincolnshire, perhaps derived from the village of Aisthorpe, which is situated about 6 miles NNW of Lincoln. The name means “East village” with “thorp”, “throp” or “trop” equally valid.
Just to add to the confusion, the 18C script in the ancient registers makes distinguishing between i, s and t difficult for transcribers, so that it is not uncommon for an event to be indexed several times with different spellings! Curiously, all the pre-1700 entries we have seen were scattered over a dozen or so Lincolnshire locations, with no obvious main centre and, indeed, with no entries at Aisthorpe itself!
In any searches we have made have made we have tried a variety of spelling “and the like”. As regards the section headings below we have used the spelling from the marriage register, even if the children’s baptisms and marriages had different spellings.
Asthorp, Ridley and Godfrey
Resuming the family story, John Aistrope said he was 28 in 1769 and, sure enough, there was a John Asthorp baptised at Luddington 2.3.1740 (NS), the son of William Asthorp and Sarah, as well as a marriage of William Asthorp and Sarah Godfrey 10.10.1738 at Luddington. John named his first two children William and Sarah, which is reassuring. After John, we found no further baptisms attributable to William and Sarah and we think that is because the marriage was short-lived – there was a burial at Luddington 13.3.1741 (NS) of William Asthorp. Eventually, Sarah Aistrop was buried at Luddington 19.11.1769.
We have not had access to any records for Luddington Parish prior to 1700 but we believe that this William Asthorp is the first of that family to live there because we have only been able to find seven Asthorp references at Luddington up to 1740 and they were all in the last decade of that period. There were four baptisms of Asthorp children having a father William, starting in 1729, i.e. John, William, Elizabeth and Francis, and there were burials for the children John and William, as well as an adult, i.e. Elizabeth Asthorp 21.7.1738. Pondering this, it dawned on us that these entries must relate to a prior marriage of “our” William, to a woman called Elizabeth, from whom he was left widowed in July 1738. With 6 year old Eleanor and Francis barely two years old, it would be quite understandable if, a very short time later, he remarried, i.e. to Sarah Godfrey.
Looking at William Asthorp and his first wife Elizabeth we take it that they were incomers into Luddington and their marriage could be expected to be, say, in the period 1720-1730. Although it could have been some distance away, we think it extremely likely to be in Lincolnshire. In fact the data we have access to produced only one suitable marriage in all England i.e. at Mareham le Fen, in Horncastle Deanery 4.5.1727 (day and month not quite certain) of William Aisthorp and Elizabeth Ridley. There were no subsequent Aisthorp baptism entries anywhere nearby and this date allows remarkably well for the child John being born at Luddington in 1729. However, Mareham is some 60 miles away from Luddington, which is a big move for those days, so it would be some comfort to find baptisms for the bride and groom that were not too far from Mareham. As regards the bride, “our” Elizabeth was still of child-bearing age in 1736 , so we searched for a baptism of an Elizabeth Ridley from 1690 to 1709. The data only yielded two such baptisms in Lincolnshire. One was at Wootton, near Immingham 4.4.1701 for Elizabeth Ridley the daughter of John and “Eliner”. The other was at Lenton, South Kesteven 26.12.1691 for Elizabeth Ridley daughter of Reuben and Easter (name uncertain). We checked for burials up to 1727 and found nothing to prevent either of these ladies being William Asthorp’s bride at Mareham le Fen. The distances from Mareham are 40 miles for Wootton and 30 miles for Lenton, so in neither case would the bride be all that “local”, but we noted that Elizabeth named her Elder son John and her daughter Eleanor so we felt inclined to accept the Wootton 1701 date for her.
Turning to the groom, we searched Lincolnshire as whole. William might well have been somewhat older than his partner, so we looked for a possible baptisms in Lincolnshire in the range 1680-1706. We found five such entries, two of which we discounted because there was in due course a local marriage. The other three baptisms were as follows:
17.8.1686 at Goltho with Bullington, son of Simon Aistrop
28.4.1703 at Louth, son of William Astrop
18.2.1705 at Bottesford, son of Christopher Aistrop
Bottesford is up near Scunthorpe, some 50 miles to the north of Mareham and, as regards the Gotho entry we noted that the name Simon does not appear in “our” family so we felt inclined to take William as born 1703 at Louth, which about 20 miles from Mareham. Although this would make him two years younger than Elizabeth, we feel that the margin is not too great.
All this ends up as hypothesising that our blood line goes back through William Astrop, born in 1703 at Louth whose first marriage was in 1727 at Mareham le Fen to Elizabeth Ridley who was born in 1701 at Wootton, with the couple moving to Luddington in time for the birth of their first child in 1729.
Of course we have to add the caveat that researching events such a long time ago is handicapped by the inevitable incompleteness of the data. Also it should be pointed out that the events mentioned above took place before the 1754 Hardwicke Marriage Act which sought to regularise marriages and outlaw informal “common law” (unrecorded) unions. Perhaps William and Elizabeth, were in this category, in which case the latter’s maiden name could have been anything and Mareham le Fen would not come into it.
Asthorp, Godfrey and Jefferson
Turning now to William Asthorp’s second marriage we looked for a Sarah Godfrey baptism but had no luck at all Then we had a “light bulb” moment. Why could it not also be a second marriage for Sarah – i.e. sauce for the gander? This led us very quickly to a marriage 3.2.1732NS at Luddington between Edward Godfrey (baptised at Luddington 23.12.1707, son of John Godfrey and Sarah Mell) and Sarah Jefferson. They had two children, Dorothy (baptised 27.3.1733NS, buried 31.5.1739) and Elizabeth (baptised 18.5.1735), before Edward himself died (buried 31.5.1738, aged 30). Thus Sarah Godfrey was widowed less than two months before William Asthorp, each with small children. This all fits together rather naturally and implies that Mike’s 5gr-grandfather was William Astrop (born at Louth in 1703, the son of William Astrop) and his 5gr-grandmother was Sarah Jefferson.
Seeking Sarah Jefferson’s origins we noted that her first marriage was in 1732, (at Luddington), so we searched for her baptism in the range 1694-1714. This yielded only one Lincolnshire entry, i.e. a baptism at Haxey 9.3.1704NS for Sara Jepherson daughter of William Jepherson, residing in Haxey Parish (actually at Burnham, whether Upper or Lower, we know not). Haxey was the ancient capital of the Isle of Axholme, about 15 miles south of Luddington, so this Sarah would not be marrying a huge distance from home. We could find no burial entries or alternative marriages in Lincolnshire 1704 to 1732 that could have been her and, so we have no other choice, given the data we have seen. We researched the Jefferson family (See Ref. Y212) and decided that Sarah Jefferson was baptised 9.3.1704 at Haxey as the daughter of William Jefferson who had married Sarah Walesby.
Details of William Asthorp’s families are given in Appendix 4 hereto.
Astrop Walesby family
As mentioned above, Mike’s 5gr-grandfather, William was born at Louth in 1703, the son of William Astrop. At Louth we found five further baptismal entries that must have been William’s siblings. The last one was for Sarah Astrope baptised 12.7.1711 the daughter of widow Astrope and, sure enough, there was a burial of William Astrop 19.6.1711. We therefore looked for a marriage prior to 1703 for a William Astrop marrying a Sarah. There were none at Louth but a very convenient one. at Wragby, 15 miles away, 7.4.1700 between William Astrop, and Sarah Walesby which did not seem to result in any Wragby baptisms.
Not surprisingly, we found a marriage at Louth 15.11.1712 for Sarah Astrop, widow, and Thomas Thorold, i.e. 17 months after William Asthorp’s death. Sadly, by that time only William, aged 9, and James, aged 4 of Sarah’s children had survived.
We think that Sarah Walesby could well been the girl baptised 12.1.1679NS at Leverton, Lincolnshire,the daughter of Thomas Walesby and Anne Scramblesby who had married at West Ashby, Lincolnshire 26.10.1676. Leverton is 20 miles from West Ashby and also 20 miles from Wragby where “our” Sarah married. However, we have not, as yet, anything with which to start a Walesby family story
Details of the family of William Astrop and Sarah Walesby are given at Appendix 5.
We have not found a suitable baptism for Wiiliam Astrop, e.g. before 1680 within reach of Wragby or Louth. That means his 1700 marriage is as far back as we have got with the Aistrope (et al) family.
Observation
If Mike’s 4gr-grandfather John Aistrope (1740-1810) had ever reflected on his family’s history, assuming he knew it, he might have thought it interesting that his grandmother was married three times and his mother, father, paternal grandfather and son-in-law each twice.
January 2023
Appendix 1 to Y21
FAMILY OF JOHN AISTROPE AND ALICE MARLIN
Marriage by licence at Luddington 7.9.1769 of John Aistrope of Garthorpe and Alice Marlin* of Thorne (West Yorkshire). He was said to be 28 and she 21. Witnesses John Whitehead and John Bentley.
*Some indexers had it as Martin but see John Marlin below.
Baptisms at Luddington, Lincs
27.6.1770 William. Grocer at Patrington, East Yorks. Married at Holy Trinity, Hull, 4.9.1794 Ann Escreet, daughter of his boss Robert. She had been baptised Patrington 11.8.1760. Daughter Elizabeth baptised Patrington 8.6.1795. William died 1825.
19.5.1775 Sarah – married Thomas Young, miller of Fockerby, as his second wife – see main text and Appendix 6 to the Young Family story (Ref. Y2). See also below*
14.2.1778 John Marlin, shopkeeper, buried 14.9.1855 Luddington under the name of John Martin (sic) Aisthorpe, “aged 70” (rather than the correct 77)
4.9.1780 Elizabeth – buried 25.9.1781
20.2.1787 Thomas, a flax grower and farmer – married Ann Almond – see Appendix 2
18.7.1789 George, a miller at Garthorpe – married Mary Mason – see Appendix 3
Burials at Luddington
24.4.1797 John Aistrope 71 Shopkeeper of Garthorpe [actually 77]
19.1.1823 Alice Aistrope of Garthorpe (aged 75)
* At Luddington
Baptism 24.4.1797 Sarah Elizabeth Aistrope dau of Sarah
Burial 30.5.1797 Sarah Elizabeth Aistrope dau of Sarah of Luddington
January 2023
Appendix 2 to Y21
FAMILY OF THOMAS AISTROPE AND ANN ALMOND
Marriage at Luddington (Banns)
28.3.1808 Thomas Aistrope and Ann Almond botp (she made her mark)
Witnesses John Taffinder and Robert Almond
Baptisms at Luddington
12.8.1808 (born 10.8.1808) Alice . Married 25.7.1830 at Luddington Benjamin Snowden, shoemaker of Reedness, Yorks, where they settled.
10.6.1811 (born 2.6.1811) John. Nothing more known.
17.2.1814 Mary Aistrope dau Thomas & Ann, flaxgrower* of Garthorpe
25.4.1816 Thomas . Buried 12.5.1816
16.6.1817 Thomas, son of Thomas, labourer of Garthorpe. He married at Luddington 2.4.1842 as Thomas “Aisthorpe or Aistrope”, Harriet Wildbore. She was buried at Luddington 16.2.1852 and Thomas married at Adlingfleet 9.6.1857 Mary Richardson. See Appendix 6 hereto.
18.8.1819 Hannah Aistrope dau Thomas, farmer of Garthorpe. Married All Saints, Sculcoates, 14.9.1848 William Anderson, 34, son of John Anderson, New George Street, Hull.
10.12.1821 Elizabeth. She married at Holy Trinity, Hull, 16.8.1857 William Lister, gentleman (actually a gardener), aged 58, of Hoo.,Goole.
20.2.1823 Ann. She married Holy Trinity, Hull, 24.6.1851 Peter Stewart, mariner, a native of Kirkcaldy, when her father was a licensed victualler in Prospect Street, Hull. They set up a sailor’s boarding house in Hull. We believe he died at sea 17.2.1867 and by 1871 she seems to have married George Santer, a Canadian mariner and they were running a boarding house at another Hull address. Unfortunately George “Santerre” was lost on the wreck of the Malabar 4.12.1886, so Ann was again widowed but she was still a Hull boarding house keeper in 1901 before finally dying aged 85 1908 Q4.
4.5.1826 William. We assume he is the William Aistroph, aged 1, of Garthorpe, who was buried 8.10,1828 at Owston Ferry.
10.11.1828 (born 22.10.1828) Sarah. She married at Holy Trinity, Hull, 24.3.1853 William Smith, licensed victualler, as his second wife.
20.5.1830 Jane. Married Sculcoates, Hull, 1851 Q1 Henry Shaw, a cabinet maker who had been baptised at Barnoldsby le Back, Lincolnshire 22.11.1824, the son of William Shaw and Ann. They had three children who survived childhood, one of whom, Marshall Shaw, born 11.6.1857, also became a cabinet maker and married Jessie Stein at All Saints, Sculcoates, Hull, 18.1.1886. Their son, Henry David Shaw, was the grandfather of a fellow researcher Brian.
*During the Napoleonic Wars a bounty was given to encourage flax-growing.
Ann Aistrope, nee Almond, was buried at Luddington 14.9.1830. The widower Thomas married at Drypool, Hull, 16.5.1832 Emily Hayworth. In 1851 Thomas was an innkeeper in High Street, with his daughter Sarah. Thomas was buried 26.3.1856 at Drypool, Hull, aged 68. We have not seen Emily after 1851, when she was 55
January 2023
Appendix 3 to Y21
FAMILY OF GEORGE AISTROPE AND MARY MASON
Marriage at Luddington (Licence)
6.2.1811 George Aistrope and Mary Mason botp
Witnesses Thos Atkinson & James Wilson
Baptsms at Luddington
George is generally referred to as a miller, resident in Garthorpe.
8.4.1812 John. Another researcher has him sentenced to 12 months jail for stealing from his master when he was a 17 year old apprentice coachmaker. Also a two month stretch for assault five years later. It seems he took himself off to London as we find him described as a tailor, when marrying at Horsleydown, Southwark, 28.2.1835 Ann Couls Thompson a native of that parish, she having been baptised 6.10.1811 as the daughter of John Thompson and Ann nee Couls. In 1851 they were still in the parish, with their six children. Meanwhile, up in Garthorpe, John’s widowed mother Mary told the enumerator that John was unmarried and living with her, no doubt to fool future family researchers! Ann died 1860 Q4, in the same location and at the 1861 Census John was still in Southwark with his three sons, who all became slaters and remained in the London area. His daughters have not been seen then but in the following decade they each married in Hull and John died there. Just when he relocated there we do not know but he had cousins there, because his uncle Thomas Aistrope (1787-1856) had moved to Hull when he was widowed. John was buried at Drypool, Hull 9.2.1870, aged 58.
28.2.1814 William. Ag. lab. Married at Luddington 10.4.1834 Ann Cox. At the East Riding Sessions 5.1.1835 he was convicted of larceny and sentenced to prison for nine months. Another researcher has him convicted for burglary in 1844 and with a sentence of two years. His wife Ann was buried at Luddington 3.1.1846. William remarried at All Saints, Sculcoates, Hull, 28.6.1846 Ann Margrave, a native of Fockerby, who had been baptised at Adlingfleet 17.6.1824 as Hannah, daughter of Isaac Margrave and Sarah. In 1851 they were in Garthorpe but by 1871 they had moved to Adlingfleet, Yorksire and they had with them William’s mother Mary, aged 84 whose birth place was Fockerby. A gravestone at Adlingfleet records that Anne died 4.9.1879 aged 54 and William died 2.5.1882, aged 68.
17.8.1816 George. Buried 19.6.1820
7.3.1819 Mary Ann. Married at Holy Trinity, Hull, 19.6.1849 James Stewart McDonald, botanist, son of John McDonald, botanist. In 1861, styled Mary Stewart, widow, was in Garthorpe with her mother and her 5 year old daughter Susanna. (There is a GRO birth record in the Goole district 1855 Q2 for Susannah McDonald) Ten years later Mary Ann was a beerhouse keeper in Carr Lane, Hull.
19.11.1821 Alice. Married at St Mary’s, Hull, 19.1,1849 Henry Platts, a native of Fockerby and son of William, farmer. They lived in Eastoft, near Goole, where Henry became a farm bailiff. He died 1896 Q4, aged 72. Alice’s eldest surviving daughter Mary had seven children with her publican husband John Askham Naylor. He was buried at Luddington 9.3.1908 and it is said that she then emigrated to the USA with her six surviving children, as well as her mother Alice.
11.3.1824 Susanna. Said to have emigrated to USA
11.10.1826 George. In 1861 Mary Aistrope had with her a granddaughter, Mary A Aistrope, who had been baptised at Luddington 15.2,1852 as the daughter of George Aistrop, labourer, and Sarah Sails. The three of them embarked 9.3.1871 at Liverpool bound for New York. This accords with family folklore.
Thomas Marlin. Born 11.12.1828 Garthorpe and baptised 18.12.1828. With his father dying when he was a young lad, he worked for various farmers for pennies a day but then leased a flour mill and took up that profession. In 1850 he married Jane Whatt and after they had two girls, they emigrated, departing from Liverpool 5.5.1855 on the Guy Mannering for a six weeks journey, their only possession being a feather mattress. On arrival in New York they were required to pay an import tax on the mattress, leaving without funds to continue. A kindly fellow passenger loaned them the means of getting to Chicago, where they stayed until they had repaid the lady and then started west, ending up at White Cloud, Miles County, Iowa, where there were relatives. They eventually had eleven children and at one point possessed over 3,000 acres. The above material was kindly supplied to us by one of Tomas’s 4 x gt-granddaughters, who is an enthusiastic family historian. We ourselves found Thomas, aged 73, on the 1900 Census, at White Cloud, with locally born children Nellie V, 29 and Henry P.
19.4.1831 Walter. Said to have emigrated to USA.
29.9.1833 Ann. Dressmaker. Married George Burkill, miller, at Eastoft, Lincs, 24.11.1856. They lived in Hampshire after 1861, where he was a gardener. They had two daughters. Ann died 1903 Q3, aged 70, in Wandsworth, where her daughter Susannah Aistrope Wells lived and George died 1910 Q1 in the Southampton area aged 79.
Burials at Luddington
28.1.1839 George Aistrope of Garthorpe 49
23.2.1875 Mary Aistrope of Adlingfleet 86
January 2023
Appendix 4 to Y21
FAMILIES OF WILLIAM AYSTROP/ASTHORP
William Aystrop and Elizabeth Ridley married at Mareham le Fen 145.1727. They had children baptised at Luddington as follows:
John Baptism 2.5.1739. Buried 18.2.1730NS
William Baptised 18.9.1730 or 18.10.1730 and buried 10.2.1731NS
Eleanor Baptised 18.5.1732
Francis Baptised 26.9.1736. Buried 27.8.1740.
Elizabeth Asthorp was buried 21.7.1738.
* * * * *
William Asthorp married Sarah Godfrey (nee Jepherson) 10.10.1738 at Luddington. They had one child baptised there:
John Baptised 2.3.1740. As John Aistrope married Alice Marlin 7.9.1769 – see main text and Appendix 1.
William Asthorp was buried 13.3.1741NS and his widow Sarah was buried 19.11.1769 at Luddington.
Appendix 5 to Y21
FAMILY OF WILLIAM AYSTROP AND SARAH WALESBY
Marriage at Wragby
7.4.1700 William Aysrtrop, and Sarah Walesby
They had children baptised at Louth, as follows:
William Born 19.4.1703, baptised 28.4.1703. Married (1) Elizabeth Ridley at Mareham le Fen 4.5.1727 and (2) Sarah Godfrey, nee Jepherson at Luddington 10.10.1738. See main text and Appendix 4.
Henry Baptism not seen. Buried 6.1.1706NS. Father “baker”.
Henry Baptised 25.6.1707. Buried 26.7.1707.
James Baptised 4.8.1708. Believed to have married at Panton (near Wragby) 3.5.1730 Mildred Lincoln.
Elizabeth Baptised 30.9.1709. Buried 13.5.1710.
Sarah Astrope Baptised 12.7.1711 as “daughter of Widow Astrope” and buried 6.6.1712.
William Astrope was buried 19.6.1711
Marriage at Louth
15.11.1712 Thomas Thorold and Sarah Astrope, widow.
Appendix 6 to Y21
A VISIT TO LUDDINGTON CHURCH
Tour of Lincolnshire
En route to a family gathering that took place at Walkington, East Yorkshire, in June 2022, visits were made to a number of Lincolnshire places mentioned in the family history.
Following up on a discovery in Luddington churchyard led to evidence that one or two family members sometimes used the name Aisthorpe, presumably deliberately, rather than the Aistrope (or similar) version that seems to have been the original form.
Luddington
Arriving at Luddington, what is striking is that the Church is quite separate from the village, being approached by a narrow lane which ends at the boundary of the large churchyard, so that our ancestors would have had to walk around half a mile to visit the building, which is situated on a sand hill to the east of the village (i.e. towards the Trent).
Alas the building is no longer in use, although a local couple who were there said that volunteers like themselves cleaned it regularly and there was a flower festival there once a year. They agreed that parishioners must have had quite far to walk and they explained that at the far end of the churchyard there had been stables where carriages would deliver worshippers of a certain class. In his book The History and Topography of the Isle of Axholme, Rev. W. R. Stonehouse mentions, in connection with the church’s isolated position and the gradual drying out of the surrounding area, “a bank having been thrown up, which still forms the Church road from Garthorpe” This circuitous route would be of the order of three miles or so. Hardly convenient for our humble ancestors in Garthorpe and Fockerby!
A memorial
We found a gravestone of two Aistrope children, the inscription being:.
Walter beloved son of William & Eliza Aistrope of Swinefleet who died August 29th 1893 aged 13 years 11 months. Also Mary Alice who died Feb. 19th 1883 aged 6 years & 6 months. “Thy will be done”
Aistrope Phillipson family
The above-mentioned William Aistrope, was a grandson of Thomas Aistrope and Ann Almond, whose family is described in Appendix 2 hereto. His parents were Thomas Aistrope and Harriet Wildbore. He was baptised 13.10.1850 at Adlingfleet , West Riding, (between three and four miles north of Luddington) and married 1872 Q4 Eliza Phillipson, the daughter of Samuel Phillipson and his wife Elizabeth, nee England, who were all resident at Eastoft Road, Luddington at the 1871 Census.
The 1881 Census has William and Eliza Aistrope at Adlingfleet, with four children.
The eldest child, Tom William, had been born 1873 Q1 at Tickhill near Doncaster. The child’s name has been transcribed at John William. In 1891 he was a farm servant at Hook,near Goole and he married in Goole District 1896 Q4 Viola Coultard. In 1901 they were at Swinefleet with daughter Maud and a further daughter Elsie Lilian was born around 1904. Unfortunately, Tom William died young, being buried at Swinefleet 1.11.1904, aged 35. At the 1911 Census the widow Viola was a field worker at Swinefleet. She revealed that there had been a third child who had died.
William & Eliza’s second child was Herbert, born 25.7.1875 at Marschchapel, Lincs. This coastal parish is eleven miles southeast of Grimsby and it was where William’s father Thomas was living with William’s step-mother Mary (nee Richardson) in 1881 and William’s step-brother Thomas. Herbert married Goole District 1894 Q4 Alice Lockwood and died Goole District 1966 Q4 aged 91.
The third child, Mary Alice, was also born at Marshchapel and baptised 18.8.1876. As the Luddingtom M.I. records, she died 19.2.1883 aged six years and six months.
By the time the fourth child, Walter, was born, in September 1879, the family had moved again, this time to Reedness, situated on the south bank of the Ouse. a short distance east of Goole. Curiously, Walter was not baptised (at Luddington) until 3.6.1883, i.e. a few months after his sister Mary Alice’s death. The 1881 Census had shown the family as living at Adlingfleet, further east, where the Trent meets the Ouse at the head of the Humber estuary. William was an Ag. Lab and they had their four children, at school or at home. By the 1891 Census the two elder boys had left home and Mary Alice had died, so they just had Walter, an 11 year old scholar, left at home. They were now at Low Street, Swinefleet, a bit further west, with William said to be a general labourer.
As the first entry on the M.I. confirms, Walter died 29.8.1893, aged 13 years and 11 months. This would have made home seem somewhat empty and it seems that they overcame this by having another child after a gap of more than 15 years, with a daughter Elsie born at Swinefleet 16.4.1896 and baptised there 28.4.1896, the day after her mother’s 44th birthday! The father William was now said to be a farm foreman. The fact that he could afford to commission a stonemason after Walter’s death suggests that his better job status had occurred in 1892 or 1893.
In 1901 we find William and Eliza at Common End, Camblesforth, Selby, West Riding, where he is still a farm foreman. They have Elsie, aged 4 and four waggoner or carter lodgers. Ten years later he is still a farm foreman but back at Swinefleet, at Field House Cottage. He is 60, Eiza 58 and Elsie 14 and there are seven farm worker lodgers. The 1911 Census confirmed that William and Eliza had had five children, three of whom had died by 1911.
William died in Goole District 1931 Q1, aged 80. In 1939 Eliza, 87 and incapacitated was living at Swinefleet with her daughter Elsie, son-in law Cyril Austin Bennett, a saddler and cycle dealer, and four grandchildren. She died 1945 Q1, aged 92.
Aistrope Wildbore and Aistrope Richardson families
Gloing back a generation, when William Aistrope’s father Thomas married Harriet Wildbore at Luddington 2.4.1842, the celebrant described the groom as “Thomas Aisthorpe or Aistrope” and stated that he was the son of Thomas Aisthorpe. The previous year’s Census listed “Thomas Astrop” as well as “Harriet Wildbore” as both living at George Popple’s farm at Garthorpe, he being an Ag Lab and she a femme sole. As already stated, Thomas’s father was Thomas Aistrope (or Aisthorpe?), a brother of Sarah Aistrope who married Thomas Young, Mike’s 3-gr-grandfather. See Appendix 2 hereto, for details of the family of Thomas Aistrope and Ann Almond. That lists young Thomas’s birth being at Garthorpe, with his baptism at Luddington 16.6.1817, while Harriet Wildbore had been baptised 31.10.1819 at Corringham, a village that is east of Gainsborough and south of Scunthorpe, the daughter of Charles Wildbore and his wife Rebecca nee Parkin.
Evidently Thomas and Harriet set up home at Adlingfleet, West Yorkshire, and they were still there at the 1851 Census with baby William (born 1850 Q3) and four older children. Unfortunately, the death of “Harriot Aisthorp” was registered in Goole 1853 Q1 when Young William was not yet two years old. The father, Thomas, remarried but only 9.6.1857 at Adlingfleet. The bride was Mary Richardson, a 37 year old native of Luddington Parish (like her husband) who had an eight year old illegitimate son William. Thomas and Mary had two more children of their own and they were still at Adlingfleet in 1871, Thomas being an Ag. Lab. However by 1891 they were at Marshchapel, Lincolnshire, on the coast between Grimsby and Louth, Thomas now being a Farm Bailiff responsible for farming 400 acres, employing six labourers, five boys and ten women. The very next year (1882 Q4 at Louth) the death of Mary “Aisthorpe”, age 62, was registered, with the presumed informant Thomas again opting for that version of the name, despite Church and Census records using “Aistrop” or similar. Thomas himself died some five years later, aged 70, the registration being at Louth 1887 Q3 in the name of “Aistrope”.
This occasional use of Aisthorpe by Thomas was something he had in common with his uncle John (1778-1855), shopkeeper (at Garthorpe, we believe). In fact, John’s baptism was under the Aisthorpe name at Luddington, was almost a reversion to his grandfather’s Asthorp, so perhaps his use of that version in his adult life was quite justified.
October 2024
Young Family History 