Jabez Copsey: a Glemsford fire-raiser

In March 2010, Eric Drake provided some fascinating material about an "incendiary" from Glemsford, Jabez Copsey, who was transported to Australlia for his crimes.

Eric has now got back in touch with even more detail, gleaned from the British Library, which I am delighted to publish here.

This is taken from the Essex Standard of 2 February 1844:

In our account of the two incendiary fires last week, at Glemsford, we mentioned that a man was in custody on suspicion of being concerned in them: he underwent a second examination on Tuesday last, at the Bell Inn, Melford, before the Rev. Dr. Colville and Robert Mapletoft, Esq, when he made a full confession of his guilt, and on his information his accomplice, Stephen Boreham, was also arrested.
Javis Copsey, the man first taken, is a bricklayer’s labourer, aged 22, and Stephen Boreham, a farming labourer, only 18 years of age. Copsey said that he and Boreham set fire to Mr. Shepherd’s premises about six weeks ago; he was in his own house when Boreham came and gave a signal whistle; Copsey’s mother and sister objected to his going, and said he was after no good, but he came out and went up Shepherd’s Lane to the back of the barn, where Boreham set fire to the thatch in two or three places; they then ran off in the direction of Fair Green. 
Three or four days after Boreham asked him “to have another flare up,” and they then planned to set fire to Mr. Mann’s premises, but something occurred to prevent their meeting on the night proposed. They subsequently agreed to set fire to Mr Bigg’s stacks. Boreham went in first and called him (Copsey) to assist; they had seven lucifer matches, and tried six without being able to obtain a light; the seventh ignited, and they fired the stack. The matches were stolen from Mr. Albin’s blacksmith’s shop; Mr. Albin’s apprentice missed the matches, and mentioned it to his master the next morning.
Copsey then proceeded to state that after Boreham had fired Mr. Bigg’s stack they got over the wall and ran across “Grescroft,” where Boreham’s grandfather lived, and where he stopped till he heard the cry of fire, when they went and assisted; they afterwards repaired to the Crown Inn, and and took the beer which was allowed them for helping at the fire. They then went to the Cock public-house, where he gave Boreham a halfpenny to get a pipe of tobacco; after he had lighted his pipe they walked to Mr Allen’s barn, when Boreham asked him to have “another flare up.” He then tore a piece of the lining out of Boreham’s coat, into which they emptied the burning tobacco, and wrapped it up, put it into the barn through a hole in the wall, and pulling some straw over it, ran away; as they were running they met two men, and after that another, named Thomas Chatter, who said to them “There’s another fire yonder,” and they went back with him and helped to extinguish it.
Copsey further stated that Boreham was always after him, and persuading him to join him in firing these premises; he did not know that they had any animosity against any of the parties; he did not know why they did it. It appears that some time back Copsey had obtained some beer by means of a forged order in Mr Shepherd’s name, and was discharged from his work in consequence of it; Boreham had also been out of employ about ten days. 
They were both committed to the County Gaol to take their trial at the ensuing assize. Great credit is due to Mr. Freestone, of Glemsford, for his indefatigable exertions in causing the apprehension of these incendiaries. The frequent fires which have taken place in that parish have filled the whole village with alarm, and the satisfaction of the inhabitants at discovering the perpatrators of these diabolical deeds may be easily conceived. Boreham conducted himself at the examination with the greatest effrontery, and when about starting for gaol called out, “Good bye, gentlemen.”

Fascinating material, and again I am indebted to Eric.
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A tale of Transportation: Jabez Copsey

Eric Drake has contacted me with this fascinating account and query. As always, if anyone can help him, please contact me and I will put you in touch with Eric.

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My mother’s mother was a Copsey and although she was born in south London earlier generations of her family, many of them, were in Glemsford. In tracing them I came across a reference to a Glemsford Copsey, first name Jabez, who was transported for life in 1844. I have been able to find a good deal of information about him but not how he fits into the Copsey family tree or what happened to him in the end. Can anyone help?

Eric Drake

Here is what I have established about Jabez Copsey. The starting point was two pieces from the Sudbury Post (helpfully made available on line at http://foxearth.org.uk/1836-1859SudburyPost.html). This is what they say:

January 31^st 1844

`An incendiary is at work in Glemsford, a fire was discovered in the stackyard of Mr Charles Bigg of Churchgate farm at about 7 in the evening, engines from Melford and Hartest arrived and damage was confined to one stack.

`A fresh alert was given about 1 in the morning when fire broke out in the barn belonging to Mr Allen the wheelright, the barn was consumed with a lot of seasoned ash plank, there has now been 4 fires in the village in 2 months.

`We have now heard, a man named Copsey has been taken up.’

April 10^th 1844

`Jabez Copsey and Stephen Boreham of Glemsford were charged with setting fire to Mr James Allen's barn in Glemsford. Walter Bullock said he saw the prisoners in the Cock Inn and they went off together.

`Charles Hartley said "prisoners left the Cock before me, later I saw them coming over the hedge from Allen's barn", Frederick Shadbolt said he was a prisoner in Bury gaol and he had asked Boreham if he did set fire to the barn and Boreham said he did, in answer to a question witness said he had also given evidence the day before on a similar charge saying a man named Barley had also admitted setting fire to a stack and he did not give evidence for a reward. Transportation for life. ‘

Most of the key players in this drama can be identified in 1841 census entries for Glemsford. There is Charles Bigg, farmer, age 50; and James Allen, age 40 and a carpenter rather than a wheelwright (but a carpenter seems more likely than a wheelwright to need `a lot of seasoned ash plank’). And there is Stephen Boreham, age 15, living with his 17-year old brother, Walter, agricultural labourer, and 13-year old sister, Emily. They seem to have been parentless although James and Martha Boreham (age 80 and 75) lived nearby and may have been grandparents. But as far as I can establish there was no Jabez Copsey recorded in Glemsford or anywhere else.

So I wondered whether the Sudbury Post had got the name wrong. But the County of Suffolk register of all persons charged with indictable offences at the assizes and sessions held within the county in the year 1844 records that at the County Assizes on 30 March 1844 Jabez Copsey, age 19, was charged with `Arson setting fire to a barn’, found guilty and given a life sentence. Stephen Boreham, 18, was found guilty of the same offence and received the same sentence. Three other men received life sentences for arson offences at the same assize: John Double, 21; William Gill, 31; and Leach Barley, 37 (the `man named Barley’ of the Sudbury Post piece). All of them except Barley are recorded as being transported to Australia on the same ship, the Agincourt.

The Agincourt was a 541 ton barque. She began loading at Woolwich on 21 May 1844, sailed on 8 July with 224 male convicts on board and arrived at Norfolk Island on 9 November. A contemporary Australian newspaper reported that she spent three days there unloading 220 convicts, four having died on the voyage and one escaped at the Cape of Good Hope.

Norfolk Island, 1000 kilometres out in the Pacific from Australia and with an area of 34 square kilometres (probably not much bigger than Glemsford parish), was then administered as part of the colony of Van Diemen’s Land – modern Tasmania. From 1843 convicts shipped to Van Diemen’s Land and sentenced to more than 15 years were first detained on Norfolk Island before being moved to Van Diemen’s Land itself. The regime on Norfolk Island was notoriously harsh: it was described by someone who visited around 1845 as `marked by utter incompetence and debased cruelties’.

The Archives Office of Tasmania holds an original register with detailed information about convicts who arrived on the Agincourt. It can be accessed online at: http://search.archives.tas.gov.au/default.aspx?detail=1&type=I&id=CON33/1/83. (Jabez Copsey is on page 57.)

The register confirms that he was transported for life for arson (`setting fire to some stacks tried with Stephen Boreham on board), which is said to be his second offence. The register includes a detailed physical description of each convict to be used in `wanted’ notices if they escaped. From this we know that Jabez was a kitchen gardener, height 5/5^1/₂ , age 21 (two years older than the age given in the court records), complexion fresh, head and visage oval, hair and eyebrows dark, no whiskers, forehead, nose, mouth and chin all medium, eyes grey, no distinguishing marks.

He spent three years on Norfolk Island. While there, in January and April 1846, he was punished for offences of insolence and `misconduct in leaving the fields before being mustered’ and for the second offence was given `hard labour in chains the month’. By 1849 he had been moved to Van Diemen’s Land and between then and 1852 is recorded as being in three different locations, all in the south-east of the island. The last entry in the register reads `Absc^d Gaz 4/5/52’ which I think means he had absconded and that a wanted notice about him was posted in the Hobart Town Gazette of 4 May 1852.

And that is the last definite record I have been able to find. But there is one further intriguing entry in the Tasmanian archives. The colonial authorities were careful about recording ships coming and going and who was on them. On 9 March 1853 a ship called the Sarah Ann sailed from Launceston in the north of Van Diemen’s Land to London with a crew member called James Copsey. Just coincidence, or perhaps Jabez making good his escape?

And a final footnote. In 1876 James and Eliza Copsey of Glemsford chose Jabez as the name for their 7^th child. Again, just coincidence, or did they know of an earlier Jabez in the family?

A Glemsford Diaspora? - Argent, Ambrose, Boreham ...

Barbara Barrett recently left this message as a comment about Nicole Nathan's search for the Argent family:

I have just discovered your very interesting site.I am researching our family tree and find that my husbands maternal grandfather was born in Glemsford -Walter Argent 1883 - Father James Argent 1847 - 11 Children, Sarah, Althea, Laura, Emma, Elizabeth, Kate, John, Mary, Willie, Nellie and Walter. They moved to live in Keighley, West Yorkshire. Is there anyone who can give me more information about Ray's family. He knows very little about his family history.Looking forward to hearing if anyone can help me put some "flesh on the bones" of my knowledge.

The moment I started looking at Barbara's Argent family on the Census, several familiar bells started ringing, all related to what I am convinced was a general movement of Glemsford families away from the village in the last quarter of the 19th Century.

1) Keighley: that was where Araminta Brown, who features so prominently in Sandra Poole and Tracey Foulds's story of the Brown and Savage family, settled and married.

2) The 1891 Census shows that James Argent and his family - including Walter - must have moved to Keighley between 1884 and 1886. My earlier work on the Glemsford School Log Books shows how depressed industry was in the village at the time.

3) James moved to Keighley as a Mat Weaver, although by 1901 he worked in a Machine Tool factory. Glemsford seems to have exported Mat Weavers to all parts of the country. I have located Browns, Argents and others in Skerton, Lancaster, Games and Brewsters in east London and now this group of Argents in Keighley.

But that's not all. The 1891 Census for 5 Cherry St., Keighley, shows the Argent family.
7 Cherry Street was occupied in the same Census by James and Ann Boreham. James was a Green Grocer.
Guess where he and Ann were born.
Give up?

Glemsford.

But all three of their children were born in Keighley. Eliza, the oldest, was 8 in 1891.
The 1901 Census shows James Boreham as a Coal dealer.
So we have another family of Glemsford emigres.

But it doesn't stop there.
A further exploration of Cherry Street in 1891 reveals that, at no. 38, lived the family of James and Harriet Ambrose (57 & 52). Both were born in Glemsford. James is recorded as a "Bobbin Sorter", presumably in Keighley's woollen industry, but in 1881 he had been a Mat Weaver on Egremont Street in Glemsford.
The ages and places of birth of their children suggests that James and Harriet also moved north round about 1885/6.

The Glemsford connection doesn't finish there, either. Also in 1891, at 8 Timber Street, lived Charles Ambrose (54), a general labourer, his wife Eliza (55), and three daughters - Lottie (20), Kate (17) and Emma (15).
Only Emma was Yorkshire-born: the rest of the family were born in Glemsford.
The 1881 Census also shows this family in Timber Street, with older children: Ann M (then 20), Susannah (16), Emily (14) and Walter (12), as well as a youngest child Eliza (3) who doesn't appear in 1891, since her death is recorded in Keighley in the June quarter of 1881.

Significantly, in 1881, Charles and Eliza had a boarder: James Boreham, an unmarried labourer in the Iron Works, born in Glemsford.
The Marriage registers for Keighley in the last quarter of 1881 show a marriage between James Boreham and Maria Ambrose.
Since Charles and Eliza's daughter Ann appears in the Census on two occasions as "Ann M.", I am making the obvious assumption. The name Boreham, of course, appears elsewhere in these pages, also in terms of a move northwards.

In 1871, Charles ("Cocoa Mat weaver") and Eliza were still in Glemsford, on Egremont Street, with their first five children, including Ann M..

And immediately next door lived James and Harriet Ambrose, with three of their children.

At the same time, James Boreham (15 - "Cocoa Nut Fibre Warper") was living with his parents, Benjamin and Susan, and siblings: Louisa, Jacob, Esau, Arthur, Dorcus, Mahala and Isaac, nephew Charles and niece Bertha, out at Seldom Field (sic).

I haven't yet been able to track James Ambrose in 1861, but Charles was, at the time of that Census, living with his parents, Samuel and Maria, and two sisters, Sophia and Emily. Interestingly, Maria and Sophia are both recorded as "Worsted Weavers".

The 1851 Census confirms matters, as both James (an agricultural labourer) and Charles (a labourer in a factory) were living at home on Skates Hill, with Samuel and Maria, their sisters and cousin, Maria Cooper.

Also in 1861, James Boreham was with his large family at Seldom Waiver. Ten years before, his father Benjamin, Susan, the early stages of their family, and Benjamin's mother Sarah were living on Egremont Street.

But what of the Keighley Argents?
We know where James and his family were in 1891 and 1901 - and incidentally, in 1901, Jame and Eliza had a boarder - Felix Chatters, a Gas Works labourer - from Cavendish!

The 1881 Census for Glemsford shows James Argent, a Mat Maker, aged 34, living with Eliza (34) on New Cut. With them were their children, Sarah, Aletha, Laura, Emma, Elizabeth, Kate, and John.

The 1871 Census is a little confusing in that James is referred to as "John J.", but I am confident this is our James with wife Eliza, and daughters Anna (5), Sarah (3) and Alethea (1). Eliza, Anna and Sarah were all born in Cavendish, and the 1881 Cavendish Census shows a 15 year old Cavendish-born Anne Argent working as a servant in the household of a butcher by the name of ... Edgar Ambrose.

The 1861 Census is proving a little unproductive at times, but the 1851 Census for Glemsford reveals John James Argent, the 4 year old son of John, a Hand Loom Silk Weaver, and Sarah, living next to the Silk Throwing Mill.

And so it goes ...

Yet again, therefore, there is a story of movement away from Glemsford at a time when life probably became hard. But how did they know where to go? How were jobs advertised? How did they travel?

Of course, if anyone has anything to add, please do not hesitate to get in touch. I think the Story of the Glemsford Diaspora is there to be written.

Whitechapel in Glemsford?

A new set of pages, carrying the memories of George Boreham, born in Glemsford in 1904, is now on-line.

Among several questions, one intrigues me:
George talked about having been born in "Whitechapel", Glemsford. We know his family lived in Brook Street. Was there ever anywhere known to locals as "Whitechapel" or was George simply confusing other places where he may have lived?

Answers please ... .

Glemsford and the North: the Lamplighter's Story

Yet another example has emerged of the movement of Glemsford-born people to other parts of the country.

Steve Scott from Kendal has sent me a story written down by his uncle, George Boreham, who grew up in Glemsford, and went to work in the Sudbury Gas Works soon after the Great War.

You can follow this link to read the story.

Steve Clarke

Boreham and Pettit

Tina LeMaire has emailed me with this request:

Hello,

I've been reviewing the family history section of your site.

I've found a couple of entries for the family name BOREHAM.

I am looking for information on ANN BOREHAM (born 10 July 1796) and married THOMAS PETTIT (born 29 Jan 1796) on 30 July 1817. Together they had many children: James (1818), William (1819), Ann (1817?), Thomas (1822), George (1824), James (1826), and Eliza (1823), John (1828), Elizabeth (1830), and Mary (1832).

Ann left Glemsford with the children in 1833, for the United States. Thomas left for the United States in 1841.

I am willing to share any information that I have, and would greatly appreciate any info that others may know.

Thank you.

As is almost always the case, if you can help, and wish to contact Tina, you can either add a comment or email me and I will forward your details.
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Boreham and Windred

Chris Mansfield added this note to the "A - Z", but it deserves repeating here.

I am researching my family tree and have found an Elizabeth Boreham, born in Glemsford in 1829, married to John Windred in 1848 and lived in Hartest.

John died in 1863 leaving Elizabeth with 7 children.

The family all dispersed to SE London and South Yorkshire where a number of the sons became miners.

Elizabeth's parents seem to have been called Isaac (died 1859) and Hannah (died 1842).

Any further information about them or their forebears would be useful. I have quite a lot of info about the Windred family and their descendants if anyone is interested.

c dot mansfield at hargreavesrs dot co dot uk