Farmers All | washbourn

Our Ancestors were all Farmers

It would seem that the Washbourn(e) ancestors were what would nowadays be called farmers, although different terms have been used historically. England, being a class-conscious country, had a defined structure amongst the land-owners and those who worked the land. The designation 'landed gentry' originally referred exclusively to members of the upper class who were landowners and also commoners in the British sense. There was a distinct hierarchy –

Knights: originally a military rank, this status was increasingly awarded to civilians as a reward for service to the Crown.
Gentlemen: Generally men of high birth or rank, good social standing, and wealth, who did not need to work for a living, were considered gentlemen: the gentry of the Upper Classes
Yeoman farmer (of the Upper Middle Class): He is sometimes described as a small landowner, a freehold farmer of the middle classes who cultivates his own land and could meet the qualifications for voting in parliamentary elections. Yeomen were often constables of their parish, and sometimes chief constables of the district, shire or hundred.

A husbandman in England in the medieval and early modern period was a free tenant farmer or small landowner, of the Lower Middle Class. The social status of a husbandman was below that of a yeoman. The meaning of "husband" in this term is "master of house" rather than "married man".
Agricultural labourers (‘Ag-labs’) - Working or Lower Classes.

A typical view of rural Wiltshire countryside, not unlike that between Cirencester and Chippenham, where earlier Washbourns farmed.

The Washbourne ancestors were at various times occupants of all of these groups but the last.The first 4 generations of the family (from Sir Roger of Little Washbourne and Stanford) were clearly of the knightly landed gentry class. Subsequent to this, status changed slowly to independent gentlemen, then to yeoman status.

The Washbourne ancestors were at various times occupants of all of these groups but for the last. The first 4 generations of the family (from Sir Roger of Little Washbourne and Stanford) were clearly of the knightly landed gentry class. Subsequent to this, status changed slowly to independent gentlemen, then to yeoman status. The family fortunes took a slide around 1650 when John Washburn (generation 15), occupier of Wichenford, was an ardent Royalist at the time of the Battle of Worcester in 1651; he backed the wrong side. The Royalists were routed. John was taken prisoner, was fined, and was forced to redeem his estates from the Republican party.

However from about the middle 1500s, when families were larger and there was insufficient land for all, the cadet branches were unable to maintain the status of ‘gentlemen’, and they became - as yeomen and husbandmen - what today would be called farmers. Their wills and inventories show them to have been of much the same status as the John Washbourn of Escott who is the earliest of the Wiltshire Branch of the family traced thus far.

Land was held mostly by ‘Copy’. Copyhold tenure was a form of feudal tenure of land common in England from the Middle Ages until the 19th century, surviving in residual form until 1922. The land was held according to the custom on the manor; the mode of landholding took its name from the fact that the title deed received by the tenant was a copy of the relevant entry in the manorial court roll. A tenant who held land in this was was known as a ‘copyholder’.

The Wiltshire Branch

John Washbourn of Escott (1540-1602) (Generation 10) describes himself as a ‘husbandman’which we would now call ‘farmer’. William Washbourn of Escott (G11) describes himself as ‘Yeoman’, while son John is a ‘husbandman’. Four generations later, when it must be presumed (in the absence of surviving documents) that their 'yeoman' status was maintained, RobertWashbourn of Cleverton in the Lea (G15) married Martha Harrill whose family were of similar yeoman status to the Washbourns. Robert calls himself a ‘Yeoman’ at the time of his marriage in 1704.

John Washbourn of Yatesbury (G16) and his descendants farmed the third largest property

in the parish, known as ‘The Dairy Farm’ for nearly a hundred years from around 1708 until

Richard Washbourn (G18) left Yatesbury in about 1838. They almost certainly held tenure

by Copy from the great landowning family of the Hungerfords.

Richard Washbourn (G18) disappeared’ from Yatesbury around 1803 for around 20 years,

then turns up in occupation of several large properties in Surrey. These properties were all

rented from the Leveson-Gower estate. 'Tillingdown’ near Caterham was of about 600 acres

of arable land. Nearby ‘Salmons’, occupied from about 1841,was an 850 acre farm. The

farms, of arable land, were by family tradition devoted mostly to wheat; as a result of which

the family fortunes were seriously affected by the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846.