Hawkins

The Hawkins Family

The Hawkins family lived in Youngs Farm, Whiteparish and had been farmers for several generations. Thomas married Ellen Plowman in 1877 at Wilton, and had at least 2 sons and 1 daughter (to be verified).

Ellen Mabel June (1879), Reginald Thomas (1882), Lionel Percy (1888) and possibly William John and Arthur Lewis.

Thomas died aged 62 in 1908 and it is thought that Reginald took over the farm.

Reginald Thomas (Patricia’s father) married Alice Wooten in August 1905 at St Patrick’s, Salisbury, and took over running the farm.  It is believed that as well as working the farm, he also had business dealings in London (possibly the docklands) which the family knew very little of. What one of daughter’s (Maud) remembered seeing people from London in their father’s office that he had upstairs in the farm house. The visitors included union representatives.

The couple had 3 sons and 3 daughter. The names have now been verified as Malcolm has a copy of the Bill of Sale when Youngs Farm was sold following Reginald’s unexpected death. They were:

Reginald George, Alice Kate (Aunty Kit), Ellen Rosalind Maud, Frederick Thomas, Archalaeus Herbert and Patricia Dorothy. It was during one of Reginald’s periods in Whiteparish that the steam engines which drove the threshing machines needed more water. Reginald took the horse and cart (with a large water barrel on it) to draw water out of the river. As he didn’t do this very often, he choose a spot that hadn’t been used for a while and didn’t realise that the ground was boggy. The result was that the cart and barrel tipped over and he was crushed. He had internal hemorrhaging following a ruptured kidney and died 7 days later.

This happened on 1st October 1921, and he died on 8th October 1921 aged only 39 years old. His death certificated is dated 10th October 1921 and is recorded in the Wiltshire and Swindon Records Office.

The mystery of Thomas’ London dealings has never been resolved but his accidental death meant that the family didn’t know where his money was, which is why they had to sell Youngs Farm with very little left once all debts were paid. Each child had a share of the money made from the sale, but this wasn’t much and Alice’s life was very hard afterwards.