JAMES LONG (c1813 – 1872)

On 12 October 1835, James Long (c1813 – 1872) from Great Barton married Eleanor Wenlock (c1816 – 1849) at Holy Innocents’ Church, Great Barton.
Two boys named James Long were born in Great Barton in the mid 1810s. The first was baptised on 12 September 1813 and was the son of Sarah Long. The other was born to James and Mary (nee Mulley) Long on 25 May 1814 and baptised on 3 June 1814. The only record of an Eleanor Wenlock born during the 1810s was born at Barking, Essex, in 1818. It is possible that she was working in Great Barton as a servant.
During the next nine years, James and Eleanor had five children – William James (1836 – 1905), Martha (1838-1918), Jane (1840 – ?), Eliza (4 June 1843 – 1921) and Mary Ann (1844 – 31 May 1922) – and lived at Vinefields, Bury St Edmunds, in 1841, where James worked as an agricultural labourer. However, they must have been struggling financially because in 1846, James and Eleanor, together with their five children, were admitted to Thingoe Union Workhouse, the cost of which was borne by the parish of Great Barton, where James and most of the children had been born.
A year later, James was found guilty of assaulting and abusing the porter at the workhouse and was sentenced to seven days in The Gaol for the Liberty of St Edmund on Southgate Green, Sicklesmere Road, Bury St Edmunds (The Suffolk Chronicle; or Weekly General Advertiser & County Express, 17 April 1847). He did not return to the workhouse and abandoned his five children, whose stories can be found in Suffolk Review, the journal of Suffolk Local History Council, No. 73, Autumn 2019.
The only record of a death of Eleanor Long in Suffolk was in 1849 at Newmarket, so it is possible that she too left the workhouse during the 1840s and moved to Newmarket to find work.
James moved away from the area and in 1850, married Ann Lightwing (2 Oct 1825 – 11 May 1907) at Henstead, Norfolk, who had a three-year-old son called John Thomas Combey Lightwing. Ann was born in Mulbarton, Norfolk, and was the daughter of Robert Lightwing (1793-1852) and Elizabeth Huggins (1799-?) who were married on 10 February 1820 at East Carleton and were both from Norfolk.
In 1851, James and Ann lived at Spittlegate, Grantham, Lincolnshire, where James was employed as a railway labourer. By 1858, James and Ann had moved to Union Street, Norwich, where Sarah Ann (1858-) and Robert (1860-) were born. Ann’s mother Elizabeth, described as a nurse, lived with them and James and his stepson both worked as agricultural labourers. They continued to live in the same house where James (1863-) and Elizabeth Mary (1865-1918) were born. By 1871, John had left home, James still worked as a farm labourer and his 14-year-old daughter, Sarah, was a ‘clear starcher’, possibly involved in placing collars and cuffs in a barrel with a small quantity of starch, and rolling the barrel to distribute the starch over the goods.
James died in 1872 and Ann and her children, James and Elizabeth, moved to 74, Queen Street, St Stephens, Norwich. Ann worked as a charwoman and her children worked in a factory. By 1891, they had moved to 74 Nicholas Street together with Elizabeth’s two children; George (1888-) and Kate (1890-). Ann was employed as a charwoman, James as a labourer and Elizabeth as a laundress.
On 14 April 1894, Elizabeth married Edmund Anguish (2 April 1863-1940), who was born in the parish of St John the Sepulchre and was a shoemaker. Ann’s children took his surname and two more children were born; Harriet (1895-) and Charles (1900-). In early April 1901, they were living in a four room house at 74 Nicholas Street, where Edmund was a boot laster and heeler, making a shoemaker’s model for shaping or repairing a boot. Elizabeth was employed as a charwoman and George as an errand boy. On 26 April 1901, Edmund signed up for two years in the Royal Garrison Artillery of the First Norfolk Regiment.
Ann died in 1907 and Edmund and Elizabeth continued to live at 74 Nicholas Street, but Edmund was unemployed in 1911.
Elizabeth’s son, George, was married to Maud and working as a library assistant in Norwich Corporation Free Library in 1911. They lived in a five room house at 23, Denmark Road, together with George’s sister, Harriet, who worked as a day domestic servant, and Elizabeth Utting, a sister in law, who made cardboard boxes for a living.
Elizabeth died in 1918 and Edmund continued to live in Norwich until his death in 1940.