Bowyer Study Group Extra Newsletter #15

August 1995


Author:
Mr. Denis Bowyer
Conkers
Hurst Green
Etchingham
East Sussex, TN19 7QD, UK


As you can see BRENT BOWYER has produced his mammoth volume (418pp) of the East Anglian Bowyers, centred around Stradishall in Suffolk ... five hundred years of them. When I tell you that there are 3285 lines in the index alone making very easy name hunting, you can realise that Brent must have burnt gallons of midnight oil bent over his computer. It is all beautifully laid out, lots of family trees in full leaf, photographs of locations as well as relatives, in fine print that is clear and readable friendly, and in all A LESSON TO US TO GET CRACKING WITH OUR OWN FAMILY HISTORIES IN OTHER AREAS.

I give you the content infomation here below to show how Brent has followed the spread of the families, as far as Australia, and of course, Canada; and I urge those wanting a copy to write off for it NOW. I can assure you that this is NOT another 'Book of Bowyers', and even if your Great Aunt Bowyer is not from this area, you will benefit from the vast "What was happening then?" infomation contained therein. A couple of flicks through the pages and you will soon wish that your Great Aunt Bowyer did come from this area!
THE COST........ that is the rub!

I nipped along to my local Barclays Bank and had a chat with Caroline there about sending money orders to Canada. It costs £12 per cheque for any amount and Caroline suggested that we share this charge by ordering a number of books from one centre with a single payment. For to send $60 to Brent would be an outlay of near £30 plus the £12 charge. Some professional researchers can charge this per hour for a fraction of the infomation contained in this book, so you may consider it all worth while. Tell me (01 580 860 254) if you think sharing this cost a good idea. The Post Office has no means of helping us in this matter.

Cheers, Denis.


CONTENTS

i. Dedication
ii. Acknowledgements
iii. Introduction
Chapter 1 - What's in a name?
Chapter 2 - The Bowyers in the 1500's
Chapter 3 - The Bowyer family at Withersfield, Clare & Stradishall - Early 1600's
Chapter 4 - The Bowyer family at Stradishall - The Witchhunts
Chapter 5 - The Bowyer family at Stradishall - The Civil War
Chapter 6 - The Bowyer family at Stradishall - Restoration Era & Early 1700's
Chapter 7 - The Bowyer family at Stradishall - Mid 1700's to 20th Century
Chapter 8 - The Kedington, Clare & Poslingford Bowyers - 1700 - 1860's
Chapter 9 - The Halstead, Essex connection 1750's - 1900
Chapter 10 - The Bowyers of Castle Camps & Cherry Hinton, Cambridgeshire - from 1840
Chapter 11 - The Australian Connection - from 1840
Chapter 12 - The Bowyers of Whelnetham, Suffolk 1860 - 1910
Chapter 13 - The Cheveley, Cambridgeshire Bowyers 1870's - 1919
Chapter 14 - Descendants of the Cheveley Bowyers - from 1905
Chapter 15 - The Canadian Connection: Marcus Henry Bowyer & Descendants - from 1905
Epilogue

Appendices
1. Suffolk up to 1500 A.D.
2. Some Suffolk wills 1630 - 35
3. Some Bowyer wills
4. Witchcraft
5. The Levellers, Diggers & Agitators
6. The Kedington Bowyers 1750 - 1900
7. Enclosure, the Poor Laws & Workhouses
8. Apprenticeships
9. Blacksmithing
10. The Pub
11. The Church
12. The Class System
13. Everyday life in the 19yh Century
14. Didlington Hall -- excerpts from Trail of Trials by Jim Trimbee
15. Handwriting Samples
16. Certificates of Birth, Marriage & Death
17. Bibliography
18. Endnotes
19. Index of Names

Maps: England/Suffolk Australia Canada/Kent Co., Ont.


NOW AVAILABLE --- NOW AVAILABLE --- NOW AVAILABLE

The STRADISHALL BOWYERS

- 500 YEARS -

A LIMITED EDITION PRINTING (60 COPIES)

- Read about....
- Maude Bowyer's
disposal of all her pewter, brass, clothing & other possessions in her will made in Feb. 1578
- the hundreds of land transactions carried out by our yeomen Bowyer ancestors as recorded in the manorial records
- the testimony given to a judicial inquiry by Hugh Bowyer at Clare, Suffolk in 1606
- the allegations made in 1644 by Thomas Bowyer against William Proctor, Rector of Stradishall
- the topsy-turvy world of mid 1600s Suffolk in which our Bowyers lived at the time of the Civil War and witchhunts
- the dispersal of our Bowyer family from the ancestral parishes of Withersfield & Stradishall to other Suffolk villages (Cowlinge, Clare, Poslingford, Kedington), Cambridgeshire, Essex, & London
- the 19th-century destitution of the agricultural labourers that prompted migration to Australia & the hundreds of Bowyer descendants there now
- the early 20th century scattering of the Cheveley, Cambridgeshire branch of the family to S. Africa, Canada, & Australia
- the blacksmithing branch of the Stradishall Bowyers, including the dispersements made over many decades to them at Poslingford, Suffolk by the churchwardens of the parish
- life on the Bowyer farm in Canada during the Depression of the 1930s
- YOUR BOWYER ANCESTRY back to 1500


*** the distillation of 17 years of research
*** 423 8 1/2 by 11 inch pages, single-spaced, including 55 pages of pictures
*** copies of 26 birth / marriage /death certificates, 9 early wills from the 1500s-1700s, 4 apprenticeship indentures, 3 inventories of possessions, & 1 settlement examination certificate
*** the names of over 3200 descendants of Willam (d. 1556) & Maude (d. 1580) Bowyer
*** fully indexed
*** includes maps showing where our family have lived
*** set in the social and political context of the times

--- READ ABOUT IT --- READ ABOUT IT --- READ ABOUT IT --- READ ABOUT IT ---


TO ORDER:
Send $33 per copy plus mailing costs of:
$5 per copy (in Canada or the U.S.
$11 per copy for surface mail to Britain, Australia, and other overseas locations or
$27 per copy for airmail to Britain, Australia, and other overseas locations to
Brent Bowyer, P.O. Box 1438, Wingham, Ont., (Canada). NOG 2WO

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