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Thomas Wittwer Southerden 1801-1830 & Jane
Longley
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Pat Tritton tells the story of her 3 x Great Grandparent's lives:
Thomas married his first wife, Elizabeth Offen at East Guldeford on 21 August 1824. Elizabeth was the daughter of John, a farmer, and Judith Offen of East Guldeford. There is still a farm bearing the Offen name in the area today. By the time their first daughter, Margaret Jane was born in 1826 Thomas and Elizabeth were living at Jesson Farm, near Dymchurch. A Certificate in the Liberty of Romney Marsh Court of Quarter Sessions reveals that Thomas Southerden, J.P. received Holy Communion in Dymchurch on Christmas Day 1827. Margaret Jane and her sister Elizabeth Offen Southerden, born 1827, were baptised at the little church of St Mary in the Marsh, a remote hamlet on Romney Marsh, a short walk across the fields from Jesson Farm. But sadly Thomas’s wife Elizabeth died just a week after their second daughter was born. She was buried at Peasmarsh, next to the graves of her parents. It was about this time that the lives of the Longley family of Lydd and the Southerdens of Romney Marsh became intertwined. Thomas’s sister Mary married William Longley at Winchelsea in September 1828, and two months later Thomas married William’s sister, Jane. The wedding took place at St Mary in the Marsh and the witnesses were Jane’s sister Eleanor (who later earned her living making straw bonnets); Thomas’s sister Elizabeth; and his sister Mary and her husband William Longley. Thomas and Jane’s only daughter, Mary, was born on 7 July 1829 but just over a year later Thomas died. He was buried in Wittersham, close to the graves of his sister Mary Longley, his aunt Sarah Southerden, and those of his parents and grandparents. Jane was left with three young children to bring up, as well as running the farm. Because he died so young, Thomas had left no Will, but his family obviously provided for Jane, as she was mentioned in both her father and mother-in-law’s Wills. Jane continued farming, eventually moving to Broomhill, and later, Prospect House, Lydd. She brought up her two step daughters, Margaret and Elizabeth, and, when Elizabeth (who had married William Collins in 1852) died, looked after her daughters, too, as well as her own grandchild, Margaret Jane Ball. Jane never re-married, and she died in 1895. She was buried in Lydd cemetery, near the grave of her granddaughter, Margaret Jane Ball. See her headstone in 'Round the Graveyard'. |
Ancestors of Thomas Wittwer Southerden
Ancestors of Margaret Jane Elizabeth
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