Walking by St James’ in Rowledge, I got into conversation with three people in their seventies from Tonbridge who were looking for the grave of a baby Cobbett, writes Neil Pittaway.

They thought the baby had died around 1912. I apologised for not being able to help and continued my walk, thinking: “I wonder if there are any Cobbetts buried at St James’ related to William Cobbett?”

So I started looking. I found seven burials. One of them, Mary Ann Cobbett (1915-1916), was surely the baby they had been looking for. She and three other Cobbetts, I soon established, were unrelated to William Cobbett. So I turned my attention to the other three: Mary Cobbett (1819-1891), Elizabeth Barnes Cobbett (1823-1901) and Evias Cobbett (1817-1902).

My research revealed that Mary Cobbett and Evias Cobbett were spinster sisters from Droxford. Elizabeth Barnes Cobbett (née Russell) was their sister-in-law. Further research showed that Mary and Evias were, indeed, great nieces of William Cobbett. Their father was the Droxford farmer George Cobbett, son of William’s older brother Thomas.

George had been born in Portsea after his father, Thomas, married Martha Honey in nearby Alverstoke. He farmed in Portsea, possibly with his father, and married Evias Avice Wyatt there before moving to Droxford, where all their children were born.

So why did George Cobbett’s children move to Farnham? The answer revealed a connection with another Farnham figure. At her death, Evias Cobbett was living with her nephew Absalom Harris, founder of the Farnham Pottery. Absalom also came from Droxford. His mother was Martha Cobbett, George Cobbett’s first child and a great niece of William Cobbett. Absalom was therefore not only the nephew of Mary, Evias and James Cobbett, but also a great, great nephew of William Cobbett.

Absalom’s parents, Absalom Harris senior and Martha Cobbett, had died in Droxford by the time he was ten. Martha was the sister of Mary and Evias Cobbett and also of master potter James Cobbett, the husband of Elizabeth Barnes Cobbett. James and Elizabeth raised young Absalom after his parents had died.

By 1861, Absalom had moved from Droxford to Elstead to work with his uncle, the potter Samuel Harris. After marriage, he moved to Holt Pound and then Wrecclesham. His substitute father, James Cobbett, was a master potter in Droxford and, after Absalom set up the Farnham Pottery, he came to work for him, bringing his wife Elizabeth and sisters Mary and Evias too.

Hence, the great nieces of William Cobbett are buried at St James’, along with their sister-in-law. Sadly, the three grave positions are now unmarked.

The family tree tells the story from William Cobbett’s father George Cobbett, through William’s brother Thomas, down to potter Absalom Harris. A chance meeting at St James’ with three septuagenarians from Tonbridge led me to establish that two of William Cobbett’s relatives, and another by marriage, are buried there.

James Cobbett, Absalom’s guardian and a master potter, was buried at St Peter’s in Wrecclesham in 1900. These burials at St James’ are not Rowledge’s only link to William Cobbett. After his great-great nephew Absalom Harris was widowed in 1894, he remarried on January 17, 1901 at St James’.

In my research, I also noted two references suggesting that William Cobbett’s father, George Cobbett, died at his small farm at Manley Bridge. If true, this raises the question of whether it was the same Manley Bridge Farm later run by the Turner family for much of the nineteenth century. George died in 1792 and Thomas Turner bought the farm in 1806, so it is possible.

How can I be sure that William Cobbett’s brother Thomas is the Thomas shown in my tree? He had another son, also called Thomas, born in Portsea and the younger brother of “Droxford George”. This Thomas, a teacher, owned property in Farnham’s West Street but lived in Islington. His father, by then a butcher, spent his final years living with him and, when he died on November 30, 1847, an obituary was placed in many newspapers. It tells all we need to know.

I have not found elsewhere any complete account of the links between William Cobbett, Absalom Harris and Rowledge.

Neil Pittaway is a local historian based in Rowledge.