John Stoliday (1817-1896), his wife Catherine and the courts

John Stoliday (1817-1896).
My 3rd great-grand uncle.

John Stoliday was born on 25 April 1817 and baptised on 8 June at All Saints’ Church in Rackheath, Norfolk, to parents James Stoliday and Mary Gay.

John grew up with his parents and siblings in and around Rackheath and his father, like most men in the area, worked in the fields as a husbandman and labourer.

John’s story took a twist in March 1848, as a John Stolady aged 33 was convicted of larceny at the Swaffham Sessions in Norfolk having stolen a quantity of iron in the village of Denver belonging to Charles Peach of Downham Market. He was sentenced to 14 days in prison. Our John married in Downham a few years later suggesting that they were one and the same people, even though his age was out by a couple of years. The case was reported in the 1 April 1848 edition of the Norfolk Chronicle.

On 28 April 1851, labourer John married Catherine Smith at St Edmund’s Church in Downham, Norfolk. She came from Crimplesham, where she was baptised on 15 December 1822 to labourer Ambrose Smith and his wife Sarah. Catherine had already had an illegitimate child, who was baptised in the village on 17 October 1847 and named after her father Ambrose.

The Norfolk Chronicle of 22 May 1858 reported that John had been charged with assaulting Catherine while they were living at Felthorpe, north-east of Norwich. A hearing at Norwich Shire Hall heard Catherine say that she’d quarrelled with her husband and that, because she’d thrown water over one of their parents, John allegedly knocked her down and kicked her. However, he claimed that Catherine had struck his father with a stick. The case against John was dismissed but Catherine ended up being convicted of throwing a pail of dirty water over someone and was fined 14s 6d.

Census reports from 1861 onwards show John and Catherine living at Salhouse and Rackheath, where he worked as an agricultural labourer. But it wasn’t long before Catharine was in trouble again, this time with her son Ambrose, as reported in the Norfolk Chronicle of 12 February 1870. Farmer Frederic King told justices at Norwich Shire Hall that mother and son had assaulted him after he chastised Ambrose for not having come to work on the Sunday. Catherine, hearing her son’s shrieks, came up and abused King, throwing stones at him that she’d taken from her apron. One struck the complainant on the leg. Catherine and Ambrose said they had been provoked by King striking Ambrose. The magistrates dismissed the case against Ambrose but fined Catherine 6d with costs of 16s, even though they agreed she’d been greatly provoked. They also told King that he could not take the law into his own hands.

Ambrose went on to live with the Stolidays, as shown in the 1871 census, and died in 1922. John died in Norwich on 14 November 1896 and was buried in Rackheath on 19 November 1896. The Norwich Mercury of 21 November reported that he died at the Jolly Skinners pub in the city’s parish of St Martin at Oak. Catherine featured in the 1901 census living at the same pub – her daughter Sarah Ann’s husband was the landlord. Catherine died in 1910.

The couple had at least five children:

  • Job Stoliday (1851-????) was baptised in Downham Market but he disappears after the 1861 census.
  • Henry Stoliday (1856-1881). His birth was registered in 1857 but he was probably born on 24 November 1856. He wasn’t baptised until 1874, in Rackheath. Henry drowned when the Yarmouth-based fishing smack Edmund & Charlotte sank in the early hours of 29 June 1881. The Dundee Courier of 2 July 1881 noted that the sinking happened after the vessel was hit by the steamer Therden off the Dutch coast. Five men survived and were brought ashore at Yarmouth.
  • James John Stoliday (1859-????). There are documents suggesting James may have been a soldier and / or a fisherman but it’s not possible to confirm whether the records relate to him or several other people.
  • George Stoliday (1862-????). Two boys of the same name were born in the same year in the same locality and it’s so far proved impossible to tell them apart. One served in the British Army.
  • Sarah Ann Stoliday (1864-1950) married labourer George Joseph Forder in Rackheath in 1892. They had a family and moved to Norwich, where George was also the landlord of the Jolly Skinners pub. He later worked as a labourer for the local electricity board. George died in 1951, a year after his wife.

Sources: Rackheath Parish Registers published in 1984 by Norfolk and Norwich Genealogical Society. BMD, census and other records at Ancestry.co.uk and Findmypast.co.uk. Newspapers at British Newspaper Archive (titles in text).

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