William Budgen (1707-1782).
My 6th great-grand uncle.
William Budgen was baptised in St Margaret’s Church in West Hoathly on 25 September 1707, the son of Thomas Budgen and Sarah Comber.
He married Elizabeth Farmer in the village on 1 June 1736 and raised a family with her. Elizabeth is most likely the girl baptised at St Giles’s Church in nearby Horsted Keynes in Sussex to William and Elizabeth Farmer – there are few if any other likely candidates.
William was a yeoman, which was a term usually used to describe a farmer who owned his own land and more than likely employed locals to help him manage the land.
Elizabeth was buried in West Hoathly on 16 June 1774. William was buried there on 30 April 1782.
His will, dated February 1780, described him as a yeoman and in it he bequeathed a significant amount of property. His eldest son William and his daughter Anne, wife of George Holman, both received two shillings and six pence.
His son-in-law, John Young of West Hoathly, a hoop-maker who married his daughter Elizabeth, received the same amount. He left his son Thomas his freehold messuage and appurtenances – in effect his home and land – in West Hoathly. Thomas also received “that piece or parcel of freehold land containing by estimation one acre and a quarter more or less, adjoining to the lands of Sir Joseph Peake … and to the King’s Highway leading from Turners Hill to Horsted Green … now in my own occupation and which I purchased off my brother Richard Budgen and is situated lying and being in the parish of West Hoathly…”. Finally, William’s son Thomas received all of his father’s other money, husbandry property, goods, clothes and stock.
Budgen family historian John Howes has written, in the Sussex Family Historian magazine, that William was likely to have been the first of the Budgen hoop-makers – a trade continued on by generations of his descendants well into the 20th century.
William and Elizabeth’s children were:
- Elizabeth Budgen (1737-1762) was baptised in West Hoathly and married John Young there in 1761. He was listed as a labourer in the marriage record but as a hoopmaker for barrels in his father-in-law’s will. Elizabeth died the year after her marriage and was buried in the village. John received two shillings and six pence in his father-in-law’s will.
- William Budgen (1737-1820) was baptised in West Hoathly on the same day as his sister Elizabeth. He married Jane Mitchell there in 1756, raised a family in the village and received two shillings and six pence in his father’s will. Jane died in 1811, William in 1820, and both were buried in West Hoathly.
- Mary Budgen (1739-1739) was baptised and buried in West Hoathly.
- Sarah Budgen (1739-1740) was baptised on the same day as Mary and buried in West Hoathly.
- Ann Budgen (1740-????) was baptised in West Hoathly and married George Holman there in 1764, having several children. She received two shillings and six pence in her father’s will after his death in 1782. What happened to them after is unclear.
- Thomas Budgen (1751-1795) was baptised in West Hoathly and married Mary Peckham there in 1776, having several children with her. He, perhaps unusually for the younger son, received the bulk of his father’s land, property and possessions on his death in 1782. He died in West Hoathly in 1795.
Sources: All data has been gathered from the Sussex Family Historian magazine, Ancestry.com, FindMyPast.com and the National Archives.