Henham History - Catastrophe & Natural Recovery

Home Site Map site index advanced

search engine by freefind

Henham History

Henham Parish Site

Contact Us

• Henham History
  • Local History
    • Henham
    • Chickney
    • Conservation Society
  • Estates
    • Notable Auctions
    • Gilbey Estate
    • Gill Turner 1
    • Gill Turner 2
    • Gill Turner 3
    • Ownership of Henham Estate
  • Buildings A to M
    • Bacons Farm
    • Birds Farm Barn
    • Bury Cottage
    • Bury Lodge
    • Bury and Manse
    • Coopers Hall
    • Forres
    • Henham Hall
    • Henham House
    • Henham Lodge
    • Henleys
    • Heydon House
    • Keyham House
    • Listed
    • Mill House
    • Mount House
  • Buildings N to Z
    • Pennington Hall
    • Poplar Hall
    • Prompt Corner
    • Springate Cottages
    • Stone Cottage
    • Timber Framed
    • The White Cottage
    • White House
    • Wood End Cottage
    • Wood Farm
  • New Developments
    • Blossom Hill
    • Fitzwalter Place
  • Historic Details
    • Henham Dragon
    • Fitzwalter Barony
    • Elizabeth I
    • Historic Finds
    • Swing Riots
  • Pre World War II
    • Enlisted Military
    • Memorials
    • Rememberance Sunday
    • War Memories
    • WW1 Evacuation Plan
    • Unveiling Memorial
  • World War II
    • Service Personnel
    • Victory in Europe
    • Evacuees
    • Evacuee Ann Carter
    • Evacuee John Evans
    • Bomb Shelters
    • Rationing
  • Personal Accounts
    • Leonard Hayden
    • Thomas Wright
    • 1916 Evacuation
    • Early Life
    • Bits and Bobs
    • Evacuees
    • Lost Eden
    • My Journey Begins
    • Memories pt 1
    • Memories pt 2
    • Henham1895
    • John King
  • William White
    • A Summer's Day
    • Peter Ventures Forth
    • Village Shops
    • Village Tales
  • Walk
  • A Domesday DesRes
• Churches
  • Independent Chapel
  • St Mary's
    • St Mary's Intro
    • Tour
    • Church News
    • Rectors and Vicars
    • One Day
  • St Mary's Internal
    • Boards
    • Font
    • Heraldry
    • Memorials
    • Windows
    • Paintings
  • St Mary's External
    • Porch
    • Miscellaneous
  • Bells
    • St Marys Bell
    • Bellringing
  • Gravestones
    • Part 1
    • Part 2
    • Part 3
    • Canning Gravestone
  • Registers
  • Chickney Church
• Genealogy
  • Births Marriages
    • Henham Church Records
    • Chickney Church Records
    • Pre 1538 Villagers
    • Boyd's Marriage Index
    • Clandestine Marriages
    • Non Parish BMD
  • Deaths
    • St Marys Burials 1539-1679
    • St Marys Burials 1680-1871
    • National Burials 1539 -1600
    • National Burial 1601 1700
    • National Burial 1701 1800
    • National Burial 1801 1878
    • Post 1838 Deaths
    • Burials 1930 1989
  • Families A - K
    • Balaam Family
    • Baker
    • PC Benson
    • Bentley
    • Bishop Family
    • Brand
    • Cook
    • Coston & Snow
    • Dennis Dennison
    • Farrington
    • Frost
    • Giblin Family
    • Ingold
    • Jennings
    • King
    • Families A-Z
  • Families L-Z
    • Little & Prior
    • Mangold Family
    • Mansfield
    • Marshall Family
    • Millbank
    • Moore
    • Neville
    • Newland
    • Nottage
    • Pennington
    • Postman Smith
    • Snow
    • Staines
    • Willis Saggs
    • White Family
    • Yarrow Family
  • Camp
    • Joshua Camp Pt 1
    • Joshua Camp Pt 2
    • Joshua Camp Pt 3
    • Joshua Camp Pt 4
    • Camp Letters
    • Camp Milkman
  • Willet
    • Willet Pt 1
    • Willet Pt 2
  • Family Websites
  • Correspondence
  • Old Friends
• Henham Life
  • Education
    • Henham School
    • School Life
    • Workhouse
  • Farming
    • Medieval Year
    • Field Names
    • Landowners
    • Tithes Awards 1840
  • Maps
    • Henham Maps 1
    • Henham Maps 2
  • Surroundings
    • Greens
    • Ponds
    • Lost Footpaths
  • Newspapers
    • Chickney
    • 18th Century
    • 19th Century P1
    • 19th Century P2
    • 20th Century P1
    • 20th Century P2
  • Trades
    • Profession Records
    • Public Houses
    • Shops
  • Transport
    • M11
    • Finger Posts
    • Elsenham Station
    • Elsenham - Henham
    • Sibleys -Thaxted
    • Thaxted Station
    • Rolling Stock and Posters
    • Elsenham Post 1950s
    • Railway Bylines
  • Telephones
    • Directory
  • Dramatics
    • Dramatics
    • Pantomime 2004
    • Pantomime 2016
• Public Records
  • Census Returns
    • 1841 Census
    • 1851 Census
    • 1861 Census
    • 1871 Census
    • 1881 Census
    • 1891 Census
    • 1901 Census
    • 1911 Census pt1
    • 1911 Census pt2
    • Census Stats
    • Chickney Census
    • Population Reports
  • Civilian Returns
    • Electoral Registers
    • 1939 Civilian Register
  • National Records
    • PRO Records
    • English Heritage Sites
    • Herts and London Archive
  • SEAX Records
    • SEAX pt 1
    • SEAX pt2
    • SEAX pt3
    • SEAX Listed Properties
    • Manor of Henham Hall 1
    • Manor of Henham Hall 2
    • Manor of Henham Hall 3
  • Directories
    • Trade
    • 1848 White's Directory
    • 1902 Kellys
  • Legal
    • Calendar Rolls
    • Calendar Deeds
    • Feet of Fines
    • Hearth Tax
    • Land Tax
  • Poll Returns
  • Wills
    • Wills p1
    • Wills p2
    • Wills p3
    • Wills p4
    • Wills p5
    • Wills p6
    • Turner Wills
  • Uttlesford Demographics
    • Census Data
    • Dataday Snapshop
    • 1831Census
    • 1991 Census
    • Census Stats
    • Demographics
    • NW Essex Population
    • Parish Population
    • Catastrophe Recovery
• Images Audio
  • Aerial
    • Aerial
    • Aerial 1980s
    • Aerial Landscapes
  • Trades
    • Public Houses
    • Shops
  • Properties
    • Churches
    • Properties 1
    • Properties 2
    • Properties 3
    • Properties 4
    • Pledgdon
    • Streets 1
    • Streets 2
    • Pennington View
    • Vernon Close
  • Postcards
    • Postcards 1
    • Postcards 2
    • Postcards 3
    • Reverse Postcards
  • Images pt 1
    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    • 4
    • 5
    • 6
    • 7
    • 8
    • 9
  • Fields and Paths
  • Images pt 2
    • 10
  • Misc Old
    • Aerial
    • Celebrations
    • Children
    • Life
    • Wells
    • War Bunker
  • Village Events
    • Fete 2006
    • Fete 2013
    • Fete 2006
    • Fete 2014
    • 1950s Fete Video
  • Paintings
  • Seasons
    • Winter
    • Winter 2009
    • Cutts Loose
    • Spring
    • Summer
    • Autumn
    • Agriculture
  • Talks
    • Joyce Winmill Talks
    • Buildings of Henham
    • Lands of Henham
    • The Manor of Henham
  • Video
    • Miscellaneous Videos
• Miscellaneous
  • About This Site
  • Nearby Villages
  • Site Map
  • Where We Are
  • Useful Links
  • Disclaimer

1. HOW THIS PROJECT BEGAN

A few years ago I mentioned to Doctor John Schofield of Elsenham Surgery that I had re-written the St Marys, Henham records of births, marriages and burials for the period 1539 - 1800s. He said that there was some evidence of nature quickly compensating for any population decline following a catastophe. He wondered if the parish registers had any corroborating evidence of significant human decline and recovery following famine, disease or war.

I'd never heard of a sudden fertility increase in nature other than when a lion kills his new partner's existing cubs whereupon she quickly comes into season. I thought that was more to do with him perpetuating his genes across the pride rather than any move by her to adjust numerical imbalance within it.

John's question seemed simple enough until you considered all the possible explanations for concurrent high mortality and high fertility. Many societies throughout history have used, and some still do, a conveyor-belt of children as domestic help in the field, at home and also as sources of additional family income. It is an insurance policy in a risky, accident-prone enviroment. Abnormal swings in concurrent death and birth rates can be partly due to society invoking the 'replacement effect' but this is only for child mortality. Other swings can be due to bad weather such as the terrible winter of 1963 which saw high death rates among the elderly followed by a 'baby boomer' year allegedly due to younger adults having gone to bed earlier in the evenings because of the weather, travel restrictions, power cuts, boredom(?) etc.

In March 2009 The World Bank Sustainable Development Network published a paper by its 'global facility for disaster reduction and recovery' unit. The paper contended that the fertility response is a response to a shock. The author continued - 'the decision for extra children is ex post rather than ex ante in the case where children are used as insurance. From data obtained from Turkey, from the sample of individuals who have always lived in the same place, there is a positive fertility response in addition to the fertility response to mortality. The author found that the fertility response to exposure to natural disasters to be positive and significant. Furthermore this response was additional to the response to child mortality – the well-known 'replacement effect'. The data showed a positive response to child mortality of just under a one-for-one replacement, and in areas affected by the earthquake there is an additional positive fertility response. If all variables of culture, economy, regional variation etc (all socioeconomic and demographic variables) influencing the number of children born to a woman are considered, then the results suggest that exposure to an earthquake does induce a positive fertility response over and above the mortality response.' Intriguingly, shock has its own trigger for survival.

No recorded historical disaster is fully comparable to the potential catastophe of a large-scale nuclear war. The Black Death of 1348-50, however approaches a hypothetical nuclear war in geographical extent, abruptness of onset, and scale of casualties. In other important respects its impact was unlike that of war; in particular, there was no direct destruction of material property. And, in addition, the 14th century is so distant in time from the current period as to preclude the drawing of easy parallels. Nevertheless, the analysis of even such a remote historical experience may help illuminate some of the sources of, and limitations upon, the human potentialities for recovery from any great catastophe.'

So if you have swings which can be due to coincidence, accidents or design, the only way find evidence of the shock 'trigger' is to compare abnormal swings against known dates of famine, disasters, and epidemics within a reasonably static population. Fortunately we do have a well-documented history of such catastrophes. To refine still further, you need to compare those swings against what was happening in the parish church registers. The Medieval tradition of serfdom, of a man being permanently bound to a specific master, coupled with the censure imposed by the church ensured a settled population. Church registers are consquently fairly reliable save for a few exceptions as given below.

2. DATES OF MAJOR FAMINE, DISEASES & DISASTERS

A. Historical records show that there were at least 17 periods of crisis mortality in England between 1500 and 1670. From http://www.hunimex.com/warwick/diseases.html I've reproduced a table of plagues, diseases and natural disasters throughout modern history.

B. From 'The Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England'  by Paul Slack

Famine 1556, Great Famine 1586-1588, Plague 1586 - 1588, 1603, Black Death 1665 (by June 1665, more than 7,000 deaths per week in London.

Between the years 1550 and 1600 there were five severe attacks of Black Death, the last of which killed 30,000 Londoners - 1563, 1586, 1588, 1603, 1625 and 1665. In Essex there were also plagues in 1504, 1518, 1540, 1550, 1557-58, 1625-26, 1637-40.

In every case, except for London, the later 1550s were exceptional for the number of wills - rising to well over twice the norm for 2 - 3 years. Mortality crises seemed to hit many parts of the country in the 1520s and 1540s and were unusually severe in the later 1550s.


C. 'The Population History of England 1541-1871': A Reconstruction (1981)

Table A10.2, page 653 by E.A. Wrigley & R.S.Schofield. It is taken from 404 parish registers for the years of high mortality, the period 1540 - 1666, and shown as a percentage above the national norm. In the 4th column P = presumed plague and P+ = plague and other diseases. From this publication I've taken the following table. I've reproduced it so that you can see the percentage of a parish population that perished in an epidemic.

D. Plague in England - national epidemics 1348-1665 (from http://urbanrim.org.uk/plague%20list.htm)

The most general outbreaks in Tudor and Stuart England seem to have begun in 1498, 1535, 1543, 1563, 1589, 1603, 1625, and 1636, and ended with the Great Plague of London in 1665. It is sometimes stated that plague disappeared from England following the Great Plague. In fact, localised incidents were recorded after this event. The dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to Yersinia pestis.

So all the dates from para 2A - 2D give us the timeline against which we can compare our parish registers.

3. Other sources
a. Fertility Response to Natural Disasters. The Case of Three High Mortality Earthquakes by Jocelyn E. Finlay
b. 'The Plague in Essex' edited by Rosalin Barker in 1982. Held at Essex County Record Office under reference code C/DR 1/76

4. HENHAM CHRISTENINGS, MARRIAGES & BURIALS 1430 - 1930 (from Miss Winmill's papers, provided by her contact at the county record office).

The dates in red show the years when plague and famine are recorded either nationally or for Essex as at para 2 above.

On Sept. 5, 1538, English parish records were first ordered to be kept by Thomas Cromwell. This Cromwell was the vicar-general of Henry VIII. Earlier monks had kept rather unsystematic notes of births, marriages and deaths of noble and wealthy families as an aid to proving age and pedigrees for inheritance and title purposes. Cromwell ordered that vital records be kept of everyone. Since the clergyman was often the only local person who could write, and the church had been established by the king, it was the ideal organization to collect this information. The original law said that all baptisms, marriages and deaths were to be written down in a book after service on Sunday evenings, in the presence of the churchwardens. No doubt this was an imposition on the villagers who had to rush home to tend to their animals and chores. After the fall of Thomas Cromwell in 1540, parish registers were abandoned in many areas, and it was not until 1558 that they were again required

At that time some registers were kept on loose paper sheets, and this caused concern to then monarch, Queen Elizabeth I. In 1597, she ordered that all existing registers were to be copied into "fair parchment books." In large parishes, this was a mammoth task. Due to a loophole in the directive, some clergy simply started their task in 1558 and ignored what had gone before. Others dutifully re- copied the earlier registers. However, rarely has the original paper registers survived so a comparison of the two can be made. Hence, you will discover that many parish registers begin in 1558 rather than 1538, when they officially started. Also, starting in 1597, transcripts of these parish registers were suppose to be sent to the bishop within a month after Easter. This practice lasted until 1837 when civil registration began. Fortunately Henhams vicars were among the more diligent as our registers do go back to 1539.

Both the parish registers and bishops' transcripts have gaps — due to loss and fire — and researchers should always check both sets of records. There also is a large gap in most English parish records from about 1649 to 1660 — called the Commonwealth period. This gap for 1647 - 1659 appears in the Henham parish registers. In 1653 all register-keeping was taken out of the hands of the clergy and transferred to a layman called the parish register. Some of these men selected were excellent record keepers; others were dreadful writers and spellers.

5. HIGH MORTALITY & BIRTH IN HENHAM

The national figures sometimes point the way, but the most important data is in the Henham parish church registers. The following table uses the figures in para 7 to show those years when Henham suffered from abnormally high mortality. The years marked in red are the dates recorded for NATIONAL and Essex plagues, famine etc from paras 1 - 4 above and NOT evidence of plague etc within Henham.

6. TRAVEL AND THE SPREAD OF INFECTION

The 1604 Plague Relief Act commanded that any infected person was to remain in his house. If an infected person attempted to 'break-out' of his house or resisted isolation to avoid further infection, then it was law full for a watchman to enforce containment within the house by the use of violence. If any infected person, having already been instructed to stay indoors, should 'wilfully go abroad and converse in company, having any infectious uncured sores upon him, then such persons shall be taken, deemed and judged as a felon, and to suffer pains of death'.

People did not travel around a lot during the Tudor and Elizabethan era. Travel could be dangerous and money was necessary. It was also unlawful to journey around England without a license, obtained from the Bailiff in the Guild Hall. This law ensured that the spread of disease, especially the plague, was contained as much as possible and that the poor and the homeless did not travel from one village to another village - an Elizabethan ploy to lower the crime and punishment levels in England.

It wasn't untill towards the close of the sixteenth century that the wagon became used as a public conveyance, and only very rarely then. As an example, it was only fifty years later that a string of stage-wagons had begun to travel regularly between London and Liverpool. The timber-framed Red Lion Inn that stands on the north-west corner of the crossroads in Bishops Stortford is first mentioned in 1661 and still trading in 1888. Charles II, sometimes accompanied by his mistress Nell Gwynne, often stayed here en route to Newmarket races and is said to have preferred it to the Crown Inn.

In 1750 the average coach journey from Cambridge to London took two days. In 1820 it only took 7 hours. The Regency period marked the beginning of the great age of coaching. From around 1810 to the 1830's coaches ruled the newly-sealed roads (thanks to Mr McAdam) and reached fantastic speeds of around 12 miles per hour allowing a free and easy flow of traffic, passengers and goods around the country. By 1837 there were 10 coaches every weekday from Cambridge to London. 1849 saw the last stage coach. This improvement in travel increased the risk of infection.

From our earliest records in SEAX in the county archives, we read that 'strangers' or 'travellers' weren't welcome in any village. There are several SEAX records of a village constable intercepting and arresting a stranger. Apart from being considered a criminal risk, they were clearly potential carriers of disease. So we need to allow for our geography, proximity to major roads and consider how long an epidemic might take to reach us from our nearest towns and cities.

We are quite close to three major Roman-built roads. The A120 runs from Harwich on our eastern coast to Colchester and then, as Stane Street, westward across the old A11 at Bishops Stortford and on to Standon in Hertfordshire where it meets the A10. The A11 came north from London, through the centre of Bishops Stortford, and on to Norwich. The A10, originally a Roman road known as Ermine Street, ran from London to Lincoln. Later it became known as the Great Cambridge Road or Old North Road terminating at King's Lynn in Norfolk. It joined the A1 Great North Road at Godmanchester between Cambridge and Alconbury. This may have had an affect on how quickly a plague could reach us from Dunmow, Cambridge or London or villages such as Newport (which had stagecoach inns) and thus reflected in our parish registers.


7. DID A SHOCKED HENHAM BOUNCE BACK ?

During the medieval and Elizabethan periods, Henham was a village of just a few hundreds. Therefore any apparent significant increase in the burial figures may not be the result of a national epidemic, a more localised famine or disease. Individual family misfortunes such as poverty and house fires can create large distortions. Furthermore Henham in the 16th century seems to have been a relatively healthy place to live since it was producing at least two births for every death.

The cause of, and age at, death are rarely recorded in Henham's registers. Infant mortality was a constant visitor in those centuries, so the 'replacement effect' should also be constant. Only rarely can we determine if two burials on the same day of two family members where one is a female, are either a mother and child or twins or perhaps an adult couple. In a village where several families shared the same surname, it is difficult (save for the devastating 1654-1655 Bubonic Plague outbreak) to prove if entire families were destroyed by a single catastrophe without genealogical knowledge of specific families.

We know that we're looking for abnormally high figures of deaths instantly followed by an abnormally high increase in births. We can then compare those results against recorded disaster dates. So, armed with the dates of epidemics etc plus our parish registers we should be able to answer the following simple questions -

Firstly, the most striking figure in the table at para 4 is the 'reported' 100 deaths in the 1654-1655 Bubonic Plague outbreak. Sadly the parish registers for that period no longer exist but Miss Winmill did get official figures only a few decades ago from a county council source but it can't be used as 'evidence'. By size alone, this would have been the only instance of an epidemic which must have wiped-out entire families and a large percentage (at least 25%) of Henham's population. By comparison not-so-distant Braintree suffered severely in the Great Plague of 1665, where it killed 865 of the population of just 2,300 people or 37.6%

Despite there being no acceptable 'evidence' for the 100 deaths, 25 of the 45 events in the table at para 5 coincide with the dates of national disasters alone. There is some remarkable coincidence of fertility increase following most of the lesser outbreaks of plague and famine so that of the 44 lines in that table, almost all show an increased birth rate in response to disaster.

So it does seem that Henham has repeatedly 'shocked' itself back to recovery. Quite amazing !