Private Residents

Consistency of Directory Listings: Private Residents

Both White and (from 1828) Pigot aimed to include lists of private residents in addition to their trade listings. The criteria for inclusion were unclear, and the number of people listed was much smaller than the number declaring themselves to be “independent” in the census returns. Pigot’s listings were headed “Gentry and Clergy”. Clergymen were normally included (including curates and Nonconformists) but many of the others would not normally have been regarded as gentry. There was some correspondence between listing and the value of the property occupied; but some residents may have been listed at their own request, or because they agreed to place an order for the directory. The wide range of people listed meant that the lists would have been of very little use to sales representatives and the main purpose of the listings was presumably social.

A comparison between values in R1838 and the listings in Pigot 1841 and White 1842 is useful as a test of the accuracy and consistency of these directories.

Male Private Residents

The male private residents were typically retired tradesmen that had worked in or near Louth or retired farmers from elsewhere in Lincolnshire.

An example was George Harrison, listed in Pigot 1822 as “hosier &c” in Butcher Market. R1823 showed him there, evidently living above the shop that he rented; but just before the valuation he had announced his impending retirement (Mercury 26.4.1822) and White 1826 showed him as “gentleman, Quarry Hill”. Pigot 1828 failed to list him. He was not registered as a parliamentary voter in 1832 (presumably because he was not then a freeholder) but in the vestry poll in 1834 he voted as “gentleman, Lee Street”. By 1835 he had bought his house and voted in the 1835 parliamentary election; he was listed in Pigot 1835 as “Harrison Mr George, Lee Street”. He died in 1836 but R1838 shows his widow as the owner/occupier of a house in Lee Street and the owner of the adjoining house, both valued at £13 10s. Mrs Elizabeth Harrison was listed as a private resident in Pigot 1841 and White 1842.

Table 1 lists the male private residents found in both Pigot 1841 and White 1842 and occupying houses rated at £10+ in R1838.

As can be seen from the table, there were some fairly local landowners that had chosen to settle in Louth. However, Louth was insufficiently attractive to join the ranks of the Victorian resort towns that drew new residents from a wide area. The only wealthy independent resident in R1838 known to have come from a distance was John Blathwayt, (381770; not in table 1 because he died in 1839) a retired London surgeon.

Some residents kept a low profile. For example Mark Harrison (1767–1845) was shown in R1838 as the owner/occupier of property valued at £14 10s and the probable owner of several small houses nearby. He voted in parliamentary elections in 1818, 1832, 1834, 1835 and 1841, describing himself as a “yeoman”, a term implying that he was not in any business or regular employment. The directories did not mention him; and the only press reference appears to have been the notice of his death.

A definition problem for the directory compilers was that some private residents appear to have had minor commercial activities. For example Thomas Grant senior, a retired farmer, had, but presumably did not personally run, a news and billiard room.

Female Private Residents

There were more women listed as private residents than men; a list equivalent to table 1 of those with houses with RVs of £10+ would include about 50 names. Table 2 shows a shorter list of those occupying houses with RVs over £15; in round figures houses of this value fell within the top 7% of private houses in the town. The table shows that, where the background of these residents is known, they either were Louth residents of long standing or had moved from elsewhere in Lincolnshire; and all had evidently inherited money from a deceased husband or father. (The Louth women able to retire on their own earnings seem to have been mainly publicans, who usually took over the licence after the death of a husband. An exception was Ann Morley, a retired milliner, who was the tenant of a moderately good house in Walkergate, 382124).

The two directories showed a high degree of consistency in listing the female occupiers. At the top of the female hierarchy was Miss Mary Sophia Ansell of Westgate House. She was certainly important to the town, because the 1841 census shows her providing work for her seven domestic servants, who doubtless caused her to have big bills from the butchers and other tradesmen. With one exception (Sarah Marris, whose husband, a crooked solicitor, may have been paid to stay away from Louth: see Mercury 7.1.1848) all of the women listed were widows or spinsters, although three subsequently found husbands in Louth.

There seems to have been one case of the deliberate exclusion of a woman: Mrs Anne Avarillada Whiteford (RV £45), who later became impecunious but was described in 1841 as “possessing considerable property”. However the context of this description was a report of her being fined £5 for sexually assaulting her 13 year old pageboy and “this was the third young boy who had complained to the Magistrates”. So the omission from the directories was probably on moral grounds: see Mercury 8.10.1841 and also 11.1.1839 reporting her apparent attempt to steal a gold watch by trickery. Earlier she had been in the news when her husband was in custody for assaulting her. He was certainly a serial liar, perhaps mentally unstable, perhaps just a fraudster: see Hull Advertiser 6.9.1833, Hull Packet 18.10.1833, Mercury 7.2.1834, 11.4.1834.

Directory proprietors tended not to list more than one person at an address. This sometimes reduced the listing of women. For example Ann Simpson (RV £25) was listed as a ratepayer in R1838 and declared herself in the 1841 census to be the head of the household, but White listed her clergyman son.