The CCHS Enquiry Team deals with over a hundred written queries every year. Some are straightforward, others require much research, digging into the archives. They sometimes add to our knowledge of a topic, particularly where the enquirer has done some of their own research or has an artefact which they wish to know more about.
Wixey Plate
Q. I have purchased an antique crested plate with the Sir Baptist Hicks coat of arms hand painted and a scroll beneath reading ‘nondum metam’ and Chipping Campden. To the base it has a printed mark ‘made in England for H. Wixey China merchant Campden’.
A. Herbert Wixey was a grocer, baker and banker- a very well-known and respected local figure – who ran a flourishing business on the corner of Leysbourne and Church Street. Wixey’s Stores was established in 1863 in Chipping Campden and traded successfully for many years. A newspaper advertisement described Herbert Wixey as a “high class family grocer, an export tea blender and a provision merchant”. His premises, now called Wixted House, Corner House, Wixey House, Hicks Cottage and Bank House, occupied the whole of this corner site. Each premises housed one of the extraordinarily disparate elements of Herbert’s business: a bank, a china and glass retailing shop, a bakery, a grocery, a store, and a warehouse.
The coat of arms is that of Sir Baptist Hicks, a very wealthy merchant in 1600s; he built his country house in Campden c 1615, (his London House was also called Campden House, no longer existing but was situated in what is now called Campden Hill Gardens area of Notting Hill), the Almshouses c 1612, the Market Hall c1627. Baptist Hicks is a major part of Campden’s History – see books available to purchase on our website/publications The House that was so Faire and Sir Gerard Noel MP and The Noels of Campden and Exton (about Baptist’s descendants). ‘Nondum Metam’ (in Latin) means roughly ‘not quite finished’.
From 1891, to comply with the McKinley Tariff Act of the United States, wares started to include the country of origin, e.g. England, but if your plate has ‘Made in England’ on the back it will have been made after c.1910, when the full term ‘Made in England’ was used.
see article in Signpost 9 Autumn 2018: What Happened to the Wixeys in Chipping Campden? for a more detailed account of the family)
Stanley Family History
Q. I am researching the Stanley family who are from Chipping Campden. My 3 x great grandfather William Stanley was born 1816 in CC and was living in Weston-sub-Edge in 1843 when my 2x GGF was born, John Stanley. They all moved to Birmingham in 1851. William was married in Aston-sub-Edge in 1837 to Sarah Nichols. His father was also William Stanley, who may have been from Quinton or maybe Walton Cardiff – there is more than one record.
A. Stanley is a very big name here with several family strands since the era of your ancestor’s birth in 1816 in Campden. There is a William christened on September 13th 1816, with parents William, a labourer, and Sarah. There does not seem to be a marriage of a William Stanley to a Sarah here in Campden before 1808. The burials of Stanleys in this period shows just one which might be your family, the first-born Richard. There do not seem to be any of your Stanleys in CC in the 1841 Campden census – we have farmers, butchers, stonemasons.
The Poor Law records in Gloucestershire Archives (ref. P81 OV 3/2) show a Removal Order 106, dated 22 Oct 1816, for William Stanley, wife Sarah and three children, Richard 6, Mary 3, William 7 weeks, to Weston-sub-Edge. This looks like the family. So maybe their roots were in Weston-sub-Edge.
All I have on the Poor Law records is a transcript, but I believe the records were kept by the Overseers of the town or local church, who had a financial responsibility for poor people, so there were apprentices’ indentures, they ‘examined’ people and if their roots were elsewhere or they had come from another town they were ‘removed’ back to where they came from or agreed a ‘settlement’. If a girl was pregnant they agreed a ‘bastardy bond’ with whoever was named as the father so he had to pay for the child. I don’t know if there was a workhouse in Weston-sub- Edge, but I think to be removed there, they must have come from there.
A Removal Order was the written authorisation prepared by the Overseers of the Poor of a parish requiring an individual or family resident in a parish to return to their parish of legal settlement. … The Settlement Certificate was removed from the parish chest and attached to the Removal Order. (https://www.ancestrysolutions.com/referencecentre/FAQResearchA8.html accessed 16.10.20)