February 2012 – Sarah Crook wife of Henry Peapell

February 2012 – Sarah Crook wife of  Henry Peapell

I have spent some time looking for Sarah Crook. I have some information and will continue to look for more.  Particularly as I have come across as much information about her siblings than I have about her.

 

Sarah Crook

Sarah Crook and her twin Elizabeth were born on 1^st December 1838 at Highworth in Wiltshire. They were baptised the next day in the parish church.  Her father and mother, John Smith Anns Crook and Harriet Webb, had married in Highworth on 21 July 1834. They already had three children of which two were twins Ambrose and Elizabeth. These twins had died as soon as they were born and were buried 6 September 1835. Jane Crook was now the oldest child being age two years when Sarah and Elizabeth were born.

Two years later they were joined by William, and four years later again by Mary. William Crook would become well known in the area and was destined to own a mineral water bottle factory in Old Town Swindon.  One of Sarah’s sons John Crook Peapell lived with William Crook for a time in the 1890’s.

The family lived at Eastrop in Highworth. In 1851 they are living at Faringdon Road.

 

When Sarah was twenty she married Henry Peapell two years younger than herself.  They were married in Highworth Church. Henry was a labourer at this time. For many years Henry lived in a cottage on the road out of Highworth towards Faringdon. In 1881 the address in the census is 38 Eastrop Cottages, Highworth and in 1891 onwards at 12 The Gardens Eastrop. These may of course be the same place or close by but I am not sure. In 1901 her sixth son Frank Peapell lived at 11 The Gardens Eastrop which is probably next door.

 

Sarah had eleven children ten of which lived to become adults, including my great grandfather John Crook Peapell.

Sarah was known as being hard. Leah was her second daughter, and Sarah considered her to have married beneath the rest of the family. Once Leah asked Sarah to  help her make shirts for her husband. This was soon after Leah’s marriage. Sarah told Leah to unpick an old one and find out that way.

 

Sarah’s husband Henry died on 3 August 1926 aged 85. Sarah lived on eighteen months and died on 1 May 1928. She was buried in Highworth Cemetery.  She had lived to

• bring up ten of her eleven children with eight still living,
• had seen twenty six great grandchildren, three of whom had died, and thirteen of whom were married by this time
• seen eleven great grandchildren

She had also heard about the husband of one of her grandchildren(Charles Ingram Richards)  being murdered in Trowbridge.