{"id":3625,"date":"2023-03-10T09:54:21","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T09:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/?p=3625"},"modified":"2023-03-10T09:59:55","modified_gmt":"2023-03-10T09:59:55","slug":"icen-cottage-thomas-provis-wickham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/2023\/03\/10\/icen-cottage-thomas-provis-wickham\/","title":{"rendered":"Icen Cottage – Thomas Provis Wickham"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the sixth part of our series exploring the history of Icen Cottage, Fordington. In previous blogs, we have introduced you to the cottage<\/a>,\u00a0shown you some of the earliest documents relating to the cottage<\/a>,\u00a0discussed some of the problems when trying to identify the people who lived in the cottage<\/a>, introduced George Cull as one of the previous owners<\/a>, and took a look at the Mitford family and Arnold family in the 1830s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This time, we reach the period of the first censuses, and look at who lived in the cottage in the middle of the 19th Century…<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

The next record we have of an occupant of the cottage is the 1841 census when the cottage was occupied by William Bedford, a Clerk born outside of the county, and a servant named Anne Blois who was born in Dorset.<\/p>\n

Ages on the 1841 census are often rounded. Anne Blois\u2019s age is given as 15 and William\u2019s is either 20 or 28, the number is hard to read. With so little to go on we have not been able to find out much more about William or Anne and it seems likely that they were not tenants for very long!<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

The next occupants also only made a short stay at Icen Cottage, but we have been able to discover far more about them.<\/p>\n

On January 2nd 1842 Mary Anne Wickham, the daughter of Thomas Provis Wickham and his wife Sarah was born in Icen Cottage and her birth was announced in the Sherborne Mercury.<\/p>\n

Mary Anne was their second child and was baptised in Fordington where her father\u2019s occupation is given as gentleman.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The family can\u2019t have stayed very long in the cottage as next mention we have found is another notice in the Sherborne Mercury in March 1843 when they were living at Pulteney Buildings, Weymouth. This announces the death of Thomas and Sarah\u2019s eldest child, Sally Wentworth Wickham aged 3 years and 7 months on the 28th February.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This was quickly followed by a second bereavement announced on 1st April 1843 in the same paper, the death of Thomas\u2019s father, the Rev. William Provis Wickham of Somerset, on March 22nd.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After this the family moved around a lot. We know this from another newspaper report from 1857 announcing Thomas\u2019s imprisonment as an insolvent debtor. This article lists all of his previous addresses, including Icen Cottage. There are around twenty addresses in the list ranging from North Wales and Scotland, where his wife was born, to Sussex and Middlesex. In addition the article lists several Hotels in London where he has occasionally stayed.<\/p>\n

Thomas is described as a Gentleman who had never had any trade or profession. Newspaper reports from around the time when he was at Icen Cottage record him attending a ball at Blandford in 1837 and mention a yacht he owned that was at the Weymouth Royal Regatta in 1845, suggesting that he was living a life of leisure mixing with the higher ranks of society.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it seems clear he constantly struggled to finance his lifestyle. In addition to the above insolvency, we found an article from 1849 recording that he had put the Ham Estate that he had inherited up for auction but the asking price was not reached so it was not sold. We also found a bankruptcy notice for Thomas from 1861 and a second one from 1884, although it is possible that this one was for his son, who shared his name.<\/p>\n

Thomas died in North Wales in 1890.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

In the 1851 census Mary Anne Wickham, along with her younger siblings Thomas Provis and Caroline, are living with their governess in Croscombe, Somerset. This is very close to the estate Thomas had inherited from his father at Ham. Their parents are absent, but as the census only shows where people were on a single night of the year this does not mean that this was not their primary residence.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mary Anne married a gentleman named Richard Wing in 1860 when she was eighteen. Her parents were both witnesses. Mary Anne and Richard had a daughter, Marie, in 1862, but sadly Richard died in 1864 aged just 28.<\/p>\n

In 1869 she married her cousin Lieutenant Laurence James William Hussey. Laurence was\u00a0 serving in the Leicestershire Regiment and in his obituary from 1911 it mentions that he served in Canada and India. It is likely that Mary Anne accompanied him on at least one of these postings as neither she nor Laurence appears on the 1871 Census, suggesting that they were not in the country. Her daughter Marie is shown as being at a boarding school in Somerset.<\/p>\n

In 1881 Mary Anne and Laurence are living in Broadwater, Sussex, with Marie, their two sons James and Laurence, two servants and a nurse and Mary Anne seems to have remained in the county until her death in 1921.<\/p>\n

This blog has focused on a family who made a very short stay at Icen Cottage. Look out for our next blog focusing on a family who stayed there a lot longer!<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve missed the earlier blogs in this series, you can view them here:<\/p>\n

An Introduction to Icen Cottage<\/a><\/p>\n

Icen Cottage \u2013 The Earliest Documents<\/a><\/p>\n

Icen Cottage \u2013 The Masters Family \u2013 Too Many John Masters!<\/a><\/p>\n

Icen Cottage \u2013 George Cull<\/a><\/p>\n

Icen Cottage – The Mitfords and The Arnolds<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the sixth part of our series exploring the history of Icen Cottage, Fordington. In previous blogs, we have introduced you to the cottage,\u00a0shown you some of the earliest documents relating to the cottage,\u00a0discussed some of the problems when trying to identify the people who lived in the cottage, introduced George Cull as one… Read more Icen Cottage – Thomas Provis Wickham<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1892,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[82,13,210,494,109],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1892"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3625"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3633,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625\/revisions\/3633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}