Descendents of Hugh Parkin

Generation No. 1

1. HUGH1 PARKIN was born 1767 in Bratton Fleming, Devon, England. He married CHARITY BURGESS September 10, 1792 in Bratton Fleming, Devon, England, daughter of JOHN BURGESS and CHARITY BERRY. She was born 1771 in Bratton Fleming, Devon, England.


In the Barnstaple copy of the "Parish Register of Bratton-Fleming 1675-1850," the birth of Hugh Parkin (1767) is not given, but his marriage is.


Children of HUGH PARKIN and CHARITY BURGESS are:
2. i. HUGH2 PARKIN, b. February 05, 1797, Bratton Fleming, Devon, England.
ii. CHARITY PARKIN, b. August 06, 1794, Bratton Fleming, Devon, England.
iii. ELIZABETH PARKIN, b. July 03, 1799.
iv. JOHN PARKIN, b. April 26, 1802.
v. WILLIAM PARKIN.
vi. MARY ANN PARKIN.
vii. PHILIP PARKIN, b. December 17, 1809, Bratton Fleming, Devon.

Notes for PHILIP PARKIN:
1851 census: widower, visiting Henry Britton, Bratton Town, Barnstaple -- Ag Lab


Generation No. 2

2. HUGH2 PARKIN (HUGH1) was born February 05, 1797 in Bratton Fleming, Devon, England. He married HARRIET TALLYN, daughter of JOHN TALLYN and SARAH. She was born March 15, 1810 in Bratton Fleming, Devon, England.

Child of HUGH PARKIN and HARRIET TALLYN is:
3. i. JOHN3 PARKIN, b. April 20, 1834, Bratton Fleming, Devon, England.


Generation No. 3

3. JOHN3 PARKIN (HUGH2, HUGH1) was born April 20, 1834 in Bratton Fleming, Devon, England. He married ANN WALTERS, daughter of ROBERT WALTERS and ELIZABETH CROCKER. She was born February 12, 1832 in Charles, Devon, England.

Children of JOHN PARKIN and ANN WALTERS are:
4. i. WILLIAM HENRY4 PARKIN, b. 1864, in Bratton Fleming, Devon.
5. ii. MELIA ANN PARKIN, b. April 13, 1866, in Bratton Fleming, Devon; d. June 03, 1950, Westbank, B. C..
6. iii. ALFRED ERNEST PARKIN, b. 1868, in Bratton Fleming, Devon; d. November 10, 1939.
7. iv. EVA BLANCHE PARKIN, b. 1871, in Bratton Fleming, Devon.
8. v. CYRUS PARKIN, b. 1873, in Bratton Fleming, Devon.
9. vi. ARTHUR TALLYN PARKIN, b. 1876.
10. vii. JOHN HARRY, b. Unknown.



Generation No. 4

4. WILLIAM HENRY4 PARKIN (JOHN3, HUGH2, HUGH1) was born 1864 in in Bratton Fleming, Devon. He married SARAH MEECH.


Child of WILLIAM PARKIN and SARAH MEECH is:
i. OLIVE MEECH5 PARKIN.

Notes for OLIVE MEECH PARKIN:
Name of Olive Meech Parkin's father ("William Henry Parkin") and mother ("Sarah" with maiden name "Meech" indicated by the fact that "Thomas Meech" is named in Olive Parkin's will as an uncle] are established in the "Last Will and Testament" of Olive Meech Parkin dated 1968 (photocopy of same in my possession--E.S. Hewlett]

Olive never married.

5. MELIA ANN4 PARKIN (JOHN3, HUGH2, HUGH1) was born April 13, 1866 in in Bratton Fleming, Devon, and died June 03, 1950 in Westbank, B. C.. She married WILLIAM GEORGE HEWLETT, son of GEORGE HEWLETT and ANNE TAYLOR. He was born December 10, 1859 in Bridport, Dorset, England, and died July 26, 1915 in Kelowna, B. C..

Sherborne, Dorset, is the town of origin of our Hewlett family. So far we have only traced the family to this town, where there were a number of Hewletts working as tailors. John (born about 1766--location not established) married Mary. They had three children: William, James, and John. Each was burried in Sherborne Cemetary. William's son George (born 1834) moved to Bridport, Dorset.

History of Sherborne

Sherborne is a town rich in history and in extant historical buildings. See the web-page
http://www.sherbornetown.co.uk/static/about/history.asp The following material is taken from that website, which contains additional material and pictures.

"The Saxons named Sherborne scir burne - the place of the clear stream - and made it the capital of Wessex. Two of King Alfred's elder brothers, King Ethelbert and King Ethelbald are buried within the impressive and beautiful Abbey. The long line of Bishops began in AD 705 when the great Diocese of Winchester was divided in two, and St Aldhelm, the first Englishman of letters, was appointed as the first Bishop of the West Saxons. When the Bishop's seat was moved to Old Sarum in 1075, the church was taken over by the Benedictine monastery and when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1539, Sir John Horsey acquired the Abbey and most of its lands."

"In the 12th century Roger de Caen, Bishop of Salisbury and Chancellor of England, built a fortified palace. Taken by General Fairfax in 1645, the romantic ruins remain and are in the care of English Heritage. It is now known as Sherborne Old Castle.
Sir Walter Raleigh fell in love with Sherborne, tried first to modernise the Old Castle but finally built in 1594 an Elizabethan mansion in the grounds. The mansion has been the Stately Home of the Digby family since 1617. This is now called Sherborne Castle."

". . . [Historical] buildings are abound in the town, the most important of which are The Almshouse of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist; The 15th Century Conduit House and The Julian, an early 16th Century house originally the hospice of St Julian of Norwich."

Who are these people? Where and when was the picture taken? The picture comes from the W.G. and M.A. Hewlett collection. It is obviously a picture of a tailor's workshop; but, since both the Hewletts and Parkins were tailors, it is not easy to know which side of the family this came from. Is the man on the left John Parkin, Melia's father? Or is the picture from even further back in the Parkin or Hewlett families?

The Devon sayings repeated by my father stuck in my memory, and always had a fascination for me. Like the physical remains of the village, they spoke of a way of life that had passed. Of course the sayings as given by me are third-hand: my memories of memories that my father had of my grandmother's sayings. Only once, just before the stroke that resulted in her death, do I remember my grandmother repeating any of these sayings in my hearing. Still, at the risk of dialectal innaccuracy, I will record the Devon sayings I remember. (I have submitted them and they have been posted on the BBC-related website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/discovering/dialect/your_dialect.shtml .)

Here is a dialogue-saying: "Where be gwine you?" "Up to Crane's [store] you." "What fer you?" "A ha'penny-worth of zalt, you." "Why done-'ee buy it more at a time, you?" "Coz mither do like it frash and frash." --A small joke, indeed, but interesting to me as a family tradition. [On the BBC dialect discussion board I asked whether it was Devon or Dorset dialogue, but in retrospect I am quite sure that it originates in Devon. In Dorset Grandma (Melia Ann) lived in town where dialect traditions would be weak. Besides, I believe the dialect fits other Devon dialect I have seen reduced to print.]

"When fermer John Aggis's friends were a-sot, a-smoking their bakky and drinkin' the pot, and the wind whistled through the key-ole of the door . . . ." [Obviously the beginning of what could have been a thrilling story, but I may never hear the rest of it, unless someone else with a knowledge of Devon sayings and a long memory fills me in on it.]

Another saying, applied to Aunt May (though this could have been in the very similar Dorset dialect): "Thit maid's got a face like a puddin'. "

Another saying (Devon or Dorset), used by boys indulging in the cruel sport of squeezing a grasshopper till the juice came oput: "Spit tobackee or I'll kill 'ee. "

Apparently a villager living by himself had--like others in the same situation-- acquired the habit of conversing with himself. His name was Farmer Gammin (a name that I have discovered among the engravings on tombstones in Bratton Fleming). He was apparently overheard addressing himself thus just before sitting down to a meal:"Sit ye down, Farmer Gammin. Do 'ee help yourzel'. Don 'ee rise up hungry." Gossip about village characters such as this no doubt was a common form of entertainment.
A couple of other sayings that I heard from my father have come to mind. A response to a query about someone's health elicited this cheerful comment: "Fair to middlin'. Weak in the legs and lungs and that, can't sleep at night and that."
A rather crude encouragement to gluttony: "Better belly bust than good mate [food] be lost."

A Poem About Bratton Fleming
by Olive Meech Parkin (of Barnstaple)
from her booklet Down in Devon

Bratton

O Bratton, green and warm and kind,
Your former days I call to mind;
Those favoured, happy, childish times,
The hill whereon the village climbs..
But gone are all my own dear people,
They sleep beneath the old church steeple;
And hourly chimes the hoary clock
Above “ the Parson “, and his flock.

* * * *

Grandfather sits beside the fire,
Smoking his ancient well loved" Brier,"
The while he feeds the flames with sticks,
My cousins teach the dog his tricks,
And conversation wise and kind
Impresses on our childish mind,
While Granny in the kitchen bakes
Those fragrant curranty .. Yeast Cakes."
And callers one and all shall be
Invited to a cup of tea.
Then greetings most respectful meet
“ The Parson " down the Village street.
.. Ting-tang, ting-tang " from blacksmith's forge,
They're shoeing horses, Jim and George.
Now rumbling wheels the echoes wake
As onward goes the Village Brake,
Which good old Arthur slowly drives
Well filled with buxom Bratton wives,
Who nodding o' er their baskets tell
The bits of news they love so well.


A sudden clatter down the street,
The rush of clumsy little feet,
" The School is out," the mothers say, "
We'll boil the kettle, get the Tay,"
With clanking pitchers off they go
To pump, or cisterns water flow,
And lamps and candles shed their light
As sinks the sun below our sight.
On Sunday morns they wend their way
To Chapel or to Church to pray,
The bells chime out to bid them come
From every humble cottage home,
Without, they hear the songs of birds
As " Parson " speaks the sacred words,
Though well he knows each sinning one,
He preaches Peace through God's dear Son,

* * * *

Farewell O happy days of yore,
We love to tell them o'er and o'er.
The lives of all were known to Heaven
And rich reward will soon be given.
Yet still beneath the chiming clock
“ The Parson ” sleeps beside his flock.

John and Ann Parkin (Ann born Walters)
(on back of picture, in M. Grace Hewlett's handwriting:
"Grandma & Grandpa Parkin")

An Excerpt from The Book of Bratton by Olive Meech Parkin:

I must not omit to mention an old forefather of ours, I
believe he was my father's Great-grandfather*. He was known
in his time as .. Duke Tallyn," merely of course a nickname
for the old "spendthrift," for such he certainly was. He
squandered two fortunes in his lifetime, altogether amounting to
£15,000, which in those days represented a big sum of money,
and would of course be worth about six times that value today.
He lived in the .. Great House," kept hounds, gambled and
drank, and so got rid of his money. I've been told that he
would mount his horse, have one glass at the back door and
another when he rode round to the front of the house, He was
friendly with one of the old sporting parsons (1 think named
Radford). I remember a story of a gamble on snails put on a
board to race, and I think it was Tallyn who lost the race,
because, waxing too enthusiastic at the progress his snail made,
he happened to touch it, and of course it drew in its horns at
once, and stopped its progress.
Tallyn was evidently a well educated man for those times,
as in his later years, when means evidently failed, he kept a
school and taJ.lght boys what he knew. There was an old man
who lived below our family in the same row of houses when I
was a very small child, and I believe he had been one of old
Tallyn's pupils at his school. The schoolmaster suffered from
"chalky gout," so called, and was able to write on the black-
board with his own knuckles. He taught even when bed-
ridden, and to punish the boys compelled them to come and
kneel on his bed, I suppose on the frame, which was very
painful, and one wonders how he could have mastered them so
firmly considering his disabilities. He must have been a terrible
old character. His daughter evidently lived with him, and he
used to call "Mary prithee come hither " when he wanted her.
The " prithee" was evidently a bit of old English and rather
interesting. In his palmy days he would take out £5 notes to
light his pipe, and would hand another to a man probably in
his employ, who wisely kept a supply of pipe-lighting matter
ready, and pocketed the £5 notes for better use! I know
nothing of Tallyn's family, but suppose they must have been
well known in those days, but he evidently brought all the
prosperity to an end, and gained a fit reward for his debaucheries
by becoming a ."parish pauper," and I have a hazy idea that
he died in the workhouse. At any rate, he was a warning to
all his descendants, and I suppose that was the reason why my
Grandfather had such a horror of seeing a pack of cards and was
so severe and straight a man himself. Once Granny went to
the china cupboard and took out an old wooden salver, which
she very impressively told me came from the Great House, and
related about the squandered fortune-" fifteen thousand
pounds," said she, "and it was all a kindidelled away," and
then she added briskly, "ought to have belonged to you and
me."
On one occasion Tallyn was attacked by a highwayman on
Roborough Hill, near Barnstaple, the old road of those times.
The man seized the horse's bridle and demanded money.
Tallyn replied, "I've no money but a valuable gold watch which -
I suppose you must have." He pretended to be unfastening ~
this while the man still held the rein, then suddenly lashed out ~
at the highwayman's wrist with the heavy brass studded riding
crop he carried, and as the man dropped the rein, T allyn
galloped away leaving his adversary howling with pain,


* Olive M. Parkin is correct in her belief that this man was her father's great-grandfather. Census information, courtesy of Lorraine Trudgian's research, would idedtify "Duke Tallyn" with John Tallyn, born 1779, father of Harriet, who married Hugh Parkin