Origins and migrations of Sugg families in England |
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John Sugg married Elizabeth Cornick in Limington in 1805 and lived and worked as a cobbler in Ilchester. His son James married Mary Coles (born in Devon) and travelled to London to work there as a tailor in about 1840. They changed their address several times but never moved far away from their first home in Compton Street near Tottenham Court Road. They raised seven children, the eldest of whom, Sophia, was registered as living with her grandparents in Ilchester at the 1851 census. Another daughter married and moved to Devonport and a nephew emigrated to farm in Australia. The Sugg world was expanding! The descendants of Thomas and Edith may further be traced through Henry, the son of James, to the present day – thirteen generations in all. Another significant family group has been traced back to William Sugg, born in Merriott, Somerset in 1690[ii]. He was a manufacturer of dowlas, a coarse linen used for mattress covers and cheap sheets, living in a small agricultural community. His son John, born in 1730, failed in his business as a grazier and bleacher in nearby Crewkerne and eventually moved to London where members of his wife’s family were already living. One son, Calvin, worked in London before emigrating to America but he was unfortunately drowned in an accident on the Ohio river. Another son, Obededom, went to sea and later married and settled in Tewkesbury. A third son Thomas married in Millbank, Westminster in 1793. He joined the army, worked for a while for his uncle, a ‘tinman’[iii], and then opened an ironmonger’s shop in Hoxton. He became involved in the early stages of the gas industry and in 1807 was responsible for making and laying pipes in Pall Mall for the first demonstration of gas lighting in London.
John Sugg married Anne Lockyer in 1718 at Aller in Somerset[v]. Thomas Sugg, who might be a grandson or a great grandson of John and Anne[vi], married in Aller in 1774. He and his wife Ann had a tough life, aspects of which were recorded in parish documents which still survive. For some reason Thomas with his wife and two sons were issued with a removal order in 1776 requiring them to move to nearby Greinton. From 1783 until 1835 the Greinton parish accounts list the numerous payments made to the family by the overseers of the poor – to buy food, clothes, fuel and other necessities. The last payment of £1 1s made in 1835 was to purchase a coffin for Ann. Thomas had died in about 1796.
These three substantial families can each be traced to a small area near to the Somerset /Dorset border. The three villages of Trent, Merriott and Aller form a triangle. Each one is about ten miles from the other two (see map above). During the 18th century, and probably much earlier, the families would certainly have known each other. A family connection would seem very probable but has yet to be confirmed. The diagram above shows the distribution of Suggs in Somerset and Dorset in 1851 and also the locations of the three villages mentioned above.
[i] The family associated with Trent has been researched by Christopher Sugg (Aylesbury). [ii] The greater part of the information about the ‘Merriott’ family has been provided by Christopher Sugg (East Sussex) [iii] A worker in tinplate [iv] Details from the manifest of the ship 'St Paul' sailing from Liverpoolto New York in 1914 [v] Most of the information about this family was kindly provided by Miss Joyce Cook [vi] There is no evidence for either but it is certainly possible |
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