Causton One-Name Study
Newsletter Number 3 February 2000
DUDLEY ROBERTSON GWYN CAUSTON 1908 - 1969
(Photograph probably taken in his Hyde Park Flat about 1965)
The last few months have been a time of important discoveries; considerable growth both in the numbers people known to be researching the Causton surname and in the information available to researchers. The slip index of Causton births, marriages, deaths, memorial inscriptions, wills, obituaries and much more, created over about forty years by Dudley Causton, has come to light at the Society of Genealogists in London. The index of about 6,000 slips includes a wide range of spellings and entries from the 16th to the 20th centuries. The majority of the entries are for Suffolk but there are also a substantial number for Essex, London, Kent and Norfolk. The information on the slips is now being entered into Custodian II, which is a specialised one-name computer database. Also now available are the hand written abstracts of the GRO index of births, marriages and deaths (for Causton/Cawston spellings only) up to 1940 from Dudley Causton's notebooks.
Recent discoveries include a number of entries for Causton in a property survey known as the Rotuli Hundredorum carried out in 1274/5 and a place name Caustone in the Domesday Book for Cambridgeshire, now known as Caxton Manor. The early change of name of the Cambridgeshire Caustone to Caxton is an important piece of evidence that may connect William Caxton the printer, to Causton forbears - more in a future newsletter.
Thomas Caustun, Composer and Member of the Chapel Royal
Part of a service for children by Thomas Caustun (Add MS 13994) published in 1563
Thomas was born about 1520 and died in London on 28 Oct. 1569. His parents are not known with any certainty but he may be the son of William Causton of Orpington, Kent and Katherine Banister. If so he was married to Agnes Polley of Shoreham and had a son William with a large family that lived at Oxted until late in the 17th century. He may have been related to James Caustun who on 25 September 1560 was elected epistoler of the Chapel Royal and who became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal on 11 December 1566.
The earliest reference to Thomas Causton is 19 October 1526 when he was in the choir of Thomas Wolsey that sang at the opening of Cardinal College. He was a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal under Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth and is shown on a list from circa 1550. On 29 Oct. 1558 Queen Mary wrote to the mayor and aldermen of London in favour of Thomas Causton "one of the gentlemen of the chapell" requesting that he should be admitted into the freedom of the city. In 1567 there is a reference to Thomas Cawson and Robert Richemount, Gentlemen of the Chapel being granted a 21 year lease on the tithes in Walsall and the prebend of Marston, both in county Stafford, and a meadow and rents of free and customary tenants in the manor of Chelworth Magna county Wiltshire (Patent Roll 9 Elizabeth v mm. 28-29). There is no indication of the value of this lease but it was probably a substantial supplement to his income from the chapel.
About 30 of his works survive. Twenty seven can be found in a 1563 publication by John Day entitled 'Whole Psalmes in Foure Partes'. This is said to be the first harmonised metrical psalter published in England. A Te Deum and Bendictus are preserved in the British Museum (Add MS 31226). His 'The Lord's Prayer' was published by Ancient Groove Music in 1998 and a Venite and Service were reprinted in the Ecclesiologist. Although all of Caustuns music is for four part choir Groves describes two of the works as having originally had a different form. 'In trouble and adversity' is a parody composition based on Taverners Gloria tibi Trinitas and 'Turn thou us' must have been scored for solo boy (meane) and three supporting instruments. Groves considers that Caustun can thus be considered one of the first church musicians to foreshadow the development of the verse style during the 1570s and 1580s. He was a composer in the school of the great Thomas Tallis (c1505-1585), whom he presumably knew. Sadly none of his works can be found in the recorded music catalogue but they are sung on occasion in English churches and cathedrals.
References: Dictionary of National Biography, Groves Dictionary of Music, Chequebook of the Chapel Royal
Variations in the spelling of the Causton surname
One correspondent ably demonstrated the wide range of spellings that can occur. Ken Costin wrote about his ancestors in Kent :
"On the subject of name variants this is an area that my family seem to specialise in. My GtGtGtGt Grandfather Daniel CORSTIN has the name spelt 7 ways on different parish records:
Cawston Place Names
Ivy Ferguson in Canada sent me articles which explained the origins of the town of Cawston in British Columbia, Canada. Before settlers arrived the area was populated by a few nomadic Salish Indians and by employees in a Hudson Bay Company trading post. In 1865 Francis Xavier Richter set up a homestead. Richard Lowe Cawston was one of the early settlers and together with his aunt Mrs Ella Lowe purchased 5,341 acres from Mr Richter in 1884. Within 2/3 years he had the nucleus of a prosperous ranch. He went in principally for stock and produced some of the first butter in that part of the county. It was packed in 50 lb. cottonwood tubs bound with willow hoops and sold for $1 a pound. He planted grain, raised pigs, planted fruit trees and had a fine garden. The family moved back to Stratford in 1903 but retained an interest in the ranch.
R L Cawston was apparently a colourful character with a great sense of humour and a vocabulary that 'even a steer could understand'. With his beard and height he apparently had a striking resemblance to King Edward VII.
Gint Causton and the branding
iron of the F X Richter ranch
In 1885 he married Mary Anne Pearson at Stratford Ontario and spent a month on a slow return trip to the five bedroom log house on the ranch. They had four boys, John Pearson (1886), Richard Lowe (1888), George Beauchamp (1889) and Alfred Hamilton, known as Gint, (1892). Richard Lowe, who had two brothers and eight sisters, was the first son of John Causton and Marie Lowe of Harperhay. John's father and his family had emigrated from Wiltshire, England about 1825.
His youngest son Gint moved back to the ranch, married Myrtle Edith Peel in 1919 and raised five children, Jack Beauchamp, Dick, Don, Betty and Mark. In 1916 the little town was named Cawston after Richard Lowe Causton. About this time a school was started with 10 pupils, run at first at the Cawston ranch house.
References: The first R L Cawston by Vera B Cawston and 'Gint' Cawstons Story by Gint Cawston
An Analysis of the Frequency of Surnames in the 1881 Census for England, Scotland and Wales
I have analysed the occurrence of Causton and some of the variants of interest in the 1881 census returns for England, Scotland and Wales. Here is a table of the counties in England, Scotland and Wales showing the number of Casons, Cassons, Castons, Causons, Caustens, Caustins, Caustons, Cawsons, Cawstons, Cossens, Costens, Costins and Costons in each county. Less common spellings are included as footnotes to the table. This will enable you to locate the highest concentrations for your surname and lead to some possible estimates of how likely your surname is to be a variant of Causton. Zeroes have not been included as it makes it harder to find the numbers. Counties have also been left out if there are no occurrences of the surnames of interest e.g. Herefordshire and Rutland in England. Here is a summary of the frequency of each surname per 100,000 of the population.
The table shows 62% of Causton/Cawston to be in a band including Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex Middlesex and Surrey. The largest concentrations of Causon/Cawson are in Gloucestershire and Lancashire. There is a low incidence of Causton and variants in Scotland and Wales. There are thought to Caustons in Scotland - maybe these appear as Corson, Corstine or Couston. Casson occurs mainly in Cumberland, Durham, Lancashire and Yorkshire. Cason in those counties is likely to be a variant of Casson, whereas in Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk it is established as a Causton variant. Coyston appears to have come from one family in north east Essex.
Profile of a Researcher - Lori-Ann Foley
Lori-Ann Foley 1998
My interest in the Caustons started with a copy of my grandmother, Lena Beatrice Hughes', birth certificate, which I was given after her death in 1991. The family gathered round to look over it and reminisce. Her father, Alfred James Hughes, was a known name, but what was her mother, Mary Ann's, maiden name - COSTOW, COSTON? The name ended with a flourish which strongly suggested the former, but a study of other words on the certificate lead to a consensus on COSTON. Her youngest child, Ivy, was still alive and gave her mother's date of birth as 21 April 1873. With that information and the date of the birth of her first child, I headed to the local family history centre to look up and order her marriage and birth certificates.
Nothing! No marriage of Alfred anything Hughes to a Mary Ann Coston. No birth of Mary Ann Coston in 1873. What to do. There were two Alfred James Hughes getting married in London and one was in the 'right' year. So I ordered it. When it arrived - breakthrough. Alfred James Hughes married Mary Ann CAUSTON. An obvious spelling of the name when you have been studying the Caustons - not obvious when you've never come across it before.
Back to the birth certificates. Still no Mary Ann Causton or Cawston (I was learning!) in 1873. Start looking through the other years and there she is - 21 April 1874. Great Aunt Ivy was only one year out, not bad considering that for her generation, and those earlier, there really wasn't any reason to remember years of birth at all. One anomaly presented itself immediately. On the marriage certificate Mary Ann's father was given as Charles Causton, labourer. On the birth certificate it is Alfred Causton, farm labourer. I still don't know why and can only assume it was an error on the part of the Registrar at some point. But good news with the address - Tile Kiln Lane, Edmonton, London. A street well known to my grandmother, as it is where her family lived when she was growing up. So Mary Ann seems to have stayed in the same place that she herself grew up in.
Mary Ann Causton, ca 1912
Off to the census to find her family. Look at the 1881 census, when Mary Ann would have been aged 7 years, turn to Tile Kiln Lane - no sign of them. Look at the whole district, the whole film and all of Edmonton. Nothing. Look at the 1871 census - no Tile Kiln Lane given in the street index. What! An entire street gone! Maybe it changed its name. No, it's there in 1861. Try lateral thinking. Look on a modern street map and find a neighbouring street. Look this up in the street index, turn to the census and sure enough Tyle Kiln Lane. Sigh!
But I found the family, pre-Mary Ann, with a number of names that match the aunts and uncles Ivy remembered. Plus mother and father Alfred Causton and Eliza. And the census gives a clue to Alfred's origins - Suffolk and Bury St Edmunds, his place of birth and the birthplace of many of his children. Shoot off to the Bury St Edmund census for 1861 - lots of Caustons but not my family.
I then ordered some of the older children's birth certificates and found out the actual place is Stanningfield in Suffolk. Off to the census and find Alfred, his wife and children, as well as a young Alfred with his own family in earlier censuses.
Home and dry, as they say.
Except for one thing. Where were Mary Ann and her family in 1881? When the 1881 census index came out I was straight down to the record office. No Mary Ann Causton, Cawston, Coston or Cason in Middlesex, London or Suffolk. Should I have tried looking under 'K'? Any suggestions gratefully received, as I won't feel 100% happy about my tree until I find Mary Ann with her father Alfred (and not Charles) together on a census.
by Lori-Ann Foley, Jersey, Channel Islands.
Here is her family tree. Her ancestor is Alfred Causton on the bottom line. This is an important tree as many researchers are linked to it.
Rootsweb On-line Causton Mailing List
There is now a Causton Rootsweb mailing list. To subscribe send an e-mail message to CAUSTON-L-request@rootsweb.com that contains only the word subscribe in the subject and message.
