1928 Purchase
On the 4th April, 1928, widow Sarah Ann Elizabeth Carter sold a cottage with a garden, together with the end of a wash-house, to Susannah Goss Storey. The conveyance deed also included a right for Susannah Storey to use a well and a roadway.
Josiah Carter’s Purchase in 1906
Sarah Carter’s late husband, Josiah Carter, purchased the cottage together with the windmill, Mill House, bake office, other buildings and land in Great Ellingham from Samuel Le Grice in 1906.
1911 census
The 1911 census captures 44 year old Josiah Carter living at the Mill House, Great Ellingham with his 38 year old wife Sarah, and sons Harold aged 12 and Russell 8.
The couple had been married for 15 years.
Josiah was a miller, baker and a threshing machine proprietor. Both children were attending school. The census tells us that Mill House had seven rooms, but this did not include any kitchen, scullery or bathroom.
The property was erected c.1904 to replace an earlier Mill House, which had been partly destroyed by fire.
Josiah Carter died on the 17th June, 1927, at Southburgh. A year later, his widow, Sarah, sold the cottage to Susannah Storey.
Where was the Cottage?
Mill House with the Mill behind. Postcard postmarked 1905.
I believe the cottage purchased by Susannah Storey is the cottage to the front of Mill House.
The above postcard shows the cottage (to the right) obscured by a tree. This cottage still stands today.
Who was Susannah Storey
Brief details of the 1928 sale of the cottage was noted on the deeds to the premises which were retained by Sarah Carter. Sarah sold these premises (including Mill House and the Mill) to Eric Chilvers in 1930.
These details did not include any additional information about Susannah Storey, or the transaction i.e. whether Susannah was married, where she lived and the purchase price.
However, Susannah’s full name of Susannah Goss Storey is noted on the documentation.
Fox & Storey Families
1911 census
The 1911 census shows Susannah Storey, her husband William and their one year old son, Arthur, living with Susannah’s parents, Robert and Martha Fox, in a dwelling in Town Green.
The Fox/Storey home comprised of three rooms (again, this did not include any scullery, kitchen or bathroom).
Robert Fox was working as a farm labourer. His son-in-law, William Storey, was working as a carpenter.
Marriage
William Storey and Susannah Goss Fox had married on the 18th November, 1908, in the Baptist Church in Great Ellingham.
Military Service
Before enlisting for military service in WW1, William was a carpenter employed by A J Harrison of Station Road, Attleborough. His military service record states his home to be in Great Ellingham.
Deaths of Robert & Martha Fox
Robert Fox died in December, 1912. His death was registered in the Wayland District in last quarter of 1912. He was 79.
The Burial Register for St James, Great Ellingham records Robert Fox’s burial in the churchyard on the 22nd December, 1912. However, his headstone records his date of death as December 18th, 1913!
This is not the first time that I have found a discrepancy between a date in the Burial Register and the date of death inscribed on a headstone. John Mallows died in 1870 but was buried a year earlier!
Martha Fox died at the age of 67 on June 17th, 1915.
Headstone in memory of Robert & Martha Fox in Great Ellingham churchyard
Conclusion
Given that the deeds to the cottage specifically mentions Susannah’s full name of ‘Susannah Goss Storey’, it is reasonable to assume that the Susannah Storey who purchased the cottage near the Mill in 1928 is Susannah Goss Storey, the wife of William Storey, and daughter of Robert and Martha Fox.
Further Questions
The Purchase
William Storey survived the Great War. However, I do not know whether or not he had died before Susannah Storey purchased the cottage in 1928.
If William was still living, I wonder how unusual it was in the late 1920s for a wife to purchase a property and not her husband? Were William and Susannah Storey still living together? How did Susannah fund the purchase?
The Cottage
Was the Fox/Storey household already living in the cottage near the Mill in 1911? The census records their home as being in Town Green. However, I have found that the area of ‘Town Green’ can include areas which in other census returns are mentioned as being in Long Street or Chequers Lane.
Sources:
Great Ellingham Tower Mill. 1854-1906. Transcripts of appointment and release between Jeremiah Fielding of Great Ellingham, Miller and Samuel Le Grice of Banham, Grocer & Draper of a freehold estate in Great Ellingham (12 October 1854), conveyance of freehold land in Great Ellingham from Samuel Le Grice to Samuel Le Grice (junior) in 1904 and abstract of the trustee of sale under the will of Samuel Le Grice (1906). Harry Apling; 1904-1990; historian, author; Essex, Hingham, Norfolk (1904-1990). Norfolk Record Office. Catalogue Ref: C/WT/1/19/50
Great Ellingham Parish Registers. Norfolk Record Office. PD 609.
1911 census RG14/11473
UK, British Army World War I Service Records, 1914-1920. William Storey. 171557. Labour Corps. The National Archives; Kew, Surrey, England; War Office: Soldiers’ Documents, First World War Wo363. Viewed via Ancestry.co.uk (Ancestry.com. UK, British Army World War I Service Records, 1914-1920 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008.) 1st April 2021