Christmas in Sussex

The appropriately named Richard Christmas was baptised on Christmas Day 1838 in Chiddingly.

Christmas is one of the rarer surnames (it is ranked 26,344th in the world) but it is not so unusual in Sussex.  It may have its origins with a 12th century Cristemass family although it is often thought to be a surname given to those involved in organising Christmas celebrations or to someone born at Christmastime.

Richard Christmas’s family were sometimes recorded as Christmas but more frequently their surname was spelled Chrismas.

Richard's father was Treyton Chrismas who was born around 1810, possibly the son of James and Sarah Chrismas of Wartling.  Treyton married Mary Ann Sargeant on the 22nd September 1833 in Ticehurst (this made his wife Mary Christmas and the marriage was witnessed by Henry Cole aka Old King!).  

Treyton and Mary had a large family beginning with Frances baptised in Ninfield in 1834 and followed by Orpah (1835), Benjamin (1837) and Richard; all baptised in Chiddingly.  The family then moved to Battle where Treyton farmed at Beech Farm and the family grew with the addition of Mary (1840), Tilden (1841), Jane (1843), Trayton (1844), Thomas (1847), Charles (1848), Sarah Elizabeth (1850) and Frederick George (1851).

Jane doesn’t appear in the 1851 census with the family so it’s probable she died in infancy despite the lack of burial record and there is no baptism record for Thomas but he appears with the family in 1851.  Treyton junior died in 1846 but all other children appear to survive to adulthood.  The 1851 census entry refers to a daughter named Charlotte but this appears to be an enumerator error as Charlotte was actually Charles.

Treyton and Mary’s youngest son was born posthumously after his father died on the 3rd May 1851 aged just 43 years.  His will is straightforward and leaves everything to his wife who moved to Hastings where she continued to bring up their young family.

Richard, according to the 1861 census, trained as a blacksmith and by 1861 was working just down the road from his mother’s house.  He married Mahalath Dabney in 1860 when he was just 21 years old and she was only 18 years.  A year later their daughter Mahalath Jane was baptised in St Leonards church on the 7th April 1861.

Mahalath was to remain an only child, Richard sadly died just a few years later at the age of only 25 years.  By 1871 Mahalath was living with her maternal grandparents, William and Sarah Dabney, in Hastings – her mother had probably remarried but this cannot be confirmed at present.  In about 1880 Mahalath met Constantine Maguire who was working at a drapery shop in Hastings high street.  They soon found themselves having to marry and just a few weeks later their eldest son Horace was baptised.  Horace was followed by May Frances in 1883 and after moving to Newhaven they also had Hubert Joseph in 1888.

Like her father Richard, and her grandfather Treyton, Mahalath died young.  She was only 28 years old when she died in Lewes.  Constantine and their three children moved in with his parents.  Constantine never remarried, by 1901 he was working in an iron foundry as a foreman in Lewes but by 1911 he was a house painter in Eastbourne.  He may have died in 1924 in London.

Richard’s grandchildren were slightly longer lived than their mother, grandfather and great grandfather.  Horace began working as a footman in Kensington before setting up his own business as a newsagent in Pimlico.  He married Rosa Blatchford in 1912 and they had three children – Anthony (1914) and twins Mary and Winifred (1917).  He died in 1963 at the age of about 73 years.  His sister May never appears to have married. She worked as a school nurse in Lewes for a while and died in Somerset at the age of 83 years.  Their younger brother, Hubert, began by following the same career path as Horace as the 1911 census shows him working as a footman in Marylebone.  He married Jane Leachman in 1915 in Lincolnshire and they had two children Albert (1918) and Alaric (1924).  Hubert was the first of the three siblings to die - he died in 1947 at the age of 58 years.

Work and working class women

According to the 1881 census only 42% of women worked, but that doesn't mean that the other 58% were sitting around with their feet up.  It simply reflects that women's employment was seen as unimportant and negligible.  This is because it was often seasonal, part time, poorly paid or a support role for their father or husbands own work.

Many women worked in a domestic environment, taking care of their own home or other peoples.  Elizabeth Burtenshaw was typical, she was born in 1866 in Albourne to John Burtenshaw, an agricultural labourer but by the age of 15 years she was working as a servant for Simeon Gumbrill.  For blacksmith Simeon employing a servant was a step towards middle class status. 

Many women in Sussex would have worked on the land, taking care of their own vegetable patch, working alongside their husbands or fathers or as seasonal help.  Ruth Gutsell worked as dairy maid in Upper Dicker (Arlington) before she married but whilst the 1871 census entry suggests she is no longer working it is highly likely that she is still working. 

The industrial revolution gave women a new work opportunity.  Sussex was not at the heart of industrial growth but it was not unaffected.  There were many new developing industries along with pre-existing industries.  Women of all ages could work in a factory and it was a work opportunity that was available to many married women as well as single women.  The paper factory in Stedham employed many local women including Ann Burns, a 35 year old widow and Jane Simmonds was still working there at the age of 65 years.

Outwork was another employment option for married women, working from home could be fitted in around caring for their children.   Outwork was considered socially acceptable for women; factory work gave women an independence that worried society, farm work was too coarse and domestic work took women until other people's houses making them possible prey to immoral employers.  Many women working as dressmakers and milliners would have been working at home such as 14 year old Elizabeth Deeks in Brighton and 73 year old Ann Longhurst of Angmering.

There were many other jobs women undertook, many without the recognition that they were working.  A search of the census shows many families taking in lodgers to supplement the family income and it was the women who took care of the extra work involved.  Maria Collis of Westhampnett earned an income as a charwomen and rented a room to a lodger whilst the five daughters of Richard Geere, a builder in Brighton, all earned an income as teachers.  Some women would have earned a less than salubrious income from prostitution, it is estimated that 7% of the population of Victorian London were prostitutes (possibly as much as 15% of the female population).  Whilst prostitute was generally listed in the census under occupation there might be clues to the real occupation of such women as Alex Kingston found out on a recent episode of Who Do You Think You Are?

Some women broke the mould, taken on what was usually seen as men's work.  Sarah and Elizabeth Ray followed their father Daniel into the family silversmithing business in Battle whilst Caroline Burkenshaw worked as a carrier in West Itchenor.

It is reasonable to think, regardless of whether the census showed an occupation or not, that our working class female ancestors were hard workers and they contributed to the family income.