Thomas Mussell's stray bullet

The next instalment of family history takes us back to 1839, to the Wiltshire village of Downton in the northern New Forest.  Here, a 38-year-old Thomas Mussell lived with his second wife Charlotte and five young children.  Thomas was a lifelong resident of the forest - he was born there, and he later died there, so it was only natural that he should find employment there, working at this time as a woodsman.  We don't know for whom Thomas worked, but he would have been employed by a local landowner, on an estate that drew its income from the sale of wood.  In the course of a typical day, Thomas' work would probably have been very varied - he would have been responsible for looking after and maintaining young trees, and keeping a constant supply of wood that could be felled and sold to coppice dealers, merchants, and craftsmen.  Many woodsmen were also charcoal burners and gamekeepers, and it is likely that Thomas' role incorporated all of these.

Certainly, we know that Thomas knew his way around a gun, and controlling the local deer population was another job set by his employer.  This took a rather grisly turn on the evening of Monday 15 April 1839, as was described in the Devises and Wiltshire Gazette:

Of course, in the eyes of the justice system, the blame for this tragedy was laid squarely at the door of the deceased, Ann Hayter, who "had no doubt been stealing the wood." Because of this, no charges were brought against Thomas, but a deodand of one shilling was imposed.  A deodand was an article that, having caused the death of a human being, was forfeited to the crown and put to pious use.  In reality, this took a form of a fine. Interestingly, deodands were abolished seven years later, in 1846.

As for Thomas; he continued to work as a woodsman in the New Forest until his death in 1885.  He had ten children in total - two with his first wife Sarah (who incidentally died in childbirth, and was laid to rest on the same day as the child, also named Thomas, was baptised in 1832) and a further eight with his second wife, Charlotte.  Thomas' relationship to me is through my paternal grandmother - Thomas is my great-great-great-great grandfather.

Edgar Barclay's 1901 painting, Children of the New Forest, evokes the memory of Ann Hayter