The Sillences were new to Hursley, having moved into the village from Lockerley, four miles to the west. We don't know what took them to Hursley, but the family grew new roots in the village and established themselves in the farming community. They must have been fairly well-off in comparison to any of the other farmers in the area, for by his early 30s George Self Sillence was a yeoman farmer - that is, one in possession of his own land, rather than farming as a tenant - and living an apparently successful life. Many yeoman farmers were in a position to employ servants, and often also had a hand in the political life of their local area. To boot, he had had two sons - William and George Thomas - with his wife Ann (nee Browning,) and they would doubtless have helped out from an early age, providing a firm base for George Self Sillence to eventually pas on his land and farming business.
Fate, however, had other ideas, and at the age of 34 George Self Sillence contracted a disease that was largely the domain of the city poor - consumption (or tuberculosis.) Violent coughing, chest pains, fever, chills, and fatigue were just some of the symptoms that George suffered, all under the helpless watch of his wife and young sons. Despite his sufferings, consumption was known as "the good death" for it allowed George sufficient time to put his affairs in order before he inevitably succumbed. As a yeoman farmer, he would have had a certain amount of property to bequeath which, as the transcript below details, was left to his wife Ann, to continue for the benefit of the family, until such a time as she married again. It is this combination of owning property and being aware of his own impending death that led George to create his will, one of only a couple that my research has uncovered in the whole of our family history.
George Self Sillence died on 18 February 1840, aged 34.Present at his death was William Goffe, one of the appointed executors of George's will and, a brother-in-law (William was married to George's sister, Jane.) George was buried at All Saints' Church, Hursley, on 21 February 1840. His wife, Ann, was probably secure enough in her finances following his death, but would eventually go on to marry Stephen Noyes, with whom she would have two more children, Charles and Mary. It was around the time of Charles' birth that, armed with an inheritance released to him following his mother's re-marriage, eldest son George Thomas would take our Sillences out of the countryside and into the city of Southampton, where the family would become synonymous with the port's physical growth and economic development. But that is a story is for another day.
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| All Saints' Church, Hursley. The Sillences would have known the building pictured here - although within a few years of George Self Sillence's death, a new building had replaced it, courtesy of the Vicar of Hursley, John Keble |
Absolutely fascinating!
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