The Hampshire Family Historian | Vol.48 No.4 | March 2022

Member’s article

Our ancestors were ‘Coastguard Boatmen!’ The Reddings’, our father’s side of the family were not much known to us. He grew up in Torpoint, Cornwall. We recall talking to him about his immediate (findmypast/familysearch.org.uk) was found by our ‘family history friend and mentor’, Betty. They had married in 1832 at East Blatchington, Sussex. Why so far from Cornwall? Was William ‘at sea’?

forebears quite often. As for any ‘further back’ information, nothing was ever said. Thomas Redding, Mary Ann Redding and William Barrett? In about 2010 we set about finding out! Census searches soon revealed Thomas REDDING , born 1799, was our great, great grandfather and that he had been born in Mevagissey, Cornwall and had grown up in Fowey. He was employed as a boatman/chief boatman in the coast guard service until his retirement in 1865 in Wells Next the Sea, Norfolk. He had travelled from coastguard station to coastguard station along the south coast and ‘up’ the east coast - from Fowey to Wells. The family made at least twenty moves! Thomas REDDING was one of five. His siblings included Mary Ann b.1811, and Richard b.1820. Their parents were John b.1783 FOWEY and Mary DODGE b.1799 in Mevagissey. In the Fowey 1841 census we found John Redding (b 1783). He was in the household of Mary Ann BARRETT and two boys, Richard Barrett 7 years and William Barrett 5 years. We went on to establish that Mary Ann was his daughter (parish birth records/local - Connor’s) and the boys his grandchildren. Searches for her marriage and the birth records of the boys yielded no results. We found no trace of Mary Ann BARRETT and her family in Fowey in 1851. In 2017 the record of the marriage of Mary Ann REDDING and a William Barrett,

Census records for William Barrett (son, b. about 1834) include different ‘birth places’ . . but in 1851 he says he was born at a place we later ‘deciphered’ as ‘Shoreham’ A ‘location link’ with the parents’ marriage at East Blatchington! In 2018/19 we searched the Admiralty Coastguard Establishment book s. We found that Thomas Redding, boatman, was in the Newhaven/Shoreham area in the 1830s. We found a William BARRETT , boatman, in the area, also. Perhaps a ‘location/occupation’ link’ between the Redding and Barrett families. We discovered from the 1851 census that Mary Ann had married for a second time to George ROBINS . It looked like William Barrett, b.1804, might have died before 1851! We continued to search for William’s birth (abt. 1805) and death. No certain birth record and no sign of his death. Later we found ‘a William BARRETT ’ born abt. 1804 at Landulph, Cornwall. We discovered, also, that Mary Ann’s brother, Richard (a mariner) had married (1839) Betsy Barrett. Her father, Richard Barrett (b. 1783, Landulph) was in the coast guard service! Landulph, the place where ‘the’ William we had found was born! Was this William’s ‘Barrett’ family? Was he a brother to Betsy Barrett? Was he a coastguard man, too?? Maybe a ‘location and occupation’ trail really had been found!?

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