The pub's role in the Richards ancestry - Part 1

The "pub", or public house, seems to have featured strongly in the Richards line, certainly from the mid 19th century onwards. We ran/owned pubs both in North Devon and, later, in Wales.

John Richards (1815-1897) was the father of Richard Richards, the latter being the family member that came over to Wales from Devon and was part of my direct line (see previous post here). It appears that John was born in Trentishoe in the same year as a very historic event - the Battle of Waterloo where the French Emperor Napoleon was defeated by the allied forces under the Duke of Wellington, which reversed what was started in the French Revolution and restored the French crown (link).

John married Mary-Ann Hoyles (1824-1891) in or around 1846, and it seems that Mary-Anne's family were running/owning the Hunters Inn in the Heddon Valley in the parish of Martinhoe.

Mary-Ann Richards (nee Hoyles)  

The 1841 census shows that the Hoyles were running the Hunters Inn in 1841, but that John and Mary-Anne had taken it over by the time of next census (1851). It's possible that John and Mary-Anne moved into the Hunters Inn before they were married in 1846, but perhaps one would have expected to have done that after they were married, i.e sometime between 1846 and 1851. Before they moved to the Hunters Inn, they were apparently living at Trentishoe Coombe Cottages, where there is evidence that their first 2 children Elizabeth (b. 1846) and John (b. 1849) were born.

Trentishoe Coombe Cottages (circa early 1900s) - posted in Ancestry.com stating "John and Mary lived in one of these cottages from 1845 to 1850. Elizabeth and John were born here. They then took over Hunter's Inn from Mary's family" (thanks to Angela Manning for posting)

My father outside Trentishoe Coombe Cottages January 2014

This narrows down the time they moved to the Hunters Inn to between 1849 and 1851. The following link referring to White's Directory of 1850 link to devonheritage.org states "John Richards, victualler Hunters Inn".  The image below is possibly from that time.

Hunters Inn (early 20th century, rebuilt post the 1895 fire which destroyed the building that John and Mary-Ann lived in) 

Hunters Inn today (http://www.thehuntersinnexmoor.co.uk)

Tragically, we know that John and Mary-Ann's eldest child, Elizabeth (or Eliza as it seems she was known) only survived 2 years. She is buried with her parents and her passing in 1849 is recorded on the headstone of their grave in Trentishoe church.

My direct ancestor, Richard, was born in the Hunters Inn in December/January 1850/1851 as we are told in the 1851 census (taken on 30 March 1851) to be 4 months old. His brother Thomas (see post here) was born a few years later in the Hunters Inn in 1853.

It would seem that John and Mary-Anne were running the Hunters Inn as late as 1880/1, as the 1881 census shows that they were living in Trentishoe parish. Hunters Inn was in the Martinhoe parish. So at least they were not living there at the time of the fire which devastated the pub in 1895! It is unclear which property they moved to, but both the 1881 and 1891 censuses showed them living in Trentishoe parish.

John died in 1897 and is buried as St Peters Church, Trentishoe with Mary-Anne who had died earlier in 1891 and their infant daughter Eliza. Their grave is in close vicinity to that of John's father Richard (1790-1875).

The grave of John Richards, his wife Mary-Anne (nee Hoyles) and their daughter Eliza (Elizabeth) - St Peters Church, Trentishoe

Part 2 of the pub's role in our family line revolves around John's son Richard who moved to Wales and it was his son (another Richard) who ran a pub in Neath, the Duke of Wellington (ironically commemorating the victor in the war which was won in the same year that his grandfather was born!)..........see next post!