Barmby on the Marsh history - 2

Soon after writing about the mills at Barmby I had a message from Stuart whose ancestors were in fact the millers there at one time. His 3x great grandfather was John Cook who was a miller at Barmby. John's daughter Sarah married John Fox in 1856 whose father, Joseph Fox, was a miller at Airmyn.

Joseph Fox had moved from Airmyn to Brumby (Lincolnshire) where he was unfortunately killed on the 7th January 1839 during the great storm when he went out to inspect the mill and a large wooden spar fell on him.

Stuart is happy to share this information and I too would be happy to put any other interesting bits of family history on this blog for others to read.

I am continuing my researches into the village and have just obtained a copy of an 18th century Barmby inventory for a weaver who left a loom in his (work) shop.

Barmby on the Marsh history

I am finding the history of Barmby on the Marsh fascinating at the moment. Whilst I have quite a lot of information on the village already, I am looking at it again and finding new material. 

Situated as it is at the end of the road from Howden, not too many people nowadays know the village - but in earlier times most of those who lived there benefited from being both on the banks of the Ouse and at the start of the Derwent navigation. 

There was a large weaving industry making sailcloth for the visiting vessels and many families were watermen, making their living from the river. There were ferries to both Drax and Hemingbrough and regular 'market boats' to both Hull and Selby.

The land around the village was not enclosed until 1853 and before this villagers had rights to graze on the Marsh - 'marsh gates' - and annual  horse races were held.

I have been looking at the mill or mills - I think there were two: a post mill outside the village and a smock mill in the village centre. I would like to know more of them.

So far I know that in January 1839  both Barmby mills were  blown down in a storm and that in 1851 Alexander Bell from Gilberdyke, John Cooke and Thomas Collins were millers. By 1861 Joseph Wood was a miller.

Barmby also had an inn called the Windmill kept by Thomas Johnson in the 1850s and in 1864 by William Jackson, who was fined that year for staying open too long.

In 1870 Joseph Fenton was refused a spirit licence for the the Windmill beerhouse as it was said that there were already four public houses for the 330 inhabitants in the village.

An advertisement for the sale of the Barmby on the Marsh windmill from 1834

The last public execution at York

While researching the village of Barmby on the Marsh I came across an interesting, if rather gruesome, piece of information.

One of the village families in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was called Brooksbank. In the mid-nineteenth century William Brooksbank of Barmby married an Ann Parker. Her brother, 21-year-old Frederick Parker of Hemingbrough, was apparently the last person to be publicly executed at York Castle.

He was executed on 4th April 1868 having been found guilty of murdering another young man, Daniel Driscoll, at Hemingbrough on 1st March 1868.