Mewes Family History

 The family MEWSE

© Richard Green 2001
There have been Mewses in Lowestoft from the 16th Century to today, and apart from a couple of short periods they remained in Lowestoft until the ease of 20th century transport enabled a spread world - wide. I have been helped in this research by Russell Mewse and Lisa Eade, to whom, along with several others, go my thanks.
200 years of butchers
The earliest record of the Mewses is of one “John MUSE of Lowstoff”, who in 1508 was an apprentice with the Worshipful Company of Butchers in the City Of London. He was trading as a butcher in St Johns Street, London when he was accused in 1518 that he “daily useth to blowe the kydneyes” to make them swell and “seem much greater than they would be”.
He was bound over with two sureties, Edward LANGHORN and Robert DUNNE, two other butchers of St Johns Street, to appear and answer before the Mayor and Aldermen, but the result of the action is not known.
Each member of the Company, a trades guild, had to make an annual subscription, and in 1522 John Muse was being looked for to pay, but apparently he had left London, to disappear for ever! It seems likely, but not certain, that he went back home and practiced his skills in Lowestoft, and was probably (not proved, however) the father of Wyllyam MEWSE, my 10 times great grandfather who was a butcher and who was buried in 1582.
Butchery remained the major trade in the Mewse family until at least 1725, and each generation throws up new butchers. Was John the first of the Mewses to be a butcher? So far research has not been able to get back further than 1508, but work continues on this.
Wyllyam left two houses in Lowestoft in his will, proved in 1582 - one in High Street and the other in West Lane. The High Street one was almost certainly his place of work. Butchers’ shops at this time were of two kinds - a simple stall set up in a market place or on the side of a street, and houses which had shuttered window spaces, whereby the shutters were hinged near the bottom and swung out into the street to form a stall during the day and to provide security at night when closed. It was likely that the High Street shop was of the latter type, and that beneath it was a cellar (crypts which have been dated to the 15th century still exist under several of the existing High Street shops ) which had a large drain. This would enable the cleansing of the animals’ intestines and the disposal of waste material - always a source of trouble, smell and complaints at the time. John’s training in London included the use of such a facility. The drain probably came out into the open at the base of the cliff on top of which stood High Street.
At the back of the shop, if it were used for living in, would be a separately built kitchen, in order to reduce fire risk, and an earth closet, as well as a plot of land on which would be kept the animals for slaughter. These were probably killed outside, and the carcases taken into the main room against the street for cutting up.
All the family would have provided labour as soon as they were old enough - the youngest children were probably used at first to frighten away cats and dogs who were interested in free food. The shutter - stalls holding the meat would go some way to prevent this, as would the rails and hooks above the windows from which carcases would hang - undoubtedly festooned in flies - but stealing by animals and pilfering by shoplifters was always a problem. The older boys would be trained to succeed their father, and in later generations this extended to nephews as well.
Wyllyam was succeeded in the business by his sons Thomas and Willyam, but Willyam was buried in 1592 and it was Thomas who carried on until he died in 1620. Thomas married Phillip PEARCE in 1583. (during the 16th century Phillip was a female name and only later became the Philippa we know today.)
Thomas’ son Willyam married Amy ALLDEN in 1608 and had ten children of whom three at least continued in the business - William, bap 1619, Thomas bap 1621 and Philip bap 1629. Another son, John, was born in 1592 and his son Simon, cousin to Willyam, Thomas and Philip, became a butcher until he died in 1719.
At this time meat was not allowed to be sold or eaten on Fridays or in Lent, and fish was the only alternative. Most butchers in seaside areas sold fish as well as meat, and the Mewse family were no exception.
The town of Lowestoft was built at the top of some cliffs, just inland from the sea, and there was a flat area between the base of the cliffs and the sand dunes which formed the coast. There were a number of narrow pathways called scores which led from the High Street down to the flat area on which there were many wooden “fish houses” used for the storage and curing of fish caught by Lowestoft’s fishermen. The Mewses had at least one of these, for in 1664 John [bap 1619] lost £100 worth of goods (£10,500 in modern terms) in a disastrous fire which swept through the area, causing also some £50 loss for his brother Thomas.
A Lowestoft Score
Nevertheless, the family business weathered the loss, for in 1711, two years before Willyam died aged 94, it is recorded that a “bell for St Margaret’s Church was cast in Willm Mewse’s fish house”. William was evidently a churchgoer, because in 1680 he is recorded as being Churchwarden for St Margaret’s.
When Simon MEWSE died in 1719 the business was carried on by his son Simon, born 1672 who married a Margaret SYMONDS in 1693, joining John [bap 1669], his cousin, the son of Philip, and the last recorded butcher was Samuel, bap 1712, grandson of Simon’s who married Elizabeth CANHAM.
A family rift
William was my seven times great grandfather and was born in 1637. He was one of the sons of John MEWSE who had a such heavy loss to bear when the fish houses caught fire, and perhaps because of the family’s financial hardship he went to London and had his first two children in Wapping. The family returned to Lowestoft before 1665, perhaps as an escape from the plague of that year.He had married Rebecca FRARY from Lowestoft in 1658 when she was 18, and they had a family of ten children, seven of whom died in infancy. The eldest was named after his father, another William and the last child was born in 1676 when Rebecca would have been 36.
Presumably Rebecca then died, for there were no more births to William and Rebecca, but by 1678 William had remarried and with his new wife Ruth produced four more children, the eldest of which was called William!
Son William the elder would have been in his late teens when his mother Rebecca died and was replaced by Ruth so soon after, and one can imagine the relationship between father and son breaking down at this point, Father William perhaps being disowned by his first son William at the time of the marriage. Whilst it was common for a child to be named the same in the family after the first one died, it was extremely unusual to have two Williams living as sons to the same man.
Father William’s will explains it. His “houses and tenements in Lowestoft” were left to his son “William, which I had by the said Ruth” after his mother’s death, but to William his son by Rebecca Frary “the sum of five shillings to be paid within three months if the same be lawfully demanded” was a way of ensuring he could make no claim as the eldest son on the property in Lowestoft.
And the family name of William was ignored with the next generation, for William the son of Rebecca married Ann SMITH and called his eldest son Samuel. Thomas, this William’s brother, went off to live in Ormesby.
But Samuel, William’s son, was clearly not an “accredited” member of the butcher family and presumably had no house to offer when he married Ann HALTAWAY in about 1769, for he went to live in her village, Corton, close by Lowestoft and their eldest son William became the landlord of the White Horse in that village. His third son was called Samuel and remained in Corton for all his life, but Samuel’s son Samuel, by then a fisherman, married a Lowestoft girl called Ann BARBER and returned to live in Lowestoft in 1797.
The Lowestoft Lifeboat
From then until 1900 the family appears to have been living exclusively in Lowestoft, and were largely concerned with the fishing and allied trades, like twinespinning and netmaking.
Fishing created a need for a beach storage area and the Mewse family belonged to the “Old Company” [which was one of three in Lowestoft] which used a large storage warehouse called a shod. Here, when not out fishing, the men would congregate, so that they might be readily available in case a ship got into difficulties - not primarily for humanitarian reasons, but because there was money in salvage work. When a problem was seen, each company raced out to the wreck and the first one there got the salvage money.
The “Company” men also had a reputation for smuggling, but there is no legal evidence of a Mewse involvement - perhaps they were just not caught! The Mewse family and those relations involved in fishing lived in a small village called “Beach”, a suburb of Lowestoft on the flat area behind the dunes known as the Denes.
When lifeboats were introduced, the companies were looked to for the provision of fishermen to man the lifeboat. The first lifeboat was provided in 1801, but the Beach men would not man it, saying that its design was unsuitable for the conditions at Lowestoft approaches.
The first usable lifeboat, provided seven years later, was the “Mary Ann”, built in Beach, and manned by men from the companies, although the old system of companies racing out for salvage continued for many years.
Samuel MEWSE, who married Ann BARBER had eight children and his son John Barber MEWSE became a registered seaman. He first went to sea, presumably as a deck hand or cabin boy at the age of 15. His seaman’s ticket, no 112046, obtained when he was 35 years old, gave his height as 5’3”, of fresh complexion, with grey eyes and brown hair.
John, married Mary Ann CRISPE in 1832 and sired 13 children, of which at least five survived. One of them was John, born in 1837, who not only became my great grandfather, but also took a very active part in the lifeboat scene. In 1866 John junior was involved in an heroic rescue from the “Osip” along with two of his brothers, which earned him a medal, and members of the Mewse family were lifeboatmen until 1911. John junior himself became second coxswain of the lifeboat in 1896, and was coxswain from 1901 to 1911.
John (b 1837) married twice, and his daughter Fanny from his first wife married the nephew of his second wife. They were a close knit community. His first wife, with whom he had two children, Frances GARNER, died in 1863, and he married Elizabeth CRICKMORE in 1867; they had 10 children, of whom three survived to adulthood, but only one was a boy.
His son, John Samuel, became a footballer and played for Lowestoft Town F.C., marrying Louisa Emily WILKIN and creating a family which today spans the world - Canada and Australia as well as the UK. His daughter Elizabeth Mary Ann, who became one of the first teachers at Lovewell Road Infants School, married Frank James GREEN, and became my grandmother. The other daughter married but had no children.
A long way from 1508, but the line of descent is clear, and there are still Mewses in Lowestoft.




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