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Four household account books, kept by the women of
the Whitehall family between 1705 and 1725, survive
in the Hatherton Collection at the Stafford Record
Office. John Whitehall purchased the manor of Pipe
Ridware about 1677. Plot described him as “a most
intelligent bee-master”. His half-timbered house,
illustrated by Stebbing Shaw, was torn down in the
19th century, but his bee-boles survive
in the walled garden of the present farmhouse. His
son and heir, James, died in 1704, leaving two small
daughters, Frances (b. 1699) and Anne (b.1700),
already motherless, orphaned. They were raised by
their two aunts, Frances (b. 1668) and Bridget (b.
1670), James’s younger sisters, at Pipe Ridware.
Neither sister ever married.
The first account book, kept by Bridget and Frances,
details the money they laid out on behalf of the “orphants”.
Items include the purchase of ingredients to worm
the children, sugar candy and treacle, mittens and
gloves and muffs, shoes and clogs and pattens,
pocket money for Christmas and Valentines, and more
types of cloth, ribbon, edging, tape and lace than
can be easily im
Among their entertainments were music, cards, visits
to friends and relations, and reading. There is a
small series of entries relating to book purchases,
which may be of interest to Johnson Society members,
as it is certain that at least some of these books
were purchased at Michael Johnson’s new bookshop in
Lichfield:
£
s d
July 19 1706 pd for thrid and Silk
and a little Book 00
03 01
June 13 1707 pd for 2 Common prayer
Books 00 03
00
Jan 2 1709 pd for 2 Bibls
00
09 00
Jan 2 1709 pd for 2 Practice of
Piety a Newyears
gift and French
Con?ert 00
05 06
Jan 2 1709 pd for a Book of the
present state of
England
00
06 00
Jan 2 1709 pd for a Reeding
desk 00
05 00
March 2 1717 pd for a Coffey taypot
and 2 plays Nails
& brass
locks
01 01 00
March 2 1717 pd for mending Misses
watch and for
books
00 15 06
May 25 1717 pd to Misses to buy
Books and to pay
Mr
Johnson
00 15 06
April 26 1718 pd for silk and brush
Letters and wool
and
book
00 03 06
In
1717 when young Anne and Frances Whitehall went into
Michael Johnson’s shop to pay their book bill, young
Samuel was seven years old and had just started at
Lichfield Grammar School. One can imagine him
skulking behind the counter of his father’s shop,
and looking with interest at these two teenage girls
from the country.
The previous
summer, Frances and Anne both had smallpox, and
their Aunt Bridget died, perhaps of the same
disease. Aunt Frances was left to raise the
“orphants” on her own. She died in 1768 and was
buried at Pipe Ridware with her sister. There is a
monument to them, which says of Frances that “she
was successful in the practice of surgery, by which
she daily reliev’d great numbers, especially of the
poor: so that her death is lamented as a publick
loss.” There is no evidence of her doctoring in the
account books, but they do not detail her personal
expenditure, only what was spent on her nieces.
In
1718 Aunt Frances made an agreement with the two
girls that “they shall have the laying out of their
Money to buy all things Necessary for them… during
the remaining time of their Minority…” I regret to
say that after this date no more books are
purchased. Instead money is spent on snuff and
cosmetics, tipped to servants and lost at cards, and
spent on “Brocaded lutestring”, “morocho leather
shoes” and wagon-loads of clothing. There are also
frequent instances of charity to tenants,
neighbours, and money “given to a poor man”. The
pace of their social life increases with frequent
visits to friends and relations and to assemblies in
Cannock, Stafford and Shrewsbury. Anne married Sir
Thomas Parker. Her older sister Frances married
Fisher Littleton of Pillaton Hall, near Penkridge,
and in this way, Pipe Ridware passed to the
Littleton family. It is nice to note that Frances
Littleton had two little daughters of her own, named
Frances and Anna, and the two women’s names seem to
have been passed down in the family for many more
generations.
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