Funnell’s Wood

The 1830s were a period of intense stress in the rural Sussex countryside. The end of the Napoleonic wars triggered an economic depression with consequences on agriculture. The reform of the “Poor Laws” (1) left many families hungry and demography was eating Parish budgets. “Captain Swing” was opposing the mechanisation which was depriving “AgLabs” of their winter revenues and enforcing productivity gains. Protests and riots were becoming commonplace even in the most remote villages of East Sussex.

Folk turned to poaching and gleaning to supplement their minimal diets. The courts showed no compassion, pronouncing after summary hearings, harsh sentences of transportation in the knowledge that most would never find their way back.

Religion was globally of little succour. The traditional Church of England no longer represented the poor (if it ever had) and anticlerical feeling was high. New currents of religion gained popularity. Baptist, non-Conformist, Calvinist, Methodist and Presbyterian preachers began to win the hearts of country folk, who would march their family more than ten miles to service on a Sunday morning in their best attire, to hear their ministers “rabble-rousing” sermons (2).

At the same time, John Wesley (the Wesleyan Methodist) was openly confronting political issues such as the abolition of slavery in the colonies whilst Cobbett was comparing the impoverished rural English farmer and the liberty and prosperity of his American counterpart.

With the consequences of eating a raw vegetable in a field or committing theft and burglary being roughly the same, it’s hardly surprising that some decided to help themselves to a larger part of the unfairly divided riches. This was the case of at least one of our ancestors.

Thomas Funnell was born in Burwash. Son of Thomas and Mary Funnell, he was baptised on the 16th of May 1802 by Joseph Langley, Curate of Saint Bartholomew’s Church, Burwash.

On the 26th of July 1824, aged 22, he married Lucy Wood (3) two years younger, born in 1804 at Dallington, the village down the road (4).

In 1827, Lucy gave birth to James Funnell. Thomas never recognised him and apparently they had no children (4).

Thomas was embarking in petty crime with familiar Sussex names like Buss, Langridge, Bond, Eastwood, Elliott, Sands and Blackford.

In 1837, Thomas was fined for “assaulting the police” with Thomas Buss. But his reputation was made when […] the most spectacular subsequent event against organised crime came in June 1838 with the arrests of members of a gang of audacious robbers’ responsible for the break-ins at various premises in Burwash and neighbouring parishes, including the huge burglary at William Pitt’s Ticehurst warehouse. The arrests were triggered by George Langridge (twenty-four) who was having an affaire with fellow gangster Thomas Funnell’s (thirty-six) wife Lucy. In an attempt to get rid of Funnell, Langridge flabloyantly waved a hat taken in the Ticehurst raid to give credence to his informations that stolen goods were stored at Funnell’s and Edward Elliott’s (twenty-two) cottages. A formal search proved the point, whereupon both Funnell and Elliott confessed. Langridge’s strategy collapsed when he was indicted as an accomplice on the evidence of the hat. George Eastwood (twenty-nine) was also taken, along with Ephraim (twenty-two) and Job Bonds (twenty-four) for another Ticehurst burglary, at Benjamin Buss’s. Eastwood proved more slippery with a ‘full confession to that, and several other burglaries’, including one at Catsfield, which implicated Langridge. Eastwood also admitted to a barn break-in, again at Ticehurst, with two men who went unnamed in the documentation, but this exonerated the Bonds brothers, who were realeased. Another prisoner, Edmund Hawkins (twenty-six), who confessed to burgling the Bear Inn, escaped from custody while on remand in the ludicrous circumstances outlines above. Mark Blackford may have been an accomplice, as he was in the audience at the committal hearing, though he ended up being fined for drunkenly intervening. Finally, Charles Sands (twenty), domiciled at the notorious Wheel, was unsuccessfully charged with lamb theft. Transportation sentences of fifteen, ten and seven years were respectively imposed on Elliott, Funnell and Langridge. Eastwood received a year’s hard labour for the bar break-in and Sands was acquitted. Eastwood’s two accomplices remained at large. During the very week that this Assize convened, there were two break-ins after wheat in Burwash, in the following week another farmer lost five bushels (5).

The 1841 census records Lucy Funnell in Burwash with James Funnell, M, [Son], age 14, born Sussex; occupation Farm labourer (6). Thomas himself is not mentioned probably “away” serving a sentence.

In 1851, the census information shows Thomas is back in Burwash with Lucy. A granddaughter, Elizabeth Venice born “about 1847″ is living with them. The parish records (4) of St Bartholomew, Burwash note (Page 82, Entry 655) the baptism on the 16th of August 1846 of Funnell Elizabeth Venus, daughter of Mary Funnell, spinster. The fathers name is not given. The baptism was conducted by John Turner (6).

In the 1861 census, Thomas is recorded as an AgLab lodging with Anthony and Elizabeth Buss in Ticehurst. Neither Lucy, James nor Elizabeth Venice (Venus) are to be found.

If you can shed any light on these Funnells, please use the comments.

Census info:
30th Mar 1851 Census
Thomas Funnell, M, Head, married, age 48, born Burwash, Sussex; occupation: Farm labourer Burwash Village, Burwash, Sussex
Lucy Funnell, F, Wife, married, age 47, born Dallington, Sussex; Burwash Village, Burwash, Sussex

6th Jun 1841 Census
James Funnell, M, [Son], age 14, born Sussex; occupation Farm labourer, Village, Burwash, Sussex