Thomas Phillips

Thomas Phillips (Entry 7 in the burial register) was buried 5th March 1856 in plot F47

This particular person starts to show some of the problems involved in unravelling genealogical records of this period.

There was a Thomas Phillips baptised in Dean Prior on 26 Jan 1786 son of William & Elizabeth, who could be the Thomas Phillips we are trying to trace. The age would match with the burial register which shows him as aged 71.

By the time of the 1841 census, Thomas Phillips was living in Russell Lane, West Teignmouth.  He was an agricultural labourer aged 55.  His wife was Ann, aged 50 and they had two children – a daughter Ann aged 14 and a son William aged 9

By 1851, according to the census, the family were living in Muer(?) Lane, East Teignmouth.  Thomas Phillips was head of the household, a farm labourer aged 66.  We learn that he was born in Dean, Devon, which could correspond to Dean Prior.  His wife was now aged 60 and had been born in Exminster(?).  Their daughter Ann, now 23, had been born in Morley, Devon, and was a dressmaker whilst their son William, aged 18, was a labourer born in East Teignmouth.  There was also had a visitor in the house, Rebecca Green a widow aged 77 described as a pauper born in Exeter.

Research notes: The handwriting on the 1851 census is difficult so the name of the lane is not clear and Ann senior’s birthplace appears to say Exminster but a Thomas Phillips married Mary Ann Marshall in Ermington on 19 Aug 1821 which could be the right couple, image not available online.  There was also a Thomas Phillips, widower of Morley, who married Ann Parsons in Halwell on 27 June 1826 but the image appears to show that both signed the register which seems less likely for a labourer.  However Ann Parsons Phillips was baptised on 13 May 1827 in Moreleigh, daughter of Thomas & Ann, Thomas a farmer of Moreleigh.  I can’t find a baptism online for William.

Interestingly Thomas’s death was reported in the Western Times of 8th March 1856:

“SUDDEN DEATH: A labourer named Thomas Phillips, about seventy years of age, was seized with a fit after he had left work on Friday and died early on the following morning.”

According to the burial register Thomas was aged 71 when he died and was buried in an unbricked grave in consecrated ground.  The burial was presided over by Revd. John Russell Sherlock/Thurlock(?)