Fred Pickstone (July 2005)
Robert inherited "The Hobbits" from his father Thomas in 1801. His eldest child was Robert, the village schoolmaster who died in 1854. Robert, the elder, was a carpenter, presumably the same Robert who was paid for making a desk, chair and shelves in 1810 for a village school that had opened in 1809. Records show that a Robert Moncaster was one of a twelve man Manor Court Jury for Husthwaite that was sworn in on 15th May, 1817 - was he father or son ?
When Robert died he left a will dated 5th August, 1823. His widow Mary and son attended a Manor Court on 14th April, 1824, at which they were admitted tenants of "The Hobbits", left by Robert, deceased, on payment of a fine of 3 shillings and 4 pence. Robert had been a copyholder, that is one who held his land by right of title entered in the Manor Court Rolls. A copy of this document was given to the tenant - hence the term "copyholder". When transferring copyhold property, the tenant was required to surrender it to The Lord of the Manor, from whom the new tenant received it on the payment of fine, i.e. a fee. After Mary died in 1834 son Robert inherited the property.
Robert, the elder, lived in turbulent times When he was 14 years old the American colonies gained their independence, when he was 27, the Bastille was stormed in Paris, and he was in his fifties when the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815. Pitt the Younger was Prime Minister in 1793 when Robert married Mary Blackburn and the Duke of York was leading 6,500 British soldiers in a coalition of 30,000 attempting to take Dunkirk from the French. Son Robert was born in 1796, the year Napoleon tried to invade rebellious Ireland. Daughter Ann was born in 1798, the year of the Battle of the Nile, and Mary in 1802, when the Treaty of Amiens brought a brief peace.
Youngest child Ann arrived in 1806. soon after the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 st October, news of which didn't reach Pitt until the early hours of 7th November. When did Husthwaite hear of this victory ? To pay for the war Pitt trebled some taxes and then, in 1798, he introduced Income Tax. Two old pence in the pound was charged on annual incomes over £60 and 10% on incomes over £200.
How many people in Husthwaite, with its preponderance of agricultural labourers, were affected? To round off the closing years of Robert's life there was unrest amongst the people of the growing industrial cities, but had he heard, during this eventful period in our history, that his king suffered bouts of madness?