The Bromley Mister Pickwick

Charles Dickens published the 20 monthly instalments of his first novel between April 1836 and November 1837entitled The Pickwick Papers or the Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club,Containing a Faithful Record of the Perambulations,Perils,Travels,Adventures and Sporting Transactions of the Corresponding Members. Since then there has been a well documented tradition in Bromley that the original Mister Pickwick was based upon Robert Booth Rawes who with other mebers of his family lead a boarding school for boys.
The Pickwick Papers contains  within the Travels and Perambulations" an accurate description of coaching inns. Bromley had both stage coaching inns and several generations of the Weller family stage-coachmen. One wonders how familiar the 24 year old Charles Dickens may have been with Bromley and whether he had encountered the Wellers?
Rawes Academy was founded as a boarding school for boys as early as 1730 and was situated in Bromley High Street. There is no extant record of the founder however it is believed the Rawes family became involved in the 1780's. The Rates Books for  1787/8 assess messrs Booth and Rawes in the sum of £100 and various record sources identify Richard Rawes as churchwarden in 1789 so there is documentary evidence of his involvement in the school in the 1780's.
Other members of the family joined the school so that by the time of his retirement Richard had been succeeded by Robert Booth Rawes and William and Joseph Rawes and the Rawes Academy was a well established Bromley institution. Richard Rawes died aged 72 and his burial register entry in 1814 describes him as a Gentleman.
In the surviving 1801 Census of Bromley Kent Online Parish Clerks transcript  Richard Rawes Academy contained 124 males and 9 females and it is reasonable to conclude that over 100 boys were boarded. Bromley was a pleasant country town with good coach connections and had attracted reputable surgeons to the town and had attracted Jane Austen to describe the Bell Inn favourably in Pride and Prejudice.
Medical care for the Rawes Academy is documented in the dispensing and accounts ledger of Doctor Thomas Ilott whose surgery was in the High Street facing the Bell Inn.Doctor Ilott between 1809 and 1811 records treatment of many named pupils and occasionally staff members.The Rawes account is headed Messrs Rawes's Academy in the Folio C ledger deposited at Bromley Archive.
Whilst we may never know of Dickens familiarity with Bromley,the Wellers or Robert Booth Rawes there are many references in local history of the town to the tradition that the author drew upon Robert Booth Rawes in his first novel for Pickwick.

The Bromley Kent medical practice of Doctors William Roberts and Thomas Ilott circa 1808

William Child was the town's medical practioner until his retirement in 1807 after William Roberts had joined him in practice. Thomas Ilott who came from Oxfordshire joined Roberts in 1808 ( it is believed).
The practice at this time covered a wide part of what is now referred to as South London and provided medical care to various parishes in the district.
Bromley Archive holds a fascinating glimpse of medical practice at that time as well as a valuable record of households and named individuals close to the rare survival 1801 Census of Bromley transcribed at Kent Online Parish Clerks.
The Archive holds a very large ledger book with 1141 entries and several other items arising from it under reference 617. The ledger is one of four and originally was catalogued as volume C but the label on the spine to denote this has been lost. The pages contain continued references to an earlier account referred to as "B" and carry over to a further volume "D". We therefore have one quarter of the known ledgers of the practice from this period of history.
Illott is named;Roberts is not and the ledger is catalogued as his accounts ledger. Medical practice is recorded in abbreviated medical Latin so a home visit is recorded as "iter" was not charged for and a limited number of recurring treatements are referred to.
The doctors charged one guinea for delivering a child "delivery" and 10 shillings and sixpence for smallpox inoculations. They syringed ears and extracted teeth "dent" and treated fractured bones or dislocations often referred to as reduc. or  medical latin reduco. Their limited range of medicinal prescriptions include pain relief tonics (robor. or roboro) plaster (emp. or emplastrum),drops,linctus,pills,powders,ointments,draughts,mixtures,purgatives and iron tonics or wines.
The doctors were contracted to provide care for the poor of several parishes including Cudham,Hayes,Keston,Knockholt and Orpington and the established tradesmen of the town and various parishes are named. Large households from Chislehurst, Downe,Keston,Leaves Green and Wickham are featured and patients in London,Newington and Dulwich are included.
Notable and titled householders including the Attorney General (Sir Vicary Gibbs) and the wife of the poet Lady Byron were attended by Doctor Ilott. In the collection of practice material under reference 617/25 a letter from Lady Byron from Hastings mentions her health and that of a daughter. She had at the time separated from her husband George 6th Baron Byron and stayed for a time in Beckenham with her daughter Ada. The practice has a loose account under reference 617/8 for Lord Byron who was the poets cousin George Anson Byron and the successor to the title on the poets death in 1824.
The neglected record provides a link to Bromley's census householders and named servants enable a picture to form of households of notable townspeople and families in surrounding parishes.
Under terms of an agreement between Bromley Archives and Kent Online Parish Clerks I will be transcribing this valuable record for online publication during 2015; the resulting index will also be available electronically for searchers at the Archive. The ledger has not been microfilmed.

The 1801 Census of Bromley

I undertook transcription of the rare survival 1801 census in 2013 at Bromley Archive. My transcript has been been online at Kent Online Parish Clerks see 1801 Bromley census. Bromley's population in 1801 is 2700 people.
Prior to the census taken on the 10 day of March the parish was asked to make another return from its registers.
The census reflects those who provided the census information  Henry Smith, D.D., Minister; Edward Latter, Vestry Clerk; John Pepper and L. Ashworth, Churchwardens; Samuel Floyd and [given name illegible] Chalkley, Overseers.
The Home Office stated "A correct return of the Baptisms,Burials and Marriages of the year 1800 is peculiarly requisite,as being the connecting Link of the series of Parish Registers with the Enumerated Population of 1801 and subsequent Enumerations.
The draft form has been left inside the flap cover of the bound Bromley Composite Register number one which covers the years 1558-1715 for some events. The form requires the number of Baptisms Burials and Marriages for three year clusters for:
1569
1570
1571  for which only baptisms survive.
1599
1600
1601
1629
1630
1631
1669
1670
1671
1699
1700
1701
1749
1750
1751
1800

This crude sampling of population shows the town was growing slowly, however against this growth trend there are a number of distortions. Present within the ancient Parish were a significant number of travellers particularly on Bromley Common. The burial register reflects also a number of deaths from those staying at the Bell and White Hart Inns which were large stage coaching Inns on the 10 mile road to London Bridge to the north and Tunbridge ,Tunbridge Wells and Hastings to the south east. in addition nurse children (including children identified from the Foundling Hospital in London) are introduced to the parish and baptismal registers include adult baptisms and reflect baptism of Londoners often so described. There is therefore a shifting non resident population as well as residents of the town.
The three year clusters do not reflect the years of highest death rates during epidemics. Bromley records plague deaths more than 20 years before the Great Fire of London.
Bromley appears to have been a relatively slow growing population in a rural market town on a major coach staging a short distance from the city of London. It was not until the coming of the railway that large growth appeared much later.
The civil War touched Bromley but there is no record of any conflict in the town; the upheaval centred on evicting the Bishop of Rochester from his Palace and the installation of Puritan clergy as Ministers. Eventually the Bishop returned to the Palace and the registers return to normality with  little disruption.

Bromley transcripts go online

Kent Online Parish Clerks now have new transcripts online. Visit the Bromley parish page for all the links in one place here, Remember if you are a Firefox user you must right click on a link and select "Open in a new tab " to get the link to open for you.
The 1801 census transcript is the second 1801 census I have transcribed; such survivals are rare and Bromley Archive includes one. I know this will be a very useful transcript to searchers from emails to me once it became known I was preparing the transcript for online publication.

It is worth remembering that Kent Online Parish Clerks transcripts will be available by search engine search for an individual and it is well worth trying to search using this method as search engines may find your ancestor was included in transcription as a witness to marriage or in a Land Tax transcript as well as some Census transcripts.

I have had a number of email requests using the large search engine Yandex which is used in Eastern Erope and throughout the Russian Federation and parts of China.

Traffic to this blog represents interest from Alaska, Ukraine and traffic via Yandex as well as Google.

I must express gratitude to Susan D.Young the Kent Online Parish Clerks County Administrator who I load with transcript material. I fear that I test her weekly with transcript overload and my limited technical ability creates a heavy workload for her. She points out the newest transcript additions for the county takes Kent Online Parish Clerks past 300,000 individual entries.

I have 1/3 of the Bromley earliest Composite register at proof reading stage and subsequent Burial registers to 1812 in progress. This will greatly increase the OPC individual entries later this year and throughout 2014; we hope to transcribe all pre 1837 material and publish online.

Finally can I outline that the transcript process involves several experienced staff at the Archive and fellow genealogists kindly reviewing images of entries and proof readings so the transcript involves approximately 7 stages of review. With the exception of a predictive text month error (I no longer use this method of compiling entry material) I know of no other error in well over 100,000 entries. I am particularly grateful to genealogists who were friends of the late Bob Rubie A.G.R.A AGP and others for their generosity in assistance and donations of material. The Bromley transcripts from the 1840's onwards include Bob's own unique work as a local genealogist in tracing railway employees family history.