50th anniversary project

Thomas Salt project - introduction

The Essex Record Office is an amazing archive full of extraordinary documents detailing the life and work of Essex people in the past. This page celebrates the diversity of the archive and the fun that you can have researching your chosen story. The story you are about to read is not yet fully researched. It is work in progress and, in the way of much research, may never be satisfactorily completed. I continue to research it when I have free time in the Record Office and offer it especially to beginners, to show the process of research as much as the story itself. If you would like to add to it, please email drjanepearson@hotmail.com.

Thomas Salt project

I was visiting Great Dunmow church and noticed on the south nave wall a memorial as follows:-

This memorial caught my eye firstly because its lettering was rough & ready and, secondly, because it is very unusual to find a church memorial put up by (or for) someone of “the labouring class”. I sensed that Thomas Salt’s story might be special and decided to investigate it.

First Question -has anyone else researched Thomas Salt?

Great Dunmow is large enough to have a local history society/experts who might well have already researched Dr Salt’s life and works.

1. I started by checking books on Dunmow history in the Local Studies library in Colchester. I found the following -

• WJ House, A Short History of Great Dunmow Parish Church (1926) which describes why the church was restored in 1872, the festering box pews etc, but does not mention the Salt memorial.
• WT Scott, Antiquities of an Essex Parish (1873) – no mention of the memorial.
• Dorothy Dowsett, Dunmow through the Ages has a chapter on tombs and memorials in the parish church but no mention of the Salt memorial. Elsewhere in her book, Salt is referred to as the workhouse surgeon from 1832, paid £30 a year. Dowsett’s book has much to say on the problem of poverty in Dunmow from the 1790s drawn from overseer records which she quotes at length. She also mentions Rev Howlett, well-known for his liberal and robust views on the causes of poverty.
  So, although the Dunmow literature seems not to have considered Dr Salt, there are evidently some good primary sources dealing with the “labouring class” of the time Dr Salt worked there which may be useful when putting his work with the poor in context.

2. I checked Salt in the Victoria County History bibliography. This gave a reference to Hastings Worrin, ‘Dunmow and its Doctors’ Essex Review xx 144.
This paper begins by saying “the doctors in this small Essex town seem to have been rather interesting people” and goes on to feature William Swallow, Dr Reyner and Dr Sims, the latter a Quaker surgeon apothecary practicing in Dunmow from 1722-1812. There is no mention of Thomas Salt.

I also checked the Essex Review index which threw no light on Thomas Salt but did produce a 1939 paper entitled ‘Poor Relief in Great Dunmow during the Napoleonic wars’ which I photocopied. This mentioned a ‘riot’ that took place in Dunmow in 1812 over the re-positioning of a water pump, suggesting that the “labouring classes” might not be calmly accepting their poverty in early 19th century Dunmow.

So far, no-one seems to have picked up on Thomas Salt. My preliminary search has suggested that Dunmow has extensive sources on the poor of the period and that its doctors had a certain reputation.

Question 2 -does Thomas Salt feature in the obvious primary sources?

3. I asked for the 1851 census for Great Dunmow at the Local Studies Library, not having been able to find it in the drawer and was told that it was ‘lost’ in the PRO.

4. I checked the Wills index in the Colchester ERO but Thomas Salt was not listed. This probably means he had not written a will (he died aged 45). He might have owned property outside Essex so it would be worth checking the PRO Canterbury wills index. If he died without leaving a will, the intestacy records should be checked.

5. I checked the Great Dunmow burial records (ERO D/P 11/1/10) on a dreadful microfiche in Colchester branch of the ERO but could not find Thomas Salt’s burial listed. In view of 6 below I must check again! (See 14 below)

6. I checked the Chelmsford Chronicle (23rd January 1852) in Chelmsford ERO and found the following under the Died column -

These newspaper accounts help to explain the origin of the monument in the church; so much regret and respect for untiring skill and kindness needs a public statement.

7. Salt’s name was not included in Venn or Foster, so he was not an alumnus of Oxford or Cambridge universities. The Wellcome Institute library might have helpful suggestions about medical qualifications c 1820.

8. I entered Thomas Salt in the Essex Record Office on line catalogue SEAX, firstly under the personal names choice which would not proceed, then under the general search. 11 pages came up, most of the wrong dates or for ‘salt’ as in salt marsh and Thomas other surname. However, there were 5 items listed which seemed to relate to Dunmow’s Thomas Salt.

a) (ERO D/F 35/3/34) an auctioneer’s notebook (Franklin & Son) dated 1851 listing ‘Cows belonging to the late Thomas Salt, Great Dunmow…’

b) (ERO D/F 35/2/199) valuer’s notebook dated 1851-52 ‘ property of late Thomas Salt, Gt Dunmow…’

c) (ERO D/F 35/3/135) auctioneer’s notebook dated 1852 ‘…property belonging to the late Thomas Salt, Gt Dunmow including c1000 books (titles given listed under headings – miscellaneous, theological, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, medical etc)…’

d) (ERO D/DU 454/3/40) a mortgage deed dated 21st April 1830. This was for a freehold messuage and farm of 47 acres in Barling and Gt Wakering and land called Ruddocks (16a) copyhold of the manor of L Wakering in the occupation of John Lambert. The mortgage was between George May of Maldon, surgeon and Thomas Salt lately residing at Maldon but now of Guys Hospital, Southwark, surgeon, son of William Salt deceased and nephew/beneficiary of John Neve Salt of Teignmouth, deceased.
This does not necessarily refer to our Thomas Salt, but, since Dowsett (see note 1 above) says he was appointed parish surgeon in 1832, he could have been in Maldon/Southwark c 1830 and still achieve the “twenty years surgeon in Dunmow” claimed in the newspaper report. It would be worth checking Maldon, Teignmouth and Guys hospital sources.

e) (ERO D/DU 454/3/41) a mortgage deed dated 3 October 183(sic) re Thomas Salt of Great Dunmow.

Thus SEAX index suggests several ideas -

• Thomas Salt died intestate (hence his property was auctioned) by appointed executors
• He may have been connected with the Teignmouth Salt family.
• He may have had a surgeon cousin with a Guys/Maldon base; alternatively his father’s name was William.

Next visit to SEAX I tried an Advanced search, putting in Thomas Salt with the dates 1807-1860. 2 pages appeared with several items that had not been on the first search -

f) D/DU 454/3/35 – admission of John Neve Salt to 15 acres of copyhold land of the manor of Little Wakering, 16th June 1824.

g) D/DU 454/3/38 – admission of Margaret Mary Maria Salt of Teignmouth, widow, to 16acres in Little Wakering to fulfil the terms of her deceased husband’s will dated 9th November 1825.

h) D/DU 454/3/33 – a bond concerning JNS

i) D/P 233/1/2 – Loughton parish register 1732-1812 including notes concerning Rev John Salt’s family and his burial, 1805.

Time to look at some of these documents, identified on the SEAX catalogue.

9. D/F 35/3/135
This was an auctioneer’s notebook containing details of the sale of Thomas Salt’s property in four days – March 8th, 16th & April 5th & 6th 1852. The sales were held at Park Farm, Dunmow, which TS was ‘late of’.
The right hand pages had cut out pieces from the printed sale catalogue pasted in and the left hand pages, in handwriting, recorded who bought which item and the sum bid.
The first day sold “live and dead stock, 4 stacks of excellent meadow hay, a heap of good manure, 40 tons of mangold, 300 bushels of parsnips and carrots and other effects”. The sale made £545.4s.10d less auctioneer expenses of £35. One of the items sold was a “very neat and well made double bodied 4 wheel phaeton, complete for one or two horses”, which sold for £34.
The second day sold implements and 6 more horses (10 had gone in the first sale), making £91 less £7.3s.6d in expenses.
The third and fourth days addressed “part of the neat household furniture, electrifying machine, 100 dozen of very choice old wine, 1000 volumes of books.
The sale proceeds through the house, room by room, from the brew house to the yard via the breakfast room (where some medical works, handsomely bound in calf, were sold), to the nursery, assistant’s room, boys’ room and servant’s room upstairs. These two days raised £963. 17s 4d less expenses of £27. 18s.
I noticed that Foakes and Cribb, both names mentioned in the funeral report, were buyers of books.

10. D/F 35/3/34
Another auctioneer’s notebook, this time auctioning TS’s cows – 10 cows (all named) and a 2½ year old bull. 2 cows were “in milk” having calved in December, 3 were “down calving”, 2 were “in calf”, 2 were “empty” and 1 was “forward”. They sold for £83.15s less expenses of £13. 7s. 6d. The cheque was sent to Mr C.L.Foakes re an acknowledgement dated 18th February 1852.

11. D/F 35/2/199
This was the valuer’s notebook – the pre-catalogue calculations dated 30th January 1852, just two weeks after TS’s death. The farm is scattered with heaps of manure and night soil, all of which is valued along with the stock, tillage, hay etc to total £1384.12 which was nearly £350 less than what was collected at the auctions. Mr Francis Cates is referred to in the document. (He appears on the parish tithe map as an occupier of land.)
These three notebooks add some valuable facts to Dr Salt’s story. When he died, aged 43, he owned £1600 worth of property (perhaps £160,000 in today’s money) but (apparently) not the house he lived in which had four rooms on two floors plus attics and several barns and outhouses for farm produce, animals and equipment. He may also have had savings which were not part of the auction. The contents of his house were for comfortable living but, apart from an electrical machine, his medical books and an assistant’s room there is no evidence that he saw his patients in his own house.

12. D/CT 119
Now we know the name of the farm that Dr Salt occupied, we can check on the Great Dunmow Tithe Map, dated 9th June 1840, to see how many acres he held. At this date, 12 years before his death, when he was 31 years old, he owned and occupied just over 3 acres, including a house and garden on the eastern side of Park Corner.
Has Dr Salt, sometime during the last 12 years of his life, moved to Park Farm, changing his life style significantly, or has he merely leased land in Dunmow while remaining in the village street dwelling with two small fields behind? The name Park Farm did not appear on the 1840 tithe map. This will need to be investigated. I hope Dunmow has good manor court records.

13. D/DU 454/3/38
This is a manor court copy of court roll recording the admission, on 13th June 1827 of widow Margaret Mary Maria Salt of Teignmouth, via her attorney, to 15acres 3 rood and 29 perch of land in Little Wakering to which her husband, John Neve Salt, had been admitted on 16th June 1824. The latter’s death had been reported to the court on 24th May and his will leaves his Essex possessions to his widow, then “to the use of my nephew TS (son of my late brother William)”.
(See note 8d above).

14. I checked the burial records again and this time found:

I then turned to the baptismal records 1839-50 and found:

So when Dr Salt died, he may have left a wife and 4 children under the age of 10.

On my next trip to the ERO I checked the following -

The Dunmow baptismal register from 1840-1853 & found no more Salt baptisms.

15. The burial register for the same dates (D/P 11/1/10) and found:

; perhaps Thomas’ sister or aunt (see 19 below, will of spinster MS of Dunmow).
None of his children was in the register so presumably they were alive when their father died.

16. I also checked the marriage register from 1832 (the date Thomas Salt began at Dunmow) and found nothing relevant. His wife Matilda was evidently not a Dunmow woman.

Next I looked at the originals of some of the primary sources listed under 8d-h above which were within one bundle of documents. These gave something of the history of the Salt family’s involvement with Burton’s Farm and Ruddocks. John Neve Salt (Thomas Salt’s uncle) bought the property from Robert Burton Hayward and his wife for £833 5s and was enrolled in Little Wakering manor’s records on 16th June 1824. Ten days later he signed a lease for 14 years allowing John Lambert to farm the property for £120 pa. According to the documents, the previous four tenants had been Ruth Smith, Robert Burton, Ann Burton and William Burton. John Salt enjoyed his property for less than two years. By his will, proved 16th February 1826, he left it to his wife and, after her death to his nephew Thomas Salt, son of his deceased brother William (of Maldon). Thomas Salt came into this inheritance in 1830 after he had moved from Maldon to Guys hospital, and promptly mortgaged it to Maldon surgeon George May. It appears from the document that Thomas was already £500 in debt to Dr May. Perhaps the mortgage allowed him to borrow more money, or perhaps it was security for the sum already borrowed. In any event the £500 is repaid with interest in 1832 (the year Thomas arrives in Dunmow) when Thomas received £646 14s from the estate of his aunt, John Neve Salt’s widow.

As I checked through the bundle of documents I discovered more Salt sources that had not been listed in my SEAX catalogue searches.

17. (ERO D/DU 454/3/45) This was the will of James Salt (“extracted from the registry of the Prerogative court of Canterbury”) dated 5th January 1824 and proved 26th January 1824. His bequests were as follows -

• to brother John Neve Salt his household goods, his library and his farming stock & crops & residual effects “as it regards every kind of property including a farm called Rudkins”
• to Sarah Wright, his natural daughter, (now Sarah Evans, living in London) £1000
• to James Salt Brown, his natural son, £1000
• to the eldest son (unnamed) of his brother William, late of Maldon, all his Cambridgeshire & Isle of Ely lands after the death of his sister Mary Salt (dwelling near Witham)
• to servant Thomas/John Pilcher £200
• to servant John Winterflood £100
• to housekeeper –Pulley 10 guineas
• to 20 heads of poor families in Barling £5 each at the discretion of Mr Wren of Eastwood.

Executors were to be John N Salt of Teignmouth, sister Mary Salt & Rev –Vivian, warden of the minor canons of St Pauls, appointed “on account of the infirmities of the two former”.
The will is signed James Salt, vicar of Barling, and witnessed by Thomas Swaine MD, J Browne of Barling, gent & John Grabham of Rochford, surgeon.

This immediately calls into question my reading of D/DU 454/3/38 which suggested John Neve Salt had bought his Barling farm in 1824. His brother’s will suggests otherwise. It also suggests an unmarried, comfortably situated, gentleman vicar (with two adult illegitimate children by different women), whose residence is not named. If he had been living in Barling vicarage and farming the glebe, this would explain why his house does not feature in the will. Alternatively, he may have leased an appropriate residence anywhere, installed a curate in Barling and lived like a gentleman. The fact that he had a (deceased) brother and a sister in Essex suggests the Salts may have been an Essex family and suggest 8i might be worth reading – possibly Rev Salt of Loughton was this testator’s father? Alternatively, the Cambridge/Ely lands may have been inherited or brought into the Salt family as dowry.

18. (ERO D/DU 454/3/37) This is the will of John Neve Salt dated 9th November 1825 and proved 16th February 1826. His bequests were as follows:

• to sister Mary Salt £150 & the Chesterton estate after death of his widow.
• to wife Margaret MM all his Essex estates & his share of a Chesterton estate (Cambs) for life; also the house & lands in Teignmouth where they live.
• to nephew Thomas Salt (son of late brother William) his Essex estates after the death of his widow & £50 initially given to GM (below)
• to wife Margaret, & (executor) friends Rev William Page Richards of West Teignmouth & John Chappell Tozer of East Teignmouth gent £4000, wife to receive dividends for life then-
• to niece Audry Salt £1750
• to niece Margaret Salt £1750
• to niece Eliza Salt £500
• to brother in law George Meadows the dividend of £50 for life (then to TS)

Executors were his wife, WPR & JCT and the witnesses Charlotte Cartwright, John Martin Pitts & Sarah White.

This will suggests that brothers James and John Salt had each inherited land in Cambridge which they passed on to their unmarried sister Mary. The nieces mentioned in the will may be Thomas Salt’s sisters. The ‘brother in law’ may be JNS’s wife’s brother. The Teignmouth estate may originally have been her dowry, explaining John Salt’s departure from Essex.

19. ERO D/454/3/46 This is a “copy memorandum of Agreement” between JN Salt Esq of Teignmouth & Mr John Lambert of Barling, farmer, dated 26th July 1824.
This is a fourteen year lease from 29th September next of Burtons Farm in Barling 63 acres 1 rood 37 perches for £120 pa payable quarterly. It contains a list of required farming practice dealing with timber, fallows, use of barns, manure etc.

It is now possible to draw up Thomas Salt’s provisional family tree.

Rev John Salt
?- 1805
of Loughton

John Neve=Margaret William =?Mary RevJames Mary
of Teignmouth of Maldon 1770-1843 of Barling of Witham
?- 1826 ?-1824

Thomas = Matilda Audry Margaret Eliza Sarah Wright
of Dunmow James Brown
1809-1852

Matilda Henry Mary George
1841- 1842- 1844- 1845-

Neil Wiffen, one of the archivists at the ERO, had suggested I check the Public Record Office online service for the existence of Salt wills

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

I found the ‘search our collections/documents on line/search the wills’ links and asked for Salt 1740-1850. 75 wills were listed for these criteria. Among these I found the following

Rev James Salt, rector Hildersham Cambs 23 June 1797 PROB 11/1293
Rev Thomas Salt “ “ “ 13 May 1806 “ 11/1443
Susanna Salt spinster of Chesterton “ 17 July 1759 “ 11/848
Rev James Salt clerk of “ “ 3 May 1758 “ 11/838
Mary Salt widow of Witham 7 December 1811 “ 11/1528
Mary Salt spinster of Great Dunmow 12 August 1843 “ 11/1984
Margaret MMSalt widow of East Teignmouth 31March 1841 “ 11/1943

I followed a link on the web site to the Wellcome Institute and emailed a query about how to access Thomas Salt’s Guys Hospital training.

I received the following reply.

In due course I received a reply from Douglas Knock, Assistant Librarian -

Visit to Kings Archive 22 June 2006
G/FP7/1 Index to Pupils at Guys
Thomas Salt is listed as enrolled for these lectures –
Medical Practice he was student no 14, entered 1829)
Surgical Practice 382 1829
Not entered for surgery
Anatomy 382 1829
Dissections 382 1829
Practice of medicine 553 1829
407 1830
Materia Medica 382 1829
Chemistry 382 1829

G/FP2/2 General Entry of Pupils 1823-1832
This lists pupil names, where educated (not always filled in) and fees per course.
Most pupils give a school master’s name and place (Dr Nunn, Colchester), one or two came from uni (Cambridge, Pennsylvania) and a few from imfirmaries.
P123 TS enters July 23rd 1829, the 14th student that month. The numbers 553 & 382 are written after his name (see above). He pays£12.13s to be a physician pupil. The pupil above him on the list was Edward Wallis apprenticed at Manchester Hospital.
P138 TS enters 6th Feb 1830, student no 407 for 533; pays 2 guineas for Medicine.

Also met John Ford at the archive who suggested I contact the Society of Apothecaries and ask for the Exam book
College of Surgeons – MRCS register & exam book.
(? RSP might be more applicable for TS?)

HC Cameron Mr Guy’s Hospital 1726-1948 (Longman, 1954)
P165 The Guys School under Mr Harrison 1825-1848
“Since the passing of the Apothecaries Act in 1815 and the consequent demand for medical as distinct from surgical teaching..”
In 1825 the education of the student went little beyond attendance at lectures – in every school of medicine in the country medicine and surgery were still taught almost entirely by lecture. Joseph Lister appointed to Chair of Surgery in Glasgow in 1860 had no simultaneous hospital appointment; his predecessor did not teach at the bedside; Edinburgh 1840, Syme brought patients into the lecture theatre. Practical work was wholly confined to the dissecting room and was not obligatory.
The London Surgeons had always kept apprentices & dressers were also taught their duties by the surgeon. Astly Cooper did surgical rounds in the wards for these trainees. Pupils paid extra for this and to witness ops.
Physicians were slower re bedside teaching – small numbers of pupils “even at Guys where the lectures on medicine and materia medica were attended by every student”.
1815 Apothecaries Act required all candidates for the LSA Diploma “which alone qualified for registration as a practitioner in physic” to produce certificates that they had attended the medical practice of an approved hospital for a stated period; initially 6 months but after a few years 2 years. This demand forced the physicians at Guys & elsewhere to do teaching rounds in hospital.
In 1825 Guys split from St Thomas’. It already had an operating theatre & a lecture theatre built in 1770 & built its own med school in 1825 with a new Anatomy Dept & a museum for Astly Cooper’s collection. Wakley (Lancet editor) attacked this move on grounds of nepotism (Cooper’s relatives in post)
Xerox pp183-7 re Clinical.

John MT Ford, A Medical Student at St Thomas’ Hospital 1801-1802; the Weekes Family Letters (Wellcome, 1987)
It probably cost £150-175 for a year’s residence & tuition at St Thomas/Guys in 1801.

So Thomas, age 20, enters Guys medical school in July 1829 and stays for about one year following lectures in medicine. He got his LSA in 1831. Was this the date he left Guys? According to Dowsett, Salt appears in o/s records on March 26th 1832 (wanting more money to be pauper doctor with Dr Grice). Need to check Dunmow records to see if that really is the first time his name appears there. He may have served an apprenticeship with the Maldon surgeon George May prior to 1829. Might be worth checking if GM had been trained at Guys. Interesting that Thomas goes for physician route rather than surgery. Is he adding to his range or avoiding the disadvantages of surgery?

WATCH THIS SPACE FOR THE UNFOLDING STORY! IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADD INFORMATION OR SUGGESTIONS PLEASE EMAIL drjanepearson@hotmail.com. Better still, spend some time in the ERO having fun with the records and recovering an Essex story.

19th century 20th century Thomas Salt project

Researched by Mrs Pat Lewis.

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