Our connection to the Hancock family begins with the marriage between Richard Hooper and Martha Hancock in 1851 in Hampton, Middlesex.

Martha was born in Kingswood, Gloucestershire in 1820, the second child of a family of ultimately ten children.

Her father George Thomas Hancock was a wool weaver, known as a clothier. So was his father Thomas before him. The trade was declining with the advent of the machine mills in the north of England, which is a parallel with our Catchpole family who were weavers in Suffolk during the decline. In 1827 George Thomas Hancock was declared bankrupt. The family subsequently moved to nearby Charfield, probably to find work for George.

George died in 1840 aged 46 leaving the family destitute. His wife Mary applied for poor relief from the parish, but she had to move back to Kingswood to receive help. In those days every parish was responsible for looking after its own parishioners when they fell on hard times.

But by now Martha had left home for Ashley Place, Bristol where she worked as a servant, in the same household as her older sister Maria. We know nothing more until 1851 when she married Richard Hooper in Hampton, Middlesex. Her life with Richard is described in the page about Richard Hooper. Her sister Maria was also in London so they probably came together. Maria later moved to Kent and ended up living in Dover with their mother.

We've mentioned already that George's father was Thomas Hancock, also a clothier. He had became bankrupt in 1802, almost certainly a victim of the decline in his trade. In the same year all his four children were baptised at the same time in Kingswood. This would have been to assert their residency rights in Kingswood in order to be able to claim parish poor relief. This announcement in the Gloucester Journal 22nd February 1802 illustrates how bad things were. They lost everything, including the means of earning a living.

A point of interest here is that the parish of Kingswood at that time was a detached part of Wiltshire. It was incorporated into Gloucestershire in 1844 under the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844.

There are earlier records of Hancocks in the Kingswood area but it hasn't been possible to positively connect them to Thomas Hancock. But it has been possible to trace some of the female lines back to the 1570s. It makes it fairly straightforward to trace successive baptisms and marriages in the parish registers when families stay in the same place. All of our ancestors in this part of the tree came from the area in the map above - North Nibley, Wotton - under - Edge, and Kingswood.

Here is the marriage of our 11 times Great Grandparents Thomas Ricketts and Joane Hosyer on 30th September 1589 in North Nibley, Gloucestershire. I've highlighted the entry with an arrow. This is the oldest parish record we've found for any of our ancestors. This is an interesting document for a couple of reasons. In the right margin you can see the inscription E;R:32. It indicates the start of the 32nd year of the reign of Elizabeth I. We're part of history! Also if you follow the dates of the Weddinges you'll find that in those days the calendar year ran from 1st April to 31st March.