My Great Grandfather & Mother, William & Mary Davey, are buried in the Stanmer churchyard and he was apparently the Bailiff to a number of the Earls. We spoke with Rosie Harrison about which house he may have lived in as there is only one photo in our family which shows him outside a Stanmer village cottage.
The Stanmer Preservation Society is confident that the cottage in your photo is the old Rectory, which for centuries stood between No.16 and what is now No. 19. It was accidentally burned down in October 1940 by French Canadian troops.
Following the death of his father, Thomas Jones in 1876, Frederick Jones, wrote his Memoirs as a means of recording the extraordinary life of his father, the creator of the unique Water Catch.
It adds a little more to what is known about the life the Davey family at the old Rectory:
Hampton the builder, encouraged by his lordships patronage and kindness to my father, soon recognised the lad’s ability and placed him in the carpenter’s shop. Luckily he received the best instruction in his trade. Jim Welfare – Hampton’s son and Sergeant were all clever workmen. In those days all planes, set of hollow and ploughs in fact every tool was home made; even the moulding planes were filed out by the carpenters. I have seen Sergeant filing a new sion for a moulding plane made to fit some piece of Chippendale furniture he had to mend in the house. Tom Jones soon became an exceedingly clever carpenter.
After Hampton died, Davey became head of the buildings department and my father worked under him for many a day. Framing barn roofs building estate houses and cottages and the seating in Sussex Churches.
From the Journals of Frederick Jones, son of Thomas Jones, brother of Jude and Reuben Jones, born in Stanmer in 1842. Although unpublished, there are many other fascinating extracts from the Journals on the website created by David Jones, Frederick’s great great grandson.
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