NEN Gallery

This examination from 25 October 1821 shows how the Poor Law officials tried to establish firstly, the identity of people in the parish who had fallen on hard times and secondly, where they came from and who or which parish would be responsible for providing for them. Hiram's mother's first cousin Susannah swears on oath that she saw Hiram with his mother the day after his birth in the Chequers Public House in Stretham about 41 years ago. She also swears that Hiram's mother Susannah Stacey was a pauper child living in the poorhouse at Haddenham on the Isle of Ely and that her husband, Hiram's father, Richard Bickerdike was an Irishman 'having the appearance of being one'. He also said he was a traveller and that he would always have setllement at Haddenham because of his wife. Susannah Murfit made her mark.
C5.2 Cambridgeshire Archives PS/E/AS40/11