GLOVERS TO CANADA
Was it an advert in the local newspaper ? Was it a story from a neighbour about a family member in Canada ? Or was it some small thing which was the final straw that broke the camel’s back at home in Abbotsham ? Or was it the Barnstaple Election Commission which uncovered widespread bribery. A large number of Householders had been paid to vote for certain candidates , and their names were printed in the North Devon Journal for all to see , including a Thomas Glover who was paid £6 to vote . This was the election of 1852 but the commission went on delving into the dark deeds until 1854 as the local papers reported . If that was Thomas of Abbotsham maybe the £6 went toward a family ticket to Canada .
The Glovers had been living in Abbotsham for several generations at least from the middle of the 18th C ; they were tradesmen either carpenters, masons or builders, so not impoverished agricultural labourers . There were many of them eight children being not unusual per family which is usually a sign that a family is well and fairly prosperous .
The first baptism in Abbotsham is of Catherine dau of Thomas and Mary Glover in 1779 although Mary and William bapt 1775 and 1778 dau and son of Thomas and Mary of Woolsery , might well be the same family . The next child is Thomas bapt 1782 also Abbotsham also son of Thomas and Mary and Mary bapt 1785 in Abbotsham , then John bapt 1789 and finally William bapt 1793 by which time Thomas and Mary were described as paupers although still living in Abbotsham .
There are as always with the Glovers a plethora of Thomas’, one bapt Parkham in 1744 son of yet another Thomas and Mary , and one bapt also in Parkham in 1746 son of Thomas and Margaret . In 1761 there is a burial at Abbotsham of Mary wife of Thomas Glover And further burials of a Thomas , the elder , in Abbotsham in 1772. Margaret Glover is buried in Parkham in 1786 a pauper and there are two Thomas’ buried without additional notes in Parkham in 1766 and 1770 and one in Woolsery in 1780 , they could have been children or adults or old men .
However back to the emigrants who are Thomas , in 1855 , aged 48, mason .so born circa 1807 . Whilst there are several Thomas’ bapt around that date the most likely is Thomas bapt Abbotsham Nov 1806 son of Thomas and Ann , although very tempting is Thomas son of Charles and Elizabeth bapt Aug 1807 in Abbotsham .
Thomas and Ann married in Alwington in 1798, she was Ann Hutchins or Hutchings , born in Abbotsham in 1772 the dau of Robert and Sarah Hutchings Of Thomas and Ann’s children Ann was born in the same year they married, then Elizabeth 1804 , Thomas 1806, Jane 1809, William 1812, and Robert Hutchings in 1813. Thomas Glover is the one baptised in Parkham in 1774 the son of William Glover and Ann (Tardrew) . He lived until the age of 98 and is buried in Abbotsham with his wife Ann in 1872. He too was a mason .
Thomas born 1806 married in 1832 in Littleham Mary Davy dau of William and Mary Davy of Littleham , and their first child was John Davy Glover bapt Alwington in 1832 , they have Elizabeth Davy bapt 1834 Abbotsham , William 1837 and Robert 1839. After those there came Edward b 1841, Sarah 1843 , George 1848 and Edwin 1849. On the Immigration record Thomas’s wife is named Elizabeth aged 47 but it is clear that her full name was Mary Elizabeth Davy . However there is an older child Henry or Thomas Henry who is aged 11 in the 1841 census .
There is no baptism recorded of a Thomas Henry Glover in 1830 but there is a baptism in Abbotsham of a Thomas Henry Day illegitimate son of Mary Day , further enquiries show this is Mary DAVY and this must be the son Henry aged 11 in 1841 . A Mary Davy also has a son Samuel bapt Abbotsham in 1833 also illegitimate but he died in 1842. Whatever the reason the family must have made their way by ship to Liverpool sometime early in 1855. The railway from Bideford was not opened until 1855 and by then the Glovers would have been long gone . They were a party of 11 , 3 adults, Thomas , Elizabeth his wife, and Sarah Frost , his sister , plus the 8 children ranging in age from 23 to 6 yrs old . Thomas Henry is not with them . The family are recorded as arriving in New York from Liverpool on the Ontario on 2nd October 1855. From New York they would have travelled again up to Canada .
Thomas Henry left behind married in 1854 Jane Shambrook daughter of Henry and Jane Shambrook, who were also living in Abbotsham . Jane and her two sisters were dressmakers . They are in the 1860 census for Abbotsham with their four children By 1881 the family still living in Abbotsham ,has increased to a further 3 sons and 3 daughters . In 1886 their son Arthur moved to Cardiff and married Elizabeth Rowe.
So the line goes from Arthur Glover b Abbotsham 1860 back to Thomas Henry b 1830 , back to Thomas b 1806, to Thomas b 1774 the son of William and Ann Glover . From that point they are connected to the main line of Parkham Glovers .
Sadly no journal or letters have survived to record what the journey of 1855 was like nor the family’s initial reaction to the sight of New York which must have rendered them speechless after the rural greeness and smallness of Abbotsham . Many families were on the move from North Devon from the 1830s onwards and in Canada the Glovers would have perhaps found other Parkham and Abbotsham families , whose descendants live there to this day .
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