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SAFFRON WALDEN HISTORICAL JOURNAL |
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RESEARCHING
THE PLEDGER FAMILY by
Megan Ridgewell My
father Douglas Pledger was
the youngest of a family of eight, and had lost his mother when he was
just a young man in his twenties. He was away war in Italy at the time of
her death. His father died in 1956 when I was a young girl, so I cannot
recall much about him. but I do remember something that my father had
mentioned before he died: that his family had originated from Strethall.
From this one clue I was able to take one step at a time and, with the
help of many people, put my family history together. The connections with
Strethall were particularly strong. The marriage of William and Rose
Pledger, my x4 great-grandparents, in1751 was the first Pledger one to be
held in village. There were 21 Pledger marriages to follow, as well as 83
christenings, with all of them related to this original couple! There were
so many Pledgers in Strethall at one time, that they made up half the
village population, 25 out of 50 being Pledgers, and through this increase
in population a school was opened in the old rectory. The photograph (lent
by Janet Potts), may have been taken around 1895 and probably shows the
entire village population, including a lot of my ancestors, but I have no
way of identifying individuals. Finding
the family tree in Strethall In
the summer of 2000, my brother John and I decided to visit Strethall and
have a look around. Several of the gravestones had reference to the
Pledger name but at this point they did not mean anything to us, as we
knew nothing about our ancestors. We looked inside the church, noting that
it had been built in the 14th century to replace a wooden building dating
to about 1000 AD. John signed the visitors' book as he has the Pledger
name – this proved to be the starting point because two months after our
visit, a letter arrived from June
Brandon of Hitchin, who had been a Pledger before marriage. She
came across the entry in the visitors' book while searching for her roots
in Strethall, where her great-grandfather and grandfather originated,
while her father Thomas was
born in Littlebury Green, just a mile from Strethall across open fields. When
I met June, I could immediately see some family resemblances, and we had
so much in common that I felt as if I had known her for years. June had
also written her own biography entitled ‘Pledgers' Complaint', the name
given by her family to her habit of constant chatter – the amusing thing
about her is that like myself she has so much to say that no one else can
get a word in edgeways. I found her book fascinating as her life as a
young girl was so much like my own childhood. With the help of Dr David
Melford’s History of Strethall, I learnt a lot about the village
of my ancestors. Later on, I discovered that the Pledger name had been
first recorded in the Domesday Book. The
tree spreads its branches How
to start with sorting it all out? I decided to list all of the people with
the name of Pledger from the Littlebury and Strethall Census 1841-1891 and
church records from both villages. Once I had listed them all I went
through the process of trying to put each family together. This was not an
easy task as there were several Pledger families coming and going through
the decades. My next step was to get a copy of my father's birth
certificate to find out who his father was. His name was Archibold
John Pledger and his mother was Lily.
I then found him in the Strethall 1881 Census at the age of two, with
several siblings and their parents William and Ann - my great-grandfather.
This was the lead that I was needing. The
connection between myself and June was John Pledger who married Mary Young
at Strethall in 1827.They had eleven children, nine of whom were born in
Strethall. The eldest child, John born 1828 was June’s direct line,
having married Susan Starling in 1847; and the seventh child, William born
1843 was my great-great grandfather, who married Ann Nash in 1841. I
managed to find the pedigree lines of these two sons of John and Mary, but
the nine daughters have been harder to trace since most of them went into
service or changed their name in marriage. Trees
to Forests! What
had been a simple family tree then grew into a forest, when I was
contacted by Peter (Mickey)
Pledger from Selsey,
Sussex. My first conversation with Peter was quite intimidating as he was
quite abrupt like a Victorian school master and I felt as though I was a
small child, but as I got to know Peter I found that his bark was far
worse than his bite! He was quite a gentleman, with a wry sense of humour
but would not stand for any nonsense or bad manners. Peter had been
researching every Pledger that he could find and tried to collate families
together. Many
people have lent photographs which brought my ancestors to life, for
instance Janet Potts of Cheshunt,
June Brandon of Hitchin and Christopher Pledger of Yorkshire all
contributed, so I was able to put faces to names, not only for John and
Susan, but to all but one of their eight children, and eight more of the
following generation. Of these, Joseph and Elijah left Strethall in the
later 1800s to seek work. All the information we had on them was that they
went to Yorkshire, and one of them had married in Driffield. In June 2002,
we were on our way to Northumberland for a holiday, and decided to take
the scenic route via Lincolnshire across the Humber Bridge into Yorkshire.
After travelling some 30 miles we came to Driffield, which was where
Joseph and Alice Pledger married. We decided to stop for a break and
visited the library to check the phone book for Pledgers, of which there
were five. One particular address was on route to our destination so we
decided to call on chance. It turned out to be Arthur Denis Pledger, a
grandson of Elijah and Eliza Pledger. This couple had produced
eleven children, with all of them having large families and living in the
area around Filey. Later, I found Joseph Pledgers grandson, Eric – he
has only one daughter so if she marries the line will end. This has
happened with many of the Pledger lines. A
few days later, we went to visit Rita Lofts of Saffron Walden, whose
mother was Violet Pledger,
the youngest grandchild of John and Susan. Rita suddenly produced an audio
tape of her mother Violet and her siblings talking and singing to each
other. This was amazing - now I not only had their faces, but also some of
their voices! One
other letter was from Susan (nee Starling) to her son Charles Pledger,
born 1852. The letter is not dated but must have been written around 1901
as Violet went to live with her at Strethall at the age of three. Susan
mentioned the health of her granddaughter, Violet to her father Charles in
her letter. She also said that she had heard from Ernest and William, and
related a few stories of happenings around Strethall. Susan would have
been in her late seventies at this time, and reached the grand age of 92
when she died. I have been amazed at how many precious items that one
family had been able to keep safe over so many years. Just before
Christmas 2002, I sent Win the family tree she wanted for her niece,
together with a set of photographs and a copy of the two letters that her
father had written. Win was so emotional over her father’s letters that
she could not ring me the day she received her parcel. A few days later,
she phoned me, absolutely overwhelmed to see her father’s letters after
all these years. What makes it particularly worthwhile is to meet someone
like Win, and bring such happiness to one in her senior years, with such a
sad start to her younger life. ©
Saffron Walden Historical Society & Megan Ridgewell 2003 |
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SAFFRON WALDEN HISTORICAL JOURNAL |