Robert Nurse of Compton Dando (Born 1709)

5^th Great Grandfather – FFFFFFF¹

Samuel Nurse’s father Robert Nurse, my 5^th great-grandfather, was born in 1709 in Long Ashton², and moved to Compton Dando sometime in the early 1730s.

He was either already married when he moved to Compton Dando or he was married soon after he arrived. Either way, I have not been able to find a record of his marriage. I used to think that Robert married Sarah Woodward in Bedminster in 1731, but with the advent of good quality images of the registers on Ancestry.com, I have confirmed that the Robert referenced in the Bedminster Register was actually Robert Palmer not Robert Nurse.

He probably lived for a while in Chewton - just up the road to Keynsham from Compton Dando as I believe his father William was buried there in 1714.³

The first reference to Robert and Sarah Nurse in the parish register is to the baptism of a daughter, Ann on 8th July 1736.⁴

In 1748 Robert leased a cottage⁵ and some land “on the east side of the highway leading from Woollard to Houndstreet” for the princely sum of 3s 4d payable “at the 2 most usual feasts terms in the year (that is to say) the feast of St Michael the Archangel and the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary”.

In the lease, Robert is described as a Yeoman of the parish of Compton Dando.(see “Yeoman” (2023)) There is another lease for the same property in 1762 where the rent increased to 4s 0d. Figure 1 shows a map of the area around Compton Dando as it was in about 1782, where the road from Woollard to Houndstreet is shown quite clearly.

Over the course of the next 18 years six more of Robert and Sarah’s children were baptised in the parish church of Compton Dando. The two daughters and one of the sons - Thomas - were married in Compton Dando, Ann on 31^st July 1757 to Thomas Ford⁶, Thomas on 26^th May 1763 to Mary Long⁷ (and on 29^th July 1781 to Jane Pow⁸) and Sarah, the youngest, on 29^th April 1773 to Robert Ashley⁹.

John was married to Anne Dozens in the neighbouring parish of St. John, Bedminster¹⁰

As I described in a previous article, Samuel, my direct ancestor married Rachel Dolman at Keynsham on the 11^th October 1772.

By the late 18^th century, parishes were required to complete a standard registration form, and for both Sarah and Samuel’s marriages Robert Nurse is listed as a witness. Whether, this was the father or the elder brother is not clear, but it was probably the brother, as Samuel and Robert both moved to the Hanham area.

In the Compton Dando Land Tax assessments for 1781,¹¹ Robert Nurse is mentioned as the occupier of three pieces of land, owned by James Pittman, Robert Ford and John Ford, the total assessment for these three pieces of land being £1 14s 3d (quite a considerable sum in those days). This may have been the same land on the Woolard-Houndstreete road mentioned earlier.¹²

In December of 1781, just before Christmas, Robert Nurse died. He was buried at Compton Dando on 23^rd December 1781¹³. In the following year’s tax assessment, Sarah Nurse is shown as the occupier of only one of the pieces of land - the piece owned by James Pittman, which she continued to occupy until her death in December 1792.

She was also buried in Compton Dando, on 12^th December 1792¹⁴. In the parish register entry for her death it states that she was 84 years old. This is probably not completely accurate, as it would mean that she was 28 years old when she had her first child, and 46 years old when she had her last child. However, even if it is a slight exaggeration it was still a ripe old age indeed for the 18^th century. It also states that she was a pauper.

References

Footnotes