The Howes's furrier dynasty began with Robert, the only son among five children, and born in Mangotsfield about 1755. Because of the business success which followed some of Robert’s children, a source of finance or privilege would be helpful, but there is little to show at the beginning. Robert and his own father, Thomas, were both labourers and Bristol burgesses; Thomas making a, perhaps, surprising marriage in 1747 to Elizabeth Adams and receiving his freedom by virtue of her father, James, a Bristol merchant tailor. Thomas's four daughters made good use of this status on his death, probably in 1774, with their husbands, three labourers and a blacksmith, all becoming burgesses that year, alongside Robert. The practice continued after Robert's own death with four of his daughters marrying, one in 1812 to a carpenter, and three together in 1830, to a labourer, butcher and blacksmith.
Perhaps, it was Robert's own marriage to Ann Maggs in 1783 that provided the entrepreneurial spur to his many of his eleven children: this marriage may have been as much an affair of business as of the heart. This was the period when cottage hatters needed to secure their supply of rabbit fur and Ann was a member of a formidable clan of illiterate feltmakers at Winterbourne with an offshoot at Bitton. The family descended from a Samuel who kept the Winterbourne Inn in 1695. The first six children were baptised in Mangotsfield and, from 1794, the final five in Siston thus suggesting that Robert was by then the Siston warrener. With Christian names of Asenath, Rebeckah, Enos, Naomi, and the like, there is a strong suggestion that the Howes joined the wave of Methodism that swept the hatting villages and this is supported by later family baptisms and burials, especially at the Whitfield Tabernacle, Kingswood; the Salem Wesleyan Chapel, Watley's End; and the New Wesleyan Chapel, Downend Road, Mangotsfield.
Siston Warren, now Siston Common, had its own warrener's cottage. These buildings were built strong and tall, often with a tower so that the warrener could climb to get a view of his terrain. The rabbits lived on pillow mounds which encouraged them to burrow inwards and so keep them within the warren. Three of Siston's pillow mounds were noted in a survey in 1981; two were rectangular, about 40m long and 5m wide, while the third was circular, 12m in diameter. All have flat tops and clearly defined drainage ditches The 1832 Avon and Gloucestershire Tramroad cuts across the southernmost mound. It is time to step into the maze of family relationships of the South Gloucestershire's hatters. Tread lightly; intermarriages of first and second cousins, and even closer, lurked in many households. There was a considerable closeness in these communities: for example, Watley's End, the Winterbourne hatting hamlet, saw much communion between about 40 families. In the 1851 census, it is possible to follow the enumerator along the streets bordering the common land and, in 30 houses, one after the other, find a series of simple or complicated, but always connecting, kinships.
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Perhaps, it was Robert's own marriage to Ann Maggs in 1783 that provided the entrepreneurial spur to his many of his eleven children: this marriage may have been as much an affair of business as of the heart. This was the period when cottage hatters needed to secure their supply of rabbit fur and Ann was a member of a formidable clan of illiterate feltmakers at Winterbourne with an offshoot at Bitton. The family descended from a Samuel who kept the Winterbourne Inn in 1695. The first six children were baptised in Mangotsfield and, from 1794, the final five in Siston thus suggesting that Robert was by then the Siston warrener. With Christian names of Asenath, Rebeckah, Enos, Naomi, and the like, there is a strong suggestion that the Howes joined the wave of Methodism that swept the hatting villages and this is supported by later family baptisms and burials, especially at the Whitfield Tabernacle, Kingswood; the Salem Wesleyan Chapel, Watley's End; and the New Wesleyan Chapel, Downend Road, Mangotsfield.
Siston Warren, now Siston Common, had its own warrener's cottage. These buildings were built strong and tall, often with a tower so that the warrener could climb to get a view of his terrain. The rabbits lived on pillow mounds which encouraged them to burrow inwards and so keep them within the warren. Three of Siston's pillow mounds were noted in a survey in 1981; two were rectangular, about 40m long and 5m wide, while the third was circular, 12m in diameter. All have flat tops and clearly defined drainage ditches The 1832 Avon and Gloucestershire Tramroad cuts across the southernmost mound. It is time to step into the maze of family relationships of the South Gloucestershire's hatters. Tread lightly; intermarriages of first and second cousins, and even closer, lurked in many households. There was a considerable closeness in these communities: for example, Watley's End, the Winterbourne hatting hamlet, saw much communion between about 40 families. In the 1851 census, it is possible to follow the enumerator along the streets bordering the common land and, in 30 houses, one after the other, find a series of simple or complicated, but always connecting, kinships.
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