Quainton One-Place Study

Originally, I started out trying to follow-up on my father’s belief that we were related to Thomas Hickman of Aylesbury, which lead me to the Charles King family of Quainton. Then, after 5,000 names I asked myself why would this family that was well established in the community as farmers, carpenters, overseers and churchwardens, ever move on to become the publican of the Windmill Pub in Winslow and then later move to work in the railway coach factory in Wolverton. The answer was economics.

That lead me to my current undertaking of a MPhil degree at the University of Leicester. My dissertation will concentrate on the administration of the Old Poor Law which hopefully will answer the following research question. Did parishes such as Quainton have a poor relief system that was flexible enough to meet the needs of its paupers during times of economic crisis? This study will concentrate on the years surrounding the dearth of 1799-1801. Through the database analysis of the overseer’s individual line items and queries, I hope to identify the means and level of support received by parishioner, prior to the dearth, during the dearth and establish whether the measures implemented during the dearth were abandoned or remained in place.

In order to establish the relevance of the overseer’s individual entries, considerable family reconstruction has been necessary. At this point, items have been entered and pattern identification is underway. I would be interested in establishing contact with anybody who has an insight into the interpretation of this type of data.