Thrale history

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No Mans Land Farm, Hammonds, and Upper Beech Hyde, and John Smith of this latter farm was witness to this will. Ann Thrale, widow and executrix, also received amongst other shares in the estate 'the bed, beddings, goods furniture belonging to the best chamber and parlour in my dwelling house, also six pairs of sheets, dozen good napkins, six pewter dishes, and a dozen pewter plates, one brass kettle, and pottage pot, one sauce pan, and two skillets'.

It was of course descendents of the Grindon family who owned the manuscript paper and portrait already described earlier, and were among the 1820 Cape Settlers. After the Napoleonic Wars, the British government voted £50,000 for assisting emigration to the Cape of Good Hope as the small area of South Africa then inhabited by white people was called. The settlers received a free passage, grant of 100 acres of land, agricultural implements, seed, other essentials and rations until the first crop was reaped. Some 90,000 people applied to go to the Cape but only 4,000 were accepted, forming a cross-section of the British population, and they were then divided into sixty parties. The voyage out took 12 weeks, and several ships foundered. The children especially suffered from the voyage. The first ship reached Algoa Bay in April 1820, and thereafter for years they worked, fought, and many died, but finally they prospered and became successful, and four men who had gone to the Cape as boys in 1820 were awarded Knighthoods.

Abigail Grindon's two brothers, John Thrale and Thomas Thrale remained in the locality. John continued to farm Hammonds until his death in 1805, and court rolls and registers tell us he married Susan South of the Hooks Farm family. His only son was John South Thrale, a pastry cook at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Although at this time Richard Boyce had married a later Susan South and lived at Hooks, John South Thrale by his will in 1790²⁶ left the estate of Hooks in Sandridge to his wife Johanna. She had right to use all barns, stabling, the dwelling house, granary, wood and woodlands, and all land that belonged to that farm. He had a sister Sarah Thrale living at London Colney who had inherited from Mrs. Boyce. Two cousins were Thomas and Richard Thrale of St. Albans. In the Gentleman's Magazine, his death is recorded as Mr. Thrale, pastry cook, opposite the Admiralty Office, Charing Cross. He is probably the John Thrale mentioned in the polling registers who had land in Whitehall, London Colney and Sandridge. His tomb was until recently to be seen in Sandridge churchyard. His cousins, already mentioned, belonged to the family of Thomas Thrale, the other brother of Abigail

Footnotes

26. P.C.C. 312 Bishop.↩︎