Peter and Ann Floyd

Peter Tyler Floyd, 1831 – 1924, married Ann Horwood, 1834 – 1929, born at Aston Clinton

PETER FLOYD

Peter was the son of John Floyd, 1800 – 1848, and Sarah, nee Tyler, 1806 – 1842.

1841 CENSUS.   One of the cottages at Idle Corner, opposite the Black Horse.

John Floyd 40, Sarah Floyd, 35, Ann Floyd 13, Peter Floyd, 11, John Floyd, 7.

DEATH of PARENTS

Peter’s mother died in 1842, his father died in 1848.

1851 CENSUS.   Lane Farm, Church Lane, Lacey Green.

William Floyd, cousin of Peter, 26, cordwainer and farmer of 20 acres, Sophia, 26, Lucinda, 7, Julia, 3, Cora 1.  Peter Floyd, cousin, Shoemaker, Benjamin Hawes, 22, cousin, shoemaker.

ANN HORWOOD

Ann was the daughter of James and Sarah Horwood.   She was born at Aston Clinton, the eldest of 6 children.  

1847 the family moved to Loosley Row, where her father was the gardener for the curate of Lacey Green church, who lived at that time at Loosley House as the Lacey Green vicarage was not yet built.

1851 CENSUS.  Cottage next to Loosley House, Loosley Row.

James Horwood, 43, widower, gardener, Ann, 17, straw plaiter, William, 15, groom, James, 14, errand boy, Sarah, 11, straw plaiter, John, 9, Charles 6, Sarah, 69, grandmother.

RESEARCHER’s NOTE.

Ann’s grandson Harry recounted how she taught the local children.   She and her father were in service to the local vicar.  When he realised that she could read and write he asked her to start a school, or so Harry understood.

The local school at Lacey Green is thought to have started in 1851.   There was certainly a schoolmistress in the 1851 census.   It does not say where she taught.   Her name was Mary Ann Floyd.   See “Mary Ann Floyd”.   There were 24 scholars aged from 4 to 10 years.

Mary Ann Floyd died in 1852.   In no census is Ann Horwood called a schoolmistress, it does state that she is a straw plaiter.   She married in 1854.   Were her teaching years from the time of Mary Ann’s death to the time Ann married, or had her first child in 1855?   Harry did not know, but it does appear that she was not the first teacher.  

Ann told Harry that she called herself their “governess”, teaching the children to read and write and do some summing.   The girls did sewing, bringing their clothes ready tacked to make them.

MARRIAGE

Peter Tyler Floyd married Ann Horwood in 1854

1855 BIRTH of Mary Ann married 1892 Eldred Tilbury

1861 BIRTH of Sarah Elizabeth married 1882 Thomas A Leonard

1861 CENSUS.   Property later known as Floyds Farm

Peter Floyd, 30, shoemaker, born Lacey Green, Ann 27, shoe binder, born Aston Clinton, Mary Ann 3.

1865 BIRTH of Joseph George married 1865 Annie Janes.   See “wiki George & Annie Janes”

1871 BIRTH of Frederick William married 1905 Caroline Emma Saunders.  See “wiki social snapshot 1905 wedding”

1871 CENSUS.   Property later known as Floyds Farm

Peter Floyd, 40, shoemaker, Ann 37, lacemaker, Mary Ann, 13, lacemaker, George 5, Frederick, 3 mths.

1881 CENSUS.   Property later known as Floyds Farm

Peter Floyd, 50, bootmaker, Ann 47, lacemaker, Frederick, 10.

1891 CENSUS.   Property later known as Floyds Farm

Peter Floyd 60, bootmaker, Ann, 57, Frederick, 20, bootmaker.

1901 CENSUS.   Property later known as Floyds Farm

Peter Floyd, 70, farmer, Ann 67, Frederick, 30 farmer

1911 CENSUS.   Floyds Farm

Peter Floyd, 80, farmer, Ann 77, Fred, 40 widower, farmer

SALE BY the EXECUTORS OF THOMAS DELL of PARSONAGE FARM, SAUNDERTON.

June 9^th 1915.   Sale by auction.   Conveyance.  Purchased by Frederick William Floyd for £640: -

SCHEDULE

Freehold accommodation at Lacey Green, comprising 4 rooms together with 6 acres of arable and grass land, barn, pig styes, stable, and hen houses, let to Mr Peter Floyd, an old standing tenant, at a rental of £15 per annum.   Land tax of 12 shillings and eleven pence.  Peter Floyd, tenant, was the father of Frederick William Floyd, purchaser.

1924 ARTICLE in the DAILY CHRONICAL.   SEVENTY YEARS in THEIR HONEYMOON COTTAGE

Americans have been searching up and down the English countryside this summer for old buildings and old furniture which speak to them of a passing England.

  I could show them (writes a Daily Chronical representative) an old couple whose everyday life, as they live it today, is a link with the past, far more eloquent than any sticks and stones can be.

  About three miles out of Princes Risborough is a little village with the story book name of Lacey Green.   The cottages are green embowered and have latticed windows.   A long winding lane now rich with blackberries and trailing Old Man’s Beard leads to the village.   At the side of the village Inn is a narrow track leading to a little cottage which is just crying out to be put in a fairy-book illustration.

70 YEARS IN THE SAME COTTAGE

  In this little house, with its leaded windows and silvery oak, live Mr. and Mrs. Peter Floyd.   Seventy years ago they entered it newly married; and they have never left it since.

  Mr. Floyd is 93 years old.   A fine-looking old man, with a wise face.   He is now so deaf that his rich store of memories is sealed to the stranger.

  Mrs. Floyd, aged 91, is also rather deaf, but the little effort required to talk to her is fully worthwhile, for she has a mind stored with incidents of a long life.

  Mrs Floyd was born at Aston Clinton, near Tring, in 1833.   She still wears the same picturesque sun-bonnet which country-women wore when she was married.

  She is small, but pluck and determination are shown in every line of her vigorous body.  She reads two or three newspapers every day and will discuss their contents with anyone, especially their political contents.

  At the age of 14, she came to Lacey Green, where she and her father were in service to the vicar, she as a domestic servant.   A few years later, the vicar, impressed by her unusual ability to read, asked her to start a little village school.

  She taught the little girls patchwork, and both little boys and girls their letters.  There was a little ‘summing’ done also, and a few of the older pupils used to learn a form of sampler work on canvas.

  Mothers sent their children’s clothes to school already tacked, so that the little pupils might be usefully employed by adding to their wardrobes.

ALL FOR A PENNY A WEEK      

  “At a penny a week, I think their mothers were glad to get rid of them” was old Mrs. Floyds comment.

  For all this the young teacher was paid 2 shillings and 6 pence a week by the parish.  Old men and women of 70, passing down the village street, still point out “my governess” when old Mrs. Floyd goes by.

  Mr. and Mrs. Floyd, helped by a son, keep cows and pigs and hens.   I was shown a dark, cool shed down three on four steps, where Mrs Floyd makes her butter twice a week.   Shallow pans of milk were cooling and golden pats of butter gave evidence of the old housewife’s industry.

  Mrs. Floyd has apparently never known the sensation of boredom in all her life.

I asked what were her amusements as a young woman.   “I never had any” she said “I was always a home bird.   If you can’t get amusement in your own home, you’ll never get it outside.”

TO LONDON BY COACH

  In her young days Mrs Floyd used to come up to London by stage-coach, changing at High Wycombe and Edgware.   The last time she visited London was on the occasion of the marriage of King George and Queen Mary (June 1911).   A young relative brought her up to see the illuminations, but she was kept out all night and swore she would never visit London again; and she has kept to her word.

  Neither she nor Mr. Floyd has ever seen the sea, and neither of them wants to.

“I don’t evenlike to look at the reservoir outside the village,” old Mrs. Floyd confided in me, “so I don’t know what I should have to say to the sea.”

DEATHS of PETER and ANN

Peter Tyler Floyd died 1924.   Ann Floyd died 1929.