History of the Niblett family

History of the Niblett family

I have long been interested in my own family tree and in the wider derivations of the family and this has led to a considerable search of the resources for information on what is a fairly uncommon name.

In that regard I have had the benefit of the research done by several members of the wider family. In particular I have made full use of the work done by Ray Niblett in building a list of Nibletts from Gloucestershire parish records and of Peter Huw Niblett and my cousin John Niblett. Dorothy Neblett Perkins book “Some Nebletts in America” also gave me much information on the origins of the family name. I have also made use of the genealogical records kept at Salt Lake City, organizations like Genuki, Ancestry.com and Genealogy.com, the various UK censuses published by Phillimores, the free BMD records and have also personally examined many of the records kept at the National Archives, the Gloucester, Bristol and Wiltshire Records Offices, particularly those related to Brookthorpe, Painswick, Berkeley and Randwick. By contact with other Niblett family members who are researching the family tree I have been able to establish links in families that would have otherwise been obscure and have obtained information that would otherwise not have been available to me.

As to the source of the family name I have researched the Oxford dictionary of English surnames, various publications on Saxon names and on French family names, early Gloucestershire dialects and the histories of several of the aristocratic families in South Gloucestershire. In addition I have translated all of the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th century wills of early Nyblets from Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Sussex and read a large number of histories on the development of farming in England and of agricultural life in general from 1066 to date.

What follows cannot be said to be absolutely accurate as the family groupings in some cases are more a logical process of linking dates, places, and names with a degree of intuition and probability rather than dealing with absolute facts. The process is continually evolving as new information becomes available. More factual evidence is available in the 18^th century when there was sometimes a record of parents at marriages and from 1837 onwards when births, deaths and marriages were centrally recorded on a formal basis. Even then some family groupings are a matter for conjecture and intuitive guesswork.

I have separately listed the various events in locations in which Nibletts have been found. Sometimes this is a single parish such as Minchinhampton, but more often it is a group of parishes that are closely linked such as Brookthorpe and Painswick or a County such as Sussex.

I have linked the various spellings of the name so that Nyblat, Nyblet, Niblat, Neblet, Neabellet, Nibblett, Niblet, and Niblett are all considered to be the same, the variations of the spelling probably being due to the interpretation of the clergy, different accents and dialects, and/or the illiteracy of the parents at the time or, indeed, to the errors of those transcribing the documentation. It is, however, notable that the early records at Painswick, Randwick, Standish, Chipping Campden, Leonard Stanley, and Kings Stanley show the name as Nyblet or Nyblat. This may indicate movement of the family between those parishes (they are close geographically anyway) or it may just express the classical training of the clergy at those places or even the tendency in the language of the time to substitute “y” for “i”. The general use of “i” instead of “y” was a change that occurred in the 17^th century. There is a further variation of the name as Noblett but there are clear indications that this name is derived from a separate and identifiable French aristocratic source and is not connected to the Niblett family. The names of Nesbitt and Nisbitt are also of a separate Scottish derivation. There is a suggestion that the Nesbitt clan, having supported the English in the many wars against Scotland, were evicted from their lands after a Scottish victory and moved to Gloucestershire. I can find no evidence for this and the Nesbitt family was, in fact, deported to Ireland so I doubt the story is correct. The name Neblet may also be separately derived and one of the early names at Berkeley is recorded as Neblet. Having looked at the written copy of that entry I have since ascertained that this is in fact a misinterpretation of the writing and it was in fact Niblet and this was clearly the case for another member of the same family. Examination of the detail of the Nebletts in both the UK and the USA tends to support the concept that Neblett is derived from Niblett and not from the Noblett family.

My personal research has concentrated on my own family deriving from Randwick and Frampton on Severn (Appendix 29) where the parish records were well maintained and substantially complete. In addition to those listed above I have been able to compile full or partial family trees for the following parishes.

Most of Bristol Appendix 1

Most of Gloucester Appendix 2

Most of Stroud Appendix 3

Stonehouse Appendix 4

Eastington Appendix 29

Fretherne Appendix 29

Avening Appendix 5

Bisley Appendix 6

Haresfield and Standish Appendix 7

Westbury on Severn Appendix 8

Many parts of the Forest of Dean Appendix 8

Cheltenham Appendix 9

Cirencester Appendix 10

Blockley, Chipping Campden and surrounding area Appendix 11

Minchinhampton Appendix 12

Rodborough Appendix 12

United States of America Appendix 13

North Nibley Appendix 14

Hawkesbury Upton Appendix 15

Horsham and other parts of Sussex Appendix 16

Dorking, Southwark and other parts of Surrey Appendix 17

Most of London Appendix 18

Most of Worcestershire particularly Upton on Severn and Great Malvern Appendix 19

The Isle of Wight and other parts of Hampshire Appendix 20

Wiltshire Appendix 21

Devon Appendix 22

Most parts of Warwickshire particularly Alcester and Birmingham Appendix 11

Australia Appendix 23

Barbados Appendix 24

India Appendix 25

Germany Appendix 26

Portugal Appendix 26

King’s Stanley and Leonard Stanley Appendix 27

Wales Appendix 28

There is also a listing of ‘stray’ Nibletts who have roamed outside these locations. Appendix 29

Where the existence of Nibletts, both male and female, has been established by some subsequent event such as marriage the age of the person has been determined by the using the standard IGI method of treating males as 25 at the date of marriage and females as 21. In some of these cases there is only one family that these unidentified persons could have derived from and that link is suggested by positioning in the charts. Where no family can be directly linked no such positioning has been done and this indicates a potential missing family or a family that has come into the area from another parish. I would estimate that the total number of missing families is about 100 out of a total of marriages of over a 1000, so approximately 10%. This covers the period 1500 through to 1900. Many unions between a husband and wife did not involve a civil or church ceremony and are therefore not recorded. It is only possible to identify those common law marriages by the subsequent registration of the birth or christening of a child. Having used all the available resources in Gloucestershire up to the end of the eighteenth century I believe there are no further official records that will add to the information on recorded marriages in that county. Surprisingly it is most difficult and expensive to obtain details of nineteenth century marriages and christenings. Since 1837 these events have been centrally recorded and FreeBMD is in the process of transcribing them to an internet database. That database is incomplete as yet and only contains the basic data from which to obtain a copy of the birth or marriage certificate. As each one of these costs £7.00 plus postage, the prospect of applying for several hundreds is somewhat daunting. Hence the 19^th century detail is often less complete than that of earlier centuries especially given the exponential nature of families.

Each of the charts is contained in an appendix which includes a summary of how I have followed the family development in each location listing all the recorded names, births, christenings, marriages, deaths and burials that I have been able to find. There is also a control listing of all recorded marriages and of births and christenings (Appendices A and B). Some duplication may have occurred if a person or family moved about from one location to another.

The early records of the name

I think all researchers of family names long to discover connections with royalty or aristocracy or conversely with some ancestor of less illustrious but equal infamy. The references by some researchers to the name being applied to friends of Isabelle of Angouleme, Queen to King John (1199-1216) gives some prospect to that. The name is defined as a diminutive of Isabelle appearing as Ibbs, or Nibbs, and then further diminished to Nibbslets, Nibbetts or Nibletts or even Niblocks. Let or lette is an old French or Middle English word meaning small or little. So a man having direct connection to an Isobel whose familiar name was Ibbs might have acquired the name little Ibbs or Ibbslet.

However there is no substantiating evidence for any link to Queen Isabelle, although Isabelle of Angouleme is known to have visited Gloucester. The likelihood that friends of Queen Isabelle being other than aristocracy or landed gentry is very remote unless they were direct servants and there is no reference anywhere that I have been able to find to the name Niblett in any of the records of the time. As further evidence early Nibletts only appear as a name of note in the manorial records for Brookthorpe and even then for only a short period in the late 15^th and early 16^th centuries. Direct descendants that moved to Haresfield became Lords of the manor there and were later involved in the law and in the British Army in India and also in the entrepreneurial levels in the cloth trade. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, where occupations are recorded, they frequently show the occupations of agricultural labourer or just labourer, indicating a very lowly status. Wives and daughters are often referred to as servants, washerwomen, textile workers, seamstresses, etc. again indicating a mostly lower status. There was one case of a John Niblett at Berkeley described in 1609 as a husbandman, that is a tenant farmer one level lower than yeoman not the modern interpretation as a person who looks after animals. Many of the early wills refer to the testator as a yeoman, the old word for the modern independent small farmer. It is likely that the Haresfield dynasty started from a line of bakers.

The 16^th and 17^th century Nibletts were still basically involved in farming and from the nature of their locations there was a strong involvement with the rearing of sheep. Painswick, Randwick, Cirencester, Hawkesbury, Great Malvern, parts of the Forest of Dean, and Horsham in Sussex are all hilly sheep country locations. By contrast, Haresfield, Brookthorpe, Berkeley, Standish, Eastington, Fretherne and Upton on Severn are more lowland and used for cattle grazing and the development of crops. By the beginning of the eighteenth century the development of industry and the full effect of the enclosures drew agricultural workers into the towns and their satellite villages and this is where we see Nibletts appearing in Gloucester, Bristol, Stroud, Avening, Kings Stanley, Leonard Stanley, Minchinhampton, Rodborough, Bisley and North Nibley. Cottage industry had started as a means for labourers to supplement their meagre and often inadequate income well before mechanization, so the organisation of wool spinning and weaving on a dispersed piecework basis dominated by a central processing point was a natural progression. This was the cloth industry surrounding Stroud in the eighteenth century.

By the time of the 1851 and 1881 censuses it is difficult to find entries that describe Nibletts as farmers. There are many farm labourers and general labourers but the history of yeoman farmers had all but died out. Gloucestershire and Worcestershire were both very backward counties being slow to adapt from the feudal manors, then slow to adapt to enclosure and finally slow to adopt modern and mechanized forms of farming practice. When the changes came they came suddenly and those that could not cope were forced from the land. An analysis of the names Charles and William Niblett in the 1881 census shows that there were 31 children (21 at school and 10 under the age of 5), 5 Agricultural labourers, 2 farmers, 1 horse breeder, 2 bricklayers,1 post office clerk, 1 clerk, 1 civil servant, 1 comedian, 1 baker, 1 cordwainer (shoemaker), 1 locksmith, 5 railway workers, 3 masons, 1 groom, 1 gardener, 7 general labourers, 1 seaman captain, 3 metal workers,1 millwright, 3 miners, 1 sawyer, 1 carter, 2 businessmen, 1 commercial traveler, 1 retail worker, 1 engine fitter, 1 coachman, 2 construction workers, 1 printer,1 carpenter and 1 cab driver. This is a typical cross section of employment in the family by that date.

Some speculation on how the name arose

The name Isobel as a seminal source for the family name of Niblett only appears to have occurred in Gloucestershire. Other developments from Isobel are many and varied all of which appear to be completely separate to the Nibletts. There are separate families of Ibbs or Ibbes, mainly in the Stafford area; Ebbetts and Libby’s appear primarily in Cornwall; Ibotts, Iblotts Ibetts or Hibbetts appear to be concentrated in Bedfordshire; Ibbisons in Lancashire; Isbells in Devon; Knibbs in Oxfordshire, Libbetts in Staffordshire, Devon and Hampshire. All these derive from the name Isobel but do not appear connected to the Niblett family.

This leaves open the question of why a derivative of the name Isobel appears as Niblett in Gloucestershire and something else in other counties. It is quite likely to do with local tradition or dialect. As an example it is a common feature in Bristol and South Gloucestershire to add consonants to words that do not require them. Even during my upbringing just after the Second World War it was common to hear “half a crown” referred to as “half a crownd” or the Clifton Suspension Bridge as the “Surspension” Bridge or the word ‘Thee” pronounced as “Theece”. Transition from “he’s an Iblett” to “he’s a Niblett” is a fairly logical and simple one under those circumstances with the “an” pronounced as “un”. That, in itself, does not fully establish that the name only appeared in one place as, if it was commonplace to produce Niblett as a derivative of Isobel in one place in Gloucestershire, then it could quite likely produce the name in another part of Gloucestershire.

The family crest might lead some to believe an aristocratic connection but in fact this was purchased by the Niblett family at Haresfield Court in the 1800’s that being a fashionable thing to do at that time. The members of that particular branch of the family were originally grocers in Gloucester then became bankers for a short time and subsequently connected to the law. Those particular Nibletts regularly received freedom of the City of Gloucester and there is one record of attendance at events at Durham House north of Bristol so they moved in exalted circles. Many of the other families seem to have been poor, some indeed to the extent of being in the various workhouses in the area at one time or another.

Many wills have been published starting with John Nyblett at Brookthorpe in 1543 so there were Nibletts with property to bequeath at an early date and enough education to understand the need. There was a further will for a Johannes Nyblett at Brookthorpe in 1546. In reading these wills it appears that both were born to an Edward Nyblett, somewhere between 1470 and 1480, and developed their families in different ways. In both wills there are references to their ‘wyffes’ as Isobell, but the ‘Johannes’ of 1546 refers to sons as well. The birth of these sons is before the date that parish records began so it is not possible to specifically date them, but they were named as Robert, John and Lawrence. Johannes also had more than one daughter, probably four as he refers to two of his daughters that are not married and also to his other two daughters, but they are not specifically named in his will. The will of the son John refers to his brother Lawrence but not to his brother Robert. At first I thought that these two wills were drawn up by just one person both being John but both wills were registered at different dates so they refer to two persons.

It has been suggested that the village of North Nibley might have given rise to the name but I can find no references that indicate that this is anything else but a coincidence. The name Nibley appears to mean a clearing in a forest (ley) close by a promontory (Nib). The transition of the name from “Thomas who lived in a clearing in the forest close by a promontory” to “Thomas Niblett” is quite possible. However there are no early references to Nibletts in North Nibley. The name Nibley seems to have survived as a surname without distortion, the early versions being Nybley and there is evidence of Nybleys in Haresfield in the late 16^th century.

Another possibility is that the name was attributed as a result of a special occurrence that might have happened, for instance, during the battle of Nibley Green. At this battle, the last of the private pitched battles on English soil, the two private armies of Thomas Berkeley and William Lisle met in 1469 to decide the disputed ownership of property and, in the case of Berkeley, to avenge the treatment of his mother Isobel. The armies were raised from tenants and workers on the respective estates with some professional soldiers and mercenaries involved. Robin Niblett who was descended from the Haresfield branch of the family recorded early in the twentieth century, from family lore, that a member or members of his ancestors was present at the battle. It is, perhaps, only coincidence that a John Nyblet became suddenly raised to the level of landed gentry at Brookthorpe manor, just after the battle.

However, I find it difficult to accept that involvement in that battle could have given rise to the name. In 1469 most men in England had already adopted hereditary surnames so the date seems wrong. In addition it would be strange that, of the several hundred men who took part in the battle from the Berkeley estates, only one should be named Nyblet afterwards.

The more likely possibility is that Edward or John Nyblet procured his freedom as a result of his efforts at the battle and was then able to take up the lease of Brookthorpe Manor in 1470, the surname having been established at a much earlier date. The parish of Brookthorpe is located in the Middle Dudstone and Kings’s Barton hundred mainly under the patronage of the Dean and Chapter of Gloucester. This is a hundred adjoining that of Berkeley under the control of the Berkeley family and of Whitstone which belonged to the Crown. The movement out of Berkeley to another hundred would have to have been undertaken with the permission of the Berkeley Estate which again makes the event remarkable.

Other researchers have indicated a connection to the Saxon word Knibb meaning beak or nose, suggesting that it was a nickname applying to a person with a prominent nose. Our family still has prominent noses and contact with other members of the Niblett family indicates this is a common factor. It is also likely that it that has led to the use of the phrase “his nibs”, referring to someone with ideas or connections above their station. Someone who would “look down their nose at you”. Again, using logic, if that was the case then the name would be fairly widespread rather like Smith or Carpenter, and that does not appear to be the case.

In fact the early references to the name appear to be concentrated in a fairly small area of Gloucestershire, those appearing as far north as Birmingham, Manchester, Yorkshire or even Scotland or east into London and Kent probably being spin-offs from emigrants from the Gloucestershire area. The earliest formal record of the name Niblett to date was the John from Brookthorpe (close to Painswick) whose son Andrew was reputedly born at Brookthorpe about 1470. This date has to be suspect because John’s will was published in 1543 so if his son was born in 1470 John’s birth would have been at least 1450 making him 93 at death, an unlikely age at that time. There are other early references at Standish and Berkeley. All these places are within 20 miles of each other. The direct line from the first John ceased with his son Andrew who produced no male heir as has been shown in wills of the time. Andrew left his estate including the lease on the manor at Brookthorpe, to his son in law and daughter with no reference to any other siblings. As was common practice at the time the lease on Brookthorpe must have been passed down to Andrew before John died as there is no reference to it in John’s will. It is quite probable that the other relatives of John Nyblatt were the source for my own family line in Randwick and Frampton and for the establishment of the family line in Haresfield and, indeed, for the whole Niblett family. In the actual wills, which were always death bed events containing the phrase “sick in body but of good memory and understanding”, the dispositions were usually small bequests of money and goods and chattels with instructions on burial and naming executors and trustees. Key items such as property were usually conveyed much earlier.

There appear to be two main concentrations of the name. One is the area surrounding Painswick which would include Standish, Frampton, Bisley, Stonehouse, King’s Stanley, Leonard Stanley, Randwick, Minchinhampton, Stroud, Haresfield, Avening and Westbury on Severn.

The other is the area surrounding Berkeley, to include Thornbury, Dursley, North Nibley, Yate, Hawkesbury Upton, Wotton under edge, Newington Bagpath and the northerly parts of Bristol.

Of the two the Painswick (Brookthorpe) area has the greatest numbers but I suspect that Berkeley was the more likely original source.

My conjecture on this point is twofold. One is based on the fact that some of the early recorded Christian names in the Berkeley area still used the old German Christian names (Anselm or Anseln) or French (Guillaume) or Guillemus, (the Latin source) into the sixteenth century indicating a much older derivation. Of course it may well just reflect a classically trained priest. The second is the tradition in one section of the family of participation in the battle of Nybley Green as mentioned above. Isobel was a popular name from well before the 12^th century and has maintained that popularity either directly or through its derivative Elizabeth. It was a name that probably originated in Southern France. The application of a diminutive of the name to the family name Niblett could have derived from any Isobel, although to have the name attached to a woman must indicate a woman of some stature or reputation. That would logically mean the name should occur all over Gloucestershire but the evidence is strongly in favour of only one original source.

There is, of course, one Isobel of notoriety in the area, the French queen to Edward II, who engineered the death of her husband at Berkeley Castle in 1347. The barbarous act was reputedly carried out by two nobles, but it seems unlikely that they could have done the deed without the assistance of others. Who those others might have been is pure conjecture. The name Niblett only appears to have existed after that date as, so far, there appears to be no mention of it in the subsidy rolls of 1327 and specifically not for the Berkeley hundred. That, in itself, may be meaningless as the subsidy rolls list only persons able to be taxed and many labourers did not come into that category. There were several Isobels in the Berkeley family in the mid 1400’s and that could well have established any of the diminutives as a familiar short version of the name so that the derivative might have been restricted to the Berkeley area. It may well be that the use of diminutives was restricted to the aristocracy and that close contact with one of those Isobels did give rise to the name. The battle of Nybley Green was partially fought over the treatment of Isabel, the mother to Thomas Berkeley, and this could have been a connection.

What made the family then spread to the north east could be due to a number of factors. The Berkeley area was well known for its flooding and the flood of 1464 (dated according to John Smyth the steward to the Berkeley estate) was particularly devastating with many well off families being made destitute by the damage to crops and loss of life to humans and animals. The effects of the plague in the late 1300’s might also have been an influence or even the impact of a large family not having enough resources or job prospects in a small local area. The possibility of being given freedom from serfdom on the Berkeley estates and allowing settlement as a landed gentleman at Brookthorpe seems a more logical option.

Generally speaking, however, it was much more customary for families to remain in one area for generations. Many of the lower working classes would not have traveled further than the next village in their lives. Even into the mid 1960’s, from my own knowledge, there were still families in the more remote areas of Gloucestershire and Somerset who had not set foot outside their own village. In contradiction to this more recent studies in the 1990’s have shown that migration was well established in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries despite the restrictions applied by the feudal society and well established traditions that were difficult to break. The drift towards the employment of day labourers on an annual basis also increased the movement of workers to new places of employment. An examination of the early marriage records of various Gloucestershire parishes clearly shows that there was a surprisingly high content of marriages to an out of parish spouse, some at relatively long distances.

An interesting example of this is the sudden appearance of Nibletts in Yorkshire in 1805. Richard and Mary christened a son and a daughter at Luddenden in Yorkshire in 1805 and 1806. Looking round the records for a possible source there was the Richard and Mary Lloyd married at Stroud in September 1805. The dates do not exactly tie up but it is possible that the two families are the same and they moved from Stroud to Yorkshire at that time. The question is what made them move. There had been attempts at Luddenden to start a cloth making industry on more than just a cottage craft basis so recruitment into the area was quite logical. The well known and established industry in Stroud would have been the logical place to look for recruits and approximately 180 people were known to have been recruited in the area.

Standish and Painswick carry the other early references to Nibletts while most other parishes have much later references: While this may be due to just lack of records it is more likely to show the progressive movement of the families away from their origins. The dates below give some indication of this. The first date is the earliest recorded Niblett in the Parish and the second date is the earliest Parish record. It is, at least, prima facie evidence that Nibletts appeared, in most places, well after records began, indicating that they were immigrants to the area rather than incumbents. Only Brookethorpe, Chipping Campden, Rodborough and Cam and Slimbridge near Berkeley have records of Nibletts prior or close to the establishment of Parish records.

Alderton 1614 1596

Avening 1656 1557

Berkeley 1612 1558

Bisley 1661 1547

Blockley 1612 1538

Brookethorpe 1470 1569 (The early records are from leases and wills)

Cam 1577 1569

Chipping Campden 1568 1606. (The early records are from wills.)

Dymock 1625 1538

Frampton 1703 1577

Gloucester 1586 1553

Haresfield 1666 1558

Kings Stanley 1602 1573

Leonard Stanley 1638 1570

Minchinhampton 1687 1558

North Nibley 1708 1567

Painswick 1548 1547

Randwick 1618 1607

Rodborough 1620 1620

Slimbridge 1570 1570

South Cerney 1627 1578

Standish 1573 1559

Stretton on the Fosse 1612 Unknown

Stroud 1597 1578

Tirley 1801 1601

Westbury on Severn 1622 1538

Westbury on Trym 1605 1559

Woolstone 1618 1570

Yate 1687 1609

Outside of Gloucestershire the earliest record shows a Nyblett at Horsham in Sussex in 1549 (parish records started in 1541) and in London by 1614. In Worcestershire the earliest record is at Upton on Severn in 1562. Upton on Severn is less than ten miles from Chipping Campden, Stretton on the Fosse, Cherington, Blockley, Alderton and Woolstone, where a family of Nibletts was established at an early date. Even more relevant is that Upton on Severn was a well used port in the 16^th century as were Berkeley and Bristol as well as several of the smaller villages along the banks of the Severn. In fact it is movement between Brookethorpe, Whaddon, Quedgeley and Upton, probably using the river that gave rise to the start of the family in Upton on Severn. The transition into Worcestershire is easily traceable from there on.

Significantly, perhaps, the Niblett name at Brookthorpe, Chipping Campden, Upton on Severn and at Horsham is spelled Nyblet or Nyblat. Common Christian names between the places are Richard and Robert. So the possibility of a connection between the families in the two places is quite strong.

Horsham, although I believe the family there derived from Gloucestershire, is a possible alternative source for the name. There is one other derivative of Isobel not yet mentioned and that is the name Yblett or Ybelote. Thomas Ybelote was reputedly a yeoman farmer in Sussex in the late 13^th century. He appears in the subsidy rolls for Sussex in 1296. It is therefore possible that the name has been translated over the years into Nyblet and then Niblett and that Horsham was the derivative or even a separate source for the name. However, records earlier than 1549 would have to be uncovered in order to take precedence over the Gloucestershire source. My own view is that the Horsham family was started from one of the early Nibletts at Brookethorpe. What gave rise to the move from Gloucestershire to Sussex would be pure speculation.

I have looked for a common estate holding to provide a link and although there is some connection between Gloucestershire and Sussex in the Braose family and in the Berkeley family it is not strong enough for a positive link. It is possible that one of the Nibletts became attached to the Horsham area as a result of going to war or to sea, possibly as a recruit to the private army of the Lords of Braose who had estates in Tetbury and frequently traveled through Gloucester and the Forest of Dean on their way to do battle in Monmouthshire with competing Welsh Lords. Lynda Denyer, one of the historians of the De Braose family, tells me there is no record of a Niblett attached to the family retinue. From her studies of the time she feels that agricultural workers who joined a warring Lord for just a local battle would be more likely to return home once the battle was over rather than risk permanent migration to some distant and unfamiliar destination.

The Berkeleys had connections to Horsham through the Mowbray branch of the Braose family. Isabel Mowbray was the mother of William Berkeley who was badly treated by the de Lisle family and ultimately avenged at the battle of Nibley Green. Horsham was an important centre for sheep rearing as were the Cotswolds. What is most possible is that a shepherd from the Berkeley or Painswick areas took part in the herding of a flock of sheep from Gloucestershire to Sussex, not an uncommon event according to Lynda Denyer, and then stayed in the area. From my own experience with a farmer for whom I worked temporarily in the 1970’s, he could recount his father herding cattle on his own from Birmingham to the South Cotwolds in the late nineteenth century when he moved farms. There was an old established route for animals being driven from Wales to London that passed through Gloucester, Lechlade, Wantage and then across the Ridgeway to Reading. Horsham Fairs were well established in the 14^th and 15^th centuries so the route from Reading through Albury and Ewenhurst would have been well known.

There are no records at Berkeley that assist in proving this possibility and David Smith, the Berkeley archivist, doubts that movement of sheep or cows in the area would have been at distances greater than the local markets. Records at Horsham indicate that the markets there generally drew on an area with a radius of twenty miles from the town.

Three male Nibletts, Thomas, Richard and William were married at Horsham in the early 1560’s and a female, Elizabeth was married there in 1549 soon after the first baptismal and marriage records began. It is likely that Thomas, Richard and William were the grandsons of an elder brother of Elizabeth but the names of the parents are not recorded at her marriage and their births would have been prior to Parish records. What it does imply is that the arrival of the Nibletts in Sussex occurred before 1540 and probably before 1520. This is, by coincidence, just about the time the Brookethorpe family seems to have broken up. The Horsham family had died out by the end of the eighteenth century.

The man who started the Horsham dynasty may, of course, not have been an agricultural worker, although that was the predominant occupation in the family. Stone masons, in particular, were itinerant by the very nature of their work. Painswick stone was used in Sussex on various castles and manor houses and there is a history of masonry stone quarrying all over Gloucestershire. Horsham itself produced paving and roofing stone in the Middle Ages. In the 1851 census there are several members of the family described as stone masons. The problem with that theory is that when the job was finished the mason would move on again to the next job and would likely not settle in one area unless the task there was a lifelong one.

Tetbury, as were many of the market towns, was a centre to which unemployed workers or day labourers went to offer themselves for employment. Anyone in the parishes of Avening, Cherington, Horsley, and Beverstone would have used Tetbury as the market town and a Niblett from any of those places could have been employed by the de Braose family and transferred to their estates around Bamber Castle at Horsham. There are early Niblett families recorded at Horsley, Cherington and Avening and Avening was a medieval stone quarrying area.

What emerges from this as a possible scenario is that there were three or more brothers, being tied agricultural workers on the Berkeley estates. As a result of the battle of Nibley Green they were given their freedom and allowed to go off with some funds to acquire their own properties. Their first move was to Brookthorpe where John became lord of the manor, probably employing his siblings. Then the family broke up, maybe as a result of the way that the inheritance of the manor was settled, one setting off for London but settling at Horsham, one went to Standish, a third went to Haresfield and a fourth to Chipping Campden. All of this is pure conjecture based on anecdotal evidence.

Emigration on a wider scale

While many of the Nibletts, including my own family, took the opportunity to become sailors afforded by proximity to the seas through Berkeley, Gloucester and Bristol, most appear to have remained in agriculture, spreading eventually to the cloth and woolen industries surrounding Stroud. Several families emigrated to North America and several were either forced or volunteered to go to Australia. Kaye Purnell, who analysed the records of emigrants to Australia, identified a total of 7 Nibletts who emigrated to Australia before 1888 and many of these have been identified in the attached records. Many villages actively supported emigration, raising funds to do so and thereby relieving local unemployment.

The Niblett family is widespread in both Canada and the United States and to some extent in Australia and New Zealand, mostly as a result of emigrations from Gloucestershire. The early US immigration records are largely missing so some of the first linkages between England and the Americas are very hard to find. The first recorded entry of a Niblett to America was in 1654 when two Johns, a James and a Richard landed at Philadelphia. There are several possible sources for those arrivals but indications are that one of the Johns and Richard were brothers born to William Niblett and an unknown female at Berkeley and that the other John and James were the sons of James and Joanne Flambert at Painswick. In fact many of the Bristol records for early emigrants do show that several Nibletts came from the surrounding area and emigrated as indentured servants. The Berkeley Company set up by Richard Berkeley and John Smythe the steward to the Berkeley estate, amongst others, had sent a ship the “Margret” to establish Berkeley County in Virginia on the James River so the precedent was already established. By 1654 the company was looking for replacement immigrants to support those that had survived from the first voyage. 1654 was just before the time of the Quaker exodus from the UK so it seems unlikely there was any connection to that movement, although it could have applied to some of the later immigrants. There were eight other Nibletts who landed between 1654 and 1661. In the 1700’s London was a popular place for eloping couples as “Fleet” marriages were relatively easy without all the necessity of calling the bans or residence qualifications that accompanied traditional weddings. Many Niblett marriages took place in London in the period 1650 through to 1753 until they were banned by the Marriage Act of 1753. Some of those couples reappear elsewhere in the UK but more often the names just disappear with emigration or perhaps even transportation the likely cause.

There are a surprising number of Nibletts recorded in Barbados from the 1660’s onwards. Some of these may have continued onwards to the United States. Some may have been involved in the slave trade and stayed in the West Indies. Some were undoubtedly sent as convicts for effective slave labour on the sugar plantations. Others may have been in the armed forces as the West Indies were a staging post for regiments involved in North America. Many marriages took place in Barbados and it is quite possible that this was the source of name in the African-American community in the USA although there is stronger evidence that most of the Nibletts there were brought about by names adopted from their employers.

The Cloth trade

While the early predominance of occupation for the family was in farming there is no doubt that the expansion of the cloth trade based on Stroud drew many farm workers away from the land. Although Stroud was the main centre where the cloth was finished most of the work in weaving and initial preparation was done on a piecework basis by families in their own homes. Villages like Rodborough, Minchinhampton, Randwick, Avening, Bisley, Kings Stanley and Leonard Stanley all grew as satellite cottage industries to Stroud, often located around the site of a mill.

Although many of the families were independent some were grouped under a cloth master who supplied the equipment and purchased the product that he then sold on to the finishing mills in Stroud. The life would have been extremely hard for those working at the looms and wool processing. Many diseases developed from the activity compounded by poor diet and poverty and the hard grinding work and there is much evidence of children dieing in infancy in all of the villages shown above.

Several of the members of the Niblett family were cloth masters but there were many more who were just labourers in the trade. The timing of the arrival of Niblett families in each of the above villages is probably indicative of the movement into the cloth trade at that time.

From the family records of Robin Niblett, mentioned above, his family is believed to have come from the Buckinghamshire/Surrey area having originated in Gloucestershire. Although the family can be traced back to a Phillip Niblett who moved to India with his wife Christina in the early 19^th century no direct links have not yet been found in England. There are two areas where Nibletts became established in the Buckingham/Surrey area- at Dorking and Horsham. Again, family lore has it that the original Nibletts were involved in the cloth trade which flourished in that area.

The Christian name Phillip is a very rare one in the Niblett family. The only early references I have been able to find were in Avening, Minchinhampton, Horsley and Yate. The Nibletts at Yate and Horsley tended to be in agriculture but Avening and Minchinhampton were specifically cloth manufacturing villages and it is likely that Phillip’s family originated at one of those two places. The families in both places link back to Brookethorpe and Painswick.

Stroud itself contains the highest numbers of the family name starting from the mid 17^th century through the middle of the 19^th century when the cloth industry had declined and it is quite likely that most of the families in that period were involved in the cloth trade. By the time of the census in 1881 there were very few Niblett families left in any of the villages associated with the cloth trade. Those remaining had developed other trades.

Family Christian Names

It is quite noticeable while compiling family trees in any one town how the use of particular Christian names follow certain family lines.

Frampton and Randwick for instance favour John, William and Thomas.

Painswick favours James, Samuel and Thomas.

Haresfield Daniel and Samuel

Edward seems restricted to Westbury on Severn in Gloucestershire and Upton on Severn in Worcestershire. Andrew appears frequently in early dates at Standish, Painswick and Horsham.

The practice of naming sons after their father and daughters after mothers was quite widespread and, in fact, the profusion of Johns and Sarahs in Frampton and Randwick sometimes makes the succession difficult to follow and can only be established by a process of elimination. Restrictions on Christian names by the Catholic Church made for a very limited choice until the Reformation so the use of Christian names is only a very tentative link to trace movements of the family from one place to another.

In the Haresfield branch of the family it became the practice to apply the maternal surname as a second Christian name of sons. This is first seen in the family of John and Jane of Minchinhampton in the 1780’s, probably connected to the Haresfield family and then through the families in India to the present day in Canada. This is again an indication that the family mentioned above started in the Minchinhampton area. There is a possibility that the practice was started even earlier around 1750 in the family of William and Elizabeth Niblett at Beverstone near Avening where the eldest son was named Richard Plummer Niblett but the wedding details indicating the maiden name of the bride have yet to be discovered. It is a particular practice among the Neblett family in the USA.

Frampton and Randwick Nibletts

The earliest record of the Frampton Nibletts begins in Randwick with the marriage of Thomas to Elizabeth Calfway in 1663. There are earlier Nibletts recorded in Randwick but no apparent connection links them to this family although there does appear to be a possible link to Painswick. A Thomas was born to an unknown parent in Berkeley in 1643 but there is no obvious link to Randwick. Randwick is an interesting parish in two parts. It lies between Painswick and Stroud. The upper levels on the plateau between two valleys comprise farming land and are predominantly agricultural. As the plateau falls away into the Stroud valley the village has been built on the sides of the hills primarily as a feeder to the demands of the Stroud cloth industry. Thomas and Elizabeth, who were likely to have been of farming stock, had 7 children, the eldest of which- Daniel, was christened in March 1665. There were two other children christened in this time period and an unlikely, but not out of the question, 9 year gap in the succession of births in the family. The christenings of these two do not record the father or the mother but it is likely that both were born to Thomas and Elizabeth. One of those was also called Daniel so it is likely the first born died young, it being quite usual to name a succeeding son with the same Christian name as the deceased. Daniel married Sarah Groom in May 1691.

They in turn had four children, all boys. The eldest of these, William, christened in 1696 married Elizabeth Gabb in July 1725.

William and Elizabeth had four children, the youngest being Samuel christened in 1745. He went on to marry Ann Hart from Arlingham in October 1764 and to produce four children while living in Saul. The youngest of this family –John, christened in 1769 married Sarah Poole in 1795. Sarah was from Frampton and they raised three children in Whitminster. Charles, the only boy, was christened in 1800 and married Hannah Gabb in October 1825. By the census of 1851 Charles was living in Frampton with three of his children, having separated from his wife. The only reference to Hannah in 1851 appears in Haresfield where she was living in the same accommodation with a William Haines. She subsequently married a Henry Haines and returned to live in Frampton.

Charles and Hannah had seven children, the eldest, John, being christened in 1826. John left home at an early age and traveled to Newport and went to sea, eventually marrying Hannah Cook in Cardiff and settling in Bristol. Hannah had been previously married and had three children and it is likely she came from Cardiff. They had a further son named William in 1852. William married Elizabeth Britton in the 1870’s, their son Frank Louis being born in 1879. William was considered an institution at C J King the tug boat owners from Bristol and is anecdotally remembered in the published history of that company. John died on March 17, 1906.

Frank Louis married Bessie Ann Saunders in 1900 and their youngest son Reginald was my father. He was born on September 21, 1912. My mother was Sylvia Henrietta Thomas born April 29, 1916. Frank died on June 6, 1943. He was an independent tug boat and barge operator on the River Avon at Bristol. My father was a retired newsagent and tobacconist having apprenticed as an electrician and lived most of his life in various parts of Bristol. He was a well known Rugby referee in the Bristol area having achieved County standard. He died on Aug 26, 1979.

Frank had gone to sea first as a boy and then as an engineer. In the 1901 census he was aboard the ship Dolphen as master at Newport. During the First World War as a Chief Petty Officer he survived the sinking of his ship HMS Pekin, struck by a mine off the coast of Belgium. Family rumour has it that this was only one of possibly three sinkings he survived and from the hair raising stories my father told of his adventures in the Severn and Avon during heavy storms I can quite believe it.

Thomas, the earliest recorded patriarch of the family, married Elizabeth Calfway at Standish in 1663. Thomas probably originated from a John Niblett of Painswick where Thomas was a commonly used Christian name from the 1500’s and well before that.

It is interesting to note that Ray Niblett, who made a detailed analysis of the Niblett name from Gloucestershire parish records, traced his lineage back to Thomas and Elizabeth through their grandchild Thomas, the brother to the William who married Sarah Groom.

His family eventually moved to Stroud then Bradford on Avon and Bisley; an interesting and varied family tree and a good example of how the younger sons left farming for the cloth industry.

The Haresfield Nibletts

The parishes of Brookthorpe, Standish, Stonehouse, Painswick and Haresfield are all very closely connected geographically, no more than three miles apart.

The evidence of a very prosperous and well respected family of Nibletts at Haresfield is very clear from the family burial plots in the churchyard there and from inscriptions in the church itself. The early homes occupied by the family there still exist as does the manor at Brookethorpe.

Some of the parish records, particularly in the latter part of the 16^th and early part of the 17^th centuries are in poor condition and illegible or even missing. The purges carried out by Cromwell and his armies caused great damage to the parish records in the early part of the 17^th century and a great number of the records have been lost from that time. It is possible to piece together some of the missing details from tombstones and wills but dates of birth can only be guessed at from those sources.

However, a picture does emerge of the family spreading from Brookthorpe and gradually acquiring lands and properties in the surrounding area. The picture is also one of gradually increasing prosperity and this is clearly identified at Haresfield and Standish.

I have, therefore, concentrated on these two parishes as the probable seminal source of a large part of the Niblett family worldwide.

Summary

The use of surnames in remote rural areas did not become common until the 14^th century but was substantially complete by 1400. Conversely it is the opinion of some historians that most men had second names by the 12^th century but the practice of applying that name to their sons was not completed until the 15^th. In poor agricultural families there would have been little incentive or need to adopt a family name so the change came latest to those in that category. For those of humble origin such as the Nibletts, the name was probably attributed to the family by the steward of the local manor. The restrictions on the use of Christian names by the Catholic Church meant that there were too many Thomases, Williams, Johns, and Richards for them to be satisfactorily identified by Christian name alone. A peasant had to ask permission of the local Lord to be able to leave the manor or to marry and it is probably one of those requests that gave rise to the use of the name. Later, as the manorial system began to break down, the system of indentured employees and day labourers that replaced it also meant that freedom was difficult to come by but the need for an identifying surname was greater.

It seems more and more likely that the name Nyblett first arose in the Berkeley area in Gloucestershire and then, due to some particular event, the originating family broke up, various brothers finding their way East and North. One of the more adventurous descendants probably moved as far as Horsham in Sussex and this provided the stepping stone for the eventual appearance in London, Dorking and Southwark. The movement north into Worcestershire and then Stafford, Warwick and Lancashire seems quite logical as does the timing of the arrival of Nibletts in those areas. The movement West through Gloucester to Wales or through Bristol to Somerset and Devon is also a natural progression but difficult to trace due to the lack of detail in parish christening records of the place of origin of the parents.

Most of the more widespread occurrences of the name appear only as late as the nineteenth century. Again this points to those families deriving from the Gloucestershire source.

The movement south through Wiltshire into Dorset and the Isle of Wight can be seen in the records of branches of the family, possibly connected to the wool and cloth industry, although by 1881 almost all the records of males in both areas show that they were predominantly agricultural labourers. Two of the early immigrants to the USA came from Wiltshire. Both named John they came from Malmesbury and Monkton Farleigh. There is no record of the family in Malmesbury so it is likely that this John was an itinerant worker or member of the militia temporarily located there. There is a Niblett family recorded at Monkton Farleigh, the name at first being recorded as Nible. I have not examined the actual record but it is likely that the name was Niblett but has been misread in the transcription as the later members of the family are recorded as Niblett.

Early Nibletts do not appear to have had any military connections, unless it can be shown that there is some connection to the private army of the Braose family, so the possibility of movement associated with some of the early civil or foreign military campaigns seems remote. The appearance of the family in places like Germany or Portugal was only later emigration not as a result of involvement in war. Some of the gaps in the birth of children in families could have occurred if the husband was drafted into the militia and was thus absent for a period of time. John of Malmesbury could well have been a member of the militia stationed at the garrison therein the mid 17^th century.

Any formal military involvement occurred much later when Nibletts appear among the records in India during the days of the Raj, their offspring eventually emigrating to Canada and Australia. The Haresfield branch seems more and more the likely source of that side of the family and the movement from Brookthorpe through Standish to Haresfield can be seen quite clearly although the records are incomplete.

At Haresfield itself there are some gaps in the records around the early to middle parts of the 17^th century and the movement of the family to and from Gloucester and London in the latter half of the 18^th and the early part of the 19^th centuries makes the tracking of families somewhat difficult. At this time especially it was a period when disenfranchised sons and daughters were leaving the land to join the new manufacturing industries in the Stroud area. It is quite clear that many of the members of the family were entrepreneurs in the cloth industry becoming cloth masters for groups of pieceworkers employed in their homes using looms supplied by the cloth master. They eventually acquired the definition of”Gent”, being a person of independent means.

Future developments and research

There are many areas of research still to cover and a concentration on Brookthorpe may yield records at present not discovered. The records for the nineteenth century in particular need to be completed.

While the family continues to evolve, and although there is a limited amount of verifiable information in the early genealogical records, it does seem more and more likely that the Niblett name originated from a single source sometime in the period 1325 to 1400. As more historical records come to light this theory may be overturned but Gloucestershire is one of the more researched counties in genealogy and I remain confident in my views.

Michael Niblett

May 2005