Barkers of Bolsover

Barker Farms 1600 to 2000

            Barkers for generations have farmed the land. It’s intriguing to believe that love of the land may have been inherited from ancestors who first worked Derbyshire manor farms in the sixteenth century. Perhaps this trait explains why my father, while serving as an elementary school principal in Utah for forty years, insisted on also maintaining a cherry orchard, hay fields and a few animals. Are other Barker descendants around the world tending rose gardens or vegetable plots as evidence to those who tailed in medieval times?  

            The name Barker is one of the most common names in Bolsover in the 1600s. Manor court records of Bolsover and Clowne now collected in the Nottingham Records Office list many references. In 1658 on April 12 Edward Barker and Humphrey Barker of Clowne were fined 2 pence for not appearing at the Leet. Edward, Nicholas and Thomas Barker were each assessed 4 pence for breaking the assize of ale. On April 9, 1683 Edward was again fined at court, 4 pence for encroaching with a house and yard on the Lord's wests and 4 pence for encroaching on Shittlewood Coon. While others on the records such as Henry, Peter, Richard, Robert,  Thomas and William Barker were named for the offenses of not appearing at court or being party to a neighborhood dispute, Edward seems to have been repeatedly building without permission. During the 1683 Leet he and George Hall paid 2d apiece for stairs. His offenses must not have been too serious, however. As recorded in the diary of Benjamin Grainger of Bolsover which preserved by the Derbyshire Archeological Natural History Society, Edward was appointed Thirdborough for Bolsover, an officer of the court, in 1694.

            The men mentioned in the seventeenth century Leet and Baron Court records may have been sons of Thomas (cl520), George (cl530) or Peter (cl540) who left wills in Bolsover during the period 1569 to 161o. George Barker's will written September 8, 1599 in the eighth year of the reign "of our most gracious Queen Elizabeth", states that he is a yoeman of Oxroft in the county of Derby. He leaves to his sons the following: Nicholas - one great gun, John - one cow, and Edward - one cow. To Alice, his wife, he leaves the "use /of / the farm possessed by me during her life". Among the goods and chattels inventoried at his death in November of that same year are four oxen, four kynne, one sow and eight pigs, corn and hay at the house, coverlettes, mattresses, sheets and other linens. The sum and total came to 36 pounds, 3 shillings, 8 pence.

Looking over a hedge to Oxcroft. c1990s

            Oxcroft, an the northern edge of Bolsover parish, was a separate manor from Bolsover. It belonged to the Dukes of Devonshire whereas Bolsover Manor was in the hands of the Dukes of Portland (earlier Dukes of Newcastle). Both lines descended from Bess of Hardwick. A map of Oxcroft Manor made by William Senior for the first Duke of Devonshire in 1611 names seven tenants residing on croft or close. They are listed as John Barker, Humphrey Barker, Francis Barker among others. The name Henry Barker also occurs on a separate survey. Presumably these are the same men or sons of those found in earlier court records. Crofters were farmers who rented sections of their lord's large estate. 

Oxcroft 1611 Map now in the possession of the present Duke of Devonshire located at Chatsworth.

             My direct ancestry can be traced to Humphrey Barker and Hannah Cantrill married June 2, 1668 in neighboring Ashover Parish, Derbyshire. Parish records describe them as Humphrey of Dicklant and Hannah of Baslow. The couple were parents of a family of ten children born from 1669 to 1692 in the same parish. We trace their son, Francis (1692), back in Bolsover from a will left in 1766 which lists a wife, Mary, and two surviving sons, Francis (1727) and John (cl730). The sons inherited two farms at Coppice and Woodside respectively, the last by way of the father's late sister, Patience Godley. 

            The first son, Francis (1727), married Margaret Pass September 12, 1759 in Bolsover. They died without issue. Francis will directs that after the death of his “loving wife” all goods and tenant rights to the farm at Coppice go to “my nephew, John Barker (1765), now living with me”. By the time Margaret dies in 1814 the nephew, John, is also deceased so she wills her estate to John's wife, Elizabeth, with the instructions:  “... after the decease of the said, Elizabeth Barker, I give and bequeath the same ... unto John Barker the only son of my late nephew”.

 

Bolsover Parish Churchyard c1990s

            The second son of Francis Barker Sr., John (cl730), married Mary Bell May 26, 1757 in Bolsover. This couple also were parents to ten children, five females and five males.  Because the heirs of this son, John (1765), were to inherit the Coppice farm from his Uncle Francis as detailed above, the second farm at Shittlewood Side was entrusted to a spinster daughter, Elizabeth (1774). In his will dated October 12, 1812 the father states, “I, John Barker of Shittlewood Side in the parish of Bolsover in the county of Derby and diocese of Litchfield and Coventry, farmer,...give and bequeath to each of my four daughters ... the legacy or sum of twenty_five pounds. Also, I give and bequeath to my grandson, John Barker, son of my late son, John Barker of Coppice deceased, the sum of two guineas ... Also, I give and bequeath ... to my daughter, Elizabeth Barker ... whereas /she/ hath greatly assisted me in the management of the farm I now occupy under His Grace the Duke of Portland ... the whole of the tenant right ...”

            As proven by wills, farms in the Bolsover area were tended by Barker farmers both male and female for generations. My great-great grandfather, Frederick John Barker, was born December 12, 1837 in Bolsover Parish, the sixth of fourteen children. Although history does not detail the reason why, he, as did other generations, eventually moved from the farms that in previous times had been managed as part of privileged estates. Farming, however, was still in his blood. At his death at the age of 37 the certificate lists his occupation as farm laborer. He died in Mosbro, Eckington of fever which tradition states resulted from an accident with a horse. His son, my great grandfather, moved as a young man to America, first to Wyoming and then to Utah. He worked as a coal miner but something green must have stirred the spirit, reaching down the centuries; he always maintained a garden plot and chickens. Three generations later my brothers, his great grandsons own a plant nursery in the town of Fruit Heights.

Nursery produce: hanging baskets, Mountain Road, Fruit Heights, Utah. 2012.

Note: This article written by Fawn Barker Morgan was originally published in the Derbyshire Family History Society newsletter c1990s.