Doesnt surprise me at all. Why would team men and yard men and labourers need to write? They may have picked up some skills when the National Schools opened, but if even if they read to entertain and improve themselves they wouldnt have had much reason to write once they left school at 12 . I doubt that my brother in law has written much recently other than filling in his area payment forms for Defra ! When I moved to my small Norfolk primary school in 1959 they were still using slates in the infants' room so goodness knows what it was like 60 years before. My great grandmother could not sign her name when she married in 1885-but her younger sister could as a witness and so could my great grandfather. I will have to look into when the school opened in her home village because I am pretty sure her family would have been too poor to afford a fee before the free school was opened. When people at the turn of the century were still scraping a living , living off cods head and herring and the kids sharing an egg if there was one, hanging sacks at the door to keep snow out in winter I reckon being able to write was not exactly paramount in their minds. Rosie. On 25/07/2014 16:45, Bonnie Ostler via wrote: > Hi Nivard > > My Rumble ancestors are in the 1810 Bible Census for East Tuddenham > parish. A deceased vicar for this parish left a legacy to purchase Bibles, > testaments and prayer books on an ongoing basis for everyone in the parish > who wanted them. The successor kept records of presentations he made to > young residents of the parish. In 1810 he finally took a little census of > 62 cottage households asking how many each house could read and what books > were in each house. Thomas, the eldest son, was five at the time. John > Rumble answered the first question with 'a child is learning'. It seems > most likely that Thomas was that child. Thomas' youngest daughter lived > with her daughter and her husband until her death in 1913. She told her > grandchildren stories most nights. She spoke frequently about her father, > Thomas, reading his Bible to the family. A Bible said to belong to Thomas > was passed down to the eldest grandson but there is nothing written in it. > We have the original farm deed. There are a variety of original documents > in the farm account box bearing Thomas Rumble's X. No one in the older > generation had ever seen Thomas' signature when I began researching in 1972. > > On another branch of my family, my gr2grandmother was twelve when she > was taught to read by a carpenter who boarded in her parents' home but > someone else taught her to write a couple of years later. > > I think it may be more common than we realize. It becomes more difficult > to prove as time passes and oral accounts become third or fourth hand. > > Bonnie > > > > > On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 11:10 AM, Nivard Ovington via <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Hi Bonnie >> >> Quite so and vice versa >> >> You may well be correct in your 1846 & 1885 events but some documents >> were copied or made out by others for record, a mark used to show the >> original carried a signature >> >> A mark X does not always mean the person couldn't sign their name >> >> Seems odd to be able to read yet not write, if only his name but then it >> wouldn't shock me either, nothing does these days :-) >> >> The circumstances I refer to in my previous posts take into account the >> possibility that some who made their mark in the marriage registers >> could in fact write, it was considered an insignificant number in >> relation to the whole >> >> Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK) >> >> On 25/07/2014 15:35, Bonnie Ostler via wrote: >>> Literacy was not necessarily attached to ability to sign one's name. My >>> gr2grandfather, Thomas Rumble b. 1805 East Tuddenham could read. He was >> a >>> Methodist convert and read his Bible every day but no one had taught him >> to >>> write. He made his mark on the deed when he purchased his farm in >> Ontario, >>> Canada 1846 and also on his will 1885. >>> >>> Bonnie >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hi Rosie Why would they learn to read and write ? Despite your thoughts to the contrary, it was to improve themselves, a much stronger urge then (with good reason) than the present generation There can hardly be a walk of life that reading and writing were not important to some degree or another, much as using a computer is today, reading the bible for one, getting on with traders and workmen, checking invoices and charges, reading the news as sparse as it was, the various taxes thrust upon them, plus self importance, the wish to strive for a better future, find a wife, some would not but many would hanker for a better life and try all they could to achieve it Although there were schools of a sort from very early on, you did not have to attend one to learn to read & write, my mother taught me before I ever went to a school My great grandmother could clearly write in rural Buckinghamshire in 1870 when she produced a sampler at age ten Nivard Ovington in Cornwall (UK) On 25/07/2014 17:14, xpn11 via wrote: > Doesnt surprise me at all. Why would team men and yard men and labourers > need to write? They may have picked up some skills when the National > Schools opened, but if even if they read to entertain and improve > themselves they wouldnt have had much reason to write once they left > school at 12 . > I doubt that my brother in law has written much recently other than > filling in his area payment forms for Defra ! When I moved to my small > Norfolk primary school in 1959 they were still using slates in the