Pat, The 1871 census entry was at Hailsham, which looks about 35 miles from Thakeham and appears to be in an adjoining registration district. His age is out a couple of years, but he does have a son William born c1833 that appears to match. But they could be false matches. There could be more than one father and son named William. However, his birthplace is Sussex and I think grocer (1862) and Victualler (1871) are pretty close. What shop didn't sell beer? I'm not sure if your 1871 search set criteria too tight or you discounted this find. I think you need to find and extract every bit of data from every available census. Let the list know if you can't find 1861. I'll look tomorrow. Peter