This section describes the West Grinstead area where the earliest Illman and Hillman ancestors I know of lived and worked, together with more detail on five of them, illustrating the great changes that have occurred as “AgLabs” moved off the land into other livelihoods, and scattered across the globe and entered into tertiary education.

West Grinstead is a tiny and dispersed village today, only 7 miles (11 kms) south of the market town of Horsham, in what was the county of West Sussex. Research has shown that my immediate forbears lived and worked, either in the village, or on nearby farms, for at least 156 years, between about 1700 and 1856. There were further Illmans and Hillmans recorded in the village after this date through to the 1911 Census and probably later. There were also Illmans recorded in the village from 1619 up until 1687 but no relationship has yet been yet proved with the later Illmans, although they are all likely to be inter-related.

Figure 1 The West Grinstead area (British History online [1])

In 1841 Census there were 40 Hillmans recorded at the village of West Grinstead. Seventy years later there were only five (Figure 2).

Figure 2 Hillman numbers in West Grinstead at successive censuses

Looking at the village as a whole, the total population over the same period actually increased, from 1,200 in 1841 to 1,600 at the 1911 census (Figure 3).

Figure 3 West Grinstead village population at successive censuses

Where did the Hillmans go? What stimulated their movements away from the village?

Most of these Hillmans were initially either “Ag Labs” (Agricultural Labourers), or “in service”, that is working as other forms of labour, especially as house servants in the case of many of the young women.

Successive Censuses provide the opportunity to follow individuals and families in their various locations and occupations every ten years between 1841-1911, together with other sources.

West Grinstead has long been associated with the nearby hamlets of Dial Post and Partridge Green. Primarily an agricultural area in the past, it has also had associations with iron-working which required charcoal manufacture and later coal, and brick-making with which Hillmans were involved. It was also relevant in river transportation on the River Adur that flows through the area, the limit to cargo transportation from the sea at Shoreham being at Baybridge Wharf in the village near St George’s church.

Early agriculture mainly comprised the feeding of “hogges” (pigs, swine) in clearings in the forest in the 13^th and 14^th centuries – good background information for the area can be found in the account of eaerly life in nearby Warnham{2}. At around this time the Lay Subsidy Rolls provide some information on the people of the area. The soil is largely clay, hard to work with primitive tools, and of limited fertility unless limed. The Adur river transport brought lime into the area which helped to boost agriculture. Large heavy draught horses sank easily so any ploughing used oxen, also for the drawing of agricultural carts. Geese were another product of the area, the birds being walked to market, especially for Christmas.

The iron industry caused deforestation through charcoal manufacture required in its smelting with concerns for the loss of forest raised by the 16^th C. The industry peaked end of the 17^th C, leaving remnants of forest, tree-less slopes and hammer ponds. The iron works were owned by Royalist families, causing Roundheads to seek their destruction in the Civil War (1642-1651). The Carylls of West Grinstead were a family significant in this. The iron industry ceased around the end of the 17^th century.

An additional industrial pursuit by the late 1800s was brick-making for the burgeoning capital London, brought much closer by the development of the railways. The Hillman Brickyard in Partridge Green operated until the 1930s[3], one of three in the village. No further information has been found, except that the presumed owner – Mr Hillman – built houses, probably using his bricks, in Abinger Road, Portslade, near Brighton.

Modern agricultural methods enabled the management and working of the soils to commercial efficiency resulting in the change from animal-based to commercial grain growing farming. It has also led to the loss of labour for the Sussex “AgLab” and his family, resulting in much emigration from the area to industry-seeking labour further north in the Midlands, and overseas. If correct for the West Grinstead area, then my ancestor Illmans and Hillmans may have been more skilled in animal husbandry, rather than in sowing, reaping and storing grain crops. Certainly, the one I have most knowledge of in the 1800s was a carter dealing with horses and involved with the care of cattle.

Today it is hard to find West Grinstead as an area, but more as an idea, a hamlet of scattered houses amongst large fields, tucked away down cart tracks, seemingly sleepy but productive. A current resident (Norman Berry, pers. comm.) of Partridge Green has written this about its past:

“West Grinstead has had several phases in its history. The area around the Burrell Arms was the centre of the village until mid-19th century. Next door was a general shop and post office. The parish church was quite close as was the end of the Adur canal at Bay Bridge. Goods came up the canal from the coast and farms en route and West Grinstead was transfer point for carriage by road to Horsham and further north. The Adur had long been a source of smuggling, a then important local industry.

“The arrival of the railway effectively made the canal redundant and the new West Grinstead station caused some transfer of population to that area with a post office and other shops and the Tabby Cat. It also saw Partridge Green with its railway goods yard increase in size with the various brick and tiles works contributing. In the 1970s the new dual carriageway A24 was built and it went straight through the Burrell Arms area.

“West Grinstead Park and its house was formerly the home of the Caryll family who owned most of the old West Grinstead They were Catholics and built the secret chapel in what is now the Priest’s House but moved in the 17th century to France but retained ownership of much of the Parish. Thus, in the 19th century they built the Catholic Church, Orphanage and St Hugh’s Monastery. In the Second World War West Grinstead House was occupied by Canadian troops and badly trashed then demolished in the 1960s. The Orphanage lasted until then of the 20th century and was then replaced by a small housing estate. ”

This is where “my” Hillmans lived, loved, worked and died, mainly as far as I can make out as agricultural labourers employed by larger farms, and moving periodically between them – either as single men and woman “living in” as servants essentially , until they married and then were allocated “tied” a cottage on the farm for as long as they worked there. If they were very lucky then they could aspire to buying a cottage for themselves, provided this permitted them to reach their work location. My grandfather was able through working on the railways to purchase the house his parents were renting at Burgh Heath, but not until the early 1900s.

AgLabs when younger would probably have been hired on an annual basis at the “Lady Fair” in March (25^th – the Annunciation of Mary, the start of the new year until 1752), or simply taken on as daily labourers – plenty of work in the summer but harder times in the winter. Later they would hold a more “permanent” position as labourer attached to a particular farm.

Figure 4 The various houses and farms occupied by my Hillman ancestors in the West Grinstead area

Mapping all the locations where my Hillman ancestors were recorded in the West Grinstead area gives some idea of the movements involved and the number of farms in the area historically (Figure 3). It is most unlikely that they ever owned any of them, and their own “home” in each case probably a poor labourer’s cottage with few or no facilities. Life was hard, supplemented with whatever could be legally gathered from the surrounding area and any remaining forest or common land still available to the common man.

Records of only four Hillmans in the Horsham area can be found today in the recent Electoral Rolls[4]. The area has become much more a part of the commuter belt for nearby London and other centres, with house prices soaring and farms highly mechanised and now coalesced, compared with the past centuries.

The Hillman gravestones in St George’s and other nearby churchyard are rapidly being overtaken by the weather, ivy, grass and thistle – a part of history,but not yet forgotten.

**Figure 5 My direct ancestors from West Grinstead**

My Grandfather, Jesse Albert Hillman, although not born in West Grinstead, had relatives there on his mother’s Newman side, and wrote these down for my father in 1951. These are recorded below in case useful to any other family members.

Horsham – Cowfold area ancestry notes from Jesse Albert Hillman

18 Sep 1951

Excerpts from a handwritten letter from Jesse Albert Hillman to his son Jesse James Hillman in 1951, when he was going to Horsham for CMS deputation work while on leave from Egypt. The letter was handwritten and some parts were missing when I received it.

Cowfold Monastery is not far from Coolham and I think there is a Nunnery there somewhere. They used to let you look over Cowfold.
If you hear of any Hillmans or Newmans no doubt they are our distant relatives.
My grandfather Alan Newman died at 80 or 90 and is buried in Shipley churchyard. He previously lived at Sunt Farm on the road to the south of Shipley and about half a mile up an old lane right in the wilds. I have had happy times there with my eldest sister (Fanny Kate) when I was a boy and would like to pass there again. ….. I do not know if there is a stone over my grandfather’s grave (Allen Newman) in Shipley churchyard or not. I have not been there since.
Re. Shipley Church. I have been into the tower with my grandfather and watched him ring the bell for service. I think there were eight ringers.
The old church was pulled down and the present one erected in my mother’s girlhood days – by the Burrell family, Lord of the Manor – to save them paying income tax. No one could then play the organ they put in.
I think his eldest son – my mother’s brother, Allen Newman, is buried in West Grinstead churchyard.
His widow, my Aunt Alice by marriage, about 90, was still alive last year, very deaf. Her daughter, my cousin Sally Newman, is retired and lives at West Grinstead with her mother.
My Uncle Moses Newman’s family are at Partridge Green but I do not know anything about them.
Some of my uncle Jim Newman’s children are still at Wisborough Green. I think my boy cousins work on a farm or own one. You, Jesse, have actually seen the girls at Elm Cottage years ago.
If by chance you should meet any of those, introduce yourself as Fanny Newman’s grandson. They would have something to talk about for the rest of their lives.
I think Horsham Parish Church is worth a visit. My mother used to attend there and there are a number of interesting country churches around.
If you should get to Petersfield my Uncle Henry and Aunt Agnes Newman live at High Street, South Harting. They are church people. Jesse has actually been to that house to tea with us.
You will not find any near relatives of the Hillman family as Jesse and Christopher are the only ones to carry on the name. My father and Uncle Alfred were the only two males to marry and William Hillman of Banstead (Uncle Alfred’s son) spoilt it by having one girl only.
I think my father’s sisters’ married names were Weller, Jenkins and Duffields but I do not know much about them.
My cousin Edie (Mrs Sturt) was a Duffield. She came to tea here and heard Jesse preach at Addiscombe in 1949. She lives with her married daughter (when she is at home) at “Hillview”, Bowley Drive, Cranleigh. I think this is a long way from Coolham. She is immensely interested in you all.

[1] A P Baggs, C R J Currie, C R Elrington, S M Keeling and A M Rowland, ‘West Grinstead’, in A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 2, Bramber Rape (North-Western Part) Including Horsham, ed. T P Hudson (London, 1986), pp. 83-89. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol6/pt2/pp83-89 [accessed 14 August 2019].

[2] Villiers, RA. 1977. The early history of Warnham. Warnham Historical Society

[3] Paris, H.J. 1982. Recollections of Hillman’s Brickyard, Partridge Green. Sussex Industrial History 12:31-33

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