Portrait of John Mockett
Of all the books I have published over the past three years Mockett’s Journal is one that most needs a forum where the descendents of those named in it can comment and communicate with each other.
The old Thanet names Mockett Culmer Dewker Crampton and so on crop up throughout and I often ship copies to their descendents living all over the world.
John Mockett (1775~1848) was a farmer in the Isle of Thanet at the beginning of the 1800s. He was a churchwarden to St. Peters at a time when local government was administered by the parish so he had considerable responsibility for the care of the population and the environment. Mockett also saw military service for 13 years as a “Yeoman of Thanet”.
This publication is the result of a journal kept by him and members of his family, it is filled with amusing information about our history the following are some examples.
When coaches first appeared in England a law was passed to prevent men from riding in them as it was thought too effeminate.
When the peace was celebrated at St. Peters Broadstairs in 1814, 436 poor persons and stewards were seated at a table 132 feet long, with about 8 inches of table each it must have been a bit cramped, admission was by ticket all had to bring their own knives and forks.
In 1828 Margate Savings Bank had to close because a clerk absconded with a large amount of money.
In the same year when Thanet people dressed up for fun at Christmas a young woman dressed as a crow was so frightened on seeing a man dressed as a bear that she died.
In 1829 the overseer of the poor in St. Peters built a cage for public offenders.
In the same year some of Thanet’s agricultural workers put out of work by the introduction of thrashing machines were deported for seven years for breaking up the machines.
Gaols at the time were fitted with treadmills for evildoers who if they didn’t keep up the pace caused a bell to ring.
The old Thanet names Mockett Culmer Dewker Crampton and so on crop up throughout and I often ship copies to their descendents living all over the world.
John Mockett (1775~1848) was a farmer in the Isle of Thanet at the beginning of the 1800s. He was a churchwarden to St. Peters at a time when local government was administered by the parish so he had considerable responsibility for the care of the population and the environment. Mockett also saw military service for 13 years as a “Yeoman of Thanet”.
This publication is the result of a journal kept by him and members of his family, it is filled with amusing information about our history the following are some examples.
When coaches first appeared in England a law was passed to prevent men from riding in them as it was thought too effeminate.
When the peace was celebrated at St. Peters Broadstairs in 1814, 436 poor persons and stewards were seated at a table 132 feet long, with about 8 inches of table each it must have been a bit cramped, admission was by ticket all had to bring their own knives and forks.
In 1828 Margate Savings Bank had to close because a clerk absconded with a large amount of money.
In the same year when Thanet people dressed up for fun at Christmas a young woman dressed as a crow was so frightened on seeing a man dressed as a bear that she died.
In 1829 the overseer of the poor in St. Peters built a cage for public offenders.
In the same year some of Thanet’s agricultural workers put out of work by the introduction of thrashing machines were deported for seven years for breaking up the machines.
Gaols at the time were fitted with treadmills for evildoers who if they didn’t keep up the pace caused a bell to ring.
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Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.