Henderson, Andrews, Rowe, Wight, Sinton, Fairbairn, Bain, Manson, McAdie and many many moreat Lumburn, Dist of Tavistock, DEV, ENG
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The picture below is believed to have hung on my grandmother's wall, so I initially believed it to be a place associated with the Rowe family. Subsequent research showed that the millers of the family were the Dawe side instead, the family of Isaac Smith Dawe populating a rather large number of the mills of the area. So it seemed highly likely to be a Dawe family outside their mill.
However, on closer examination, this photo proves rather problematic.
It surely cannot have been taken before the 1860s, yet by then, the Dawe family no longer had any ties with the Lumburn Mill, having either died, or emigrated to Australia, or working on other mills in the area instead.
So, who are the people in this photograph, and when was it taken?
The following is my attempt to rationalise who was where, and possibly identify who is shown in the Lumburn Mill photograph.
Isaac Snr had been a miller at Lamerton, Mill Hill, (1814), and Lifton (1819).
When Isaac Snr died in Plymouth Dec 1840, the informant was son Nathaniel, a miller living in a Bedford Cottage, Tavistock.
1818-1821: Isaac Smith Dawe (Jnr) miller at Mill Hill
1823-41: Isaac Jnr at Newton Mill;
1841: Richard miller at Ermington Mill; Isaac Jnr at Newton Mill; Nathaniel miller in Plymouth Charles; William miller at Upcot Mill, Sheepwash; Thomas servant for James Turner, miller at Newland Mills, North Tawton;
1847: Isaac Jnr wrote will at Lumburn;
1851: Richard miller at Huckworthy Bridge, Sampford Spiney; Isaac Jnr miller at Lumburn; Nathaniel miller in Plymouth Charles; Joan & husband Abraham Bidgood miller at Newton; William miller at Trelubis, Wendron, Cornwall; Thomas miller at Powder Mill, Lydford
1861: Richard miller at Hayle Foundry, Phillack, Redruth, Cornwall; Nathaniel miller in East Stonehouse; Joan & husband Abraham Bidgood (mine labourer) at Newton Old Mill; William miller at Trelubis, Wendron, Cornwall; Thomas milller at Cockingford, Widecombe
1862: Joan Bidgood nee Dawe died at Lumburn
1871: Richard miller at Tipton Mills, Wiggaton, Ottery St Mary; William miller at Trelubis, Wendron, Cornwall; Thomas milller at Cockingford, Widecombe
The next generation, children of Isaac Smith Dawe Jnr:
1851: David millwright with his uncle Nathaniel in Plymouth Charles (and emigrated to Melbourne 1856; Isaac Jnr at Lumburn, enumerated directly after his father (and emigrated to Tasmania between 1855 and 1857)
So by 1862 the last of the Dawe family direct associations with Lumburn had ceased as far as I can tell.
By 1861 the miller at Lumburn was Charles Hoyle with no (as yet) known connection to the Dawe family, although there is a very remote connection to the Rowe family via Hamley and Fuge and Australia, which is how come this discussion is even taking place.
Check out a modern version of the mill from the East (Tavistock) side on Geograph, which caption overcomes one of my initial problems with identifying this set of buildings as the mill when I was exploring in Aug 2006, no obvious water source.
My current theory is that it was a couple of the Dawe women, possibly with the chap in the top hat, coming back to see the mill, sometime in the 1860s, and that the miller and the two younger women behind the fence are therefore Hoyle family.
