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Court Report, Rochford. Petty Session 2 November 1882

A snippet of life of 131 years ago from the Chelmsford Chronicle of 3 December 1882:

A Canvey man would not send his children to school and Zachariah Willshire, ‘labourer of Hadleigh’, had been found drunk on the highway. Today he could have spent his time at the New Thundersley inn named after his family – the Zach Willsher. A generation or two earlier the Wiltshires or Willshers were landlords at the Woodman’s Arms on the Rayleigh Road–Daws Heath Road junction.

A Thundersley labourer, William Carey, was bound over to keep the peace, with his father as surety, for threatening to kill his wife Sarah Ann.

{Ed: The “quoit supper” mentioned for the extension granted to the Crown Inn, probably referred to the popular rural sport of the day where a quoit is aimed to fall around a wooden pin stuck in the ground. 

 *The quoit is  ”a heavy, flattish ring of iron, slightly convex on the upper side and concave on the lower – combining to create an edge which digs into the ground if thrown skilfully.”

*Compact Edition Oxford English Dictionary   }

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