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Caryl of
Devon
Family tree: Edward Caryl descendants
I wrote an article My Ancestors were Papermakers based on the Caryl family, which
appeared in the Oct 2008 edition of Family Tree Magazine
The Rollitts married into the Caryl family, who were papermakers from Brampford Speke in
Devon. Opposite the Agricultural Inn in this pretty village, you will find many Caryls buried in St
Peter’s churchyard.
The 1841 census shows that William Caryl
married girl next door, Ann Lang and William’s father Edward was also a papermaker.
In 1851, William and 13-year-old Thomas Lang Caryl worked as papermakers in
Exwick village. By 1871, William was still to be found in Huxham and when his wife died, he
was a lodger in Colyton Devon.
A rise in unemployment forced journeymen in the trade to become ‘paper tramps’, travelling around
the mills of the country in search of work. The unions had set up a benevolent fund so that when
the men were ‘on tramp’ for up to ten weeks, they would be able to claim bed and board at the next
mill on production of their certificate. The unrest in the industry surely had some influence on
Thomas Lang Caryl’s decision to leave Devon.
The River Cray in Kent, near where he lodged in 1861, supported many paper mills and would have
been on the tramping circuit, along with Bromley, his next stop where he married Emma Coleman Pope
and had two children. Emma died only three years later and it was her half-sister Hannah Roney
(later to be Thomas’ second wife) who accompanied him on his travels next to Upper Tovil paper mill
in Maidstone, where two children were born in Mill Cottage. The Green Man pub in Wraysbury
Buckinghamshire in 1881 was the next stop on the way to settling to papermaking again in Croxley
Green, near Watford in Hertfordshire.
Hannah Roney was known affectionately within the family as Gran Caryl - she was a formidable woman
who ran the Halfway House hostelry in Croxley whilst bring ing up seven
children.
In the only photo we have of her, Hannah looks like Queen Victoria in her customary black.
Hannah was born in Burford Oxfordshire. Her
parents were William Roney and Eliza Pope, who was born in Highway Wiltshire. They lived in High
Street Burford and when William died, Eliza carried on as a
laundress.
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