This picturesque village with its many stone houses and thatched cottages has changed little over the years. Frederick Treves commented in 1907 that someone revisiting from a century earlier would find little changed and the same could be said today. The births, marriages and deaths in the village have been registered in the Sherborne district since the start of the registration service in 1837 but it was not until 1896 that the parish was transferred from Somerset to Dorset.
There are several photographs in the gallery of inhabitants of Trent who lived in the 19th and early 20th century. Here is what the registers and census returns reveal about their lives.
The Revd. Charles Richmond Tate
Mr Tate came to Trent in 1875 to take up the position of Rector, a position he held until his death in the summer of 1895. He was born at Portsea in Hampshire and moved to Trent from Send in Surrey. The Trent congregation would have noticed changes at the Rectory. The wife of his predecessor was an heiress who maintained a household that included a steward, butler, page and a retinue of house and parlour maids. Villagers would touch their hats and curtsey even to the empty carriage and pair!
Charles Tate and his wife came with no such airs and graces and made do with a cook and parlour maid. He was a fellow of Corpus College, Oxford.
Charlotte Batson
Born Charlotte Garrett sometime around 1827-1830, she was the daughter of William and Mary Garrett of East Chinnock, Somerset. Charlotte’s life seems to have been one of hard work: in the 1851 census she, her sister, and her brothers are all described as agricultural labourers; she was widowed twice. In 1860 she married George Colley, an agricultural labourer – Charlotte at the time was a laundress. The couple lived at Marston Magna with her mother-in-law, Mary Colley (73) who was formerly a glove maker. George and Charlotte had two children: Edward born in 1862 and Sarah born in 1864. George Colley died early in 1874, aged 51 years.
Widowed at 45, it is easy to imagine an offer of marriage, however soon after the death of her first husband, would have been attractive. In the summer of 1874 she married a 72-year-old widower, William Batson, an agricultural labourer who was also Trent’s Parish Clerk.
In 1881 the couple were living at Five Elms, Trent Road, Trent; with them was Charlotte’s son Edward. From the 1891 census we learn that Charlotte is again widowed and working as a laundress living at Wrigs Lane, Trent. By 1901 she has moved into one of Trent’s Almshouses. Charlotte died in the summer of 1908; we believe she was probably a couple of years older than the 72 years declared on her death certificate.
Levi and Mary Garrett
Levi Garrett was the son of Nathaniel and Rebecca Garrett, being baptised at St. Andrew’s Church in the village of Trent on the 24th of August 1823. In the summer of 1850 at the age of 27 Levi
married Mary Bosey, who was 25 years old. The couple spent the first few months of their marriage living with Levi’s widowed mother, Rebecca, who lived to the age of 90. She spent the last six years of her life living in one of the Almshouses, where she died in the Spring of 1867. Mary Bosey was the daughter of Thomas and Ann Bosey.
In the 1851 census Levi and Mary are both described as Agricultural labourers. Between 1852 and 1870 they had three daughters and two sons. In 1901 Levi and Mary were living at The Plot, Trent. Levi died late in 1905; his age at death was given as 77 but his baptism record would suggest he was nearer 83. Mary died the following year.
Henrietta Melmoth
George Garrett was born in 1835 in the village of Trent. The 1870’s seem to have been George’s decade, for in 1871 he was working as a Thatcher and living with his widowed mother, Frances, but by the end of that year he had met and married Jane Hunt. Jane was from Avening near Cirencester in Gloucester, which is where the couple married in the autumn of 1871. Their only child, named Henrietta, was born in the spring of the following year. By 1881 George Garrett had established himself as a farmer with 46 acres upon which he employed two labourers.
Henrietta attended the village school and in 1891 at the age of 19 she was employed at the school as an assistant teacher; the family lived at the School Building in Mill Lane. The 1901 census tells us that George Garrett was still farming at Gore Farm, Trent, and that Henrietta was living with her parents. George Garrett passed away in the spring of 1903.
With Henrietta’s help her mother continued with the farm. In the 1911 census Jane Garrett is described as a Farmer. It reveals that living with the mother and daughter is James Desmond Melmoth, who is described as a Servant and Farm Bailiff. We also learn he is 33 years old and was born in Hampshire.
Jane Garrett lived to see Henrietta and James Melmoth married early in 1916 when Henrietta was 44. Her mother passed away early the following year.
Sarah Hart
Sarah Edds was born in Trent in 1820. In both the 1841 and 1851 census returns she is shown as working as a House Servant to John Pitman. In 1841 John Pitman and his brother are farming at Adber, Trent. John Pitman had returned by 1851 and moved to Queen’s Camel in Somerset; the census for that year reveals that Sarah Edds continues to be employed by him as a Servant.
In 1856 Sarah married William Hart, who was born in Nether Compton in 1808, being twelve years older than Sarah. William Hart worked as an agricultural labourer and died early in 1874. Judging by the 1881 and 1891 census returns Sarah had a pension, probably from her employment with John Pitman. After her husbands death she moved to the Almshouses in Trent where she lived until her death in 1896 at the age of 76.