The Ballard Family Register

( no ) THE BALLARD FAMILY REGISTER. BY MISS FRANCES M. BALLARD AND W. P. D. STEBBING, F.S.A. THE common type of famUy register of births, marriages and deaths takes the form of entries on the fly leaves of the FamUy Bible, but in the case now recorded the BaUards of Cranbrook (Adolphus BaUard the author of The Domesday Inquest in " The Antiquaries' Books " was a direct descendant), kept a separate book in which was entered up, from generation to generation, a register of the famUy. The book was commenced by Isaac BaUard, born 1692, who wrote on the title page " Isaac Ballard His Register Book-of Birthes and Deathes in his own FamUy." This title was added to by later BaUards who have continued to make entries in the book. Isaac's forebears, who possessed a FamUy Bible in which they had made various entries, were an Isaac (or Richard), who was born October 23rd, 1567, and a second Richard who was born in 1640. This man, a husbandman, who died in October, 1717, was the father of the Isaac of the Register. The greater number of the entries are records of the events as they happened, with sometimes the names of the godparents at a baptism, and that of the clergyman who performed the ceremony. The earliest instance in the famUy of the bestowal of two Christian names was in 1766 when Joseph Ballard's eldest daughter was christened Elizabeth, with the addition of Balcombe, her mother's maiden name. At one period various other occurrences in the family history were entered up. In October and November of 1723 Isaac notes that his four chUdren had the "measels". In 1736 his wife feU from her horse and broke her coUar bone. Dr. Backett's bill for setting it was 15s. In the same year "my son Isaac", then aged 15, " with Mr. Simonds carlesly set fire to upward of 2 pounds of Gunpowder in Mr. Jenning's THE BALLARD FAMILY REGISTER. Ill shop, which blew out the shop windows, and did great damage to ye house, and goods, and vastly scorched their faces and hands, and were several days bhnd, both cured by Docr Walter, paid him his biU for- appUcations to Isaac's hands and face, and board to Francis [his elder sister], 20 days, £4-4-0." In 1742 Isaac tells us that he " by a whip with a twig a brushing hurt my left eye, & lost gradualy ye sight thearof." On June 20th, 1745, he records that " The smaU pox came out on Isaac, he living with Mr. Davis at W. Farley, was extream bad, came home ye 23rd. of August very weak, went again to Mr. Davis Nov. 5th." Next year on July 25th he " had an Ishue cut above my left knee by Dr. Backet. Dryed up Jan. 1st. 1765." Issues, or running sores, seem to have been common complaints of our ancestors, and are often hard to cure even with modern antiseptic treatment. His wife had a similar trouble in 1755. Joseph, Isaac's seventh child, was born the 26th Nov. 1728 (old style). In 1783 he was staying at Deal where, on the 15th of August he died suddenly, as the register records, " after coming out of the sea, when he had been bathing for ye comfit of his health. He . . . was buried in Deal Chappel Field." A tombstone, erected to his memory in what is now known as St. George's Churchyard, contents itself by recording that he died on August 1st, and that " he was a Kind Husband and a Sincere Friend." This observance of bathing for health must be due to the propaganda of which Dr. Lettsom of Margate was such an exponent. We hear from Elizabeth Carter's correspondence with Mrs. Montague that, in 1768, after a bereavement, Mr. and Mrs. Neve "are come to Deal to go into the sea." A curious point in bygone legislation is revealed in a note among these papers. A member of this famUy left Cranbrook towards the close of the eighteenth century to take the post of " mine host " at a Sittingbourne inn. To do this he had to show a certificate from the churchwardens and overseers setting forth that the famUy had hved in Cranbrook 200 years and had never received parish relief. This was 112 THE BALLARD FAMILY REGISTER. owing to the laws as to settlement which made a parish responsible for its inhabitants U they deshed to remove to another parish and seemed too poor to rent a place worth £10 a year. By the Act 9 and 10 W. I l l , " No person who shaU come into any parish by certificate shaU be adjudged by any act whatsoever to have gained a legal settlement in such parish unless he shall reaUy and bona fide take a lease of a tenement of the yearly value of £10."