Hannah Masters

It is generally agreed that before the health resort of Dr Russell and the fashionable era of the Prince Regent, Brighton was not much of a place. John Warburton, an antiquary who visited Brighton in 1720 wrote dismissively:

“I passed through a ruinous village called Hove, which the sea is daily eating up. It is in a fair way of being quite deserted; but the church being large, and a good distance from the shore, may perhaps escape. A good mile further, going along the beach, I arrived at Bright-hemstead, a large, ill-built, irregular market town, mostly inhabited by sea-faring men, who choose their residence here, as being situated on the main, and convenient for their going on shore, on their passing and re-passing in the coasting trade. The town is likely to share the same fate with the last, the sea having washed away the half of it; whole streets being now deserted, and the beach almost covered with walls of houses being almost entire, the lime or cement being strong enough, when thrown down, to resist the violence of the waves. The church is situated on the downs, at a furlong distance from the town; it is large, but nothing about it worthy of remark, or in the town; there not being any person of fortune in the town but one Masters, a gentleman of good birth.” ^[i]IN The Sussex Coast: A literary and historical guide to the Sussex Coast by Ian C. Hannah M.A., Illustrated by Seth Brand Hannah. T. Fisher Unwin, London Circa 1912

It is not easy to discover a story about the lives of these seafaring men, so I decided to set myself a real challenge and write about one of their wives. Hannah Masters (1705-1755) is buried alongside her husband, Captain Benjamin Masters and his family in the churchyard at St Nicholas, Brighton. Victorian renovations ensured that the memorial inscriptions of this branch of the Masters family were reinstated from the churchyard to the new choir vestry and preserved.^[ii]Somers Clarke Jun. Sussex Archaeological Collections 1884. vol 32 pp71-2 The extensive Masters family had lived in Brighton since at least 1613, spread to Bristol, Southwark and Whitechapel, and traded not just in English coastal waters, but ventured as far as Carolina, Stockholm and even the Arctic port of Archangel. One cannot be certain to which ‘gentleman of good birth’ Warburton referred, but it could have been Richard Masters, shipowner, property owner, and merchant of Brighton, who was brother of Captain Benjamin.

Benjamin’s wife, Hannah was born Hannah Huggins, one of seven daughters of Joseph Huggins, shipwright of Wapping. Her first husband, William Potts, a Wapping victualler was not successful financially and borrowed heavily from his father in law. William and Hannah Potts baptised a daughter, Ruth on 7 May 1724 at The Independent Chapel in Old Gravel Lane, Wapping. At least two of Hannah’s siblings had been baptised at the same chapel, showing that Hannah belonged to a family of dissenters. At least three children of William Potts of New Crane, Wapping were buried between 1724 and 1732. The third tragedy was the drowning of a child, Thomas Potts at New Crane, where the hazardous New Crane Stairs provide access to the river. William Potts joined a ship ‘Adventure’ and sailed to India where he died in 1740. Hannah was thrown on her own resources. Her father’s will of 1739 had guarded against settling more money on Hannah in case it was absorbed by her husband. Once William Potts had died, as a widow, Hannah could claim her share of the family legacies and appeared at the Court of Chancery to prevent her brothers in law, Dryden Smith and Robert Sutcliffe from depriving her both of her father’s legacy, and also that of her mother, Joanna Ayres, the daughter of Thomas Ayres and Joanna Masters of Brighthelmston. The will of Joanna’s brother, John Ayres was a bone of contention between the Huggins sisters. The inheritance from Thomas Ayres, Hannah’s grandfather, came down to the sisters through their parents’ wills, but complaints in Chancery^[iii]TNA C11/2472/24 Smith v Potts and TNA C11/2470/35 Sutcliffe v Potts both from Dryden Smith and Robert Sutcliffe questioned the details of the inheritance and gave rise to several years of family feuding over money. Dryden Smith maintained that Joseph and Joanna Huggins had, as John Ayres executors, taken possession of his assets amounting to more than £1,000, and settled most of it on their daughters as generous marriage portions. Why this was an issue is not known, as the will of John Ayres of 1707 appears not to have survived.

Hannah’s father, Joseph Huggins died in 1739, a year before she was first widowed. He had been in partnership with Dryden Smith, the husband of his eldest daughter, Mary. Dryden Smith, already a shipwright with his own yard and premises in Wapping inherited half of Huggins’ shipyard, house, warehouse and wharf immediately. The remaining fifty per cent of these assets would eventually go to the remaining five daughters, but not to Hannah, who was granted an annuity of £25 a year rent from property in Prestwick, Northumberland. Hannah also inherited farmland and premises in Clayton, Sussex, to be shared between all the sisters. The 50 acre farm at Clayton, called ‘Diggons’ had been leased by Joseph Huggins since 1733. The Wapping shipwright apparently wanted a farm in Sussex as a source of timber. What is now an area of the South Downs with few trees, had been leased in 1732 by Thomas Bothell ‘with an increase of rent for every tree, fellar, haver, sapling or body of pollard lopped, shreeded, shriped up, cut down, or grubbed up.'^[iv]West Sussex Record Office SAS-WA/66 1732. This sounds like an attempt to discourage the denuding of the Downs of timber, but the harvesting went on. Hannah retained the farm until she let it in 1750, and seems to have lived their herself some of the time.

I have not been able to discover where Hannah lived in Brighton. She had married Captain Benjamin Masters in 1742 at St Gregory by St Pauls in the City of London. They had seven years of married life before he died aged 50 in 1749. A will from Benjamin Masters does not survive, but the will of his brother Richard who died in 1750 details copyhold property left to Benjamin by their father, also Richard Masters, that on the death of Hannah would revert to the Manor of Brighton. This was a house (formerly Souths) and garden (formerly Webbs) in North Street. there were also ‘two yardlands of freehold lands in Brighton and in the common laines and fields’. The earliest extant record of taxation in Brighton from 1744 ^[v]ESRO AMS/5889/1 shows Richard and Benjamin Masters as the principal landowners in the town, but they are not listed as inhabitants of any particular property, so it cannot be certain where Hannah and Benjamin lived.

In April 1750, six months after the death of Benjamin, Hannah claimed some of her husband’s lands from his brother Richard as ‘a release of dower’. For a consideration, she received the use and rents of ’23 acres of land in Brighthelmston’. Extensive farms and lands in Southwick^[vi]ESRO SAS/HC 739 were also mentioned. The land is included in her brother in law’s will proved in 1755 just before her own death.^[vii]Will of Richard Masters, merchant. 10 May 1750. ESRO SAS/HA 252 All the property that had come to Hannah by way of her husband was to revert to the Masters’ legatees (specifically, Richard Tidy) but she was able to deploy income gathered from her properties to provide an income for her sister, Susanna Sutcliffe. Her will is very careful to ensure that the money she left was not subject to their husbands’ debts or legacies. (Her brother in law, Robert Sutcliffe had been granted a certificate of bankruptcy in 1750). Hannah also provided for her widowed younger sister, Abigail, and her two unmarried sisters, Elizabeth and Sarah.

Unfortunately I have not been able to find information about Hannah’s daily life, although it is apparent that mariners’ wives, left at home for long periods, were very much in control of the home economy and accustomed to dealing with trade and legal matters. Both Hannah’s husbands died away from home: William Potts in India, and Benjamin Masters^[viii]The Sussex Weekly Advertiser. 2 Oct 1749 p4, in London.

It is commonly said that married women in England before The Married Woman’s Property Act of 1882, were not able to own property. This was very much the default position, in the event of intestacy or absence of marriage settlements. Hannah Masters was a financially active woman, not totally dependent on her husbands’ incomes, able to secure her own position by recourse to chancery as a married woman, and to the manorial courts as a widow. ^[ix]For more on the legal and financial position of women at this time, see Women and Property in Early Modern England by Amy Louise Erikson, Routledge 1993.