Mr and Mrs Truell

Ralph Vaughan Williams noted down eight songs from a Mr and Mrs Truell in Gravesend, on 31^st December 1904. Their surname was spelled in numerous ways over the years, although most commonly as ‘Trull’. The couple were John, and Sarah, née Townsden.

John Trull, 1829-1908

John was baptised at St John the Baptist, Sutton-At-Hone on 26^th April 1829. His father John was a labourer. Possibly it was the same John Trull, “servant to Mr. John Staples”, who won second prize at the 1830 Kentish Agricultural Association ploughing match, ploughing “with a turnrise plough and three horses”; possibly it was the same man who was an inmate of Dartford Union (i.e. the Workhouse) in the Summer and Autumn of 1836; almost certainly it was this John Trull who was living in the Dartford Workhouse in 1871, three years before his death.

John’s mother’s name was listed as Sarah. Towards the end of 1840 his father married Rebecca Croucher at Ss Peter & Paul, Farningham. Rebecca was a widow, but John senior was recorded as a bachelor, so presumably he had never been married to John’s mother (and consequently we have no way of knowing her surname).

The 1841 census found the family living at Swanley, in the parish of Sutton At Hone. John had an older sister, and two younger brothers. By 1851 John was working as an agricultural labourer at Sampson Row, Langley, living with another labourer, Rob Hayes, and his wife Anne. John’s surname was recorded as ‘Trowell’. He married a widow, Sarah Chapman, at St Mary the Virgin, Chalk, on 10^th March 1860. The following year’s census shows the couple living in Chalk, with two children listed as “Daughter in law” and “Son in law”. Also in the house are John’s sister-in-law Elizabeth Bennet, and two lodgers. The lodgers’ occupation, and that of John, is recorded as Carter.

In 1871, under the surname ‘Troull’, they were at Chalk Street, Chalk, John’s occupation once again simply “Agricultural labourer”. It has not been possible to trace the Trulls under any variation of their name in the 1881 census, but in 1891 they were living at 2 West Court, Cliffe, their surname now spelled ‘Trowl’; a couple of other farm labourers were boarding with them.

By 1901 they had moved to 3 Whitehill Road, Clifton Terrace, Milton, Gravesend, and this is one occasion when their surname is spelled ‘Truell’. John is now a “Farm yardman”. A farm salesman was lodging with them, as well as sister-in-law, Rebecca Nichols. He and Sarah may well have been living at that address when visited by Vaughan Williams.

John died at the age of 74, and was buried on 3^rd March 1908. His residence at the time of death was given as the Union Workhouse Infirmary in Gravesend.

Sarah Elizabeth Trull, née Townsden, 1829-1913

Sarah was baptised on 11^th October 1829 at St Helen’s, Cliffe At Hoo. Her parents were David, a labourer, and Jemima née Fry. The 1841 census shows her parents and four children living at Church Street, Cliffe, but Sarah’s name is not included in the household. In 1851 the family were at No. 3 New Houses, Cliffe; her father was now a widow.

She married Edward Chapman, a labourer, at St Helen’s church, Cliffe At Hoo, on 12^th October 1854, but within a year he had died. She remarried, to John Trull, at Chalk, on 10^th March 1860, although it appears that the couple had already had two children together: both Ellen (1855) and William (1857) bore the Chapman surname, but in both cases baptism records from Ss Peter & Paul’s in Shorne list their parents as John and Sarah. The children were recorded in the 1861 census as son / daughter in law; at that time this usage was often employed for step-children, but in this case, unless their father was someone else called John, they were both the children of John Trull, but born out of wedlock. In the 1871 census they are simply listed as son and daughter.

Sarah survived her husband by five years. In 1911 she was residing at 90 All Saints Road, Perry Street, Northfleet. She was 79 years old, and her occupation was shown in the census as “None (OAP)” – a very recent designation, as old age pensions had only been introduced by Lloyd George in January 1909. She died in the second quarter of 1913, and the official record for this is one of the few places where the ‘Truell’ spelling of her married surname is used.

Songs

• Cupid’s Garden (Roud 297)
• Down By Yonders Waters (Orange And Blue) (Roud 279)
• Farmer’s Daughter (Roud 2638)
• Foggy Dew (Roud 558)
• John Reilly (Roud 270)
• Robin Hood and the Pedlar (Roud 333)
• Spencer The Rover (Roud 1115)
• Tom Block (Roud 3552)