By Victoria Evans. Searchroom Archivist
In our ongoing efforts to list all of our building plans from across the county, I kept coming across America Lane and New England Road within the Cuckfield Urban District plans. From this, I searched Google Maps and found other America-related named roads such as Washington Road, Pilgrims Gardens, Boston Road, Marylands, Portland Close, and the list could go on! At this point, I knew I wanted to dig deeper into this and find out the reasoning behind it. And what perfect timing for Independence Day just around the corner!
Who founded ‘America’ in Lindfield?
In the early 1800s, Lindfield was known as a village that was being “eaten by pauperism” and this is why it was selected for an experiment called the ‘Allotment System’. The aims were:
- “To wean the poor from dependence on upon the parish and to put them in the way of providing for all their wants by their own industry.
- To enable them to procure an education for their children in moral, religious and industrious habits.
- To raise such a moral independent feeling in the Poor as many induce them to consider it a disgrace and shame to receive alms from the parish and to engage in marriage until they have made a reasonable provision for a family.”
Colonies at Home or The Means for Rendering the Industrious Labourer Independent of Parish Relief and for providing for the Poor Population of Ireland by the cultivation of soil
By William Allen, 1827
Three men were behind bringing this experiment to life: the then Earl of Chichester, John Smith, the MP for Buckinghamshire at the time, and William Allen, a Quaker from London. The most instrumental party was William Allen as he was a compassionate man who was involved with the abolition of slavery, improving the prison system, and the reform of the criminal code. He had now turned his attention to how the agricultural depression was impacting the poorest in the community and how he could actively help. This is how the ‘Allotment System’ was born.
In the 1820s, Gravelye and Scamps (later known as Penn) farms and the accompanying land were purchased in Lindfield, and three sets of six cottages were built, with each including one or two acres of land. A school was built for the children of each family. William Allen then went to a parish meeting and asked for tenants to rent these cottages. He specified that he wanted industrious men with large families as this tended to mean they were reliant on parish relief. The families that moved to the ‘Colony’ are said to have been self-sufficient enough to no longer be considered paupers. Some might say that a social revolution began here in Lindfield!
What were the cottages like in ‘America’?
According to the book Glimpses of our Sussex Ancestors by Charles Fleet, 1883, there were three different classes of cottage and the better the cottage, the higher the rent was. The lower-class cottages, costing 2s, were “long, low, thatched cottages, with a good-sized kitchen, and three bedrooms connected by a long passage – all on the ground floor…and only one room deep.”
The middle-class cottages, costing 2s 6d, were similar in layout to the lower but were two rooms deep instead and still on the ground floor. They were also “slate-roofed, with stuccoed fronts, instead of mere mud and beach.” “The out-houses to both [consisted] of bakehouse (with good oven and copper), woodhouse, piggery, well, wash-house, & with plenty of spare room at the back; whilst in front [ran] the long slips of ground, averaging an acre to each, cultivated either as garden or arable ground – with fruit trees, or wheat, beans, vegetables, [etc].”
The highest class of cottages, costing 3s, were on a higher elevation than the others and was in the eyeline of Gravelye House, which was the residence of William Allen until his death in 1843. They were brick built with slate roofs and had rooms upstairs.
Who lived in ‘America’?
From the Lindfield tithe map, we are able to find out the names of the occupiers of ‘America’ at the time. From there we can take these names to the 1841 census and beyond if families stayed on the property for decades. Below I have listed the corresponding plot numbers, names and descriptions of what I believe to be ‘America’ from the tithe map and apportionments.
| Plot number | Occupier name | Name & Description of Lands & Premises |
| 780 | John Anscombe | Two Cottages & Garden |
| 782 | Spence Elphick | Barn field |
| 783 | B Brooker | Two Cottages & Gardens |
| 784 | James Mitchell | Two Cottages & Gardens |
| 785 | James Maynard | Two Cottages & Gardens |
| 786 | John Marchant | Two Cottages & Gardens |
| 787 | William Maynard | Two Cottages & Gardens |
| 788 | Marchant Pearce | Two Cottages & Gardens |
| 789 | James Clear | Two Cottages & Gardens |
| 790 | John Cooke | [blank] |
| 791 | James Harland | Two Cottages & Gardens |
| 792 | Henry Cook | Two Cottages & Gardens |
| 793 | Henry Cox | Two Cottages & Gardens |
| 794 | Frederick Malthouse | Two Cottages & Gardens |
| 795 | Henry Cox | Wood field |
| 796 | William Maynard | Nine acres |
The names that we will focusing in on are Henry Cook (plot number 792) and John Marchant (plot number 786).
It appears from the tithe map that Henry Cook and his family lived in one of the low-class houses and may have only had the garden at the back of the cottage to tend to or may have extended into the back field. Tracing Henry Cook firstly on the 1841 census, he was married to Mary and had two children, Samuel and Caroline. By 1851, they had had a further three children, Henry, Thomas and John. By 1861, it appears they had another child, Mary, even though Henry and Mary would have been 56 at this time. Henry, his wife and daughter remained in ‘America’. However, by the 1891 census his wife had passed, and he was living with his daughter Mary and her husband in the same cottage (no. 9). Henry passed away in March 1900 and by the 1911 census Mary, his daughter, had moved away from ‘America’ and it appears this Cook family no longer lived there.
From the tithe map it appears that John Marchant and his family resided in one of the middle-class cottages and may have also just had the land at the back of their property or may have extended into the field. Once again, starting with the 1841 census, John was living with other people in ‘America’. He may have been a lodger at this point. By 1851, he had married Sarah, and they had four children, Amelia, Charlotte, John Henry and Harriett. By 1861, they had had a further two children, Ellen and William. John passed away in 1891 and Sarah continued to live in their cottage until her death in 1901. However, their daughter, Harriett, remained in ‘America’ (cottage no. 10, it seems) from tracing her up to the 1921 census. She passed away in 1933, and it can be assumed she remained in ‘America’ until then.
What happened to ‘America’?
It is debatable whether this allotment system experiment was successful. On a small scale, it can be argued that the families that lived off this land were given access to invaluable education about the most efficient methods of farming, and it opened up the possibility of their children being better educated. I can also only assume that the sense of community was strong amongst those in ‘America’ too. However, looking at the bigger picture, this experiment did not get people out of poverty, as it was so difficult to make a profit from what they grew, and the parish still had to support its paupers.
By 1937, the cottages of ‘America’ were condemned, with the smaller cottages going first in 1944 and the remaining ones were demolished in the 1950s. What remains today are traces of ‘America’ in road names.
If you wish to read up more on ‘America’, the Rediscovering America Local History series compiled and edited by Debby Matthews is invaluable, especially number 2 in the series! You can find a PDF copy of it here.
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