Thomas Harborow INKSON, b : 16 Dec 1834 Kings Lynn, Norfolk
His Story
Thomas Harborow was the second son of William b. ABT 1804 and Sarah, William being the oldest son to have survived childhood of the 1801 Inkson Harborow marriage, so Thomas' second name recognises his paternal grandmother's family. He is the progenitor of an important branch of the English Inksons with many descendents alive today, including many with the Inkson surname.
We know his date of birth from the parish record of his baptism which took place in St Margaret's Kings Lynn on 8 Jan 1835. His was the first generation to break with the traditions of previous generations in that he went on to work on that newfangled invention, the railway, and he also left the county of his birth, running a café in London later in life. He did, however, return to Norfolk at the end of his life and was buried there.
Having said that he broke with tradition, in the 1851 census records he was recorded as an assistant butcher [presumably to his father], aged 16. However, 10 years later, he had married and was recorded as a railway clerk in Kings Lynn. We know from the marriage certificate that he married Martha Garner, the daughter of Henry Garner, a Kings Lynn innkeeper, on 16 Mar 1856 in Islington, Norfolk [now called Tilney cum Islington]. He had married Martha in something of a rush, a story which is told elsewhere on this domain.
We can track his progress from the baptism records of the children. The first few children were born in Kings Lynn but in 1863 Alice Walters was born in Snettisham, 16 km up the Lynn to Hunstanton railway line from Kings Lynn where he was the station master. When Matilda May was born in 1865, he was the station master at Baldock in Hertfordshire but just a year later, following the opening of the West Norfolk Junction Railway, Harry Garner was baptised in Burnham Sutton where Thomas Harborow was again the station master. All the other children were born there too.
In total, Thomas Harborow and Martha had at least 15 children (!) across nearly a quarter century, five of which died in infancy. Of the rest, seven went on to have families of their own, one married but doesn't seem to have had any children and two died unmarried, both killed in war. You can track the history of the family on the page devoted to them and their family in the census.
Up until the 1881 census, Thomas Harborow was the station master in Burnham Sutton but by the time of the 1891 census he and Martha have moved to Lewisham, south east London, where he is recorded as the proprietor of 'Tea/Coffee & Dining Rooms'. We don't know exactly when the family left Burnham Sutton and the railway. What we do know is that in 1886 he was no longer in Burnham Sutton but was most probably the station master at Sudbury or Long Melford, both Essex, on the Colne Valley line because his address was in Foxearth, a village 5km north west of Sudbury, 3km west of Long Melford. That information comes from an announcement of the marriage of Alice Walters Inkson b. 1863 in the Chelmsford Chronicle.
On the night of the 1901 census, March 31 he was a grocer at 67 Ellerdale St, Lewisham, London. However, by the time the details of Harry Garner's death, died during the Second Boer War, was being written - so after May 1901 - his father's address is given as Cherry Cottage Thornham, Norfolk. Thomas Harborow and Martha had returned to Norfolk. They were both buried in Thornham where their oldest daughter, Martha Harriett Helsdon née Inkson lived [her husband being the village butcher]. It is not known whether they lived with the Helsdons or nearby and there are no parish records of the burials to be found even though there is said to be a tombstone in parish graveyard.