Seymour Jeal, Upfield Apprentice

In June’s edition of Ad Vincula we were introduced to Allen Watts Upfield, successful shopkeeper, community leader and man of property.  No doubt he employed several apprentices over the years and the indenture for one of them, Seymour Jeal, survives in the West Sussex Record Office, together with a small number of family papers.  Here, we learn a little more about Seymour Jeal.

Amos Seymour Jeal was born in 1867, the son of Thomas Jeal, a sawyer, and his wife Phebe [sic].  He was the fourth of five children.  The eldest, Harriett and Annie, were born in 1849 and 1851 and his brother Arthur was born in 1859.  After Seymour came Alfred born in 1869.  As we shall see from subsequent events it can be inferred that Seymour and Arthur were close.  Interestingly, all three of the brothers had middle names beginning with the letter ‘S.’ Arthur was Arthur Sydney and Alfred was Alfred Simeon.

The family lived a peripatetic life as Thomas took up employment around the district.  Before Seymour was born the family lived in Billingshurst (where Thomas hailed from) and Horsham, in the Carfax, a part of town then far more densely populated than today  After Horsham, the family moved to Wisborough Green where Seymour and Alfred were born.  The 1871 Census found the family living at Stroodland with another household headed by Jesse Luxford, also a sawyer, who had married Seymour’s oldest sister Harriett in 1868.  A third household, that of William Covey, an agricultural labourer also lived at Stroodland

Ten years later the family was living just down the road at Fishers which also contained three households.  Once again, Jesse and Harriett Luxford formed one of the households with their four children. Jesse was now describing himself as a carpenter. William Wells, agricultural labourer and his wife were the third household.  Seymour was now a grocer’s apprentice, while his brother Arthur was living in Puttenham where he called himself a wheelwright (subsequent censuses showed him as a carpenter and joiner, and a builder and wheelwright).

Seymour had been apprenticed in March 1880 when he was 13 and he was bound for five years.  Whilst he may have stayed the course and completed his apprenticeship, he didn’t pursue the occupation of grocer, for in 1891 he was boarding in Bisley with his younger brother Alfred and both were described as sawyers.  Their parents had by now moved back to Stroodland along with the Luxfords where they rejoined William Covey and his wife.

Seymour and his first wife Alice had a daughter Phyllis born in December 1897.  Alice died early in 1898 and her death may have arisen from complications with Phyllis’s birth.

In 1901, the year Seymour got married for the second time to Ellen Blackman, both brothers were living in Brighton and both were police constables, occupations that they seemed to stick with from then on.  Seymour retired as a police sergeant to Henfield where he died in 1935.  Ellen lived on until 1957.  Phyllis married and lived until 1971.  Seymour’s brother Alfred continued to live in Brighton and died in 1945.

This article is adapted from one that first appeared in the Wisborough Green History Society’s magazine of April 2023.  The magazine is free to all members of the Society.

Andrew Strudwick
History Society Chairman