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Ancestors

The Hancock family and the Paper Mill

Article received from Alison Bromley by e-mail

I was very excited and pleased to find the Hitcham and Taplow Society newsletter plus the excellent website on Taplow itself because I have been researching my family history – in fact, it has absorbed virtually all my time and efforts for about two months now! Recent use of online censuses has enabled me to trace several lines back to the late 1700s, and in one case back to about 1600. Through this I have discovered that one branch of my father’s family had strong connections not only with Maidenhead but also with Taplow. My grandmother’s parents on my father’s side were Walter Aucock, who hailed from Eastbourne and Alice Hancock from Maidenhead. Alice’s lineage is shown below.

        William Hancock
        1796-1873
            |
            V
        Samuel Hancock  =  Mary Simmons
        1827-1896          1833-1890
                        |
                        V
Walter Aucock   =  Alice Hancock
1873-1927          1871-1952

William Hancock, his son Samuel and another son Daniel were almost certainly working at Taplow Paper Mill. William Hancock is listed in the 1841 census as a papermaker, living in Cores End in the Wycombe area. His sons Samuel and Daniel are also both shown as paper mill workers in the 1851 and 1871 censuses. Samuel Hancock was living with his wife and three children in the Bray area of Maidenhead in 1871 and in Tyrrell’s (or Turrell’s) Buildings in Maidenhead in 1881. Samuel’s wife Mary (nee Simmons) was born in Taplow. I was briefly very pleased to find a picture of the paper mill on the Taplow website and consequently rather disappointed to find that it had been closed and the site sold to a developer – finding places linked to my antecedents makes me feel rather proprietorial towards them and consequently annoyed that no one asked me before making such decisions! Likewise, Tyrrell’s Buildings is no more, consumed by Sainsbury’s car park. If anyone in the Taplow area has any more information about the paper mill or the Hancock family I would be delighted to hear from them. For example, I know that Samuel and Mary had another nine children as well as Alice, produced between about 1857 and 1871 (which probably explains Mary Hancock’s death at about 67 – in many ways, she must have been a very strong woman to have lived as long as this!) but I know very little about them or their descendants. Originally I thought that I would find out the names of my main ancestors and places where they lived and that would be enough, but now I want very much to know more about how they lived, what their work was like, who else was connected with the family. (Anyone who has not yet delved into family research, take heed – it can become quite consuming!) The sense of achievement when individuals are tracked down and the discovery of extra details about them is also enormous – I can thoroughly recommend it.

I can be contacted at bromley845@oak.btinternet.com (remove the tree name to get the real address)