John Bell

206 Lower Street

Occupation: Pilot

John Bell and Jane Fox married in 1801 and by 1807 they’d had two children.

In 1803 there is a John Bell in the Deal Lieutenancy Papers in which it states that he is a Sea Fencible. These records also tell us that he was aged between 17 and twenty-nine, married and had no more than two children under ten at the time which all fits with our John Bell.

Looking into Sea Fencibles I found an index for them (see sources below) for 1805. This showed that he attended exercises eight times throughout that year and that he was a Petty Officer. Apparently, they were able to choose their own Petty Officers so John must have been a likeable as well as an able man.

Each man was paid by the day that they assembled and as a Petty Officer, he was paid 2s 6d  for each day he attended, (about £9 in today’s money). As a Sea Fencible, he would have received an exemption certificate from Naval Impressment.

John appears in Deal’s early censuses of 1811 and 1821 and counted with him is another male and two females which must be his wife Jane, daughter Ann and his son Edward.

After the baptisms of their children, we can find no further records for Jane, though when their daughter married in 1823 both John and Jane do appear to have signed the register as witnesses. 

Whatever happened to Edward Cooke, like his mother, is currently unknown.

At the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 Deal went into a period of decline and by the 1830s the Boatmen, in particular, were suffering great hardship. This was made worse by the Pilotage act of 1808 which gave the pilots rights over the boatmen who also until 1808 also acted as pilots. Then, following an appeal to Trinity House, the Government in 1832 ordered the Select Committee Report into Cinque Ports Pilotage John is named in this as an Upper Book Pilot. In other words a very experienced pilot.  

In the early 1830s, John moved from 98 to 206 Lower Street. He is, in 1835, paying the ‘Poor Rates’ there. When the 1841 census was taken he is listed as the head of the household. Living with him is brother and sister, James Milner and Rebecca Underdown who were the son and daughter of the former occupants. Mary and Mitchell Underdown. Also living with them is Louisa Wilkins, she is the sister of the house’s next occupant, George Wilkins.

206 Lower Street seems to have been passed through the family as George and Louisa’s mother was Ann, nee Underdown, elder sister of Rebecca & James.

Sources and Further Reading:
Deal Lieutenancy Papers 1803 compiled by Jennifer Killick
Sea Fencibles Kent Coast 1805  compiled by Jennifer Killick
—both available from Folkestone & District Family History Society  http://folkfhs.org.uk/publications.htm
Report from the Select Committee on Cinque-Port Pilots- printed 8 August 1833