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Daniel Cole (c1772-1840)
potter, brickmaker, seaman and beneficiary

This page explores the early years of Daniel Cole (1772-1840) from when he learnt the trade of pottery and brickmaking, through his marriage, various addresses, his time as a seaman and gunner in Nelson’s navy, his inheritance, his children, his return to pottery until his death.

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by the webmaster from family recollections and research

For years, Daniel Cole was the earliest member of the Cole Pottery line that I knew by name, and I managed to research him in some detail.

Early years of Daniel Cole

Daniel was born in an area of Middlesex that would now be called London. Judging by later documents, his birth was around 1772.

According to E.G.Cole II (the webmaster's uncle), Daniel once lived in the hamlet of Tanner’s End in one of a row of wooden cottages near to the entrance to Bridport Hall (a large house replaced by North Middlesex Hospital) in Silver Street, Edmonton, which is an extension of Fore Street.

During his youth he was exposed to the trade of pottery, so much so as to be documented in his naval discharge papers as 'bred to pottery' but how this came to be was shrouded in mystery for many years. Now thanks to the research of Bruce Bennett, we do know more about his ancestry, see the page, but this page is about Daniel himself.

Appearance of Daniel Cole

Considering how long ago Daniel lived, we are fortunate to know a remarkable amount about his appearance as a grown man. He was 5'8" tall with a fresh complexion, brown hair and blue eyes. Until his 30s, when a broken leg forced him to walk with a limp, he had no distinguishing features. (This physical description, which is the next best thing to an artist's portrait, comes from his naval discharge papers (see below). Anedotal evidence within the family supported the existence of the permanent limp.)

Marriage

On 15 May 1792 Daniel married Ann Moss in Old Church St Pancras. Both were resident in the parish at the time. The 1841 census (the last before Ann died) indicated that she was born in a different, but unnamed county, but unnamed county, probably in or around Bristol as she was living or staying there with her sister-in-law, Daniel having died the previous year.

Where the young couple lived

By 1797, Ann was living at the Brill in St Pancras, Somers Town (or Somerstown) - then such a peaceful setting. This address is known from Daniel's 1792 will, but more of that later.

The Brill in St Pancras, Somers Town in the 1700s

Placard about the Channel tunnel terminus during building works, showing the address Brill Place

St Pancras Station during building works for Eurostar

The Brill is now totally unrecognisable due to the building works for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link at St Pancras Station.

A sailor in Nelson's navy

By 1797 Daniel had gone to sea in Nelson's Navy to fight in the Napoleonic Wars. He was not listed as a victim of the press gang but appears to have been one of the 'Quota' system (Sandwich). He had probably signed up because of the severe food shortages in and around London at the time. If a man volunteered for Nelson's Navy he would receive conduct money and two months wages in advance. However not all 'volunteers' volunteered willingly; frequently a man taken by the Press Gang would be offered the chance to volunteer and so receive a share in the pickings (known as the bounty). Also joining the navy was a way to escape from the threat of the debtors prison. The navy would protect any man from his creditors if his debt was less than £20.

Daniel Cole served on The Defiance which is on the far left.

Daniel's first stint in the navy began at the age of 24 as 'No 826 on the books of His Majesty's Ship Defiance'. Defiance was a class three ship of 74 guns launched in 1873 and becoming part of the Channel Fleet in 1794. We have no information on what happened in the four years between Daniel's marriage and his call to the sea. The first child seems to have been born about 1793, but more of that later.

Daniel started service on the Defiance on 22 Feb 1796. The previous October there had been a mutiny on board which saw five men hanged, and it is likely that most of the crew were being replaced. During Daniel's service there was a second mutiny on board, as part of the Spithead mutinees by sixteen ships of the Channel Fleet.

On 6 July 1798, Daniel was promoted from ordinary seaman to able seaman. He left the Defiance sometime towards the end of the century when there was a lull in hostilities with the French and there was a widespread laying-off of seamen. Presumably he returned to Ann in this period as his twins Catherine and Sarah were born on 9th July 1802.

By the time of their birth, though, Daniel was back at sea on another ship, the Narcissus, a new ship in 1801 but only a fifth class ship of 32 guns. He served two stints on her. The first was from 29 October 1801 until 2 December 1803. In that period, on 1 Mar 1802, he was promoted to second gunner. He served his second stint on the Narcissus from 30 August 1804 until 13 September 1805, one month before the Battle of Trafalgar.

Discharge from the navy

Daniel's discharge from the Narcissus at the stated age of 34 was finally due to a broken leg which left him with a permanent limp, resulting in his discharge. He was discharged on 13 September 1805.

On his return, he was met with twin daughters who he knew nothing about!

Then shortly afterwards he learnt that his uncle, Thomas Cole, had died and that he and his brother John were each in receipt of a large inheritance. The will was dated 27 November 1805. Note the date because much changed in the few years afterwards, almost certainly due to the inheritance.

Back to the trade of pottery

Presumably the money from the inheritance took some time to come through, and he would have needed immediate cash after his naval discharge. So Daniel plied his trade as a potter at the Tile Kilns.

It was to be two more years before Daniel and Ann were to have another child. The child was John, probably named after Daniel's brother who shared the inheritance. John, the son, was born in Islington on 14 October 1807 and baptised the following Spring in St Pancras on 17 April 1808.

In 1809 Daniel and Ann had what was to be their last child, another Daniel Cole, born 16 November 1809 and baptised at St Mary, Stoke Newington on 11 March 1810. The location suggests that Daniel the father had already moved to the Tile Kilns for which Stoke Newington was the nearest major town. After this, there is no record of Daniel the son in censuses or death records. Possibly, he died young. Or he emigrated. It was probably too early for Australia and there is no convincing American record. There is a record in the 1861 census that could be for him, which it gives his birthplace as Edmonton, which could of course be Tanners End. This Daniel in the 1861 census was unmarried, age 50, a bricklayer's labourer, living in Edmonton, listed as Daniel Coil. Was he Daniel and Ann's son? Your guess is as good as mine.

Children of Daniel Cole

In summary, the following is a list of Daniel's and Ann's children with key known events in their lives.

• Thomas Cole, born 1793 and clearly named after the Thomas Cole who was his father's benefacter in the 1805 will. He married Sarah Lear Maggason at Old Church, St Pancras on 3rd January 1814.

• Ann Marie Cole (1794-1871). She married Thomas Moss Tarsey at St Clement Danes Church on 14th November 1814. He was possibly a cousin or nephew of Ann Marie's mother, Ann Moss, because of the Moss middle name.

• Catherine Cole (1802-1865). She was baptized with her twin Sarah on 01 Aug 1802 in Old Church, St Pancras, London. She married William Dean on 11 Nov 1821 in Saint Anne Church, Soho. She died age 63 and was buried at Abney Park Cemetary (burial 035976, section C02, index 1S13).

• Sarah Cole (1802-1866). She was Catherine's twin. She married Jeremiah Plume, son of Jeremiah Plume and Susanna Fielding, on 29 Jun 1823 in Old Church, Saint Pancras. She survived her twin Catherine by less than a year and her husband Jeremiah by about two years.

• John Cole

• Daniel Cole. He was born on 16 November 1809 at Stoke Newington, and baptized on 11 March 1810 in Saint Mary, Stoke Newington. Then he disappeared reliably from records.

Cole descendants of Daniel Cole as a family tree

I made this tree many years ago when I still had the software to do it. Now I no longer have that software and more is known, particulary with regard to the question "Who came before?" Try a search from the search box on the home page.

Image of the Cole descendants of Daniel Cole (1772-1840)

Death and burial

The next record for Daniel (1772-1840) is the last but one. It shows his death on 12 October 1840 at the Tile Kilns, where his daughter Catherine was living. By then the Cole Pottery in Tottenham had been set up by son, John, but probably Daniel didn't want to move there. The convention of the time was that daughters, not sons, would look after aged parents. Catherine, had married William Dean and become Catherine Dean, and Daniel had become the foreman at the Tile Kilns. On the death certificate Catherine gave his age as 68.

Daniel was buried in Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington, on 18 Oct 1840. I visited the cemetery and found the grave using the cemetery records, but it was overgrown with no stone.

Unmarked grave of Daniel Cole (1772-1840), Abney Park Cememtery, now a nature reserve

Ann survived Daniel by nearly seven years. According to the 1841 census, she was living for at least part of this time with her son John's family. However, when she died on 1 February 1847, aged 79, it was sadly in the Edmonton Union Workhouse. The cause of death was given as bronchitis of one week's duration. No workhouse records survive from that time, so there is no way of knowing whether she went there to die or whether she was a 'permanent' inmate. However, money appears to have been no problem, and as the top floor of workhouses was normally reserved as a hospital, she was almost certainly there because of her bronchitis. According to the census, she had not been born in Middlesex, but, being 1841, there was no hint of a town, village or parish.

Ann was buried in Abney Park Cemetery in the same grave as Daniel: burial 000046, section J07, index 1S01. It was because this detail was known that it was possible to locate the grave amid the scrub, brambles and undergrowth.

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