HEBBORN FAMILY HISTORY & NEWS - April 2002.

25th APRIL 1802

On this date, Giles Heborn [F013] was baptised at Garsington in Oxfordshire. He was the seventh and last child of William Heborn [E007] and Mary Heborn. His name seems to be unique in the family, but I am sure someone will prove me wrong! He is one of those shadowy figures from the family history with no great claim to fame. He appears in the 1851 Census of Garsington as an unmarried agricultural labourer. He seems to have lost count when he declared his age as ”56 years”. He died on 1st February 1873 at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. The death certificate records his name as Giles Hebborn and his occupation as a shepherd aged 70 years.

We learn a little more of Giles from the Diary of Joseph Turrill of Garsington which was printed in the Oxfordshire Market Gardener. After confirming the details of Giles birth and death, he goes on to say that George Fruin made a declaration in 1877 to the effect that Giles had been a shoe-maker and for thirty years had occupied a cottage and garden in Garsington for which he paid no rent and was entitled to the freehold. He goes on to say that Giles did not appear as a householder in later censuses.

It sounds as if there was some dispute as to the ownership of the cottage after Giles died.  Could this cottage have been the family home of his parents? All his brothers and sisters were married or dead before his mother died in 1843. Maybe Giles lived on in the old home. If there was any litigation over the ownership of this cottage, the papers might just contain information linking Giles’s parents to another Heborn family who lived in Garsington. There certainly was an earlier and a parallel generation of Heborns in Garsington, but proving a link to William and Mary has proved illusive.

John Heborn [C008] was baptised in Toot Baldon in 1702 and married Ann Snow at Toot Baldon in 1726. In his will dated 1761 John is described as a yeoman of Garsington. By the time he died in 1770, both of his sons were dead, and his daughter Ann King administered his will.

So where does Gile’s father William fit in?  He seems too young to be the son of John (1702-1770) and too old to be the son of William Heborn [D020] (1737-1767).  With no proven link to the other Garsington family, could he have come from the neighbouring village of Cowley?
John Hebborn.
The numbers in square brackets after names can be used to identify persons on Family Tree Charts and Databases. Persons in this article will be found on Family Tree Charts  B004, F007, F008, F010, and F011.