John Turner’s Milton Ernest 1809–62

Summary

John Turner II was nineteen years old when his family moved from Bolnhurst to Milton Ernest in 1809. He arrived with his fifty-one year old father, John; his mother, Anna Maria, who was fifty-four; his twenty-one year old elder sister Elizabeth; and two younger siblings, Ann, aged eighteen, and Thomas, who was thirteen years old.

Soon after John arrived in Milton Ernest the population was recorded as 332 in the 1811 census. The population showed modest increases over the next couple of decades – increasing to 364 in 1821 and 372 in 1831. There was then a sudden increase; the 1841 census recorded 446 people living in the village.

It is the 1841 census that gives a real insight into John Turner's Milton Ernest. The village at this time consisted of ninety-four buildings. There were 219 male and 227 female inhabitants and the average age was just twenty-five years old.

The 268 people listed as being employed in the 1841 census were working in thirty-eight different occupations. Despite such a variation of employment there were three dominant professions that covered 76% of Milton Ernest's working population – ninety-six women (36%) were lace makers, eighty-four men (31%) were agricultural labourers and twenty-three people (9%) were servants. Many of the households in the village, therefore, consisted of a husband working in the fields in and around the parish while his wife made lace in the family home and looked after the children. There were seven farms that employed the agricultural labourers including John Turner I's Home Farm.

When John Turner II lived in Milton Ernest it had many services to hand and he would not have had to travel far for his needs, probably just to a neighbouring village or into Bedford itself. Within the village there were two bakeries, two blacksmiths, two carpenters, a carrier, two grocers, a doctor, a miller, three shoemakers, a tailor and a wheelwright. There were also two public houses: the Swan on Radwell Road and, next door to the family home, The Queen's Head on Bedford Road.

During John Turner II's fifty-three year residence in Milton Ernest there were a few notable changes: the Oakley Hunt set up kennels in the village; a Methodist Chapel was built in Radwell Road; a policeman took up residence; the railway line was constructed through the parish; and William Butterfield arrived to architecturally leave his imprint.