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Grace BAKER
1788 - 1865 (77 years)
Has 35 ancestors and 103 descendants in this family tree.
Set As Default Person 
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Name Grace BAKER Relationship 
with Teresa Ann GOATHAM Born 1788 Blackawton, Devon, England 
Baptised 18 Dec 1788 St. Michael’s Church, Blackawton, Devon, England Gender Female Died 5 Mar 1865 - GRO ref: Pitts, Grace q1 1865 Kingsbridge RD 5b 169; GRO online index shows aged 76
(there's another Grace Pitts in Kingsbridge RD death registrations between 1861 and 1865 - q3 1861 Kingsbridge 5b 123 - but Blackawton burial registers shows it was the 1865 death)
Buried 12 Mar 1865 St. Michael’s Church, Blackawton, Devon, England - Burial register gives her age as 75
Siblings1 brother and 3 sisters Half-siblings1 half sister (family of "Unknown" and Sarah LAVERS) Patriarch & Matriarch 
Charles BAKER, b. Abt 1690, d. Jan 1757, Charleton, Devon, England (Age ~ 67 years) (Great Grandfather) 
Johane BASTARD, b. Est 1628, d. Yes, date unknown (3 x Great Grandmother)Notes - Living at Lower Wadstray in 1841 with husband and 5 younger Pitts and 3 apprentices.
In the village in 1851, with a servant, Blackawton-born Mary Tucker (unmarried) and her 11 year old son. None of their 14 children remained at home, and William was described as a "retired butcher" which is no doubt why they .
They were still in the village, with a house servant, Mary Edmonds, in 1861.
William and Grace were living in an area described on the census as "Blackawton Monthly Cattle Market Town!". Examining the entries on the census, it seems clear that this was, or was part of, the main village, not a separate hamlet.(The entries are interspersed with 3 inns, the Wesleyan Chapel, the Post Office and Vicarage, a few entries simply shown as "Blackawton Town" and Castle Lane. They are preceeded by the entries for Cotterbury (a separate hamlet in the parish) and followed by the entries for Blackawton Cross, which seems to be on the edge of the main village, and was where Mary Edmonds parents-in-law were living. The main village was described as a village in the preceeding and following censuses, despite the ennumerator for the 1851 being Henry Hambling, the same person who recorded it as a town in 1861, and the ennumerator in 1871 being his son Henry Baker Hambling.
Grace died before 1871 when William was still with the same servant, Mary Edmonds, .
Next door in 1871 was John Pitts and his wife Eliza. John was born c 1817, like William a butcher, but he doesn't appear to have been a son of William's - maybe he was a nephew?
An interesting servant
Mary Edmonds, live-in servant to William and Grace by the time of the 1861 census and probably until William's death in 1872 was shown as married in 1861 - so where was her husband? In Australia, having been transported in 1854. Although Mary was born Mary Maria Bourne / Berne in Buckfastleigh and was living with her husband, John Hannaford Edmonds, at Tideford in Cornworthy in 1851, John came from Blackawton. The son of Thomas and Agnes (nee Hanover) who had married at St. Michael's in 1811, he was baptised in the same parish church in 1818.
The trial on 15th March 1855 at which John was sentenced to transportation was reported in Trewman's Exeter Flying Post in an article showing the Devon Lent Assizes, published on Thursday March 22nd 1855. John was aged 36 and a militiaman. He was charged with burglariously breaking and entering the house of Miss M. W. N. Leach at Stoke Fleming with intent to steal her goods. The burglary was committed on 24th August 1854 and was not John's first offence. Trewman's Exeter Flying Post of 10 March, 1853 reported that at the Devon Lent Assizes a John EDMONDS aged 35 was convicted for a burglarly at Cornworthy, while Trewman's Exeter Flying Post of September 21, 1854 noted that at the Devon Intermediate sessions, a John EDMONDS, had been sentenced to 2 months imprisonment for assaulting police-constable William PEARSE at Dawlish in the execution of his duty.
This time the penalty was more severe - John was sentenced to 14 years and sailed for Western Australia on 11 June 1856 on board the "Runnymede" with 247 other male convicts. On 11 May 1865, aged 47, John, who had by now received a Conditional Pardon, died in York, Western Australia and is buried there.
Living just with William Pitts as his servant in 1871, Mary presumably found herself without work when he died the following year. Whether or not she found another job, without a husband or family to support her, Mary was in the Union Workhouse at Churchstow at the time of the 1881 census, recorded as a 75 year old widow.
Lest she seem to belong to a class quite separate from that of her former employers, the Pitts, it is also worth noting that William and Grace's daughter Grace was a widow, between her 2nd and 3rd marriages at the time of the 1871 census, and living with her brother-in-law by her 2nd marriage, Samuel Lands. In the 1881 census Samuel Lands was also in the workhouse in Churchstow - in fact he was the very next entry after Mary Edmonds. Immediately before Mary Edmonds was one Mary Tucker, whose age, birthplace and being listed as "formerly domestic servant" suggest she was the Mary Tucker who was the Pitts servant before Mary Edmonds.
Person ID I780 All Last Modified 5 Oct 2017
Father James BAKER, b. Abt 1753, Slapton, Devon, England , d. 15 Dec 1837, Woodford, Blackawton, Devon, England (Age ~ 84 years) Mother Sarah LAVERS, b. 1757, Blackawton, Devon, England , d. 19 Oct 1839, Woodford, Blackawton, Devon, England (Age 82 years) Married 15 Dec 1779 St. Michael’s Church, Blackawton, Devon, England [1] - by banns, both of this parish, both signed, witnessed by Bart.
Harvey and Wm. Cornish
Family ID F26 Family Group Page | Family Chart
Family William PITTS, bap. 13 Apr 1790, St. Michael’s Church, Blackawton, Devon, England , d. 22 Jan 1872, (probably), Blackawton, Devon, England (Age ~ 81 years) Married 3 Oct 1809 St. Michael’s Church, Blackawton, Devon, England - from IGI
Children17 children Last Modified 20 Apr 2012 Family ID F590 Family Group Page | Family Chart
- GRO ref: Pitts, Grace q1 1865 Kingsbridge RD 5b 169; GRO online index shows aged 76
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Wills (transcripts) 
The will of Grace's father, James Baker
In James' will his house, garden, orchard and appurtenances belonging to them was to go to Elizabeth and Grace equally after their mother's death.
Other effects were to be split 3 ways, between Elizabeth, Grace and the children of their late sister, with just £10 which was to go to their brother and £5 to their half sister.
Given that James' effects were listed as "under £300" they were presumably at least £200; assuming that they did not diminish by much during the 2 years by which James…
Sources - [S199] Blackawton - St Michaels Church - m/f images, St. Michael’s Church (Blackawton, Devon), Marriage of James BAKER and Sarah LAVERS 1779; DE/REG/57869/1-16 m/f 10 (Reliability: 3).
"Banns of Marriage between James Baker and Sarah Lavers were published on the 17th the 24th & the 31st Days of October 1779 by me Thoms Adams Vicar
No 173
The said James Baker of this Parish Blacksmith and the said Sarah Lavers of this Parish Spinster were Married in this Church by Banns this Fifteenth Day of December in the Year One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy Nine by me Thoms. Adams Vicar.
This Marriage was solemnized between Us { James Baker
{ Sarah Lavers
In the Presence of { Bartw Harvey
{ Wm Cornish"
(Although Thomas Hyne, probably Parish Clerk, was not a witness he still was to most at this time)