Home Farm Cottage, Langrish, where Sarah, Elizabeth and Ernest Merritt lived.
Fort Brockhurst, part of the Alverstoke Advanced Lines
The Seven Stars, Stroud, where Elizabeth Tribe/Merritt worked as a general servant.
Petersfield Union Workhouse, where Elizabeth Merritt died in 1926
Brooklyn House, East Meon, where Luke Merritt lived.
Gravestone in All Saints church yard, where Luke Merritt and his son Luke are both buried.
David Hopkins
David Madden approached us in April 2014. He wrote: ‘After an incredibly arduous, 20-year search I’ve managed to prove that my great-grandfather was indeed from a Langrish family whose origins lie in East Meon’. His mother’s family is Irish; her grandfather Robert Merritt ‘had changed his name to join the Navy, and he was connected to Ernest Alfred Merritss, whose parents were East Meon people as far back as 1501 at least’. When we contacted David Madden in 2016 to ask for his permission to publish the correspondence on this website, he had discovered a letter in the Admiralty records showing that James Merritt had ‘probably lied about his details in order to get his brother Stephen into the service as well. The captain of the ship writes to the Admiralty to explain that the matter only came to light when the bursar realised he was sending pay to a mother in East Meon for two men with the exact same name!’ David Hopkins was at that time researching migrants from East Meon in the mid 19th century and had decided to use the Merritts as a case study.
The story unfolded further. David Madden believes that James Merritt was on board ‘ a navy vessel which intercepted a slaver ship in the Caribbean.’ One Merritt lived in ‘the second most prestigious house in East Meon’ (DH). It emerged that Elizabeth Merritt had lived in the Langrish house next to David Hopkins’. Abandoned by her husband, , Elizabeth ‘ends up in 1901 as a General Servant at the “Seven Stars” pub in the East Meon tything of Stroud’ and died in Petersfield Workhouse.
The exchange is attached as a PDF, and we will continue to update this page when new information emerges.
Creator
David Madden Place
East Meon Contributor
David Hopkins Copyright
n/a Reference number
EM/0127/EM/0192 Accession number
2016-08-006 Storage location
Digital Downloads
Email exchange between David Madden, descendant of the Merritts of East Meon, and David Hopkins.
Comments about this page
Elizabeth Merritt is my maternal Great, Great Grandmother. Her son Edgar Frederick Merritt, is my Great Grandfather. I have a photograph of Great Grandad Merritt, whom died at the age of 91. I have knowledge of the Merritt family, as my Grandmother was Hilda Elizabeth Merritt (Edgars daughter). I have always known of the connection with the Seven Stars Pub & the Merritt family, from stories from my Grandmother Hilda and my own mother.
MY FAMILY TOO!
MY GRANDMOTHER WAS MABEL BATTS OF HAMBLEDON HANTS. OUR FAMILY HAS A VERY RICH HISTORY!! HER FATHER WILLIAM BEASANT BATTS CAMPANOLOGIST OF ST. PETERS CHURCH HAMBLEDON. I AM LOOKING FOR HIS OBITUARY.
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