Caroline Beck (strowger_densham @t mac.com) wants to now about the Hertfordshire connections of  John Burrowes, who  joined the Bank of England in 1813. He is shown at that time as having "been nine years at Hertford, was apprenticed to his father, John, a cheesemonger, is now an assistant to the Cashier at the Army Pay Office, has been married a fortnight, belongs to no club, has good health and is free from debt, good handwriting and ready at accounts". He is also recorded as age 21, born at St Saviour's, Southwark, and his religion is shown as C of E.

The IGI suggests that his parents were John and Elizabet Burrowes, and he was christened 1st April 1792 Saint Saviour, Southwark, London. Siblings are probably - William 1797, Phebe 1799, Elizabeth 1805 and Ann 1807. He married Rhoda Hoppey in April 1813 and she came from Hounslow, Middlesex. Burrows worked in the Power of Attorney Office in the Accountant's Department and was on a salary of £260 at his death on 25 March 1854.

The basic question is what was John Burrowes doing in Hertford? If young John Burrowes was articled to his father, who appears to have been in Southwark having further children, there is no way, at his age, that he could have been working or living in Hertford.  I suspect that there may be an error which could have occurred either when the records were created in the early 19th century, or later when transcribed. I am wondering whether the family worshiped in Southwark and actually lived in nearby Deptford. Given a very difficult capital letter "D" (some writers included so many flourishes in their capital letters that they are almost impossible to interpret) and a poorly written "p" with a very short descender and "Deptford" could easily be misread as "Hertford".

[I have already contacted Caroline by email and she has not seen the original - but is checking it out. If it proved to be Deptford it just demonstrates how easy it is to rush off in a wild goose chase because of a possible transcription error.]

If it is necessary to follow the Hertford connection there are no county trade directories for the period. The only known surviving poll books of possibly relevant date are for the county elections  of 1796, 1802, and 1805 (two different elections). Copies of all are held at HALS.

November 2001

After further investigation Caroline Beck (strowger_densham @t mac.com) wrote You were right about the mistranscription of the word Deptford in the Bank of England records rather than Hertford, so please remove my BURROWES listing on your site. - An excellent site I wish I could work out how to contruct one but even with Pagemill that came with my computer I am flumoxed.

In fact I will leave it here as an example of the kind of detective work that is sometimes necessary - and the need to check sources and not rely on transcriptions and indexes.