Thomas GARLICK

Wife:  GARLICK, Mary (1749-1836)

Thomas Garlick of Hook ... or Wallingfen?

Thomas Garlick married Mary Ibbetson by licence on 3rd October 1768 at Hook. For once there’s a nice, clear register . He was 27, she was only 19, and both were able to sign their names. The register notes that both of them were of Goole Fields Houses, which is on the south side of the Dutch River, towards Whitgift. Her parents must have been John and Mary Ibbetson, of Goole Fields, also buried in this churchyard. Again, maybe we can tackle all the Garlicks together. 

Why do they say they’re “of Wallingfen”? 

There’s a more than comprehensive history of the management and enclosure of Wallingfen Common from medieval times at  https://www.bahs.org.uk/AGHR/ARTICLES/64_1_2_CrouchMcDonagh.pdf.  A few bits of information from this: It was a sparsely inhabited watery fen “annoyed with water”, outside most of the local boundaries, nevertheless a valuable common summer pasture, a source of turf for heating, rushes for baskets and roofing, as well as fish and wildfowl. It had its own court, “The Forty Eight Men” from the parishes using the Common, to govern its use.  In fact , later on, we find the Garlicks often listed in the local papers among those paying duty for the right to pursue game .

However, the Zeitgeist and political will for drainage, enclosure and improvement of agricultural land in private hands was irresistible when it came to it, and Wallingfen was enclosed by Act of Parliament in 1777, the Market Weighton canal was opened in 1782, and the villages of Newport and Gilberdyke grew accordingly.

It’s possible that the Garlicks benefited from the Enclosure, though that doesn’t explain why they should choose Hook rather than Howden, Eastrington or Cave for their final resting place. Unless family ties still took them to Goole Fields, and Hook, the parish for Goole Fields. Perhaps they had lost their original place in Wallingfen after the drainage and enclosure carve-up, and were involuntarily exiled back in Hook ... or perhaps just to avoid confusion with Thomas’s father, Thomas, of “Goul”, and his son Thomas of Goole Fields. Though they only have themselves to blame for that!  Curiously, each generation of Thomases died younger than the previous one. 

Ann Garlick Collinson, their daughter, wife of John Collinson, born 1770 , died 1798,  was also buried at Hook, but the monument is also insisting on Wallingfen. 

(Research by J.I.)