THE MUDDLE FAMILIES

THE LINEAGE & HISTORY OF THE MUDDLE FAMILIES OF THE WORLD

INCLUDING VARIANTS MUDDEL, MUDDELL, MUDLE & MODDLE

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EARLY OCCUPATIONS AND MIGRATIONS

The century preceding 1300 had been one of relative prosperity in England based on good weather for growing crops and the export of wool from an estimated 10 million sheep. The population of England peaked around 1300 at an estimated 5 to 6 million with the largest town, London, having about 100,000 inhabitants. The life expectancy of a man was just over 30 years and that of a woman under 30 years. Then in the early 1300s Europe entered a mini ice age, and in the 1320s there were bad summers with failed crops and starvation. In 1348 the Black Death reduced the population by an estimated third and with more visitations of the plague and bad weather by the end of the century the population of England had dropped to only a half of that in 1300.

This major reduction in population during the second half of the 14th century caused an acute shortage of labour and for the first time gave workers some power over their masters; it effectively ended the feudal system and serfdom. Workers became freer to move to obtain higher wages, making them better-off, between 1350 and 1450 the purchasing power of an agricultural labourer's wage doubled. But taxes were also on the rise to pay for the wars with the French and the hated pole tax hit labourers hard; by 1380 it had reached three grouts (one shilling) for every person over 15 years old; this was about a week's wages for a labourer. This resulted in the Peasants Revolt of June 1381; the march on London was mainly by people from Essex and Kent, but there were local revolts in other parts of the country. In East Sussex the local seat of power, Lewes Castle, was captured, and one of the leaders, who was later beheaded, of this Sussex revolt, was John Hoath, who held land in Maresfield and Buxted, just the area where the Muddles lived, so it's quite likely that they may have taken part in this revolt.

It was probably these factors; the end of serfdom, greater prosperity of the lower classes and general unrest, which started the movement of the Muddles in the later part of the 14th century, to new places and occupations.

The earliest known Muddles, who were living in the Ashdown Forest area of Sussex in the early 14th century, were probably yeoman farmers. By the late 14th century some Muddles seem to have moved to the coast at Rye in Sussex and these may be the origin of the scattering of mariner Muddles that are found from the 16th century in ports around the south coast of England from the Thames estuary to Cornwall. Other Muddles had now moved into several parts of Kent and to Wiltshire; these owned land and were probably still yeoman farmers.

The Muddles who stayed in the Ashdown Forest area of Sussex seem to have got involved in the Wealden Iron Industry as this industry expanded with the building of the first English blast furnace at Newbridge on Ashdown Forest in 1496, replacing the old inefficient bloomery method of producing iron that had been used in the Weald since pre-Roman times. None of the Muddles were recorded as being the Iron Masters who operated the blast furnaces, but Hugh Muddle and his son John were recorded as operating a hammer forge at Frant. There is evidence though of the Muddles being involved in the supply of charcoal as the fuel for the furnaces, and as the cost of the charcoal was approximately half the cost of producing iron, charcoal production must have been a major industry at this time. This charcoal industry was responsible for much of the destruction of the trees covering Ashdown Forest.

In two inquests into the destruction of Ashdown Forest in 1546 Richard Muddill was listed as one of those that gave the verdict, and it was reported that:

… and Richard Muddyll hath taken by Copy at the Court of Duddylswell a parcel of ground containing 1 acre & a half lying at Newbrege forge whereupon he hath buylded parte of a myll whyche we find for a Commonwelth.[1]

The year before the Keepers of Ashdown Forest had complained that:

Richard Modle, no tenant, has built a mill and keeps hogs on the Kings ground, customers that grind their corn bring curres, which is a great destruction and no little trouble.[2] [curres are chariots or carts]

This Richard lived in East Grinstead and died in 1550,[3] but there is a record of another Richard Muddle who was a miller, at Buxted in 1569.[4] Another investigation into the spoiling of woods and game on Ashdown Forest in 1557 reported that:

… In the walk of John Muddell 21 beches & others polled & topped & cut for cole wood & in the walk of John Jeffrey to (other walks also specified). And further that Muddell has made coles & sold of the beches before hand so by him felled 100 loads of coal as by a view therof made by divers & sundary of the K’ & Q’s customary tenents …

… that the said John Muddell declared unto the said tenants making the said view thereunto sworn as is above said that when he had before time cut down one tree he would cut for every each one three.[5]

[A standard load of coal (charcoal) was 15cwt, so 100 loads would have been 75tons]

Then a century later when John Muddle of Rotherfield, a member of the ‘Buxted Muddles’ married in 1676 he signed a bond with a penalty of £300 (equivalent to about £30,000 today) in which he was described as being a collier, which then meant a charcoal supplier.[6] Several of his close relatives were involved in the manufacture of products from metal as blacksmiths, whitesmiths and clockmakers.

Some members of the Muddle family living at Mayfield in the 17th century were quite well-to-do, making loans to the government, serving as Liberty Bailiffs, going to university and marrying their daughters to baronets. Their money presumably having come from the iron industry.

With the demise of the Wealden iron industry in the 18th century some of the family lines involved in it returned to being yeoman farmers, with the result that their money seems to have slowly drained away, so that by the early 19th century they were mostly farm labourers, and it’s from these that the majority of the migrants to the colonies came during the hard times in 1830s England.

The ‘Ardingly Muddles’ of Sussex specialised in being coopers, producing several generations in that trade who also had a sideline as Parish Clerks. It was a migration from this family to Australia in 1838 that produced a Deputy Registrar-General of N.S.W.

Some of the Muddles who moved into Kent went into the cloth and clothing business as mercers, tailors and collar makers. Others living at Gillingham became wealthy as boat builders, Thames barge owners, and brickmakers, and one bachelor member of this family was the captain of commercial ships sailing to Australia and the Far East from the 1820s to the 1840s, during which time he went whaling in the Southern Ocean and transported four shiploads of convicts to Australia.

It was probably the mariner Muddles who produced possibly the most famous Muddle, judged by the number of documents his name appears in, this was Richard Henry Muddle who was a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy at the time of Trafalgar, but not at the battle, and went on to become a Captain in 1817; ending his days as a harbour master in South America. There was a Muddle at the Battle of Trafalgar, this was professional seaman Edward Muddle who was then serving on HMS Leviathan and was in the thick of the battle near to HMS Victory.

Several Muddles have served in the army, and during Victorian times those that were in well-known wars were Isaac Muddle in the 43rd Regiment of Foot at the Indian Mutiny and the 2nd Maori War, and Robert Muddle in the 17th Lancers at the final battle of the Zulu War. Both Isaac and Robert were members of the 'Ardingly Muddles' and this family also provided officers for the Royal Army Medical Corps and the Artillery during the First World War. John James Muddle from the 'Mayfield Muddles' succeeded in going from an illegitimate birth in Maidstone Union Workhouse to being a Staff Sergeant at Sandhurst Royal Military College. A much more disreputable member of the Victorian army was George Muddle of the 'Framfield Muddles' who was frequently in trouble and in prison, both while in the army and in civilian life.

Three Muddles are known to have been awarded gallantry medals. During the First World War they were Henry George Muddle of the 'Framfield Muddles', who, as a Private in the Somerset Light Infantry, received the Distinguished Conduct Medal for leading a group of his comrades in a successful attack on a German machine-gun position, and Edward John Muddle of the 'Harrietsham Muddles, who, as a Sergeant in The London Regiment received the Military Medal. During the Second World War Australian born John William Muddle was flying out of England as a Mid Upper Gunner on Lancaster bombers in 463 (RAAF) Squadron, when he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

[1] ESRO CAF2/1 f169 Book of Docs Vol 1 in Chancery case Earl de la Warr v Miles & Hale.

[2] Ernest Straker FSA quotes this without reference as the first record of Newbridge Mill in his article ‘Lost Mills of Ashdown’ in Sussex County Magazine Vol XII No 4, April 1938, p.204

[3] ESRO A2 Will of Richard Modowle of Estgrenestede proved by Arcdeaconry of Lewes.

[4] ESRO PAR286/1/1/1 Buxted Parish Register, in which Richard Muddle miller is recorded as one of the sponsors at the baptism of Catherine att Neelles on 25 November 1569.

[5] ESRO CAF2/1 f192 Book of Docs Vol 1 in Chancery case Earl de la Warr v Miles & Hale.

[6] ESRO SAS/G30/36, from the Archive of the Gage family of Firle.

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