Farmers of Hill Farm
Daniel Tye and William Goodson
Hill Farm Barn in the 1920s
Sutton Local Studies and Archives
Daniel Tye
At the sale of Henry Hoare's estate, Daniel Tye (born 1793 in Suffolk) is mentioned as the tenant of what eventually became known as Hill Farm. He was raising his family there and had aready suffered the loss of one of his children who accidentally drank from a saucer of arsenic-laced water which a maidservant had put out to kill the flies.*
He had taken a ten-year lease on the farm in 1826 but he must have given the requisite two-years' notice to quit straight after the 1828 sale as The Times ran the following advertisement on 20 September 1830.
Sales by Auction
Hill Farm, near Mitcham, Surrey – Farming Stock and Effects - by Messrs. BLAKE, on the Premises, between Mitcham and Sutton, on Friday, Sept. 24, at 11 for 12, by order of the Proprietor, leaving the farm.
All the Live and Dead Stock, approved Agricultural Implements, and effects: comprising useful draft horses, several clever hackneys and ponys, an excellent, well-known hunting mare, 8 years old, about 30 head of swine, 4 Suffolk cows, 3 weaned calves, poultry, and the usual variety of husbandry implements, in good condition; also sundry articles of domestic utility. May be viewed; catalogues had on the premises; at the King's Head, Mitcham; at the neighbouring inns; Garraway's; Auction Mart; and of Messrs. Blake, Croydon.
As well as the livestock mentioned, Daniel must have been growing a lot of grain. Most of his land is listed as being arable in the 1828 sale and there was a huge, timber barn at the farm. In 1828, presumably just before he moved, two of his labourers were convicted of stealing grain from their threshing work.
Daniel and his family eventually emigrated to Canada some time between 1834 and 1858, where they carried on farming. He died on 23 October 1874 in Wilmot, Waterloo County, Ontario.
Later tenants
In the 1841 census, William North was the farmer and in 1851 no one is listed at the farmhouse though Pimm of Batts Farm is listed as cultivating almost double his normal acreage and so is probably farming both farms. The owner of Hill Farm, John Goodson of Hill House, had only died in 1849. He left his property to a minor, Thomas Goodson, and it may have taken the executors some time to arrange a suitable tenant.
In 1852, William Goodson of "Hill Farm, Carshalton" won a highly-commended award at Smithfield Cattle Show in London for his pen of Essex pigs. He was born in the same area as John Goodson and so was probably of the same family. He never married but farmed in the area for many years, living in the farm house with his bailiff, William Clarke, his wife and a maidservant. One of Goodson's housekeepers married William Pimm of Batts Farm when he inherited Batts from his father. Goodson was a very active member of Carshalton parish, being a churchwarden for All Saints Church and also acting as a member of the school board for West Street School which eventually became Camden Road School.
Unloading a pig at Smithfield Show
After William Goodson's death, Clarke continued in the farm house for some years. Eventually Captain Thomas Goodson and his family moved in. They were living there in 1891 but not as a farmers. This Thomas seems to be descended from the owner Goodsons and ten years later had moved into Hill House itself. Thomas was a JP and his wife was good friends with their neighbours, the Posterns, at Bishopsford House.