Thomas Crabb

1769 – 1855

✓ Validated against records · 2026-07-03

Thomas Crabb was born at Littleport on 20 December 1769, the seventh child of William Crabb and Esther James — the freeholder's son, born into the village his family had held ground in for at least sixty years. He married twice. Rebecca Shearman, in 1792, gave him six children and buried two of them small; she died in the summer of 1807, months after their last boy was born. Four years later, in April 1811, the register recording him widower and her single, he married Susanna Moon — and by then the ground under Littleport families like his was shifting. In December 1814 the Cambridge Chronicle advertised the sale, over their heads, of 'all that undivided moiety or half part of a messuage and piece of garden ground situate in Sandall End in Littleport… now divided into two tenements and in the occupation of Thomas Crabb and the widow Moon'. The freeholders' grandson rented half a divided house, shared with his wife's family, and it was sold at the Marquis of Granby inn to whoever bid highest.

Eighteen months later the village exploded. Thomas was forty-six in May 1816, with a houseful of children — the youngest of them Rebecca, one, and Thomas, four — when the labourers of Littleport armed themselves at the Globe Inn and marched on Ely; the militia broke them, the Special Commission sat in June, and five men of this parish were hanged on one morning outside Ely gaol. No Crabb was among the punished, nor a Shearman, a Moon or a Pagett — but the hanged and transported were the family's neighbours, workmates and kin by marriage, and every Littleport family of 1816 lived the rest of the century in the world the riot revealed: wages that would not buy bread, commons drained and enclosed away, and the workhouse waiting at the end. Thomas's own record is the quiet version of that story. He laboured in the fields all his life — the 1841 census has him at Sandhill, seventy and still an agricultural labourer, with children and grandchildren under his roof; Susanna had died in 1833 — and in old age he moved in with his daughter Susan and her blacksmith husband Stephen Brundell in Back Row, where the 1851 census records him, eighty-two, a widower, and still, in the occupation column, an agricultural labourer. He died at Littleport on 7 April 1855, aged eighty-five: born under George III when his family were freeholders of the parish, dead under Victoria as the oldest labourer in it.

Composed from validated records · 2026-07-03

Birth: December 20th 1769, Littleport, Cambridgeshire
Marriage: 1. July 26th 1792 to Rebecca Shearman in Littleport 2. April 11th 1811 to Susanna Moon in Littleport
Death: April 7th 1855 Littleport aged 85 years
Parents: William Crabb born Littleport Esther James born Littleport
Siblings: Robert Crabb baptised September 17th 1749, Littleport William baptised July 28th 1751, Littleport Mary Crabb baptised September 12th 1756, Littleport died December 7th 1756 Mary Crabb baptised November 13th 1757, Littleport Christopher Crabb baptised December 12th 1760, Littleport Clement Crabb baptised July 26th 1764, Littleport Pepper Crabb baptised September 21st 1766, Littleport Thomas Crabb baptised January 21st 1770, Littleport William Crab baptised February 20th 1772, Littleport died November 3rd 1773
Children: John Crabb born 1793 Mary Crabb burial May 15th 1796 Mary Crabb baptised September17th 1797, Littleport Hannah Crabb baptised March 7th 1800, Littleport, died September 3rd 1800 Hannah Crabb baptised December 13th 1801, Littleport Thomas Crabb baptised March 23rd 1807, Littleport Thomas Crabb baptised December 15th 1811, Littleport Rebecca Crabb baptised March 1st 1815, Littleport Susan Crabb baptised October 4th 1818, Littleport William Crabb baptised April 28th 1821, Littleport Charles Crabb baptised March 30th 1824, Littleport
1792: Marries Rebecca Shearman on the 26th March 1792 in Littleport
1796: Daughter Mary dies aged just under 3 months
1800: Death of daughter Hannah aged 6 months
1807: Wife Rebecca dies. She was buried on the 30th of June, 1807
1811: Marries Susanna Moon Marriage records state that Willia was widowed and the bride single
1814: AUCTIONS 'To be sold by Auction by Mr. Pope on Thursday 15th January 1815 at the Marquis of Granby in Littleport. Lot 1 All that undivided MOIETY or half part of a MESSUAGE and PIECE of GARDEN GROUND situate in Sandall End in Littleport aforesaid, now divided into TWO Tennaments and in the occupation of Thomas Crabb and the widow Moon' December 30th 1814 Cambridge Chronicle
1833: Death of wife, Susanna aged 54 years. She was buried on 7th April 1833 aged 46 years
1842: Daughter Susan Crabb married Stephen Brundell in 1842 (BMD: Ely)
1841c: Living in Sandhill, Littleport Thomas Crabb aged 70, born Cambridgeshire William Crabb aged 15, Painter, born Cambridgeshire James Crabb aged 25, Agricultural Labourer, born Cambridgeshire Rebecca Crabb, aged 25, born Cambridgeshire William Crabb, aged 5, born Cambridgeshire John Crabb, aged 1, born Cambridgeshire Address: Back Row Occupation: Agricultural Labourer
1851c: Living in Sandhill, Littleport Stephen Brundell, Head, aged 31, Blacksmith, born Southory, Norfolk Susan Brundell, Wife, aged 31, born Littleport William Brundell, Son, aged 8, born Littleport Charles Blundell, Son, aged 2, born Littleport Thomas Crabb, Father in Law, Widower, aged 82, born Littleport Address: Back Row Occupation: Agricultural Labourer
1855: Thomas Crabb dies aged 85 years

In your grandmother’s words · from her notebook

Family

Parents

WCFatherWilliam Crabb1726–1804

The children of William & Esther James

· · · · · · · Thomas Crabb b. 1769this page

Marriages

The children of Thomas & Rebecca Shearman

The children of Thomas & Susanna Moon

TCChild · the line continuesThomas Crabbmain line1811–1887

Life

Confirmed — anchored to a recordEstimated — inferred

1769

Born

20 December 1769 at Littleport

Thomas Crab, christened 20 December 1769, Littleport — parents William Crab and Esther Crab.— Baptism — Littleport (1769)

Mum’s record Evidence

From Janet Brock’s research, cited — not yet re-verified at the image:

Baptism — Littleport (1769) — 'England, Births and Christenings, 1538-1975', FamilySearch: Thomas Crab, christened 20 December 1769, Littleport — parents William Crab and Esther Crab. Janet's reading of the register gives born 20 December 1769, baptised 21 January 1770 — likely a born-and-baptised entry; the Bishop's Transcript image will settle which date the christening column carries. Validated 3 July 2026. from Mum’s research

1792

Married Rebecca Shearman

26 July 1792 at Littleport

July 26th 1792 to Rebecca Shearman in Littleport— From Janet Brock’s research

Mum’s record Evidence

From Janet Brock’s research notebook.

1796

In 1796

1796

Daughter Mary dies aged just under 3 months— From Janet Brock’s research

Mum’s record Evidence

From Janet Brock’s research notebook.

1800

In 1800

1800

Death of daughter Hannah aged 6 months— From Janet Brock’s research

Mum’s record Evidence

From Janet Brock’s research notebook.

1807

Rebecca dies — six children, two already buried

1807

Wife Rebecca dies. She was buried on the 30th of June, 1807— From Janet Brock’s research

Mum’s record Evidence

From Janet Brock’s research notebook.

1811

Married Susanna Moon

11 April 1811 at Littleport

April 11th 1811 to Susanna Moon in Littleport— From Janet Brock’s research

Mum’s record Evidence

From Janet Brock’s research notebook.

1814

“In the occupation of Thomas Crabb and the widow Moon” — the Sandall End sale

1814

To be sold by Auction by Mr. Pope on Thursday 15th
January 1815 at the Marquis of Granby in Littleport. Lot 1: All that undivided MOIETY or half part of a MESSUAGE and PIECE of GARDEN GROUND situate in Sandall End in Littleport aforesaid, now divided into TWO Tenements and in the occupation of Thomas Crabb and the widow Moon.
— The Sandall End auction — Cambridge Chronicle (30 December 1814)

Mum’s record Evidence

From Janet Brock’s research, cited — not yet re-verified at the image:

The Sandall End auction — Cambridge Chronicle (30 December 1814) — Cambridge Chronicle, 30 December 1814 — transcribed in full by Janet; the paper is not yet in the digitised collections, so her transcription is the working text. from Mum’s research

1816

Bread or blood — Littleport, 1816

The year after Waterloo was the hungriest in living memory. Wheat prices had collapsed and then soared, demobilised soldiers flooded the labour market, the drained and newly enclosed fens had stripped away the commons that once let a poor family keep a cow or cut fodder — and wages would not buy bread. On the evening of 22 May 1816 the labourers of Littleport, many of them fresh from a benefit-club meeting at the Globe Inn, took up guns, cleavers and fowling pieces, mounted a punt-gun on a farm wagon, and sacked the houses of the villagers they blamed; the next day they marched the five miles to Ely and forced the magistrates to promise higher wages and cheaper flour. The promises lasted a day. Troops — dragoons and yeomanry — retook Littleport on 24 May in a running fight through the yards and fen lanes; around eighty men and women were committed to Ely gaol, and in June a Special Commission of two judges tried them in a week. Twenty-four were condemned to death. Nineteen were reprieved to transportation or prison, and on the morning of Friday 28 June 1816 five Littleport men — William Beamiss, shoemaker; George Crow, John Dennis the publican, Isaac Harley and Thomas South, labourers — were carted from Ely gaol and hanged together, their bodies buried in one grave in St Mary's churchyard, where a memorial names them today 'condemned to death for crimes occasioned through an unjust and oppressive system'. Thomas Crabb was forty-six that May, a Littleport field labourer with young children — the exact man the riot rose from. His family's names are on none of the charge sheets; the hanged were their neighbours and their kin by marriage; and the world that made the riot — field wages, sold tenements, the poor law — is the world every Crabb of the next two generations was born into.

Historical context Evidence

Background composed for this site from published history. It frames the family’s world; it is not one of Mum’s records.

1833

Susanna dies

1833

Death of wife, Susanna aged 54 years. She was buried on 7th April 1833 aged 46 years— From Janet Brock’s research

Mum’s record Evidence

From Janet Brock’s research notebook.

1841

Census · 1841

1841

Living in Sandhill, Littleport Thomas Crabb aged 70, born Cambridgeshire William Crabb aged 15, Painter, born Cambridgeshire James Crabb aged 25, Agricultural Labourer, born Cambridgeshire Rebecca Crabb, aged 25, born Cambridgeshire William Crabb, aged 5, born Cambridgeshire John Crabb, aged 1, born Cambridgeshire Address: Back Row Occupation: Agricultural Labourer
— From Janet Brock’s research

Mum’s record Evidence

From Janet Brock’s research notebook.

1842

Susan marries the blacksmith, Stephen Brundell

1842

Daughter Susan Crabb married Stephen Brundell in 1842 (BMD: Ely)— From Janet Brock’s research

Mum’s record Evidence

From Janet Brock’s research notebook.

1851

Census · 1851

1851

Back Row, Sandhill, Littleport: Stephen Brundell, blacksmith, born Southery, Norfolk — Susan his wife, born Littleport — their boys William and Charles — and Thomas Crabb, father-in-law, widower, aged 82, born Littleport: occupation, agricultural labourer.— The 1851 census — the old labourer at the blacksmith's

Mum’s record Evidence

From Janet Brock’s research, cited — not yet re-verified at the image:

The 1851 census — the old labourer at the blacksmith's — HO107, Littleport — as transcribed by Janet, and confirmed in the FamilySearch census index (which links Thomas, born 1769 Littleport, to the Brundell household). Validated 3 July 2026. from Mum’s research

1855

Died

7 April 1855

April 7th 1855 Littleport aged 85 years— From Janet Brock’s research

Mum’s record Evidence

From Janet Brock’s research notebook.

Our research

The riots generation — open questions

Open research · Littleport & Ely

Which day in 1792? Janet's page carries the Rebecca Shearman wedding twice — 26 July in the header, 26 March in the timeline. The family event holds the year only until the Cambridgeshire register or Bishop's Transcript is read. To do: one look at the 1792 Littleport marriages.
The full committal list. No Crabb, Shearman, Moon or Pagett appears among the hanged, transported or imprisoned of 1816 — but the complete list of the ~80 committed to Ely gaol (Cambridgeshire Archives; the Littleport Society's published account) would make the negative definitive, and might show neighbours from Sandall End. To do: read the full list.
The first Mary and the first Thomas. Rebecca's daughter Mary was buried in May 1796 and her name reused in 1797; her son Thomas (born 1807) vanishes from the record before the name was given again in 1811 — his burial is unfound. To do: Littleport burials 1807–1811.
The widow Moon. Sharing a divided house with 'the widow Moon' three years after marrying Susanna Moon reads like a mother-in-law next door — the Moon registers would say. To do: Susanna's baptism and her mother's widowhood.