Follow us on Facebook  @FHofDW

John Pettit

Middle Street

Occupation: Baker & Carpenter

We had some difficulty tracing the family of my 4 x great uncle, Peter George Pettit, who was married to my 4x great aunt, Elizabeth Rose. This was chiefly due to some confusion over the spellings of the surname, Pettit/Pettet/Petitt/Petett etc. After rigorous research I am certain that the information entered above is correct.  

 John Pettit 

John, a carpenter, seems to have been born in Wingham. We don’t know when he actually moved into Deal, but he married Ann there in December 1802. George, their eldest son, had been born eight months earlier! By 1803 Britain was at war with France and John was registered on the 1803 Lieutenancy Papers for Deal. They tell us that he was a volunteer in ‘Mr. May’s Company’ which would have been rather like the Home Guard of WW2. 

John and Ann were to have eight children. Several died young and several, like John himself died in Eastry Union Workhouse.  Ann lived until she was 80 years old dying in 1861 and outliving her husband and several of their children.  

Peter George Pettit  

Born in 1810, Peter George was John and Ann’s third child, he married Elizabeth Rose in 1838 and they set up home first in Union Row then later moved to Middle Deal Road. They didn’t have any children and Peter continued to work as a gardener until his death from consumption in 1852. He was nursed at home by a private nurse.   

Thomas Mantle Pettit 

Thomas Mantle Pettit became a Royal Navy Prison Warden on the prisoner hulks that were moored in Portsmouth Harbour. He and his family lived in Forton Rd, Gosport and he is included in a newspaper report telling of his part in a murder, on board one of these floating prisons. At a later date he leaves the navy to become the landlord of a Public House in Brighton. His wife dies in Brighton, and it seems he returns to the Portsmouth area where he becomes Landlord of The Belmont Arms in Bedhampton and remarries. He eventually retires to neighbouring Havant where he died in 1896.  

Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle June 17 1848

At a later date he leaves the navy to become the landlord of a Public House in Brighton. His wife dies in Brighton and it seems he returns to the Portsmouth area where he becomes Landlord of The Belmont Arms in Bedhampton and remarries. He eventually retires to neighbouring Havant where he dies in 1896.

Sources and further reading:
Newspaper image © The British Library Board. All rights reserved.
With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk)