John Thomas Tusting farmed at Church Farm from 1884 to 1897. His distant ancestors (then known as Tustin) lived in the village of Marnham in Nottinghamshire. His 5 times g-grandfather was a yeoman farmer there in the first half of the 17th century, but subsequent generations were variously maltster, husbandman and carpenter. In the 18th century his predecessors moved to the nearby parish of East Markham, and then to Torksey, Kettlethorpe and finally Marton (all in Lincolnshire).

The appearance of the Tusting name in Northamptonshire arose as John Thomas’s grandfather John became an excise officer, and left Lincolnshire for good in 1802. Excise officers were moved every few years, and his final posting before retirement was in Wellingborough. Here one of his sons, Robert, married in 1835, and by the time of his second marriage in 1841 Robert was a grocer and draper in the town of Thrapston. Non-conformist tendencies are apparent – Robert’s child by his first wife was registered as a Quaker birth, and both Robert and his second wife had connections with the Baptist Chapel in Thrapston.

Robert’s only surviving son, John Thomas, was born in 1848 in Thrapston, and ultimately took over his father’s business. As well as a grocer and draper, he was a coal dealer operating from Thrapston Wharf. The eldest three of his children were born to his first wife, who died following a difficult childbirth in 1875. He was married again in 1877 to Sarah Tamar Browning, one of the youngest of a very large farming family from Chelveston. Her many uncles and brothers farmed in the area bordering Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, though many later spread much further afield. Like his father, John subscribed to the Baptist chapel in Thrapston, and his second marriage was conducted by a Baptist minister.
The Browning connection is the significant link to Newton Bromswold. Sarah Tamar’s uncle Thomas Browning farmed at Church Farm from around 1829 to his death in 1870, and John Browning (a brother or one of her many cousins) succeeded him. He was followed by her brother William Browning, who returned to Northamptonshire from farming in Surrey. He sold up in 1884, and John Thomas Tusting and his growing family moved into Church Farm. Eventually there were 12 children, all of whom would have at some point resided at Church Farm. The 1891 census lists parents, nine children, two servants and a visitor (two of the older children having left home, and the youngest not yet born).

John kept his grocery, drapery and coal businesses in Thrapston whilst at Church Farm, and also his connection to the Baptists, explaining why there are no baptism and burial records for Newton Bromswold church. Three children, Jessie Margaret, Millicent and Naomi Barbara were born in the village, and his daughter Ruth Mary died there also.

John Thomas eventually decided to give up farming, and the equipment and livestock were put up for sale in 1897. By 1898 Thomas Coleman was farming the lands (apparently from nearby College House), though it is not know exactly when the Tusting family left the area. His property in Thrapston was sold in 1899, and by 1901 the family had moved to Attleborough in Norfolk, where John Thomas was an agent for one of the early manufacturers of Fletton bricks. He later went back into dairy farming whilst remaining an agent, but eventually settled in Norwich, where some of his children lived, and later moved with them to the nearby village of Cringleford. He died there in 1932, and his wife died in 1944. They are buried in the parish church at Cringleford.

A number of his successors still live in the Norwich area, though the children from the first marriage remained initially in Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire. Of these, John married the daughter of a leather dresser from Harrold, Bedfordshire. Many of his successors remain in the area, and a number are involved in the leather industry, including the leather goods company bearing the Tusting name based in Lavendon.

Compiled by Michael Sasse, Flat 4, 8 Boyne Park, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN4 8ET (mike.sasse@btinternet.com), who is a great-grandson of John Thomas Tusting, and will be pleased to deal with any enquiries relating to the above. 2/5/2015