Districts. 'Fundholder' / 'Interest of money' ?? (General)

by pojames , Monday, July 29, 2013, 08:54 (3925 days ago) @ slowhands

Thanks for that, slowhands. I've become aware of the shifting nature of 'Monmouth' over the years, but your link is very helpful.

Oddly enough I've just been following my grandmother, Mary Ann Marshall, who appears first age 2 in Eastbach in the 1861 census, but who seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth 1881. Discovered in the end that she had got a job working in Usk, only about 12 miles from Monmouth, but in the Welsh census !

She was then working for what looks an interesting family, the Carbonells, living at the oddly named Rhiw Castell, which seems to have been not a country house at all, but a town house in the middle of Usk - I suspect a fantasy Welsh name given to the house by incoming English from Middx. William Carbonell gave a huge collection of ferns to Kew Gdns, apparently !

Very odd descriptions of members of the household; along with William Carbonell, winemerchant, aged 72, there is Eleanor Carbonell (a deaconess, it says elsewhere) unmarried, aged 41, described as Head of the household and 'Fundholder', as is a visitor, aged 23; another visitor is described as 'Interest of money'. Three servants including my g'mother. I'm sure these descriptions will be familiar to those who have spent more time in genealogical research than I have. Is 'Fundholder' simply a way of saying that they have independent means, which I take it is the meaning of 'Gentleman', so don't need to work ?