When Worcester finsihed the transcription in 1948, he added the following postscript, in his words, dealing with ‘several loose ends’.
There are several loose ends, which we can only try to gather together from newspapers and a few other sources. The shop was a better proposition than Turner had ever indicated, for in 1766 he was able to buy it, and the whole two-family house, from his landlord Francis Weller. A few years later he bought the King’s Head, and retained it till his death, along with the two shops (for the house in Framfield belonged, by law, to him).
Mr Wilkes’s case came to a happy end in November 1769, and the rejoicing was particularly great in Chiddingly, where the inhabitants were inspired to remember the famous issue No. 45 of The North Briton by lighting 45 bonfires, ringing the church bells for 45 minutes, and drinking 45 pints of beer to his health.
Samuel Durrant of Lewes died worth over a hundred thousand pounds, by popular report; another Durrant, a wheelwright, was found dead in a ditch, like Ed Russell of Chiddingly, who, at eighty, drank as heartily as ever till the day of his death. One Philcox, whom we remember as Mr Fieldcox the patten-maker at Battle, was one of several who had occasion to hang themselves. Miss Harriet Porter married a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and, we suppose, lived happily ever after; but the difficulties of the times were no lighter than before. Poor rates in the seventies were nine shillings in the pound – a far cry, perhaps, from the thirt[een] shillings of the 1830’s, but steep none the less. In December 1783 it was reported that,
“…A true and noble spirit for the public good is now exerting itself at East Hoathly, the inhabitants of that parish having formed themselves into an association to patrol .- nightly, four at a time, for the detection of a set of villains who have lately so much infested that neighborhood, the good effects of which have already been visible in the apprehension and commitment of the notorious William Darby of Laughton… Joe Funnell of Chiddingly and Matt Richardson of Hellingly [in whose house] a great variety of stolen goods were found concealed…”
The following year both Darby and Funnell were sentenced to death.
Eight children were born to Thomas Turner and his second wife Molly, whom we meet so briefly; as was so often the case, three of them were named Frederick, and only the third one lived. On page 3 of the Sussex Weekly Advertizer, or Lewes Journal, for Monday 11 February, 1793, at the foot of the third column, you will find the following brief sentence, a paragraph in itself:
“Last Thursday died, at East Hoathly, Mr Thomas Turner, many years a Shopkeeper at that place.”