Who was Miss Michell?

All we know of Miss Michell is that in 1875 she paid rent to Edward Pleydell Bouverie. He owned the manor and all of its then extensive estate. What we have, at Market Lavington Museum, is the receipt for payment of a year’s rent, paid on 12^th October 1875.

Receipt for rent paid by Miss Michell to the Lavington Dauntsey estate in 1875

The rental was £2-12-6 but sixpence appears to have been deducted. The agent, whose name we can’t quite make out has signed over a Queen Victoria, Inland Revenue, one penny stamp of the time. In 1881 a new act came into being and the postage and Inland Revenue stamps became one and the same thing.

Nobody called Michell lived in Market Lavington at the time of the 1871 or 1881 census. If the more common name, Mitchell is tried, we get a zero return again.

But of course, the Manor Estate included interests in other parishes so maybe Miss Michell rented property elsewhere. But even then we draw a blank although there was a Michell family living in Bishops Cannings in 1871 who had been in Poulshot in the 1860s. They had moved on to Swindon by 1881.

So we are left with that question – who was Miss Michell?

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Tags: 1875, Lavington Dauntsey, Market Lavington, Museum, receipt