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Richard Rampling , my 3 x Great Grandfather, was born at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk in 1816, the son of Ambrose and Mary (nee Edwards).
Richard married Harriet Dowson at St.Mary's, Uggeshall, Suffolk on 20th August, 1838
At the time of his marriage and in the 1851 Census, Richard gave his occupation as a shoemaker. Subsequently he worked as a bailiff, auctioneer and billposter.
"So near yet so far" is often the case in family history research, as shown by the following tantalising extract from the "Lowestoft Reminiscences (of 1880's and 1890's)" by James Beamish.
"One of the odd characters was Reuben Cook, a billposter by trade, who used to sit in the leading vehicle in the circus procession and pilot it around . In those days the coaches, liberally picked out in gold, were a great feature of the circuses. Some had a lady sitting high up on a pedestal with a live lion at her side to represent Brittania........ In the summer, Cook had a pitch at the entrance to the Esplanade, with a large telescope mounted on a tripod. His cry at dusk was "Come and see Jupiter and the 4 moons". There were plenty of customers if only to hear him talk, for his speech was in broad Suffolk dialect. He was about five feet seven inches in height and had a grey straggly beard and wore what is locally called a cheese-cutter cap, and a blue reefer jacket with brass buttons. Hanson did the billposting after Cook's death; the other billposter was a Mr. Rampling."
Richard and his family lived at various addresses in Lowestoft:- 118 Chapel Street (at the 1851 census), 19 White Horse Street (from at least 1861 to 1889) and 16 St. John's Road, (up to the time of his death in 1899). We catch a glimpse of Richard one summer's evening in 1870, when "sitting on his doorstep" he becomes involved in a drunken ruckus at the nearby White Horse Inn. The outcome is his appearance at the Petty Sessions at Lowestoft as the Complainant in a case of assault.
Richard died in 1899 and was buried in Lowestoft Cemetery, where a gravestone commemorates both him and his wife, Harriet, who died in 1889. Their gravestone reads "In Loving Memory of Harriet, the Beloved Wife of Richard Rampling, who died afer a long and weary illness February 5th 1889, aged 67 years - O for a touch of the vanished hand and a sound of the voice I loved. Richard Rampling, who died March 7th 1899, aged 82 years, Gone but not forgotten."
