For over 200 years members of the Fruin family (also spelled Frewin) lived in Toot Baldon. At times Fruin was the commonest surname in the village, yet since the mid 1900s there have been no Fruins living there.
Beginnings
William Crockford Fruin of Great Milton, about 7 miles from the Baldons, was born 1690. Three of his sons – Joseph, William and John - made their way to Toot Baldon. They were the first Fruins recorded in the Baldons.
Joseph (born c.1731) married Sarah Clinkard at St Lawrence Church in 1764 and their son, Joseph, was baptised there in 1766. Unfortunately, by 1768 both Joseph senior and junior had died.
William (born 1733) married Elizabeth Grimshaw at St
Lawrence church in 1772. Between 1776 and 1789 they produced at least 7
children who were all baptised at St Lawrence Church. There is a memorial
plaque in honour of William (d.1817) and Elizabeth (d.1835), inside St
Lawrence Church, above the door into the vestry.
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John (born c.1738) married Ruth Burton in 1765 and they had at least 6 children. By 1766 they were living in the Baldons. He is mentioned in the 1770 survey of the Baldons land owned by The Queen’s College Oxford, called the “Baldington Measurement”. His 1791 gravestone is pictured below.
Part of the establishment
By 1780 both William and John were clearly fairly well-to-do tenant farmers, renting farms from The Queen’s College and living in Court House and Toot Manor House respectively. William’s son William (born c.1780) married Elizabeth Stone in 1812. In 1837, William and John (son of John!) were two of the only three land “occupiers” eligible to vote. This William left his mark at Court House in the form of a small datestone on the left front gable inscribed "W.FRUIN/1841”. William and Elizabeth had at least 8 children. One of these was George William Fruin (b.1832).
George William took over the tenancy of Court House Farm following the death of his father, he married Ann Chapman at St Lawrence Church in 1852 and they produced at least 9 children.
In 1868, The Queen’s College rent book shows George and
John (his cousin?) were leasing Court Lodge Farm and Manor Farm respectively.
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Judging by the newspaper report, below, George was a successful and generous farmer. Indeed he became quite a pillar of the establishment. For example, in the 1870’s he was appointed as an Overseer of Petty Sessions Court of the Bullingdon Division. He also was a church warden, member of the Guild of St Lawrence, he was one of two “commoners” in charge of regulations regarding the Baldon Feast, and a sometime judge at local flower shows!
Start of the decline
However, by the late 1870s George’s fortunes had clearly changed for the worse as by October 1879 he was declared bankrupt and forced to liquidate his assets , which were valued at £75 (worth about £11,300 in 2024), to pay his creditors. Only 9 months later, in June 1880, he died at the age of 57 from heart disease.
The 1870s were a tough time for farmers – the so-called agricultural depression caused by a combination of poor harvests and cheap grain imports from the US. George William’s demise probably reflects this as does the fact that none of his offspring took over the farm tenancy nor, indeed, did they stay in the Baldons – moving variously to Oxford, Manchester, London and his two surviving sons both moved to the US.
George William’s oldest son, William Joseph Fruin (b.1856), and his wife Clara Annie (b.1853) and their son Claus (b.1880) had all moved to Illinois by 1882 and their further three children were all born there.
George William’s other son, John Seldon Chapman Fruin (b.1857) emigrated with his wife Esther Martha (b.1855) and daughter Lillian (b.1884) to the United States in 1885. They also settled in Illinois where their four further children were born. John died in Illinois in 1930 aged 72.
The other Fruins
Not all of the Fruins were well-off. Most of the men were employed as agricultural labourers or similar, their often large families living in crowded, modest rented cottages. Whilst in 1831, John, William and Thomas Fruin were each paying substantial sums into the fund for the poor of the parish, by 1883 several Fruins, such as Henry, Harry, Mrs Mary Ann, Mrs Joseph Fruin were receiving relief from the Wilmot’s local charity.
Most of the Fruin children would have attended the village school (now the “Old School” house in Baldon Row). Some of them, such as Martha, Harry, John, Emily, Joseph and Sydney appeared to do rather well, winning prizes and awards for their school work during the 1880’s. Annie Fruin became the school’s sewing mistress in the 1870’s for an annual salary of £25.
The Fruins in numbers
The graph below shows the number of individuals with the surname Fruin living in Toot Baldon over the course of a century between 1841 and 1939.
The graph shows that peak Fruin was reached in 1871 with 54 individuals living in 9 different households, representing over 20% of the Toot Baldon population. There was a dramatic drop from 1871 to 1881 when there were just 14 Fruins (74% drop) and thereafter a gentle decline until the present day where nobody in the village has the surname Fruin. Indeed, the drop in the overall population of Toot Baldon between 1871 to 1881 from 250 to 216 can largely be explained by the loss of Fruins. This suggests the Fruin families may have been hit harder by the agricultural depression than were others in the village (or maybe they showed more initiative than others by moving on when times became tough?).
The table below summarises, from the 1881 census, what happened to the 54 Fruin individuals after 1871.
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Where did they go? |
No. people |
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Stayed in Toot Baldon |
12 |
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Moved to another location (see below) |
34 |
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Died |
6 |
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Don’t know (probably moved) |
2 |
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Total |
54 |
The 12 who stayed were supplemented by 2 children born in the 1870s (Alfred and Joseph). Of those who moved away 22 relocated fairly close to Toot Baldon (Chalgrove, Sutton Courtenay, Abingdon, Headington and Marsh Baldon!), 8 moved further away in England (Windsor, London, Salisbury, Manchester) and 4 emigrated to the US.
The final chapter
The last Fruin to be recorded as living in the village, according to the 1939 wartime register, was Harry aged 76 (a retired farm labourer), living with his daughter Emily Florence aged 47 and her husband Percy Day (a ploughman). Harry’s wife, Martha, died in 1906 aged 39. As well as Emily Florence they produced eight other daughters and one son. Three died in infancy, the others all married and had moved away before 1939, one as far as Lancashire but most still lived fairly locally. Harry died in 1948. Richard, his son, died near Wallingford in 1980.
St Lawrence churchyard contains memorials to many Fruins who were buried there (33 have been identified), although several gravestones are now illegible or have since disappeared.
This large stone cross on ground in front of the church entrance is inscribed with dates and initials of at least 10 Fruins.
This chest tomb, also near the church entrance, commemorates six Fruins including, shown below right, John Fruin, d.1791, aged 53, one of the two original “founders”.
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