Valerie Martin, Copyright 1996.

Originally published in two parts in Findon News in December 1996 and January 1997.

I have discovered that at the beginning of the 1800s, James Constable became a prosperous mercer in Storrington and had a thriving business.  By 1802/3 he was so successful that he endeavoured to expand his trade and looked around to open a branch store. This he did in Findon. I have found that his sister, Mildred, ran the Findon shop at No. 2 The Square for him from 1807 and she wrote several letters from the village.

I believe the Constables had a great friend whose name was Harriet Bright, nee Robinson, who had come from Lowfield Heath in Surrey.  She is buried in Findon churchyard, as is her husband, James Bright the Findon miller, in granite tombs of some significance and grandeur.

Another local family, also great acquaintances of the Constables, was the Nichol family. Likewise they are interred in the Findon graveyard.

The picture given of Mildred Constable is of a very capable and educated young lady, as well as enterprising for those times.  In 1807 she had just returned from Maidstone in Kent  (where all the best people originate from) where she had assisted her brother prior to his opening a shop in Brasted, near Sevenoaks.

On a wintry day, the 7th January 1808, she sat down in the Findon shop (perhaps during a slack period or maybe upstairs at the premises), and wrote to her brothers, Daniel and William. They had already taken the gigantic step of emigrating and were at the Crane’s Boarding House in New York, and eagerly awaited news of home.  Mildred can be imagined pausing to look out of the window at the familiar village scene in The Square as she wrote a letter about her stay in Kent and then Brighton. She unfortunately gives no insight as to the wares sold in the shop or what it was like.  Maybe she had to break off to attend to a customer or pass the time of day with a neighbour. The flow of her letter may appear quaint 200 years after the ink dried but does reflect the mood of the period when it was written and conjures up a slower pace of village life.

Mildred only gives her address at the top of her letter as "Findon, Sussex". There was no need for extravagant addresses in those far off days when the postboy would know all the inhabitants personally.

She eventually married and emigrated to America herself in 1817 and no doubt another shopkeeper took over the Findon branch of the Constable’s business as it was still in existence in 1839.

Continue if you would like to read about The Hawkins Family of Findon.