New book reveals the rich life of a Hurstpierpoint yeoman farmer: Ian Marchant takes a look at a Sussex ancestor from the 18th century

Ian Marchant tells the story of 18th century yeoman farmer Thomas Marchant in One Fine Day: A Journey Through English Time (out April 6).

Thomas kept a detailed diary from 1714 to 1728 so Ian decided to explore his daily life and passions, as well as the concerns of the 1720s from a 2020s perspective.

“It absolutely happened by accident,” said Ian, who grew up in Newhaven and now lives in Wales. “My granddaughters asked ‘who’s the oldest Marchant’ and my wife had a bit of spare time on Ancestry and it fell into place one night.”

He said this is not the first time he has stumbled upon a subject for a book either. He told the Middy: “My last book (A Hero for High Times) was about the history of British hippies. I thought I was going to write about the history of the Church of England.”

Ian said Thomas’s diary was a major deciding factor in writing this one and the ancestry angle fed into his fascination with the history of technology.

He said: “I can establish that we (the Marchants) came to Sussex from Namur, Belgium, around about 1500.” In doing so, he said, they were among the families who introduced modern blast furnace technology to England and provided the spark of the industrial revolution.

Overall though, this book is about getting to know a newly discovered relative.

“I tend to go somewhere and talk to someone and tell the history of where I am or who I'm talking to,” said Ian. “This one was different because by the time I’d started it I was diagnosed with a serious form of prostate cancer and lockdown had arrived.”

One Fine Day then became partly an act of ‘historical imagination’ and a ‘discussion’ with Thomas.

Ian said: “In the early 18th century, people didn’t put their deepest feelings into their diaries, that’s a 19th century thing.”

But Thomas’s farm diary still reveals that Thomas worked in his fields and was the head of a household. He also had the right to vote, worked for Charles Seymour, the Duke of Somerset at Petworth, and was a church warden. Ian discovered Thomas was a Fifteener too, a Jacobite sympathiser who wanted to bring down the monarchy.

Ian added: “He loved a drink and he liked fun. He hung out with his mates, he was witness to sport and he was a religious man.”

Ian hopes the book brings Hurstpierpoint’s past to life and highlights its role in cricket history. He said: “The history of cricket is continuous from 1717 to the present day and that’s because the first consistent writing of cricket is by Thomas Marchant in his diary.”

He said: “The Sand Field at Danny House is the oldest cricket ground that we know of for sure.”

More importantly though, Ian hopes this book conveys the importance of family history: “Once upon a time on this ground other people lived their lives 300 years ago. It’s this magical thing. People as real as us, as clever as us, who had experiences and pain, grief, happiness and joy, they had real lives and we’re walking on the same paths.”

Visit ianmarchant.com.