For almost 200 years there had been a doctor resident in Bow. I was the twenty-ninth.
This is our story
THE MEDICAL GENTLEMEN OF BOW
William Couch Snell
Baptised at Colebrooke on 3 April 1801, William, the “base son” of Elizabeth Couch, (alias William Couch Snell, William Snell) became an apprentice to William Arscott a cordwainer or shoe maker in Colebrooke in 1813.
He married Mary Putt in December 1821 in Poughill. As he was under age he needed the consent of his guardian, (probably his uncle) William Couch. They lived at Cross in Poughill, where they had three children.
In 1826 he was sentenced to 12 months in gaol with hard labour for stealing from a dwelling house in Poughill.
Colebrooke Church, where William Couch Snell was baptised in 1801
Three years later he was committed by magistrate John Sillifant Esq of Coombe House for stealing potatoes from William Cockram (1787 – 1856), another shoe maker of Crediton. He was tried at the Exeter July Sessions, found guilty and sentenced to be transported for 7 years.
In April 1830 he was put on board the “Charles Forbes” and taken to Hobart in Tasmania, leaving behind his wife Mary and three children in Colebrooke.
Above: his description from his convict records
He was set to work in the public works department.
In 1836, shortly after he received his certificate of freedom, he married widow Elizabeth Spooner (nee Haggard), a cook who had emigrated to Tasmania from London with her two young children in 1834. In 1837 she gave birth to their son, Duke Southbey Snell.
By 1847 they had all moved to Melbourne, where William carried on his trade as a shoe maker until his death there in 1878 aged 77.
