Only one of Richard and Mary’s children did not develop a career based on academic learning. This was their youngest, Matthew Henry who, in 1841 when he was 19 and still living with his parents, was described in the Census as an “agricultural labourer.” One of Richard Lower’s children toiling manually in the fields must have set some tongues wagging in the parish. Yet Matthew Henry was far from illiterate, as the quality of his signature on Martha Oxley’s wedding certificate testifies, even though he was only ten years old at the time. He also signed as a witness to contracts written in the Vestry Minutes and in 1851 was one of Chiddingly’s two enumerators in the Census of that year. Moreover, his description in that census was “writer”.

However, what neither census revealed were two qualities he possessed that could not be quantified: good looks and personal charm. By using these, from being a labourer he overtook his siblings in financial standing by one single act: he married the farmer’s daughter.

The lucky girl – perhaps not so lucky as matters turned out – was Martha Simmons, daughter of Widow Sophia Simmons of Nash Street Farm, a property in the southeastern corner of Chiddingly about one mile from Muddles Green. Sophia’s husband, John Simmons – born in Lewes but later of Uckfield – had been a man of some substance, owning not only Nash Street Farm but also Croxted Farm, between Uckfield and East Hoathly. In his will he directed his executors to sell his real estate and divide the proceeds equally between his widow and their three children when the youngest, Martha, should attain to the age of 21. When he died in 1835, Martha was only 10.

Before and for some years after his death, Nash Street Farm was rented out to Edward Dray, but in 1841 his eldest son, also John, terminated the lease and occupied the property himself, only to die a year later. Thus when Matthew Henry Lower married Martha in 1845, he mother was the owner-occupier of the 71 acre farm with her second son, Thomas, helping her to manage it. Since the farms annual tithe levy was valued at £12. 6. 2d., compared to the mere 2s. 6d. paid by Richard Lower for The School House plus Simon Peter’s cottage and garden nearby, and the family also owned Croxted Farm, it is clear that financially the Simmonses were well above the Lowers – and Martha was 20. Within a year she could expect to inherit not a quarter (as her father had planned) but a third of the family’s wealth, and under the law as it then stood, this would become her husband’s property. Perhaps this had nothing to do with Matthew Henry’s proposal of marriage. On the other hand, he could look forward to the future with some confidence.