Rumbelow & Descendants
West Row, Suffolk UK

Before departing to Australia in 1854, Malen Rumbelow (Malen 1st) lived in Plough Road, West Row via Bury Street St Edmonds in the English county of Suffolk. The name Malen may have derived from his mother’s maiden name Maling.  

Sarah Maling was born in 1777 in Mildenhall and her parents were John Maling & Elizabeth Godfrey. Sarah married Robert Rumbelow in 1797. Malen was their sixth child.

Malen, a labourer, married Alice Pitches in 1831 and had  nine children (six girls and three boys).

Three years before deciding to sail to South Australia aboard the barque Pestonjee-Bomanjee,  Malen’s oldest sister Mary and husband Mark Last had left England for Australia in 1851. The two sons  Mark and Joseph may have sent reports back from the colony which encouraged Malen and Alice to take the courageous step that changed their lives forever.

Whilst not a lot is known about the life of Malen and Alice in England but a letter from Walter Rumbelow (a grandson of Malen’s brother Thomas) to an Australian cousin in 1952 does give some insight.

Walter heard from his father (who was not born until 1846, so the information was second hand) that “Uncle Malen only had one eye but could see and tell the time by the Mildenhall church clock better than normal people. Uncle Malen went to Australia because poor people were so badly off at that time they could hardly get a living”.

West Row is a small village and civil parish in the English county of Suffolk. It is generally considered the edge of The Fens. West Row lies on the north bank of the navigable River Lark, about 2 miles west of the town of Mildenhall.

The name of the town was first recorded in 1050 as Mildenhale, believed to mean a nook of land belonging to a woman called "Milde" or a man called "Milda".

The area around Mildenhall has been settled by humans since at least the Bronze Age.  Following the Roman Empire invasion of Britain, Mildenhall was the site of a Roman settlement. 

The Mildenhall Treasure, a major hoard of highly decorated Roman silver tableware from the fourth-century AD, was discovered in West Row. The hoard was discovered by farmer Gordon Butcher while ploughing in January 1942. He did not recognize the objects for what they were, and the hoard did not come to the attention of the authorities until 1946.  An inquest was held in June 1946, when the find was declared treasure trove and acquired by the British Museum in London.

In 2020 some inhabitants of West Row campaigned to have the hoard renamed as the West Row Treasure, to more accurately reflect where it was found. The treasure is the most notable of a number of Roman finds from the village.