The Family in Woolwich

The Edgars were from Suffolk and the Stephensons from the small villages to the south-west of York. It seems that neither family had much (perhaps anything) to do with the national capital. But, after the financial ruin of his father Thomas, my grandfather Herbert Sidney Edgar took up a job with the City of London police. A bit later he decided to become a soldier; he joined up in London, and that began a period - perhaps the first in the joint histories - of involvement with what at the time was the most important city on the planet.

Arthur Stephenson’s memoir of his early years does not mention Jackson Street, Woolwich, but I think it’s probable he did spend some time there with his mother, step-father and brother (my father Thomas), and, eventually, with the new baby, Wilfred. If I’m right, Arthur would have been about five when the family arrived, and about ten when they left, so this would have been an important period in his childhood.

My grandfather (Arthur’s stepfather) joined the Royal Artillery in Woolwich (south-east London) on March 29, 1901. He was posted thereafter to India, Hampshire and other places, but when he married Alice Stephenson in Knightsbridge on December 27, 1911 the couple were planning to live at 36, Jackson Street, Woolwich.

The Royal Artillery Barracks is about ten minutes from Jackson Street; I assume that’s why the family were living there:

By Kleon3 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46699382

They – or at least Alice – were still there when he signed up for extended service in August 1912. Nevertheless, when my father, Thomas, was born on May 3, 1912 she must have been with her husband at Bordon Camp in Hampshire, because that’s where his birth was registered. Bordon Camp is also mentioned by Arthur in his memoir of his early years, so perhaps 36, Jackson Street was rented out. In any case, it seems that while they were in possession of (or themselves renting) the property Herbert was living in barracks and Alice was sometimes (at least) with him.

The couple’s third son, Wilfred, was born in Woolwich in the first quarter of 1914, and, when Herbert left full-time army service and went into the Reserve in June the couple were still in Jackson Street. Herbert was quickly brought back into full-time service when war broke out in August. He worked as a driver and served on the Western Font, but otherwise little is known about his experiences.

When he was finally demobilised in June 1919, it was to a new address: Alice and her family had moved to 3, Prince Consort Villas in Windsor. It is probable that in its early days the household consisted of Alice, her mother Eliza, Arthur, Thomas and Wilfred. Eliza died in the first quarter of 1917 and is buried in Windsor, so they must have left Woolwich before then, probably in 1915 or 1916.

On a recent visit to London I got off the train at Woolwich Arsenal and walked to Jackson Street, about a mile and a half away. Most of the houses are obviously not the ones that existed in the period 1911-1916 when the family were living there.

This community centre is portably not too far from the old number 36:

One reason for the absence of the original properties is that on March 17, 1945 a German V-2 rocket destroyed some of the area around Jackson Street, killing 14 people and injuring 144. It was presumably aimed at the Barracks, which was a frequent target for such missiles. It seems that the whole area was redeveloped in the 1970s

In the period our family in Jackson Street, there was a pub, the Manor Arms, at number 5 and another one nearby, The Barrack Tavern, opposite the Common. You can see a photo of the Barrack Tavern here:
http://www.dover-kent.com/2014-project-c/Barrack-Tavern-Woolwich.html

Herbert had a certificate saying he hadn’t been seen drunk on or off duty for the last three years of his army service, and when I knew him in the 1950s I don’t remember him drinking at all. Alice used to like Guinness, but not in huge quantities, so I guess these pubs didn’t play a huge part in their lives.

What might have been important for the children, though, is nearby Woolwich Common:

This is what a part of the common close to Jackson Street looked like in those days:

About 1900: Houses alongside the Common and the Major Little Fountain (Wikipedia)

I can imagine my grandmother taking Arthur - who would have been 9 or 10 when he left Woolwich - and my father (six years younger) to the Common for childhood fun and games.

As well as being an obvious place for such activities, there was plenty to see on and around the Common. St George’s the garrison church opposite the barracks, was completed in 1863 and destroyed by one of the German flying bombs (in this case a V-1 on July 14, 1944).

By Kleon3 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45557854

If Arthur ever went inside it would probably still have looked pretty much as it had done half a century earlier:

:

Unknown artist, 1865 (Wiki article on St George’s Garrison Church, Woolwich).

I think it likely that Arthur did sit in this building, as he's known to have attended the garrison church (Holy Trinity) after the family's move to Windsor.

The Common was used for horse training, shooting practice and other military activities. The officers from the barracks had their own uses for it, as this image from just before Arthur’s probable residence there shows:

Officers playing polo on bikes, 1910: By Unknown – http://media.iwm.org.uk/iwm/mediaLib//8/media-8190/

My guess is that the Jackson Street that our family knew was a working class community with strong links to the army. Herbert was a gunner (the artillery equivalent of private) and Alice a domestic servant, perhaps already taking in lodgers as she was to do in Windsor – and I think that kind of background would have been fairly typical. During my time in London I walked a lot around what used to be called ‘the East End’ -  I think Woolwich is usually considered as on the fringes of this area. Most of the Victorian housing that characterised it has gone the way of Jackson Street. With it a whole way of life – with its good and its bad aspects – has disappeared. Perhaps ironically, the Victorian terraces that the family occupied in Windsor are still there, but these properties now sell for over £400,000!

The Early History of the Stephensons

New records on Find My Past enable us to learn a little more about the early history of our Stephenson ancestors. What I knew already can be found here:

the-william-stephensons-two-yorkshire.html

The baptismal record of the first William Stephenson is now available, and this shows that he was born in 1779, not 1781 as I stated in the post above (the age there was estimated on later census returns which are often unreliable). He probably had an older sister, Hannah, who was baptised on November 5, 1774 - but the record gives the father's name only, so we can't be sure. He would have had a sister, Ann, except that she had died on December 15, 1777 and was buried the next day. Another sister, also named Ann, was buried in the Thorp Arch church on June 27, 1784. Life was precarious in pre-modern times, as we shall see.

We now also know that his father was also a William, and his mother was Ann - these now become our first known Stephenson ancestors. Interestingly he was baptised in an Anglican Church. This might mean that William (the one born in 1779) or even his son William (born in 1821 ) was the convert to Methodism (see post referenced above) or it might mean simply that the 1779 William's parents had him baptised in an Anglican Church because there was no Methodist chapel close by - as I explained in the original post, while some Methodists distanced themselves from Anglicans, others (like John Wesley) considered themselves Anglicans of a particular tendency.

In any event, there's no doubt that William was baptised in the church at Thorp Arch (or Thorparch as it appears at the top of the page) on December 15, 1779.



All Saint's Church, Thorp Arch
By John Davidson, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9144549

Now, in the original post I'd said that this born-in-1779 William married a Mary (maiden name unknown) who was the mother of born-in-1821 William and thus our ancestor. So I was disturbed to find 1779 William marrying Hannah Rennyson in Thorp Arch on August 29, 1807! However, a bit of searching turned up a Hannah Stephenson, who died on February 4, 1810. Hannah died in Askham Bryan, so this establishes the latest possible date for the family's move from Thorp Arch. Like later members of our family, she's buried at St. Nicholas's:



By Ken Crosby, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3052230

Who was Mrs Hannah Stephenson? Research is difficult because of the varying forms of her maiden name, but I think this is the most likely genealogy.

The baptismal record tells us that Hannah Renneson (sic) was the daughter of Matthew and Ann Renneson, Matthew being a labourer of what looks like Thelaugh. This turns out to be Healaugh by Tadcaster where Matthew Rennison from Marston married Ann Bovill of Healaugh on August 6, 1780. Helaugh is just under 6 miles from Thorp Arch, while (Long) Marston is five miles from Healaugh:



Matthew might have been a servant, but I'm not sure about the significance of this part of the entry. In any case, he was probably the Matthew Rennison who was baptised in Askham Richard - about three and a half miles from Marston - in 1754.

As I said above, William Stephenson married Hannah Renyson/Renneson/Rennison in late August 1807. The couple had a daughter, Mary, on April 30, 1809. On May 14 she was baptised in Askham Bryan. One page of the Bishop's Transcript of Burials tells the sad story: Mary, daughter of William and Hannah Stephenson, was buried on December 21, 1809. Hannah followed her daughter to the grave on February 4, 1810. Was it the case that neither mother nor daughter recovered from the effects of a difficult birth? Or did they both die of the same infectious disease? Or were the two deaths unrelated?

I've not been able to find a record of William's marriage to his second wife, Mary. His new wife was 10 years younger than him. Our ancestor William Stephenson (the third of that name we've encountered) was their first surviving child, and born in 1821; this suggests the marriage took place around 1819 or 1820, unless the couple married earlier and had a number of children who did not survive (reliable contraception was almost non-existent at the time).

William obviously continued to think fondly of his first wife as he named a daughter, born in about 1824, Hannah.

Alice Stephenson, Theydon Bois and the Buxton Family

Alice's employers in 1905-1906 (and perhaps earlier and later) were Gerald and Lucy Buxton of Birch Hall, Theydon Bois.

Theydon Bois (pronounced 'boyz', or boy-s) is a village - one of three Theydons -  two miles south of  Epping (Edgar family buffs will know that by coincidence Thomas and Harriet Edgar moved from Stapleford Abbots to Theydon Garnon sometime around 1912).  

The parish straddles Epping Forest, part but not all of it being in its boundaries.

By Diliff - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4896990

In 1865 the Great Eastern Railway came to Theydon Bois, and this led to some urban development in a basically rural setting, including the building of working and middle class housing. As a result, the population increased steadily to 1,297 in 1901 and then held stationary for twenty years. The movement to conserve Epping Forest defeated plans to open the area up for development - as we shall see, the family of Alice's employers played a role in this. The main function of this part of the Forest during the period was to provide a healthy and relaxing day out for the often impoverished inhabitants of London's East End. To this end, there were two 'Retreats' in or near the village; these provided refreshment and entertainment for day-trippers. Both were destroyed by enemy activity during WW11. A rather quiet village must have come alive at weekends!

The modern church, a red-brick Gothic Revival erection, was built in 1850, although it contains some items from the original medieval church. The second building, completed in 1844, wasn't  a roaring success, as it was so unsound that it had to be quickly knocked down and replaced by the building which Alice would have known. As we shall see, she was an Anglican and probably attended services there.

 

 

By Acabashi - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47013694

Frances Mary Buss, the pioneer of female education is buried in the churchyard:


By Acabashi - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47030896

There was no Catholic Church, but there was a Baptist chapel, which in 1900 had 20 worshippers and taught 60 Sunday School children. In 1902 national legislation meant that the Anglican-run village school came under control of the Epping School Board. It stands next to St Mary the Virgin, and in 1906 it had about 150 pupils. To accommodate this number a large classroom was added in 1903.

In 1900 main drains were laid and the old school knocked down and built on more secure foundations.Electricity didn't come to the village until 1928  and even today the villagers have voted to keep the 'traditional' feel (and the low Council Tax bills) by eschewing street lighting. 

CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4597691

And what of the man Alice came here to work for?

Gerald Buxton was born in 1862 to an important family. His parents were Edward North Buxton (1840-1924) and Emily Digby. Edward North's father was also named Edward North, the second Baronet, (1812-1858) and the father of this Edward North was Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786-1845), the first Baronet and a man of immense distinction.

Encyclopedia Britannica

Thomas Fowell Buxton's mother was a Quaker and Thomas married the sister of the famous Quaker  prison reformer Elizabeth Fry. His money came from brewing -  he eventually became sole owner of a brewery called Truman, Hanbury, Buxton and Co. In 1818 he entered Parliament for a Dorset constituency. Although he was a member of the Church of England, his connections with the Quakers, who were heavily involved in social reform, led him to campaign for improvements in the criminal law and in prison conditions and for the abolition of slavery. The slave trade was  indeed abolished in the British Empire in 1807, but those slaves traded before that date remained in servitude. In 1823 he founded what was to become the Anti-Slavery Society.  In 1833 slavery was abolished in most of the British Empire.

World Anti-Slavery Convention, 1840: Buxton is third back on the extreme left. The speaker is Thomas Clarkson.

In 1840 he was made a Baronet, but his health was already declining and he died five years later. He's on the five pound note that's currently being phased out,the bespectacled man in the group listening to his sister-in-law Elizabeth Fry.

Thomas and Hannah had eight children; four of them died of whooping cough in a five week period, and one died of TB later. One of the survivors was Edward North Buxton, who became the second Baronet on his father's death in 1845. He was also a member of parliament. He named his second son after himself - born in 1840 Edmund North Buxton (the second') became a Liberal MP in 1885. He believed in the public provision of open spaces, especially near cities. He and his  older brother Thomas (the third Baronet) played an important role in turning over parts of Epping and Hainault forests to public use. Thomas went on to govern South Australia between 1885 and 1889.

Gerald - his parents' first son - was born on October 30, 1862.   He seems to have had  a twin Geraldine, their first daughter. On October 30, 1890 Gerald married Lucy Ethel Pease. Lucy was also from a prominent family of Quaker reformers - Lucy herself would be awarded an OBE. Their first child, Blanche Emily Buxton, was born on November 16, 1891, the second, yet another Edward North Buxton on February 7, 1894,  and the third Rebekah Mary on  January 21, 1900. The grave of Gerald and Lucy also contains Joseph Alfred Buxton, 1904-1913, a final child who died young. It seems Gerald  Buxton built the red brick Birch Hall in 1892, although another source says he 'acquired' it. He moved there in 1893. It was demolished at some point between 1955 and 1992 and eventually the current grandiose building with that name was constructed on the same site. All four children would probably have been at Birch Hall during Alice's time as a housemaid there.

Gerald entered Trinity College, Cambridge, and, in spite of an aversion to serious training, he won a running blue. In 1884 he graduated, entering Truman, Hanbury and Buxton's brewery in the autumn of that year, eventually becoming chairman of the firm. Although he didn't follow his ancestors into parliament, he was a senior member of the Liberal Party in the Epping area and served in various local government, justice and administrative bodies from soon after graduating to the time of his death.  He was also Lord of the Manor of Theydon.

How did he act in these positions and what kind of a man was he?

As a magistrate he was 'a kindly generous-minded man, always ready to temper justice with mercy', and it seems that in all his positions and in private life too he 'followed the traditions of his illustrious family in trying at all times to alleviate the lot of his fellow men'. He was, for example, a founder and committed supporter of the Cottage Hospital at Epping. In November 1904 he built cottages to give work to the unemployed of the village.

His compassion  for others was matched by other virtues of character: the keynote to character 'absolute sincerity, and simplicity, in word, thought and deed'. These quotations are from the eulogy at is memorial service, but nothing I have read about him makes me think there is much exaggeration. The eulogist clearly hints that he was rather self-willed and impatient when others put obstacles in the way of his schemes. He was an enthusiastic hunter and shooter, although not a great fisherman. Many of us now dislike such activities, but they hardly mark him out from other 'gentlemen' of the time.

Like other members of his family he had a particular concern for Epping Forest. In 1908 he succeeded his uncle as one of the Verderers of Epping Forest. 'Verderer' is an ancient post: in the modern period its occupants are tasked with defending the rights to use common land and with conservation of the traditional landscape and wildlife.

When did Alice come to work as a housemaid for this family? There is a reference to a 'Miss Stephenson' taking part in an entertainment at Birch Hall in 1901, but Alice was confirmed in Angmering (Sussex) in 1902:

Her parents weren't living there, so my guess is she was working there at the time, maybe in her first position. She was definitely at Birch Hall in November 1905, and probably some time before that.

 

 

71.4 miles

The birth certificate of her first child, Arthur James Stephenson, states that her position in July 1906 states that she was a 'housemaid domestic' at Birch Hall. Arthur was born there in the summer of 1906.

I don't know anything about the domestic life of Birch Hall but I do know a little about its public life in 1905-1906, In June, 1905 the Buxtons hosted a meeting of Epping Liberals, who enjoyed a talk on 'Free Trade' followed by tea in Birch Hall's grounds. August 9 saw the Theydon Bois Horticultural Society's annual Flower Show. Buxton was the Society's president, but perhaps more telling is an associated event - the Donkey Show. He'd started this in 1899 with the idea of securing better treatment for the Epping Forest donkeys. There were displays and prizes for the best-cared animals: as well as the prizes, 37 donkeys won 'premium's of five shillings, and Buxton claimed that this showed the event was proving successful in improving standards. The show continues to this day.

On October 31 the King was driven through Theydon Bois on a tour of the Epping Forest area.  Viscount Horncastle, the chairman of the Epping Forest Committee, the Superintendent and a number of keepers assembled outside Birch Hall. Edward stopped for a moment to exchange a few words. The children of the village school lined up along the side of the road, 'under the shadow of the church and the school', while the 10.50 'up' train was delayed to make sure the Royal party didn't have to wait at the level crossing!

In 1906 the guest speaker claimed that the shows were 'a great occasion for the distinct' and the donkeys were even better cared for: 46 out of 50 received premiums. But sadly Josiah Street, who'd won a prize in 1899, was cautioned for ill-treatment some time during the year.

Gerald Buxton died on March 2,1928 after a lengthy period of illness. He was buried at the church of St Mary the Virgin in Theydon Bois.The choral funeral service was conducted by two vicars, one of whom was his relative Arthur Buxton - both men were great-grandsons of Thomas Fowell Buxton, although Arthur was twenty years younger.

One of Alice's daughters told me that Alice had liked her work as a servant. This kind of life would not appeal to many people today: the hours were long, and much of the work of getting the house back into shape had to be done before their employers had risen. In some households the maids were expected to flatten themselves face to the wall if one of the family entered the room while they were at work. But to Alice the abundant food in the servants' hall was more important: the grandson writing this blog was lucky enough to grow up in a world in which getting enough to meet was never a problem, so it really struck me when someone told me, 'Your grandmother was a proud woman - even before the war, if she had a guest, there'd always be fruit in the bowl'. It's easy to forget that ordinary families could not always be certain of getting enough to eat in the very different Britain before WW11.

The other thing that she liked about her work was the attitude of her employers. From all I've found about Gerald Buxton, I can see why. And, as for Lucy Ethel Buxton, O.B.E. (neé Pease), who died in 1948, and with whom Alice probably had more to do than with Gerald - well, research continues!

William Stephenson

William Stephenson was born on May 26,1880 in  Buxted, Sussex.  His birth was registered in the third quarter of the year, but I am giving the date from the 1939 National Register.  Like his father, Tom, William - who was named after his grandfather and great-grandfather - became a gardener, and a very successful one. My main source for his career is a profile in the magazine Gardeners' Chronicle for December 20, 1930

William was Tom and Eliza's first child, and the 1881 Census finds him living quietly with his parents in Hurst Wood, Buxted. The family moved around, although never over great distances, and in 1891 they were at Beddingham. 

13 miles

William was at school, as were his sisters Blanche and Bessie - even young Alice, aged 3, is listed as a pupil! Only the recently arrived Emily, who probably died young, wasn't studying.

But then Williiam disappears from the record for a time. I can't find him in the 1901 Census. Nor can I track down a record of his marriage, which probably took place in 1910 - the 1911 Census states he and Emily had been married for under a year. And the only thing I can find out about Emily is that she was in Somerset - in Wallow, close to Bath. Nevertheless, we can piece together something of William's early career from the Gardeners' Chronicle article.

William began his career at Worthing where he spent three years working for a surgeon called Dr. Golding Bird Collett and his delightfully named wife Minnie Minniet (neé Harris).

21 miles

If 'began his career' means this was his first job rather than his first job with any responsibility my guess would be that William started about 1895. The Bird Collets were living at different addresses in 1891 and 1901 so it's impossible to know where William was working.

William left Sussex for the first time to work for the Earl of Tankerville at his house,  Coombe End, in Kingston-on-Thames. 


47.4 miles

He was under the direction of  Thomas H. Bolton,  a renowned exhibitor of fruits. He obviously taught William a lot, as we shall see. But the Gardeners' Chronicle statement that William was working for the 'late Earl of Tankerville' raises an intriguing question: the sixth Earl had died in 1899, 31 years earlier, while the seventh remained above ground until July 1931, seven months after the profile of William had been published. So was the Chronicle a little slow in getting out the news of the sixth Earl's death or did it, through the exercise of occult powers, anticipate the fate of the seventh? We may never know, but I for one hope (and believe) that William's employer was the seventh Earl, described by Wikipedia as 'a British peer, cowpuncher, circus clown and revival meeting singer'. Although not strictly relevant to our family history, I can't help but point out that George Bennett ('the Singing Earl') met his future wife when he almost landed in her lap after turning a somersault in a New York drawing room. Anyway, William might not have had much to do with this great English eccentric as his lordship seems to have spent a lot of time in America and at another residence, Chillingham Castle in distant Northumberland. But that might explain William's next move.

320 miles

After 'two years of valuable experience', William himself went up to Northumberland to work for Earl Grey at Howick Hall - less than twenty miles from Chilligham.  

His employer was presumably Albert, the fourth Earl Grey (1851-1917). The tea is named after the second Earl. 

Earl and Countess Grey
By Galbraith Photo Co. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38090087

However, although the dating of these early jobs is unclear, it's possible he never had any contact with the Earl himself, who was off governing Canada between 1904 and 1911.

 Howick Hall

By John Nicholson, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4531273

William's next employer was Lord Hylton of Ammerdown Park - probably Hylton Joliffe, the third Baron. This was in the Somerset village of Kilmersdon, between Radstock and Frome. 


330 miles

The gardens are now listed grade 2 on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England. It's not known how long William worked here, but it seems likely it was long enough for him to acquire a wife, although one that he could not marry immediately.

William spent another two years as foreman at Bishops Hall, Romford  the residence of the late Lord Lambourne - presumably Amelius Richard Mark Lockwood, Baron Lambourne, who had died in December 1928.


126 miles


Caricature of Lockwood, By Leslie Ward -  Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13803219

Williams' criss-crossing of the country continued: his next post was as 'general foreman' at Brickendonbury Gardens, Hertfordshire, the seat of the late Sir Edward Pearson. 


29 miles

He was eventually to become head gardener here, and finally the official records catch up with him, as the 1911 Census finds him living in Brickendonbury. He was a gardener in private employment, married - for less than  a year - to Emily E., from Wellow in Somerset. I cannot at the moment find Emily's maiden name or what the middle 'E' stands for and I have not been able to locate  a record of their wedding. According to the 1939 Register, she was born on July 17, 1883. Wellow is close to Ammerdown House...

5 miles

...so barring a huge coincidence, troth must have been plighted when William was working there and the ceremony performed at the end of his stint in Romford or the start of his one in Brickendonbury.

Their son, Leslie Arthur Stephenson, was born on May 5, 1911 and his birth registered in the Hertford district. On December 28 the couple attended the marriage of William's sister Alice in Knightsbridge. To be honest Emily doesn't look hugely pleased to be there (she's standing in the second row next to William):

Now a question: did William fight in WW1? I can't find any military records, and the article doesn't mention any service. But he should have  Conscription was introduced in March 1916 and extended to married men under 41 in May. William was 34, he played crocket while at Hyde Hall - turning in 'many fine performances' as both batsman and bowler - so he probably wasn't medically exempt. I'm pretty sure gardeners weren't classed as 'essential workers'. At the moment, this is a mystery.

William's profile in the Gardeners' Chronicle gives his current (1930) workplace as the gardens and pleasure grounds of Hyde Hall., where he arrived in 1926. The owner  of Brickendonbury, Geoffrey Pearson, died in 1925 and his widow moved out and rented the house to a private school, which provides an obvious reason for William moving 13 miles down the road.

Today Hyde Hall is the name of some well-known British Horticultural Society (BHS) gardens near Chelmsford, but these didn't exist until after 1955. I think the place where William worked was in fact Hyde Hall in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, which had 40 acres of 'maintained ground' when it was sold in 1983.

Hyde Hall in 1818 By John Preston Neale, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32676896

According to the article, once at Hyde Hall, William maintained high standards, introduced improvements, and won some fame as an exhibitor of hardy fruits. In 1926 he took up his present appointment - which shows his all-round excellence. Won the R.H. S. Silver-gilt Medal  for 18 dishes of apples and many other R. H. S. awards. He won phenomenal success as exhibitor of chrysanthemums at exhibitions promoted by Hertford and Ware Horticultural Societies winning over 100 prizes.

In 1930 Lesley was a member of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers (section 3), as a carpenters and joiner, Bishops Stortford and Sawbridgeworth Branch. he'd been in the trade 4 years - so presumably started when his father moved to work at Hyde Hall in 1926 - and was admitted to the union on May 19, 1930.

At some point in the 1930s William changed jobs again. 

137 miles

The 1939 National Register records him and Emily living in The Porch Lodge, Westhide, a village close to Hereford, If this is the property that bears that name today, the Porch Lodge was semi-detached. William was still a gardener and Emily E. was a housewife.

Westhide Church:

By Bob Embleton, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9270787

Lesley was living with them, still unmarried and still a joiner.

I've not been able to find anything more about William or Emily.

Lesley died in the summer of 1989 in the Swindon District. 

.

Alice and Herbert's Wedding Photo: The Untold Story

The wedding of Alice Stephenson, a parlour maid at 33, Wilton Place, and Herbert Sidney Edgar, a private in the army, took place on December 27th., 1911, St Paul's Knightsbridge. (A different church is given on Find My Past - I have discussed the possible significance of this here.) 

This is the main wedding photograph:

These are the people you can see:

Back row

Edward John Shoesmith, Emily Stephenson, William Stephenson

Front row

Katie Mary Edgar, Bessie Stephenson, Herbert, Alice, Blanche Stephenson, Eliza Stephenson

Blanche and Bessie Stephenson  are Alice's sisters, William's her brother, Emily's William's wife. Eliza (neé Hobden) is Alice's mother. 

Katie Mary is Herbert's sister. She and Sergeant Shoesmith were the witnesses, and I presume the latter was the best man.

But probably the most important thing about the photo is who isn't in it! Herbert had two parents, both alive, and eight siblings. His sister Alice was in India and his brother Frederick was somewhere between California and Australia, but the others were all alive and within striking distance of Knightsbridge. His parents Thomas and Harriet were either in Theydon Garnon or Stanford Rivers, just 25 or 30 miles away:

But only his sister Katy Marie is present. Where were all the others? They were obviously boycotting a ceremony they considered less than joyful. It's possible that they disapproved of Alice because she had a child from a previous relationship and was about five months pregnant with her first child with Herbert (my father Thomas).

However, that's speculation. Family tradition suggests a different reason for the absence of the Edgars: they thought Alice wasn't good enough for their Herbert! The English class system is a funny thing, or at least it was in 1911 and remained so in the 1950s when I was growing up.

Because actually Herbert and Alice were well matched socially.

She was a domestic servant like her mother and many other members of her family, which was the fate of huge numbers of working class women in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (after WW1 the wages that servants could command led to their disappearance from the homes of everyone but the truly wealthy, a source of many middle class complaints). For those lucky enough to keep out of the dreaded workhouses, domestic service was quite close to the bottom of the hierarchy.

What about Herbert?

He'd been a labourer (almost certainly on a farm), a policeman, and a private in the army. In other words, he'd been bouncing around just above the bottom of the class structure himself. Not a servant though? That's true, but his parents were. In the 1911 Census they're both recorded as domestic servants on a farm at Stanford Rivers close to Ongar in Essex.

So why did they think Alice wasn't good enough? It cannot have been because of her personal qualities: she was to go on to become a highly respected citizen of Windsor, a magistrate, who, I was once informed by one of her colleagues, usually managed to convince the Bench of the correctness of her view of the case in front of them! She left school at 13 but one of her daughters told me people often thought she was well-educated. She was, but not at school: when I was young I used to enjoy browsing her books in the huge Victorian semi in Vansittart Road; they included a Harmondsworth Self-Educator - 'a golden key to success in life' - and a good collection of 1930s titles from the New Left Book Club, which published on contemporary issues like communism, fascism, the Great Depression and so on. Alice built on what she'd learnt at school to give herself the kind of education that many people who started life with much greater opportunities would have envied.

I believe that the Edgars stayed away from the wedding and generally disapproved of Alice for a different reason: whatever they were in December 1911, they'd once been very different. At the height of their wealth - in the middle decades of the nineteenth century - the family had owned a windmill and held the tenancy of a reasonably-sized Suffolk farm. Herbert spent the first five or so years of his life in comfort and with the expectation of a reasonably privileged life ahead of him, but about 1882 something happened: one of Herbert's sons described it as being 'sold down the river by Lloyds bank'. The family's position was ruined and Herbert's father, Thomas, and his wife Harriet began their long social descent - from farmer, to farm manager, to labourer to servant. In 1911, almost seventy years of age, Thomas must have been wondering if he and Harriet would end their days in the dreaded workhouse. Happily something - I don't yet know what - intervened, and the couple spent their final years in a cottage in Theydon Garnon. The first document linking them with that village comes on September 1, 1913 when Thomas signed the register in the local church when Katie Mary had her own wedding to Joseph Love.

So I think that the groom's family looked down on the bride from the great height occupied by Herbert's great-grandfather Johnson Edgar (died 1872)!

I've written about all the family members mentioned already (click on their names for the posts). But there's one other person present, and rather a mysterious one. 

At first I thought I had found the answer to the often-asked question 'How did Alice and Herbert meet'. One of Alice's fellow maids at Mrs. Osborne's establishment at 33, Wilton Place was the 19 year old Edith Annie Shoesmith. So I assumed that Sergeant Edward John Shoesmith was an army friend of Herbert's - if he wasn't the best man, I don't know who was - and that his young sister Annie had taken Alice to meet her brother and she'd fallen for his friend instead. Reasonable enough, and it might even be true she introduced the bride and groom, but not in the way I first thought.

Sgt. Shoesmith was over 20 years older than Herbert, had retired from the army before the wedding and Alice's co-worker was his daughter not his brother.

Edward John Shoesmith was born in 1864 and joined the army in 1882. He seems to have had a satisfactory career, being described as of 'exemplary' character, seeing service in the Boer War (1899-1902) and rising from the ranks through corporal to sergeant. He served almost 25 years before being discharged in December 1906. In 1901 he was living with his family in London and Edoth Annie is listed as his 9 year old daughter. In the 1911 Census he's described as 'Army Pensioner Quartermaster Sergeant Royal Hospital Chelsea'. His wife and four of his children are living with him (Edith was of course at 33, Wilton Place) so this must be a residence not just a hospitalisation. The last record I have of him shows that in 1939 he was retired and living with his wife in Ealing.

In other words, although he might of course have been a friend of Herbert's the only provable link at the moment is between him and Alice (through his daughter)! So it's possible that, apart from Katie Mary, everybody in the picture is from Alice's 'side'. I doubt that is the case: Herbert most probably knew him from the army in some way that isn't as straightforward as I first thought.And I think Herbert must have asked Sgt. Shoesmith to be best man - if Alice had to provide that functionary he was being boycotted not just by his bride's family but by all his fellow soldiers as well! There is nothing in his military records to suggest he had any particular character flaws or problems.

Perhaps the truth about Edward John Shoesmith will emerge in the future.

Emily Stephenson

Emily Stephenson, Tom and Eliza's last child, was born in Iford, close to Lewes, in the third quarter of 1890.

Iford
By MortimerCat - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5205881

She disappears from the record early, and was clearly unknown to Alice Edgar's son Wilfred, who said his mother's family consisted of three sisters (Alice, Bessie and Blanche) and William. I suspect she is the Emily Stephenson whose death was registered in the East Preston District of Sussex in the first quarter of 1900. Tom and Eliza are known to have been living in this District, but I suggested in a previous post that an illegible entry in the 1901 Census refers to their daughter Blanche, who was maid in a school in Goring-on-Sea, which is in East Preston.

According to the 1911 Census, Eliza had lost two children. I think Emily was one of them, and that she had a sister or brother who died in between two censuses.

Blanche Stephenson

Alice Edgar's sister Blanche Stephenson was born on August 14, 1882 in Uckfield, and the 1891 Census shows her  at school in that town.

She's apparently missing from the 1901 Census: however, I suspect she is there, disguised by the difficult handwriting that gives us Blanche Hedenson (Ancestry) and Blanche Henenson (Find My Past). This Blanche is 18 years old, born in Uckfield, and is a maid at a school in Goring on the Sussex coast, just over 30  miles from Uckfield - the name might just as well be 'Stevenson' as the other two transcriptions.

In 1911 Blanche was head housemaid in the establishment of James Ferguson and Martha Cole at 52, Porchester Terrace, in Welling (Bexley) Kent. 

About 60 miles by foot

One thing I've learnt from studying Alice Edgar's family is that domestic servants tended to start off close to home but often moved around the country, probably through taking up positions with families who were friendly with their original employer.

On October 6, 1913 Blanche married Edgar Charles Williams at the mid-Victorian Parish Church of St. Paul, Tiverton (Devon). 

© Copyright Grant Sherman and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

He was seven years younger than her, a railway parcel-clerk of Station Road, Twyford (Berkshire). Like Blanche, his father was a gardener. There were four witnesses: T. H. (?) Williams (presumably the groom's brother), H. Abery (perhaps a relative of the groom), Eliza Stephenson (Blanche's mother) and Herbert E. Arnold. The last named was the husband of Blanche' sister, Bessie. This shows that Bessie moved to Tiverton not long after her marriage in 1912 (see the previous post). Her presence there was probably the reason the banns were called (September 21) and the marriage celebrated in Tiverton. Perhaps Eliza was living with her daughter and son-in-law - a couple of years later she was to move into the Windsor house of another daughter, Alice. I any case, Blanche's address is given as 2, Wellbrook Place - which I assume was the home of Bessie and Herbert, and is now probably Wellbrook Terrace. Edgar Charles William's address is given as Station Road, Twyford (Berkshire). He was born in the village of Great Bedwin in Wiltshire on September 14, 1890, and his birth was registered in Hungerford in Berkshire, and it seems that he and Blanche moved immediately to the latter county. In September 1914 Bessie had her only child, a son, Harry, whose birth was registered in Wokingham: Twyford is in this Registration District, so I think it highly likely that the Williamses moved back there and looked after Bessie during the period of birth. This also suggests to me that whenever in September this event took place, Herbert Arnold was already in the army so that Bessie needed the support of her sister.

Soon the couple were having children of their own. Blanche Hilary Williams was born in 1918 in Twyford. Charles Kingsley Williams was born in 1921, also in Twyford. They were still there in 1932 when Edgar Charles Williams is listed as a shareholder in the Great Western railway. When they moved, it was to a different part of Berkshire.

In 1939 the couple were living in Bourne Avenue, Windsor - just over a mile from Alice Edgar.

Charles was a railway goods clerk and their son Charles Kingsley was a  railway telegraph clerk. According to Wilfred Edgar, Mr. Williams Sr. gradually worked his way up the administrative hierarchy of the railway.

Blanche's death was registered in Windsor in 1948. Edgar Charles's death was registered in North West Surrey in the second quarter of 1969.