G - Green Grocer

Henry James was baptised in Leintwardine, Herefordshire on 17 August 1819. His mother Elizabeth was unmarried, and his father is not mentioned. Elizabeth married John Richards a few years later and had at least 6 children.

On the 1841 census Henry is recorded as a servant for Thomas Hall in Buckton a tiny hamlet just a few miles from Leintwardine. In 1846 he married Ann Thomas, who in 1841 had been a servant at Jay House in the adjacent parish. When their two daughters were baptised at Clungunford their place of residence was given as Broadward, and Henry was a labourer.

By 1851 they had left rural Herefordshire and were recorded as visitors staying with Ann's sister and her family in Dudley. Henry still recorded his occupation as a labourer but by 1871 he had moved into a new line of work. He was living in Paradise Street and recorded as a Gardener. This area of Dudley, Red Hill, Paradise and Dixon's Green had brickworks, a gas works, and a lot of collieries and mine shafts. It doesn't seem like the ideal environment for a garden, but it seems to have been a fairly profitable venture because in subsequent census' he was recorded as a Green Grocer and later a Retired Green Grocer.

Did being a Green Grocer mean he had a store ? Or did he simply grow vegetables and take them to market ?

One of Henry's half-brothers was a Gardener. He took a bit of tracking down late one night when I was trying to work out just how the niece listed on the 1881 census fitted in to the family. John Richards was about 12 years younger than Henry. He wasn't a small time gardener selling his crops at a local market. Instead, he seems to have been gardening on a much larger scale.

In 1851 he was lodging with a family of agricultural labourers, but his occupation was Gardener, which could have been the same as his elder brother. His work led him to many locations which can be traced through the baptisms of his children. He was married in Aston, Warwickshire and his first child baptised in Stoke, Worcestershire. In 1861 he was employed at Coton Hall, Alveley in Worcstershire and living with his young family in the Gardeners Cottage. They remained there for about four years before relocating to Nercwys in Wales where a daughter was baptised. This child turned out to be the niece living with her Uncle Henry in 1881. 

Sadly, John's wife died shortly after this birth in 1865 and he appears to have quickly left the area. Understandable with four young children and no family close by. He didn't waste time though and married again in November 1867 in Shrewbury, Shropshire. He and his second wife had seven more children at various places in Herefordshire; Leintwardine, Ludlow and Downton. There were several large properties in these areas where a Gardener might be gainfully employed. 

In 1871, John isn't on the census with his family in Ludlow, but his wife is recorded as "Gardener's wife (absent)". By 1881 none of the children from the first marriage are with Jane at their home in which by now was Newark in Nottingham, and Jane was a widow. Of those older children, one remained in Ludlow and on the census was living in a lodging house and recorded as an Under Gardener, following in his father's footsteps perhaps. Another was in Dudley with her uncle and the other two like their father haven't left any obvious clues as to their whereabouts.

One day I might unearth them. 

F - Fisherman

Jacob Denniss was born in October 1847 near Dapto New South Wales, most likely at Marshall Mount, where his father Richard and mother Sarah were raising their growing family. Richard and Sarah had emigrated from Appledore, Kent on the Westminster, arriving in Sydney in January 1838. They brought with them their three young children and went on to have ten more after settling in the Illawarra where Richard farmed. He was involved in municipal goings on as well, being nominated for elections, working on roading projects and voicing his displeasure with some of the decisions made by councillors and questioning their qualifications to be making those decisions, in letters to the editor in local newspapers.

But this is not about Richard.

Jacob and his younger brother Abraham did not follow their father's farming footsteps. Instead, they made their homes on the shores of Lake Illawarra where a fishing community was developing near Mullet Creek, Kanahooka and Berkeley.

Abraham was also a champion sculler in the Illawarra competing for many years with Edward Barber. Lake Illawarra was popular with scullers, Abraham and Edward's rivals Tom Clifford and Bill Beach went on to become world champions. 

Jacob married Mary Green, daughter of Lincolnshire emigrant John Green and his first wife, in 1864 and three years later, Abraham married Mary's younger sister Naomi. Both brothers fished in the Illawarra for near on two decades being joined in their endeavours by their sons. 

In 1883 Abraham and some of the Clifford's, including two who had become his sons-in-law, left the Illawarra and relocated to Tuggerah Lakes establishing themselves there at Canton, Tacoma and Noraville where they pioneered the Lake fishing industry. Generations of fishermen would follow in their footsteps. Fish were boxed up at Canton and carted to the sheltered cove at Noraville to be transported each day to the markets in Sydney. Later they were taken from Tacoma to the railway station and on to Sydney.

In 1989 and 1990 Jack Darcey interviewed a cross section of men and women involved with various aspects of the fishing industry in Australia as part of a project at Murdoch University. He travelled over 26,000 kilometres. One of his interviews was conducted with Pat Clifford, a great grandson of Abraham, who recalled fishing as a child with his sister using a chaff bag which they dragged through the river to catch prawns. 

Jacob meanwhile remained at Lake Illawarra. Just as two of Abraham's daughters had married into the Clifford family, two of Jacob's daughters married into the Massey family. The Massey family had also been fishing the lake since at least the 1860s. Both the Massey's and the Denniss' have streets named after them in Berkeley.

Jacob died in 1895 and Abraham in 1918. When George, Jacob's son, died in 1952 his obituary mentions that he and his father were the first people to send prawns from Lake Illawarra to the markets in Sydney. 

Totally unrelated to fishing but connected to these families I came across a couple of articles in newspapers where Jacob was committed to trial in November 1888 for shooting a young man named Charles Massey. It turns out that Charles was amongst a group of young men who had proceeded to Jacob's house "tin-kettling"  a newly married couple. The couple were Jacob's daughter Emily and Charles' brother William who were married 13 October. Jacob, not realising who was in the group, apparently just meant to scare them off. Oops. Keeping up the theme of pedigree collapse in this branch of the family, another of Charles' brothers had married a daughter of Jacob's in 1882. I wonder what effect the even had on family dynamics.

E - Enumerator

Being an Enumerator is by no means a full time role or a career with long term prospects for the majority. It's an opportunity which comes around once every five to ten years in most countries when the government sets the date for a national or state census.

These days I guess Enumerators are mostly sitting at a desk in front of a computer, entering or manipulating data. Our census forms have like many aspects of life become an online paperless exercise. It wasnt that long ago though that forms were delivered door to door by hand, one for every person living in the house with instructions to complete the form on the given night. Then over the next few days or a week the Enumerator would return to collect the completed forms and begin their task of documenting the data before submitting their completed enumeration district to their superior.

Even earlier on, when literacy levels were not as high as today, the Enumerator might have been responsible for completing the data, not just collating it onto a summary sheet. I have studied the census' for the parish of Raddington in Somerset for each decade between 1841 and 1911. It is a small parish so has been quite easy to map. I've placed markers for each farm or cottage and below I have listed the names of the Enumerators for each census and the route they took (or is it just the order they transferred the information to the summary sheets ? If it was the route they took, many of them are very higgledy-piggledy. Of course they may have found nobody home on their first visit and needed to double back at a later time. Who knows ?

Several of the Enumerators for Raddington are members of our family, I have included their relationship to me. I have also noted the name of the place of residence for each Enumerator and listed the route they took or the order they added the information to the summary sheet. No Enumerator was named in 1851. James Nicholls the Enumerator in 1861 was the only one who did not live in the parish.

6 June 1841 John Yeandle, 1C5R, Upcott.

Upcott, Moorhouse, Blackwell, Mill, Parsonage, Poor House, Kingston, Batterams, Chubworthy, Notwell, Littlewilscombe, Battscomb, Waterhouse

30 March 1851 not named

Upcott, Kingston, Chubworthy, Littlewilscombe, Waterhouse, Poor House, Moorhouse, Blackwell, Batterams, Notwell, Parsonage, Batscombe, Spring Cottage, Smiths Cottage, Lower Mills

7 April 1861 James Nicholls

Higher Batiscombe, Lower Batiscombe, Chubworthy, Spring Cottages, Bathams (Batterams?), Kingston (Manor House), Parsonage, Church House, Waterhouse, Washer's, Raddington Mill, Blakewell (Blackwell), Upcott, Notwell, Little Wiveliscombe.

2 April 1871 John Palfrey, Notwell

Little Wilscombe, Chubworthy, Battscombe Cottages, Spring Cottages, Church House, Parsonage, Washer's, Raddington Mill, Blakewell House and Cottages, Upcott, Notwell. (Kingston, the Manor House was not enumerated so presumably nobody was living there, while the Davys family were in Bedminster. They appear on the census there with most of their children employed in the Drapery business.)

3 April 1881 Thomas Davys, 3xG Uncle, Kingston

Church House, Parsonage, Washer's, Waterhouse, Raddington Mill, Smiths Cottage, Blakewell Cottage, Upcott, Notwell, LittleWilscombe, Chubworthy, Spring Cottages, Battiscombe Cottages, Batterams Cottages, Kingston.

5 April 1891 John Yeandle, Grandson of John Yeandle & husband of  1C4R, Upcott

Kingston, Church House, Batrums, Rectory, Batrums, Spring Cottage, Lower Battiscombe, Higher Battiscombe, Manor (Chubworthy), Little Wilscombe, Notwell, Upcott, Blakewell Cottages, Washer's, Raddington Mill.

31 March 1901 Tom Tarr, Notwell

Notwell, Chubworthy, Upcott, Blakewell Cottages, Little Wilscombe, New Cottages, Battiscombe, Kingston, Kingston Cottages (Batterams ?), Parsonage, Washer's, Raddington Mill, Church House, Spring Cottages, Blacksmith's Cottage.

2 April 1911 Arthur Heywood, Chubworthy

Kingston, Buttersham, Parsonage, Washer's, Raddington Mill, Blakewell Cottages, Notwell, Little Wilscombe, Manor House (Chubworthy), New Cottages, Spring Cottages, High Batscombe, Upcott.

It is census night here in Australia on 10 August 2021, I wonder who might be looking up family in a hundred or so years after they have sifted through our social media footprints in their genealogical journey.

D - Draper

I always thought a draper worked in a drapery, a store which sold fabric, maybe even curtain material (drapes - right?) and they might have also had a small section of the store given over to haberdashery; ribbons, lace, buttons and the like. I am sure I remember there being one such shop at Five Cross Roads when I was growing up in Hamilton, next to Gailer's who sold the best cakes and pastries (but that is another story). In the centre of town there was Pollock and Milne too in a similar line of business.

Well, how wrong was I ? 

It seems that in my Somerset family located near the Devon border, the Brendon Hills and the Quantocks if you weren't a Yeoman or a Farmer you were most likely a Draper or a Draper's Assistant. I have been doing a spot of research since realising how prevalent this career choice was from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s.

There was a lot of textile industry across Somerset; glovers, sailmakers and the cloth to make these as well as clothing, was also produced there in part. Industrialisation though had an impact on cottage industry. There was also a change beginning in the retail sector too with a demand for ready-made clothing. Tailors were not to sell ready-made clothing although some did appear to begin to trade this way with a small amount of ready to wear garments. Most of their work was made to order.

Drapers, however, may have sold second-hand clothing, taken orders and made new clothing with either staff sewing on site or outworkers sewing in their homes. They also sold ready-made, off the rack attire. It was big business. Upwardly mobile house servants and other working class labourers had wages burning a hole in their pockets and to the dismay of the upper classes spent it frivolously on an extraordinary amount of clothing to wear outside of work. The Clothing Trade in Provincial England 1800-1850 by AlisonToplis.

In Paddington, London William Whitely opened a fancy goods store in 1863. A fledgling department store, by 1867 he had 17 departments including food halls. Dressmaking began in 1868 and he leased a long row of houses where staff lived and worked. In 1872 there were said to be 622 people employed on site and 1000 outside. This expanded to a workforce of 6000 by 1906. In 1927 the business was acquired by George Selfridge.

My Draper relatives weren't running such large emporiums as Whiteley's and were based in Taunton, Bedminster and Wells. Some moved to London for their career, including George Williams in 1842 who went on to establish the YMCA in response to the conditions he witnessed being experienced by many young men who like him had come to London for work. He found employment for many years making gentlemen's clothing in St Paul's Yard near St Paul's, another sizeable establishment Hitchcock & Rogers. George worked his way up the ranks, marrying his employer's daughter, having his name added to the business and eventually, after the death of his father-in-law becoming the sole owner.

My great great grandfather's elder brother Thomas Davys, left the farm he had lived most of his life on and relocated briefly to Bedminster near Bristol where his children were employed in the Drapery business as assistants and apprentices. Whether this was an attempt to explore employment opportunities for his daughters particularly is unclear. But it does seem plausible as he had 6 daughters who would need to be able to support themselves if they were not to marry.

Another Thomas Davys, second cousin to the last Thomas is described on the 1851 census at Trowell where he was living aged 25 with his father, stepmother and some siblings as "Retired Draper and Land Proprietor". Retired at 25 ! He was also recorded as crippled. I have heard stories about a one-armed Draper - was this him ? Thomas died just seven years later.

His nephew John, son of his elder brother John, ran a successful business in Wells for many years. Like most of the other Drapers in this family, John's father, grandfather and great grandfather were Farmers. John was the only son and chose a different career path. His parents would leave the farm in their later life and join him in Wells. He employed one of his sisters and her son and often placed advertisements in the local newspapers looking for young ladies or lads to join his business. His home and business were located on Market Place and later High Street. Another of his sisters lived for a time in Vicar's Close where she was a housekeeper providing lodging to Theological students. How she came to be living in the close claimed to be the oldest purely residential street with original buildings surviving intact in Europe and dating from the 14th century I don't know. But her association with the Vicars and the Cathedral may have played a part in the Cathedral being the final resting place for her parents, her brother and sister.

Back to Drapers though, John ran a successful business regularly advertising the range of fashion available to his customers and often on sale in the local newspapers. Women's clothing, millinery, gentlemen's suits, coats, newspapers, children's clothing, accessories for all seasons. 

C - Coachman

When my grandmother was born her family were living in the Coachmans's Lodge at Cranford House on Kenilworth Road near Blakedown and Old Milverton in Warwickshire. George Timms was listed as the Coachman on the 1901 census at the same address before he was married. They remained there living above the stables until about 1908.

As Coachman, George would have tended the horses, groomed them and fed them as well as being in control of them when they were harnessed and out and about. He probably wore a uniform of sorts because the job would have been relatively prestigious at the time and image was everything when out representing your employer. 

George was born in Milverton in August 1877, the youngest son of James Timms and Jane Lawrence. His mother died when he was 6 months old and he was probably cared for by his older sisters and his mother's parents who lived nearby. By 1891, his father had remarried and his older siblings (5 sisters and a brother) had all left the family home. Some were married, others had moved to Birmingham looking for work or were employed locally. 

It must have been from his father that George learned to tend horses and drive a cart or carriage. James, who came from a long line of Oxfordshire Ag Labs, had found employment as a drayman, jaunting car driver and coachman after arriving in Milverton some time during the 1850s. George embraced new technology and the advent of motor cars, becoming a chauffeur and motor car driver and later a taxi driver. 

Apart from those eight or so years at Cranford House and a couple of short periods in different houses he lived his life just metres from where he had grown up with his siblings along Rugby Road and in Stamford Place. In fact for a time he lived with his own young family in the exact house where he had been born.

I wonder what he would think of the size and horsepower of the vehicle one of his great grandsons is driving these days ? He'd need a few cushions I reckon, to see over the steering wheel, a ladder to get in and maybe some adaptations to reach the pedals. I've only seen a couple of photos but I'd guess he would be about 30cm shorter than said great grandson.

B - Brass Finishers and Bedstead Decorators

Brass manufacture isn't a new thing, even the Romans experimented to produce it. Until the passing of the Mines Royal Act in 1689 which removed the crown monopoly on mining and brass production the trade had heavily relied on skilled workers from the continent. 

Up until the end of the 18th century Bristol dominated the brass industry in Britain. In the 18th century Birmingham's toy trade produced items such as buckles, button and sugar tongs and large amounts of sheet brass and ingots from the Champion Brass Works in Bristol made their way to Birmingham

The first patent for "Refining copper and manufacturing brass and brass wire" was granted in Birmingham in 1767. Until the 19th century casting (pouring molten copper alloys into moulds) was the usual method used by brass founders. Braziers produced candlesticks, pails, kettles and kitchen utensils working with sheet brass. Both Braziers and Brass Founders had their own guilds established in London, but Birmingham was not a guild town and this allowed it to attract workers and entrepreneurs from near and far. 

By the time Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 Birmingham had become the centre of the industry. Innovative practices, organisation of the workforce and working practices were factors which benefitted the growth in the industry. A lot of the work of a brazier had been taken over by stamping machines, but casting continued to prosper in the production of buttons, doorknobs, curtain rods and church furniture.

As demand for one type of product declined another took its place: electrical fittings for the developing Electric Lighting industry, scales for weighing letters came out of the launch of Penny Post. By the end of the 19th century manufacturers were producing a wide range of goods, some specialising in one area others offering a range. These included lamp-making, gas and electrical fittings, bell and general foundry, cock-making and plumbers brass foundry, rolled brass, stamped work, naval brass foundry and tube manufacture. The increasingly mechanised stamping and piercing work manufacturing buttons, medals and other ornamental work resulted in a larger female workforce. 

Metal frame beds and brass bedsteads had become more desired and fashionable in the early 1800s as they were more hygienic and easier to clean (recommended by Florence Nightingale) and the developments in production resulted in higher quality metals at cheaper prices.

Some of my grandmother's aunts left their home in Leamington, Warwickshire as young girls and found employment in Birmingham in the 1880-1890s. For a short time before her marriage Fanny Timms was a Metallic Bedstead Decorator. What exactly did a Bedstead Decorator do ? Painting decorative detail using a set pattern or design on porcelain or china decorations or bed knobs ? Did she have a creative flair or was it just a matter of reproducing a pattern over and over again ? Fanny married John Ashford who was a Cycle Polisher in the burgeoning Bicycle industry. In 1901 on the census their neighbours were mostly Brass Dressers, Pearl Workers, Brass Casters, Brass Polishers, Japanners and Brass Finishers.

There have been lots of B occupations mentioned here - more than I had initially decided to mention - and to think I always though Birmingham was most famous for chocolate and that Bournville factory run by the Cadbury family.

A - Acreman

acreman noun

acre·​man | \ ˈā-kər-mən \

plural acremen\ ˈā-​kər-​mən \

Definition of acreman

: the leader of the plow team on a medieval English manor

Acreman funnily enough was one of the contenders for the letter A in my other plan, so I was surprised to see it in a list of occupations.

I don't know if the Acreman in my tree got his name from his occupation or even if he was a ploughman. It is quite a long way back and records then aren't easy to find and if they are they are written in that odd spidery old english style, and sometimes in Latin.

The first Acreman I have is John born circa 1695 in the parish of Ashbrittle, Somerset. On the 22nd of April 1720 in the parish church at Ashbrittle he married local girl Jane Davys. She was the daughter of Thomas Davys and Judith Burchell of Hagley Bridge.

Information on Ancestry says that  between 1840 and 1920 people with the Acreman surname were found in census records in the USA, Canada, Scotland and the UK with the majority being found in the UK. In 1891 just over half of the Acremans in the UK were in Somerset. 

Perhaps some of John's siblings or cousins or their descendants emigrated to Canada or the USA or maybe one of his and Jane's children. They had at least three children, identified so far on church records. A few generations later in 1876 one of their great grandsons Samuel Pyne, a Tailor, farewelled England and took his family to Utah, USA. I wonder was he joining other family members who had gone before him.This branch of the tree was a new discovery made through RootsTechConnect in part of RootsTech2020, so there is still some work to do to substantiate all of the links.