Looking for Mary Ann Ford

Sandra has sent me this request:

Hi there.

I am looking for any information on the Ford family from Glemsford.
My Great Grandmother Mary Ann Ford was born there in 1886.

At the moment, I'm having problems locating the child in either the 1891 or 1901 Censuses. There is a child of that name born and living in Long Melford in 1891, but Glemsford doesn't seem to want to tell me.

Any help gratefully received and acknowledged.

SC

Local History Society Newsletter

The latest online edition of Glemsford Local History Society's Newletter is now available at this address:

http://www.glemsford.org.uk/07lhsnews3.html

It includes the final part of the "Happy Vaccy" story, with more detail about life in wartime Glemsford, as well as other items, including work on the Byford/Hempstead families by Sheila Wilmoth.

SC

Not a good time to be a child: Glemsford 110 Years Ago

It is always salutary to reflect on the lives of those we like to study.

I have written elsewhere about the health problems faced by the pupils of Glemsford School.

110 years ago, between October and December 1897, the School was hit by a severe outbreak of Measles.

This, word for word, is how Eleanor Bowrey, Head Teacher, recorded events in the School Log Book:

October 25th Lavinia Green who was sent home only a fortnight ago, sickening for Measles, was sent to school this morning, and was not allowed to remain on account of the period of infection not having elapsed. One other case of measles, (Cecilia Middleditch) is reported to-day by the Attendance Officer.

29th Tested Register & Found Correct <[signed] ??? Downs>

29th Mr Downs visited the school this morning, granting a half holiday in the afternoon.

Average for the week = 123

Criticism lessons on "Spiders" and "The Goat", given by A.M.Payton, and E.J.Playle, during the week.

Nov. 5th School visited on Tuesday morning by Mr R.J.Clarke. Several fresh cases of Measles are reported.

9th Sixteen cases of Measles are known to be in the village this morning. School visited before close of morning school by Rev. H.Hall.

12th E.Playle has had an hour each day for private study during school hours this week, excepting Friday. Lessons on "The Carpenter" and "Helping Mother" given this week. The attendance is still very poor owing to the prevalence of the Measles.

19th There are 25 cases of Measles known among the little ones now, and one of Infectious Skin Disease. Willie Bennett who is only just 5 and very backward on account of his extreme delicacy, is not to attend school for some time to come, a medical certificate to that effect being dated 11th Nov. Owing to the numerous cases of sickness the attendance has been very poor, the average for the week being only 96.8.

22nd E.Playle relieved from teaching from 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. today, for private Study.

25th E.Playle has had 1 1/2 hours on each of these three days for private Study, and her criticism lessons will be omitted during the next three weeks in order to allow of her devoting her whole time to her own studies out of school hours.

Another case of Measles - Alfred Smith, was reported by the Attendance Officer on Tuesday, - it is supposed to be a week since the child was taken ill.

27th Received the report on Examination of Pupil -Teachers; which is as follows:

A.M.Payton, 3rd Year, has passed "Well".+ B.M.Copsey, Art.35, has passed, but has Geography marked *.

(copied) E.Bowrey

29th Owing to the very inclement weather, the attendance was terribly poor all day. The classes were therefore grouped, Miss Plume taking charge of classes I & II in the morning, the Babies and Fives being also grouped, so that A.M.Payton spent the morning in private study, and E.Playle worked at her studies under the supervision of Mistress. School visited by Rev. H.Hall. In the afternoon E.Playle studied again.

30th Attendance still very poor. A.M.Payton studied from 9.30 to 10 a.m. and E.F.Playle from 10 to 10.30 a.m. Charles Copsey returned to school to-day after being absent through Measles for 6 weeks.

Dec. 2nd School Inspected

<[>signed]H.W.Claughton

NB The seats on the gallery should be fitted with backs

3rd School visited during HMI's stay on Thursday afternoon by Rev. H.Hall, and Mr R.J.Clarke.

A half holiday was granted on Friday afternoon in consequence of the visit by H.M. Inspector.

December 6th 1897 E.F.Playle absent all morning owing to severe cold. School visited this morning by Rev. H.Hall.

7th E.F.Playle still absent, - Mr R.J.Clarke visited the school this morning.

8th E.F.Playle present to-day and had an hour for private study.

10th Rev. H.Hall came in yesterday afternoon, and E.Playle had an hour for Private study. Owing to the prevalence of sickness & the bad weather, the average for this week is only 89.0.

13th E.F.Playle will be absent the whole of this week as she is attending the "Queen's Scholarship" examination.

14th Mr R.J.Clarke visited the school this morning.

17th Attendance a little improved this week, three or four children who have had Measles being allowed to return. Arthur Craske, aged 3 years was admitted yesterday afternoon.

Dec 21st Tested Registers - results correct <[>signed] Herbert Hall

21st E.Playle returned to her school duties to-day having been absent yesterday by permission.

Attendance is a little improved this week.

23rd Average for the week 92.7.

School closed at 4 p.m. for the Christmas holidays: two weeks.

And so it went on. In fact, this was no means the worst outbreak, but it emphasises just how difficult life could be, such a relatively short time ago.

SC

The Glemsford Diaspora - more detail

The quest for the Argent family, and others who left Glemsford to find work, continues.

Following this entry:

http://www.glemsford.org.uk/2007/11/glemsford-diaspora-argent-ambrose.html

I have received several more contacts, as well as published comments. Thanks to Barabara, Brian and Nicole for their contributions.

Meanwhile, if any one else has more to offer, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

SC

Kate Hartley - a Glemsford child

In a new comment on the Deeks and Hartley family:
http://www.glemsford.org.uk/2006/12/deeks-and-hartley-families.html

Alison Carroll has written:

I have picked up a book from a carboot sale that was awarded to a Kate Hartley in 1903 whilst attending the Glemsford Board School. Do you know any more about this Kate Hartley?

So far, I have been able to offer these little snippets of conjecture:

Hartley is a very familiar Glemsford name - my website includes the reminiscences of life in the village in the 1920s by Ted Hartley, part of a family of wheelwrights that lived and worked in the village for generations.

However, I suspect that your Kate was probably the daughter of Joseph and Kate Hartley of Brook Street. Joseph was a "Cocoanut Mat Maker" - a very common Glemsford occupation. In the 1901 Census, Katie had 3 brothers - Eliazer, Lambert and Colin, aged 15, 13 and 10 respectively, and 3 sisters, Hilda, Edie and Madge (5, 3 and 1). Katie was 8 in 1901. Joseph was born in Cavendish, Kate in Boxted and all the children, including Katie, in Glemsford.

Just a little extra human detail.

If my assumption is right - and this Katie is the only child of (anything approaching) that name! - there are one or two other points to make.

Katie is mentioned in the School log book for September 1896, thus:

"21st School visited by Mr Game this afternoon. Received notice that Kate Hartley and Alice Malyon each 3 years of age, will remain at home until the winter is past."

so she seems to have started school young! Again, this was quite typical in Glemsford.

More sadly, her brother Eliazer features on the Glemsford War Memorial, and also at http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Suffolk/Glemsford.html:

HARTLEY Eliazer Private 17440, 2nd Battalion, Suffolk Regiment.
Killed in action Thursday 28th March 1918 in France & Flanders. Age 33.
Born Glemsford, Suffolk, enlisted Sudbury.
Son of Joseph Porter Hartley and Kate Hartley, of 8, Pump Square, Lavenham; husband of Mercy Adelaide Hartley, of 21, Bolton St., Lavenham, Suffolk.
Commemorated ARRAS MEMORIAL, Pas de Calais, France. Bay 4

As usual, if anyone else can contribute more to yet another very human story, Allison and I would be delighted to hear from you.

SC

A Glemsford Diaspora? - Argent, Ambrose, Boreham ...

Barbara Barrett recently left this message as a comment about Nicole Nathan's search for the Argent family:

I have just discovered your very interesting site.I am researching our family tree and find that my husbands maternal grandfather was born in Glemsford -Walter Argent 1883 - Father James Argent 1847 - 11 Children, Sarah, Althea, Laura, Emma, Elizabeth, Kate, John, Mary, Willie, Nellie and Walter. They moved to live in Keighley, West Yorkshire. Is there anyone who can give me more information about Ray's family. He knows very little about his family history.Looking forward to hearing if anyone can help me put some "flesh on the bones" of my knowledge.

The moment I started looking at Barbara's Argent family on the Census, several familiar bells started ringing, all related to what I am convinced was a general movement of Glemsford families away from the village in the last quarter of the 19th Century.

1) Keighley: that was where Araminta Brown, who features so prominently in Sandra Poole and Tracey Foulds's story of the Brown and Savage family, settled and married.

2) The 1891 Census shows that James Argent and his family - including Walter - must have moved to Keighley between 1884 and 1886. My earlier work on the Glemsford School Log Books shows how depressed industry was in the village at the time.

3) James moved to Keighley as a Mat Weaver, although by 1901 he worked in a Machine Tool factory. Glemsford seems to have exported Mat Weavers to all parts of the country. I have located Browns, Argents and others in Skerton, Lancaster, Games and Brewsters in east London and now this group of Argents in Keighley.

But that's not all. The 1891 Census for 5 Cherry St., Keighley, shows the Argent family.
7 Cherry Street was occupied in the same Census by James and Ann Boreham. James was a Green Grocer.
Guess where he and Ann were born.
Give up?

Glemsford.

But all three of their children were born in Keighley. Eliza, the oldest, was 8 in 1891.
The 1901 Census shows James Boreham as a Coal dealer.
So we have another family of Glemsford emigres.

But it doesn't stop there.
A further exploration of Cherry Street in 1891 reveals that, at no. 38, lived the family of James and Harriet Ambrose (57 & 52). Both were born in Glemsford. James is recorded as a "Bobbin Sorter", presumably in Keighley's woollen industry, but in 1881 he had been a Mat Weaver on Egremont Street in Glemsford.
The ages and places of birth of their children suggests that James and Harriet also moved north round about 1885/6.

The Glemsford connection doesn't finish there, either. Also in 1891, at 8 Timber Street, lived Charles Ambrose (54), a general labourer, his wife Eliza (55), and three daughters - Lottie (20), Kate (17) and Emma (15).
Only Emma was Yorkshire-born: the rest of the family were born in Glemsford.
The 1881 Census also shows this family in Timber Street, with older children: Ann M (then 20), Susannah (16), Emily (14) and Walter (12), as well as a youngest child Eliza (3) who doesn't appear in 1891, since her death is recorded in Keighley in the June quarter of 1881.

Significantly, in 1881, Charles and Eliza had a boarder: James Boreham, an unmarried labourer in the Iron Works, born in Glemsford.
The Marriage registers for Keighley in the last quarter of 1881 show a marriage between James Boreham and Maria Ambrose.
Since Charles and Eliza's daughter Ann appears in the Census on two occasions as "Ann M.", I am making the obvious assumption. The name Boreham, of course, appears elsewhere in these pages, also in terms of a move northwards.

In 1871, Charles ("Cocoa Mat weaver") and Eliza were still in Glemsford, on Egremont Street, with their first five children, including Ann M..

And immediately next door lived James and Harriet Ambrose, with three of their children.

At the same time, James Boreham (15 - "Cocoa Nut Fibre Warper") was living with his parents, Benjamin and Susan, and siblings: Louisa, Jacob, Esau, Arthur, Dorcus, Mahala and Isaac, nephew Charles and niece Bertha, out at Seldom Field (sic).

I haven't yet been able to track James Ambrose in 1861, but Charles was, at the time of that Census, living with his parents, Samuel and Maria, and two sisters, Sophia and Emily. Interestingly, Maria and Sophia are both recorded as "Worsted Weavers".

The 1851 Census confirms matters, as both James (an agricultural labourer) and Charles (a labourer in a factory) were living at home on Skates Hill, with Samuel and Maria, their sisters and cousin, Maria Cooper.

Also in 1861, James Boreham was with his large family at Seldom Waiver. Ten years before, his father Benjamin, Susan, the early stages of their family, and Benjamin's mother Sarah were living on Egremont Street.

But what of the Keighley Argents?
We know where James and his family were in 1891 and 1901 - and incidentally, in 1901, Jame and Eliza had a boarder - Felix Chatters, a Gas Works labourer - from Cavendish!

The 1881 Census for Glemsford shows James Argent, a Mat Maker, aged 34, living with Eliza (34) on New Cut. With them were their children, Sarah, Aletha, Laura, Emma, Elizabeth, Kate, and John.

The 1871 Census is a little confusing in that James is referred to as "John J.", but I am confident this is our James with wife Eliza, and daughters Anna (5), Sarah (3) and Alethea (1). Eliza, Anna and Sarah were all born in Cavendish, and the 1881 Cavendish Census shows a 15 year old Cavendish-born Anne Argent working as a servant in the household of a butcher by the name of ... Edgar Ambrose.

The 1861 Census is proving a little unproductive at times, but the 1851 Census for Glemsford reveals John James Argent, the 4 year old son of John, a Hand Loom Silk Weaver, and Sarah, living next to the Silk Throwing Mill.

And so it goes ...

Yet again, therefore, there is a story of movement away from Glemsford at a time when life probably became hard. But how did they know where to go? How were jobs advertised? How did they travel?

Of course, if anyone has anything to add, please do not hesitate to get in touch. I think the Story of the Glemsford Diaspora is there to be written.

Oakley-Jackson-Gridley-Mortlock

Susan Catudal, in Montreal (via London), has been in touch about her family, part of which emerged from Glemsford. I have been able to offer some general assistance, but would like to see what people have to offer about these points:

One missing link in my family tree is with an ancestor named Emma Mortlock.
Born in Glemsford in 1849 to Caroline Mortlock( 1820). No father is named on Emma's birth cert, so she was given her mother's surname.
Emma married Abraham Oakley Jackson in 1869 and the following year my Grandfather, Harry Jackson was born.
I would like to find relatives of his 2 brothers -Johnny Jackson(1876) and Percy(1884) - all born in Glemsford.
Harry eventually came to London after the Boer War.

Another 'mystery' is that Abraham Oakley Jackson seems also to be named after his mother, Amelia Jackson(1832).
I did, curiously enough, find one Abraham Oakley(1836) who I assume was with Amelia Jackson, but maybe never married her.

I found on a census a brother for Abraham Oakley Jackson being born in 1854 , being raised by an Abraham Oakley! I would like to know if A Oakley was indeed the father and why the children were surnamed Jackson!

If anyone can help, Susan's email address is:
susancatudal AT videotron.ca

(if you're a real person rather than one of those infernal Spam machines, you'll be able to replace the AT with an @ - and no spaces!)

or, of course, you can contact me!

Lorna Pickworth

I am very anxious that we should continue to develop the story of Glemsford's more recent past, as seen in the work of Tom Brown, Ted Hartley and Roy Porter, to name but three.

So I was very pleased to receive this request/contact from Gail:

My mother was very excited when I told her about your site.

She is Lorna Pickworth (she married an officer during the war and became Smith) and was born in Glemsford in 1919.

Her father George was the village dentist, and they lived at Holmlyn in Hunts Hill.

She and her sister Mansie went to school in Glemsford, before going to the High School in Sudbury.

Mum wonders if there's anyone who remembers them, as she'd love to share some memories with them?

Many thanks.

Kind regards
Gail Smith

Gail has given her permission to include her email address, but to help avoid the Evil of Spam, you will have to replace your own "@" sign and dot:

gspukgailathotmaildotcom

(no spaces - it's a Hotmail address!)

SC