In researching your family history and speaking to your relations there can be certain of your ancestors which are often brought up in the conversation, largely due to their character, whether bad or good, and for the memories and stories about them that your relations remember. Thus, I have knowledge of my great grandparents who died many years before I was born.
I am many years younger than my paternal cousins so they remember my grandfather, warts, and all, but none of us could remember our paternal grandmothers, be it his first wife, from whom I am descended and who died in 1917, or the second who died in 1924. They all remembered his third wife, ‘The Duchess’, a widow from down the street who he finally married in 1951.
My maternal Aunts told me stories
of my two maternal great grandmothers, Emma, and Kate.
Emma, my granddad’s mother, was born on 10 July 1868 in Willian, Hertfordshire, the daughter of George and Emma Moules (née Rook). She was baptised at Willian on 15 December 1868. The Moules / Moles family were not very well off, and this meant that the family often moved about in search of seasonal work.
Emma is the second on the left in this picture with other of her siblings, nieces and nephews and her husband Harry, the chap with the pipe in the bottom centre.
Emma married Harry Morgan on 25 December 1888 at St Mary’s in Hitchin and the young couple then moved to Charlton, a hamlet near to Hitchin, where my grandfather was born in September 1889, and his younger brother in 1892. Harry was a Labourer and Emma a Housewife in the 1891 Census of Charlton. In the 1901 census they are still living in Charlton with Harry now being a Brewer’s Drayman, with Emma of no occupation with the boys aged 11 and 9. By 1911 the family make-up is the same, parents and 2 boys, but Harry is now a Mineral Water Maker at a Hotel.The main story about Emma that has been passed down to me is that she was a marvellous cook and evidently worked as a Cook for the Delme-Radcliffe family at Hitchin Priory, within walking distance of her home in Charlton. In the 1939 Register she is living with Harry at No 12 Grove Road, Hitchin. Harry is a retired labourer OAP and Emma is ‘unpaid domestic duties’ the usual occupation for a housewife. Emma, by now a Widow, died on 6 January 1946 at Chalkdell Hospital in Hitchin. The house in Grove Road was to be sold and proceeds split between her surviving son, my grandfather, and my two eldest Aunts, Vi and Cissie – the disgruntlement about this bequest, by my Mum, and no doubt her other siblings, was still being voiced in the 1970s!
No 12 Grove Road, Hitchin - the house in the centre
Emma is remembered fondly as a loving woman who endured the loss of her younger son in the First World War, and who was a great cook. She is buried with Harry in Hitchin Cemetery in Grave W ex C.A., the funeral taking place on 11 January 1946.
My other maternal great
grandmother, Kate, was very much involved with her Morgan
grandchildren. We have many photographs
of her with them in the family collection.
My cousins all remembered her with affection and with the memory of her
rather fruity ‘sayings’ which were also passed down to me by my Mum. Kate and her husband Arthur lived in the same
row of houses in Hitchin as her daughter Sarah (Sally), my grandmother, and her
husband and family of 6 children.
Kate was born on 30 May 1865 in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, the daughter of George and Sarah Cotton (née Muncey). She married Arthur Taylor in 1892 in Hitchin. In the 1901 Census Arthur is a Wood Sawyer, with Kate being a Laundress ‘on her own account’. With the family are the children, my grandmother Sarah, known as Sally, and her brother Arthur Christopher, and ‘Auntie Daisy’, who was actually Arthur snr’s niece, who the couple brought up after her parents died.
In the 1911 census Kate an Arthur
and family were living at No 4 Hitchin Hill Path. Kate is still a Laundress,
but daughter Sarah and niece Daisy are described as ‘Assistant Laundress’ and
employed by Kate. Arthur is a carpenter
on the railway.
This was an abiding memory for my
Mum of helping her grandmother with the washing – not only their own, but for
others in the town too in her small hand laundry. Monday was always ‘wash day’, with ironing to
follow. My mum always ironed
everything. I love ironing, but I draw
the line at underwear and socks! We have
it much easier today. Gt Grandmother
Kate had a huge copper, dolly1 and mangle with the hand irons having
to be warmed up near the fire. No electricity!
In the 1939 Register, Kate and
Arthur are still living at Hitchin Hill Path, now it seems at No 8, with
daughter Sarah and her family living at No 5, a house I remember well from when
my granddad lived there. Arthur is a
retired carpenter with Kate the usual ‘unpaid domestic duties’
The back garden of No 5 today.
The
area around Hitchin Hill Path is now a conservation area2.
Kate died on 17 May 1952 in
Hitchin and was buried on 21 May 1952 at Hitchin Cemetery, Grave No NW ex 241,
where she would be joined by Arthur in 1962.
Now, for the ‘fruity’ sayings of
my characterful Gt Grandmother Kate, a flavour of Hertfordshire of times gone
by.
‘Don’t throw your bonnet over the
windmill’ – don’t act in a deranged, reckless, or unconventional manner.
‘A whinwan for a duck’s bridle’ –
a whinwan is an old Hertfordshire word for something indescribable or for which
the name is unknown
‘In and out, like a f*rt in a cullendar’
– same meaning as ‘In and out, like a dog at a fair’ - not doing anything
useful.
And the best one, which always makes
me chuckle, ‘I’ve ‘eard a goose f*rt afore’ – meaning you don't believe someone.
Hertfordshire folk always drop
the H – so my family come from ‘Itchin in ‘Artfordhsire.
I do wish I had known these gt-grannies
of mine – each full of character and Hertfordshire born and bred. They both had two children, which was unusual
for the late 1880s -1890s, both worked to supplement the household income, and
left their descendants with memories which have been passed down.
Notes
1. 1. Dolly – a wooden stirrer for the wash in the copper
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