Education – rowleyregislosthamlets.co.uk

A special education

In my last post to this blog, I mentioned in passing that a William Cole (my 2xg-great-uncle) had been a witness at the marriage of Edward/Edwin Hopkins and Elizabeth Cole and that it appeared that this William Cole was the older brother of Elizabeth.

I knew from my previous researches for my family tree that William was born presumably in 1837 or at least baptised at St Giles, on 17^th September 1837, the eldest son of Edward and Frances Cole of Perry’s Lake and that he became a hairdresser which was a somewhat unusual occupation in the area at that time. He was with his parents in Perry’s Lake in 1841 but not in 1851 when he would have been 13 or 14. I searched for him, wondering whether he had died in the interim between the two censuses or whether he was staying with grandparents or other relatives. But he was not in Perrys Lake or Rowley and I could not find a death registration or a burial for him.

Searching the 1851 Census for a slightly wider area, I found him listed as a Scholar at an institution named in the Census as ‘The Old Swinford Hospital’ which was on the Hagley Road, near Stourbridge, along with 80+ other boys. How on earth did he come to be there, apparently living there?

So I googled ‘The Old Swinford Hospital’ and found that this had been – and still is – a boarding school! That was a surprise to me, as I hadn’t thought the Coles were of a class who could afford to send their son to a boarding school. And, of course, they weren’t. They were ‘poor but honest’.

Founded by Thomas Foley, an ironmaster, MP and landowner from the Great Witley Estate in Worcestershire and with close links to Old Swinford and the surrounding area, Old Swinford Hospital first opened its doors to pupils in the late summer of 1670, just four years after the Great Fire of London which had probably considerably affected the Foley’s trading empire in London and may have resulted in them retiring to their country estates for a time. Local tradition has it that Foley, son of the famous Ironmaster Richard Foley, was originally inspired to start the school after hearing a sermon by Richard Baxter, the ‘Kidderminster divine’, on the proper use of riches. In particular, it appears, the school prepared the boys for useful lives where they could ‘make a difference’ to society and to provide them with a trade or craft, a means of earning a living.

Originally known as Stourbridge Hospital (charity), and occasionally referred to as Foley’s Blue Coat School, Thomas Foley’s vision was for the education of 60 boys from ‘poor but honest’ families nominated by specific local parishes. Families who had received poor relief at any time were excluded from this. The boys were not to come from the families of ‘the undeserving poor’. From those nominated by the eligible parishes, the Feoffees would choose boys to make up the required number.

Rowley Regis was one of those parishes and William Cole must have been nominated for a scholarship by the Vicar/Curate of Rowley Regis, at that time, the Rev’d George Barrs and perhaps the Church Wardens. The boys boarded for two half year terms each year at the school in what were fairly Spartan conditions and were provided with a uniform. The diet was apparently fairly basic but this was regularly inspected by the Feoffees.

The eligible parishes and the numbers of boys to be nominated from each were set out in Foley’s Will, dated 1667, in places where the Foleys had a major interest, usually a landed or industrial link. These were:

Three from Old Swinford, four from Stourbridge Town, six from Kidderminster with three from the town and three from the foreign, four from Dudley and from Bewdley, two from each of Great Witley, Kingswinford, Kinver, Harborne, Halesowen, West Bromwich, Bromsgrove, Rowley Regis, Wednesbury, and Sedgley and one from Hagley, Little Witley, Alvechurch, Pedmore and Wombourne. In these cases the parish officers were to choose several names from which the feoffees made the final decision. The original school was for 60 boys and the remaining fourteen boys were chosen by the feoffees, though the numbers were later increased.

The 1851 census for the Hospital shows that home parish of each boy, all of them between 8 and 13 (with the exception of one 7year old!) These included Clent, West Bromwich, Harborne, , Stourbridge, Great Witley, Halesowen, Dudley, Bewdley, Kinver, Ledbury, Birmingham, Martley, Bromsgrove, Kidderminster, Wednesbury, Old Swinford, Kingswinford, Cradley, Pedmore, Wombourne, Worcester, Prestwood in Staffordshire, Hagley, Amblecote, Hallow, Holt and Banbury – so the admissions were still mainly being made in accordance with the original scheme nearly two hundred years later.

This Foundation was a huge undertaking, when you consider that Eton College had been founded in 1446 for seventy scholars and Winchester School, also for seventy in 1382, both with the huge resources of their royal and ecclesiastical founders behind them. Their intake of boys from the poorer classes was based on similar philanthropic motives, as well as on the need for choirs. In a much more local instance for me, the secondary school my children attended was founded in 1384 when Katharine, Lady Berkeley set up a school in Wotton-under-Edge, (one of the Manors owned by the Berkeley families of Berkeley Castle and treated by them as the Dowager’s residence) with one master and two students. This grew and later became a Grammar school and again, Katharine Lady Berkeley’s School still exists and is now a highly successful 11-18 mixed comprehensive school with over 1500 students.) So these educational foundations can continue to serve their local communities indefinitely, it seems.

Thomas Foley’s Will gave the Feoffees he had carefully selected and appointed the responsibility for the ‘maintenance and education and placing forth of Sixty Poore boys’ which was a considerable responsibility. In 1689 the total expenditure was £592.16.11 (That is £592 pounds, 16 shillings and 11 pence for those unfamiliar with pre-decimal currency. There were twelve pennies to the shilling and twenty shillings to the pound!). This was funded mainly from the income from the Pedmore Estate, including rectorial tithes and rents, which had been purchased by Thomas Foley for this purpose, though he also purchased other lands in various places including 15 acres in Rowley Regis.

The Dyett (food!) cost £173.16.07, much of the corn was home grown and the diet included a variety of meats. Apparel, including linen cloth for shirts and blue cloth for the traditional ‘Blue Coat’ coats and suits cost £124.7.6, plus salaries, husbandry, building and other minor expenses.

Later Foleys also funded an extension to provide a new aisle to Old Swinford Church, as all the boys would attend on Sundays which would have made it rather crowded.

How many local families must have benefitted over the centuries from this school and the opportunities offered to poor children? This requirement that the families of the boys had to be ‘poor but honest’ bears out my long held view that my Cole family were not rich but were respectable and industrious. I had wondered though how it was that the children of John Cole (1768-1843), unlike many of their cousins, appeared to be literate – perhaps John Cole or one of his sons was an earlier scholar at the school and passed on his learning to his siblings and children?

Imagine the shock these grand buildings would have been to the poor boys of Rowley, leaving home for the first time – even Rowley church, until it was rebuilt, did not appear to be as grand as this. These buildings also remain in use at the school today, it appears as the school is still there, now a State Boarding School of high repute and they have an interesting website which says that descendants of Thomas Foley are still among the Trustees or Feoffees to this day.

Day to day running of the school

In 1851, the school did not have a big establishment – the Census shows that the Head of the Household was a Scottish lady of 51 who was described as the Matron, although the Head Master (also a Scot)lived nearby on Hagley Road. She was assisted by one Under-Master, a Porter, a Nurse, a Cook and a Housemaid. Not many people to look after and educate more than 70 boys. The aim was that boys entered the school at about the age of seven or eight and received a grounding in many subjects although many would have been illiterate or very nearly so on entry.

Older boys were appointed as ‘hearers’, each of whom had two or three younger boys under his care for half a year and had to hear the boys of the 1^st and 2^nd classes reciting thirty verses of scripture and thirty of hymns, some new and some old, per week plus rules of grammar and arithmetical tables. The ‘hearers’ apparently took pride in their pupils doing well. Lessons, in 1838, for the 3^rd and 4^th classes included Writing, Reading, Spelling, Arithmetic, Reading and Tables, Catechism and Bible reading. By 1876 the 3^rd classes were studying Writing and Dictation, Reading, Arithmetic, Arithmetic and grammar or geography, reading and sums, Grammar, Geography , Catechism and geography and scripture, a total of 30 hours teaching a week. The 4^th classes studied Writing on slates and paper; Reading and dictation; Sums; Reading, spelling and scripture; Arithmetic and geography or scripture; Catechism and geography and Scripture. In 1848, boys began to attend a drawing and modelling class at the Art School in Stourbridge and were later entered for public examinations in design. This all prepared the boys for industrial or commercial apprenticeships. Nothing if not ambitious and clearly well thought out.

Not all boys went in so early. The Headmaster’s report for 1865 mentions that some boys were already ten or more when admitted and only two were below nine. Two of those aged above ten did not know the alphabet and could not count to twenty.

All cannot have been sweetness and light at times, as in September 1854, 43 boys, nearly half the school, ran away, claiming that they were badly treated by the Master, that they were sometimes struck by the Porter with a cane and that they were not given sufficient food for breakfast and supper – perpetually hungry bolshy teenagers, it seems, perhaps not so different from boys today though I suspect most boys of that age now would be utterly astonished at the prospect of learning and reciting thirty verses of scripture and of hymns each week, in addition to the rest of the curriculum The absconding boys were mostly brought back the following day by their parents and the Feoffees looked into this and dismissed the first claim, reprimanded the Porter and increased the ration of bread with meals, at least until the following year when more boys ran away so the Feoffees decided that the amount of food did not appear to have made any difference and reduced the portions to the previous amount!

At the age of 14 the boys were apprenticed or indentured in various crafts and trades, on terms specified by the Feoffees of the school and which applied until the apprenticeship was completed. Placements were carefully selected and the Founder had set out in detail the form of indenture to be used. A Master requiring a boy had to provide a certificate signed by his local church authorities to show that he was a member of the Church of England, was a good and substantial householder, of sober life and conversation, and had sufficient employment to require and properly maintain an apprentice. He would then appear in person before the feoffees, sign the indentures, and receive a premium which was formerly of £4, afterwards raised to £10. No assignment of the indenture was allowed without the feoffees’ consent.

This was taken very seriously and the Admissions Book apparently shows the destination of every boy and the annual printed reports listed all appprenticeships agreed on. The Feoffees’ report of 1859 refers to the fact that the character of the boys stood high in the neighbourhood, and this is quite understandable. They were placed carefully, commonly within easy reach of the parent’s homes but sometimes they went further afield. For example, a boy was apprenticed to a confectioner in Aberystwyth in 1826, another to a London architect in 1848, and a third to a saddler in Manchester in I874. The kind of trades and crafts they went to varied considerably; some went into manual trades-rollers, blacksmiths, file cutters, fitters, carpenters, wheelwrights, coachbuilders; some into retail trades-grocers, drapers, bakers, confectioners; and a few were sent to professional men such as solicitors or architects, or even to surgeons, though in this last respect it was usually ‘to learn the art of a dispensing chemist’. There was a need in the area, particularly as industry and the industrial revolution expanded rapidly for literate boys with good education and Foley’s school was aimed precisely at meeting this need.

Much of this information is taken from a fascinating study entitled ‘Old Swinford Hospital School’ by Eric Hopkins who was a Principal Lecturer in History at Shenstone College, Bromsgrove. Appearing in the British Journal of Educational Studies in 1969, it can be accessed through educational links or a library interlibrary loan. It is online and worth reading. It is full of interesting detail and I have barely skimmed the surface! Other information comes from ‘The Seventeenth Century Foleys’ by Roy Peacock, published by the Black Country Society.

The opportunities this school presented to the boys of poor families in the area must have been life changing for them, by contrast with the schools available in the village. Other wealthy individuals at various times also gave or left money to improve education in Rowley, including Lady Monins who set up a group of Trustees to remedy the lack of a school but died before her scheme could be implemented. She left a sum of money in her will in 1705 to found a school but it seems likely that it was not enough to do so and her relatives lived in London and Kent so probably were not really interested in Rowley matters. In 1774 it was found that income from the moneys left by Lady Monins were being used by the Gaunt family, Richard Gaunt was the Parish Clerk and also sexton at St Giles – the Gaunts were Parish Clerks for several generations – perhaps some of them too had been scholars at the Hospital. His school was the only one in the village at that time and Richard Gaunt, according to Edward Chitham in his book on Rowley Regis, was found to be receiving £10 per annum from the Monin moneys and he educated 24 children for free, in addition to his paying pupils, his daughter Hannah also later running the school. But it seems unlikely that his teaching could have covered the curriculum and breadth of teaching at the hospital and opportunities for a real education in the village were severely limited.

The Old Swinford Hospital School continued to operate under Foley’s specifications for more than 300 years before becoming, in the last forty years, a top class residential comprehensive school.

Swinford Old Hospital Boys

At some point I hope to be able to see the original records and registers for the school and find out more detail but at present I do not know where these records are held or what access is permitted to them. But I have been able to trace quite a lot of information about the three boys there in 1851 and their stories follow.

William Cole

William Cole appears to have been trained as a barber or hairdresser and he continued this trade until the end of his working life, at least from 1861 to 1891. By 1861 William Cole was living in Corngreaves Road, Reddal Hill, lodging with a widowed plumber and glazier and with his occupation given as Barber. In November of 1861 he married Elizabeth Davies at Dudley St Thomas. Although Elizabeth’s name was spelled Davies in the Marriage Register, the children seem, in the GRO Birth Registrations, mostly to have mother’s maiden name as Davis. What is interesting about this is that the plumber and glazier that William, now 23, was lodging with in 1861 was a Richard Davis. And another lodger was a Joseph Davis who was 24 and a ‘grainer and Decorator’. I cannot help wondering whether Joseph, with that distinctive trade, had also been a scholar at the Old Swinford Hospital, there were several Davises in the school in 1851 so it is possible that he and William had become friends there. Elizabeth’s father was shown in the marriage register as Isaac Davi(e)s, so perhaps Elizabeth was related to one or other or both of the Davises in that household.

In 1871, still in Corngreaves Road, and now listed as a hairdresser, he and Elizabeth had four children – Emma Jane, born 1865, Annie Rebecca born 1867, William Edward born 1869 and Amelia born 1870. By the time of the 1881 Census three more children had arrived, Edward born 1873, Nelley born 1876 and John born 1879. It is possible that other children may have been born and died between censuses. By 1891, William was still at 4 Corngreaves Road, still a hairdresser, and with a grandson Norman Cole aged 3 living with them, in addition to his own children, possibly the illegitimate child of Amelia.

William appears to have died in the September quarter of 1900 without ever living in Rowley or Perry’s Lake again. The trade he presumably learned at the Old Swinford Hospital gave him employment for his whole life and at least one of his sons followed him into the profession.

And William was not the only Rowley child at the Old Swinford Hospital in 1851.

Uriah Gadd

Also from Perry’s Lake was Uriah Gadd, aged 12, the son of James and Phoebe Gadd. At the time of Uriah’s baptism in 1838 the family were living in Ross, (that Gadd stronghold), but in 1841 they were in Perry’s Lake. Uriah was the 5^th child of the couple and the 3^rd son.

By 1861 Uriah was back in Blackheath, aged 22 and a carpenter, living with his parents. He remained in Blackheath living in High Street and later Mott Street, and working as a carpenter for the rest of his life. Uriah was married in 1864 at St Andrew’s, Netherton to Honor Hickman of Netherton.

By 1871, Uriah and Honor were living in High Street, Blackheath with three children, Mary (5). Charles (3) and Edward (1). In 1881, Uriah, now giving his occupation as a Carpenter and Joiner and Honor were living at 108 High Street , Blackheath with Charles (13), Edward (11), Ann (9), all scholars and George (3) and Ellen (1). Plus Honor’s mother Mary Hickman and nephew Walter Hickman (6).

By 1901 the family had moved to 25 Mott Street and Edward, now 21 was working as a bricklayer’s labourer and Uriah had given his occupation as a Carpenter Journeyman. I was slightly surprised that Edward was not also working as a carpenter but because Uriah was a Journeyman and not a Master Carpenter, he would not have been able to take apprentices. George, Ann and a last child Rachel (7) were all scholars. By 1911 Uriah was living alone, a widower, in Mott Street, now 72 and still giving his occupation as a Carpenter & Joiner, working on his own account in the House Building Trade. Honor had died in 1907, aged 62 and Uriah died in 1921, aged 82.

William Jenks Milner

Also in the school in 1851 was William Jenks Milner , whose parish was given as Rowley Regis and who had been baptised there on 11 September 1842, the son of Richard Milner, a wheelwright and his wife Phoebe, nee Jenks (who had grown up in Clent). In 1851 Phoebe was living with her parents William and Harriet Jenks in Clatterbatch, Clent on their farm and was a widow with two other children. I was interested to see from the Census that even in leafy and green Clent, most of the inhabitants were nailmakers and a neighbour of the family was a Scythe grinder, quite a specialised trade and one for which a particular type of iron was required. Perhaps it was supplied by the Foleys.

Richard Milner had died in Wolverhampton in June 1849 so the opportunity for William to receive this education must have been a great boon for his mother. The census entry for Phoebe and her other children notes under occupation that his brother Thomas aged 5 was a ‘scholar’ and Mary at 11 ‘attended Sunday School’, which may show the level of education William would have received, had he not been awarded his scholarship. Had his father lived, it seems possible that William would have followed him into the Wheelwright’s business but in those days when a craftsman father died prematurely it also made it much more difficult for any children to learn their craft.

I have been unable to find William Jenks Milner in the 1861 Census but on Christmas day 1862 William married Louisa Perks at St Barnabas church, Birmingham, both of them aged 21 so it seems likely that he was still in the Midlands. Her father Henry Perks was a Grocer in Great Hampton Row in Birmingham. It seems likely that William had been apprenticed to a saddler in Birmingham.

In 1871 William and Louisa were living in High Street, (the Ecclesiastical District is given on the Census return as Reddal Hill so I suspect this was High Street, Old Hill but possibly Cradley Heath as he was certainly based in High Street, Cradley Heath later. Their children were Ada L, aged 7 born on 14 December 1863 in Birmingham, and baptised at St George’s, Birmingham on 25 September 1865 with their abode given as Lozells and William’s occupation as a Saddler and Harness Maker. Harriet, aged 4 was born in Aston and William J aged 1 born in Rowley Regis (Cradley was in the Rowley Parish so this new William Jenks Milner was probably born in Cradley.) which suggests that their move was fairly recent.

An advertisement in the County Express on the 31 August 1878 by William Jenks Milner, states that the Saddlery, Oil Sheeting and Tenting business ‘carried on so successfully for nearly ten years and , by the wish of my grandfather William Jenks, carried on in his name’ would, from that date, be carried on as usual in his own name, William Jenks Milner. Perhaps grandfather William had helped his grandson set up business in Cradley Heath, and had wanted the business to be in his name. I have not found anything to indicate that William Jenks the elder was ever a saddler as he appears to have been a farmer.

By 1881 William was living at 61 High Street, Cradley Heath and gave his occupation as a ‘Sadler & Oil Sheet Manufacturer, employing 1 man and 1 boy. Along with Louisa, their children Ada Louisa, aged 17, a pawnbroker’s assistant, Harriet, aged 14, William Jenks, aged 11, Anne aged 9, Mary Jane, aged 4, all of whom were scholars , Thirza aged 1 and William Jenks aged 92, his grandfather.

William Jenks, the grandfather, must have died soon after the Census which was taken on 3^rd April 1881 as his death was registered in the April-June quarter of that year. And, despite the optimistic tone of William Jenks Milner’s advertisement in 1878, everything changed for the Milner family in 1883 when the family emigrated to Queensland, Australia.

Since the business in Cradley Heath appeared to be sound, a move to the other side of the world was a big step and I wondered what had prompted this. I had noticed that, immediately below William’s advertisement in the County Express in 1878, there was an advertisement for sailings from Great Britain (Scotland) to Brisbane, seeking migrants for Queensland, especially female domestic servants and farm labourers who were offered free passage. The Local Agent was in Brierley Hill. Who knows whether, in checking his own advertisement, William had seen this, considered all those farmers and settlers who would need saddles and harnesses and probably oil sheeting and tenting, all William’s business goods, and it had sowed a seed about new opportunities in his mind which could, perhaps, only be realised after the death of his grandfather. Certainly the Milners sailed on the 31 Aug 1883 from Dundee in Scotland, within months or even weeks of his death, arriving on 28^th December, a four month voyage.

Louisa Milner died in 1919 and is buried in Toowong Cemetery, Brisbane. William Jenks Milner died on 30 Jul 1932, aged 89, at Leichhart, Sydney, New South Wales and is buried in the Rookwood Cemetery there, described by his children as their ‘dearly beloved father’ on his death notice in the Sydney Morning Herald. It appears that some if not all of the Milner children remained in Australia.

To sum up…

So, three boys from Rowley Regis, two of them from Perry’s Lake, were scholars at the ‘The Old Swinford Hospital’ in 1851 who all went on in good trades and crafts in the area or further afield. There were boys from Rowley there in 1861, too – James Fletcher, aged 13, Meshach S Palmer aged 11 and James Wharton aged 11 of Coombs Wood though I have not researched these boys.

Who knew? I had never heard of ‘The Old Swinford Hospital’ until now and yet hundreds of boys selected over those centuries and the community of Rowley Regis and the surrounding area must have benefitted from the generosity and care of Thomas Foley in 1670. I agree with Thomas Foley that his school was indeed the best thing he did with his wealth and which benefitted so many ‘poor but honest’ boys in the area, fitting them for new trades, crafts, skills, professions and, it appears, usually successfully assuring them of skilled work for the remainder of their lives.

Daily life in the hamlets in times gone by

In our generally comfortable living conditions today, it can be quite difficult to imagine the conditions in which our ancestors lived and worked. These are some memories which relate to Rowley and Blackheath, so technically may be considered outside of the area of the Lost Hamlets but I am sure that many of them apply also to the houses and residents there. Some of my own memories of growing up in Long Lane and Uplands Avenue are also included.

What the Vicar thought…

The Reverend George Barrs, who was Curate of St Giles from 1800 to 1840. He did not seem to have a high opinion of his parishioners and he wrote in the 1830s:-

“In 1831 the number of inhabited houses in the parish was 1366, the number of families occupying them 1420 made up of nearly 7500 individuals, an equal number of each sex, within a very few, the males predominating by only 7 or 8. 82 homes were then without inhabitants and only 5 building. Since then the state of trade has considerably improved, many houses have been built or are in progress but few unoccupied.

Of the above number of families 140 were occupied in agriculture and 909 in manufacture, trade etc. Many however who are ranked as agriculturists are frequently engaged in some branch of trade or manufacture. A very large proportion of the manufacturers are nail makers and nearly all the women and girls; that being the chief pursuit of the operatives in this and surrounding parishes. Here chains of various descriptions and the making of gun barrels especially in time of war, find work for many hands. Here also the manufacture of Jews Harps is carried on and sometimes employs a considerable number of persons.

A great many of the manufacturers are very poor and their families frequently appear clad in rags, and as if they could obtain but a slender pittance of life’s comforts or even necessities. This however is not to be attributed to their being destitute of the means of procuring these comforts in a degree unknown to other manufacturers but in their want of frugality, domestic economy and good management. Their work is laborious but they can generally earn good wages, which, if discreetly applied would furnish them with a comfortable competence. Unhappily however many, from their very youth contract habits of idleness and prodigality and these are a certain and fruitful source of rags and wretchedness. Since the national pest the “Beer Act” came into operation in 1830 their manners have become more dissolute, their morals more corrupt, their habits more idle and unthrifty and of course neither their personal appearance nor their domestic comforts has much improved.

Such is the degraded and grovelling condition into which many of the nailers are sunk that during the late war when wages were high those who could make a miserable living by earning 2 shillings a day would not earn another 2 pence when they might by no great exertion have earned 2 shillings a day. Of all descriptions of individuals these appear most anxious to observe to the very letter that maxim of holy writ “take no thought for the morrow for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself” The wretchedness that results from their conduct is indeed an undeniable proof of its criminality and of the enormous evil of such perversions.”

[Note: It is likely that this statistical information is taken from the 1831 Census which is not generally available and did not include as much detail as later censuses. This information relates to the whole ecclesiastical Parish, including Old Hill, Cradley Heath, Whiteheath and Tividale, not just the village of Rowley.]

It is evident that Barr was a man of strong opinions and a striking contempt for his working class parishioners. He had married into the Haden family and apparently lived at Haden Hall, rather than in the village. The resistance he met from local people in his campaign to build a new church may have contributed to his dislike for his parishioners, but surely there must have been a few decent people? Excessive drinking was undoubtedly a general problem in those times, though not limited to the Black Country and certainly the non-conformist churches were strongly against alcohol because of the problems it gave rise to in society. And I suspect that non-conformism, particularly amongst Methodists and Baptists was already strong in the area, perhaps even encouraged by the contempt of clergy such as Barrs.

A visitor’s view of Rowley Regis

Walter White, a traveller from London, visited the Black Country in 1860 and wrote about his observations in his book ‘All round the Wrekin’ . He walked through the village of Rowley Regis and along Hawes Lane and noted the numerous quarries producing ‘Rowley Rag’. He would have seen the breathtaking view over Old Hill from Hawes Lane, a view I later gazed out at from RRGS many a time. Later he went through Tippity Green, Perry’s Lake and over Turner’s Hill to Oakham, right through the Lost Hamlets, a long walk! He also noted, echoing round the village, the click-click and thump-thump of hammers, finding that nearly every cottage had a workshop with a forge in place of a washhouse. In each workshop he and his friend observed the same scene, three or four women hard at work together, sometimes with children helping.

He noted “The fire is in common; and one after another giving a pull at the bellows, each woman heats the end of two slender iron rods, withdraws the first, and by a few hammer strokes, fashions and cuts off the nail, thrusts the end into the fire and takes out the second rod and gets a nail from that in the same way. So the work goes merrily on.”

For the women working thus, it may not have been quite as merry as he found it.

Memories recorded by Wilson Jones

In his book The History of the Black Country (now available as a reprint) J Wilson Jones recounts that he, born in Walthamstow, had moved as a boy to Rowley Regis in 1921, following the death of his mother. He was often taken by his father to visit elderly relatives on Sundays – one born in 1839, one in 1844, one in 1845 and one in 1847 so their memories went back a long way. How fortunate we are that Wilson Jones listened to and remembered their tales and recorded them for posterity.

He tells that “One old lady had been sold as a bond servant at Halesowen Cross and had received three pence per day wages; another had been employed down the mines, harnessed like a horse and drawing tubs. They had all been nailers and had walked three miles to fetch iron, laboured 109 hours weekly for a penny halfpenny an hour, raised 11 children and saved enough to be owners of three houses. Recreational hours were unknown and children did part time work from seven years of age, school was voluntary and the majority could not read. “

Black Country houses were mostly of a pattern, and I recall that my first family home in Long Lane, my grandfather’s house in Park Street and my great-aunt’s house in Darby Street all exactly fitted this pattern. Built in terraces there was a long entry from the street to the back of the house (because the front doors were never used!) At the rear there was a scullery or kitchen, in later years sometimes using what had been a nailshop or Brewhouse joined to the house with a bluestone or blue brick yard. There were usually two rooms up and down with a cellar below. The lavatory was also in the yard at the rear – luxury was having a separate one for each house, often two or three or more houses shared one and people have commented on Facebook, remembering this arrangement in cottages in Tippity Green, Perry’s Lake and Gadds Green. And a garden where vegetables could be grown and perhaps room for pig and some chickens was a bonus and not always provided. My grandad Hopkins produced wonderful pickled shallots and grew beautiful flowers, in his garden and allotment. To this day I think of him when I see drumstick primulas which I remember him wearing in his buttonhole, in a tiny silver holder, when he visited us on Sundays.

Later, when nailmaking at home ceased, many workshops or brewhouses were linked to the house, sometimes with a glass roof and became the scullery or kitchen, often with bathrooms or toilets later added on at the back. My grandfather’s Victorian house in Park Street, Blackheath and our 1930s house in Uplands Avenue still had cast iron ranges in the 1950s with a lovely coal fire and a kettle that could be put on it. The range in Uplands Avenue even had a little oven and I can remember my dad cooking some little lamb chops in there, they tasted wonderful. And toast made in front of the fire, using a wire toasting fork and slices of bread, fresh from the bakery in Bell End, lavished with tub butter from the shop at the top of Mincing Lane, (this was Danish butter, I think, I can remember it was cut from the block in the tub in front of you, according to how much you wanted. The shop owner could judge perfectly how much to carve off, showing long years of experience.) That toast was glorious! Toast made now with mass produced bread and toasted with electric devices doesn’t taste the same at all.

My grandparents had rag rugs on the floor, no fitted carpets in those days – from memory these were made of rags clearly from old suits and any other sturdy fabric available, hooked into pieces of sacking and warmer on the feet than lino or brick floors, though the floor in the entry and in the link from the house to the scullery was made of blue bricks. The range in our house was taken out at some point in the late fifties and replaced with a fireplace with a posh gas fire with a Baxi Bermuda boiler behind it which made the whole house warmer and undoubtedly less dusty. And yes, like many people of my vintage, I can remember ice, exquisite ferny patterns, on the insides of the (unheated) bedroom windows in bad winters, hot water bottles were an essential and when it was really cold my dad used to put his army greatcoat over the bed, it was very heavy.

When we moved from Long Lane to Uplands Avenue in about 1957 we had an indoor bathroom for the first time – at Long Lane the bath was a tin tub which hung on the wall, filled on bath nights from the copper in the outside washhouse. There were still gas brackets on the wall at Uplands Avenue, (though disused) which had provided the lighting originally, and I remember we had a gas fridge, not something you hear of today with a tiny freezer section which just accommodated a little metal ice-cube tray. Not that we got ice-cubes out of it very often, as the freezer box accumulated frost around itself so that it usually became a block of ice itself. And your fingers stuck to the metal tray if you tried to extract the cubes. The trick was to hold it under the tap and hope the ice-cubes came out before they completely melted! If the little gas pilot light on the fridge went out, as it did periodically, my dad had to crawl into the space under the sink with a taper to relight it through the tiny hole at the back with a distinct ‘whoomph. Funny memories!

In most houses, including my home well into the 1960s, the front room or parlour was rarely used. In Victorian times it might have had an aspidistra, hard uncomfortable horsehair stuffed furniture, and a glass display cabinet. Perhaps a harmonium or a piano – my grandad Hopkins loved playing piano and had a white one! I can remember my great-aunt’s middle sitting room in Darby Street had a dining table with a deep red velour cloth with a fringe I loved playing with as a child, with a lace-edged white cotton table cloth over that. My aunt could remember visiting the same house in Darby Street when she was a child in the 1920s when her grandfather still made nails out in the workshop and she could remember that she was sometimes allowed to work the bellows for the forge for him. Despite being asthmatic, he walked regularly to the bottom of Powke Lane with a little cart to collect iron rod and coke for his forge from the Gas works, and to take his completed nails to be weighed.

On one occasion, Aunt Alice remembered, while ‘helping’ her grandfather, that she had got some ashes on her white pinafore and, realising that her mother would be cross with her, my great grandmother washed, dried and ironed it before she went home. In the days before washing machines, tumble driers and electric irons, this was no mean task and speaks volumes of her kindness. My aunt also remembered that her granny was a wonderful cook and she remembered freshly baked cakes and particularly custard tarts set out to cool on the window sill. Is it coincidence that my father, myself and my son all loved custard tarts? Who knows, perhaps there is such a thing as genetic memory!

Black Country dress remained the same, probably until the 1920s. Women nailmakers wore black lace-up boots, woollen stockings, long black skirt with a shawl , sometimes a man’s cap. Men wore checked shirts and sturdy leather belts. The photograph here shows my great grandmother Betsy Rose and my great aunts, taken in the doorway of their shop in Birmingham Road probably in the early 1920s or thereabouts, and her dress fits this description although her daughters are more fashionable! Old photographs from the time of chapel gatherings show that many of the older ladies appeared to be still wearing their ‘Sunday best’ outfits and hats from some decades before. ‘Sunday best’ was definitely a feature of life in those days and even in the 1950s with new outfits for children for the Anniversary each year and I can remember that the men in church always wore smart suits and ties, the ladies dresses or costumes and often hats – no dressing down!

My great-granny Rose with her daughters. Copyright: Glenys Sykes

Weekly routines

Each week in earlier times apparently had routines. Monday was washday and nailmaking , Tuesday brewing and nailmaking, Wednesday and Thursday house cleaning and nailmaking, Friday ess-hole and grate cleaning, knife polishing and nailmaking, Saturday Window cleaning and nailmaking, Sunday – preparing the Sunday dinner, church, chapel and Sunday school – no work, not even sewing! The days were long, starting at six and often not ending until 10pm. For women, all of this on top of bearing children, caring for and feeding them, there was little time for rest. Men often worked during the day at outside jobs, in the quarry, mines or farms but also made nails when they got home.

Meals also followed a routine – Sunday, the joint, Monday cold leftover meat, Tuesday broth, Wednesday boney pie, Thursday stew, Friday faggots or tripe. What they would have thought of our supermarkets, online shopping and ready meals I do not know!

But Wilson Jones notes also that, in his words,’ Black Country people had “hearts as big as buckets”, they would laugh with the merry and weep with the sad. Neighbours would share the duties of a sick woman, share their meals, deliver each other’s babies. There was never any knocking at the door, they lifted the latch and walked in. They would draw a pint of home brewed beer for the visitor, be he a vicar or insurance agent. Brewing reached an art that no other district shared. Each home had its ‘secret’ upon how many hops or what kind of malt was to be used. The fermentation had to be produced by no synthetic yeast but from the ‘barm’ passed from one relation to another. The visitor would be handed the glass of beer after it had been inspected for clearness and he had to express his opinion that it was better than ‘so-and-so’s’ – their beer was too muddy, too sweet or too sour’.

Looking back

So – living in tiny overcrowded houses with earthen floors, no running water or sanitation, big families, polluted air, deadly diseases when no cures were available leading to high infant mortality and often early deaths, men working in dangerous jobs in mines and quarries or in the constant heat and grime of factories and the nailshop, children working in nailshops, mines, quarries and factories from the age of seven or so, few shops, little money, little or no healthcare provision, plenty of hard work – our ancestors had tough lives, and few luxuries but often a strong faith and caring communities. I am deeply proud to be descended from them.

Life on the Edge

As I mention in the introduction to this One Place Study, it was the loss to quarrying of whole hamlets in which my ancestors had lived which prompted me to start this study in the hope of recording information about the hamlets and the people who lived there. Quite a few people have mentioned on the Facebook Page ‘I remember Blackheath and Rowley Regis’ their own memories of living on the edge of the quarries on Turner’s Hill.

Peter Hackett was amongst those saddened by the loss of these hamlets. He said in 2014 “You forget that Perrys Lake was almost a little community of its own. Obliterated. Fair enough you have the new houses now. You would have thought that the planners would have kept its original name….”

Marilyn Holder at the same time said “I took a drive over to see the lost community of Perry’s Lake today and found it rather sad that it has disappeared into history like so many parts of the Black Country.” Marilyn’s 4 x Great-grandad Isaac Bishop lived in one of these cottages and worked as a nail maker in his late 70s – no pension then, work or poor house! Her father-in-law was born in one of the cottages in Perry’s Lake in 1919. She thought that there were 6 terraced cottages, which according to the 1841 census housed around 75 occupants. No bathrooms and one toilet up the back yard served all the houses.

Growing up and family memories on the edge

Cottages at Perry’s Lake, just prior to demolition, early 1960s. Copyright Linda George.

Perry’s Lake was the biggest of the hamlets and in close proximity to the entrance to Rowley Quarry in an area known as “Heaven”. The Portway Tavern was once the haunt of quarry workers after a long shift. For many years the Portway Tavern was owned by the Levett family, up to 1900, who were also butchers in Rowley and Blackheath for many years. It remained open until The Portway Tavern was demolished in 1984.

Many people have commented that Perry’s Lake was known as ‘Heaven’ though this does not appear on any maps that I have seen.

Sue Cole was born in a quarry cottage up on Turners Hill. It was next to a farm. Her mum told her that she had to fetch water from the farm as they didn’t have running water, or electricity, they had Tilley lamps for lighting. And she had to sleep in the wicker washing basket, because her brother was still sleeping in the cot. She also remembers that she used to play on the top of the quarry, and had to go inside when the siren blew when they were going to blast. When she was about six weeks old they moved to one of the houses round the back of the Tavern. Her Dad worked at the Hailstone quarry.

Carol Adney was born in Number 16 in the row of cottages along the top of Turners hill in 1950 and lived there until she was 4yrs old.

Shirley Jordan recalled that her aunt Mary had lived in the first house round the corner from the Portway Tavern and then there was the road that was called round heaven. She used to play round heaven at the bottom and there were some horses down there. A lady and family called Onions lived round there as well.

David John Reynolds also remembered that Joe Onions had looked after the quarry horses. When David was a child in the 50’s Joe only had one horse to look after, a white one called Dolly. Geoff Skelton noted that the field is still there where they kept the horses, the golf course fence is where the fence was to stop people going to the edge of the quarry. Stephen Hall remembered Geoff Onions whom he had worked with at Albright and Wilson and who later kept the Portway Tavern with his wife Joan.

Eileen Hadley remembered that her great-aunt Kate Faulkner lived across Perry’s Lake, and that it used to be known as Heaven. Other residents included families called Bird and Harcourt . Jus Joan had a Great aunt whose name was Redfern, she lived in the first cottage set back from the road about half way down with a small front garden. George Webb said that his in-laws lived at the back of the Portway Tavern, aka Heaven in old cottages ,they were Harcourts and Reynolds , both worked in the quarry. He also recalled that Syd and Joe Dowell lived opposite the Tavern . Alma Webb also remembered that she visited the cottages by Portway Tavern. George’s wife Mary used to take her to see her sister who lived there. Her husband worked at the quarry and the cottage was on the edge of the quarry.

Jus Joan had a great-uncle Jesse Plant who was killed in the 1st World war who lived at no. 12 Perry’s Lake.

Tony Holland said that he lived in the Portway Tavern from 1959 to about 1962. (It’s surprising how many people lived at the Portway Tavern at various times! I shall write a separate article on the Portway Tavern and the other pubs in the hamlets at some point!) He also knew the area as ‘Heaven’. At the end of Heaven on the left hand side was a field owned by a chap called Joe, presumably Joe Onions. The children played football there and called it Joe’s stadium. Tony said he hung about with kids from Irish families that lived there. He knew that the houses did not have electricity and relied on gas lighting. The cottages were still there in 1962 and there were about half a dozen then.

Stephanie Pullinger says that her great-grandad was a quarryman. As they lived in Tipperty Green she assumes that he worked at the Hailstone quarry but has very little information and would love to find out more. He and his brother, according to family legend, were characters. Apparently one night he brought a donkey home that he found on the way home from the pub. On another occasion he brought an old gypsy woman back much to her great grandmother’s disgust! Stephanie says that every time she thinks about that donkey she imagines its hooves clattering on the cobbles in the entry between the terraced houses.

Hailstone Quarry workers c.1910. Copyright unknown but will be gladly acknowledged on receipt of more information.

Mention of the entries between houses brought back a memory of his teenage years for David Steventon when he was helping the local milkman with deliveries each weekend. Obviously on such days one would collect payment for the week’s milk from the lady of the house. So at the front end of each entryway I would start singing, “Milk ho, milk ho, milk ho, ho, ho!” And sure enough, when he reached the back door the customer would be waiting with purse open to settle the debt.

Reg Parsons was born at Number2 Turner’s Hill in the bungalow his father had built after demolishing some old cottages which had stood on the site. He recalled Slim’s sweet shop which was the nearest shop and his parents’ shop in Doulton Road. He remembered Vera Cartwright with her milk cart. Amongst the local boys he had played with were those from the Simpson, Parkes, Robinson and Hopkins families who lived nearby. During WWII the field below the bungalow was used as a fuel dump, which consisted of concrete bases with piles of Jerry cans of fuel, securely fenced! There was an anti-aircraft gun nearby, near the Wheatsheaf Inn, something my late mother had also told me about. Reg’s brother Harry was in the Grenadier Guards and his sister Edna was in the Land Army, based in Evesham.

I have recounted elsewhere that Reg went to Britannia Road school and milked the cows at a farm on the way through Rowley, walking to and from school. From what Reg told me about where the bungalow was, I believe this was later replaced by a much bigger house by a local motor dealer Sid Riley who owned the Garage in Dudley Port, Caldene Motors. His niece Maggie Smith tells that he had a swimming pool in the basement of his house, which flooded the rest of the house, when quarry blasting damaged the footings.

If I am correct, this would have been the view from Reg and later Sid’s home.

View from top of Turner’s Hill. Copyright Catherine Ann.

Joyce Connop remembered that when she used to walk across Tippity Green (73 years ago!) to Doulton school there was nothing on the right hand side, only Ada’s cafe then she would cross over the bottom of Turners Hill. There was a row of houses, one had a shop in the front room, on the other side there were the grey looking council houses then and Stiffs concrete works, Portway Tavern and a row of terraced houses lay back where the golf range is now. There were a about half a dozen houses just round the corner from Ada’s cafe at the bottom of Turners Hill which were really old, Joyce remembers her mother saying they had earth floors. There were also about half a dozen terraced houses on the corner opposite the Bulls Head.

Joyce loved Ada’s café, Ada used to serve them with penny cakes on our way to school . She was seven, and remembers that it was lonely across there and no pavement then, noting that 7 year olds don’t walk all that way on their own to school now .

Playing on the edge

There were lots of places for children to play and have fun as with so much of the derelict land in the area, known as the ‘quack’, the ‘bonk’, the marlholes which abounded in the area.

Many children played around the quarries and some could remember falling over the edge. Pam Veal said that she fell off the top on to the ledge once.

Peter Greatbatch remembered in about 1965 when he was about 13, that he fell down the Hailstone quarry from top to bottom after climbing down it after a paper jet. He walked away, through the lorry entrance, with a sprained ankle and a cut at the back of his head, neither of these injuries serious! His brother David Greatbatch was there and also his friend Raymond Knowles who said to him after the incident “I thought you had had your chips there”. Peter says he will never forget it, the luckiest day of his life. Some years later, he added, he had another incident at the other quarry at Turner’s hill in the 70’s when he hit the big rocks put by the side of the quarry at the bottom of the hill. He was trying to broadside his Ford 1600E there in the snow. If those rocks weren’t there he and his three passengers would have ended up in that quarry. He says he would not have walked away from that one.

There was a pool at the Blue Rock quarry where David Wood and JJSmith used to fish, JJSmith commenting that he fell in more than once – the sides were very steep where the perch were and David Wood agreed that the sides were so steep you were lucky if you got out. Joyce Connop recounted that her brother had fallen in there when he was 10 and another lad got a lifesaving award for getting him out. Roger Harris remembered that he and his mates used to swim there, they used to make rafts out of old wood. One of his mates had a deep gash on his leg after hitting a sharp rock when he fell off an old bit of wood, noting that these were mad days in the 60s before such places were fenced off. There was little mention of Health and Safety in those days.

Sadly, not everyone who fell in got out. There were tragic memories of two brothers who drowned there, within living memory. It was believed that the younger fell in and his older brother jumped in to help him but neither could swim and both were lost, devastating their family and no doubt worrying legion mothers who urged their children not to go near such pools.

Riding on the Edge

Many people remembered riding lessons at Hailstone Farm. Ian Davies recalled that the Cartwrights ran Hailstone Farm which was off to the left on the way up Turners Hill. They were his relatives; his Geordie grandfather lived with them at Lamb Farm, near Portway Hall, when he first moved south in the early 1900s. By the 1950s George Cartwright had moved away to a farm near Bewdley and Hailstone Farm had been taken over by their daughter Vera and her husband George Thomas. George taught him to ride. The quarries were already threatening to swallow the farm back then. The narrow track from Turners Hill had quarries close on both sides. The farmhouse and top of the land were later swallowed up by the Tarmac mega-quarry.

Hailstone and Freebodies Farms, on the edge! copyright D Morris

Driving on the edge

The road between Perry’s Lake and Oakham, going up Turner’s Hill also had memories for many people. This was later closed and quarried away. There was a sheer drop on either side within a few feet of the road. Many people could remember walking up that road on their way to visit family. Roy Martin could remember when it was still open to two way traffic when he first drove up there. But being narrow with passing places, it was still dodgy so they made it one-way it uphill. But as John Packer remembered, a few people still used it as a short cut, as late as autumn 1968. Michael Bowater recounted that he just managed to escape serious injury walking up there one night on his way back from Brickhouse. A car coming up the hill was going too fast and he just about scrambled up the bank on the left, it was a close call, he noted, it was a good job he was young ,fit and agile. John Packer hoped the car wasn’t his red Hillman Imp!

This photograph shows the three main quarries with the Turner’s Hill Road, climbing between the top two roads. Note also the steep edge of the bottom quarry immediately behind Tippity Green.

Eileen Herbert could remember driving up Turners Hill with her dad to visit her aunt Rose Kite, Eileen lived in Highmoor Road and the siren before blasting was very loud from there. They always knew what time was as they could hear Lenches ” Bull” as well. “Long time ago but I can still hear them in my head!”

Angela Kirkham also recalled going to visit her gran, auntie and cousins (Tonks and Madley were the names), they used to visit on Sundays and always went over the quarry. She recalls that she spent most of her early childhood playing round the top of the quarry and the banks, sometimes with her brothers throwing bricks at other kids and sometimes at one another ! Angela’s Kirkham grandfather, father and uncles all worked in the quarries, they lived in Dane Terrace and Angela remembered that the blasts used to shake the house. These were presumably the Kirkham brothers Brian and Clifford who commented on the Facebook page that they all worked in the quarry, bringing the rock to the crusher or as a mechanic. Roger Harris also worked with them and said that, although the work was hard and the money wasn’t good, they had some laughs. Which sounds like a lot of life in the area!

Dropping off the edge

Not only people fell into the quarries. Gardens did too and other things! The map shows clearly that the quarries came right up to the edge of gardens in the hamlets.

1st Edition OS Map extract, Copyright David and Charles.

Graham Evan Beese recounted that his grandparents lived at number 50 Tippity Green until the bottom half of the garden fell down the quarry, pigs chickens and shed too. There is no word on the fate of the poor livestock! Graham’s grandparents were quickly moved to Eagle Close on the Brickhouse Farm estate.

Andrea James had a similar experience and recounts “We used to live along Tippity Green and our garden backed right onto the quarry , with only a tiny wire fence that , as children we could easily climb over. Every time they blasted we would lose a little of our garden.

In those days we didn’t have an inside toilet, ours was at the top of the garden and one morning I went to go to the loo …only to find out it had disappeared.

To add insult to injury I had a further telling off from mom when I woke her up to tell her the toilet had fallen down the quarry.”

Andrea added that, unlike Graham’s grandparents, her family were not rehoused after losing their loo, they used Mrs Faulkner’s loo next door for years! They stayed there until the row of terraced cottages were destroyed by a fire that started in the sweet shop . Their roof caught fire and Andrea’s father woke them all up to get out … her mom said “Oh my God ..where’s the dog ? “

Andrea’s dad said “He’s in the car with my fishing rods”. Andrea’s dad clearly had a good grasp of his priorities. They lost everything in the fire (except the dog and the fishing rods, of course) but her mom refused to move into the horrible maisonette she was offered so they lived in the burnt out shell, with help from local people, until they were offered a better house. Tough Black Country folk, these!

And if your garden didn’t fall into the quarry, it was still a risky place to live! Paul Pearson remembered when the air brake failed (or forgot to be put on) on one of the quarry wagons, and it rolled back down the driveway, across Portway road, down the gardens and into two houses. He said that there are still steel girders out in the front of the houses now that the quarry put up after this incident.

Working on the edge

As can be seen from all these memories the quarry loomed large over the village and especially the hamlets. Many local men and boys worked there, quite a few died there or were injured or maimed. Sarah Preston recounted that her great grandfather died in an accident there before her grandmother was born, he had done an extra shift to get extra money but didn’t live to see his daughter born.

There was regular daily blasting to loosen rock. Apparently when the blasting happened the workers sheltered under metal containers to save coming up away from the area. Anyone who lived or went to school within hearing distance of the quarries can remember how the day was punctuated by the regular sound of the siren at 10am and 1pm. Certainly I can remember it from my days at Rowley Hall Primary, although I do not remember it from my days at RRGs in Hawes Lane, perhaps the school there was that much lower down and on the other side of the hill. Recollections may vary, others may remember it from there, too.

Maggie Smith also notes that her son in law’s father owned a cafe in Low Town, Oldbury, called the Polar Bear. The cafe had to be pulled down to make way she thought for the magistrates court. It was taken in one piece and used as the cafe at the Hailstone quarry.

Many members of the ‘I remember Blackheath and Rowley Regis’ Facebook page have told of their memories of the sirens and the blasts. The blasting was not always without incident. Alan Homer recalled a rock coming through the roof of Toyes chippy on Dudley Road. Someone else (sorry, I can’t find this entry now!) remembered a rock coming through the roof of a toilet, just after she had finished cleaning it. Fortunately it was unoccupied at the time!

Kelvin Taylor noted that his family lived in Limes Avenue, a mile away below Britannia Park and could hear the siren and the blast if the wind was blowing in the right direction.

Graham Lamb remembered that his mother used to go mad because they had metal window frames and the blasts used to crack the glass, nearly every week his dad had to put a new pane in somewhere.

I have tried to gather these memories into a more or less coherent form and hope that people will enjoy reading about the life of the ordinary working people who lived in the Lost Hamlets. They had full, active, hard working and hard playing lives and formed strong communities. Though their physical homes have gone, something of their lives is recorded through these memories. Please feel free to contact me if there are more memories of family here that you would like to add.

The 1851 Census – some statistics

The population of Perry’s Lake, Gadd’s Green, Turner’s Hill and Tippity Green had expanded to from 384 to 412 since 1841. But there was more variation in jobs than in 1841 and more occupations were shown for women. Scholars were also noted, though not many and these are detailed in a later chart.

Occupations

Agricultural Labourer 3

Almspeople 2

Annuitants 4

Boat Loader 1

Butcher 1

Coal miners 36

Colliery Clerk 1

Dressmaker 3

Engine worker 1

Engineer 1

Errand boy 1

Farmer 1

Farm Labourer 2

Female Servant 4

Furnace Labourer 1

General Servant 5

Labourer 8

Laundress 1

Man servant 1

Mine agent & Surveyor 1

Nailer 117 57 W, 60M

Nail Master 1

Nail Reckoner 1

Nailer’s Tool Maker 1

National School Teacher 2

Needlewoman 1

Nurse 1

Proprietor of Lands 2

Puddler 1

Retired nailer 1

Stone Cutter 4

Stone labourer 2

Stone miner 1

Turnpike Gate Keeper 1

Victualler and butcher 1

White ash maker 1

So the number of different occupations has changed since 1841, some with only I or two people.

Nail making is still the dominant occupation, with miners the only other numerous group. The numbers of men and women are about equal. In most of this group the enumerator describes people making nails as ‘Nail forgers’, a recognition that they were skilled workers producing wrought iron nails in their forges, though another enumerator still calls them simply ‘nailers’. It is possible that some women and children made nails and simply did not declare it, also that some men made nails when other work was not available (such as agricultural workers in winter) or when they got home from work, so the number of nailmakers may be understated.

Other metal working trades such as a furnace labourer and a puddler are noted so skills were diversifying as new industries expanded or moved into the area.

Stone quarrying is not as big an employer as I had expected although it is possible that some of the labourers worked at the quarry and had not specified that, in addition to those who were listed with a specific stone working skill.

Professionals such as an engineer, a Mine Agent and two teachers (brother and sister) have appeared. The former Census showed John Whitehouse as the Registrar of Births and Deaths but in this Census his wife is shown as a widow so presumably this role passed to someone else.

The ‘nurse’ was a child of 8.

The Bull’s Head in Tippity Green was a public house, dating from 1834, though owned by the Dudley family and Benjamin Bowater is listed as ‘Vittler and Butcher’ in Tippity Green in this census, presumably at the Bull’s Head –and the name may have come from Benjamin’s alternative occupation! Publicans were ‘Licensed Victuallers’ so this fits. Hitchmough’s invaluable guide to Black Country pubs lists Joseph Bowater as Licensee from 1834-1854. There is no Joseph Bowater listed in the hamlets in this census though there is a Joseph Bowater who was landlord of a pub in Cradley Heath so perhaps it was a family occupation. Benjamin Bowater also had another butcher and three servants living in his household so could divide his time between butchery and inn-keeping. According to Hitchmough, The Portway Tavern was licensed premises from about 1850, according to Hitchmough with James Adshead Levett Snr and Jnr and then William Levett holding that licence for the next half century. There is no mention of a tavern in the census or of a licensee. It is possible that the Tavern was already operating informally as a pub at the time of this census, the Levetts who ran it later were based at Brickfield Farm in 1851 though away from home on the census night.

For the chart I have combined the jobs associated with nailing and other occupations into groups.

Where did people come from?

Binton, Warwickshire 2

Gloucestershire, St Briavels 1

Herefordshire 1

Lancashire 1

Leicestershire, Mountsorrel 6

Shropshire, Old Park 1

Shropshire, Broseley 1

Shropshire, Stottesdon 1

Somerset, Wellington 2

Staffordshire, Rowley Regis 364

Staffordshire, Sedgley 1

Staffordshire, Tipton 4

Staffordshire, Wednesbury 1

Staffordshire, Wednesfield 1

Staffordshire, West Bromwich 1

Staffordshire, Tettenhall 1

Staffordshire, Tipton 2

Warwickshire, Birmingham 6

Warwickshire, Coventry 1

Warwickshire, Nuneaton 1

Warwickshire, Sambourn 1

Worcestershire, Dudley 6

Worcestershire, Halesowen 2

Worcestershire, Oldbury 1

Worcestershire, Wychbold 1

Again, the great majority are from Rowley itself, with a sprinkling from the surrounding area. Looking at other places, such as Mountsorrel in Leicestershire, I was interested when I looked this up to find that it was renowned for its granite quarry, just like Rowley Regis, so presumably the skills required were transferable. St Briavels in Gloucestershire was in the heart of the Forest of Dean Free Mining area so again there was a common industry.

How old were they?

Men Women

Age

80+ 1 –

75-79 1

70-74 1 5

65-69 1 1

60-64 3 3

55-59 2 3

50-54 9 10

45-49 9 7

40-44 8 9

35-39 12 6

30-34 11 12

25-29 19 20

20-24 27 18

15-19 26 18

As in the 1841 Census, not many lived much past sixty.

Younger people under the age of 15

14 3 5

13 2 3

12 4 5

11 2 4

10 5 7

9 7 6

8 5 4

7 9 5

6 1 5

5 9 3

4 3 7

3 8 9

2 4 5

1 7 7

-1 5 7

74 boys, 82 girls.

Scholars by age

Boys Girls

13 – 1

12 1 1

11 – 1

10 3 1

9 4 1

8 2 1

7 5 2

6 1 –

5 2 1

4 – 3

18 boys out of 74 and 11 girls out of 82 were at school. We do not know how many children were at school in 1841 but this shows that schooling was still far from the norm. Literacy was very much the exception, especially for girls, it seems and from the age of about eight, children were making nails and some were employed outside the home in quarries and mines.

I hope these statistics will be of interest. There will be more for the later censuses, as I transcribe and analyse them. Apologies for the poor quality images – technologically challenged author here, though creating charts is new for me so I am learning!

Hopefully, as more censuses are done we shall be able to see the occupations change over time and I hope to do more detailed work on the families there.

I’m a fan of the FAN method of research!

I am a ‘FAN’ fan!

Genealogy or family history research is a very broad interest. It encompasses those who just want to track a direct line, father’s line only and who are not interested in siblings or female lines; those who insist on three separate pieces of written proof before anyone is added to their tree (which can be difficult once you go back a couple of centuries when a single parish register entry may be the only piece of evidence you can find); those who are desperate to find that they are related to someone famous. “I am a sixth cousin, 32 times removed from this famous actor/president/Mayflower passenger!” seems to crop up fairly regularly on some family history online groups. Or related to Royalty… I resist the temptation to say ‘So what? ‘. Although there is a theory that all white Europeans are related to royalty through William the Conqueror, Charlemagne or Edward III, prolific breeders all, on both sides of the blanket. Edward III has been referred to as ‘the Clapham Junction of English Genealogy’ as ‘all lines go through him’. That probably had more meaning when we had a better railway network…

And then there are those, like me, who research all direct ancestors, their siblings and in-laws and then their sideways connections. So I sometimes find myself diligently searching online for someone’s marriage or death, glance up at their page on my Ancestry tree to check what their relationship is to me to find that I am spending this time on someone who is a “paternal grandfather of wife of 1st cousin 5x removed”. Ah, maybe not spend too much more time on this then. Now, what was I doing before I went down this rabbit hole? But hey, it’s interesting… and it’s surprising how often familiar names and addresses crop up and you do get a picture of how families interrelated.

There is a research technique in family history called the FAN method – Friends, Associates, Neighbours. By looking at the people around your ancestors, at home, at work, at church or chapel, you build a fuller picture of their lives, are more likely to have an impression of what they were like, you may find neighbours who subsequently marry into your family. Always look a page or two either side of your ancestor on censuses and maybe more in a parish register, you may find other relatives there. And noting the names of the witnesses of a marriage may act as a confirmation that you have the right one, if a parent or sibling signed.

My husband started researching his family history while he was waiting for me to finish some research in Gloucester Local Studies Library many years ago. He decided to look for his grandmother in the census, as he knew where she had lived in the West End of Gloucester. This was in the days before the internet so you sat in a library or archive or record office, winding through a microfilm page by page, not much indexing. I was using a neighbouring film reader to look at press reports and heard a little “Ha! Got you!” when he found her. ‘That’s you hooked’, I thought. I was right…

He carefully noted down the details and we left to continue our day. It was only some weeks later as he explored more marriage and birth details that he realised that his granny’s maternal grandparents had been living next door – another trip to the library! So the FAN method can be very useful.

In looking at the families who lived in the Lost Hamlets, I suppose I am doing the ultimate FAN exercise. Preparing detailed family trees however, even for what I think of as the ‘core families’ who lived there over a number of decades, would mean creating at least 14 family trees, possibly more than 20, which is daunting, even for me.

There are things that will help. There is a wonderful online site called Black Country Connections which was started on the basis that it was very likely that many Rowley and Blackheath folk were related to each other and this is undoubtedly correct. So I can go to that tree and see whether any of the core families are listed (yes, mostly they are!) and have a head start on how they connect, possibly when and where they married and who their children were, all useful stuff.

And I have realised that in the 1841 Census, the Cole family had six households in these hamlets and most of these were already on my personal tree, three brothers and their father, so I have a head start there and have decided for now to start with them and work outwards, as it were, since they often intermarried with members of the other ‘core families’. In the last couple of weeks I’ve spent some time revisiting my original research done many years ago and expanding it in earlier generations, doing more work on siblings to my direct ancestors where I had not previously traced their descendants, too. Very enjoyable, if something of a rat’s nest! And uncovered some fascinating stories about them, so I will be posting some of their stories in due course. Apologies to those who have been waiting for another post, I have been busy gathering new information.

This photograph shows my original paper Family Tree, started in about 1980. It’s fair to say that it has expanded a bit since then. My current tree, stored digitally, has over 5000 people on it. Nonetheless, my original research in Smethwick Library and other archives all those years ago has proved very accurate, fortunately, as more and more records became available digitally to check against!

Interesting stories about your Lost Hamlets ancestors would be warmly welcomed!

Some statistics about the people living in the hamlets in 1841

So.. What did they do for a living?

In 1841, the population of Tippity Green, Perry’s Lake, Gadds Green and Turner’s Hill numbered 384.

The occupations listed for them were:

Blacksmith 1

Butcher 1

Coal Miners 13

Farmers 5

Female servants 8

Forge filer 1

Independent means 1

Ironmonger 1

Jobbing Smith 1

Labourers 9

Male Servants 5

Nail factor 1

Nail tinner 1

Nailmakers 38

Publicans 1

Registrar of B&D 1

Shoemaker 1

Stick dresser 1

Warehouseman 1

Wash for hire 1

A couple of entries have no occupation shown, this may be because those men were out of work or simply an omission.

Nailmaking was by far the dominant occupation, coal mining was not yet a major employer . Very few occupations were listed for women unless they were widows, despite the fact that most women and many children also made nails at this time. No scholars were listed though that may not mean that no children went to school, there was at least one school in Rowley Regis at this time, it simply may not have been recorded.

Note that the local Registrar of Births and Deaths John Woodhouse was living in Tippity Green, his son William would succeed him in that role in due course. I have many copy certificates of births and deaths with their signatures.

There appear to have been few shopkeepers at this time, people had to be self-sufficient or buy necessities from further afield, although there may have been some informal grocery shops in front rooms! Many households would have kept chickens and pigs and may have acquired the occasional rabbit for the pot, and presumably grown vegetables if they had gardens.

Where were they from?

Only 46 of the 384 were born outside the County of Staffordshire.

Of these 46 only 10 were born in Scotland, Ireland or Foreign Parts. 5 men and 5 women. No information is shown in this census about where others came from but more is shown in later censuses.

How old were they?

Ages in the 1841 Census were supposed to be rounded down to the nearest five years. So if you were 38, your age was shown as 35. A trap which can mislead family historians who are not aware of this and who are looking for an ancestor of a particular age. And at this time ordinary people were often neither literate nor numerate so ages in this Census should be treated with caution

In this chart the ages are shown along the bottom. As it shows, it appears that living beyond 50 was good going and beyond 60 was a rarity. Two of the four aged 75 were men living in Tippity Green in the Parish Poorhouse, one of them blind, the first woman was living on Turner’s Hill, the ‘wash for hire’ listed in the occupations and the second woman was living alone in Perry’s Lake. But with no pensions, most people worked for as long as they lived.

Ages of adults:

Younger people

The Census required the ages of those under 15 to be shown by year, perhaps to enable the Government to track child mortality.

Children’s ages in the 1841 Census

Transcribing burial records for Rowley Regis has shown me that great numbers of babies died – of debility, decline, lung and bowel problems – before their first birthdays. These will often not appear at all in Census records if their short lives fell between censuses. And older children succumbed to whooping cough, smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, typhus fever (as did numerous adults) and consumption (Tuberculosis). Poor nutrition, cramped living conditions and exposure to smoke and air pollution would not have helped.

My apologies for the poor quality of some of these images: I am new to this medium and on a steep learning curve, I hope this will improve as I become more accustomed to it.

So these are the basic statistics for the population of the lost hamlets taken from the 1841 Census. In future posts, I will explore more about the families behind the numbers.