Category: Social life in the Lost Hamlets

Memories of local people who grew up in the Lost Hamlets.

The Redfern Family in the Lost Hamlets 1

The 1841 Census for the Lost Hamlets has one family of Redferns – Joseph Redfern was living on Turners Hill, a labourer, with his age given as 35. His wife Maria (sometimes Ann Maria), nee Priest, has her age as 40. Joseph and Maria appear to have been married at Tipton on 16 Jul 1827. Maria sometimes used Ann Maria and sometimes Maria, in records throughout her life. Their children Sarah aged 12, Eliza aged 10, Joseph aged 8, William, aged 6 and Ann, aged 4 completed the family, all of the children were born in Rowley Regis.

In later censuses, Joseph gave his age as 48 in 1851, giving a birth year of about 1803. I can find no baptism for a Joseph Redfern in the area in that year, so it is possible that he was born elsewhere, though he consistently says in censuses that he was born in Rowley Regis. Another possibility is that he was baptised in a non-conformist chapel. Certainly, the Priest family into which he married had very strong connections with the Presbyterian Chapel in Cradley Heath which was also in the parish of Rowley Regis.

Maria or Ann Maria gives her age in 1851 as 50 which gives her birth year of 1801. The only baptism I can find for this period of a likely Ann Maria is Maria, the daughter of Cornelius and Mary Priest of Bournbrook , Cradley Heath who was baptised at St Giles, Rowley Regis on 4 Oct 1801. But this is by no means certain, there may be another baptism somewhere that I have simply not been able to find.

The fact that Joseph and Maria were married in Tipton perhaps argues that she was not connected to the Cradley Heath Priests but I cannot find another Maria or Ann Maria baptised in the Tipton area either. And since Maria had had a baby out of wedlock, it seems possible that her family sent her to stay with relatives in Rowley to hide the shame for the family (possibly their view, not mine!). And it seems that David Priest , living with his family in Gadds Green in 1841 was born in Cradley Heath and directly related to the Priest families there so they would have been known to each other and were probably related.

At various points Joseph gives his occupation as a labourer or a furnace man or a furnace labourer. This seems to have been a common occupation for the Redferns as at least two of his sons were also furnace labourers. In 1856, at his son Joseph’s marriage his occupation was given as a Blast Furnace man. One census entry notes that he is a furnace labourer in a coal mine (fires were kept burning at the bottom of shafts to pull air through the mines and reduce the build-up of explosive gases) but others were noted as Blast Furnace labourers, a very different job. I am unsure where the nearest blast furnaces were to Turner’s Hill, possibly at Tividale/Tipton where there were extensive iron works and at least three furnaces shown on the 1st Edition OS Map though there were almost certainly others in the area including Brades where a furnace is also shown. If Joseph was working at the iron works in the Tividale/Tipton area, this may account for the marriage at Tipton church.

Ist Edition OS Map, copyright David & Charles, surveyed about 1830. Several furnaces and iron works are shown on this map including ones at Tipton and Dudley Port, also at Brades.

Ann Maria

The name Ann Maria is used frequently in the family from this point on, often, it appears, with the name Maria being used day to day. Almost all Joseph and Ann Maria’s children and many of their grandchildren named one of their daughters Ann Maria so they are liberally scattered around the family tree!

Are they on my family tree?

Yet again, having thought when I started this study that I had no connections with the Redferns, I now find that I have two, so far, as Cornelius Priest was already in my family tree!  I suspect that the more I look in detail at the families in the Lost Hamlets, the more I shall find that my lines are married into them at some point, sometimes several points, perhaps a natural result of them living in such small communities with limited contact with other communities.  So yes, they are on my tree!

Who was Thomas Priest?

Thomas Priest, aged 15 was also living with the Redfern family on Turners Hill. The 1841 Census does not show relationships within households. Thomas was baptised at Dudley St Thomas on 26 Mar 1826, the son of Ann Maria Priest and there is no name shown in the Register for the father so he was probably illegitimate. Joseph and Ann Maria were married in July 1827, fifteen months later so this was certainly not a hasty marriage shortly before or after Thomas’s birth. There are several family trees on Ancestry which suggest that this Thomas was the illegitimate son of Ann Maria and Joseph, born before they were married.

My expert consultant on such issues agreed with me however that, at this time, when parents of an illegitimate child subsequently married, that child usually then became known by the father’s name and is shown in sequence in censuses as the oldest child whereas step children tend to be listed after full children. Since Thomas is shown at the end of the household in 1841, and with the name Priest, not Redfern, and after Joseph and Ann Maria’s other younger children, I suspect that he was not Joseph Redfern’s child but a stepson. It was very common at that time for stepchildren to use their stepfather’s surname or to swap between the two names so the later use of the Redfern name is not conclusive. The only document I can find which lists Thomas as Priest is the 1861 Census when Thomas was living in between his stepfather and stepbrother. I suspect that the enumerator knew that Thomas had grown up in the Redfern household and perhaps thought of him as a Redfern so that the use here is an enumerator error. Certainly all of Thomas’s children were registered as Priest, not Redfern.

At his own marriage to Emma Moreton in 1850, at Dudley St Thomas, Thomas gave the name of his father as Joseph Priest, a Furnaceman, not Joseph Redfern – although he was also a Furnaceman!

There was at least one Joseph Priest in the area who is of about the right age and could have been this man but although there was one family of Priests at Finger i’ the hole in 1841 there is no Joseph listed there and other Priest families appeared to have been in Blackheath and especially in Cradley Heath (which is also where I theorise that Maria’s family were living). It is also possible that the priest asked ‘What is your father’s name and Thomas replied ‘Joseph’ and this was attached to Thomas’s surname of Priest so that gave Joseph Priest. Or Thomas may simply have invented a father’s name, rather than have that space empty, thus showing that he was illegitimate, something that genealogists find is not uncommon with illegitimate children.

A DNA test might prove the final answer to this, perhaps the current members of the Redfern family have done this and established the answer to their satisfaction!

Certainly in later years, Thomas remained in the hamlets, at one stage he and his family were living next door to other members of the Redfern family for several decades.

I shall do a separate post about the Priest family.

Where had the Redferns come from?

One of the crests associated with the Redfern family, courtesy of Andrew Redfern.

Wikipedia suggests that Redfern is an English surname of French Norman origin. It originally appeared as De Redeven.

The first Redfern mentioned in the St Giles’s Parish Registers is the baptism of Ann, the daughter of William and Sarah Redfern on 9th December 1792, followed by John, their son on 20 May 1798. This John must have died, (although I cannot find a burial for him), as another John was baptised to William and Sarah on 11 Jul 1802.

In 1813,Elizabeth, daughter of William (a farmer) and Sarah Redfern of Piddocks Green, Rowley Regis was baptised on 5th August, in June 1815 Edward, son of William and Sarah of Plants Green, farmer,  was baptised . Plants Green was certainly in the Old Hill/Cradley Heath area but I do not know where Piddocks Green was, it may well have been the same place, place names were sometimes quite flexible.

On 19th January 1817 Henry Smith Redfern, base born son of Mary Redfern of Turner’s Hill was baptised (there may just be a clue as to the identity of his father there, although I haven’t looked any further into that!).

On 15th July 1821, William, son of John and Mary Redfern of Turners Hill, a nailer, was baptised, followed by sister Rebekah on 7 September 1823. On 25 September 1825 Joseph, son of John and Mary, now described as a labourer and of Lye Cross was baptised. On 9 Mar 1828 Mary Ann Redfern of Lye Cross, died, aged 28 of Fever.

On 4 December 1832 Esther Redfern of Mincing Lane, aged 30, died of diabetes.

On 7 Jul 1833 Elizabeth Redfern of Dudley Wood was buried, aged 27, having died of decline.

On 16 Oct 1839, John Redfern of Turners Hill, aged 9 months died of measles.

On 13 February 1848, Harriet, daughter of William (a miner) and Ann Redfern of Portway was baptised.

On 2 December 1849, William Redfern of Turners Hill was buried, aged 81, the cause of death being given as Old age.

So clearly there were Redferns in the area, including Turner’s Hill and Lye Cross as early as 1821.

Both Joseph and Ann Redfern give their place of birth consistently in all censuses as Rowley Regis. And yet, I cannot find baptism for a Joseph Redfern in Rowley or in the surrounding area.

At least some of Joseph and Ann Maria’s children were baptised at Dudley St Thomas, Joseph and Eliza both on 12 Aug 1832, with Joseph’s occupation given as a Furnaceman and their abode as Rowley Regis. William was baptised there on 2 Jul 1837 and Ann Maria was baptised the same day.

Also at St Thomas, John, son of John (another Furnaceman) and Mary Redfern of Portway, was baptised there on 18 Oct 1835.

So it appears that these Redferns moved between St Thomas at Dudley and St Giles at Rowley, which seems to be quite common for families living in this area. And there were Redferns scattered around both Rowley and the wider neighbourhood after about 1790.

To muddy the waters, Solomon (one of Joseph and Ann Maria’s later children, to be covered in a later post) appears to be a Redfern family name. There are Solomon Redferns in Stockport in Cheshire in 1866 and in Meltham near Huddersfield in 1852, though that name is spelled Redfearn.  And in Denton, Lancashire in 1866. Although all of these Solomons were married to a Mary so it is possible that they are all the same person, moving around!

Online trees trace Joseph’s birth to Stanley in Derbyshire, but I have not investigated this possibility any further, since Joseph himself believed that he had been born in Rowley Regis and there were certainly Redferns in the area at that time.

So this is the Redferns in the Lost Hamlets in the 1841 Census. Since this is such a short piece, I will add some details about:

Joseph and Maria’s older children (those listed in the 1841 Census)

Sarah Redfern 1829-1885

The oldest daughter Sarah, who was aged 12 in 1841 was no longer in the household by 1851. In fact she was living at 84 Snow Hill, Birmingham where she was a servant in the household of Josiah Blackwell, who was a grocer. She was described as a House Servant but there were also three other Assistant Grocers living in so there would have been plenty to keep her busy. Snow Hill Station was, of course, the Birmingham Station familiar to those of us who used the train into Birmingham, that trains from Rowley and Blackheath later ran in to on the Great Western line but the station was not built until 1852 so it was not open when Sarah was working there. But a long row of shops remained long afterwards, running down the hill. Rowley Regis and Blackheath Station did not open until 1867! But even without the busy station that Snow Hill became later, there must have been quite a contrast between the rural outlook of Turners Hill and the increasingly busy city of Birmingham.

On 25 Dec 1854 Sarah Redfern was to marry William Damby or Danby, a miner, at Dudley St. Thomas.

Her father Joseph’s occupation then was given as a Furnace labourer and a Joseph Redfern was one of the  witnesses, possibly her brother Joseph who would have been 21 by this time but more likely to have been her father. Sarah and William had ten children, born in Cradley Heath and then The Knowle before William died at The Knowle in January 1873, aged only 41. He was buried in St Giles. By 1881 Sarah had moved to Dudley with the younger four of her children. Among the children of the couple were several with the recurring Redfern names, including Ann Maria (known as Maria) and a Solomon. Sarah died in December 1885, aged 58 and was buried on 20 Dec 1885 at St Giles, with her abode shown as 26 Cinder Bank, Netherton.

So Sarah does not appear in the hamlets after the 1841 Census, although at one later stage she was living at The Knowle, just around the corner from Lost hamlets.

Eliza Redfern – 1831-1909

The next daughter was Eliza, born in about 1831/2, and baptised on 12 August 1831 at Dudley St Thomas was still at home in 1851. On 15 Jun 1859 Eliza married Daniel Hughes at St. James Church Parish, Dudley, and the couple made their home in Dudley, where they had 5 children. Eliza died in September 1909. So Eliza only appears in the hamlets in one more Census, the 1851, before moving to Dudley.

Joseph Redfern 1833-1912

Joseph stayed firmly on Turners Hill, all his life, and married Ann Maria Taylor in 1856, another Ann Maria! Was she related? There were certainly Taylors living on Turners Hill so I shall check this out. Emma Redfern was born in the June qtr of 1854, but Joseph and Ann Maria did not marry until June 1856 so it is not known whether or not Emma was Joseph’s child. However, she was always described as his daughter on census returns and used the name Redfern until her marriage so she may have been. Joseph and Ann Maria went on to have Thomas in 1856, William in 1858, Sarah in 1860, Ann Maria in 1864, Samuel in 1866, Joseph in 1869, John in 1870 and James in 1873.

In 1861 there were three Redfern families living in a row on  Turners Hill, this Joseph, his brother (or half-brother) Thomas Priest/Redfern and his father. By 1871, Joseph was working as a labourer in a ‘potyard’, presumably Doulton’s factory. In his census entry in 1901, Joseph was, at 69, still working as a labourer in the stone quarry. In 1911, still at Turners Hill, he was noted as a pottery labourer but also Old Age Pensioner, a whole lifetime of hard physical labouring of one sort or another.  

He states in 1911 that his marriage had resulted in 9 children of whom only four were still alive. Ann Maria died in 1903, buried on 14 Jul 1903 and Joseph died in 1912. He was buried on 07 May 1912 at St Giles, his abode given as 3, Turners Hill.

William Redfern 1835-1917

William also stayed in the hamlets, living on Turners Hill until his marriage to Elizabeth While in Halesowen in 1871, when he moved to 6 Perry’s Lake where he stayed until his death in January 1917. William and Elizabeth had no children. William was a general labourer all his life, sometimes working at the pottery and his last census entry in 1911 he stated that he was an “Old Age Pensioner, Retired Labourer Moving Pipes”. William was buried at St Giles on 17 Feb 1917. Elizabeth died in 1926 and the entry in the Burial Register at St Giles says that she was ‘late of Perrys Lake’.

Ann Redfern 1838-1919

Ann Maria married Frederick Hadley in the Dudley Registration District in the last quarter of 1857, (although I only know this from GRO Index and have not yet found the marriage).  They lived in Lye Cross for a while before moving to Turners Hill and they had at least eight children: Joseph in 1859, William in 1861, Mary in 1863, Ann Maria in 1865, Thomas in 1868, Sarah in 1871, Eliza in 1877 and Ellen in 1881. They stayed living on Turners Hill, next door to Ann’s older brother Joseph until their last census entry in 1901. Frederick died in 1909 and was buried at St Giles on 31 Jul 1909. Ann died in 1919 and was buried at St Giles on 13 Mar 1919.

Thomas Priest or Redfern 1823-

Thomas was the illegitimate son of Ann Maria or Maria Priest, probably not the son of Joseph Redfern. He married Emma Morton on 10 June 1850 at Dudley St  Thomas. Emma had two children before this marriage, John in 1847 and Sarah in the March quarter of 1850. It is not clear whether these were Thomas’s children although they both subsequently used the Priest surname. Thomas and Emma had at least a further eight children: Joseph in 1854, Thomas in 1857, Ann Maria in 1858 (who died the same year), Ann Maria and Elizabeth (twins) in 1859, Mary in 1862, Eliza in 1865 and Emma in 1867. Emma, wife of Thomas died in 1895 and was buried on 04 Aug 1895 at St Giles.

Thomas Priest died in January 1905 and was buried on 19 Jan 1905 at St Giles, with his abode still given as 2 Turners Hill so he had lived there for nearly 50 years.  

So this is all relating to the Redfern family as they were shown in the 1841 Census. There were more children born to Joseph and Ann Maria later but I will cover them in another post.

The Redfern Family One Name Study

There is a website about the Redfern family which is linked to a Redfern One Name Study and this may be of interest and allow Redfern family members to join forces to compare their information. Andrew Redfern who runs the website and study would welcome contacts with members of the Redfern family wherever they are. Here is the link:

https://redfernsworldwide.com/

The Farms in the Lost Hamlets

As I have mentioned before, although the landscape around Rowley became industrialised and scarred by mining, clay extraction and quarrying, much of Turners Hill remained open countryside and in use for farming, supplying the local population with milk and eggs until well into the 20th century and much of the area on the hill is now being returned to a green condition as quarries are filled in.

There were several farms on the Rowley side of Turners Hill itself, and this post is principally about Freebodies Farm, Hailstone Farm and Turners Hill Farm with a mention of Lamb Farm, nearer to Portway Hall. To local people these farms were often known by the names of the farmers living there at the time but on maps their traditional name are usually shown.  Of the local farms, there were apparently at least four dairy farms in the area in the 1920s and 30s, run by the Monk, Richards, Merris and Skidmore families.

At an early stage there was a Mill or Windmill Farm at Tippity Green although this was not identified in the later censuses, it appears to have been on the site of the former parish windmill and this area was subsequently quarried away.

This photograph of the Ibberty (later Tippity) Manorial Mill appears in J Wilson Jone’s book, The History of the Black Country which was published in about 1950 although the date of the photograph is not known.

In 1841 Edward Alsop aged 60 was listed as a farmer at the Wind Mill Farm in Tippity Green, with his presumed wife and four children, plus a male servant. Next listed on the Census was Elizabeth Lewis, aged 40, an ironmonger, with her family and then Joseph Bowater who was a butcher and subsequent licensee of the Bulls Head so that is the correct area in Tippity Green. Neither the Alsop nor Lewis families are listed in the area by the time of the next census.

There was also a Knowle Farm but this is not quite within the area of the Lost Hamlets and I have not indexed the Census for this area.  

Also, the late Anthony Page has a picture in his first book on Rowley of Warren’s Hall Farm which was over the top of the hill on the Oakham Road, a large white house. It later also had riding stables and later still became a residential Nursing Home before being demolished and replaced by housing. Again, it is not quite within my study area and I have not indexed the census for this area.

Portway Farm, also slightly outside my study area, still exists though no longer in farming use, perhaps the only one of all these farms to have survived as a building to the present day.

The Censuses

The Censuses are not consistent about how the farms were recorded. Sometimes they were not listed by name. Where I have been able to identify the farms I have shown the results under details about each farm. To date I have only transcribed censuses for the Study area up to 1881. Later ones will follow in due course and I hope to upload the transcripts to a website for the Study at some point. 

Not all the censuses include the acreage farmed by each farm but where they do, they vary considerably from one census to the next which does not help with the identification process.

Where on Turners Hill were the farms?

I was very unclear until recently exactly where each of these farms was although I think I have them identified now. No doubt someone will help me out if I have this wrong!

Freebodies Farm and Hailstone Farm were next to each other down a lane on the left off the Turners Hill Road, above the Hailstone quarry with the Hailstone Farmyard being at the end of the track in the area shown on OS maps as Gadds Green. Hailstone Farm occupied the two buildings shown on the left on this photograph and Freebodies the three buildings on the right.

The date of this photograph is not known (copyright also unknown but will be gladly acknowledged if informed) but the two farms are very much on the brink of the quarries so probably 1960s.

Turners Hill Farm was further up the hill, on the right.

Turners Hill Farm, 1969. Copyright: Mike Fenton

Many of the fields were divided not by hedges but by stone walls which is a very common practice in areas where there is a ready supply of stone for use, as in the Cotswolds and in the Yorkshire Dales. There were some hedges, though, because Reg Parsons who grew up at 2 Turners Hill in the late 1930s told me that his mother loved the wild sweet peas which grew in the hedges near there. He remembered Vera Cartwright with the milk cart which delivered daily to Blackheath, Whiteheath, Langley and Rowley Regis, seven days a week. Before the advent of milk bottles, milk in most parts of the country was taken round in churns and cans and the cans were taken into the customer’s house to be dispensed into their own jugs. This was not just in Rowley, my husband can remember, as a boy, helping his uncle with his milk round in Gloucester where the same system was used. He also said that the horse or pony would know the route and stopping places where they would wait patiently for the milk to be dispensed before moving on to the next stop.

Reg Parsons also remembered that there was a field below his home on Turners Hill which was used as an fuel dump in the Second World War, he remembers piles of Jerry Cans on concrete bases and also an anti-aircraft gun (known apparently as Big Bertha) near the Wheatsheaf pub. My mother used to be on fire watch sometimes during the war, with the St John’s Ambulance brigade and  she also remembered the gun there. Sarah notes that one of her grandfather’s fields was requisitioned by the army so this would have been for the fuel storage that Reg remembers and she also tells of family memories that during the war a German bomb landed on one of the fields killing a cow. And during air raids, the ponies pulling the milk carts had to be unharnessed in case they bolted, with all the potential loss of milk and vehicles. Later, in the 1950s, six caravans were put on the site which were lived in by local people.

Many people have mentioned their memories of the Cartwright family who farmed at Hailstone Farm on Turner’s Hill for many decades and who had a riding school, as well as the milk round. Sarah Thomas has written a fascinating book called Hailstone Farm about life on the farms there which she has published privately and, having come across my study online, she has very kindly sent me a copy but with the stipulation that she does not wish to have any of the contents to be put on social media. However, she tells me that she has deposited copies of the book in national and local archives so it would be well worth enquiring, if you are visiting local archives or perhaps Blackheath library, whether they hold a copy. Certainly Dudley Archives lists a copy and Sandwell Archives appear to but do not specify where it is held and it is not reservable through the library system. The book is full of photographs and pictures of documents and family memories and history. I will not be reproducing anything from it but it will inform me about the farms and where they were so that this study has a more accurate record of the farms and their ownership over recent years.

Freebodies Farm, Turner’s Hill

There has been, if not specifically a farm, then an area known as Freebodies on Turners Hill for centuries.

A Survey of English Place Names refers to it as an ‘early-attested site in the Parish of Dudley , a name of the manorial type, deriving from the family of Frebodi  found in Dudley in 1275 and 1327’. Bear in mind that for centuries the main route from Rowley to Dudley ran over Turners Hill so directly through the site where Freebodies Farm later was.  There was, may still be, an area of Dudley called Freebodies in the Kates Hill area of Dudley and the Freebodies Tavern was there until very recently.

The Morgan website has a large amount of well documented and referenced information on local families and the area and notes that a document in the Dudley Archives shows that there was a Deed Poll in about 1550 by a William Chambers Alias Ireland assigning ancient ecclesiastical land of the Priory of St John’s at Halesowen. A number of his descendants for the next 150 years appear in the local records of Rowley Regis and Dudley, using the names ‘Chambers alias Ireland’  These include intermarriages with the Darby family. The name Ireland is sometimes spelled ‘Ierland’ or ‘Yearland’. The same document demonstrates that they owned ex-monastic lands at Rowley called Freebodies, and this reference recurs in a number of later Darby wills. If you have Chambers/Irelands/Darbys or Cartwrights on your family tree it is well worth looking at this site https://www.morganfourman.com/  Sadly I have none of these names in my tree!

A survey by Lord Dudley’s Stewards in 1556 produced a rent roll in which William Ireland’s Freebodys, later called Freebury Farm is recorded, suggesting that it was established before the neighbouring Hailstone Farm.

A Will of John Chambers in 1870, implies that the farm on Turners Hill was originally part of the Freebodies estate. Certainly, John Chamber’s brother William was an executor of his will and was described as a farmer of Rowley Regis.

At other times it was known as Freebury Farm. Spelling was very variable in those days!

Censuses for Freebodies: At Freebodies Farm in 1841 were Josiah Parkes and his family (including Sophia Cole who was mentioned in my earlier article about the Cole families around Turners Hill, and one male and one female servant.

However, there is no mention of Freebodies in the 1861 Census nor any farmer listed in Gadds Green.  However, listed as Farmhouse, Turners Hill and as a farmer of 30 acres is William Smith, aged 54 with his wife Sarah and his Levett granddaughter, plus two servants. Was this Freebodies?

In 1871 there is no mention of Freebodies Farm but two households are listed as ‘adjoining Hailstone Farm’ – John Bradshaw, an agricultural labourer aged 26 with his wife and his 11 month old son plus his brother aged 21 and also an ag lab. The brothers had both been born in Haselor, Warwickshire and his wife in Solihull. Also described as living ‘adjoining Hailstone Farm’ was a blacksmith Henry Russell aged 33 with his wife and daughter. So both of these households were from outside the area. It is possible that the land of the two farms was being worked together and the farmhouse used to house either farm workers or tenants.

The next building listed is Brickhouse Farm which was some distance away in Cock Green on the Dudley Road and which was being farmed by the Levett family with one ag lab and one female servant. There is sometimes no accounting for the routes taken by census enumerators!

Or was there a well established path across the fields between Hailstone and the Dudley Road at Springfield which everyone used? This seems likely as Reg Parsons mentioned to me that his father, on his way home from work, would sometimes get off the bus at Springfield to buy something from the shop there and would then cut up over the  fields to home. This does seem more practical than the residents up on the hill always having to walk down to Perrys Lake, along Tippetty Green and to the Knowle that way. There is certainly a Footpath marked on the 1904 OS Map, here, running from Knowle Farm to Hailstone Farm and also further on up Turners Hill. .

Copyright: Alan Godfrey Maps

Hailstone Farm

A lease in Dudley Archives dated 1796 is for a lease of 21 years to Samuel Round, farmer, of  Hailstone Farm (a messuage called Freeberrys alias Fingerhold – that Finger ‘I the Hole popping up again!) so it seems likely that the farm was established by the late 1700s.

Sarah’s Cartwright grandfather had been born on Hailstone Farm but the family then moved elsewhere, again this makes me think of the information on the Morganfourman site that the Cartwrights were closely linked to this area as far back as the 1500s. He took over first Lamb Farm in 1912 and then Hailstone Farm in 1924 and ran their businesses from there, including the riding school established by Sarah’s mother and the milk round (which had originally been started in the early 1900s when the family were living at Lamb Farm), later taking on the tenancy of Freebodies in addition in 1932, subletting the house to tenants. In addition to the Riding School, there were some Gymkhanas there – much more detail about this and photographs in this article in the Black Country Bugle in 2019. https://www.pressreader.com/uk/black-country-bugle/20191106/281505048027440

Later part of the family moved to another farm at Bewdley and Sarah’s mother and father continued to live at Hailstone until the 1960s when the lease was terminated and the land taken back for quarrying.

There is much more detail in the book about the farms, their construction, plans, photographs, invoices etc from the business in the book, a real very personal record of a Rowley Farm in the 20th century.

Censuses for Hailstone Farm

In 1841, the farmer at Hailstone Farm was Samuel Round who was sixty, with three servants, possibly the Samuel Round mentioned above who was granted a lease in 1796 or possibly his son . I can find no trace of Hailstone Farm or the Round family in 1851.

In 1861, Keturah Round, a married lady of 54 was at Hailstone Farm with several children though no spouse and she is described as the Head of the household though not a widow. She had married Edwin Round in Dudley in the Sep qtr if 1854 and was previously Wheale.

In 1871 Hailstone Farm was occupied by Elizabeth Stickley, a widow with her occupation given as Farmer with her two sons John aged 37 and Thomas aged 27, both described as Farmer’s son, along with Ruth Lees, a servant but possibly also related to Elizabeth Stickley as her maiden name was Lees. In the previous census this family had farmed at Oatmeal Row, Cakemore, next door to some ancestors of mine!

In 1881, there is no mention of Hailstone Farm, and no farmer listed but there are three households listed as Hailstone Hill. Susan Jones, who was 50 and a widow was listed as an annuitant aged 33, born in Middlesex, as were the two young nieces living with her who were scholars. Her femail servant was born in Kingswinford. It is tempting to think that this was Hailstone Farm. One of the other houses was occupied by Joseph Hooper, a Farm labourer, aged 48 and born in Cleverley, Shropshire and his wife Ann aged 54, born Thame, Oxfordshire. The tenants in this area certainly almost all came from outside the area, it seems.   

Turners Hill Farm

Maps show Turners Hill Farm higher up Turners Hill from the other two farms and there is also a reference on some maps to Cloudland though not on recent maps.  There appears to be a large House there, too, Turners Hill House and sometimes the owners of this house were also described as farmers. It is possible, since there is evidence that the Downing family had other land in the area which they let out, that farming was not their principal occupation and that most of the land was farmed from Turners Hill Farm, rather than house.

Censuses for Turners Hill Farm/House

At Turners Hill in 1841 was Joseph Downing with his wife Nancy, son Isaac and two female servants.

By 1851 still on Turners Hill but with no name given for their residence was his widow Nancy Downing with their son Isaac, aged 35 who was a ‘proprietor of lands’ and three unmarried daughters, all described as annuitants, plus a Thomas Whitehouse who was probably Nancy Downing’s brother as her maiden name was Whitehouse. Thomas Whitehouse was a widower, and also a ‘proprietor of lands’ like his nephew.

By 1861 Isaac Downing was still living on Turners Hill, with his three sisters. This time he has given his occupation as “Principal occupation: general superintendence of the cultivation of land. “The Enumerator has added Farmer. But Stephen Parsons on Facebook commented that he remembers that in his time there was a large house on the right of Turners Hill Road which was Turners Hill House, and that Monks Lane ran below it which led to Monks Farm and the quarry. There was also an area in this location called Cloudland on some maps. So were the Downings perhaps  living at Turners Hill House but contracting out the farming? It seems likely. I was interested to see on the Facebook page that Linda George has receipts signed by Isaac Downing in 1855 and 1856 for the letting of a farm at Darby’s Hill to Samuel Cook so the Downing family may have had substantial land holdings around the area.

The Downing siblings, still all unmarried, were still on Turners Hill, in 1871, Isaac, now 55, described as Landowner and Farmer and also on Turners Hill and described as a farmer of 88 acres in 1871 is William Whitehouse, a widower, with his two teenage sons a female servant and a farm labourer. I note that a William Whitehouse had been one of the witnesses of Joseph Downing and Nancy Whitehouse in 1810 so may well have been an uncle or cousin to the Downings.  This census is the last one showing this Isaac Downing, as he died in November 1874 and was buried in St Giles.  

There was also listed in 1871, however, a farmer of 60 acres on Turners Hill, James Bridge aged 28 with his wife Anne, one female servant and one agricultural labourer so this may have been Turners Hill Farm. By 1861 Ann Bridge, now a widow aged  39 was the farmer at Turners Hill Farm, by now farming 40 acres and employing 2 labourers, a cowman and a waggoner.

By 1881, there is the family of Samuel Woodall, an Engineer and Iron Founder listed first under Turners HIll, probably at Turners Hill House. He was 35 and born in Dudley. His wife Mary was born in Birmingham. In addition his two brothers and a sister were also living with them, with three female domestic servants, again all born outside Rowley. I presume this was the house previously occupied by the Downings.

Listed at 5 Turners Hill was William Giles, aged 30 – a farmer of 70 acres employing one additional man. This presumably was Turners Hill Farm. He and his wife were born outside Rowley, though not a great distance, being from Kingswinford and Cakemore respectively.  Their elder two children aged 8 and 6 had been born in Enville, Staffordshire, the two younger aged 4 and 2 in Rowley Regis.  

The Parish Registers

The Chambers family

On 31 October 1544, Margrett, wife of William Chambers was buried, so there were already Chambers in Rowley at this date. In 1558 William Chambers was buried. Between the two dates three Chambers girls – Mary, Margaret and Agnes were all married at St Giles. The records from 1558 to 1566 are noted by the Vicar, Adam Jevenn, as being missing. (I wonder whether he was an early ancestor of the Jeavons families in Rowley and Blackheath?)

In 1575, Jone, as daughter of John Chambers was baptised and in 1602, John, son of Thomas.

On 12 Feb 1603, a child William was baptised, described as the son of Edward Shakespurre and Joane, d. of Christopher Chambers.  Freebodies is not mentioned but certainly Christopher Chambers was associated with Freebodies then .  In January 1641, Edward, son of William Chambers of Freebodies was baptised at St Giles, in 1744 another William Chambers of Freebodies was buried . Christopher Chambers was one of two people appointed in 1650, along with three others to be ‘Collectors for the poore’ which implies a certain social standing in the parish. At times, the Chambers used the name Irelands, too. Sometimes their abode is given as Churchend though it is not clear where this was. Certainly there were 152 Chambers entries in the Parish Register between 1539 and 1684 for baptisms and burials, 1539-1754 for marriages. On occasions Chambers were also churchwardens.

By 1723, with the burial of Elinor Chambers, widow,  her abode was shown as Ffreebodies. Another branch of the Chamber, however was at Brickhouse in 1724. In 1727, Christopher Chambers of ‘ye ffinger i’ the hole’ was buried. Another branch of the Chambers was described in a marriage in 1732 as ‘of Tividale’. So the Chambers seemed to be scattered right around Turners Hill over several centuries.  

The Downing family also had a long term presence on Turners Hill. The first Downing entry in the Registers is in 1644 when Robert, son of John Downing of Warrley was baptised, with  numerous entries after that, the first Isaac Downing (that we know of) being baptised at St Giles in 1672. In 1814 Isaac Downing, of Turners Hill was buried aged 75, having died of Asthma.

Back in 1722, Mary, wife of Isaac Downing ‘de ffox oak’ was buried but he appears to have remarried the following year and had a child Samuell  baptised at St Giles, with an Isaac Downing of Foxoak  being buried in 1727, probably not the same man but possibly related.

On 23rd July 1815, Isaac , son of Joseph and Nancy Downing, was baptised and Joseph’s occupation was given as a ‘Beast Leech’ – someone who treated sick animals. Joseph and Nancy were still on Turners Hill in the 1841 Census. A daughter  Mary Ann was baptised to them in 1818, followed by Lavinia in 1821 and Amelia in 1823. Another Isaac Downing was married to Elizabeth Nutt in 1815 so there were several Isaacs around then. Joseph Downing, originally a ‘beast leech’ and later a farmer died and was buried in St Giles on 2 Jan 1849.

Not all the Downings in the area were so well-to do – Mary Downing, aged 69 of Perry’s Lake was buried in April 1821, having died of cold. In 1823 William Downing, son of Joseph Downing a miner, died in the Poorhouse. In 1828 an Isaac Downing of Perrys Lake died aged 88 of natural decay so presumably there was some connection shown by the use of the name Isaac. There were also Downings in Mincing Lane, in Windmill End and in Portway, all apparently in labouring jobs of various sorts. By the 1840s another branch of Downings were living in Gorsty Hill and another in Waterfall Lane.  

Only the Downings on Turners Hill appear to have been wealthy and one wonders whether perhaps one child might have benefitted from a scholarship to the Old Swinford Hospital and been able subsequently to have gone into a profession which improved his circumstances. I would dearly love to find out a list of Rowley boys who attended that school!

Lamb Farm

Lamb Farm was, according to Roy Slim, in an article in the Black Country Bugle in 2021, a small farm adjacent to the Lion Farm which later gave its name to the Lion Farm Estate, near Whiteheath so slightly out of my main study area but included here as there were connections to Freebodies and Hailstone Farm . Roy says that the Throne Farm, farmed by the Skidmores, was much larger than either of them and I presume that the local roads with royal names were so named because they were on land formerly part of this farm. Throne Road, Throne Crescent, Queens Drive, Hanover Road, Tudor Road, Windsor Road, Stuart Road. And I am interested to see that some of the modern roads there, built where the quack was, also have names with Royal connections, Sandringham Drive, Palace Close, Majestic Way, with the Vikings, Celts, Druids, Goths, Romans and Saxons getting a mention, too!

After the Cartwrights moved to Hailstone Farm in 1924, Lamb Farm was let to various tenants, including Hawleys, Hewitts, Slims, Matthews and Skidmores. Roy Slim has also written about his family’s time there.

Lamb Farm was sold for development in 1945.

Local memories of the farms

On the ‘I remember Blackheath and Rowley Regis’ Facebook page, Raymond Kirkham remembered that he had known the farm halfway up Turners Hill as Cartwright Farm. This would have been Hailstone Farm, as at the time Raymond was growing up, the Cartwrights were working the area of both farms from Hailstone Farm and, although they leased Freebodies too and farmed the land, the house was let to tenants. He noted that the farm further up at the top of the hill was Monk Farm and this must have been Turners Hill Farm. He said that this whole area was his playground when he was growing up and his family got their eggs from the farm.

Ian Davies remembered Hailstone farm well, as he was related to the Cartwright family. Ian’s Geordie grandfather lived with the Cartwrights at Lamb farm, near Portway Hall, when he first moved south in the early 1900s. He remembers that 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 Ian 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 swallowed up by the Tarmac mega-quarry, The lower area stretching down to Springfield was used for housing.

Ian also remembered Lamb Farm which was on the left going down Throne Road, immediately after Portway Hall. He used to walk past the drive on the way to his grandparents’ house in Newbury Lane. He thinks that St Michael’s School was built on the land and that in the 1800s Portway Hall colliery was on the farm’s land and he thinks this was responsible for the subsidence that ultimately forced Portway Hall to be demolished.

Ian also kindly added a link on the Facebook page about memories of Blackheath and Rowley Regis to an article written by Sarah Thomas in the Black Country Bugle which appeared in Nov 2019, including various photographs.

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/black-country-bugle/20191106/281505048027440

There are obviously several family connections to the Cartwrights still in the area as Margaret Higgs said that George Cartwright was her father’s uncle, her grandmother was George Cartwright’s sister.

 Mark Northall  said that his father Frank Northall had worked at Cartwright’s farm as a lad.

Jill Watkins-Beavon had lived in Gadds Green which was the land opposite Hailstone farm, later her fmily lived in one of the four houses in the quarry.

William Perry remembered in 2018 that his father had told him that when he was young he would walk up Turners Hill to Cartwright’s (Hailstone) farm where they had a lovely horse that he used to stroke.

So this is all the information that I have found to date about the farms in the Lost Hamlets, all disappeared now into the quarry but helping to sustain the local populace in their time, and about the families who farmed them over the centuries. More information would be very welcome and this can be added, corrected or a further post done if sufficient additional information is found.

The distracting delights of background reading

One of the things I have learned as I have been working on this One Place Study, but which I was already somewhat conscious of from my family history researches, is how difficult it is for us, in our relatively pampered modern lives, to really understand what our ancestor’s lives were like. How they coped with the sheer hard toil of their work, whether in mine, quarry or workshop, how they coped with the loss of so many of their wives dying in childbirth, husbands dying in industrial accidents, the high numbers of early deaths from diseases now rare or curable, their children dying young from diseases and conditions which have been overcome by modern medicine. Were they were worried by the changes in their surroundings as industry despoiled what had once been fields and pastures or did they consider the jobs that this brought were a benefit which outweighed this?

Some of this we may never know. We can only wonder.

So in recent times, I have widened my reading to address my lack of knowledge about those times.

A really good blog for Family Historians

I follow an interesting blog on WordPress which I highly recommend, called English Ancestors by Janice Heppingstall. Janice writes excellent and thoughtful (and very informative) pieces on family history and sometimes recommends books which she has found interesting. A few weeks ago she recommended ‘The Butcher, the Baker and the Candlestick Maker’ by Roger Hutchinson which is about how the censuses came to be taken, including a lot of fascinating information, well worth reading. She and I seem to share certain interests, such as what she calls ‘homing in on the little people’ and, like me, some of her ancestors moved from rural areas to industrial ones, including Mill towns, in her case in the North West. Similarly, a book entitled The real Oliver Twist by John Waller and about Robert Blincoe, who was thought to have inspired the character of Oliver Twist. That has also now been added to my pile of books to be read.

Contemporary Fiction as a source of information

At a conference on West Midlands history which I attended a few weeks ago, there was an interesting note from one speaker that we can sometimes learn from the fiction writing of contemporary authors. Francis Brett Young is the obvious writer for the Black Country ( though I confess to not enjoying his writing m7ch) but the other name which was mentioned as giving detailed descriptions of the hardships of many who worked in industry was Charles Dickens.

I have been an avid reader since I was a child but must confess that Dickens has never been top of my list of favourite authors. In fact, when I thought about it, I couldn’t remember reading any of his books apart, perhaps, from Oliver Twist when I was a child. I have seen the many adaptations of his works on television, of course, but again, not for many years so that I could not remember the details of the plots of even Great Expectations. The story of A Christmas Carol is more familiar – dare I admit that that is mainly because it is so deeply imbedded into our culture around Christmas, particularly from the Muppets Christmas Carol which was a family favourite for many years.

But the speaker at the history conference commented that Dickens had used his books to bring attention to the dreadful working conditions of ordinary working people, with some success and had helped to expose the poverty and living conditions of the poor as a result of the Industrial Revolution. He particularly mentioned ‘The Olde Curiosity Shop’ which is next on my reading list.

Different ways to read books!

Now I have a fondness for computer puzzle games. Not the sort of modern flash bang video racing explosive hidden object or match three stuff but actual puzzles, jigsaws, etc. I play a couple of games most days and like to think it helps to keep my brain active. One I have played for many years is called Sherlock and was invented by an American called Everett Kaser, he has many absorbing puzzle games. Recently I noticed that he had a new game called Beckett’s Books. This game takes books which he has transcribed and divides each page into squares (you can vary the numbers of squares) and jumbles them. Your task is then to put the squares back into the right order to give you a readable page before you can move onto the next page. This is done by matching the beginnings and ends of words and phrases – it is quite challenging at times. Kaser has a list of some fifty or so books available including many classics, such as The Secret Garden, the Father Brown Mysteries, several Sherlock Holmes novels, a number of Dickens classics, some of the PGWodehouse books, plus some which clearly reflect his particular interests and some American authors I am not familiar with. As you do the puzzles, of course, you read the book. Really properly slowly read the book – and it’s really enjoyable. The first Dickens book, I tried was Great Expectations. This brought home to me that Dickens really was a cracking writer and that he was very skilled at leaving his readers with a cliff hanger. He originally wrote many of his books for serialisation through daily or weekly publications and I can now fully understand how eagerly his readers would have been waiting for the next instalment. I could hardly wait to start the next page when I finished each one! This threatened to be so time consuming that I had to resort to buying copies of the novels to finish reading.

The Olde Curiosity Shop is, sadly (or perhaps fortunately) not among the books listed at the moment (so I have a pre-loved paperback copy on the way) but another novel called ‘Hard Times’ is among those Everett Kaser has listed and online reviews said that this was a diatribe about the evils of industrialisation, the effects on the air around and the suffering of the poor workers. So I have read (yes, and puzzled) that one. It’s a clever story and has many characters, sympathetic and not, many threads, some amusing and some incredibly sad at times. It is an interesting insight into the politics and prejudices of the time. I was actually moved to tears at one point which is not something that often happens to me. The other thing that is engaging is that it is written entirely without the benefit of hindsight. It reflects in detail how people really lived, worked, travelled, amused themselves at the time without anything but fairly primitive means of communication.

One chapter details an operation to rescue a man who has fallen into a disused mine shaft on the moors above the town – it is no less than riveting, giving so many details about the rescue that I had to wonder whether Dickens had actually watched such an operation.

The Whiteheath Mine Disaster

In December 2022, I posted the piece below on Facebook about a mine disaster at Whiteheath which had resulted in the death of eleven men. Although Whiteheath is slightly outside the Lost Hamlets area, I include the piece below, people living in the hamlets would certainly have known of it at the time and some men from there may well have worked in the mine.

‘The Ramrod Hall Colliery explosion 1856 – some local history which I had never heard of before.

Transcribing burial records last week for St Giles in 1856, I was curious to notice five consecutive entries for burials of young men all on the 15  August 1856, the abode for all given as Whiteheath Gate.  The following day another young  man from Portway was buried, none of these had any cause of death shown which was unusual for this register.

The loss of five young men would have been a grievous loss for such a small community so I did a little research. I wondered whether they had all died in some sort of accident together.

Knowing that the Ramrod Hall Pit was at Whiteheath, I searched the website of the Northern Mine Research Society and found the following information about an explosion there:

RAMROD HALL. Oldbury, Staffordshire. 13th August, 1856.

The colliery was owned by Lord Ward and was at White Heath Gate. The explosion occurred because of bad ventilation. This was partly due to the neglect of the ‘butty’, Thomas Barker who did not discharge the 17th Rule and did not inspect the mine before the men descended. Of the sixteen men and boys who were in the mine at the time of the explosion, eleven were killed.

Those who died were:

Thomas Barker aged 23 years,

R. Cartwright aged 43 years,

John Sheldon aged 36 years,

Thomas Shaw aged 35 years,

Thomas Round aged 34 years,

John Walletts aged 28 years,

William Simpson aged 33 years,

Samuel Willetts aged 26 years,

J. Fulford aged 16 years,

John Bryan aged 13 years,

T. Hampton aged 18 years.

At the inquest it emerged that on the morning of the disaster one group of men descended one of the two shafts. (The mine was quite new and had been closed for a few days because the men were working on the approach roads on the surface.) When the mine reopened, and the first party went down, one of them had a lighted candle which was seen to burn blue, indicating the presence of gas. The candle was sensibly blown out and the miners called up to the banksman that gas was present and to bring down a lantern. By the regulations, a lamp should have been used to test for gas before the men went down. This rule was neglected.

Another skip containing seventeen or eighteen men was lowered and a man named Barker, the butty,  ordered some live coals to be placed in it, saying that there was no sulphur for the lantern. The explosion took place as they were being lowered, blowing the basket and men out of the top of the shaft and causing terrible injuries to them. The accident was put down to the fact that there were two shafts at the mine and water was being drawn off one which forced the foul air up the other shaft.

Newspaper reports tell of hundreds of people rushing to the pithead after the explosion and miners from a neighbouring pit volunteering to go down to rescue injured men still trapped below ground.

Such a sad tale, such a hazardous industry and what a terrible event for the community of Whiteheath, so many widows and children left behind, without any means of support. There are frequent entries in the Burial Registers for men (and boys as young as ten) ‘killed in a pit’,  even though in 1835 a mining investigative committee had been set up to figure out how to cut down on the number of accidents. Whatever they did was not enough to prevent the deaths of at least 610 miners in the Black Country between 1837 and 1842 and many more in later years.

A press report on this explosion states that the inquests were attended by two Inspectors of Mines and a solicitor (representing  Lord Ward who was out of the country) to observe. The Coroner reported that he had gone down the mine the day after the explosion and again a few days later so he was obviously very thorough and such accidents were being properly examined.

Although the reports refer to Thomas Barker (who was buried the day after the other five) the Burial register and his Death Registration give his name as Baker. Thomas Barker/Baker was the ‘butty’ who gave the instruction to carry burning coals into the mine, even though he had been warned that gas was present. Presumably he was buried the following day as local feeling did not want him buried with the other men who died because of his actions. The Mines Inspectors though were clear at the inquests (there were five separate inquests because the men killed lived in different places) that the failure of the mine managers to keep a fire or furnace burning at the foot of one of the shafts to force air circulation through the mine was the reason that gas accumulated while the mine was closed for a few days.  A horse kept underground apparently survived the explosion unhurt and for five days afterwards without any attention, food or water, poor animal!

Within weeks of the inquests, Mine Agents for the area met and agreed tougher new rules on ventilation in mines so perhaps this tragedy helped to prevent others.

The J Fulford listed amongst those who died was listed in the Burial Register as Joseph Fullwood, although his  Death Registration gives his name as Fulford. So if you have a young man who disappears from your family tree in 1866 in this area, this may be what happened to them.

These days we sometimes tend to think H&S is too rigorous but those men could have done with rather more of it.’

That post generated some interesting comments, including some from a former HM Inspector of Factories  who noted that “Nowadays, I think the verdict would not be directed at the fault of one person, ‘the butty’, rather the controlling organisation would be blamed (the employer/directors/management), ie it was a systemic failure. And I’m pretty sure the charge would be ‘corporate manslaughter by gross negligence.’ The dangers were well known, the precautions should have been in place, but weren’t.”

Hard times in Whiteheath?

Copyright unknown but will be gladly acknowledged if made known.

The connection here is that the rescue described by Dickens in Hard Times must have been very similar and vividly relates the incident almost minute by minute.

In the story, the two women who realised that a missing man had fallen down the shaft of a disused mine which had not been fenced off adequately (his hat had fallen off and was lying by the shaft) had to run long distances across the moor in opposite directions to seek help – no mobile phones, no phone boxes. It was a Sunday so people were not at work. Of the men the first woman found, one was lying in a drunken sleep – he was woken and hearing “that a man had fallen into the ‘Old Hell shaft’ he started out to a pool of dirty water, put his head in it and came back sober” – and Dickens recounts that he turned out to be the most useful of the men at the rescue operation. The other men ran off to nearby villages and others from those in turn ran on to other places to spread the word to get more help and equipment, before all heading back to the ‘Old Hell shaft’ where, again, they had to wait for more implements and help to arrive. No cars or lorries or helicopters, no mountain rescue, no first aid kits or painkillers or stretchers, no radios, no roads, the equipment needed had to be assembled and carried manually up to the shaft. Dickens notes that it was more than four hours before enough equipment arrived to start the rescue attempt. Difficulties had arisen in the construction of a means of enabling two men to descend securely before this was rigged with poles and ropes, requisites had been found wanting and messages had to go and return. Some of this would not have applied at Whiteheath, as it was close to other mines and it was a working day but some of the difficulties of the rescue must have been the same.

Eventually, in the story, a surgeon also arrived after messages were sent to the nearest town. By the time the rescue could be attempted, Dickens says perhaps two hundred people had assembled. “There now being enough people present to impede the work” the original rescuers, led by the man who had been drunk, “made a large ring around the Old Hell shaft and appointed men to keep it”. Again, one can well imagine this happening at Whiteheath where a large and anxious crowd had assembled.

When enough equipment had arrived a windlass was set up and a candle was sent down into the shaft to “try the air while three or four rough faces stood crowded close together, attentively watching it: the candle was brought up again, feebly burning “,  – such a vivid picture this conjures – then a bucket was hooked on and two volunteers with lights were lowered into the pit where they found the desperately injured man.

“As the rope went out, tight and strained, and the windlass creaked, there was not a breath among the one or two hundred men and women looking on. The signal was given and the windlass stopped, with abundant rope to spare.”

 Again, Dickens has some striking detail – he mentions that when the two rescuers had first been below for some time with no communication, some in the crowd began to panic that they too had suffered some accident but that

“the surgeon who held the watch declared that not yet five minutes had elapsed and sternly admonished them to keep silence’. Just then the windlass reversed and “practised eyes knew that it did not go as heavily as it would if both workmen had been coming up and that only one was returning.” Yes, those miners would have known that.

“The rope came in tight and strained; and ring after ring was coiled upon the barrel of the windlass, and all eyes were fastened on the pit. The sobered man was brought up and leaped out briskly on the grass. There was a universal cry of “Alive or dead?” and then a deep profound hush.

When he said ‘Alive’ a great shout arose and many eyes had tears in them.”

‘The surgeon who held the watch’ – the watch – presumably not many of the onlookers would have had such a thing and presumably, too in such an operation, one watch has to be used as the timekeeper for that operation.

The story goes on that the fallen man was very badly injured and a hurdle was brought, on which a thick bed of spare clothes was made by the crowd while the surgeon contrived some bandages and slings from shawls and handkerchiefs.

“As these were made they were hung upon an arm of the pitman who had last come up, with instructions how to use them: and as he stood, shown by the light he carried, leaning his powerful loose hand upon one of the poles and sometimes glancing down into the pit and sometimes glancing round upon the people, he was not the least conspicuous figure on the scene. It was dark now and torches were kindled. “

Again, such a clear picture is in my mind of this man. Eventually, he was lowered again into the pit and again, the windlass stopped.

“No man removed his hand from it now. Everyone waited with his grasp set, and his body bent down to the work, ready to reverse and wind in. At length the signal was given, and all the ring leaned forward.

For, now the rope came in, tightened and strained to its utmost as it appeared and the men turned heavily, and the windlass complained. It was scarcely endurable to look at the rope and think of its giving way. But, ring after ring was coiled upon the barrel of the windlass safely, and the connecting chains appeared, and finally the bucket appeared with the two men holding on at the sides – a sight to make the head swim- and tenderly supported between them, slung and tied within, the figure of a poor, crushed, human figure.

A low murmur of pity went round the throng and the women wept aloud, as this form, almost without form, was moved very slowly from its iron deliverance, and laid upon a bed of straw.”

Now, to me, that was the most vivid report I have ever read of such an operation, encompassing not only the details of the mechanics required but the expertise and skills of the rescuers, the feelings of those involved and those watching. I could not help imagining just those responses in the crowd which gathered after the explosion at Whiteheath.

Dickens does not allow the opportunity to pass of making mention of the huge numbers of pit casualties in those times. The victim here says (in a broad accent that I will not attempt to reproduce) that the pit into which he had fallen had cost, in the knowledge of old people still living, hundreds and hundreds of men’s lives, fathers, sons, brothers, dear ones to thousands and thousands and keeping them from want and hunger. The pit he had fallen into had had methane gases which he described as ‘crueller than battle’ which he had read about in public petitions from the men who worked in the pits, in which they prayed and prayed to the lawmakers not to let their work be murder to them but to spare them for the wives and children that they loved as much as gentlefolk loved theirs. When the pit had been in use, it had killed needlessly and even now it killed needlessly.

Powerful stuff!

Hard times was published in 1854, just two years before the Whiteheath Mine disaster, these scenes must surely have been very similar.  The book was not necessarily well thought of at the time. Macaulay attacked Hard Times for its ‘sullen socialism’, but 20th-century critics such as George Bernard Shaw and F.R. Leavis praised this book in the highest terms, for what is both Dickens’ shortest completed novel and also one of his important statements on Victorian society. George Orwell later praised the novel (and Dickens himself) for “generous anger”. The works of Dickens are apparently regarded as having brought about or at least advanced many improvements to working and living conditions of the poor and voiceless which he laid before the mass of his readers.

Dickens was born in Portsmouth and left school to work in a boot-blacking factory when he was twelve because his father was in Debtor’s Prison. After three years he was able to return to school and later became a journalist, editing a weekly journal for twenty years as well as writing 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles.  But it meant that he had first hand experience of working conditions and the lives of poor people. He was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children’s rights, for education, and for other social reforms.

Am I leaving you on tenterhooks with Hard Times? What happened next? One more short quote, then:

“They carried him very gently along the fields, and down the lanes and over the wide landscape; Rachael, [his beloved friend] always holding his hand in hers. Very few whispers broke the mournful silence. It was soon a funeral procession. The star had shown him where to find the God of the poor and through humility and sorrow, and forgiveness, he had gone to his Redeemer’s rest.”

Yes, I had tears in my eyes by this time, too.

As a new convert to the works of Dickens, I do recommend you to seek out the book Hard Times and read the whole thing – it is such a good read, such a reminder of how people behave to one another and the living conditions in which many ordinary people lived then.  I shall be interested to see what Dickens has to say in the Old Curiosity Shop and what I can learn from that about the society in which Dickens lived and observed.

So I hope my readers will forgive this little diversion from the detailed posts about the Lost Hamlets and the people who lived in them – more posts on that in progress and to follow very soon.

The Cole families in the Lost Hamlets

Sorting out the early Coles in the Rowley area is a bit like trying to knit with overcooked spaghetti. I think I have them sorted out and suddenly a strand slips and it all unravels.  Repeatedly. It isn’t helped at all that different branches use the same Christian names – Edward, John, Benjamin, William, Sarah, Fanny, ten a penny, they are!  

In the 1841 Census, there are seven Cole households in the hamlets or immediately adjacent. (Bear in mind when looking at these that in the 1841 Census adult ages were rounded down to the nearest five, though children were recorded with their actual ages. Supposedly, because occasionally adult’s actual ages are recorded).

Perry’s Lake

In the 1841 Census, there were a total of fourteen households in Perry’s Lake, of which three were Coles and one a married female Cole sister. It appears from the order in which they were listed that they did not live in a row but were within a very close distance of each other.  This is borne out by maps which show clusters of houses, sometimes appearing to be around a yard or close.

The sons of Edward Cole and his wife Phebe

Edward Cole Jnr, aged 30, was  baptised at St  Giles on 4 June 1811 so he actually was 30, the figure wasn’t rounded down. He was living with his wife Fanny/Frances (nee Smith),who had been baptised 13 Sep 1819 at St Giles, a daughter of William and Elizabeth Smith. Her age in the Census is shown as 20 but she was about 22) they are living in Perry’s Lake, with their two children William, aged 4 (baptised 17 Sep 1837 at St Giles) and Benjamin aged 1 (baptised 8 June 1840).

A few doors away, John Cole, is shown as aged 35. He was baptised on 20 Mar 1803 at St Giles so he was actually 38. He was living with his wife Sarah (nee Willetts), possibly the Sarah Willetts baptised at Dudley St Thomas in 1808 living with their six children. The children are Anne aged 12, baptised 19 Oct 1928 St Giles, Edward aged 10, John aged 8, Hannah aged 5 and Eliza aged 3. None of the children after Anne were baptised at St Giles or any other Anglican church that I can find. It seems very possible that they were Methodists as we know that there was a Methodist Chapel in Perry’s Lake from before 1840, so very possibly there at the time of their births. Although no records have been found for this chapel from this early date, The National Archives have a Non-Parochial Register dating from 1814-1824 showing baptisms for families from Rowley Regis which may have been performed by a visiting Methodist Minister or at Dudley which appears to have been his base.

Again, a few doors away, Benjamin Cole is shown as aged 30. He was baptised on 27 Jul 1806 at St Giles so was almost 35. , with his wife Phebe (nee Smith) and  their three children Eliza aged 8, Joseph aged 4 and Ann, aged 1. (Although Benjamin and Edward both married Smith girls they were not sisters, but may well have been cousins. I still have work to do on that line.)

These three are all nailers and are brothers, the sons of Edward Cole and his wife Phebe, nee Perry.  Edward had died in 1821, so there is no entry in this census for him. Phebe, his widow, remarried in 1839 to Thomas Lane and was living with him in Dudley in 1841, along with her youngest daughter Ann Cole. 

Edward Snr and Phebe had had seven children in all, four boys and three girls, two of whom had died as children.  In addition to the three sons listed above their daughter Mary, married to Henry Taylor, was also living in Perry’s Lake with their six children.

The family of John and Elenor/Nelly Cole

The Knowle

John (70) and Elenor/Nelly (70) Cole were at the Knowle in the 1841 Census, just round the corner from Tippity Green so not strictly within the Lost Hamlets but included here for completeness and to illustrate how close to one another they all lived.

John and Elenor had had five daughters and five sons, of whom at least three died in infancy, possibly more as I can find no trace of other children at present. 

Their son David was the farmer at Slack Hillock, of whom I have written previously on this blog. It was said at his inquest that David could not read the label on the bottle of mixture which poisoned him because it was the middle of the night and he had not lit a candle. But the important implication of that is that he could read.

Their daughter Maria married George Taylor and lived in Rowley Village. There is a substantial memorial still in the St Giles churchyard to George and Maria and their children. George was variously described as a nail manufacturer (rather than nailer) and later he became the Relieving Officer for the village, later succeeded by his second son John. Of their seven children, only one William married and had children – although he did have eleven! The other children stayed living together in Rowley Village until the ends of their lives. More prosperous family members.

Their youngest daughter Nanny married Joseph Walters of Oldswinford and they lived in Lye, then Slack Hillock where Joseph farmed and kept the Sportsman and Railway pub, (according to Hitchmough) and finally Rowley village again where they both died. Was this the same farm that Nanny’s older brother David had farmed? I do not know but will try to find out. This is another prosperous couple and their sons kept pubs in Rowley Village later.

At their marriage in Harborne, both Nanny and Joseph signed the register and theirs are assured signatures, well practised curves and not awkwardly scribed as is often the case with people who do not write much.  Notice also that the witnesses are Nanny’s sister and brother-in-law George and Maria Taylor, showing that they too had practised signatures.

I wonder how they met? Did Joseph visit Rowley to buy nails through Nanny’s father? There have been previous indications with the Cole family that they may have been involved in shipping nails elsewhere and I think it is possible that they were more than simple nailmakers. Or did Nanny meet him when he rented a farm to her older brother? David died four years after the marriage so he was farming at Sleck Hillock at the time they would have met.

All three of these marriages were apparently to successful people who had known skills and their children often went into business locally. These Cole children were literate.

Freebodies Farm

There is also a single Cole at Freebodies Farm on Turner’s Hill, Sophia Cole, born in 1819. She was the daughter of Joseph Cole who had died of a fever, aged only 24, in Sep 1919 – only three weeks before his daughter’s baptism. Sophia was part of this branch as her father  Joseph was another son of John and Elenor/Nelly Cole. Joseph’s widow Ann (nee Smart) had later married Josiah Parkes in 1825 and Sophia, Joseph’s only child, was living with them at Freebodies Farm in 1841. Although she is marked as a servant, that was not uncommon in such a situation. Sophia went on to marry a John Cole (oh joy!) who was a butcher and they moved to Darby End where they had one son Joseph Thomas in 1851. This branch of the Coles did appear to be mainly on the Lye Cross side of Turner’s Hill.

 The Previous Generation:

John Senior and Edward Cole Senior , the fathers of these families were also brothers,  the sons of William Cole (1734-1784) and Mary Price ((B.1731), it is possible that some of the other Coles may yet link back to them or to William’s parents Edward and Dianah Cole, the ones who married in a Fleet marriage and then returned to Rowley to raise a large family.

The Lye Cross Coles

Up on Turner’s Hill is another Edward Cole, aged 40, also a nailer, son of Edward Cole(70) and Sarah of Lye Cross. He was married to Leah Clift, at Sedgley and it was their daughter Sarah who I wrote about in my blog last week, ‘A wandering Cole’.

At Lye Cross in 1841 are Edward (aged  70) and Sarah Cole, nee Johnson, parents of the Edward above, with their son Henry and two other children.  I have not yet identified Edward Senior’s parents.

At Cock Green , just around the corner from Tippity Green, is another  Benjamin Cole, aged 44, a jobbing smith, with his wife Elizabeth (nee Hadley) and their seven children. I have not yet worked out where this Benjamin fits into the Cole jigsaw!

Summary

The purpose of this article is to give a glimpse of the way that these families tended to remain close to each other and where they were  living in relation to each other and to the Lost Hamlets in 1841. Note, too that almost every name of a spouse listed here is also a well known Rowley family name, naturally enough they married the people around them, adding to the complications of researching our Rowley Roots!

I will update it in future as I show how their families expanded and moved around the area. Because of the constant use of certain common Christian names, it can be difficult to be certain that these relationships are correct but I shall continue to work on this. Still knitting with cold spaghetti here!

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.

Alias Hunt & Johnson and the Commonwealth Gap

In the same way, that I had (wrongly, as it turned out) assumed that my ancestors had stayed pretty firmly in Rowley Regis, I tended also to have assumed that, by and large, they would have been law abiding, if somewhat inclined to non-conformism.

So I was intrigued to find, early on in my researches, that from about 1665, some of my ancestors were appearing in the Parish Registers with an alias which continued over several generations! Johnson, alias Hunt.  I could not imagine what could have given rise to this. And they were not alone. Other families in the village also appeared to have aliases. I tended to associate the use of aliases with murky deeds but it seemed a bit odd that so many families had apparently turned outlaw and over such a long period.

We Rowley family historians owe a great debt of gratitude to Miss Henrietta Mary Auden, as she had transcribed most of the older parish registers before many of them were destroyed or damaged in the church fire in 1913. This enabled these records to be published in book form by the Staffordshire Parish Registers Society after the fire and this book, in Smethwick Local Studies Library, was an important source of information for me when I began researching. I would go to the library with a list of ancestors who I needed to check and I was very grateful that the book was indexed, thus saving me precious research time. Nonetheless, I can remember my frustration that I often ran out of time and had to continue on my next visit.

I could not have known then how developments in technology would change this process beyond recognition. Some years ago, I was able to purchase a digital copy of the entries from the Registers from Midland Ancestors, which could also be searched digitally; later still, searching to see whether any second hand copies of this book were available to buy, I was amazed to find that I could purchase a facsimile copy of it for a few pounds, photographed from a copy deposited in a library in the USA and printed to order for me. Such luxury, I could now browse the Register to my heart’s content! And sometimes, there is no substitute for reading through a parish register in sequence over a period of years for building a picture of a family or a place.  Miss Auden commented in her introduction to the book (which I now had time to read properly) on the number of families in the village using aliases. She said “there are many curious nicknames and aliases’. So what was happening that so many people in this little village were apparently using two different names?

My first alias was used after the union of my 8xgreat-grandfather Richard Hunt and Elizabeth Johnson. I say union because I have never found a record of their marriage. It is quite possible that this is because some records at this period were lost or it may be that they simply did not get married. Their first child John Johnson alias Hunt was born in 1655. The date was my first clue.

This was just after the Civil War and was during the period of Government known as the Commonwealth, under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell. The Commonwealth Parliament passed an Act regulating the keeping of civil records of births marriages and deaths, taking this responsibility away from the church.  It was called ‘An Act touching Marriages and the Registring thereof;  and also touching Births and Deaths.’ It was quite clear. Officers were to be appointed by each parish, to be called the ‘Parish Register’ and all marriages now had to be performed by a Justice of the Peace.  The wording was clear –

‘no other Marriage whatsoever within the Commonwealth of England, after the 29th Sept, in the year One thousand six hundred and fifty three, shall be held or accounted a Marriage according to the Laws of England.’

 Photograph from ‘Birth, Marriage and Death Records’ by David Annal and Audrey Collins.

Oh my, what a huge change for ordinary people from the customs which had been practised from time immemorial. So how did this affect that little village of Rowley? A lot, it seems.

These are extracts from the Parish Registers for the time, the spelling is the original spelling in the Register!:

“12 Mar 1654      William DOBBES, minister, buried.

These names of Birthes, Burials and Marriages above mentioned were entred in another paper booke by Mr Dobbes & written out in this as it was entred by him.

Stafford. At Wolverhampton the 20th day of March 1654.

O Tempora! Memorandum that Josias ROCKE, of Rowly Regis, was this day sworne before us by virtue of the Act of Parliament of the 24th of August 1653, to execute the office of Parrish Registor for Rowly aforesaid according to his best skill and knowledge & according to the said Act so longe as hee shall continue in the said office.

Witness our handds the day and yeare above written.

John WYRLEY

Hen. STONE

Staff. At Walsall, ye 22th June 1657.

Be itt remembred that William WHITTORNE, of Rowley Regis, in ye said county was this day sworne before mee to execute ye office of parrish Register there according to ye forme of a late Act of Parliamt. Intituled An Act touching Marriages and the Registring thereof and touching birthes and burialls soe long as hee shall continue in ye said office.

Witness my hand ye day and yeare  above written.

O mores!

Hen Stone”

Several pages of births, baptisms and burials follow. The marriage record which follows is the most detailed of those recorded and shows the effort required to be married under the new system. Some of the marriages, starting in 1655, had notice published in the church on three Sundays but others went through a more elaborate procedure.

“John MARTINE, of Rowly, Co. Stafford, Joyner, & Joyce COLBURNE, d. of John COLBURNE, of Rowly, Gentleman, was published in the market towne of Walshall (being conceived to bee the next market towne to the p’ish church of Rowly afforesaid) three market dayes sevrally each after other between the howers of Eleaven & two of ye Clocke (that is to say) the 14th, 21th and 28 dayes of August 1655, without contradiction of any.  As by the Certificate of the pish Register of Walshall doth appeare. The said John MARTINE & Joice COLEBURNE above named were declared Husband and Wife Sept 29 1655.

By mee, Hen Stone.”

There are then several pages in the Parish Register of ‘marriages’ performed by these Magistrates, most of which say that they were performed at Hampsted, a few at Walsall or Kidderminster, presumably transferred from the Registers kept during the Commonwealth period.

Note that Walsall (9 miles away) and not Dudley (less than 4 miles away) was deemed to be the closest market town, presumably because Dudley was in Worcestershire, Walsall in Staffordshire. Not too much of a problem if you had a horse or carriage of some sort but in this period, most poor people did not have this, they had to walk. The minor inconvenience of the extra miles to be walked which this implied for the parties to the marriage was apparently not considered.

I was puzzled by the references to Hampsted as I wasn’t familiar with this place. The only Hamstead I could find anywhere near was on the Handsworth border, more than seven miles away from Rowley. For some years, I couldn’t work out why marriages should have taken place there.  Then, while I was reading “A Birth, a Death and a Barrellage” by Kate Creed which is about Ridgacre at Quinton, she commented in connection with some land transactions

“The Wyrleys were the earliest family recorded as being seated at Hamstead. They came from Little Wyrley and although some of them were referred to as ‘de Hamstede’, they finally adopted  the name de Wyrley. They continued to hold Hamstead for generations and became the largest landholders in Handsworth.” And I have since read that in early times the Wyrley family also held a lot of land in Rowley.

So that was why so many Rowley marriages took place in Hamstead, John Wyrley, who was one of the magistrates appointing the Register right back at the beginning, lived there and anyone wanting to be married had to go to him. Imagine the nuisance for poor folk who had to miss a day’s work and walk a fifteen mile round trip, instead of being able to be married in the parish church – one suspects quite a lot just didn’t bother. By 1658 there is no mention of where the marriages took place and by 1659 it seems that some marriages were happening in churches again, but it isn’t absolutely clear. 

Unfortunately for family historians, and probably for all the reasons mentioned above, the new secular system was not a success. It is not clear whether proper records were not kept or whether these were lost in the upheavals but many places have gaps in their registers around this time – it is known in genealogical circles as the ‘Commonwealth Gap’.

But after the Restoration of the Monarchy, in 1660, these regulations were revoked and responsibility for records reverted to the church.  The legitimacy of all marriages by Justices was confirmed by the Government so that children of these marriages were not deemed illegitimate.  However, what of the children born to couples who had not been married at all or where there was no record of the marriage, as with my Richard Hunt and Elizabeth Johnson? And apparently, some of the newly restored Clergy refused to recognise the circumstances or perhaps the marriages and any children born of that marriage were called by their mother’s name, alias their father’s name. Hence my Johnson, alias Hunts. Imagine how those fathers must have felt, not being allowed to give their name to their own children (almost like a mother who takes her husband’s name on marriage, even now!). I suspect that is why the aliases continued for so long, it was the only way to keep the paternal name in use. There were still Johnson Hunts in the parish many years later. No wonder the Puritans came to be so disliked!

So if you have an alias in your family at around this date, this is probably the reason – the Commonwealth Gap and the problems caused by a remote government imposing demanding new rules without any apparent understanding of the problems this would cause for poor people. Plus ca change, you might think, I couldn’t possibly comment…

Poisoned by his wife…

This is not strictly within the Lost Hamlets but concerns a member of the Cole family who was born there – and it’s a fascinating story so I am sharing it with you anyway!

Even after 40 years of research, I still find new facts on my family. Recently I was working on siblings of my 4XG-Grandfather Edward Cole and tracking their descendants, a task infinitely easier than it was when I first worked on Edward himself 40 years ago. With the advent of digitised records and family history programs and online resources, plus, of course, the many subscription services research has utterly transformed. 

Searching through the Cole entries in the St Giles Registers, I came across the Burial Record on 14 March 1832 for my 1st cousin 5xremoved David Cole. The entry says that he was 43 when he died in Mar 1832 and that he was a farmer living in Slack Hillock , off Gorsty Hill. I was picking out Cole burials, spotted the note on his made by the Vicar and was off down a fascinating rabbit hole, irresistible!

A note in the Register , added by the Vicar, says “Poisoned by drinking a composition which his wife retailed as a specific for the gout”. How about that for a damning story in a few words? I had to know more. I did some sleuthing and found a newspaper report in the Wolverhampton Chronicle dated 14 March 1832.

David Cole had woken at about five o’clock in the morning, with a pain in his bowels and had gone to get a nip of rum to settle his stomach. The ‘specific’ made by his wife, was called ‘seeds of Colchicum’ and was stored in the same cupboard as the rum in a similar bottle. The bottle containing the mixture was labelled “Wine of the Seeds of Colchicum” but it was not sufficiently light for him to read it. When he returned to bed he told his wife he had taken some of the gout mixture and she was concerned and wanted to get a physician to purge him but he strongly objected to this, saying that he did not think the mixture would hurt him. He went off to work as usual but returned four hours later at 11.00am, feeling ill and very sick and took to his bed. He died two days later. The surgeon who had attended him later on the afternoon he was taken ill could do nothing and told the inquest that he had taken ‘enough of the mixture to kill half a dozen people’. The jury returned a verdict that he “died from accidentally taking seeds of colchicum, mixed  into liquid, under the apprehension that  it was rum.”

Copyright Wolverhampton Chronicle.

 He left his wife Charlotte with thirteen children, the youngest David baptised in June 1832, after his father’s death so it seems very likely that Charlotte was heavily pregnant when her husband died.  However, the oldest were old enough to be already working, one as a butcher and others on the farm and she stayed there, listing herself as a farmer for many years after that. I wonder whether she carried on selling her remedies?

But doesn’t this little story actually tell us quite a lot about them? Yes, she was a farmer’s wife but also a herbalist of some knowledge and known as such to local people. I wonder who taught her? Perhaps a family skill? When I looked into it, seeds of Colchicum is still listed by present day herbalists as a treatment for gout but with warnings that it is toxic in large quantities and may cause death. And, to my geat surprise, when I recounted this tale to a genealogist friend who has recently had extensive heart surgery, she responded immediately that “Colchicum is still recommended by the NHS! When I saw my consultant a couple of weeks ago, he recommended colchicine for gout”. So an extract of Colchicum is still used by the NHS today. Charlotte Cole actually knew her stuff, it seems.

Copyright: Glenys Sykes

And there were few remedies for painful gout in those days, if I remember correctly. Presumably she was known to local people for her remedies, hence the Vicar’s somewhat judgmental comment that she sold the remedy. But they didn’t have pharmacies as we know them then, no picking up a remedy at the chemist or pharmacy as we might and probably most people couldn’t afford to consult doctors.

How devastating for Charlotte to have witnessed this tragedy, her husband killed by her own remedy and to have suffered the reproaches of someone like the Vicar and possibly others for something that was not her fault.

A Methodist chapel in Perry’s Lake?!

Once upon a time there was a Methodist Chapel in or between the hamlets of Gadds Green or Perry’s Lake. Who knew? There is no trace of it on any of the maps I can find but it is listed on the censuses, between Perry’s Lake and Gadds Green , in 1861 and 1871.

I first noticed when transcribing the 1871 Census for Perry’s Lake and Gadds Green that between the two hamlets there is a line which says “Primitive Methodist Chapel”. It is not mentioned in the 1881 Census but in the 1861 Census it is there, again listed between Perry’s Lake and Gadds Green both times but this time called Gadds Green Chapel. Not mentioned in the 1851 Census (although Thomas Barnsley, aged 29, living in Perry’s Lake and born in Rowley Regis, gave his occupation as “Methodist Local Preacher and labourer at Stone Quarry”.

However, in an 1844 Preaching Plan for the Dudley Circuit which is on the ‘My Primitive Methodist’ website, Perry’s Lake is among the Chapels listed as having two services each Sunday at 2.30 and 6pm.  Also listed is Rowley  – one service each Sunday at 6pm, though it is not clear where this chapel was, possibly services held in a private house or a rented room or even the open air, as neither Knowle nor Hawes Lane chapels are recorded as having been in operation by this date.

The Preaching Plan is an interesting document, showing the burgeoning vitality of the Methodist church in those days with a list of more than 36 chapels in and around Dudley with a few paid ministers who walked long distances to conduct services and in excess of 80 local preachers in the area, including several women.  And that was only the Primitive Methodists, there were several other types of Methodists, plus Baptists, Congregationalists, Quakers, Unitarians and others all apparently thriving.

The chapel was also noted as ‘Gads Green’ on a list of Chapels, drawn up in 1867, which is again on the My Primitive Methodist website. So it definitely existed between 1844 and 1871. It would be interesting to see the 1887 OS 6″ to the mile map , just to see whether it was still there then but I can’t find this map online or in print anywhere at the moment.

The earliest 6″ OS map I have at present is dated 1904 and I can’t see a chapel marked on there in Perrys Lake or Gadds Green. There is a Chapel Cottage in Gadds Green as late as the 1911 Census but a chapel isn’t mentioned then. So I wonder whether the local Methodists transferred to other chapels, the nearest being Hawes Lane or The Knowle, both less than a mile away and surely less than a mile apart! 

I found online this bit of history about the Knowle Chapel (Eric Bowater giving the information in 2019).

“The first beginning of Knowle Methodist Church met in the small kitchen of a local house,for the sum of 1s 6d.around 1860. As the membership grew it moved into a farm building in Brickhouse Farm a short distance away. Once again the membership grew and so it was decided to build a church of their own. A Church was now to be erected on the present site and was opened in December 1869 called Ebenezer. In 1890 new trouble arose with undermining which affected the chapel. The last meeting held in the chapel was held in 1907.The present church which was built in front of the old one 25th September 1907 and was a United Methodist Church.”

The Knowle site would have been quite close to the hamlets and accessible across the fields so if the earlier chapel closed people might have moved to the Knowle chapel. Reg Parsons, who grew up on Turner’s Hill, told me that he had never heard of a chapel there but that there was also a ‘tin chapel’ at Oakham, opposite the pub there so that may also have provided a spiritual home for some local people when the Perry’s Lake chapel closed.

There was an Ecclesiastical Census on 31st March 1851 (this can be downloaded free of charge from The National Archives) but many small chapels appear to have been omitted and I have been unable to find a chapel I can identify as Perry’s Lake or Gadd’s Green. The entry for St Giles shows figures for attendance which, frankly, I find rather suspect.  An extract is shown here.

Copyright: The National Archives

I find it difficult to imagine 600 people at morning service with 400 children at Sunday School, 1100 people all crammed into St Giles Church for the afternoon service with 400 children at Sunday school (again) and another 100 in the evening in a rented room – such neat round figures, 1000 and 1500 people?! The return for Dudley St Thomas gives figures of 800 and 700 attending services but that for Reddal Hill claims much more modest figures of 149 at church with  223 at Sunday school in the morning with 259 and 223 respectively at later services.

As we have just entered the season of Lent, it is perhaps timely to note that several clergy, in their returns for this census (and clearly anxious that their attendances should not be underestimated by the powers that be for the future), pointed out that the date chosen for the Census was the middle Sunday of Lent.  The note shown below was attached by one local Clergyman. It reads “The reason that attendance at the church appears smaller on the 30th Mar than the average is that the day is Mid-Lent Sunday, commonly called Mothering Sunday. A day much observed in this district by parents having their children and friends around their tables on this day and providing the best in their power for them.”

Copyright: The National Archives

What a picture that conjures in a few words. And a clergyman apparently much in tune with his congregation, however humble.  I can remember my mother telling me as a child that Mothering Sunday was the one day of the year that domestic servants were allowed to go home to visit their mothers, often taking them gifts of food from their employers or spring flowers gathered along the way.

One nearby Anglican clergyman noted bitterly on his return, the ‘scourge of those Dissenters so prevalent in this locality’ and blamed them for his poor attendance figures – showing the hostility of some clergy to their independently minded parishioners. Nonconformists were not popular at that time with the Anglican church, generally seen as rebels and ignorant troublemakers to be corrected and brought back to the Anglican church. A history of Birmingham Road Methodist church in Blackheath recounts that their meeting started in the 1840s in a rented stable in Siviters Lane in Rowley. Dissenters, as they were known, were regarded as the ‘off-scouring of life’, the very scum of the earth’ and, on one occasion when they were unable to pay the rent for the room above the stable, they were not allowed to use the room so sang and prayed in the street outside. A note in the Register for the burial of my 5xgreat-uncle at St Giles in 1794 reads “William Rose, never came to church tho’ often warned and kindly exhorted, died suddenly”. I wonder how kind those exhortations were?  To me, it seems very likely that William Rose was a Dissenter, a Methodist and that was why the Vicar was trying to lure him back.

So the hamlets of Perrys Lake and Gadds Green were fortunate to have a chapel of their own to worship in. Worship in their chosen style was an important part of life for our ancestors then and even small hamlets like Perry’s Lake had chapels – I wonder where it was? Any information would be very welcome.

Might it, just might it, have been behind the cottages in the part of Perry’s Lake which people still remember being called ‘Heaven’?

Families in the Lost Hamlets 1841-1881

There are 13 families who were living in the hamlets of Perry’s Lake, Gadd’s Green and Turner’s Hill area for all five censuses which I have so far transcribed. All are familiar Rowley names:

Cole, Cutler, Darby, Foster, Hill, Hipkiss, Levett, Parkes, Redfern, Simpson, Taylor, Whitehall/Whittall and Woodhouse.

A further 9 families had moved in between 1841 and 1851 and were in all four of the 1851-1881 Censuses:

Barnsley, Detheridge, Edwards, Hadley, Harcourt, Ingram, Jones, Knight, Ocroft, Payne and Timmings/Timmins.

Four families were in the 1841-1871 Censuses but had moved on by 1881 – Badley, Downing, Round and Siviter.

When time permits, I will check where these families had moved to.

Certainly there will have been marriages between these families and they were most likely closely interrelated over those years.

This information will be updated as more censuses are transcribed.