How do you write an interesting in an ancestral profile when you have so little background information to go on beyond the basic facts of name and date?
This was my challenge when it came to my paternal great grandfather John Thomas Weston (1852-1910). Little else was discovered on John Thomas beyond the basic names and dates – no recollections of him from his grandchildren, no anecdotes, no unusual incidents in his life, no photographs, no mention in local newspapers online. So I was left to fill out his story by exploring where he lived and where he worked.
His Early Life
John Thomas Weston, named after both grandfathers, was the eldest son of Thomas
Weston. bricklayer and Ann Walker. He was born at Pattingham, Staffordshire in the English Midlands
on 7th June 1851, was away from home in 1871 and traced to Moor Lane, Pattingham, where he was
listed as an agricultural labourer,
with the Piggott family, his aunt and
uncle and five cousins - Elizabeth Pigott was the sister of John's father Thomas.
John Thomas Weston’s marriage was traced to August 15th
1875 at the Parish Church of Pattingham, when John, a 23 year old labourer, wed
Sarah Ann Jones, aged 22, also of Pattingham, with the witnesses John’s
father and sister - Thomas Weston (who made
his mark) and Evangeline Lucy Weston.
By
1881 John's family had moved to neighbouring Tettenhall and was living at
Mere Oak, with John, still an Ag. Lab., hs wife Sarah Ann
and three children: Albert Ernest (my grandfather) aged 4, Florence Clara Annie 2, and Frederick Arthur just 3 weeks old.
A Change of Life Style
Ten years on by
1891 John Thomas had left the rural life
behind to work as a general labourer at an Iron Works, near Bilston, Wolverhampton.
The family was living at the “Back
of 2 Salop Street Navigation Inn”, with Albert (here listed as Ernest), 14,
Frederick 10 and another son 7 year old Charles, with Florence not at home on
census night. She was traced to the home of her mother's aunt. Neighbours on Salop Street included labourers, a publican/beer house
keeper, a steel mill roller, a rudder at ironworks, a steel mill shearer, a tin
plate worker, and a forge mill manager –
so very much an industrial community.
In 1887 John
Bartholomew's "Gazetteer of the British Isles" described Bilston as a "great centre of hardware
trade.....iron and brass castings, tin and japanned wares, &c., with
extensive iron foundries and smelting works, and potteries. In vicinity are productive
coal and ironstone mines, also an abundance of fine sand for casting, and a
very hard stone suitable for grindstones."
By 1900, Bilston was a busy town with numerous factories and
coalmines, as well as a large number of houses that had been built to house the
workers and their families.
In 1901, John at 48 was a banksman
in a colliery, His occupation involved working at the pit bank to dispatch the coals, and
to organise the workforce. He was in charge of loading or unloading the cage,
drawing full tubs from the cages and replacing them with empty ones. The
counterpart role at pit bottom was the onsetter..
Eldest son, Albert at 24 was “an engine driver stationary” - this job title always puzzled me - surely a driver implied motion? I found out it meant he was looking after a steam engine that did not move, perhaps the winding mechanism of the lift cages in a mine.
Frederick was at 20 year old an iron pot welder, and Charles at 17 year o a moulder's apprentice in a foundry. All the men were clearly working in harsh industrial conditions doing hard physeical work.
A death was traced of a John T. Weston, aged 58
at Wolverhampton in October 1910,
preceding the death of his father in
1917, and step-mother Harriet in 1913.
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Postscript
John's wife Sarah Ann was traced in
the 1911 census, a widow at the home of her son- in-law George Elliot Howlett, husband
to daughter Florence. However Florence was absent from the family home and was
found as a patient in the Queen's Hospital/, birmingham. No doubt Sarah was needed to look
after her three young grandsons - George Elliot, Eric Albert and Harry Weston (continuing
his mother’s maiden name)
My father,was born two years after the death of his grandfather, but had
memories of his Howlett cousins. A successful contact through a recent DNA
match has resulted in additional information
on Florence’s family - cue for another blog
post!
Conclusio
So
from the starting point of little beyond basic information on my great grandfather John Thomas Weston, I was able to glean a picture of where
he and his family lived and worked – and this is still a work in progress, as
family history meets local history.
Sources
·
Black Country History
·
Glossary
of Coal Mining Terminology on Wikipedia
·
Vision of Brtain through
Time – Bilston
·
Wolverhampton Family History
– on Facebook
·
Wolverhampton Genealogy
and Family Tree Help on Facebook
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Loved reading about your family...and especially what John did at the coal mine. (You did good research on that job!) Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Barbara for the lovely compliment on my blog posts . This was a satisfying article to research and write- plus ticked a box on my Lockdown “to do” list!
ReplyDelete