A Life Spanning Ten Decades - My GG Grandfather Thomas Weston

My great great grandfather Thomas Weston was born in 1821 – just 6 years after the Battle of Waterloo and the defeat of Napoleon, with George IV on the throne.  He died in 1917 amid the apocalypse of the First World War.  His life spanned the accession of Queen Victoria  in 1837 and her death in 1901;  the Crimean War and the Boer War;  the introduction of the railways, the telephone, bicycles, the motor car and early radio and air flights.

My Weston ancestors have been shadowy, bland  figures in my family history, with few photographs and anecdotes being passed down.   but Thomas emerged as the most interesting character.  His first wife died soon after the birth of their seventh child.  Within the  year Thomas had married again – his second wife a young widow 18 years his junior an with two young children.    At the age of 54 Thomas fathered his namesake son.  

 The River Severn, flowing through Shropshire -

image courtesy of Pixabay.com

Early LIfe

Thomas Weston was baptised at Worfield, near Bridgenorth, Shropshire on 20th August 1826, 15 months after his elder sister Elizabeth. The Worfield Parish Register showed that both children were named after their parents and paternal grandparents.  Thomas and Elizabeth Weston.  Unfortunately the family, with young Thomas aged 14,  could not be identified in the 1841 – the first census to be published with names.

In 1851  Thomas, described as a mason,  was a visitor at the home of his future wife's family at Worfield - John Walker, a farm labourer, aged 60, his wife Elizabeth aged 59 and two daughters Fanny, 19 and Jane 15.

Thomas's fiancée Ann was away from home, a 22 year old housemaid on a large farm at Badger.  Farmer William Bate farmed  444 acres with 6 labourers, 3 boys and 5 women, with other servants in the household a cook, dairymaid,  groom, cowman and under waggoner.

Married Life

A few months after this March census, Thomas and Ann married on 5^th June 1851,  at the Parish Church of Badger, Shropshire.   Thomas,   who signed his name with his mark,  was described on the certificate as a bricklayer of Pattingham, Staffordshire (across the border from Shropshire)  with his namesake father a labourer. Ann was described as a servant from Badger, with her father John also a labourer.  Witnesses to the wedding were Joseph Humphries and Emily Lee.

A year later their son was born at Pattingham on 7th June 1851, named John Thomas after both his grandfathers. 

By the time of the 1861 census, the family had grown to four children, with son John Thomas 8 and three daughters Caroline Emily 8, Evangeline Lucy 5 and Clara Jane 20 months. all born at Pattingham.  The Christian names seemed rather grand for a very ordinary family.  Later research showed that the names of Lucy and Jane echoed those of Ann's sisters and perhaps Emily was named after the witness to Ann and Thomas’s wedding.  The background to Evangeline’s name  remains  a mystery.

Ten years on in 1871 the family were still at the Village of Pattingham, with two more children - both sons – Alfred and Richard.  Eldest son John Thomas (my great grandfather)  was working away from home as a farm labourer.

But by the time of the 1881 census  father Thomas was described as a 54 year old widower, still at the Village, Pattingham, with his three youngest children Alfred 15, , Richard 13 and the latest addition to the family  - Annie, aged 7, and an 18 year old  domestic servant Laura Louisa Jones.  Annie’s mother must have been 48 years old when her youngest daughter and namesake was born in 1874.

Remarriage

Thomas’s first wife died in January 1881. Yet by the autumn of the same year 1881,   Thomas had married again - his new wife  a young  widow, Harriet Edwards,  born in a neighbouring  Shropshire village.  Harriet was eighteen  years his junior with a young son  John Edwards joining the Weston household.   At the age of 54, Thomas became a father again with a new namesake son,  Thomas. 

Harriet’s life proved to be a fascinating one that took some unravelling.    with a  tale of  a young widow, leaving her two small children  with relatives to work in a girl's boarding school as a resident cook - and within a year of widowhood  marrying my great great grandfather, eighteen years her senior.  

I did find a probable  entry for a Harriet Edwards in the 1881 census, where she was a cook in what seemed to  be a small boarding school in Pattingham  - this in itself was interesting,  with the school of 15 girls, mainly in their mid teens, but one as young as 7 years old,  a principal  with her three unmarried daughters, aged 22, 21 and 19  as governeses and also   a French governess.  A 15 year old maid completed the household.  I cannot help thinking there is a story to emerge from such a household. 

So where in 1881 were John and Maria, Harriet’s fatherless children, whilst she was working in the boarding school?  A search for them in the 1881 census found the children, with their paternal uncle John Edwards, a bricklayer labourer and his wife Maria in a neighbouring village, Tettenhall, Staffordshire.  

Onto the 1891 census, where Thomas was listed with his wife Harriet,  12 year old stepson John Edwards joined  the family, that comprised Richard aged 22, now a garden labourer, Annie aged 17, and their half brother 9 year old Thomas, plus a 6 year old boarder William Rogers. 

Later Life

1901 saw the Weston family still in the Village, Pattingham , with Thomas senior 74, still described as a bricklayer,  Harriet 57, Annie 27, a schoolteacher, and William Rodger, aged 16, a gardener and  a boarder still with the family, and 2 year old granddaughter Elsie May Adam (a new name in the family tree).

Ten years on in 1911   the family consisted of Thomas aged 84, Harriet 67, William Rogers 26, now described as “adopted son”, (another story to unravel here)  and  grandson Cecil Davies 6.   Interestingly Harriet is noted as having had one child (presumably in this her second marriage), ignoring John and Maria from her first husband).    A Wolverhampton death record of 1913, was traced of a  Harriet Weston aged 69, believed to be Thomas  Weston’s second wife.   

One of the very few anecdotes that has come down on the Weston family was told by  my uncle Fred Weston (born 1905),  who remembered his great grandfather Thomas climbing trees to pick apples and plums, whilst in his 90s.         

Thomas Weston died 26^th December 1917  at  Mill Green, Aldridge  aged 91 from bronchitis and senile decay - the informant his son-in law, Thomas Davies, husband of his daughter Annie – a very long life at a time when in 1900 the average aged expectancy was only 50. 

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 Postcript: 

• The family of Thomas Weston’s first wife, Ann,  has been traced back five further generations to the early 17^th century, using the Worfield, Shropshire Parish Records on www.ancestry.co.uk  - though I have little on them beyond basic names and dates. 

• Researching Harriet’s early life, before her marriage to Thomas Weston is explored mofre fully  in a separate post HERE.

• Son John Thomas Weston, my great grandfather, worked as a farm labourer, but then made a major shift in his life by moving  to the nearby industrial hub  of Bilston, Wolverhampton, where he worked first at an iron foundry and then at a mine.  In 1911. his three sons were all involved in the local industries:  Eldest son, Albert (my grandfather) 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 an iron pot  welder, and Charles a  moulder's apprentice in  a foundry.   All the men were clearly working in harsh conditions doing hard physical work. 

• Daughter Evangeline Lucy married Alexander Roland Jones and had a large family of 12 surviving children, with an internet contact/DNA match  sharing details with me.  Family folklore  thought that Alexander wasnot a good match for Evangeline, as he was only a fireman on the railways - a surprising comment, given the background of the Weston family.

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