Good Foundations

For the past few months I have been utilising the genealogy sites online to trace my family history.

My maternal Grandma had given me lots of names and dates from her family tree, and my maternal Granddad had researched part of his tree back to 1777, to a boy soldier in the militia.

My fathers family had proved to be more challenging, as he had died when I was just a toddler.

Last year, my fathers brother, Uncle Roy, visited, and we spent a few happy hours chatting about our family history. He gave me some names and dates, but said that he didn't know too much beyond my Great Grandparents, and would be interested to see what I discovered.

And so my journey began.

With my first grandchild due in May, I thought it would be lovely to have a comprehensive family tree written down. I remember watching the series 'Roots' as a child and loved the way that new additions to their family were put onto the family tree, a circular slice of a tree trunk. Through the series it grew and grew, so that those slave characters in the programme, would not forget their 'Roots'.

I remember a Great Aunt on my maternal side, hinting that there was 'royal blood' in our tree - the result of a dalliance between one family member who was 'in service' at Sandringham and the 'playboy prince', King Edward.

If ever there was, I can only assume that records were discreetly altered, changed or falsified, as I found no 'Albert Edward in any record. My Great Aunt was not given to flights of fancy, and had also told us that the ancestress in question had been 'paid off' and that neither she, nor her descendants, were ever to make a 'claim to the throne'.

The only hint of a Royal connection remains elusively in the one photograph I have, of my Great Grandmother, Ethel Emma Farr, as a 'waitress' at a dinner party hosted by the grandfather of the late Princess Diana, - Lord Fermoy, Edmund Burke Roche.

Great Grandma Ethel Emma Farr (nee Ward) standing beneath flag on right, behind Lord Fermoy

What I have found in my tree has been far more interesting, and sometimes, very sad.

In almost every branch, throughout the periods covered by census records, my male ancestors have more often than not been 'Agricultural Labourers' and my female ancestors, 'Housemaid' or 'Domestic Service' - or 'Servant'.

I found that five of my ancestors are listed on Workhouse records.

The first one I discovered was my Great Great Grandmother, Elizabeth Jane Coe (nee Brealey), of Easton Maudit.
After viewing the census records on Ancestry for my fathers maternal family, the 'Coe' family, I found that the family had setted for several generations in the village of Easton Maudit, which during the 1800's consisted of just 60 households.

I combed the google search engine with the names, dates and birthplace to see if I could discover more, and found an amazing local history site - Rushden Research that housed a great deal of parish registers, news articles, war records and so much more, not just for the town of Rushden, but also for the outlying villages, including Easton Maudit.

It was here that I found my Great Grandmother Elizabeth, listed as a 'workhouse death'

"1923, 17 Apr, COE, Elizabeth Jane, aged 60, Easton Maudit, burial, not known."

The Wellingborough workhouse where Elizabeth died, now Isebrook hospital

I found the fact that her burial was 'not known' to be really sad, and set about contacting the Northampton Records Office to see if they held any information at all on the whereabouts of my Great Great Grandmothers grave.

They were so helpful, and within a few days, e-mailed me to tell me that they could find no records from the workhouse at that period, and assumed that they had not survived. They did however, point me towards the parish registers of Easton Maudit and we are waiting to see if her remains were taken back to her home for burial.

Elizabeth had been born in 1863 in a village in Northamptonshire. She had married my Great Great Grandfather, William Walter Coe, in 1883, aged just 20.

According to census records, 1891, 1901, and 1911, she lived with William in Easton Maudit, for the rest of her life. Throughout this time, Walter is listed as an 'Agricultural Labourer'.

In the 1800's and early part of the 20th century, married women did not usually have a 'career', and so Elizabeth is simply listed as 'wife'.

The 1911 census states that they had 12 children, only 10 of whom had survived.

By 1919, at the age of 56, her husband died. All her surviving children had married and left home, leaving her a widow living alone.

I thought this would be all I would ever know about my ancestress Elizabeth, but I was wrong.

Searching the British Newspaper Archive, with the search parameters 'Coe' and 'Easton Maudit', I found an article relating to Elizabeth, and more sadness.

Inquest into the death of Maude Adelaide Coe

There were no other newspaper articles relating to Elizabeth, no records of any crimes committed that would have seen her placed into the workhouse.

Putting these fragments of history together I saw a lady of pensionable age, whose large family had all grown and left home, some married with families of their own, some working the land or 'in service'. 

A lady whose daughter Maude had died in her arms in what we may call today a 'Cot Death', and losing her husband, the family bread winner, just 4 years before she died in the workhouse.

I can only assume that Elizabeth had been in the workhouse because of poverty.

Had Elizabeth been alive today, she could have called on so many services to help her, from bereavement counselling to state support in the form of a benefit or a pension. But this was the turn of the century when there was very little support available.

I hope to learn sometime soon, of the final resting place of my Great Great Grandmother, to visit her grave and pay my respects.

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There is another Elizabeth Coe, of Easton Maudit, in my family tree. My 2nd Great Grand Aunt.

Born in 1853 to Charles Coe and Jane Martin, the sister of William Walter Coe, sister-in-law to Elizabeth Jane Coe (Brealey).

Elizabeth appears on the 1871 census, as 'servant', in London.

I make it a habit to open the images of the censuses, to check for transcription errors, and to learn more, and I found that she was a servant in the household of the 1st Baron Allendale Wentworth Blackett Beaumont.

Wentworth Beaumont was a British Industrialist and Liberal Politician, a large land-owner in Northumberland,Yorkshire and Durham, with an estate being valued at £2,500,000.

At the time my Great Grand Aunt Elizabeth was 'in service' at his household, she was an 18 year old Housemaid, working with a full compliment of domestic staff, at 144 Piccadilly in London.

Interestingly, it was this 100-room address that in 1969, the 'London Street Commune' decided to 'squat' earning it the nickname 'Hippy-Dilly'.

Wentworth is listed as a 'Member of Parliament' and his household consisted of himself, his wife and 5 children.

The census itself is very 'Downton Abbey', with staff consisting of;
Secretary,

Governess,

House Steward,
Butler & Butlers Wife,

Under Butler,

Housekeeper,

Lady's Maid x3,

Groom of Chambers,
Cook,

Housemaid x 7,

Porter,

Footman x2,

Kitchen Maid x3,

Laundry Maid x3,

General Servant.

My Great Grand Aunt, a village girl from the shires, had done quite well for herself, some would say, - but life for Domestic Servants in reality, was far from the glamorised image portrayed by popular TV shows!

Rose Plummer was born in 1910 and became a domestic in London at the turn of the Century. I would highly recommend her book 'The Maids Tale' for an absorbing read on how life REALLY was for domestic servants.

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The TV advert for a genealogy website, asks 'Who will you find?'

I have found among my ancestors the driving force behind the nation. The workers of the land, those that gave the rich and famous the comfort of the lifestyle that people dream of.

I have found sadness, hardships and struggles.

Yet I have found a family bonds worth so much more; Loyalty, love, faithfulness and pride in their work that belies the social status they were born into.

Yes my ancestors were of poor origins, and may have died in poverty, but without them so much would have been missing from the social landscape of the day.

I raise my hat to my hardworking ancestors, and honour their memories.